Midday Roundup: Police arrest 20 protesters at Trump rally in California

Pulling no punches. Protesters clashed with police and Donald Trump supporters outside a campaign rally in Orange County, Calif. People in the crowd outside the OC Fair & Event Center said they came to protest against racism, nationalism, and unfair immigration policies they believe Trump promotes. Some fights broke out as Trump supporters filed out of the event center, and several people damaged a police car. Police arrested about 20 people. The campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also faced protests this week, but of a different kind. Former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, took aim at Cruz at a dinner Wednesday at Stanford University, where Boehner called Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.” The two lawmakers have repeatedly disagreed over what Congress’ priorities should be. Cruz retorted on Thursday that Boehner had let loose his “inner Trump.”

Unholy matrimony. The brother of San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook was one of three people charged Thursday for engaging in sham marriages to defraud immigration authorities. The charges are unrelated to the Dec. 2 shooting attack in which Farook and his wife killed 14 people, but the terrorism investigation uncovered the alleged marriage schemes. Federal prosecutors charged Syed Raheel Farook; his wife, Tatiana Farook; and her sister, Mariya Chernykh. Chernykh supposedly married Enrique Marquez, the friend of Syed Rizwan Farook charged with providing the guns used in the terror attack. The charges against the trio could be designed to pressure them to provide more information to investigators about the terror plot.

Health alliance. After meeting with the Iraqi prime minister Thursday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden flew to the Vatican where today he called for international cooperation in the fight against cancer. Biden is dedicating much of his final year in office to trying to accelerate efforts to find a cure for cancer, which took his son’s life last year. The Vatican gathering of doctors, patients, and researchers focuses on breakthroughs in regenerative medicine. Biden also got to meet and visit with Pope Francis during his stop.

Imprisoned. North Korea has sentenced an American citizen to 10 years’ hard labor for attempting to undermine the country. Kim Dong Chul is a South Korean-born American who lived in China and commuted to the Rason special economic zone in North Korea. Officials there accuse him of spying for South Korea. In March, North Korea sentenced University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly attempting to remove a political banner from a hotel.

Up in smoke. The Kenyan government will burn more than 100 tons of confiscated elephant ivory in an effort to combat poaching in the country. Poaching remains big business in Africa, fueled in large part by demand for ivory in China. But it hurts the Kenyan economy, which relies on tourists who come to see elephants and other endangered animals in the wild. Officials say destroying illegal ivory effectively shuts down the market for it. This is the fourth major ivory burn in Kenya since 1989, and is by far the largest.

WORLD Radio’s Steve Coleman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.