“Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman, a Democrat, has taken a narrow lead for second place over former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a registered Republican, in the race to take on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in a runoff this fall. NBC News projected Bass’[s] advancing to the runoff last week, but the outstanding question, as the city and the state continue counting ballots, is whom she will face and what kind of matchup that will be. NBC News hasn’t projected the winner of the other spot in the runoff. … Los Angeles still has more than 100,000 votes left to count.” (06/07/26)
“Israel and Iran traded fire early Monday in retaliatory strikes that threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a full-scale regional war. Yemen’s Houthi rebels [sic] also fired at Israel and warned they would target Israel-affiliated ships in the Red Sea, further escalating tension. The renewed threat comes as Saudi Arabia is relying on its East-West Pipeline to export oil out through the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. … Tehran had warned of retaliation after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning earlier Sunday in defiance of Washington’s request days ago to stand down.” (06/08/26)
“Peru’s presidential election is stuck in a statistical tie, according to an early tally by the pollster Ipsos, echoing previous elections that have dragged on for days or even weeks. It put the left-wing Roberto Sánchez on a marginal lead of 50.3% of the vote, compared with the right-wing Keiko Fujimori on 49.7%. While not an official count, the tally has been an accurate indicator of the final result in previous polls. Official results confirm the race is extremely tight with more than 85% of votes counted. The election pits Fujimori, a mainstay of Peruvian politics, against Sánchez, who is promising broad economic reforms. Concerns over crime and political instability have dominated the race.” (06/08/26)
“Bitcoin steadied in Monday trading after dropping below $60,000 late last week as Strategy Inc. Chairman Michael Saylor hinted at further purchases. The original cryptocurrency climbed as much as 3.8% to nearly $64,200 and was trading around $63,000 at 7 a.m. in London. Ether, the second-largest token, was 2% firmer at around $1,660. … Strategy’s disclosure of a small sale, its first since 2022, contributed to the token’s 18% decline last week as it undermined the narrative that the digital-asset treasury firm would never sell. A social-media post from Saylor suggesting Strategy may announce more Bitcoin buying has helped to soothe market nerves.” (06/08/26)
“The leaders [sic] of Britain, Germany and France said on Sunday they supported a proposal for talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to secure a ceasefire, and Europe would play a role. … Zelenskiy said in a post on X that he also told Starmer Ukraine needed more missiles for air defence systems, just days after he published an open letter to Putin proposing face-to-face talks about ending the war, now in its fifth year. Zelenskiy’s proposal was rebuffed by the Russian president.” (06/07/26)
“The Los Angeles U.S. attorney’s office said it has opened ‘multiple election fraud investigations,’ claiming the California election system has ‘serious structural vulnerabilities.’ First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, whose office is also attempting to audit the state voter rolls, confirmed the investigation late Friday and vowed to follow the evidence where it leads. The nature and status of the probes federal prosecutors might be pursuing in California was not immediately clear. Essayli did not elaborate on the nature of the investigations he said he’d launched and did not refer to any evidence suggesting that fraud had occurred.” (06/06/26)
“Drugmaker Eli Lilly presented trial results to medical professionals on Saturday showing its next-generation obesity drug retatrutide curbed sleep apnea severity in addition to boosting weight loss and helping knee pain. In a Phase 3 trial, Lilly found a weekly injection of retatrutide reduced moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea severity by 60.6% in adults with obesity. Lilly’s older drug Zepbound is approved for the condition. In the same trial, the drug reduced knee osteoarthritis pain by up to 73.1%, Lilly found. The results were presented at an American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans.” (06/06/26)
“A New York attorney intervened to stop what could have been the largest courtroom judgment in bitcoin in history, filing an amicus brief that persuaded a judge to freeze proceedings targeting nearly 40,000 dormant wallets collectively holding an estimated 3.8 million BTC. The legal battle is unfolding alongside a wave of onchain activity from some of bitcoin’s oldest addresses. On June 6, 2026, Galaxy Research flagged a transaction involving 47.26 BTC, worth approximately $2.88 million, moving out of a wallet that had been untouched since June 17, 2011, a dormancy period of more than 15 years. … Each of these movements chips away at the central premise of the lawsuit: that these wallets were abandoned.” (06/06/26) https://news.bitcoin.com/ny-court-pauses-default-judgment-after-lawyer-argues-39069-bitcoin-wallets-were-not-abandoned/
“Hundreds of supporters of the Cockroach Janata Party, an online joke that has drawn millions of followers across India, gathered for the first time in the capital on Saturday for its biggest real-world test yet. The protest near Parliament in New Delhi marked the movement’s first step into street politics after weeks of dominating social media feeds and news headlines, attracting widespread support among young Indians. … The event was an early test of whether the movement can channel its online popularity into a broader grassroots support around growing frustration among young Indians over education, jobs and economic prospects. Another challenge is how the party would navigate the kind of pushback that earlier protest movements have faced under Modi’s government.” (06/06/26)
“President Donald Trump said he will likely meet with AI companies at the White House next week to discuss what he called a federal government ‘partnership’ that would allow the American people to profit in their success. The president said Friday that the program, which could include sending company dividends to Americans, would help secure buy-in from a public that remains skeptical about long-term disruptions — including to the labor market — of the technology. ‘There’s a concept out there, there’s so much money and it’s so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies,’ Trump told reporters en route to an unrelated event in Wisconsin.” (06/05/26)
