Chaos In LA, College Campus Surveillance, Citizenship In Italy, & A CDC Shakeup
June 10, 2025
Hello, readers – happy Tuesday! Today, we’ll be talking about Los Angeles, surveillance on college campuses, trade talks, Italian citizenship, vaccines, Amazon’s data centers, and Apple’s big announcements.
Here’s some good news: Ed, the runaway pet zebra from Tennessee, has been safely captured. Also, a ban on a “destructive” type of fishing that drags large nets along the seafloor could be extended across English waters.
“There is a value in taking a stand whether or not anybody may be noticing it and whether or not it is a risky thing to do.” – Teresa Heinz
More Trump Terror In Tinseltown
Trump is escalating the situation in Los Angeles by unleashing even more armed soldiers on protestors. Yesterday, the president authorized the deployment of an additional 2,000 National Guard members in L.A., bringing the grand total of guardsmen in the city to 4,100. Going even further, the president sicced 700 Marines on the city – the soldiers will be tasked with protecting federal property and “personnel,” which includes the ICE agents driving around and kidnapping people off the street, so if you get pulled into an unmarked van by a group of unidentified men in bulletproof vests, don’t fight back or you might find yourself facing down a Marine!
Other than militarizing the second-biggest city in the U.S., the president was also busy threatening California’s governor for speaking out against him. “I would do it … I think it would be a great thing,” Trump said when asked if his border czar Tom Homan should arrest Gavin Newsom. “The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America,” Newsom responded over X. “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. This is a line we cannot cross as a nation − this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”
Video footage from the weekend’s protests includes a clip of a cop deliberately shooting an Australian reporter with a rubber bullet and another of a cop making his horse trample a person knocked to the floor. Trump’s repeated escalations are reportedly worrying veterans, who say the president is “forcing” his agenda onto L.A. and painting the military “in a terrible light.”
UMich, Where U Go To Get Stalked
Trump using soldiers to back up his mass deportations is just the tip of America’s police-state iceberg. Yesterday, the University of Michigan announced that it would be terminating its contract with private investigators, which the school was apparently paying to stalk pro-Palestinian campus groups.
According to an investigation by the Guardian, the school paid a private security firm named City Shield a grand total of $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024. One of its paid stalkers – err, private investigators – was caught stalking a student on video recently, at which point the investigator pretended to be deaf and mute before eventually accusing the student of trying to take his wallet.
The investigation also found that dozens of university-sponsored investigators have stalked students on and off campus over the past few months, at times threatening or cursing at their targets. Some of the evidence collected by the investigators was even used in suits against the students by the Michigan attorney general, though most of those charges have been dropped at this point. Totally normal thing for a school to be doing!
Two Superpowers, One Faded Empire
- Top diplomats from the U.S. and China met in person in London yesterday as the two superpowers sought to work out their global economy-shifting trade dispute. China’s delegation included Vice Premier He Lifeng and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, while the U.S. team included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
- Both countries agreed to pause their tariff threats for 90 days on May 12, stabilizing their relationship a bit. In London, both sides hope to hammer out another deal centered around China’s rare earth mineral exports, which Beijing will likely loosen its grip on in exchange for trade concessions from Washington. The talks didn’t come to a clean conclusion on Monday, and are expected to continue today.
A Big Flop In Florence
- Italy’s struggling left-wing opposition was hit with a gut punch yesterday as voters failed to turn out in support of a center-left referendum. If passed, the referendum would grant faster citizenship for immigrants and strengthen a variety of workplace rights, but voter turnout wasn’t high enough to get the policies passed. Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her supporters had urged Italians to boycott the referendum, which turned out to be an effective strategy.
- The referendum sought to reduce the time immigrants need to spend in Italy to become naturalized citizens from 10 to 5 years. The change would have helped address Italy’s significant demographic issues – the country has one of the lowest birthrates in the world – but Meloni’s right-wingers were unenthusiastic about giving any more rights to immigrants. Total voter participation was estimated to be roughly 30% of Italy’s voting population, well below the 50% participation rate that the referendum needed to become valid.
More Mixed Nuts
- Three-quarters of pensioners to get winter fuel payment after U-turn (BBC)
- Prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine under way (BBC)
- Explosion at a US air base in southern Japan injures 4 Japanese soldiers (AP)
- Chinese tech firms freeze AI tools in crackdown on exam cheats (Guardian)
- IAEA chief says information obtained by Iran ‘seems to refer’ to Israeli nuclear research site (AP)
- How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans (Guardian)
- NATO chief calls for a fourfold increase in Europe’s air defense spending (NBC)
- Carney says Canada will meet NATO spending target this year (Politico)
Maybe The Brain Worm Told Him To Do It
- Another day, another example of RFK Jr. being unhinged. Yesterday, the health secretary and nepo-baby-extraordinaire removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines.
- RFK had recently taken the unusual step of changing Covid recommendations without first consulting the panel. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he said the committee members had too many conflicts of interest and shared that he plans to install his own picks in their place.
More Dollars For Data
- Amazon announced yesterday that it will spend $20 billion on two data center complexes in Pennsylvania. One data center is being built next to northeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant, and the other will be in Fairless Hills at a logistics campus, the Keystone Trade Center.
- Gov. Josh Shapiro called it the largest private sector investment in Pennsylvania’s history. Pennsylvania will provide millions of dollars, and possibly tens of millions, in incentives – data centers don’t actually provide much in the way of job opportunities in the long term, but, hey, seems like a good way to spend $20 billion!
More Nuts In America
- 2 dead after shooting near famous Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas (USA Today)
- Small plane crashes off San Diego coast, prompting Coast Guard search for 6 missing people (CBS)
- Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue Maryland case is not over until government is ‘held accountable’ (ABC)
- NIH scientists publish declaration criticizing Trump’s deep cuts in public health research (AP)
- Eric Adams signs order adopting controversial definition of antisemitism (Guardian)
- Can $1,000 at birth change a child’s future? A Republican proposal aims to find out (AP)
No Developments At The Developer Conference
- Yesterday was Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, the event where the iPhone maker unveils its latest software updates each year. This year’s main draw was iOS 26 (no, you didn’t miss a bunch of releases – the tech firm has changed its naming conventions so that each new operating system is numbered based on the year it’s released) and software updates to iPadOS, macOS, and other products.
- iOS 26’s biggest changes are a series of visual updates centered around making things transparent. The change, which Apple’s marketing team is calling Liquid Glass, will make various buttons, notifications, and menus more see-through than they currently are, and will also give them a little gleam around the edges like a pane of glass. Tremendous. Other iOS changes include visual updates to the Messages and Safari apps.
- iPadOS will include better multitasking functionality by introducing the ability to resize app windows. macOS’s Spotlight feature also got a meaningful update – the search bar will provide smarter suggestions as you type, and some apps will let you complete actions just by typing a command in the bar. Apple is also building live AI-powered translation into its Messages, FaceTime, and Phone apps.
More Loose Nuts
- Justin Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against Blake Lively dismissed by judge (USA Today)
- CNN and HBO owner Warner Bros Discovery announces breakup plan (Guardian)
- First Fossil Proof Found That Long-Necked Dinosaurs Were Vegetarians (NYT, $)
- Advanced AI suffers ‘complete accuracy collapse’ in face of complex problems, study finds (Guardian)
- Getty Images and Stability AI face off in British copyright trial that will test AI industry (AP)
