US man charged for framing immigrant in fake plot to kill Trump
Demetric Scott admitted he wrote letters in the name of Ramon Morales-Reyes, who he was charged with assaulting

Robert Mackey
Mon 2 Jun 2025 20.56 EDT
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Prosecutors in Milwaukee have charged a man with four felonies for attempting to frame an undocumented immigrant he is accused of assaulting, by sending forged letters in the immigrant’s name with a threat to kill Donald Trump.

The handwritten, forged letters were mailed to Wisconsin’s attorney general, Milwaukee police and US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (Ice). The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump’s allies, but appears to have been a hoax.

WISN-TV, an ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, reported on Monday that a criminal complaint alleges Demetric Scott admitted to investigators he wrote the letters threatening to kill the president in the name of Ramon Morales-Reyes, whom he was previously charged with assaulting.

Among those who fell for the hoax was Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who released a statement praising immigration officers for arresting Morales-Reyes on 22 May, one day after the forged letter was received by an Ice field intelligence officer.

“Thanks to our ICE officers, this illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump is behind bars,” Noem said in a press release. Her department also released to news agencies an image of the handwritten note in light blue ink, expressing anger over Trump’s deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales-Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts.
>https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/02/letter-threatening-trump-fake-plot

Sauce: https://www.rt.com/news/618604-berlin-court-asylum-seekers/

A Berlin court has barred German border police from rejecting asylum seekers arriving from neighboring EU countries without reviewing their claims. The ruling deals a blow to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent efforts to reduce asylum-related land migration.

Last month, shortly after Merz took office, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt introduced a policy under which undocumented migrants arriving at land borders were to be turned back – unless they are unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, or otherwise vulnerable individuals. The move aimed to fulfill Merz’s campaign promise to curb migration amid heightened public concern following a series of high-profile crimes involving asylum seekers.

On Monday, however, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled against the policy. The decision came in response to a legal challenge brought by three Somali nationals who tried to enter Germany last month but were returned to Poland without any examination of their claims.

The court found Dobrindt’s policy to be unlawful under the Dublin Regulation, which governs how EU member states handle asylum applications. The rules require that asylum seekers apply in the first EU country they enter. If they later apply in another member state, such as Germany, that country can seek to transfer them back to the original state.

In its ruling, the Berlin court emphasized that Germany cannot reject asylum seekers at the border without first checking whether they have submitted a claim, and whether the Dublin rules apply. It noted that while Germany is not obligated to accept all asylum seekers at the border, it also cannot summarily return individuals without reviewing their applications.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/technology/trump-palantir-data-americans.html
In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.

Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.

The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)

Representatives of Palantir are also speaking to at least two other agencies — the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service — about buying its technology, according to six government officials and Palantir employees with knowledge of the discussions.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

https://gizmodo.com/gop-senator-introduces-bill-to-make-all-porn-a-federal-crime-following-project-2025-playbook-2000600994

"Last year, the rightwing think-tank the Heritage Foundation launched Project 2025, which laid out much of the policy blueprint for the current Trump administration. One of the project’s espoused goals was to permanently criminalize all pornography. Now, a Republican senator with kind words for Trump has introduced a bill that would do just that.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), which would effectively criminalize all pornography nationwide by legally redefining what it means to be obscene. For years, “obscenity” has been all but a defunct legal category that narrowly defines speech that remains unprotected by the First Amendment. Lee would explode this legal category, expanding it to encompass virtually all visual representations of sex."

https://www.latintimes.com/trump-pushes-debunked-theory-transgender-mice-he-thanks-musk-his-service-584096
In a press briefing on Friday President Donald Trump praised billionaire Elon Musk for his contributions to DOGE, citing a debunked claim that the government had been funding scientific research to make "transgender mice."

Trump referenced $8 million in federal funding supposedly saved by DOGE when the agency halted efforts to make "mice transgender."

"They spent $8 million on making mice transgender, and those are better than many of the others," Trump said. "I could sit here all day and read things just like that, but we have other things to do."

The comments come months after Americans for Medical Progress issued a formal statement clarifying the nature of the research Trump was referring to. According to scientists, the studies in question have nothing to do with gender identity or transitioning animals, but rather investigate how hormones function in development and disease. Many of these studies involve mice models to better understand conditions like endometriosis, infertility, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

"Misrepresenting this work will hinder our ability to protect our children and weaken progress toward improving the health and well-being of all individuals, regardless of background or belief," the statement said.

The White House posted a rebuttal to fact checkers that remains live on the White House website as Trump continues to amplify the claim.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/campbells-co-says-sales-rise-195559938.html

The Campbell’s Co. said Monday it saw stronger sales of broth and condensed soup in its latest quarter as more Americans cooked their meals at home.

“Consumers continue to cook at home and focus their spending on products that help them stretch their food budgets, and they’re increasingly intentional about their discretionary snack purchases,” Campbell’s President and CEO Mick Beekhuizen said during a conference call with investors.

Beekhuizen said Campbell’s saw the highest level of meals cooked at home since early 2020 in its fiscal third quarter, which ended April 27. Campbell’s noted sales of its broths rose 15% during the quarter while sales of its Rao’s pasta sauces were up 2%.

But Campbell’s said sales of its snacks, including Goldfish crackers and Cape Cod potato chips, fell 4% during the quarter.

Other big companies, including McDonald’s, have also noted that Americans are increasingly eating at home as uncertainty over the economy grows. Grocery prices have also moderated. In 2024, prices for food eaten at home rose 1.2%, while prices for food away from home rose 4.1%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Snack makers like PepsiCo, which makes Frito Lay chips, and General Mills, which makes Bugles chips and Golden Grahams, have also noted lower demand for snacks in recent quarters.

Campbell's net sales rose 4% to $2.5 billion for the fiscal third quarter, which was in line with Wall Street's expectations, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fema-staff-confused-after-head-said-he-was-unaware-us-hurricane-season-sources-2025-06-02/

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said during a briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation.
The U.S. hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last week that this year's season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.

The remark was made by David Richardson, who has led FEMA since early May. It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context.
Richardson said during the briefing that there would be no changes to the agency's disaster response plans despite having told staff to expect a new plan in May, the sources told Reuters.
Richardson's comments come amid widespread concern that the departures of a raft of top FEMA officials, staff cuts and reductions in hurricane preparations will leave the agency ill-prepared for a storm season forecast to be above normal.
Hurricanes kill dozens of people and cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually across a swath of U.S. states every year. The storms have become increasingly more destructive and costly due to the effects of climate change.
FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA's parent agency, did not respond to requests for comment on Richardson's remarks. FEMA has previously said it is prepared for hurricane season.
Richardson's comment purporting ignorance about hurricane season spread among agency staff, spurring confusion and reigniting concern about his lack of familiarity with FEMA's operations, said three sources.

Sauce: https://www.rt.com/news/618579-eu-russia-sanctions-g7-summit/

American lawmakers have been seeking “coordinated” measures with Brussels by mid-June

The EU is unlikely to finalize its next round of Russia sanctions before the G7 summit in Canada later this month, despite calls from US lawmakers for coordinated action, the EUobserver media outlet reported on Tuesday.

US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he aims to push new sanctions through by mid-June. In a joint statement with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the two urged the EU and US to curb China and India’s purchases of discounted Russian oil. Graham and Blumenthal visited Kiev together on Friday.

Four EU diplomats earlier told EUobserver that the call to have “sanctions put in place – in coordination with Europe” by the G7 summit in Alberta on June 15-17 is unlikely to be met.

Both senators visited France over the weekend to urge their EU allies to take stronger action. Graham also met EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said the bloc is preparing its 18th package of “hard-biting sanctions” against Moscow.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/31/nx-s1-5415939/trump-pardons-drug-kingpins-even-as-he-escalates-the-u-s-drug-war
President Trump has long called for escalating the U.S. drug war against Mexican cartels and wants tougher penalties for dealers selling fentanyl and other street drugs in American communities. "I am ready for it, the death penalty, if you deal drugs," Trump said during a meeting with state governors in February, where he said dealers are too often treated with a "slap on the wrist."

But despite his tough rhetoric, Trump has sparked controversy by pardoning a growing number of convicted drug dealers, including this week's move to grant clemency to Larry Hoover, 74, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for crimes linked to his role leading the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples.

Already during the early months of his second term, Trump has granted clemency to at least eight individuals convicted on federal drug charges. Some, including Hoover, have extensive criminal records involving violence and gun charges.

"There's a lot of mixed messages and mixed signals [from the White House] which creates sort of chaos and uncertainty," said Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. "On the one hand you're threatening even tougher penalties on people who deal in drugs, while on the other hand you're releasing drug dealers from prisons."

Ron Safer, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago who helped prosecute members of the Gangster Disciples during the 1990s, said he was shocked and dismayed by Trump's decision to commute Hoover's sentence.

He pointed out that Hoover's gang was one of the largest and most violent drug syndicates in the U.S., operating in 35 states according to the U.S Justice Department. Hoover himself was convicted of state and federal charges including murder and use of a firearm while trafficking drugs.