Donald Trump has defended his decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles, saying the city “would be on fire” if he had not intervened to deal with the protests triggered by his immigration crackdown.

He added that if required he would “certainly invoke” the Insurrection Act of 1807, a law that empowers the president to deploy the US military and units of the National Guard domestically to suppress civil disorder, insurrection or armed rebellion.

“Take a look at what is happening,” Trump told reporters. “There were certain areas of Los Angeles last night, you could have called it an insurrection.”

“Look, if we didn’t get involved, right now, Los Angeles would be burning . . . Los Angeles right now would be on fire, and we have it in great shape.”

The president was speaking shortly after US defence secretary Pete Hegseth was grilled by lawmakers on Capitol Hill over the decision to dispatch Marines to Los Angeles, which he said had been necessary to “enforce immigration law”.

In often heated exchanges, representatives suggested Trump lacked the authority to send in the soldiers, insisting Los Angeles law enforcement agencies were perfectly capable of dealing with the protests without the aid of federal troops.

Hegseth was testifying before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense over the Pentagon’s budget request for 2026. But Democratic lawmakers seized on the opportunity to question a deployment that many critics — and some military veterans — have condemned as a misuse of executive power.

“We have deployed National Guard and the Marines to protect them [federal immigration officials] in the execution of their duties,” Hegseth said, “because we ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country”.

On Wednesday afternoon, California requested that a federal judge temporarily block National Guard members and Marines from assisting in immigration raids or enforcement of federal law.

The Trump administration announced on Monday that it would send 700 Marines to Los Angeles, over the objections of California governor Gavin Newsom. The Marines would be sent to protect “federal personnel and federal property”, the US Northern Command said.

Hegseth said the Marines would support agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose actions in detaining alleged undocumented immigrants over the past few weeks have triggered widespread protests in Los Angeles.

“In Los Angeles we believe that ICE, which is a federal law enforcement agency, has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country, especially after 21mn illegals have crossed our border under the previous administration,” he said, using a term for undocumented immigrants.

Experts have questioned the figure of 21mn, often used by the Trump administration, and estimate the true number to be closer to 7mn-9mn.

The move to deploy Marines to Los Angeles came just hours after Newsom sued Trump for an earlier decision to deploy National Guard troops to stamp out the anti-ICE protests without the governor’s support.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in federal court, called the president’s decision an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority”.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said he last spoke with Newsom on Monday. “I called him up to tell him you have got to do a better job,” he said. “He is doing a bad job, causing a lot of death, and a lot of potential death.”

Trump said law enforcement had “total control” of Los Angeles on Monday night in the face of what he described as “paid insurrectionists”.

Newsom later posted on X that “there was no call. Not even a voicemail.” He added: “Americans should be alarmed that a president deploying Marines on to our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”

The last time a president sent National Guard troops to deal with civil unrest without the consent and co-operation of a governor was in 1965.

Military forces frequently help in the US during natural disasters, but it is rare for them to be dispatched to assist in enforcing domestic law, particularly without the support of the state’s governor.

The move to send in the Marines was sharply criticised by Betty McCollum, a Democratic committee member, who told Hegseth she saw “no need for the Marines to be deployed”.

“History had proven that law enforcement and the National Guard are more than capable of handling situations more volatile than what happened this weekend” in Los Angeles, she said.

McCollum said the unrest “looks nothing like the George Floyd protests [in 2020] or the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992”.

“This is a deeply unfair position to put our Marines in,” she said. “Their service should be honoured. It should not be exploited.”

Pete Aguilar, a Democratic Representative from California, asked Hegseth what the justification was for using the military for civilian law enforcement purposes.

He noted that the administration had invoked a statute, 10 U.S.C. 12406, which only allows the president to call National Guard members and units into federal service under certain circumstances — such as during an invasion by a foreign nation, a rebellion against the authority of the government, or when the president is unable to execute US laws with regular forces.

Hegseth said US authorities were facing “all three” scenarios in Los Angeles. “If you’ve got millions of illegals and you don’t know where they’re coming from, they’re waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers, it’s a problem.”

Asked by Aguilar how long the Marine deployment would last, the defence secretary said 60 days — “because we want to ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side, assaulting our police officers, know that we’re not going anywhere”.

Apple introduced translation capabilities and karaoke features to Apple Music at the WWDC 2025, expanding the streaming service’s functionality as it competes with Spotify for streaming subscribers.

The new features are part of the incoming iOS 26 update. Among them, the Lyrics Translation feature, allows users to understand song meanings in foreign languages without having to visit external sites.

The feature is available for select songs in languages like English to Chinese, English to Japanese, Korean to Chinese (simplified), Korean to English, Korean to Japanese, and Spanish to English.

Additionally, Apple added Lyrics Pronunciation, helping users sing along to tracks in unfamiliar languages. It’s available for select songs in scripts like Cantonese to Jyutping, Chinese (simplified) to Pinyin, Chinese (traditional) to Pinyin, Hindi to Romanized Hindi, Japanese to Romanized Japanese, Korean to Katakana, Korean to Romanized Korean, and Punjabi to Romanized Punjabi.

The updates for Apple Music also include an AutoMix feature that creates continuous playlists based on previously played songs. This could be a challenger to Spotify’s AI DJ functionality, launched in February 2023.

Apple explained: “AutoMix uses intelligence to transition from one song to the next like a DJ, using time stretching and beat matching to seamlessly move from one song to the next.”

“AutoMix uses intelligence to transition from one song to the next like a DJ, using time stretching and beat matching to seamlessly move from one song to the next.”

Apple

Meanwhile, Apple’s tvOS 26 update expands its existing sing-along feature, helping users turn iPhones into handheld microphones for Apple TV with voice amplification capabilities.

The enhanced karaoke experience includes real-time lyrics, visual effects, and onscreen emoji reactions. Multiple users can participate simultaneously using individual iPhones to queue songs or add reactions, while the translation and pronunciation features enable singing in unfamiliar languages.

“Sing in Apple Music is more engaging than ever, and with Lyrics Translation and Pronunciation, users can follow and sing along to an even wider variety of songs, even if they don’t know the language.”

Apple

Apple said: “Sing in Apple Music is more engaging than ever, and with Lyrics Translation and Pronunciation, users can follow and sing along to an even wider variety of songs, even if they don’t know the language.”

At the WWDC 2025, Apple also revealed a new design for its apps including Apple Music.

“In Apple Music, News, and Podcasts, the tab bar is redesigned to float above users’ content, dynamically shrink when users are browsing to put content front and center, and then expand when they scroll back up.”

The new features are available for testing, effective immediately, via the Apple Developer Program. A public beta will be available via the Apple Beta Software Program next month.

The enhancements, including the lyrics translation feature, come as Apple Music continues to roll out new features to attract more subscribers as it competes in a crowded field that includes rivals like Spotify and Amazon Music.

Last year, Spotify quietly locked lyrics behind a paywall in what appears to be an attempt to convert free users to paying subscribers.

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The European Commission is to propose lowering the Russian oil price cap and banning the use of Nord Stream infrastructure as part of a fresh round of sanctions against Moscow.

The commission is due to present its 18th package of sanctions against Moscow on Tuesday, as part of efforts to ratchet up pressure on Russia amid stalled peace negotiations with Ukraine.

According to three people familiar with the proposal, the package will include lowering the existing oil price cap from $60 to $45 per barrel, as well as banning the use of Russian energy infrastructure, including the two Nord Stream pipelines to Germany.

Under the terms of the price cap — introduced by the EU and other G7 allies in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — companies from participating countries may be involved in moving Russian oil as long as the crude oil is priced at below a set maximum.

The people said the new proposal would also include the placing sanctions on additional Russian banks and shadow fleet vessels.

It would include safeguards to help protect Belgium from lawsuits from Moscow under a bilateral investment treaty between the two countries. Existing sanctions have immobilised about €190bn in Russian central bank assets at the Belgium-based central securities depository, Euroclear.

The new sanctions package now needs to be discussed by EU governments, which must adopt it with unanimous support.

Slovakia and Hungary have previously indicated they could oppose additional sanctions, potentially complicating negotiations.

Two of the people said they were optimistic about finding agreement on the package before the end of July, having managed to convince Hungary to drop its opposition to previous packages.

The EU is also considering whether to add Russia to its “grey list” of countries with lax money laundering controls.

The new EU proposal comes as US senator Lindsey Graham pushes for additional sanctions against Moscow by Washington. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen met Graham last week and said that the EU package, if “taken together with US measures, would sharply increase the joint impact of our sanctions”.

But it is unclear whether US President Donald Trump supports more US measures against Moscow, as part of his so-far unsuccessful efforts to force Moscow and Kyiv into a peace agreement.

Trump and von der Leyen are both set to attend a G7 summit in Canada that starts this weekend, with Ukraine on the agenda.