Trump Humiliated as Spain Crops Him Out of Victory Photo

The Pentagon is hiding troop injuries, an ICE contractor shot a woman for photographing his car, and the EPA killed its own toxic sludge regulations

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump crashed Spain’s World Cup trophy lift, and Spain photoshopped him out of their own celebration photos. The Pentagon hid dozens of US troop injuries from Iranian strikes in Jordan while Trump weighs a ground invasion. An ICE contractor in Aurora shot a woman in the lower body after she photographed his car and walked away. And the EPA threw out its own science on tainted sewage fertilizer and told the public to “research” it themselves.

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Spain Photoshopped Trump Out of Their World Cup Celebration

Trump joined FIFA president Gianni Infantino on the podium Sunday after Spain’s 1-0 extra-time victory over Argentina in the World Cup final, handing the trophy to Spain’s Rodri. The hard part, as always, was getting him to leave.

Rodri and Infantino gently guided the president to the side of the stage, and the Spanish players waited for him to move before launching into their celebration. Trump was still visible in the frame when the trophy went up, so Spain took care of that — by cropping him out.

It wasn’t his smoothest moment at a trophy ceremony, and it wasn’t his first. After Chelsea’s win over Paris St Germain, he lingered on the podium long enough that match-winner Cole Palmer admitted he was “confused.”

Trump had also publicly backed Argentina to win, which social media users gleefully filed under the so-called “Trump curse.” Earlier in the tournament, he’d bragged about calling Infantino to get U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s red card overturned ahead of the Round of 16. The U.S. promptly lost to Belgium 4-1.

The loud boos that greeted him before kickoff and again during the ceremony were the one thing Spain couldn’t crop out.

The Pentagon Has Been Lying About Injured Soldiers

In the week before an Iranian strike killed two US soldiers and left one missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against US forces in the country. Those attacks injured dozens of service members and damaged several helicopters.

The Pentagon disclosed none of it.

This is a habit, not an accident. Early in the war, officials said fewer than a dozen troops had been hurt, then abruptly admitted more than 140 were wounded once Reuters obtained the real figures.

The Intercept found in April that CENTCOM had been sending journalists outdated numbers in what one defense official called a “casualty cover-up.” As of April 1, more than 520 troops had been injured, including over 200 sailors treated for smoke inhalation.

Last week CENTCOM put the official count at 414 injured and 17 killed. A spokesperson said she had no update on how many were seriously wounded, but insisted “almost all” had returned to duty.

The last major press briefing on the war was in early May. The conflict is now in its fifth month, with the Washington Post reporting Trump is planning a “wider war” that may include a ground invasion of Iranian territory.

The Pentagon isn’t volunteering this information. Neither is the White House. If you want reporting that counts what the government won’t, a paid subscription is how this work gets funded.

An ICE Contractor Shot a Woman for Taking a Photo

Call it road rage, except he was parked.

Brandon Booth, a 42-year-old employee of ICE contractor GEO Group, was stuck in his car on Nome Street outside the Aurora, Colorado detention facility Thursday evening, unable to enter because of an anti-ICE protest. Two women broke off from the demonstration, confronted him verbally, took photos of his car, and walked away.

Booth grabbed his pistol and fired, striking one woman in the lower body. She is expected to survive. He then got back in his car and drove off before Aurora Police caught him with his gun a short distance away.

He was booked on attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, felony menacing, and unlawful carrying of a concealed weapon. GEO Group placed him on unpaid administrative leave.

This is the latest in a long string of bloodshed. Just this month, federal agents shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, who had a valid work permit, and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican father of three and small-business owner, in Houston.

There have been 11 fatal shootings by ICE agents since Trump returned to office. That count doesn’t even include contractors with road rage.

The EPA Killed Regulations on Toxic Sludge

The chemicals are forever. The regulations weren’t.

The Trump administration has killed proposed regulations for sewage sludge contaminated with PFAS and spread on farmland as fertilizer, a practice that has sickened farmers, killed livestock, and poisoned meat and food sold to the public.

To justify it, the EPA threw out its own scientific research from less than two years ago.

The agency declared sludge wasn’t a wide threat because it’s mostly used on farms, on only a small percentage of cropland. Then, in comments to the federal register, it advised the public to “research” sludge companies to protect themselves from the toxic chemicals in home garden fertilizer.

PFAS are roughly 16,000 “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, birth defects, and decreased immunity. The Biden-era draft assessment found any level above 1 part per billion increases cancer risk to farmers, a threshold low enough to have dramatically limited the practice.

The Southern Environmental Law Center calculated that more than 36 out of 1,000 children drinking contaminated farm milk daily could get cancer later in life. The agency in charge of preventing that just told their parents to figure it out themselves.

Be Part of the 5 Percent

The administration is lying to us every day. The fact that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are trying to conceal injuries to American troops during a war is a flashing red light showing just how important it is to have journalism that refuses to let power operate in darkness.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tomorrow.

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