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Parade threat, Thunberg deportation and Southern Baptist aspirations

 
Today's POLITICS story

Trump vows 'very big force' against parade protesters

What happened
President Donald Trump warned yesterday that "any protesters" during Saturday's "amazing" military parade in Washington, D.C., "will be met with very big force." The parade, officially to celebrate the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary but coinciding with Trump's 79th birthday, will cost an estimated $45 million, shut down much of the capital for four days and halt takeoffs and landings at Reagan National Airport "for several hours Saturday," disrupting "more than 100 flights and thousands of passengers," The Washington Post said. Scores of tanks and other military vehicles will accompany thousands of soldiers marching alongside the National Mall. 

Who said what
"For those people that want to protest, they're going to be met with very big force" and "very heavy force," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. His "dark warning," The New York Times said, "made no distinction between peaceful demonstrations and violent confrontations."

"We're preparing for an enormous turnout," Matt McCool of the Secret Service’s Washington field office said yesterday, with 18.5 miles of "anti-scale fencing" erected, “multiple drones” in the air and 175 magnetometers to check "hundreds of thousands" of parade attendees. But at least "one group of otherwise devoted Trump allies largely won't be there to celebrate: congressional Republicans," Politico said. 

"I wouldn’t have done" the parade, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said yesterday. Costs aside, "we were always different than, you know, the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that." Trump's threat to protesters only adds to "the trappings of authoritarianism" the parade already carried, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) told Politico. "Like his deployment of the military in L.A., it's a shocking waste of money at a time they are closing Social Security offices 'to save money.'" Kori Schake, a Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration, told the Times that "the unfortunate coincidence of the parade and federalizing the California National Guard will feel ominous."

What next?
The Secret Service said nine permits had been issued for protests Saturday, but the organizers of a nationwide "No Kings" protest have opted to hold demonstrations everywhere but D.C. to draw attention away from what they called Trump's "self-aggrandizing" birthday parade.

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Israel deports Thunberg after seizing Gaza aid boat

What happened
Israel yesterday deported Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and three fellow passengers on a boat seized Monday while trying to deliver a symbolic amount of food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip to highlight Israel's longtime blockade of the Palestinian enclave and the growing humanitarian crisis there. Eight other shipmates refused to sign deportation documents and were being held in an Israeli prison awaiting court hearings. 

Who said what
Israel committed "an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel," Thunberg, 22, said after landing at a Paris airport yesterday. Spanish activist Sergio Toribio, deported to Barcelona, called Israel's commandeering of the British-flagged yacht the Madleen a "pirate attack in international waters." Israel dismissed the aid mission as a "selfie yacht" publicity stunt. 

President Donald Trump on Monday called Thunberg a "young angry person" and dismissed her abduction claim, telling reporters that "Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg." Thunberg responded yesterday: "I think the world needs a lot more young angry women."

What next?
Another 36 Palestinians were killed while trying to access food aid in Gaza yesterday, the Palestinian Health Ministry and local hospitals said. In all, "at least 163 people have been killed and 1,495 wounded in a number of shootings near aid sites" set up by the controversial U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation after Israel eased its full aid blockade last month, The Associated Press said. Israel's military has "acknowledged firing warning shots."

 
 
Today's RELIGION Story

Southern Baptists endorse gay marriage ban

What happened
Southern Baptists, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, voted yesterday to endorse resolutions to ban same-sex marriage and pornography across the U.S. and condemn sports betting. The votes opened the two-day annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, being held in Dallas.

Who said what
The same-sex nuptials measure is part of a "much larger resolution" that urges Christians to "embrace marriage and childbearing," criticizes "willful childlessness" and describes declining U.S. fertility rates as a crisis, The Associated Press said. It "doesn't use the word 'ban,' but it left no room for legal same-sex marriage," calling for the "overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God's design for marriage and family," and for the passage of laws limiting marriage to heterosexual unions. 

Southern Baptists have "long opposed gay marriage" but this was the "first time its members have voted to work to legally end it," buoyed by the "successful effort that overturned the right to legal abortions," The New York Times said. The SBC is "often seen as a bellwether for conservative evangelicalism writ large," and the resolution's success "suggests that evangelicals have long-term ambitions to dismantle an institution that many Americans now accept as a basic right."

What next?
The 10,500 gathered SBC delegates, or "messengers," plan today to debate amendments to bar churches with women pastors and to abolish the denomination's policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, "which is staunchly conservative, but according to critics, not enough so," the AP said.

 
 

It's not all bad

Three weeks after a defibrillator was installed near Mount Everest Base Camp, the device saved a woman's life. In April, Code Blue CPR founder David Sullivan hiked to a village to set up the defibrillator and give CPR training courses. When a Sherpa called him in late May to let him know the defibrillator had been used on a 30-year-old French woman, it was the "proudest moment of my life," Sullivan told Southwest News Service.

 
 
Under the radar

Heat stress is negatively affecting the human gut microbiome, according to a review in the journal Lancet Planetary Health. The microbiome is a complex ecosystem within the gastrointestinal tract that plays an important role in overall health. High temperatures can "induce complex changes in the gut, including shifts in microbiota composition, increased oxygen levels and overproduction of stress hormones," Michigan State University said in a news release on the study. 

When stressed, the body releases the "stress hormone" cortisol. The cells that line the gut have cortisol receptors and "may become dysregulated if cortisol levels climb too high," said Time. Cortisol can also "speed or slow the time it takes for food to transit through the intestines," leading to a condition called dysbiosis, or an "imbalance in the number, type and distribution of the trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that make up the microbiome."

Temperature also has a "direct effect on the intestines," Desmond Leddin, a professor of medicine at Dalhousie University, said to Time. "One of the causes of heat stroke is thought to relate to intestinal permeability." A decrease in intestinal permeability, called "leaky gut," allows "organisms that make up the intestinal microbiome — which are supposed to remain in the intestines — to migrate into the bloodstream and spread infection," said Time. 

Heat affects what goes into our bodies as well. Temperatures above 86°F can "reduce the levels of antioxidants" in plants that humans and livestock consume, said the review. And drinking more water due to high temperatures can introduce "environmental pollutants" that "increase gut dysbiosis."

 
 
On this day

June 11, 2009

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a swine flu outbreak to be a global pandemic, marking the first influenza-based pandemic in four decades. More than 18,000 people died in the outbreak, according to the WHO, though the actual number is believed to be significantly higher. The pandemic lasted until August 2010.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Trump tests federal power as 700 Marines go to L.A.," The New York Times says on Wednesday's front page. "Troop arrival adds to local tensions," and "sending Marines brings peril, questions," says the Los Angeles Times. "Angelenos live in dread over what's next," USA Today says. "Deployed troops 'underprepared,'" the San Francisco Chronicle says. "ICE is 'out … catching low-hanging fruit,'" the Houston Chronicle says. "ICE detainees face harsh conditions in Miami federal detention facility," says the Miami Herald. Migrant raid "ramp-up will see allies' citizens sent to Guantanamo," The Washington Post says, and "Britain, France, others unlikely to be notified of plans." 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Poppyseed poppycock

An "embattled" Australian surgeon has blamed a positive drug test result on bagels, according to News.com.au. Dr. Tobias Pincock was "hauled" in front of medical authorities after he tested positive for drugs including cocaine, amphetamine, morphine, codeine and opiates. Pincock claimed that he ate poppy seed bagels around the time of the testing and this could have caused a false positive result. Australia's medical regulator rejected the explanation.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images; Hugo Mathy / AFP via Getty Images; AP Photo / Richard W. Rodriguez; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images