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The Trump administration is planning to eliminate a Department of Homeland Security terrorism prevention program that former government officials and experts say has helped thwart attacks in the United States. The DHS budget submitted to Congress last month cancels the $18 million terrorism prevention grant program, saying it “does not align with DHS priorities.”

“That line should be quoted after every future mass casualty event in this country,” said a current senior DHS official who declined to be named, citing fear of being fired.

Former DHS officials say they believe the modest program, which costs about 4% of the military’s marching band budget, has stopped violent attacks. It is designed to prevent a type of terrorism that has become increasingly common: lone-wolf attacks by individuals who are not members of an organized group.

Examples include the recent firebomb attack in Boulder, Colorado, on demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages; the murder of a young couple outside the Capitol Jewish Museum; the killing of 14 people in a New Year’s attack in New Orleans; and the shooting of a United Health Care executive in Manhattan.

“When people say, ‘You can’t prove prevention doesn’t work,’ I ask them, ‘Do you go to the doctor? Do you have a smoke detector in your home?’ Then you believe in prevention,” said Bill Braniff, a Biden administration appointee who oversaw the program as the director of DHS’s Center for Prevention Partnerships and Programs.

John Cohen, a former senior DHS counterterrorism official in the Obama and Biden administrations, said the threat is growing. “Why was DHS created? To help the nation be better prepared to stop terrorist attacks following Sept. 11,” he said. “We have had since January a number of school shootings and four terrorist incidents — all by people who fit those behavioral profiles.”

The White House and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.

The program, formally known as the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, recently drew scrutiny when ProPublica published an article about Braniff’s successor, a 22-year-old former Trump campaign worker with no relevant experience.

But the larger issue, experts say, is that the program is being zeroed out. They call that a short-sighted decision in an era when alienated loners are attempting mass violence attacks at a greater frequency than ever.

“Do I know for certain that we helped to avert school shootings and mass casualty attacks? I am 99% sure that we helped to avert a number of them,” said Braniff, who now heads the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University.

Interest in and demand for the program is high and spans the country. In 2024, DHS reported receiving 178 eligible applications from 47 U.S. states and territories requesting $98.9 million for $18 million in available grants. The money funds state and local programs designed to help identify people who are radicalizing and potentially violent. They included school-based threat assessment teams, mental health teams and programs designed to inoculate children against extremist messages on social media.

Specific examples are difficult to cite, in part because many cases are confidential, and in part because it’s difficult to draw a straight line between a government program and a thwarted attack. But DHS documents cite a 2022 case as an example of how they believe the program helped stop a school shooting.

After an outreach campaign at Palm Beach State College in Florida urging students to be vigilant about online threats of violence, a student anonymously reported to authorities about online posts threatening a mass shooting. Among the posts, according to court records, were threats to commit a “massacre,” and an inquiry, “who’s selling an AR-15?”

Authorities arrested and charged a young man, who ultimately was sentenced to probation and also was the subject of a risk protection order, records show.

“This is not the time to be ending that office,” said Cohen, the former senior DHS counterterrorism official. “This is the time to be expanding activities that are designed to detect emerging threats.”

White House “border czar” Tom Homan said Tuesday that protests in Los Angeles are complicating immigration raids, making them more “difficult” and more “dangerous.”

Homan was asked during an interview with NBC’s “Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas whether demonstrations had slowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.

“They’re making it more difficult,” Homan said, adding that federal officers are “going ahead” and making arrests daily.

Watch NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT for more.

When pressed on the issue, Homan said the protesters were making the situation “more dangerous,” and that ICE operations have continued daily throughout the protests.

“We’ve been running the ICE operation in Los Angeles every single day during this protest, and we’re arresting a lot of bad people in that city. We’re going to continue to do that,” Homan said. “They’re not going to stop us. They’re not going to slow us down.”

A Tesla robotaxi driving without a human behind the wheel has been spotted on the streets of Austin, Texas, according to a video posted on X on Tuesday and reshared by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as the company prepares to launch a highly anticipated robotaxi service as soon as this week.

The 10-second video showed the Tesla slowly turning left off an avenue in the state capital, as two pedestrians walk in a crosswalk just ahead. No one appeared to be in the driver’s seat, but someone appeared to be in the front passenger’s seat, while the rear windows were tinted. On the vehicle’s side was a logo with the word “Robotaxi.”

The video appeared to be the first confirmation of Musk’s statement last month that Tesla had begun testing cars on Austin public streets with no one in the driver’s seat.

Musk reshared the video Tuesday on X, writing: “Beautifully simple design.”

University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders has not attended the summer football camps due to an unspecified health issue.

His son, Deion Sanders Jr., said in a YouTube livestream on Sunday that his dad was resting at their home in Canyon, Texas, and “feeling well,” USA Today reported.

“He’ll tell y’all soon enough what he going through, what he went through,” he said in the video.

He suggested that it’s unclear when they plan on traveling to Boulder, where the football camps kicked off June 3.

“I’m waiting until my dad leaves,” he said. “When he leaves, then I’ll go. Until then, I’m gonna sit here with him.”

The university declined to comment on Tuesday.

The former NFL great also canceled a speaking engagement Sunday for the Foundation for Sickle Cell Research. The organizers said that “due to an unavoidable last-minute scheduling change,” Sanders could no longer attend and would not be the keynote speaker. Earvin “Magic” Johnson was announced as the new keynote speaker, the foundation said in a post on X.

Sanders addressed his health while on a podcast hosted by former NFL star Asante Samuel that was streamed live on May 30.

Samuel concluded the interview by saying, “I hope you’re feeling better.”

Sanders responded by saying, “What I’m dealing with right now is at a whole other level. You know what, honestly, I’ve done no media, I’ve done nothing … I’ve lost, like, 14 pounds.”

Sanders, 57, has been open in the past about his health challenges. He had two toes amputated stemming from complications from a routine surgery, and in 2023, he underwent a nine-hour surgery on his foot.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that anyone who protests at the U.S. military parade here on Saturday will be met with “very heavy force.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that they’re going to be “celebrating big on Saturday,” referring to the parade that will wind its way through downtown Washington, D.C.

“If there’s any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” Trump said. “I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The president also addressed the protests of the administration’s immigration raids in Los Angeles. “These are paid insurrectionists,” he said about the demonstrators.

The military parade Saturday will mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army and is expected to feature tanks and hundreds of other military vehicles and aircraft. It’s estimated to cost about $45 million, including as much as $16 million to repair D.C. streets afterward, U.S. military officials said last month.

Saturday is also Trump’s 79th birthday.

“We’re going to have a fantastic June 14 parade, Flag Day. It’s going to be an amazing day. We have tanks, we have planes, we have all sorts of things. And I think it’s going to be great. We’re going to celebrate our country for a change,” Trump said Tuesday.

Trump said that other countries celebrate the end of World War II and that the U.S. was the only country that did not.

“And we’re the one that won the war,” said Trump, who added that if it weren’t for the U.S., Americans would be speaking German or Japanese.

“We won the war, and we’re the only country that didn’t celebrate it, and we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday,” he said.

Officials are expecting hundreds of thousands of attendees, Matt McCool, the U.S. Secret Service agent in charge of the Washington field office, said Monday. McCool said they plan to deploy “thousands of agents, officers and specialists from across the country.” People attending the parade or a related festival will be required to go through checkpoints with magnetometers.

Asked about any changes to security planning in light of the L.A. protests, McCool said, “We plan for those things ahead of time”

“We were paying attention, obviously, to what is happening there, and we’ll be ready for that if it were to occur here,” he said, though he added, “We have no intelligence of that happening here, but if it does, we have the resources to handle it.”

U.S. Park Police had several protest permits pending on Monday, but officials “don’t have any significant concerns,” said McCool, who added that they’re tracking “about nine First Amendment activity demonstrations.”

The anti-Trump group No Kings is expecting more than 1,800 rallies nationwide Saturday that organizers said were planned as “a peaceful stand against authoritarian overreach and the gross abuse of power this Administration has shown.”

With Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and U.S. Marines to respond to the L.A. demonstrations, the group said in a statement: “This military escalation only confirms what we’ve known: this government wants to rule by force, not serve the people. From major cities to small towns, we’ll rise together and say: we reject political violence. We reject fear as governance. We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom.”

No Kings did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday in reaction to Trump’s comments.

FIFA and Global Citizen announced on June 9 that J Balvin, Doja Cat and Tems will headline the inaugural halftime show of the FIFA Club World Cup final.

The championship match will take place on July 13 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

The concert, which is curated by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, will be available to watch for free on DAZN.com.

The halftime show will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which aims to raise $100 million to provide access to quality education and soccer to children around the world. A dollar from every ticket sold for all of this year’s World Cup matches this summer will go to the fund.

“From Medellín to MetLife — I’m honored to headline the first-ever halftime show of the FIFA Club World Cup final,” Balvin said in a statement. “It’s a historic moment — for me, for Latin culture, and for every kid who dreams big.”

“We’re going to bring the world together for a beautiful moment — to celebrate football, feel the unity that music brings, and improve the lives of millions of children through the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund. I can’t wait — see you at the Club World Cup final!” Tems said.

The FIFA Club World Cup will feature 32 teams from around the globe. It will be played in 12 stadiums in 11 cities around the United States. The tournament kicks off June 14.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill with Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., on Tuesday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, making him a rare congressional Republican to endorse the historically liberal cause.

The Higher Wages for American Workers Act would set the nationwide minimum wage to $15 on Jan. 1 of the first year after it is enacted, and raise it annually on the basis of inflation.

“This is a populist position,” Hawley told NBC News in the Capitol on Tuesday. “If we’re going to be a working people’s party, we have to do something for working people. And working people haven’t gotten a raise in years. So they need a raise.”

The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25, and hasn’t been raised since 2009. Democratic presidents and lawmakers have since attempted to lift it, but each time failed to clear the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster in the Senate.

“We’re in the midst of a severe affordability crisis, with families in red and blue states alike struggling to afford necessities like housing and groceries. A stagnant federal minimum wage only adds fuel to the fire. Every hardworking American deserves a living wage that helps put a roof over their head and food on the table–$7.25 an hour doesn’t even come close,” Welch said in a statement. “Times have changed, and working families deserve a wage that reflects today’s financial reality.”

Hawley said the current level is “really, really, really, really low.”

“The truth is — people can’t afford to have a family. Families can’t support themselves. I mean, if you’re pro family, as I am, if you are a populist, if you’re pro-worker, you’ve got to do something for working people,” he said, while noting that various states, including Missouri, have since stepped in to lift it.

It represents the latest attempt by Hawley to stake out economic populist ground that has long been associated with liberals. Other recent moves include teaming up with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on a bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, and voting with Democrats this year on a budget amendment to prohibit tax cuts for the wealthy if Medicaid funding is cut.

Still, Hawley admitted he’s an outlier in his party, and it’s far from clear the wage legislation will reach the Senate floor, let alone find the 60 votes needed to advance in the chamber, where the GOP controls 53 seats.

“I’d love to get a vote on it. I think it’s hard to vote against,” he said. “I say that, but probably most of my Republican colleagues vote against it happily.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he opposes Hawley’s measure, expressing the longstanding GOP stance that minimum wage hikes distort markets and make it harder for employers to hire.

“I wouldn’t support it,” Johnson said. “Because the real minimum wage is $0 when you don’t have a job. The minimum wage impacts just a small sliver of people — most people that want entry-level jobs. And so you raise the cost of an entry-level job and you don’t have them.”

Hawley has another obstacle: President Donald Trump, who has not endorsed any increase in the federal minimum wage. Trump dodged questions about the issue during his 2024 campaign.

“I think he understands the needs of working people really well,” Hawley said. “I would hope he would support this.”

“China has already approved a certain number of compliant applications and will continue to strengthen the approval process for compliant applications,” it said in a statement.

Despite Beijing’s offer of dialogue, experts say China is unlikely to completely remove the restrictions and is “flexing its muscles.”

That was clear to members of the foreign business community in China who have attended briefings on the subject with Commerce Ministry officials.

“While we clearly conveyed that we are at an immediate risk of supply chain disruption, we didn’t have the impression from the Chinese side that they want to resolve this with as much urgency,” an automotive industry official involved in the discussions told NBC News last week.

The European Union’s Chamber of Commerce in Beijing said Friday that while there has been “some improvement in the situation,” the reprieve has not been enough to “prevent severe supply chain disruptions.”

A handful of European companies have received some approvals, said Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. But “it is not sufficient to solve those problems completely or avoid disruption in the supply chain,” he said in emailed comments.

At the core is a Chinese licensing system that requires export applications for the designated materials to undergo a vetting process that manufacturers say is painstakingly slow and results in only a fraction of approvals.

“The fix we are working on is to make the approval process smoother,” said the automotive industry official, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to comment on the sensitive discussions.

Why China dominates rare earths

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements in the middle of the periodic table, including neodymium, cerium and scandium.

What makes them special is the magnetic quality provided by their atomic structure, which makes them more powerful than standard iron magnets and ideal for use in the motors, sensors and actuators found in car seats, MRI machines and disk drives.

Contrary to what their name suggests, rare earths are present in abundant quantities in the earth’s crust. But their structure also means that wherever they naturally occur, they are usually mixed with other elements, often radioactive ones, and extracting them is a toxic, environmentally harmful and expensive process. It’s also a process that comes with thin profit margins and massive upfront investment.

Until the 1980s, the global rare earths industry was dominated by the United States. But that changed as China ramped up its rare earth operations, supported by government subsidies.

“As far back as the late 1980s, Chinese leaders understood how valuable rare earths could be,” said Patrik Andersson, an analyst at the Swedish National China Centre at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

The U.S. and Europe were gradually pushed out as China’s lower labor costs, weaker environmental standards and robust government backing helped its companies become the dominant force in rare earths.

Taylor Swift filed a restraining order against a 45-year-old man she says has been showing up to her Los Angeles homes for almost a year and claiming to be in a relationship with her.

The megastar filed the request for protection on Friday, claiming that Brian Jason Wagner, of Henderson, Colorado, has been harassing and stalking her, causing her to suffer emotional distress.

According to Swift’s declaration, Wagner first started showing up to her home in July 2024, and made at least three visits to the property in that month alone. He was confronted by her security team each time, and during one of those visits, Wagner “was carrying a glass bottle that could have been used as a weapon,” the singer said.

“During each of these visits, I am informed that Mr. Wagner made various statements about living at my property (not true), being in a relationship with me (not true), believing I am the mother of his son (not true), and needing to see me in person, all of which are untrue and disconnected from reality,” Swift wrote in her declaration.

Wagner allegedly returned to her Los Angeles home twice last month, asking to see her and saying that “he was there checking on a friend,” according to Swift. That’s when Swift’s team ran a criminal history report and learned that Wagner was allegedly incarcerated in 2023 when he began sending her “lengthy communications” in which he wrote about his infatuation with her, claimed to be in a relationship with her and made other claims about being involved in her personal life.

A member of Swift’s security team who also filed a declaration said that Wagner had made hundreds of communication attempts to Swift while he was incarcerated, prompting them to create a “security alert” acknowledging him as a threat.

“Mr. Wagner has also sent my staff hundreds of emails with similarly concerning and threatening language, tried to divert mail from my residence to his attention, and even lied to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to somehow change the address on his driver’s license to my Los Angeles home,” the singer said.

A driver’s license for Wagner listing Swift’s Los Angeles home address as his residence was shipped to the property, which is how her security team learned of it, a member of the team said in the filing.

Swift stresses in her filing that she does not known Wagner, and has never met him, spoken to him, or shared her Los Angeles home address with him. Communications to her staff have also increased recently, with Wagner sending them over 26 emails in past weeks, the security team member alleged.

“Therefore, the fact that Mr. Wagner has determined where I reside and visited the property several times, refusing to leave and claiming to need access, makes me fear for my safety and the safety of my family,” she said in her declaration. “The fact that both of these recent visits and Mr. Wagner’s inappropriate and threatening communications to my staff about me have escalated in recent weeks creates a fear of imminent harm.”

A hearing date is scheduled for June 30, according to court records. Swift has been granted a temporary restraining order for herself, her home, her car and her workplace, against Wagner until then.

If a judge grants Swift the restraining order, Wagner could be arrested if he violates it.

An attorney for Swift and Wagner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This certainly isn’t the first time a man has made news for allegedly stalking or harassing the megastar.

In 2024, a man was charged with stalking and harassment for visiting her New York home about 30 times in a matter of a couple of months.

Two years prior, a Virginia man was accused of drunkenly crashing his car into the same New York apartment before attempting to force his way into the building.

An Iowa man was arrested near her Rhode Island home in 2019 carrying a backpack containing more than 30 lock picks and other burglary tools. He told police he was hoping to visit Swift.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a lawsuit in bankruptcy court seeking to block the sale of personal genetic data by 23andMe without customer consent. The lawsuit comes as a biotechnology company seeks the court’s approval to buy the struggling firm.

Biological samples, DNA data, health-related traits and medical records are too sensitive to be sold without each person’s express, informed consent, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a news release about the lawsuit. Customers should have the right to control such deeply personal information and it cannot be sold like ordinary property, it said.

23andMe customers use saliva-based DNA testing kits to learn about their ancestry and find long-lost relatives. Founded in 2006, the company also conducted health research and drug development. But it struggled to find a profitable business model since going public in 2021. In March it laid off 40% of its staff and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Eastern District of Missouri, raising concerns about the safety of customer data.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals said last month it aimed to buy the company for $256 million. Regeneron said it would comply with 23andMe’s privacy policies and applicable law. It said it would process all customer personal data in accordance with the consents, privacy policies and statements, terms of service, and notices currently in effect and have security controls in place designed to protect such data.

A court-appointed, independent consumer privacy ombudsman was due to examine the proposed sale and how it might affect consumer privacy and report to the court by Tuesday.