The southern Lebanese city of Tyre is being pounded by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, despite President Trump's insistence that Lebanon not come under attack. Israel's military had hours prior issued an evacuation order for all civilians in the area, amid the unraveling and failing ceasefire.
Casualties are already high, coming at a tense moment after starting on Sunday Iran sent ballistic missiles against Israel over its renewed airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where it says Hezbollah command centers are located.
The NY Times reports of the growing death toll Tuesday, "At least eight people were killed in the bombardment, and dozens more were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. The Israeli military also targeted towns and villages across southern Lebanon, including areas that were not covered by evacuation warnings, according to the country’s state-run news agency."
Attack on Tyre, via AFPSo clearly the air raids are expanding, per the report, even after the latest Trump warnings directed at Netanyahu to not do anything that would sabotage a broader Iran peace agreement.
President Trump is still maintaining that Washington and Tehran are in the "final throes" of cementing a deal, and is even suggesting (once again) that an agreement will be done in days:
Asked whether it would be matter of days or weeks, he said it would take “two or three days”.
Tehran has repeatedly stated any deal should include Lebanon—where Israel has been pressing its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah—and fired missiles at Israel on Sunday. That prompted Israeli retaliation, despite US pressure for restraint.
Iran fired another salvo before announcing it was ceasing military action, and hours later Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the “fire on that front is contained”.
Of course, we've been hearing that the war is merely 'days' away from ending from basically the start of the war. And yet, all too predictably, the two sides keep going up the escalation ladder in an escalation trap.
But the White House is saying that it will forge a deal which is good for the American people, whether Israel likes it or not. "Israel may like that, they may not like that — but this is in the best interest of the United States," Vice President JD Vance spelled out to Fox this week.
Escalation: Houthis in Yemen unleash ballistic missile on southern Israel, as Hezbollah sends drones on north...
⚡️Interception in Eilat pic.twitter.com/uUsV3O70VE
— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 8, 2026But in the meantime Lebanon continues to suffer, also as Hezbollah and most recently the Houthis out of Yemen fire projectiles on Israel. According to some of the latest via Al Jazeera:
For the residents in Tyre, anybody who is staying behind is in a lot of danger. In the past hour, we’ve seen another Israeli air strike near a Palestinian refugee camp.
The strike happened at a roundabout leading into the camp, a very busy location. There’s also a bus station right at the entrance to the el-Buss refugee camp. Initial reports are coming in of a lot of injuries in that attack.
Israel continues to carry out artillery fire on the city, and there are drones flying over Tyre. For anyone trying to get out of the city, the road is quite dangerous. There have been a series of air strikes north of Tyre along the same road people would use to exit.
So the Lebanon conflict is escalating, not growing more stable, which doesn't bode well for achieving a final Iran deal. Tehran has insisted all along that a deal incorporate the Israel-Lebanon situation.
Reporter: Did you ask Netanyahu not to hit back?
Trump: No. I said do what's right but I want you to stop as quickly as you can. Because they have to stop. It has to do with Lebanon. And it has to stop. We want to get it finished. pic.twitter.com/lnnstEPFA2
Vance had also said in his latest comments to Fox that "I think where the president has been very clear here is that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States' main objective in Iran is to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon."
It seems Washington is willing to tolerate some Israeli 'counter-terror' action, but only up to a point. Probably the limits will be reached in more renewed bombings of Beirut itself. Tehran has been seeking to impose some red liens on IDF action in Lebanon, and the White House has so far appeared to respond with compromising language.
Tyler Durden Tue, 06/09/2026 - 11:55LOS ANGELES - A woman who worked as a longtime signature collector for ballot initiatives pleaded guilty on June 8 to paying homeless people in Los Angeles' Skid Row and elsewhere $2 or $3 to register to vote.
An "I Voted" sign points to a Vote Center in Los Angeles on June 1, 2026. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesBrenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, of Marina del Rey, also known as "Anika," entered a plea to one count of paying another person to register to vote, a federal charge that carries a penalty of up to five years behind bars.
Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 31.
According to her plea agreement, for nearly 20 years, Armstrong periodically worked as a "petition circulator." In that role, she was paid by coordinators to collect voter signatures on official petitions that qualify initiatives, referendums and recalls for California state ballots. Prosecutors said Armstrong drove around the Los Angeles area to find registered voters to sign the petitions.
After gathering enough signatures, Armstrong returned the petitions to her coordinators, who then paid her a set amount for each registered voter's signature. The amount she was paid varied depending on the specific ballot initiative. Because her coordinators only paid for signatures attributable to registered voters, Armstrong endeavored to ensure the people who signed her petitions were registered voters, court papers show.
Armstrong admitted soliciting signatures in Skid Row, a convenient place for the defendant to collect signatures because of its high concentration of people in a relatively small area who were willing to sign petitions in exchange for cash.
Armstrong regularly paid amounts between $2 and $3 to induce people to sign her petitions, officials said.
Prosecutors said some homeless people did not have an address to put on the forms, so on occasion, Armstrong provided her own former address in Los Angeles to write on the registration form. Such registration forms simultaneously registered an individual to vote in California elections and in federal elections.
"This is not an allegation, this is not a theory, this is an example of admitted voter fraud," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said when Armstrong was charged. "We're going to aggressively prosecute voter fraud."
A video shot by conservative media figure James O'Keefe and reposted by an account called "Real America's Voice" showed a woman handing cash to a homeless person. In a post on social media, O'Keefe said his video led to Armstrong being charged.
Essayli said on June 5 that his office has "multiple" probes underway into alleged voting fraud. While declining to provide any specifics, he pointed to the Armstrong case as an example of the sort of thing he is investigating.
"Yes, there is evidence of election fraud in California," he said.
The comments came one day after President Donald Trump publicly accused Democrats of engaging in election fraud in California, pointing to the legally established mail-in voting process.
Essayli also said his office is working with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon in an effort to audit the state's voter rolls.
Essayli said previously that Armstrong's arrest coincided with arguments in the Department of Justice's (DOJ) appeal of the dismissal of a lawsuit over voter registration records.
The DOJ sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber last year, demanding the state hand over the unredacted voter file, which includes registered voters' full names, residential addresses, driver's license numbers, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.
The DOJ claimed it had the right to access the data under powers granted by the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Help America Vote Act, and the National Voter Registration Act.
In January, a Santa Ana federal judge dismissed the case after finding that the DOJ's request for the information violates federal privacy laws. The defense also argued that the Trump administration wants to use the data to help enforce its immigration policy.
Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong Tyler Durden Tue, 06/09/2026 - 11:40