Brand Logo
Rattling sabers, ICE escalation and heist arrests

 
Today's International story

Trump ramps up Iran threats, demands 'surrender'

What happened
President Donald Trump met with his top aides in the White House Situation Room for 80 minutes yesterday and hinted on social media that he was moving closer to joining Israel's attack on Iran. The conflict entered its sixth day this morning with more Israeli strikes inside Iran, and Tehran responding with missiles and drones. 

Who said what
"We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran," Trump said on social media yesterday. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding," and while "we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now ... our patience is wearing thin." Three minutes later he posted: "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" Trump's "sometimes contradictory and cryptic messaging about the conflict" has "deepened the uncertainty surrounding the crisis," Reuters said. 

Officials who previously assessed that Trump would sit out the war told The Washington Post they now believed he was "considering joining the attack," a move that "risked sucking Washington into a new Middle Eastern conflict" with "dangerous and unpredictable consequences for U.S. citizens," but "also offered the chance to eliminate a foe's nuclear program." 

Before attacking Iran, Israel tried to convince the U.S. that "Tehran was conducting renewed research useful for a nuclear weapon," but "U.S. officials briefed by the Israelis weren't convinced," The Wall Street Journal said. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that Iran hadn't decided to restart its nuclear weapons program. "I don't care what she said, I think they were very close to having them," Trump said when reporters reminded him of that assessment yesterday.

What next?
Israel's attacks "may have changed Iran's calculus" and "convinced Tehran that the only way to prevent future attacks would be to develop a full nuclear deterrent," The New York Times said. In the meantime, Iran has "prepared missiles and other military equipment for strikes on U.S. bases in the Middle East" if the U.S. joins "Israel's war against the country."

 
 
Today's Immigration story

ICE arrests NYC comptroller at courthouse

What happened
ICE agents yesterday handcuffed and arrested Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and one of 11 Democrats running for mayor, as he was escorting a migrant from a court hearing in Manhattan. Lander was held for about four hours before being released without charges. He was the fourth elected Democrat forcibly detained by federal agents in the past five weeks amid an uptick in White House-ordered immigration raids, especially in Democratic-run cities.

Who said what
"I'm happy to report I'm just fine, I lost a button," Lander said after leaving the courthouse with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D). But "the rule of law is not fine and our constitutional democracy is not fine," he added. "We are normalizing family separation" and "due process rights violations."

Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Lander was arrested "for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer" while seeking a "viral" moment. "Eye-popping video" showed the city's chief financial officer being "manhandled and cuffed by the feds," but "no obvious assault by Lander," the New York Post said, though some "sources contended" he "pushed a federal agent's hands away." Lander said he "certainly did not assault an officer." Hochul called his arrest "bullshit."

What next?
Hochul announced $50 million in state legal aid for migrants who are increasingly being detained at immigration hearings. Lander said he would continue observing immigration hearings, because it's "important to show up and bear witness and accompany people." He is polling in third place in mayoral polls ahead of Tuesday's primary. Early voting is already underway.

 
 
Today's CRIME Story

7 charged in LA for 'largest jewelry heist in US history'

What happened
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles yesterday unsealed an indictment charging seven men for the July 2022 heist of an estimated $100 million worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches from the back of a Brinks armored big rig, calling it "the largest jewelry heist in U.S. history." Two of the suspects were arrested Monday, one is in jail in Arizona for an unrelated burglary and the other four are at large. 

Who said what
The "heist has been a mystery" for three years, the BBC said. The indictment "was a long time coming, and there were times when the victims and members of the team wondered whether we'd see this success,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Butler said yesterday. According to the indictment, the thieves followed the Brinks truck from a jewelry show outside San Francisco to a Flying J truck stop 300 miles to the south. When the driver went in to eat at about 2 a.m., the burglars cut the lock and stole 24 of 73 bags of jewelry.

When they got back to L.A., the thieves "may not have grasped how large their score was," the Los Angeles Times said. For the victims, "the fallout from the heist has been ugly," with Brinks suing to cap payouts to the 14 robbed jewelers at the declared value of $8.7 million and the jewelers countersuing.

What next?
Some of the jewelry and watches were recovered Monday, along with a large amount of cash. Butler said investigators were still searching for the remaining jewelry.

 
 

It's not all bad

During a pet adoption event in Virginia, a shelter dog named Sienna ran to an attendee and placed her paw on his leg right before he had a seizure. "It was pure intuition," Friends of Campbell County Animal Control said on Facebook. The man had experienced several myoclonic seizures earlier in the day, his wife said, and she understood Sienna to be warning that another one was imminent. Sienna was not trained to detect seizures but "simply felt it," said the shelter.

 
 
Under the radar

Listed alongside the more familiar used sofas and unwanted books on Facebook Marketplace are ancient, stolen treasures from Syria.

Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, "widespread poverty" and the "collapse" of the nation's "once-feared security apparatus" have sparked a "gold rush" of looters robbing 2,000-year-old graves for antiquities to sell online, said The Guardian. Syria's location in the "heart of the fertile crescent where settled civilization first emerged" means it's "awash" with "mosaics, statues and artifacts" that "fetch top dollar" from Western collectors. 

Nearly a third of the 1,500 Syrian looting cases that the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project (ATHAR) have documented since 2012 have occurred since last December. When Assad fell, there was a "huge spike on the ground," said Amr al-Azm, a co-director of the ATHAR Project. 

Once the treasures are "out of the ground," they "make their way online," and Facebook has "emerged as a key hub" for their sale, The Guardian says. Public and private Facebook groups offer "ancient coins, entire mosaics and heavy stone busts" to the "highest bidder."

The ATHAR Project is tracking the route of trafficked Middle Eastern antiquities over the internet and building a database of more than 26,000 screenshots, videos and pictures. But the team wants more help from Facebook. In 2020, the social media behemoth banned the sale of historical antiquities on its platform, but ATHAR Project Co-director Katie Paul said the policy was rarely enforced.

 
 
On this day

June 18, 1812

President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Great Britain, beginning the War of 1812. The conflict stemmed from British restrictions on U.S. trade and the forced enlistment of American sailors. British soldiers captured and burned Washington, D.C., in 1814, and the war ended in a stalemate in 1815 after the Treaty of Ghent was ratified.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

The suspect in last weekend's Minnesota shootings "went from evangelist to zealot," The Washington Post says on Wednesday's front page. "Two Texas Dems" were "among 45 political targets" on the "suspect's list," the Austin American-Statesman says. The "Minnesota attacks raise an unsettling safety question," USA Today says: "Police at the door: Do you open it?" In the Senate, "new Medicaid cuts stir more trouble for GOP tax plan," The Wall Street Journal says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Order in the court

A Zoom court hearing went "off the rails" after the defendant began making a sandwich during the proceedings, said Fox2 Detroit. Judge Sean Perkins kicked Asja Outerbridge off the call when he saw her on camera wearing a robe and preparing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Outerbridge, a single mom, said she was making the meal for her sick toddler and had to multitask. She later apologized, saying she "could have come better prepared."

 
 

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

Image credits, from top: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images; AP Photo / Olga Fedorova; Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Illustration by Marian Femenias Moratinos / Getty Images