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Death Toll From a Wave of Sectarian Violence in Syria Passes 100

The demise toll from this week’s outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria has surpassed 100, a struggle monitoring group stated on Thursday after the unrest unfold to new areas.

The violence erupted on Tuesday within the metropolis of Jaramana after an audio clip circulated on social media purporting to be of a cleric from the Druse minority insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The cleric denied the accusation, and Syria’s Inside Ministry stated that its preliminary findings confirmed that he was not the particular person within the clip.

However, armed Sunni Muslim extremist teams started attacking areas together with Jaramana with massive Druse populations on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus. Druse militias responded in pressure to guard their neighborhoods and the federal government despatched in its personal forces to quell the unrest.

On Wednesday, the clashes unfold to a different city on the southern outskirts of the capital, Ashrafieh Sahnaya. Early on Thursday, violence spilled from the outskirts of Damascus to Sweida, a Druse-controlled area of southern Syria.

The bloodshed has raised fears {that a} nation the place spiritual minorities had already felt deeply weak because the overthrow of the Assad dictatorship in December will fracture additional.

This was the second main outbreak of sectarian violence since a insurgent coalition toppled President Bashar al-Assad and seized energy.

That coalition was led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was as soon as linked to Al Qaeda, and it included different Islamist armed teams with extra excessive ideologies. Lots of these teams haven’t been introduced beneath the brand new authorities’s management and Syria’s new authorities have proven little capability to rein them in.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based struggle monitor, stated the demise toll from three days of clashes rose to 101 by Thursday.

The Observatory reported for the primary time on Thursday that extremist militants had killed 35 Druse on the street that connects Sweida to Damascus, and 5 Druse fighters in a village within the Sweida area.

These killed in Ashrafieh Sahnaya on Wednesday included a former mayor from the world, Hassan Warwar, and his son, the Observatory stated.

The Observatory stated 20 from the federal government’s safety forces have additionally been killed on this week’s unrest and 10 from allied teams.

The Druse, who follow a faith that’s an offshoot of Islam, have well-organized militias, primarily based in Sweida, which have been reluctant to combine into the brand new authorities’s army.

Israel, which has an in depth relationship with Israeli Druse, additionally entered the fray on Wednesday, launching airstrikes towards what it characterised as “operatives” who had attacked Syrian Druse civilians.

Syria’s new Islamist leaders have struggled to soak up the complex web of armed groups working throughout the nation right into a nationwide army. Apart from the Druse militias, there are armed factions that help the federal government, who Druse activists and militants interviewed this week stated seemed to be concerned within the clashes with the Druse.

Abu Hassan, a Druse militia commander in Sweida who goes by a nom de guerre, stated hundreds of fighters had battled in a number of locations on Wednesday between Sweida and Daraa, one other southwestern metropolis. He stated Druse militants have been combating Bedouin militants allied with the federal government, amongst others.

The governor of the world that features Jaramana and Ashrafieh Sahnaya, Amr al-Sheikh, blamed “outlawed teams” for beginning the preliminary violence in a information convention on Wednesday, however didn’t determine the teams. Mr. al-Sheikh didn’t acknowledge the presence of pro-government armed factions, saying solely that official authorities forces had deployed to guard the 2 cities.

Different safety officers, nevertheless, have privately acknowledged that the federal government is unable to regulate all armed teams that help it.

“We now have the proper to maintain our weapons to guard ourselves from these random factions,” stated Loubna Baset, a Druse activist in Sweida, who stated assaults have been persevering with on Thursday in villages within the Sweida countryside together with al-Sawara.

The federal government “is claiming that they’re sending all these army reinforcements to guard us, however we don’t belief them,” she added.

Regardless of the sectarian battle traces, the federal government’s basic safety forces embody Druse and different minorities in addition to fighters from the nation’s Sunni Muslim majority. Druse have been among the many basic safety forces killed this week.

However regardless of guarantees of inclusivity from the federal government, Syrian minorities stay on edge, an nervousness that deepened after a March wave of sectarian killings hit Syria’s coastal area, dwelling of the nation’s Alawites, the minority group that the Assad household belongs to.

Reham Mourshed contributed reporting.

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Detained citizen says agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot

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A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the bottom and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday mentioned he was held for greater than an hour at Dodger Stadium, the place brokers boasted about what number of immigrants they arrested.

“What number of our bodies did you guys seize right now?” he mentioned one agent requested.

“Oh, we grabbed 31,“ the opposite replied.

“That was a superb day right now,” the primary agent responded.

The 2 high-fived, as Garcia sat on the asphalt below the solar, he mentioned.

Job Garcia was launched on Friday from a downtown federal detention heart. No obvious felony expenses have but to be filed. He’s considered one of a number of U.S residents arrested throughout enforcement operations in current days. Division of Homeland Safety officers say some have illegally interfered with brokers’ jobs.

In response to questions on why Garcia was arrested and if he’d been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in L.A. beneficial a reporter contact the Division of Homeland Safety.

DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol didn’t reply to a request for remark

Job Garcia in his apartment in Silver Lake Friday, June 20, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA.

Garcia mentioned he was shaken by what he heard whereas he was detained.

“They name them ‘our bodies,’ they cut back them to our bodies,” he mentioned. “My blood was boiling.”

Garcia, a photographer and doctoral pupil Claremont Graduate College had been selecting up a supply at Residence Depot, when somebody approached the client desk and mentioned one thing was unfolding outdoors.

“La migra, La migra,” he heard as he walked out. He rapidly grabbed his telephone and adopted brokers across the car parking zone, telling them they have been “f— ineffective” till he got here to a bunch of them forming a half-circle round a field truck.

A Border Patrol agent radioed somebody after which slammed his baton towards the passenger window, his video reveals. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as individuals shouted.

Within the video, a shocked man might be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door.

It’s unclear from the footage what occurred subsequent, however Garcia mentioned an agent lunged towards him and pushed him.

“My first response was to love push his hand off,” he recalled. Then, he mentioned, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his again and threw his telephone.

The agent introduced him to the bottom and three different brokers jumped in, Garcia mentioned

“Get the f— down sir” and “give me your f— hand. You need it, you bought it, sir, you f— bought it. You need to go to jail, high-quality. You bought it,” an agent might be heard saying within the video.

“You wished it, you bought it,” the person yelled.

An agent handcuffed him so exhausting “that there was no circulation working to my fingers,” Garcia mentioned.

Pinned down, Garcia had problem respiratory.

“That second, I assumed I might in all probability die right here,” he mentioned.

The agent put Garcia’s telephone again in his pocket. The recording saved working.

As Garcia was put right into a car, his video captured an agent twice saying: “I’ve bought one again right here.”

“You bought one what?” Garcia shot again. “You bought one what?”

He mentioned an agent informed him in damaged Spanish to “wait right here,’ although it couldn’t be heard on the video.

“I f— converse English, you f— dumbass,” he clearly shouts again.

No agent requested if he was an American citizen, he mentioned. No one requested for identification.

“They assumed that I used to be undocumented,” he mentioned later in an interview.

The video ends after about 4 minutes, whereas he’s ready within the van.

Garcia requested an agent to get his pockets from his automobile, so he might show he was a U.S. citizen. One other agent retrieved his ID, however he remained handcuffed.

They have been so tight, his arms started to swell.

The brokers switched him to handcuffs that appeared like shoelaces. They took off round a nook, stopped to shuffle him into one other van and sped off down the 101 Freeway.

“I smeared my blood of their seat,” he mentioned. And he thought, “They’re going to recollect me.”

With him within the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who mentioned his spouse was six months pregnant.

“My spouse informed me to not go to work right now,” the person mentioned. “One thing doesn’t really feel proper,” he mentioned she informed him.

“It broke my coronary heart,” Garcia mentioned. “I want he was the one who bought away after they have been making an attempt to seize me.”

On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the automobile and informed to take a seat on the asphalt as brokers shuffled detainees into totally different vans and processed them for about an hour. A lady ran his background for felony offenses.

It felt surreal and enraging.

“They have been making an attempt to construct some type of case,” Garcia mentioned. He informed The Occasions he was arrested at 17 for driving and not using a license.

After they transported him, brokers later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him.

The agent mentioned they wished to “take your aspect of the story.”

Garcia declined.

He mentioned he overheard an agent inform somebody, “Trump is basically working us.”

Whereas held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez.

Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart employee and in addition a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday whereas he tried to cease the arrest of a person who cleaned a shopping mall in Pico Rivera. The 2 spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court docket.

“You’re the Walmart child, proper?” he requested him.

Garcia informed him what had unfolded outdoors the Residence Depot.

“That’s precisely what occurred to me,” he mentioned Martinez informed him. “They have been bullying this older man. I didn’t like that so I went and confronted them they usually put their arms on me and I pushed their arms off.”

U.S. Atty. Invoice Essayli posted a photograph of Martinez on X and mentioned he “was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent within the face after he tried to impede their immigration enforcement operation.” Martinez was charged in a felony grievance with conspiracy to impede a federal officer.

The grievance makes no reference to a punch, however alleges that Martinez blocked brokers’ autos along with his automobile after which later a trash can.

“A grievance usually incorporates one cost and doesn’t embody the complete scope of a defendant’s conduct, or the proof that will probably be introduced at trial,” mentioned Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in L.A. “Contemplating that is an energetic case, we is not going to be offering additional feedback outdoors of court docket proceedings.”

Martinez was launched Friday on a $5,000 bond.

“U.S. Lawyer Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent,” Martinez’s attorneys mentioned in an announcement. “Nonetheless he has not been charged with an assault cost as a result of he didn’t assault anybody, and the proof of that’s clear.”

Garcia mentioned his cellmate was apprehensive about these protests. He requested, “Don’t you assume the protesters who’re on the market destroying property, rioters, is a nasty look?”

“Rioting is the language of the unheard,” he mentioned, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Mahmoud Khalil Must Be Released on Bail, Federal Judge Orders

Mr. Khalil, a Columbia graduate and authorized everlasting resident, has been held in Louisiana for over three months. The decide discovered motive to consider it was retaliation for his pro-Palestinian speech.

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What is the price of gold today?

Stock market financial exchange and Trading graph — Understanding as we speak’s gold spot worth can preserve you knowledgeable and enable you make sound investing choices.

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Gold has for hundreds of years been a gorgeous commodity. Not solely is the dear steel considered as a type of foreign money, but it surely’s thought of a gorgeous funding commodity as nicely. That is particularly the case when market or financial uncertainty hits. In reality, gold is typically viewed as a safe-haven asset and inflation hedge.

And, physical gold, like gold bars and coins, has traditionally held its worth, making it a wise wager for a lot of buyers. That mentioned, the price of gold can and can fluctuate within the brief time period, so it is essential to control these modifications if you wish to purchase gold on the proper time.

Able to get began? Find out how gold investing can benefit you here.

What’s the worth of gold as we speak?

As of June 18, 2025, the value of gold is $3,394.42 per ounce, in keeping with American Hartford Gold. Whereas that determine represents the market’s evaluation of the dear steel’s present worth, it is essential to notice that gold costs are topic to fixed fluctuations resulting from quite a lot of components.

Explore your gold investing options here.

Elements that affect the value of gold

Quite a few components can impression the spot worth of gold, together with:

Provide and demand: Like some other commodity, the value of gold is basically influenced by the fundamental financial precept of provide and demand. When demand for gold will increase, and the provision stays fixed or decreases, costs are likely to rise. Conversely, when demand drops or provide will increase, costs might fall.
Financial situations: The state of the worldwide economic system performs a major position in figuring out gold costs. Throughout times of economic uncertainty, akin to recessions or monetary crises, buyers usually flock to gold as a safe-haven asset, driving up its worth. In distinction, robust financial situations can result in lowered curiosity in gold and decrease costs.
Inflation: Gold is commonly seen as a hedge against inflation. When the buying energy of fiat currencies erodes resulting from inflation, buyers search refuge in property like gold that retain their worth over time. As inflation rises, gold costs usually observe go well with.
Rates of interest: The connection between gold costs and rates of interest is inversely proportional. When rates of interest are low, the chance value of holding gold (which does not present any yield) is minimal, making gold extra enticing. Conversely, when rates of interest rise, the chance value of holding gold will increase, doubtlessly resulting in decrease demand and decrease costs.
Geopolitical uncertainty: Political instability, conflicts and world occasions may considerably impression gold costs. Traders usually turn to gold throughout occasions of geopolitical turmoil, driving up its worth as a secure haven.
Foreign money actions: Since gold is priced in U.S. {dollars}, fluctuations within the power of the greenback can have an effect on gold costs. When the greenback weakens, gold turns into cheaper for overseas buyers, rising demand and costs.
Market sentiment: Investor sentiment and speculative buying and selling could cause sudden and substantial worth swings within the gold market. Optimistic sentiment can result in a rally, whereas damaging sentiment can set off sell-offs.
Central financial institution insurance policies: Central banks maintain important gold reserves, and their actions can affect the market. Massive purchases or gross sales of gold by central banks can impression costs.

The underside line

The worth of gold, like some other monetary asset, is influenced by a fancy interaction of provide and demand dynamics, financial situations, inflation, rates of interest, geopolitics, foreign money actions, sentiment and central financial institution insurance policies. On condition that gold’s spot worth can fluctuate, buyers and fans ought to preserve an in depth eye on these components to make knowledgeable choices concerning their gold investments. There are a lot of top gold investing companies that may assist. Whether or not you’re contemplating gold as a retailer of worth, a portfolio diversifier or a speculative funding, nevertheless, understanding the dynamics of the gold market is essential for making sound monetary decisions.

Angelica Leicht

Angelica Leicht is the senior editor for the Managing Your Cash part for CBSNews.com, the place she writes and edits articles on a variety of non-public finance matters. Angelica beforehand held modifying roles at The Easy Greenback, Curiosity, HousingWire and different monetary publications.