How Ukraine broke through Russia’s air defenses

 

As a barrage of Ukrainian drones descended on Moscow in the early hours of Thursday, Russia’s response appeared more like a scramble, and less like a well-planned strategic defense. Videos from the streets of the capital showed glimpses of the ensuing chaos.

Footage verified by CNN and analyzed by experts shows soldiers firing portable, shoulder-mounted air-defense systems from a busy highway, as traffic cautiously passes by. People run for safety as a drone, probably downed by Russian air defenses, plummets into a building in a sprawling marketplace.

In another video, what appears to be a Russian defense missile likely misses its target and instead hits an oil storage tank on the outskirts of Moscow. One weapons expert from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute told CNN that it was “a Russian own-goal,” ending in a mushroom cloud of smoke and the huge top of the tank blasting into the air.

Thursday’s attack on Moscow – the biggest since the start of the full-scale war – was yet another example of how Ukraine’s strategy to overwhelm Russian air defenses with drones appears to have found success.

“Russia has a track record of old systems not being 100% reliable,” Markus Schiller, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said of the scrambled response in Moscow. Ukraine, meanwhile, has been continuously improving its attack capabilities “for years.”

Ukraine has been stepping up long-range attacks on Russian oil refineries and military sites since 2024. It recently broke through Russian defenses in St. Petersburg and has repeatedly hit Moscow, bringing the war home to Russia’s two largest cities.

“The video capturing the firing of man portable air defense systems (MANPADS) on a busy highway is indicative of a hasty, ad-hoc and frankly unprofessional response to the attack. The complete lack of traffic control and the utilization of military hardware incredibly proximate to civilian vehicles and individuals reinforces this assessment,” said Stu Ray, a senior analyst at McKenzie Intelligence Services.

Earlier in the conflict, Russia concentrated its air defense systems at the border with Ukraine and at the frontline, Ukrainian military sources previously told CNN. But Kyiv’s strategy has been to target many different locations inside occupied areas of eastern Ukraine and Russia, forcing Russia to spread out air defense systems into a more threadbare tapestry.

Kyiv has also targeted the air-defense launchers themselves for years, as well as radar detection systems, in an effort to diminish Russia’s defense capabilities. Ukraine’s Armed Forces claims it has destroyed 166 Russian “anti-air elements” since the start of this year, and more than 1,432 since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Moreover, Russia’s air defense systems were not designed to combat drone attacks. They were designed to shoot down conventional military aircraft, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, according to Thomas Withington, a military sciences fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.

“Russia’s air defenses are simply not fit for purpose, that’s very clear,” Withington told CNN. “They are not equipped to detect, track and engage this kind of attack, and barring some massive redesign of the Russian air defense system, that will remain the case.”

Withington noted that international sanctions have hampered Moscow’s ability to access the technology needed to develop new systems capable of engaging these Ukrainian attacks. “Even if you could ramp up production, you will just ramp up production on missile systems that aren’t even doing the job,” he said.

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Iran strikes vessel, pausing UN efforts to evacuate ships from Hormuz

 

Vessels at the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, on Thursday.

Stringer/Reuters

Iran struck a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, forcing a pause on evacuations of stranded seafarers and demonstrating its continued ability to restrict the critical waterway, despite the agreement reached last week with the United States.

A US official told CNN the vessel was attacked by an Iranian drone, but did not provide further details.

While Iran has not claimed responsibility, Thursday’s attack came hours after its powerful revolutionary guards warned that vessels would only be given safe passage via Iranian routes, challenging the Trump administration’s claim that the strait is free and open once more.

The fresh attack, the first reported since the US and Iran agreed last week to work towards a peace deal, prompted an uptick in global oil prices and came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to sell the agreement to skeptical Gulf nations. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

The cargo vessel was struck on its starboard side by an unknown projectile, damaging the bridge, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which monitors marine traffic in the region. No casualties or environmental impact were reported.

Vessels were advised to transit with caution and report suspicious activity,

The attack forced the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) to halt its mission to evacuate hundred of ships and more than 11,000 seafarers who’ve been stranded in Persian Gulf region since the war broke out.

“I have always reiterated that the safety of the seafarers remains paramount,” IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez said in a statement. “Therefore, to ensure a coordinated approach and navigational safety, the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained.”

The evacuation mission only began in recent days, following the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran.

Dominguez said that the ship that was attacked was not operating under the IMO evacuation framework, adding that the incident highlights the need to ensure evacuation efforts can continue without seafarers being put at risk.

This week, ship movements in the Strait of Hormuz had hit their highest point since the war began in late February, with MarineTraffic data showing 70 crossings on Wednesday. Most of those vessels use a route that followed the coast of Oman, the maritime monitoring group said.

Iran sees control of the waterway as a key point of leverage in negotiations. On Thursday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp warned that safe passage would only be given to ships via routes declared to Iran.

After the attack, the Persian Gulf Seaways Management Organization – an agency Tehran recently established to manage the strait – said safe transit would not be guaranteed. “The consequences of traveling on unauthorized routes will be the responsibility of the owner, operator, and commander of the vessel,” the agency said on X.

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AJ Dybantsa is the No. 1 pick on a big NBA draft night for freshman stars and Michigan’s champions

 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver shakes hands with AJ Dybantsa after he is drafted first overall by the Washington Wizards in the 2026 NBA Draft in New York.

Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

New YorkAP —  

AJ Dybantsa is on his way to Washington and ready to start working as soon as he gets there.

That’s not until Wednesday. Tuesday was a night for the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick to party.

“Obviously this night is just a celebration of all the hard work I’ve done in the past, and so now I’m going to celebrate,” Dybantsa said.

So were a record number of one-and-done college stars who followed him, a trio of national champions from Michigan and fans of both New York teams on what sounded like an even more festive NBA draft than usual.

The Wizards started it by selecting Dybantsa, a forward who led the nation in scoring in his one season at BYU. He averaged 25.5 points, highlighted by a 43-point effort that broke BYU’s freshman scoring record, and was the first of a record-tying eight straight college freshman taken to begin the draft.

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A fire at a cold-storage warehouse in Los Angeles has been burning for days. Here’s what we know

 

Smoke from a dayslong fire filled the sky Sunday at a nearly 500,000-square-foot warehouse in Los Angeles.

Jae C. Hong/AP

The thick, noxious smoke billowing out of a Los Angeles warehouse has been a fixture of the city’s skyline for almost a week as crews race to contain a fire at a cold-storage facility holding 85 million pounds of frozen food.

As of Monday afternoon, significant progress has been made on the containing the blaze, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said, and the threat of hazardous chemicals have been mitigated.

“I expect that they will continue to make progress on this fire and get to its conclusion in the next few days,” Derek Chapman, deputy fire chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department, said during a press briefing Monday.

“The smell of smoke has reached most of the city, and we encourage everyone to limit exposure as much as possible,” the Los Angeles Fire Department said over the weekend.

Here’s what we know:

What caused this disaster, and when did it start?

“Lineage does not own the building or its rooftop solar array,” said Lineage, the company that leases and operates the warehouse. “We are the tenant-operator of the warehouse building and lease the roof to a third-party solar company, which is responsible for operating and maintaining the array.”

“We believe the fire originated on the roof on Wednesday while the company’s subcontractors were servicing the solar array,” Lineage said.

According to its website, Lineage is a “worldwide leader in cold storage and logistics.”

In 2024, a Lineage facility in Washington state caught fire and smoldered for two months, Northwest Public Broadcasting reported. Nearby residents in Finley have reported an array of health problems.

Heavy smoke billows from a cold-storage warehouse Saturday in Los Angeles, three days after a fire started at the facility.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Fire Department has not released an official cause for the blaze, which started around 2:35 p.m. Wednesday at 1400 S. Los Palos St. There, crews discovered flames shooting out from the roof and quickly “engaged in offensive suppression,” LAFD said.

But 15 minutes into their efforts, a suspected ammonia leak forced firefighters to act defensively.

Ammonia is used in some refrigeration systems to keep buildings cold, Lineage said.

“We can confirm that no measurable ammonia concentrations have been recorded in the community since the fire began,” the company said. “We also proactively took steps to pump out the ammonia and transport it offsite, removing the possibility of ammonia posing a risk to the community.”

As of Monday afternoon, the threat of hazardous chemicals has been mitigated, Chapman said.

The Los Angeles City Fire Department on Sunday night began applying about 6,000 gallons of water per minute to the building, allowing crews to get a foothold on the fire, Chapman said.

What makes this fire so hard to fight?
“The sheer size of this structure … largely prevented effective ground access,” the fire department said. “Though not typically deployed in structure fires due to safety concerns, LAFD helicopters performed water drops to knock down the bulk of the flames.”

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LA Mayor Bass declares emergency to secure resources to help fight warehouse fire

 

The sky is filled with smoke from a warehouse fire in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 17, 2026.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Los AngelesAP —  

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared an emergency Saturday to ensure the city gets the resources it needs to fight a large warehouse fire that has sent large plumes of smoke into the air.

“The city and county have opened spaces for families seeking relief from the smoke, and we will continue working around the clock and doing everything possible to put this fire out completely,” Bass said in a news release announcing the emergency declaration.

The fire at a privately owned cold-storage warehouse in the city’s Boyle Heights neighborhood started Wednesday, prompting shelter-in-place orders in the area because of the risk of hazardous air. Residents were told to close all windows, doors and vents, turn off air conditioning and bring people and pets to an inside room.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore said in a news conference that they have taken care of the hazardous materials portion of the blaze and now they are working on the biohazard challenges.

“We have 85 million pounds of frozen food inside of this facility and the way the building has been laid out, it’s very difficult for us to get in there because there’s zero visibility inside,” Moore said. “Our firefighters are not able to just go in there and start moving pallets.”

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Los Angeles schools superintendent resigns after FBI search and months on paid leave

 

Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, on January 15.

David Ryder/Reuters

LOS ANGELESAP —  

The superintendent of Los Angeles public schools has resigned four months after he was put on paid leave during a federal investigation, saying he wants students to learn “without distraction.”

Alberto Carvalho’s resignation letter dated Sunday made no direct mention of the Feb. 25 search of his home and the LA Unified School District’s headquarters. Two days after the FBI served the search warrants, the district’s Board of Education voted unanimously to place Carvalho on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Authorities have not provided details of the nature of the investigation involving the district, which serves more than 500,000 students. The investigation appears to relate to a contract the school district had with an education technology company whose leader was later indicted for fraud. The company, AllHere, had a contract with the district to create an AI chatbot.

Before becoming the Los Angeles superintendent in 2022, Carvalho had spent his entire education career in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where he drew national praise for improving graduation rates and academic achievement among Black and Hispanic students. While advocating for Miami’s immigrant students, he spoke openly about his own struggles as a young recent arrival from Portugal working in restaurants and construction while homeless at times.

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Students learn less when they use tech. So why do schools keep giving kids devices?

 

A parent recently told me she’s struggling to get her otherwise well-behaved and academically successful daughter to attend class. Her daughter is regularly late or absent, she complained, and her mom fears her daughter might not graduate high school and have her college admission rescinded.

What’s going on? Her mom, who encourages making mindful choices about technology at home, thinks using technology at school is leaving her daughter stressed and exhausted. Human beings have evolved to interact with one another, use our bodies and be outdoors — not stare at screens all day, she pointed out.

She’s just one of the many parents telling me they’re concerned about what screens in schools are doing to their kids. The vast majority of US public schools — 88% — now issue devices to every student, according to a 2025 National Center for Education Statistics survey. My own town’s public schools use a lot of technology, and I’m worried about my daughters, too.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the results of an otherwise baffling new study, which found students putting away their phones didn’t seem to meaningfully improve learning outcomes.

I suspect that’s because schools are giving students other forms of technology to replace their personal devices, despite a wide body of evidence showing that educational technology generally makes it harder for students to learn.

Kids perform worse on computers

Students who use computers more perform worse academically, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath documented in his book, “The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids’ Learning — And How To Help Them Thrive Again.” These results show up in numerous reliable international standardized tests, Horvath explained in congressional testimony.

Recently, public school officials in my town held a session in which they encouraged parents to get their kids off screens at home. It’s good advice, and I share it when I speak to parents across the country to offer tips and tricks about how to responsibly manage their kids’ screen time. But the problem is that those same (probably well-meaning) school officials are letting our kids use technology at school.

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CNN Poll of Polls: Trump approval

 

Presidential job approval ratings are one of the few metrics consistently and similarly measured in nearly all major public polls. An average of recent polls can often paint a more reliable picture of how the public views the president than a single poll can. The CNN Poll of Polls tracks President Donald Trump’s average approval and disapproval ratings in national polls. It includes the most recent results on this question which meet CNN’s standards for reporting and which measure the views of all US adults. The CNN Poll of Polls does not have a margin of sampling error.

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