More Than 90 Wildfires Are Out of Control in Canada

Dozens of huge wildfires have suddenly started across Canada, already forcing 21,000 evacuations and spitting out poisonous smoke into the air.

The provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have both declared a state of emergency, as several separate blazes raged out of control.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is sending in the military to help move residents and fight fires in Manitoba, where 17,000 people have been forced to evacuate.

In Saskatchewan, where 4,000 people have ran away from their homes, the conditions are “as extreme” as “anything that we have faced for quite some period of time, if not ever”, premier Scott Moe said.

Over the last few years, Canadian fires have waved in the dirty smoke across North America, way spreading scary, orange-colored skies and very dirty air across New York in 2023.

Daniel Swain, climate scientist and weather expert at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said smoke from Canada was already visible in the western US state of Colorado today, carried by favourable winds.

The countries share firefighting resources and will likely have to fight strong wildfire seasons at the same time later this year, creating competition for supplies.

This challenge will be “compounded by recent extreme cuts to emergency response, wildland firefighting, and weather prediction” by the Trump administration, added Dr Swain.

Fire-friendly weather that created exceptional blazes in eastern Canada in 2023 was made at least seven times more likely by climate change, scientists at World Weather Attribution found.

ICE Raided a Restaurant in San Diego. ICE Tossed Two Flash Bangs at the Crowd.

Immigration officers swarmed a restaurant late Friday afternoon in South Park, escorting two employees out in a raid that left the staff deeply shaken.

Usually Buona Forchetta has customers waiting out front, lined up to enter the popular Beech Street restaurant.

Instead, after an hour-and-15 minute operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the jittery crowd wasn’t waiting for Italian food.

Both the main restaurant and their smaller place next door were broken into and witnesses said when the group of officers tried to remove two workers, they met a hostile response.

ICE officers tossed two flash bangs to back the crowd off.

The restaurant’s manager, Renato Ametrano, described what happened, saying the ICE officers showed “up with no explanation.”

He said there were about 20-25 officers who “surrounded the building and then came inside” pushing him against the wall and handcuffing him.

They frightened the workers, many of them students, Ametrano said, describing ICE personnel as “very aggressive” while handcuffing other members of the staff.

He said the officers were looking at a computer and at workers.

Instead, they took two workers, said Ametrano, because “they didn’t have a physical ID.”

Ametrano said only ICE officers were involved, not San Diego police.

Iran Summons Austrian Envoy Citing ‘Baseless Claims’ Over Nuclear Program

Iran summoned Austria’s charge d’affaires on 30 May to protest a recent Austrian intelligence report claiming Tehran is advancing its nuclear weapons program.

The report, published by Austria’s domestic intelligence agency, described Iran’s nuclear development as “highly advanced” and stated that international efforts to block it had failed.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, dismissed the report as “Baseless and politically motivated,” calling it a media stunt and demanding clarification from the Austrian government.

The US and Iran have completed five rounds of talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

A sixth-round has not yet been scheduled. Iran is seeking to have US economic sanctions lifted through the negotiations.

Last month, Saudi Arabia’s defence minister warned Iranian officials “take President Donald Trump’s offer to negotiate a nuclear agreement seriously because it presents a way to avoid the risk of war with Israel”

The protest comes days before the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is due to release its occasional report on Iran’s nuclear activities.

Elon Musk Used So Much Ketamine He Wrecked His Bladder

The tech mogul bought himself a perch inside the White House by donating at least $275 million of his own money to get Donald Trump re-elected as president, but he alienated administration insiders and the president’s allies with his drug use and erratic behavior, reported the New York Times.

Musk plays video games for hours on end and posts almost constantly, day or night, on his social media platform X, and sources familiar with his habits say the billionaire struggles with binge eating and takes weight-loss medication in addition to his documented history of using recreational drugs.

The tech baron admitted in a March 2024 to taking ketamine about once every two weeks as a prescribed treatment for a mood disorder, saying that he was unable to work if he took it more often, but the Times found his habit was far more serious.

He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use.

“Mr. Musk had been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs, according to people familiar with his consumption,” the newspaper reported.

“He also took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events,” the report added.

Elon Musk Used So Much Ketamine He Wrecked His Bladder

The tech billionaire irritated administration insiders and the president’s friends with his drug use and unpredictable, strange behaviour.

Musk plays video games for hours on end and posts almost constantly on X formerly Twitter.

sources familiar with his habits say the billionaire struggles with eating way too much in a short time and takes weight-loss medicine.

This is in addition to his recorded history of using recreational drugs.

The tech billionaire admitted in a March 2024 to taking ketamine about once every two weeks as a prescribed treatment for his mood problems, but his habit was far more serious.

He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful pain-killer, that it was affecting his bladder.

Mr. Musk had been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs, according to people who know about his consumption," the newspaper reported.

He also took ecstasy and psychedelics mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events

UK Prosecutors Collaborate With Israel to Persecute Anti-genocide Activists as ‘Terrorists’: Report

UK prosecutors are colluding with Israeli embassy officials to classify protesters resisting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as terrorists and to imprison them on heavily politicized grounds, an investigation by The Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg showed.

“Documents released by the British government reveal that London has been coordinating with Israeli officials to prosecute protestors associated with activist group Palestine Action for disrupting the operations of Elbit Systems, which manufactures deadly weapons being used in the genocide in Gaza,” Klarenberg wrote.

The documents suggest that Israel has successfully lobbied the UK to abandon well-established legal standards in order to charge activists resisting Israel’s genocide under harsh counter-terror laws.

A file released by the British government showed that Nicola Smith, the Head of International Law at Britain’s Attorney General’s Office, shared “contact details” for UK prosecutors and counter-terror investigators with Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to London, Daniela Grudsky Ekstein, in August 2024.

This allowed the Israeli deputy ambassador to promote the prosecution of 10 activists affiliated with Palestine Action, known as the “Filton 10,” who were imprisoned after raiding an Elbit factory in Filton, South West England.

Three months after AGO officials provided the Israeli embassy with contact details of the officers investigating the activists behind the raid of the Filton facility, 10 more Palestine Action demonstrators involved in the action were arrested. Eight were charged and imprisoned under the same counterterror powers.

The imprisoned activists are now known as the “Filton 18.”

The mother of one of the imprisoned Filton 18 activists told The Grayzone that revelations of AGO officials collaborating with Israeli officials to prosecute her 21-year-old daughter Zoe made her “feel physically sick.”

Billowing Smoke From Canadian Wildfires Wafts Into the U.S.

Thick, billowing clouds of smoke are sweeping south from wildfires ravaging the central Canadian province of Manitoba into parts of the United States, compromising air quality for millions of Americans across several northern states.

The Manitoba wildfires have forced 17,000 people to flee the province, according to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who called the evacuation the largest in recent history. “With the wildfires in northern Manitoba intensifying, our government has triggered a provincewide state of emergency to help us through this crisis,” Kinew said in a statement on Wednesday.

As the out-of-control blazes continue to ravage the province’s prized wildlands, heavy clouds of smoke from the fires are making their way into the United States. The states most heavily impacted — Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota — have all issued air quality alerts for their residents.

Alerts in Wisconsin and Michigan counties are in effect until Saturday, with both states warning that the quality of air will become unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, anyone with respiratory issues and older people.

In Minnesota, where the entire state is under alert for compromised air quality, the state’s Pollution Control Agency warned that air quality was expected to reach the red category — impacting both sensitive groups and some members of the general public.

In 2024, while still dealing with fires carried over from the previous year, the nation fared only slightly better, experiencing its worst outbreak of wild blazes since 1995, excluding 2023. Wildfire smoke is pouring over the border into the U.S., impacting air quality and health hundreds of miles from the fires themselves. The U.S. has also battled increasingly devastating wildfires over recent years as climate change has made larger wildfires more likely and more intense.

Macron Warns the West Could Lose Credibility Over Ukraine and Gaza Wars

Macron pointed out that if Russia could take Ukrainian territory "without any restrictions, without any constraints… what could happen in Taiwan?

Many in Asia worry of instability in the region should China attempt to forcibly “reunify” with Taiwan, China has increasingly clashed with the Philippines over competing claims in the South China Sea. Macron later answered a question posed by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner on Europe’s military role in Asia while a full-scale war was still raging on the continent. “If both the US and Europeans are unable to fix in the short term the Ukrainian situation, I think the credibility of both the US and Europeans pretending to fix any crisis in this region would be very low.”

US President Donald Trump has put increasing pressure on both Russia and Ukraine’s leaders to end the war, and has appeared to give Vladimir Putin a two-week deadline.

Macron also made his point about double standards on the war in Gaza, acknowledging there was a perception the West has given a “free pass” to Israel.

He stressed the importance of working towards a ceasefire and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state, saying: “If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we kill our own credibility in the rest of the world.”

In recent weeks, European leaders have criticised Israel’s attacks for exacerbating the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza.

He has been fiercely criticised by Israel, with the foreign ministry on Friday saying: “Instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state.”

He touted France as an example of being friends with both the US and China while guarding its own sovereignty, and said this model could form the basis of a new alliance between Europe and Asia.

“We want to act, we want to preserve our stability and our peace and our prosperity,” he said, calling for a “positive new alliance between Europe and Asia” where they would ensure “our countries are not collateral damage of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers”.

He noted that both Europe and Asia’s challenges were increasingly intertwined, and referenced the Ukraine war again where North Korea has been aiding Russia’s efforts with thousands of its troops.

North Korea has supported Russia in its war in Ukraine by sending thousands of troops

Macron said that in the past he had objected to the Western alliance Nato having a role in Asia, “because I don’t want to be involved with someone else’s strategic rivalry”.

“But what’s happening with North Korea being present alongside Russia on European soil is a big question for all of us,” he said.

“So this is why if China doesn’t want Nato involved in South-East Asia or Asia, they should prevent clearly [North Korea] from being engaged on European soil.”

Observers agree China would likely be angered by Macron’s speech, with Dr Duchatel noting the French leader’s comments on Taiwan were “the furthest he has gone” on the issue.

Some parts of Asia may welcome Macron’s message on strategic autonomy given their anxieties about choosing between the US and China, said Andrew Small, senior fellow of the Asia-Pacific programme of Washington-based think tank GMF.

“His argument is that most of the rest of the world does not want to be stuck with this dichotomy and wants to hold together some version of global order - that’s what a number of states in Asia would agree,” he said.

Among several European and Asian states, Dr Small said, there was “genuine concern about how China will interpret a Russian victory” in Ukraine, while “the Trump administration takes a different view and is trying to make the case that there is no read across”.

He added that Macron’s mention of the recognition of a Palestinian state - on which France has been leading European efforts - was to signal “we are moving on this”.

U.S. Supreme Court Lets Trump Revoke Humanitarian Legal Status for Migrants

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday let President Donald Trump’s administration revoke the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan migrants living in the United States, bolstering the Republican president’s drive to step up deportations.

The court put on hold Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s order halting the administration’s move to end the immigration “parole” granted to 532,000 of these migrants by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, potentially exposing many of them to rapid removal, while the case plays out in lower courts.

Immigration parole is a form of temporary permission under American law to be in the country for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” allowing recipients to live and work in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security subsequently moved to terminate them in March, cutting short the two-year parole grants.

The administration said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place migrants in a fast-track deportation process called “expedited removal.”

As with many of the court’s orders issued in an emergency fashion, Friday’s decision was unsigned and gave no reasoning.

The Supreme Court on May 19 also let Trump end a deportation protection called temporary protected status that had been granted under Biden to about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the United States, while that legal dispute plays out.

Biden starting in 2022 let Venezuelans who entered the United States by air request a two-year parole if they passed security checks and had a U.S. financial sponsor.

A group of migrants granted parole and Americans who serve as their sponsors sued, claiming the administration violated federal law governing the actions of government agencies.

The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to put the judge’s decision on hold.

"Once again, the Trump administration blatantly proves their disregard for the lives of those truly in need of protection by taking away their status and rendering them undocumented.

The administration called Friday’s decision a victory, asserting that the migrants granted parole had been poorly vetted.

Those applications had been frozen by Trump’s administration but the freeze was lifted this week, said Tumlin, adding: “Those should be processed right now.”

Migrants with parole status reacted to Friday’s decision with sadness and disappointment.

“We complied with all the requirements the United States government asked for,” said Padilla, who lives in Austin, Texas, and delivers Amazon packages.

Retired university professor Wilfredo Sanchez, 73, has had parole status for a year and a half, living in Denver with his U.S. citizen daughter, a doctor.

Carlos Daniel Urdaneta, 30, has lived in Atlanta for three years with parole status, working in a restaurant, since coming to the United States to earn money to send to his ill mother in Venezuela