Top News Stories –

Iceland strengthens road signs to stop thefts –
Iceland has strengthened its road signs in order to stop tourists stealing them to take home as novel souvenirs, it’s reported. The most popular signs to be pinched are the sort rarely found in other countries, specifically those marking fords that cross rivers, blind rises and gravel tracks, according to Iceland’s RUV national broadcaster. Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson of the Road and Coastal Administration says they are now “using bolts that can’t be dismantled with an ordinary car toolkit”, and making the signs too heavy to carry off easily. Mr Ingolfsson, who is also a noted crime novelist, designed some of the signs. He tells RUV that the international Vienna Road Traffic Agreement “simply doesn’t provide for our topography”, and this makes unique Icelandic signs particularly appealing to memento-hunter. [BBC]

Video of the Day –

Tokyo Aglow (At The CONFLUX Part Two) from Justin Tierney on Vimeo.

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Afghanistan–Pakistan skirmishes
  • Afghan and Pakistani soldiers clash at the Torkham border crossing between the two countries, leaving one Afghan soldier and a Pakistani major killed. At least 22 other people were also injured. Tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have grown since the latter’s attempts to build a gate at the crossing. (Al Jazeera)
• June 2016 Magnanville stabbing
  • The attacker is identified as Larossi Abballa, a 25-year-old man who, according to police sources, was a neighbor of the murdered couple. Abballa was one of eight men convicted in Paris in 2013 for making plans to travel to Pakistan for terrorist training, and then to commit terrorists acts. Abballa was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released after the trial as six months of the sentence was suspended, and he had already spent two years in jail awaiting trial. (The Telegraph) (The New York Times)
  • Abballa was recording the attack and posting it on Facebook Live, according to French officials. (CBSNews)
• 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting
  • Six of the wounded are critically ill, five remain in “guarded” condition, and 16 more are still hospitalized. Forty-four people were brought to the Orlando Regional Medical Center after the shooting. (The Washington Post via The Providence Journal)

Disasters and accidents

• A Vietnamese air force Su-30MK2 goes missing during a trial flight along the coast of Nghệ An Province (Reuters via Euronews)
• A Cessna 208 Caravan plane crashes in the small town of Yahukimo in Papua, Indonesia, injuring at least seven people. (Radio New Zealand)
• Three fishermen are killed, and six others injured, during the crash of a van in Atka, Alaska, United States.(Alaska Dispatch News)

International relations

• European Union-Turkey relations
  • Hansjörg Haber (de), the European Union’s top envoy to Turkey, resigns effective August. Ömer Çelik, Turkish Minister of European Union Affairs, had complained that Haber had shown disrespect for Turkey’s national values, and for President Tayyip Erdoğan. EU officials declined to comment on the reason for Haber’s resignation. (Prensa Latina)
  • Turkey’s EU accession process has been stalled over the EU’s requirement that Turkey reform its counter-terrorism laws concerning their application against intellectuals, Kurdish sympathizers, and critics of Erdoğan. Tomorrow, EU envoys are scheduled to formally agree to open negotiations on financial and budget issues. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• An armed man, holding two people hostage in a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas, is shot and killed by a police SWAT unit. No other injuries are reported. (Reuters)
• United States presidential election, 2016
  • Alleged Russian hackers have penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and have gained access to the entire database of research on Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts. The DNC says that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, and not the work of criminal hackers. (The Washington Post)
• A U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit three-judge panel upholds the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules that prohibit broadband providers from giving or selling access to faster internet service to selected customers. (Reuters)
• An Egyptian Misdemeanor Court acquits 52 people charged with taking part in anti-government demonstrations in April. Thousands rallied on April 25 to protest the transfer of Red Sea islands Tiran andSanafir to Saudi Arabia. Police arrested nearly 300 demonstrators; government reports indicate all have been released from prison. (AP via ABC News)
• Los Angeles, California, police arrest a 21-year-old homeless man after five bodies of apparent transients are found in the wreckage of a vacant former medical building that burned down Monday night. Firefighters had been able to rescue three people. (Los Angeles Times) (LA Weekly) (UPI)

Politics and elections

• United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016
  • Rupert Murdoch-controlled tabloid The Sun, Britain’s second biggest selling newspaper, endorses Brexit, saying that the people of UK should “Take back control and BeLeave in Britain”. (The Guardian)
• United States presidential election, 2016
  • Hillary Clinton wins the Washington D.C. Democratic Party primary, the last scheduled primary on the party’s schedule before the 2016 Democratic National Convention in late July. (NBC News)

Sport

• UEFA Euro 2016
  • UEFA fines the Russian Football Union €150,000 (US$168,000) for the violence that broke out between Russian and English supporters in Marseille on June 11. UEFA also warned that any further misconduct will disqualify the Russian team. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• In ice hockey, ESPN reports that the NHL will place an expansion team in Las Vegas, provided the team’s backers can pay a US$500 million expansion fee. The team, which would enter the league no earlier than the 2017–18 season, would be the first major professional sports team in Las Vegas. The league’s board of governors is scheduled to hold a formal vote on the expansion on June 22. (ESPN)

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