Today is Sunday, June 8, the 159th day of 2025. There are 206 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On June 8, 2017, former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before Congress, asserted that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with Comey’s investigation of Russia’s ties to the Trump campaign.

Also on this date:

In 1789, in an address to the U.S. House of Representatives, James Madison proposed amending the Constitution to include a Bill of Rights.

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In 1949, George Orwell’s novel “1984” was first published.

In 1966, a merger was announced between the National and American Football Leagues, to take effect in 1970.

In 1967, during the Six-Day War, 34 American crew members were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy intelligence-gathering ship in the Mediterranean Sea. (Israel later said the Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian vessel.)

In 1968, U.S. authorities announced the capture in London of James Earl Ray, the suspected assassin of civil rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1978, a jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled the so-called “Mormon Will,” purportedly written by the late billionaire Howard Hughes, was a forgery.

In 1995, U.S. Marines rescued Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16C fighter jet had been shot down by Bosnian Serbs on June 2.

In 2009, North Korea’s highest court sentenced American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years’ hard labor for trespassing and “hostile acts.” (The women were pardoned in early August 2009 after a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton.)

In 2021, Ratko Mladić, the military chief known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkan nation’s 1992-95 war, lost his final legal battle when U.N. judges rejected his appeal and affirmed his life sentence.

In 2023, Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami on 37 felony counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents that had been moved to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. (The case against Trump was abandoned following Trump’s November 2024 presidential election victory.)

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer Nancy Sinatra is 85.
Musician Boz Scaggs is 81.
Pianist Emanuel Ax is 76.
Actor Sonia Braga is 75.
Actor Kathy Baker is 75.
Singer Bonnie Tyler is 73.
Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee is 70.
Actor Griffin Dunne is 70.
“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams is 68.
Actor-director Keenen Ivory Wayans is 67.
Singer Mick Hucknall (Simply Red) is 65.
Musician Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) is 63.
Actor Julianna Margulies is 59.
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona, is 55.
Tennis Hall of Famer Lindsay Davenport is 49.
TV personality-host Maria Menounos is 47.
Country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson is 47.
Guitarist-songwriter Derek Trucks is 46.
Tennis Hall of Famer Kim Clijsters is 42.
U.S. Olympic track gold medalist Athing Mu-Nikolayev is 23.

By REBECCA BOONE

President Donald Trump says he’s deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles to respond to immigration protests, over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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It’s not the first time Trump has activated the National Guard to quell protests. In 2020, he asked governors of several states to send troops to Washington, D.C. to respond to demonstrations that arose after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers. Many of the governors he asked agreed, sending troops to the federal district. The governors that refused the request were allowed to do so, keeping their troops on home soil.

This time, however, Trump is acting in opposition to Newsom, who under normal circumstances would retain control and command of California’s National Guard. While Trump said that federalizing the troops was necessary to “address the lawlessness” in California, the Democratic governor said the move was “purposely inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”

Here are some things to know about when and how the president can deploy troops on U.S. soil.

The laws are a bit vague

Generally, federal military forces are not allowed to carry out civilian law enforcement duties against U.S. citizens except in times of emergency.

An 18th-century wartime law called the Insurrection Act is the main legal mechanism that a president can use to activate the military or National Guard during times of rebellion or unrest. But Trump didn’t invoke the Insurrection Act on Saturday.

Instead, he relied on a similar federal law that allows the president to federalize National Guard troops under certain circumstances.

The National Guard is a hybrid entity that serves both state and federal interests. Often it operates under state command and control, using state funding. Sometimes National Guard troops will be assigned by their state to serve federal missions, remaining under state command but using federal funding.

The law cited by Trump’s proclamation places National Guard troops under federal command. The law says that can be done under three circumstances: When the U.S. is invaded or in danger of invasion; when there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the U.S. government, or when the President is unable to “execute the laws of the United States,” with regular forces.

But the law also says that orders for those purposes “shall be issued through the governors of the States.” It’s not immediately clear if the president can activate National Guard troops without the order of that state’s governor.

The role of the National Guard troops will be limited

Notably, Trump’s proclamation says the National Guard troops will play a supporting role by protecting ICE officers as they enforce the law, rather than having the troops perform law enforcement work.

Tear gas fills the street as protesters confront Border Patrol personnel during a demonstration over the dozens detained in an operation by federal immigration authorities a day earlier, in Paramount, Calif., on Saturday, June 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in military justice and national security law, says that’s because the National Guard troops can’t legally engage in ordinary law enforcement activities unless Trump first invokes the Insurrection Act.

Vladeck said the move raises the risk that the troops could end up using force while filling that “protection” role. The move could also be a precursor to other, more aggressive troop deployments down the road, he wrote on his website.

“There’s nothing these troops will be allowed to do that, for example, the ICE officers against whom these protests have been directed could not do themselves,” Vladeck wrote.

Troops have been mobilized before

The Insurrection Act and related laws were used during the Civil Rights era to protect activists and students desegregating schools. President Dwight Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School after that state’s governor activated the National Guard to keep the students out.

George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to respond to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.

National Guard troops have been deployed for a variety of emergencies, including the COVID pandemic, hurricanes and other natural disasters. But generally, those deployments are carried out with the agreements of the governors of the responding states.

Trump is willing to use the military on home soil

In 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to quell protests that arose after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers. Many of the governors agreed, sending troops to the federal district.

At the time, Trump also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act for protests following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis – an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”

Trump never did invoke the Insurrection Act during his first term.

But while campaigning for his second term, he suggested that would change. Trump told an audience in Iowa in 2023 that he was prevented from using the military to suppress violence in cities and states during his first term, and said if the issue came up again in his next term, “I’m not waiting.”

Trump also promised to deploy the National Guard to help carry out his immigration enforcement goals, and his top adviser Stephen Miller explained how that would be carried out: Troops under sympathetic Republican governors would send troops to nearby states that refuse to participate, Miller said on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” in 2023.

After Trump announced he was federalizing the National Guard troops on Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said other measures could follow.

Hegseth wrote on the social media platform X that active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton were on high alert and would also be mobilized “if violence continues.”

By MICHELLE L. PRICE, ERIC THAYER and MORGAN LEE

PARAMOUNT, Calif. (AP) — President Donald Trump is deploying 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom after a second day of clashes between hundreds of protesters and federal immigration authorities in riot gear.

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Sporadic confrontations broke out again Saturday in the heavily Latino satellite city of Paramount, south of Los Angeles. Agents unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls, and protesters hurled rocks and cement at Border Patrol patrol vehicles. Smoke wafted from small piles of burning refuse in the streets.

Tensions were high after a series sweeps by immigration authorities the previous day in LA’s fashion district and other locations, as the weeklong tally of immigrant arrests climbed past 100 and a prominent union leader was arrested while protesting and accused of impeding law enforcement.

The White House announced in a statement that Trump would deploy the Guard to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, objected to the move and said in a post on the social platform X that the move was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions.”

In a signal of the administration’s aggressive approach, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened in a post on X to deploy the U.S. military.

“If violence continues, active-duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized — they are on high alert,” Hegseth said.

Trump’s order came after morning and afternoon clashes had died down in Paramount and neighboring Compton, where a car was set fire.

At the entrance to a business park, across from the back of a Home Depot, immigration officers faced off with demonstrators who set off fireworks and pulled shopping carts into the street, broke up cinder blocks and pelted a procession of Border Patrol vans as they departed and careened down a boulevard.

Paramount Mayor Peggy Lemons told multiple news outlets that no immigration raids took place in her city and demonstrators appeared to respond to possible preparations federal agents outside Homeland Security Department facilities.

“They’re just frightened,” Lemons said. “And when you handle things the way that this appears to be handled, it’s not a surprise that chaos would follow.”

In other clashes demonstrators kicked at a Border Patrol sedan, and Los Angeles County officers also deployed flash-bangs.

Law enforcement personnel and protesters mostly stayed at a distance, kicking tear gas cannisters back and forth amid streams of white gas. Among several hundred protesters, a handful were bloodied by projectiles.

More than a dozen people were arrested and accused of impeding immigration agents, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which the names and mug shots of some of those arrested on social media.

Trump federalized part of California’s National Guard under what is known as Title 10 authority, which places him, not the governor, atop the chain of command, according to Newsom’s office.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the work the immigration authorities were doing when met with protests is “essential to halting and reversing the invasion of illegal criminals into the United States. In the wake of this violence, California’s feckless Democrat leaders have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens.”

The president’s move came shortly after he issued a threat on his social media network saying that if Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass did not “do their jobs,” then “the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”

Trump signed the order shortly before he went to attend a UFC fight in New Jersey, where he sat ringside with boxer Mike Tyson.

Newsom said in his statement that local authorities “are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” and “there is currently no unmet need.”

“This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust,” he added.

In Paramount, some demonstrators jeered at officers while recording the events on smartphones.

“ICE out of Paramount. We see you for what you are,” a woman said through a megaphone. “You are not welcome here.”

One handheld sign read, “No Human Being is Illegal.”

Protests continued into the evening in the city, where more than 80% of residents identify themselves as Latino. Several hundred demonstrators gathered near a doughnut shop, and authorities held up barbed wire to keep the crowd back. Flash-bangs went off, some protesters stared fires and the smell of chemical irritants was in the air.

The California Highway Patrol said Newsom directed it to deploy additional officers to “maintain public safety.”

In 2020, Trump asked governors of several states to deploy their National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to quell protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. Many agreed and sent troops.

Trump also threatened at the time to invoke the Insurrection Act for those protests — an intervention rarely seen in modern American history. But then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper pushed back, saying the law should be invoked “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.”

Trump did not invoke the act during his first term, and he did not do so Saturday, according to Leavitt and Newsom.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers executed search warrants at multiple locations Friday, including outside a clothing warehouse in the fashion district. The action came after a judge found probable cause that the employer was using fictitious documents for some of its workers, according to representatives for Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

DHS said in a statement that recent ICE operations in Los Angeles resulted in the arrest of 118 immigrants, including five people linked to criminal organizations and people with prior criminal histories.

Among those arrested at protests Friday was David Huerta, regional president of the Service Employees International Union. The Justice Department confirmed that he was being held Saturday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles ahead of a scheduled Monday court appearance.

It was not clear whether Huerta had legal representation.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for his immediate release, warning of a “disturbing pattern of arresting and detaining American citizens for exercising their right to free speech.”

Mayor Bass said the crackdown was meant to “sow terror” in her city.

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons chided her for LA’s response to the protests.

“Mayor Bass took the side of chaos and lawlessness over law enforcement,” Lyons said in a statement. “Make no mistake, ICE will continue to enforce our nation’s immigration laws and arrest criminal illegal aliens.”

Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Price from Bridgewater, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Eric Tucker in Washington and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

If you’ve ever spent time planning a milestone birthday party, and then found out you don’t have the resources to truly celebrate, you might understand what’s happening at Minnesota’s lone national park in 2025.

Voyageurs National Park, the 218,000-acre expanse of water and wilderness on the Canadian border just east of International Falls, turns 50 this year. And the gala celebration planned by the park’s myriad fans has been tempered just a bit by the announcement earlier this year of sweeping budget cuts all across the National Park Service.

According to some reports, the budget reductions announced in February by Elon Musk and his controversial Department of Government Efficiency have left as many as 10 park staff positions vacant at Voyageurs. The park opened in 1975 amid fanfare and some controversy, as some long-time property owners in the area were pressured to sell their lake cabins to the NPS.

But none of that potential bad news, or a spring cloudburst, could dampen the recent celebration of the park’s 50th birthday held at a Minneapolis brewery by the Voyageurs Conservancy – which was founded a decade before the park opened, and works to connect more people to Voyageurs.

Hundreds braved a sudden late May rain and turned out for the celebration, which featured information about Voyageurs, food, live music and a silent auction to raise money for the conservancy’s efforts.

“Everyone loves a birthday, and we’re birthdaying the hell out of the birthday. We’re doing it all year long. It’s not just one day, it’s a full year of activities,” said Christina Hausman Rhode, the conservancy’s executive director. “We’ve had a couple of bumps in the road with federal changes. We’ve lost staff and there’s some uncertainty there, but through it all this is an important moment to celebrate the park, to be thinking about the future and to be thinking about the vision for the national park in our state.”

The park welcomes upwards of 200,000 visitors per year, with a notable uptick during the pandemic, when more people were seeking outdoor recreation. Those numbers put Voyageurs somewhere in the middle, attendance-wise, among the country’s 63 national parks, far below the 12 million visitors the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina saw in 2024, and well ahead of Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska, which saw just over 11,000 visitors last year. Isle Royale National Park, which is in Michigan but located just off the tip of Minnesota’s Arrowhead and is accessible only by boat or plane, recorded 28,800 visitors in 2024.

Hausman Rhode said that in a state like Minnesota that celebrates the outdoors from the wilderness of the Boundary Waters to the hiking trails of the Driftless area in the southeastern corner of the state, a surprising number of people aren’t aware that the state has a national park, and many have never been there. Collectively, the conservancy is working to change that.

“We are another part of that mosaic of wonderful public lands in our state,” she said. “I think Voyageurs kind of completes that mosaic, as it’s everything Minnesotans love. It’s the big lakes, it’s the boats, it’s the loons, it’s the wolves. And we put it in a national park, and it’s our gift to the rest of the National Park Service.”

In addition to opportunities to view wildlife up close and camp in secluded sites specially designed so you don’t see neighboring campers, Voyageurs sells itself as a Dark Sky Park, popular for stargazers for the lack of light pollution and the opportunity to see a vast cosmic array and even northern lights on clear nights. While fishing, camping and boating have always been staples for Voyageurs visitors, Hausman Rhode said houseboating and sea kayaking are among the activities seeing a recent spike in popularity at the park.

The DOGE cuts have touched off a backlash from coast to coast, with a group called More Perfect Union erecting billboards in Minnesota and Wisconsin noting that the Trump administration’s funding reductions could mean reduced staff and increased danger for park visitors in 2025.

“We are down some staff positions and the next proposed federal budget is looking really grim for the National Park Service,” Hausman Rhode said. “We don’t know totally how that will filter down to the National Park Service, but we know cuts are being proposed.”

The park has visitors centers at Rainy Lake, Kabetogema Lake and Ash River, all of which can be reached from the Twin Cities in under five hours of driving. The park does not require an entry fee, although there are separate charges for camping, houseboat permits, boat tours and on-site equipment rentals. More information about the Voyageurs Conservancy and their efforts can be found at voyageurs.org.

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