Today's FEDERALIZATION story

DC protests as Trump deployment ramps up

What happened
Protesters in Washington, D.C., pushed back over the weekend against President Donald Trump's growing federal military and law enforcement deployment in the capital. The Republican governors of West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio are sending up to 750 National Guard troops to add to the 800 Trump has already activated in Washington, and the White House said Guard members patrolling the city may soon be armed.

Who said what
Capital residents are "navigating daily life under federal control as both sides — the feds and resistance — ramp up their manpower and rhetoric," Axios said. Hundreds of federal agents have "set up traffic checkpoints, arrested delivery drivers and restaurant workers over immigration violations," The Wall Street Journal said. "But the most visible show of force has centered on the city's downtown, upscale corridors and tourist hubs," not the high-crime parts of the city where residents might welcome added assistance.

In the first week of Trump's purported "crusade against crime," the "main targets have increasingly been immigrants and those experiencing homelessness," The Washington Post said. In one widely shared video, a swarm of masked, unidentified federal agents arrested a Venezuelan delivery driver as he left a coffee shop, throwing him to the ground and taking him away in an unmarked black SUV. "You guys are ruining this country," one bystander yells at the agents. "Liberals already ruined it," one of the officers replies.

What next?
It's "not a leap to imagine that other GOP states will scramble" to volunteer their National Guard troops to "publicly and tangibly show their support for the Trump administration," Politico said. It's "unclear why additional troops are needed," The Associated Press said.

Today's MIDEAST Story

Trump halts Gaza visas as Israelis protest war

What happened
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis joined a rally in Tel Aviv yesterday evening following a day of nationwide strikes and protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza and a return of the remaining hostages held by Hamas. In the U.S., the Trump administration said it was suspending all visitor visas from Gaza, a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer criticized medical visas for injured Gazan children as a "national security threat."

Who said what
Yesterday's Tel Aviv rally was "one of the largest and fiercest" in 22 months of war, The Associated Press said. At least one protester "carried a photo of an emaciated Palestinian child from Gaza," a "once rare" sight in Israel that is increasingly common as "outrage grows over conditions in the territory after more than 250 malnutrition-related deaths."

Loomer "wields extraordinary power in shaping Trump administration decisions over personnel and policy despite not having an official role in government," said The New York Times. She told the paper she spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday night about her concerns with the Gaza visas and an "Islamic invasion."

What next?
Rubio told CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday that he halted the Gaza medical-humanitarian visas after "outreach from multiple congressional offices" about the visas and the groups bringing the injured kids to the U.S. for treatment. "There was just a small number of them issued to children," he said, "but they come with adults accompanying them."

It's not all bad

Scottish researchers are developing AI-powered glasses able to read lips. Designed for the hearing-impaired, the spectacles are fitted with a camera that captures lip movements and sends the visual and audio data to a cloud server. There, AI isolates the voices and then transmits this cleaned-up audio to the wearer’s hearing aids or headphones. Scientists are not "trying to reinvent hearing aids," said project lead Mathini Sellathurai of Heriot-Watt University, but rather "give them superpowers."

Under the radar

Denmark's 'pornographic' mermaid is in hot water

"Erecting a statue of a man's hot dream of what a woman should look like is unlikely to promote many women's acceptance of their own bodies." So wrote Sørine Gotfredsen, a priest and journalist, in the Danish newspaper Berlingske. The 13-foot statue in question, a voluptuous stone mermaid, has "caused controversy for years due to its exaggerated figure," said The Independent. But now it will reportedly be removed from Dragør Fort in Copenhagen because it "does not align with the cultural heritage of the 1910 landmark," said The Guardian.

"Den Store Havfrue" (the "Big Mermaid") is no stranger to eviction. It was initially erected in 2006 at Langelinie Pier in Copenhagen, a few hundred yards from the world-famous "Little Mermaid" statue. But the bigger mermaid was removed after locals reportedly complained that it was "too sexualised," said The Telegraph. Mathias Kryger, art critic for the Politiken newspaper, called the statue "ugly and pornographic."

Curiously, the "Big Mermaid" is "arguably a bit less naked" than her smaller inspiration, said Berlingske's debate editor Aminata Corr Thrane, though "she has bigger breasts, and that's probably where the problem lies. Do naked female breasts have to have a specific academic shape and size to be allowed to appear in public?"

Peter Bech, the restaurateur who commissioned the statue, said it was a retort to tourists who complain that the "Little Mermaid" is too small. "The mermaid has completely normal proportions in relation to her size. Of course, the breasts are big on a big woman," Bech told TV 2 Kosmopol, a Danish broadcaster. The criticism is "pure nonsense."

On this day

August 18, 1926

The first televised weather report featuring a map was broadcast. The report was not designed for wide syndication and was only sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The U.S. was one of the first countries to implement this type of service; the U.K. didn't use on-screen weather reporters until the 1950s.

TODAY'S newspaperS

'Trump's face after summit told story'

"To fleeing Ukrainians," Friday's summit between President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin "felt like a slap," The New York Times says on Monday's front page. "Trump's face after summit told story," USA Today says. "Putin was smiling" and "Trump was not." U.S. "ready to give Ukraine 'robust' security pledge," The Washington Post says. "Rush to hire ICE agents spurs $50,000 bonuses, no age caps," The Wall Street Journal says. "CBP agents shoot at men in truck," says the Los Angeles Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Smoke alarm

Police in Paris recently arrested a tourist who used the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to light his cigarette. "You cannot ridicule French remembrance and get away with it," Minister for Veterans and Remembrance Patricia Miralles said in a social media post, adding that the action was an "insult" to all of France. The unidentified man has been charged with violating a burial site, tomb, urn or monument erected in memory of the dead.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harriet Marsden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.