Guardian: Pussy Riot’s founder built a ‘police state’ in an LA art gallery. Then the national guard arrived

Nadya Tolokonnikova tells the Guardian she felt she had ‘entered a wormhole’ when her police state exhibition was shut down – by the police state

Nadya Tolokonnikova, the co-founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot, was sitting in a replica Russian prison cell in downtown Los Angeles when the police started shutting down the streets around the art museum.

Police helicopters hovered overhead. Somewhere, through a loudspeaker, an officer delivered a tinny order to disperse.

Tolokonnikova was only three and a half days into what was supposed to be a “durational performance” reenacting her two years as a political prisoner in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

But Donald Trump had ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles, over the objections of California’s governor, and the protests against immigration raids that Trump wanted to target were happening just a block from the gallery where Tolokonnikova was performing.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) hastily decided to shut its doors. But Tolokonnikova, 35, whose political art has left her as a wanted criminal in Russia, chose to continue her performance inside the empty museum.

“Police State Exhibit Closed Today Due to the Police State,” she posted on Instagram.

The situation “felt like I had entered a wormhole,” Tolokonnikova told the Guardian the next day via email. She wanted to be out on the streets, but she decided to finish her performance while live-streaming audio of the protests outside into her prison cell. It felt important, she wrote, “not to bend to the whims of Ice or the national guard”.

Tolokonnikova was in Los Angeles to display a new performance piece called Police State, which includes a replica Russian prison cell like the ones in which she was incarcerated for nearly two years, including in the notorious penal colony IK-14 in Mordovia.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jun/15/pussy-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova-police-state

Newsweek: Texas’ largest newspaper trashes Greg Abbott protest move: ‘Expect better’

The Houston Chronicle, Texas’s top selling newspaper, has published an editorial fiercely critical of Governor Greg Abbott over his rhetoric and decision to deploy Texas National Guard troops in response to protests against immigration enforcement, saying “we expect better of him.”

On Tuesday, Abbott announced the deployment of Texas National Guard soldiers. The following day on X he said “5,000+” National Guard personnel would help manage protests in the state adding: “Don’t mess with Texas.”

The move came after days of unrest in Los Angeles which began on June 6 when demonstrators clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents attempting to conduct raids in the city. The following days saw more violent disorder with Waymo self-driving vehicles set on fire and rocks thrown at police who responded with tear gas and other “less lethal” weapons.

In its editorial, the Houston Chronicle said Abbott’s decision to deploy National Guard troops following protests “seems like an overreaction,” adding: “But there was no serious indication Tuesday that Texas was on the verge of exploding. No burning cars. No looting. No mayors imposing curfews.”

Instead the editorial claimed the “most significant provocation to violence seemed to come from Abbott himself, citing the governor’s warning that “Peaceful protesting is legal. But once you cross the line, you will be arrested. FAFO.” FAFO is an acronym for ‘F*** around find out.’

The editorial described this as “the kind of thing that middle schoolers say before a fistfight” adding: “This isn’t the grown-up leadership that Texas needs.”

Greg Abbott is just another sycophant sucking up to King Donald.

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-largest-newspaper-trashes-greg-abbott-protest-move-expect-better-2085043

New York Post: Trump admin diverted 20,000 anti-drone missiles it promised to Ukraine and sent them to US troops, Zelensky says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Trump administration diverted 20,000 anti-drone missiles originally meant for Kyiv to American forces in the Middle East.

Zelensky revealed Sunday that he had secured a deal for the missiles under the Biden administration to counterattack Moscow’s deadly, Iranian-designed Shahed drones, which have been at the center of Russia’s mass bombardment campaign.

“We have big problems with Shaheds,” Zelensky told ABC News’ “This Week.” “We counted on this project — 20,000 missiles. Anti-Shahed missiles. It was not expensive, but it’s a special technology.”

The diversion of the weapons was first reported by the Wall Street Journal last week, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly issuing an “urgent” call to redirect the weapons on June 4 away from Ukraine.

The drunk O-3 strickes again!

https://nypost.com/2025/06/08/world-news/trump-diverted-20000-anti-drone-missiles-from-ukraine-to-us-troops-zelensky

Newsweek: Why do MAGA Republicans hate Europe?

In May 1988, Republican President Ronald Reagan spoke from the Oval Office in an address not targeted at the American people, but the citizens of Western Europe. The president was planning a trip to meet with Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and wanted to make his commitment to Europe clear.

Staring directly at the camera, Reagan said: “Shared [moral] standards and beliefs tie us to Europe today. They are the essence of the community of free nations to which we belong.”

Thirty years later, in July 2018, while sitting for an interview with CBS at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Republican President Donald Trump was asked to name America’s top global foe. “Well, I think we have a lot of foes,” Trump said. “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.”

https://www.newsweek.com/maga-republicans-donald-trump-jd-vance-europe-2071814

CNN World: Why Trump’s Crimea proposal would tear down a decades-old pillar of the global order

US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine should recognize Russia’s control over Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed more than a decade ago, is threatening to upend international law and order.

Is this legal?

No. If the Trump administration was to somehow recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, it would be breaching international law as well as multiple declarations and agreements made by the United States, including by the first Trump White House.

“In terms of international law, such a pronouncement would be null and void,” said Sergey Vasiliev, an international law expert and professor at the Open University in the Netherlands.

“That territorial acquisitions that result from the use of force shall not be recognized as legal is basically one of the bedrock principles of international law,” Vasiliev told CNN.

Recognizing Crimea as part of Russia would put the Trump administration in breach of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US made a commitment to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders, in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons.

In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement reaffirming the US’ refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over Crimea.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/world/trump-ukraine-crimea-explainer-intl

Financial Times: EU issues US-bound staff with burner phones over spying fears

European Commission officials heading to IMF and World Bank spring meetings advised to travel with basic devices

The European Commission is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage, a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China.

Commissioners and senior officials travelling to the IMF and World Bank spring meetings next week have been given the new guidance, according to four people familiar with the situation.

They said the measures replicate those used on trips to Ukraine and China, where standard IT kit cannot be brought into the countries for fear of Russian or Chinese surveillance.

“They are worried about the US getting into the commission systems,” said one official.

The treatment of the US as a potential security risk highlights how relations have deteriorated since the return of Donald Trump as US president in January. 

Officials said the guidance for all staff travelling to the US included a recommendation that they should turn off phones at the border and place them in special sleeves to protect them from spying if left unattended.

The advice was unsurprising, according to Luuk van Middelaar, director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, a think-tank.

“Washington is not Beijing or Moscow, but it is an adversary that is prone to use extra-legal methods to further its interests and power.”

https://archive.is/8HLcg#selection-2229.0-2240.0

Daily Express: Donald Trump ‘touched’ after receiving ‘beautiful’ gift from Putin

We know where Krasnov’s loyalties lie:

The Kremlin verified on Monday that a portrait of Donald Trump, commissioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, was gifted to the former U.S. president.

According to Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, the painting was presented to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month. Peskov confirmed this in response to a journalist’s inquiry but chose not to elaborate further.

The existence of the gift first came to light in an interview between Witkoff and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week. During their conversation, Witkoff mentioned that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, describing it as “beautiful.”

Donald Trump ‘touched’ after receiving ‘beautiful’ gift from Putin

The Telegraph: Kremlin targeting app at heart of White House group chat leaks

Cyber attackers linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency had sought to gain access to Signal accounts

Russian military hackers have targeted the messaging app at the centre of the White House group chat fiasco, raising further fears about the security of US secret communications.

Researchers at Google found cyber attackers linked to the Kremlin’s military intelligence agency had sought to gain access to Signal accounts in Ukraine and were likely to use the techniques on other targets to snoop on conversations.

On Monday it emerged that members of Donald Trump’s cabinet including JD Vance, the vice president, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had used Signal to discuss secret US military plans.

It emerged after Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat in which they discussed plans to bomb Yemen and disclosed classified material.

Kremlin targeting Signal app at heart of White House group chat leaks