President Donald Trump’s name was removed from the facade of the Kennedy Center on Saturday, capping off the president’s longtime effort to assert control over the institution, one of Washington’s most iconic cultural landmarks.

In a Saturday court filing to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Matthew Floca, the Kennedy Center’s chief operating officer and executive director, confirmed work crews had removed “all physical signage” from the building and grounds “that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any individual besides President Kennedy.”

Workers, hidden behind a large white tarp, removed Trump’s name from the building’s white exterior early Saturday morning, after blowing past a Friday deadline due to what Floca cited as “weather-related delays.” The tarp remained in place on Saturday afternoon.

The removal comes after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in late May that Trump’s rebranding of the performing arts center in his own name was illegal, contravening federal law that the center could only honor Kennedy and usurping authority from Congress.

In the weeks since, officials have removed references to Trump on the Kennedy Center’s website, issued new identification cards, edited employee email signatures and rescinded any trademark applications adding Trump to the institution’s name, Floca wrote in his filing. The restoration of the building’s original name followed denials Friday by both Cooper and an appeals court of last-ditch attempts by the administration and Department of Justice to stay Cooper’s May ruling.

It’s a stinging blow to the president, whose ambitious plans for the Kennedy Center included packing its board with loyalists and shutting it down for two years to conduct major renovations.

Cooper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, also nixed the Kennedy Center’s closure in his May ruling, prompting Trump to angrily announce plans to transfer the institution back to Congress in a Truth Social post shortly after.

“Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself!” he wrote. “Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into “NEVER NEVER LAND.”

Source link

The England national team suffered an unexpected setback before the start of their 2026 World Cup campaign after a portion of their training equipment was stolen following the squad’s arrival in Kansas City, USA.

According to a report by The Guardian, special boots belonging to several players, along with official balls and other training equipment, were lost during the transport of the team’s gear to their designated headquarters in the city.

Kansas City police have launched an investigation into the incident, while the authorities supervising England’s national team have initiated urgent measures to provide replacements for the missing equipment and ensure the team’s preparatory schedule is not affected before the start of the tournament.

Kansas City police opened an investigation into the incident, and the newspaper reported that authorities detained two individuals suspected of involvement in the event, with investigations continuing to determine the full circumstances of the case and the extent of the losses.

The incident occurs at a time when the area surrounding the team’s training camp is experiencing heightened security attention, following a shooting incident near the team’s residence a few days prior. Authorities confirmed at the time that the shooting did not target the England delegation and did not result in injuries among its members, as reported by Reuters.

Although there are no indications linking the two incidents, the repetition of security events during the first few days of the team’s stay in Kansas City highlights the challenges faced by participating teams off the field, coinciding with the kick-off of the 2026 World Cup.

Featured image via Richard Pelham/Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

Source link

Ghana have suffered a major setback ahead of their 2026 World Cup campaign after it was confirmed that midfielder Thomas Partey will miss their opening match against Panama in Toronto following a decision by Canadian authorities to deny him entry to the country.

According to Reuters, the ruling will deprive Ghana of one of their most influential players for their first fixture of the tournament.

FIFA confirmed that Partey, who is currently with the Ghana squad in the United States, will not be permitted to travel to Canada for the match against Panama. The governing body stressed that visa decisions fall solely within the jurisdiction of the Canadian government and that FIFA has no authority to intervene or overturn the decision.

The organisation added that Partey will remain available for Ghana’s other group-stage matches taking place in the United States, including upcoming fixtures against England and Croatia.

The issue comes at a crucial moment for Ghana, who were expected to rely heavily on Partey’s experience during the tournament. The decision has also renewed questions about the impact of immigration and visa policies on a World Cup being jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Reuters reported that the visa refusal is linked to legal proceedings involving the player in the United Kingdom, where he is awaiting trial over criminal allegations that he has categorically denied.

Featured image via Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images

By Alaa Shamali

Source link

BRUSSELS — A growing number of soccer supporters say chaotic visa procedures are keeping them from attending World Cup matches in the United States.

One Belgian-Moroccan soccer fan, who was granted anonymity to discuss the issue without fear of repercussions, told POLITICO he thought he had secured tickets to Saturday’s Morocco vs. Brazil match through FIFA’s lottery system, booked flights to New York and applied for entry to the U.S.

That’s when things began to go wrong.

The fan, who had previously traveled with an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) — the online authorization system used by travelers from countries that don’t need visas for short visits to the U.S. — said his application was approved on May 27, but abruptly revoked one week later.

“There was nothing mentioned except for travel not authorized,” he said. “That’s the whole frustrating situation — the opacity of the whole thing.”

His attempts to apply for a non-immigrant visa were fruitless. Ahead of the World Cup, the State Department launched an expedited process for some fans seeking visas to attend matches in the U.S., but the Belgian-Moroccan national said he was never able to access it because an initial appointment platform failed to register his payments.

That, in turn, made it impossible to book the mandatory interview at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels required before requesting an expedited appointment. He added that calls to the embassy went unanswered because they were automatically forwarded to an inactive Belgian number.

Other World Cup attendees have reported similar problems. Scottish musician Kenny Smith said his ESTA was revoked despite recent travel to the United States. Meanwhile, Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan was recently denied entry to the country despite being selected to officiate at the tournament.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Wednesday acknowledged that the special World Cup visa system was “not working always, and with everyone.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended visa denials Thursday, citing security concerns.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security declined to say if dual nationals were more likely to have their applications revoked, but said ESTA applications are continuously vetted and approval “does not guarantee admission” to the U.S.

For the Belgian-Moroccan fan missing Saturday’s match, the visa ordeal undermined the point of the tournament. “The whole experience of a World Cup is intended to bring people together,” he said. “Now actually being rejected for no reason, it actually has the opposite effect.”

Source link

Source link

By now, there has been extensive coverage of the fact that the Belfast pogroms took place almost entirely in loyalist areas. This should surprise no one. Loyalism has always been an exclusivist ideology, predicated on the notion that one population deserves to dominate another that is dismissed as less deserving. Historically of course, this viewpoint dictated that Protestants must be allowed to lord it over Catholics.

However, violent sectarianism has largely faded in the north of Ireland, following 1998’s Good Friday Agreement. Instead, loyalism has now applied to immigrants, people of colour and Muslims the bigoted mindset it incubated over centuries.

It’s hard to dominate another group of people without justifying it in some way. Humans, like many other mammals, have an in-built notion of fairness. Seeing others get less without good cause cannot be easily sustained psychologically. Hence many Protestants developed prejudices giving grounds for their superior position. Catholics were said to be lazy, feckless and practicing a heretical religious doctrine.

Belfast loyalists pivot from sectarianism to racism

Years of indulging in this act of self-deceit have easily enabled the switch to applying new fictions to new target populations. Muslims are heathens, satanic even. Immigrants have sparked an unprecedented crime wave, never mind evidence to the contrary. Even children aren’t safe in playgrounds from sinister foreign men.

Combined with this capacity for a supremacist mentality has been the means for exercising the violence necessary to make dominance concrete. In prior decades, it has meant loyalists carrying out ethnic cleansing of Catholics. This was most notable in the 1920s, during the birth pangs of what became known as ‘Northern Ireland’. Loyalist mobs burned Catholics out of their homes, murdered others, and caused an estimated 23,000 to flee. So-called ‘Rotten Prods’ — Protestant trade unionists who stood alongside Catholics in workplaces — were also killed.

Another outbreak of barbarism occurred in 1969, when again loyalist thugs chased large numbers of Catholic families out of their homes, deploying widespread arson again. Belfast politicians have described how the loyalist pogroms of this week mirror those previous horrors. During the ‘Troubles’, loyalist paramilitaries carried out 713 sectarian murders of Catholics.

In its capacity to inspire reactionaries, loyalism is similar to its bedfellow, Zionism. The latter is a racist doctrine of Jewish supremacy that has always permitted extreme violence against the indigenous Palestinian population that stands in the way of their ethnostate.

As it has now reached the inevitable exterminationist phase of its trajectory, it has been celebrated by chauvinists the world over looking to subjugate their own troublesome populations. ‘Israeli’ and Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) flags can be found in loyalist areas across the north of Ireland. Loyalist politicians wined and dined by the terror regime of Tel Aviv came back singing its praises.

The longstanding links between loyalism and the British far-right

The twin primary sicknesses of these ideologies — a deeply inculcated supremacist mentality, and the willingness to use violence to suppress those deemed inferior — have obvious appeal to far-right actors everywhere. There have long been links between loyalist thugs and like-minded British neo-Nazis.

The Ulster Defence Association was known to have links to the vile racists of Combat 18. One of the latter’s founders, Eddie Whicker, helped arm the murderous loyalist terror gang. Combat 18 members were present at the notorious loyalist disorder at Drumcree.

Daniel Grundle (also known as Daniel Douglas) is the leader of current racist group Our Northern Ireland Voice. He described his founding of the group as a “calling”. Grundle reminisced about how in the 1980s his uncle Jimmy Grundle helped set up a version of Britain’s National Front in the north of Ireland.

The links extend to this day. Before Ben Habib’s recent decision to dissolve it, far-right agitator Richard Inman operated as a link between the racist Advance UK and the north of Ireland. Inman obviously thought so highly of the embedded bigotry within loyalism, that he made the Six Counties his permanent base. From there, he has lauded the Islamophobic hate displays of Concerned Parents Newtownabbey and spoken at far-right rallies.

Others, such as former Ulster Volunteer Force member Mark Sinclair and ex-Democratic Unionist Party councillor William Walker have linked up with their ideological peers at far-right rallies. Areas of Scotland still have strong loyalist elements, and they have clearly been inspired by the ethnic cleansing in Belfast. Racists there engaged in copycat crimes against people of colour.

Racist politicians embrace street violence

It isn’t just street thugs who seem enthused by loyalist violence. Those looking to take over the British state have been content to carry on stirring up emotions, even as houses burn. Reform’s Zia Yusuf screeched that:

Some cultures are MUCH better than others.

Restore Britain’s official account vomited out:

Restore Britain will reverse the third-worldification of our country.

Farage obviously delights in the prospect of reactionary rioting. In the wake of the Henry Novak murder, Farage exacerbated an already febrile atmosphere by calling for “pure cold rage“. Neither Nigel Farage nor Yusuf of Reform have used their X accounts to offer any condemnation of the Belfast violence. Likewise the even more vile Rupert Lowe of Restore Britain.

Reform have made no secret of their intent to hurtle towards authoritarianism if they occupy 10 Downing Street. Owen Jones recently enumerated their plans in this regard. As he points out, Farage has spoken of his intent to bring in a:

…British version of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US deportation force that seizes migrants from homes, workplaces and the streets.

Under Reform:

The government would be granted direct powers over the police and would attack the independence of the judiciary, dressed up as a war on “activist judges”.

The parallels with the fascists of the 1930s are clear. The likes of Mussolini and Hitler used street thugs to help them seize power, then implemented an authoritarian state.

Street violence has many useful traits for budding despots. It makes the state look weak, as it struggles to handle the chaos. Far-right parties project an image of strength, and proclaim they will restore order.

It can be a tool for intimidating left-wing activists. Additionally, rioting thugs can be integrated into the state’s own security forces once power has been seized.

Belfast — A return to the fascism of the 1930s

The left’s best analysts, like Yanis Varoufakis, have long been warning that we are heading for a repeat of that uniquely dark era. Racist riots and mass mobilisations are becoming increasingly common in Britain, and authoritarian policies are already being implemented by British prime minister Keir Starmer.

Reform are happy to let other street thugs pick up the baton handed to them by loyalists. Once in power, they’ll gleefully receive another gift from Labour. By that point, it’ll be too late, and Britain will pay devastating consequences for inviting its own particular variant of loyalism into government.

Featured image via Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

By Robert Freeman

Source link

The disastrous Iran war may be ending. But a humiliated US may look to Cuba as the next victim with Trump’s crony Marco Rubio applying heavier sanctions. The Americans have been making their aggressive intentions clear for months.

US outlet The Hill reported on 11 June that the US State Department:

announced that it will sanction Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET) amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and the island country.

At the centre of the move was Trump’s Cuban-American henchman and secretary of state Marco Rubio. Rubio said:

the latest sanctions are pursuant of President Trump’s May 1 executive order expanding sanctions on government officials, agents “or material supporters of the Cuban government,”.

The sanctions concern Cuba’s oil and gas company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET).

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth was at the US military colony Guantanamo Bay on 10 June. As the Canary reported, Hegseth:

told a captive audience of American soldiers that Cuba had better not try and get long-range weapons. The US has been ramping up threats against the island state.

Rubio accused the Cuban government of:

diverting its energy resources “to line their own pockets: reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.”

Which is a bit rich coming from an openly far-right government committed to denying its citizens even basic healthcare while spending billions on a failed war in Iran.

An Iran deal could mean US move on Cuba

Meanwhile, a Pakistan-brokered deal to end the US attack on Iran looks close. Al Jazeera reported on 12 June that Pakistan’s PM Shehbaz Sharif had said:

Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps. Peace has never been this close as it is now.

As the Canary has reported, the US was looking to bring the Americas to heel before it blundered into the Iran war.

Trump’s 2025 national security strategy said as much. The US wants to ensure:

the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States.

And that those pliable governments:

cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations.

Trump and his cronies want:

a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains.

Cuba is the closest dissenting nation to the US in the Americas. And for Trump’s generation it is an unresolved problem. He would return to it to the status of a mafia-run US vassal state. It will be a happy day when the war against Iran ends. But a humiliated US empire is still a dangerous beast. And the people of Cuba may be the first to feel Trump’s post-Iran wrath.

Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Joe Glenton

Source link

High-stakes geopolitics aren’t the only external factor threatening to hijack the tournament.

Perhaps ironically for a competition hosted by a U.S. president who is highly skeptical about climate change and says assertions about rising temperatures have been made “by stupid people,” the heat is very likely to be a problem.

Heat waves have become a persistent part of Northern Hemisphere summers — each one made hotter, longer and more likely to occur as a result of man-made global warming. The locations of several stadiums across the U.S. and Mexico, as well as the peak-summer timing of the World Cup, are expected to put players and fans at risk of overheating.

The problem isn’t just heat, but also humidity. The combination of the two feels far hotter and is measured with wet-bulb temperature, which mimics how the human body cools off through sweating. A wet-bulb temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit can be fatal even to healthy people; the football players’ union FIFPRO says wet-bulb temperatures above 79 degrees — which can be reached through a combination of 86-degree heat and 50 percent humidity, for example — will affect performance and health, and 82-degree heat should prompt the postponement of a match.

When scientists last month ran the numbers, they found that 26 of 104 matches are expected to take place in conditions of at least 79-degree wet-bulb temperature. Five matches are estimated to breach the 82-degree wet-bulb barrier. And a peer-reviewed study found that during last year’s FIFA Club World Cup in the U.S., average wet-bulb temperature exceeded 82 degrees in 31 of 57 matches analyzed by scientists.

That study also found that high temperatures were associated with players covering less ground, forcing a change of tactics. Exhaustion sets in faster under high temperatures — at the Club World Cup, 10 players asked to be substituted in a single match. But heat doesn’t just affect gameplay. At the 2024 Copa America, an assistant referee collapsed in the heat and, last month, two people died during sports events held amid a heat wave in France.

As climate change continues to heat the planet, FIFA will have to grapple with the growing threat at every subsequent tournament. The 2030 men’s World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Morocco takes place in a global warming hotspot. The women’s World Cup next year will be in Brazil during a warming El Niño event, expected to supercharge the heating effect of climate change.

And that’s not even counting the other growing climate risks — from wildfire smoke to extreme rain — that threaten to disrupt future events.

Source link

An Israeli influence operation named BlackCore allegedly sought to undermine left-wing politicians and shape elections in the UK and US. The Canary previously reported on a joint French/Israeli media investigation into the shadowy outfit. BlackCore is also accused of setting up a bogus Palestine charity.

Now a French domestic security agency is investigating too. Israeli newspaper Haaretz and French outlet Libération reported on 11 June:

Israeli firm BlackCore, suspected of interfering in France’s local elections in March, is also ‌suspected of meddling in elections in New York City and Scotland, and operating in Angola and Togo, the head of France’s disinformation ⁠detection service Viginum said on Thursday.

In a second article covering another aspect of BlackCore’s operations, also published on 11 June, claimed:

A network of fake fitness coaches, Vietnamese bots, Facebook ads aimed at Brits – and a bogus ‘humanitarian fund’ for Gaza. A Haaretz and Libération investigation exposes a digital operation whose infrastructure leads back to BlackCore, the Israeli influence firm under investigation in France.

Various Israeli influence operations have come to light in recent months. One looks at how the Israeli military shapes media reporting of the Gaza genocide. Another examines leaked documents about a military-run course for English and Hebrew speaking influencers.

The fact Israel runs complex influence operations is well-known. Press reporting on the granular details is less common.

Election interference by Israel

Russia and China are often charged with election interference in the west. There’s no doubt both countries run influence operations just like the UK and US. But the new Haaretz report sheds light on how Israel runs its own.

The new report:

analyzed BlackCore’s digital footprint, uncovered a toolkit of influence-operation systems routed through servers in Britain, Germany, Finland and Lithuania.

Closest to home is the allegation that Israel tried to shape Scottish elections. French security agency Viginum claims:

France’s cybersecurity agency has accused the Israeli tech company BlackCore of interfering in the Scottish elections earlier this year by targeting the first minister, John Swinney.

The disinformation detection agency Viginum said BlackCore had this year used proxy social media accounts to target Swinney, the Scottish National Party, and the Scottish government on four occasions.

Viginum’s head of ‘digital interference’ Sébastien Lecornu said:

This modus operandi was not limited to municipal elections in France. It also appears to have ⁠been used to carry out foreign digital interference operations in other countries or regions, such as Angola, Togo, the elections in Scotland, and the 2025 municipal election in New York.

It was previously reported that BlackCore targeted left-wing candidates in Marseille and Toulouse elections.

Brillant added:

Our investigations did not make it possible to identify the sponsor or sponsors, if indeed they exist, behind this foreign digital interference.

BlackCore — Fake Palestinian charity?!

The other part of the Haaretz report verges on the bizarre. It centres on an allegedly fake charity named Sadaqah Palestine, which:

presented itself as a non-governmental, non-political nonprofit helping Palestinian families, children and refugees affected by displacement, poverty and war.

The ‘charity’ had:

a website with a credit card donation form and maintained social media accounts on X, Instagram and Facebook, and even had a paid advertising budget on Meta’s platforms.

However:

it did not have… any verifiable existence. No organization by that name appears in the U.K. charity register, nor in similar U.S., EU and Israeli records offline. Its social media following, our analysis found, was largely manufactured, including seemingly fake accounts.

The charity’s digital footprint leads back to BlackCore, which has been described as:

[an] Israeli “elite influence, cyber and technology” firm.

Researchers described the site as:

a honeypot: a decoy built to attract people who wanted to help – in this case, by aiding Palestinians – and to take donors’ money, their personal data or both.

The cynicism involved is hard to fathom:

The page pitched the fund against the backdrop of the collapse of official humanitarian aid in Gaza, noting that as USAID and UNRWA halted most of their operations, ordinary donors had to step in.

And:

It declares its location as Palestine; X’s own metadata places it in the United Kingdom. In its 13 years of existence, the account has never once “liked” anything.

Followers were also fake: a mix of US-based ‘fitness’ accounts and Vietnamese bots. Researchers traced the page to BlackCore via:

Digital certificates – the public, immutable record created every time a website obtains an encryption authorization.

You can read the full reports on the charity and the election interference here and here. They offer a rare glimpse inside an alleged Israeli influence operation. This is notable of itself. The fact one aspect of this operation was to exploit public goodwill over Palestine is especially grotesque.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Source link

Congratulations to Sweden on winning this year’s World Cup … and also to France, Qatar, Uruguay, Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland for the same thing.

No, POLITICO hasn’t been engaging in match fixing, but we have been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other categories, and the countries mentioned above all did well. There are 10 EU countries taking part.

First of all, we took each country’s FIFA ranking from the world soccer governing body. In April, France was the number one country in the world, with Spain second and Argentina third, all the way down to New Zealand, which was the 85th-ranked country in the world and therefore the lowest-ranked team in the tournament.

Then, we looked at all 48 countries to see how they ranked in terms of five other categories, staring with gross domestic product per person, according to World Bank data for 2024 (the last year for which data is available).

Stay tuned for more data visualizations today and tomorrow.

Source link