Weekly News Roundup - 6/20/25

The White House faces cross pressures on immigration and in the Middle East // Israel-Iran war enters its second week // An assassination in Minnesota

This is the 25th Weekly News Roundup of 2025. The archive for all weekly news roundups is here.

These weekly dispatches are designed for those who may not have time to do more than glance at the headlines, or those who want to stay informed without becoming obsessed by politics and news. These roundups are a targeted way to get a sense of the shape of the past week on the national level. Without such a map, we can be disoriented, not knowing where we have been over the past several days, or where we may be going.

But by spending concentrated, limited time thinking about the big picture, we can devote more of our time to where “agency and justice begin and end,” as Karen Swallow Prior put it: “on the ground, bodily, in community and real relationships, in flesh and blood.”

Quotes of the Week

“Bad times! Hard times!” — this is what people are saying. But let us live well, and the times shall be well. We are the times. Such as we are, such are the times. - St. Augustine of Hippo

If you want to understand a place, you need to walk it. - Chris Arnade

In our imagination, we always assumed aliens would come from another world. But it turns out that we’re going to build them ourselves and endow them with intelligence that will ultimately be superior to us. - Niall Ferguson

In 2024, there were fewer home sales than in any year since 1995. - Ronda Kaysen

Excessive enthusiasm applied to political causes can often produce fundamentalism, extremism, and fanaticism. - Aurelian Craitu

Populist politicians around the world are increasingly able to bypass traditional journalism in favour of friendly partisan media, ‘personalities’, and ‘influencers’ who often get special access but rarely ask difficult questions, with many implicated in spreading false narratives or worse. - Nic Newman

Although the [Second Vatican] council concedes that modernity has deprived the Church of temporal political power, it doesn’t surrender its political function. Rather, it reimagines it. - Ethan Schwartz

Big Stories This Week

• The Trump administration is facing significant challenges when it comes to immigration and the Middle East. Trump zig-zagged on deportation raids this past week, slowing them last weekend after being warned by business leaders that it could cause severe harm to America's farming and hospitality industries. But that policy was reversed Monday, as hardliners inside the administration pushed forward with their goal to arrest 3,000 people a day. In the Middle East, Trump is under pressure from Israel to help them attack Iran. But he is facing significant pushback from his own supporters, including prominent right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor-Greene.

• A conservative Christian shot and killed Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, including the former House Speaker who was known as a pragmatic problem-solver. The assassin comes from a part of the Christian right that often speaks of those they disagree with politically as influenced or possessed by demonic forces, and sometimes refers to them as literal demons.

• The Social Security program is in serious financial trouble and will be forced to cut benefits in 8 years if nothing is done, a new report showed this week.

  

  A Juneteenth parade in Washington, D.C. on June 19, 2025

Week in Review

Friday June 13

• President Trump is reported to be easing deportation raids on farms, hotels, meatpacking plants and restaurants in response to pleas from industry leaders who say his policies are threatening the stability of the food supply and the hospitality industry. The easing comes despite pressure from Trump adviser Stephen Miller on ICE to arrest 3,000 people a day.

• Israel launches a preemptive attack on Iran, prompting a counter attack from the Iranians.

Saturday, June 14

• Melissa Hortman, a 55-year old Democratic leader in the Minnesota legislature, who was House Speaker from 2019 to 2025, is shot and killed at her home. Her husband Mark, is also shot and killed.

• A military parade is held in D.C. Around 100,000 people attend the event, which is marred by poor crowd design that leaves many people stuck at checkpoints.

• Millions of people protest against Trump in "No Kings" events around the country.

• Trump holds a lengthy call with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Sunday, June 15

• The gunman who shot Melissa Hortman is apprehended by police.. He is conservative Christian who has preached in Africa and has a background in evangelical churches that emphasize miracles, prophets, apostles, exuberant expression, and speak of their political opponents as "demonic."

• Trump says he will step up deportation raids in "America's largest cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York."

Monday, June 16

• Israel warns 330,000 people in Tehran to evacuate as it broadens its air assault on Iran. A strike by Iran kills 5 in Israel.

• The Trump administration reverses course again and removes the exemption on farms and the hospitality industry, saying it will continue deportation raids in these places.

• Employees at the Louvre in Paris walk off the job in protest over being overworked and overwhelmed by huge crowds.

• "[Elon] Musk and his allies systematically built a false narrative of widespread fraud at the Social Security Administration based on misinterpreted data, using their claims to justify an aggressive effort to gain access to personal information on millions of Americans," the New York Times reports.

Tuesday, June 17

• The U.S. military shifts ships and planes to the Middle East as speculation grows that Trump will lead America into direct involvement in Israel's war with Iran. Meanwhile, Trump is criticized by some on the right, including media personality Tucker Carlson, who do not want him to bring the U.S. into the conflict.

• The Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose H. Gomez, writes that "We may agree that the previous administration in Washington went too far in not securing our borders and in permitting far too many people to enter our country without vetting. But the current administration has offered no immigration policy beyond the stated goal of deporting thousands of people each day. This is not policy, it is punishment, and it can only result in cruel and arbitrary outcomes. Already we are hearing stories of innocent fathers and mothers being wrongly deported, with no recourse to appeal. A great nation can take the time and care to make distinctions and judge each case on its merits."

Wednesday, June 18

• Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, says that if the U.S. becomes involved in Israel's war against Iran, it "will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them.”

• The Social Security program is going insolvent and benefit cuts will be required in 8 years if nothing is done to fix the problem, according to a new report. If nothing is done, "under current law young workers entering the workforce today will on average be made poorer by an amount equal to 3.8% of their lifetime earnings, to prop up the Social Security program," writes Chuck Blahous.

• The Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged. Rate cuts later this year are still possible but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says that "everyone that I know is forecasting a meaningful increase in inflation in coming months from tariffs, because someone has to pay for the tariffs. People will be trying not to be the ones who pick up the cost. But ultimately the cost of the tariff has to be paid and some of it will fall on the end consumer."

• Los Angeles lifts its curfew.

• The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

• ICE takes custody of a Spanish-language journalist with a large online following who is documenting protests outside Atlanta.

Thursday, June 19

• Trump says he will take two weeks to decide if the U.S. will directly involve itself in the Israel-Iran war. In less than a week, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 657 people in Iran and wounded more than 2,000 others, the Associated Press reports. Israel has shot down many of the missiles launched by Iran, but at least 24 Israelis have died due to Iranian attacks, with hundreds more wounded.

• A federal appeals court rules that Trump most likely "lawfully exercised his authority in federalizing control of the guard," the Associated Press reports. It's a reversal of the ruling by a federal judge a week earlier.

• Americans observe Juneteenth, an Independence Day for all Americans, marking the end of the enslavement of Black Americans at the end of the Civil War.

Friday, June 20

• European diplomats meet in Geneva with Iran's foreign minister to explore an end to hostilities with Israel.

• The Northern Hemisphere sees the longest day of the year, the summer solstice.

Interesting Reads

• How Ordinary People Doing Small Things Can Change the World, by Charles Marohn for Strong Towns

• How to build the perfect city, by Chris Arnade for Chris Arnade Walks the World

• What Americans Need To Know About the 2025 Social Security Trustees’ Report, by Charles Blahous for Discourse

• A teenager with a job making burritos became a powerful Minnesota lawmaker who trained service dogs, by John Hanna and Steve Karnowski for The Associated Press

• The Problem of the Christian Assassin by David French for The New York Times

• The Alleged Minnesota Assassin’s Connections to the New Apostolic Reformation, by Bradley Onishi for Straight White American Jesus

• Who Is Vance Boelter? The Minnesota Lawmaker Shooting Suspect, by Joe Barrett, Brenna T. Smith and John McCormick for The Wall Street Journal

• No, Elon: Minnesota Suspect Not a Leftist or Registered Democrat, by NewsGuard

• I hiked the Appalachian Trail. It fixed my brain, by Dana Milbank for The Washington Post

• The Housing Market Was Supposed to Recover This Year. What Happened? by Ronda Kaysen for The New York Times

• Catholic bishops quietly criticize Trump budget, by Tom Reese for Religion News Service

• ‘I’m an American, Bro!’: Latinos Report Raids in Which U.S. Citizenship Is Questioned, by Jennifer Medina for The New York Times

• Is America Headed Towards Dictatorship? by Yascha Mounk

• Crimes of the Century: How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law, by New York Magazine

• We watched HBO's Surviving Ohio State documentary: Here's what you need to know, by Max Filby for the Columbus Dispatch

• How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost, by Nicholas Confessore for The New York Times

• Photos capture the shooting of a civilian by a Kenyan police officer amid protests, by Brian Inganga for The Associated Press