South Korean fighter jets fired warning shots on Tuesday morning when a Russian military aircraft twice violated the country's airspace, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The Russian aircraft flew over an island off South Korea's eastern coast at 9:09 a.m. and 9:33 a.m. local time, each time for a few minutes, CNN reports. The Ministry of Defense said this was the first time Russia has ever violated South Korean airspace, and the shots were fired using a 20mm weapon. This all took place over Dokdo, islands that South Korea controls but have been claimed by Japan.
Earlier in the morning, two Chinese military aircraft entered South Korea's Air Defense Identification Zone, and were later joined by two Russian planes. It remains unclear if the jets purposely entered the airspace. Catherine Garcia
The skills he learned as a firefighter emergency medical technician in the U.S. Air Force often come in handy as James Golia volunteers with the Sea Lions for Service Members program.
Golia served in the Air Force for 20 years, and lost track of how many times he was deployed to places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Now retired, Golia was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and a military friend recommended he volunteer with the Pacific Marine Mammal Center's Sea Lions for Service Members program. The facility is in Laguna Beach, California, and rescues injured marine mammals, who are then rehabilitated and released back into the ocean.
Volunteers do everything from feed the sea lions to clean out their pens. Golia originally planned on only helping out one day, but immediately fell in love with the work, and now volunteers once a week. The program's organizers say the veterans are able to empathize with the injured animals, and it encourages them, showing what can be done via rehabilitation. Golia told NBC Los Angeles he considers the time he spends at the center his therapy, and it has made him a different person. "Sometimes in life, a person should feel compelled to give back, and I'm doing just that," he said. Catherine Garcia
To President Trump, Stephen Miller is a senior policy adviser. To David Glosser, he's his "immigration hypocrite" of a nephew.
Last August, Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, penned an essay about Miller, the architect of Trump's harsh immigration policies. Glosser wrote that their relatives came to the U.S. in the early 1900s from Europe, fleeing anti-Jewish violence, and he shuddered to think "of what would have become of the Glossers had the same policies Stephen so coolly espouses" been in effect.
His message didn't get through to Miller, Glosser said on Monday's Rachel Maddow Show, but he didn't think it would, as Miller's "entire career, his entire persona, is built on this particular issue." Glosser did hear from others whose families came to the U.S. under similar circumstances, he said, and seeing Americans speaking out against the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants shows that "people care, as it turns out."
The political reasoning behind Trump's cruel policies is simple, Glosser said. The Republican Party and demographers found that in a few decades, the U.S. will go from being a "white majority country to being a white plurality country. As it turns out, the people who are not predominately of European background are less likely to vote for Republicans than for Democrats. This makes it problematic for them if they anticipate remaining in positions of power in order to advance their particular agenda." Because of this, he said, it's "not worthwhile for them to allow people into the country or to allow people to gain citizenship who may not be members of their party in the future."
Glosser said he finds it "repugnant" that the Trump administration assumes a majority of white Americans are racist, and thought the country had repudiated racism since George Wallace's 1968 presidential run. "Now we see Mr. Trump and his minions have legitimized race hatred as a means of sustaining and gaining political power and influence," he said. Catherine Garcia
Mexico says it has been successful in slowing down the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S.
Since June 7, migrant flow through Mexico has dropped by 36.2 percent, the country's foreign minister told reporters on Monday.
Marcelo Ebrard credits the Mexican government's decision to deploy 20,000 members of a new militarized police force to the country's southern border. The plan went into action after President Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs if it didn't slow down the flow of migrants making their way to the U.S. border.
The National Immigration Institute states that during the week of June 1 to 7, an average of 4,156 migrants entered Mexico daily through its southern border. Two weeks later, this number declined to 2,652 people per day, The Guardian reports. After making their deal in June, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to reconvene after 45 days to come up with new target numbers, but until then, "we're going to keep up this effort so the trend continues downward," Ebrard said. Catherine Garcia