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You Are America, Ready To Seize What Ought To Be
This week, a clear "dignity gap" amidst more botches - war, flu, pools, fans - suggests a faint, nascent shift in momentum back toward we the people. As DC sank into mire, New York came together "as one" - Mamdani: "We find a way" - with a jubilant party for its beloved Knicks, and Chicago marked a dazzling, joyful, Juneteenth launch of an Obama Center with free library, museum, gardens, sledding hill where "hope took root" for the first Black president, and somehow still resides.
Meanwhile, the regime tried to sell a fragile Iran deal deemed "the worst foreign policy blunder in decade" that achieved none of their goals, prompted Iran to claim "total victory," and led Andy Borowitz to report the Ayatollah had named Trump "Employee of the Month." Now a newly empowered Iran will control the Hormuz Strait, levy new fees, see sanctions lifted, get a $300 billion infrastructure fund that makes Obama's 2015 pay-out pale, and be free to keep building its nuclear stockpiles and repressing its people, all at the cost of thousands of lives including 175 Iranian schoolgirls and global economic mayhem. The surreal bonus: In "the greatest diplomatic troll" ever, France's Macron got Trump, stunned by gold and ignorant of history, to sign the MOU at Versailles, where World-War-I Allies forced Germany to sign "one of the most famous surrender documents in history.”
With it all, a still-homicidal, hold-my-beer Israel continued bombing and killing civilians in Lebanon, and US-Iran talks were (again) cancelled. Other fails, less lethal, often cringey, kept coming. Again playing the buffoon on the world stage at the G7 summit, where he appeared dazed and confused before chatting leaders, he claimed Italy Premier Giorgia Meloni had “begged me to take a picture with her!" Meloni, fed up, swiftly retorted on social media that she was "astonished" by a claim that was "completely made up" (America nods wearily), she has no idea why he "behaves like this," and "Italy, and I, do not beg." Then Italy's foreign minister cancelled an upcoming trip here, noting Trump, "whether out of intent or ineptitude," has managed with "his inappropriate outbursts," to make the U.S. "unpopular across the entire European continent" - "no easy feat." Sigh. Too much winning.
A flu outbreak hit 150 recruits training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas weeks after manly dry-drunk Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth, declaring "Your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable," said he was “restoring freedom" by ending mandatory flu vaccines, ”absurd overreaching mandates (that) weaken our war-fighting capabilities." New viewership data for the Freedom 250 cage fight - Trump: ”one of the most exciting days in the History of our fabled White House“ - were not, as predicted, ”Super-Bowl numbers“ of 125.6 million, or Rubio’s giddy billion, but a sad 17 million. Their latest attempt to "make friends" with MAGA hats and cookie bribes to kids in Greenland, home to Make America Go Away hats, was met by scowls and fingers. After Congress shut him out, Trump stole $352 million from the Secret Service for his ballroom. Then he was defeated by a Medal of Honor.
And in the running debacle of his $14 million redo of the Lincoln Reflecting pool, surging algae is worse than it's been in years - “Now that the bottom is nice and dark, the algae grows better" - and peeled-off chunks of his "American-flag blue" paint are floating to the surface, loosened by chlorine-neutralizing hydrogen peroxide hapless workers are dumping into it. The historic kicker: The same thing happened - creation of a swamp-green guac pool - at the 2016 Rio Olympics; it made global headlines, easily recalled. But nope, not by all-knowing "Nero on the Potomac." The pattern repeats: Claim something needs improving, ignore experts, screw it up big-time for too much money, blame someone else when it crashes. It will end, God willing, in humanity's "oldest political ritual" - Rome's "condemnation of memory" wherein evildoers' names are chiseled off, statues toppled, their faces hacked, unmade by history.
Until then, we get by on whatever slivers of hope, good cheer, good trouble we can find or make. Thursday saw not just a parade but "a jubilee" in New York, a vast, messy, blue and orange spectacle of two million exuberant fans descending on a packed city to salute the dogged Knicks, NBA champions after a 53-year wait. The staggering turnout for their first ticker-tape parade ever, one of the largest for a sports title celebration, caused mostly glad mayhem in lower Manhattan. For a 10 a.m. parade start, thousands camped out overnight, paid others to hold them a place, took red-eye flights, arrived at dawn, inched forward; many more got turned away when viewing pens filled up before 8 a.m and had to settle for watching on TVS in overflowing bars. Buses shut down, subways blocked exits, people caught rides on garbage trucks and crowded friends' balconies.
Over 10,000 cops, some with Knicks jerseys under their uniforms, circulated amidst thousands of pounds of shredded paper, rivers of toilet paper hung on wires, dozens of floats and checkpoints, miles of barricades and no dedicated public restrooms. Celebrities mounted floats; young people climbed up on scaffolding; kids held up signs bragging they'd skipped school or told reporters their teachers were probably pissed they had; everyone, even dogs, wore Knicks merch, caps, socks, shirts, tutus, sneakers, cheering, grinning: "New York energy. New York love. Everybody’s here for the same reason." Indomitable Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, who led his team from behind in all four wins, rode on a float with his wife and daughter, leaning on the trophy, then he jumped off and walked Broadway with it in his arms, scores reaching out to touch it.
At City Hall, a beaming Mamdani gave each player a key to the city and hailed the unity of a city "overcome by happiness," for once brought together not by tragedy but "pure, unfiltered joy." The bettors and experts and pundits "who watch from far away" do what they do, he said - run the numbers, write the Knicks off, give the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning. "But there's one thing they just don’t get about this city," he said. "It is in that .4% that we go to work...that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible. We find a way. What is New York, if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you?...What is New York if not your back's up against the wall? The Knicks did not just win for New York City, they won like New York City. This is our city. This is our team."
That day Chicago, also euphoric, commemorated the end of slavery in America with a hopeful, sold-out opening ceremony for a private-and-corporate funded, $850-million Obama Presidential Center on the long-neglected South Side where Barack Obama did community organizing, fell in love, raised a family and entered politics. A decade in the making, set in John Lewis Plaza, the Center sits on a sprawling campus of almost 20 acres. It has a museum, a digitized presidential library and free Chicago Public Library branch full of books chosen by the Obamas, four floors of exhibits, a fruit and vegetable garden, an Eleanor Roosevelt garden, Nelson Mandela Skyroom, water terrace honoring Obama’s mother Ann Dunham, and community NBA-size basketball court and sledding hill because, growing up nearby, Michelle Obama never had one. Inside, there are 30 original artworks by diverse artists; in the lobby is the first dual portrait of both Obamas by Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili Crosby.
Wrappng around two sides of the top of the Center is an all-caps excerpt from Obama’s 2015 speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday 1965, the march from Selma to Montgomery AL. where police attacked John Lewis and other civil rights marchers. It was chosen, said Obama, because, "There are places and moments in America where this nation's destiny has been decided, and Selma is such a place. The text reads, in part, "You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed." It is meant, he has said, "to honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar." When he finished speaking, he hugged Lewis, a mentor who he's said "gave me a a sense of meaning and purpose," in a now-iconic photo.
In attendance were many pols - Bidens, Clintons, Bushs, Kamala, Pelosi, Pritzker, Newsom, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau - celebrities including Tom Hanks and a smiling Stephen Colbert in a tan suit, and A-list musical performers. Chicago-born Jennifer Hudson sang the National Anthem, John Legend sang the civil-rights-era Someday We’ll All Be Free, Springsteen sang Land of Hope and Dreams, Eddie Vedder sang Better Believe with young local musicians of Guitars Over Guns, Stevie Wonder invited all the artists to join in Higher Ground. Thousands of multi-hued South Side residents watched a livestream of the ceremony from nearby Midway Plaisance Park, re-enforcing Obama's hope the Center serves as a community hub, with a sense of possibility and a belief "we can come together and create the change we seek."
Michelle Obama began her speech by asking the crowd to "indulge me" to "fully sing" her husband's praises. "Barack, you gotta look at me," she said, to which he shook his head no, looked down, grew tearful. "You always gave us the very best within you, and in doing so you reminded the rest of us that we could too," she said. "There are no words to express how proud I am of the way you showed up, and continue to show up every single day...You were doing the people's work." She recalled the racist vitriol he faced: "Eight years in the crucible and not once did you melt in the heat, not once did you let it harden you," take away from his grace, courage, decency, work ethic. In a dig at Trump, she also noted "a lasting legacy" isn't measured by an award or name on a building but by “the difference we make in one another’s lives... carrying each other when we’re weary."
Obama, moved by her speech, argued, "She did me wrong. She wouldn’t let me see her speech. She knew she was going to mess me up, and she did it anyway." Stressing the dark times, he focused on affirming "how special and how precious our democracy is...what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens." In a nod to his flaws and failures, he cited "unfinished business, my own shortcomings"; he acknowledged democracy's "inefficiencies" quoting from a plaque he kept on the Resolute Desk: "Hard things are hard." "It's tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair,” he said, “but I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.” Instead, like Michelle, he indirectly refuted the cruel, stupid, greedy crap of today's national discourse by elevating "the belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people."
The litany went on: His elemental belief "nobody is above the law, nor beneath its protection." His belief in checks and balances, accountability, an independent judiciary, a robust free press, a military and law enforcement with allegiance not to an individual but the people and the Constitution, a peaceful transfer of power after people have spoken in free fair elections. A belief in private qualities, "our greatest inheritance," like honesty, integrity, compassion, a "faith in the decency of our fellow citizens, and the possibility that despite our differences we can see each other (and) make common cause together." The center's exhibits are "not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy bygone era,“ he said. "They're meant to remind us of what’s possible, so we can forge ahead (and) do the work that needs to be done." Many may have recalled the ways he failed, but these days they needed to hear it all again, and they cheered.
Canadian Youth, Groups Sue Over Carney 'Failure' on Climate Crisis
"You cannot abandon the map and still expect to reach your destination. Yet that's exactly what the federal government has done with its 2030 climate plan."
That's according to Charlie Hatt, climate director at Ecojustice, Canada's largest environmental law charity and one of the groups that partnered with a trio of young citizens this week to challenge Prime Minister Mark Carney's "failure" to bring the country's 2030 emissions reduction plan into compliance with a key federal law.
"Right now, its only climate plan is a plan to fail—and that's not just irresponsible, it's unlawful under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act," said Hatt. "Neither the climate nor the law can tolerate rollbacks today in exchange for promises of action many years from now."
The act requires the federal government to set science-based climate goals, create a plan to achieve them, and report on its progress. However, Carney has recently pursued various rollbacks and boosted fossil fuel development, putting his nation's 2030 emissions reduction target out of reach—which the groups and young people argued violates the law.
"Everyone in Canada deserves to be safe and healthy," said Dr. Samantha Green, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. "Instead, our government is putting people at risk by dismantling key climate policies without a credible plan to reduce emissions. Climate change is not an abstract future threat: It is a public health emergency that is already harming patients and communities across Canada. That's why CAPE is joining this lawsuit."
The fossil fuel-driven climate emergency isn't just a danger to public health. As Environmental Defence's Julia Levin noted, Canadians "are paying the price through wildfires, heat domes, rising food insecurity, and high costs of living."
"PM Carney is betraying Canadians by taking a wrecking ball to our hard-fought climate progress," Levin declared, accusing the Liberal Party leader of following in the footsteps of Big Oil-backed Republican US President Donald Trump.
"The rest of the world is rapidly adopting clean energy systems that are already more reliable, affordable, and secure than fossil fuels," she said. "Meanwhile, our prime minister is copying President Trump's playbook, ensuring that Canada will be left behind."
Carney's climate policies as prime minister—especially compared with how he talked about the crisis before rising to his current position last year—have frustrated many citizens and left "climate-anxious voters... feeling a major case of buyer's remorse, disoriented by the dissonance between who they thought they were supporting and a climate plan that is now a complete shambles," as Canadian climate writer and activist Seth Klein wrote for The Guardian last month.
Youth applicants in the new legal fight made that frustration clear on Tuesday. Montréal, Quebec-based climate organizer Shirley Barnea said that "the Carney government's gutting of climate policy is a massive insult. After presenting himself as a climate leader, our prime minister is now abdicating responsibility—to Canadians, to future generations, to the law. As long as governments continue ignoring climate science and rolling back protections for our futures, young people will continue taking them to court."
Marie Maltais, who is from Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier, Québec, and has advocated for the climate since her early teens, said that "my generation has grown up surrounded by climate disasters and broken political promises to address them. We're told to trust the government's climate commitments—but commitments mean nothing without a real plan behind them."
Sudbury, Ontario-based Sophia Mathur, an early participant in Greta Thunberg's Fridays for Future movement who recently met with Carney and urged him to keep his climate promises, added that "young people are being handed the consequences of decisions we didn't make. We are going to live with the impacts of unchecked climate change for the rest of our lives—so we're standing up for our futures, now."
The young citizens and advocacy groups are seeking a court order that would compel Carney to comply with the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, stressing that "climate change is an existential threat to all Canadians."
Abortion Bans Not Only Harm Patients, But Cost US Economy $140 Billion: Analysis
Reproductive rights advocates and experts have long highlighted the dangers of abortion bans to people's health, but amid a wave of new state-level restrictions in the wake of Roe v. Wade's reversal, some have also recently emphasized the economic impact, as detailed in an analysis published Tuesday by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
"IWPR's latest estimates show that states with the most restrictive abortion policies could cost the national economy nearly $68 billion annually in lost earnings, up from $64 billion in last year's estimate," according to the analysis. "Historically, legal abortion access has increased women's labor force participation and earnings. IWPR's analyses suggest that abortion restrictions continue to erode those gains nationwide, reducing women's labor force participation and earnings potential while weakening state and national economies in the process."
"Those losses—amounting to billions of dollars—could otherwise support what families actually need: affordable healthcare, caregiving, higher wages, business growth, and new jobs that strengthen local communities and state economies," the report notes. "This $68 billion estimate reflects only the impact of the most severe restrictions, including total bans and six-week gestational bans, that were in effect in 16 states in 2025."
The publication points out that "many other states may not have banned abortion outright, but still impose barriers that make abortion care harder to access, like waiting periods, mandated counseling, or targeted regulations on abortion providers that delay or deny care altogether. When accounting for all state-level restrictions on abortion access, combined with the federal funding prohibitions and the absence of federal protections, the annual average economic cost now exceeds $140 billion nationwide."
The overall figure is nearly $7 billion more than IWPR's estimate from last year. Putting that figure into context, the report explains that $7 billion "could fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for about 1 million American families with children for an entire year. This is a striking figure considering the so-called 'One Big Beautiful Bill's' cuts to the program, which are projected to reduce or eliminate benefits for many low-income households."
Removing barriers to reproductive care on a national scale "could mean nearly 325,000 more women participating in the labor force each year, with the largest increases concentrated in states with some of the most restrictive abortion policies," IWPR estimated. For example, in Alabama, Kentucky, and Louisiana, their labor force participation could be over 1.3% higher, while in Mississippi, it could be up 1.5%.
If more women joined the workforce thanks to policies allowing reproductive freedom, IWPR projected that "national gross domestic product (GDP) could rise by 0.5%, and the economic gains would be largest in states such as Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and West Virginia, which rank poorly on both abortion protections and per capita GDP. These states could potentially see their GDP grow by nearly 1% annually."
Like previous analyses, the publication also acknowledges that "Black and Latina women are more likely to experience the consequences of restrictive abortion policies and confront additional economic and structural barriers to accessing care that their White counterparts do not—even as abortion restrictions harm all women and the economy more broadly."
IWPR president and CEO Jamila K. Taylor stressed in a Tuesday statement that "this is fundamentally about human rights and economic justice."
"We know that legal access to abortion care increases women's autonomy to be able to participate in the labor force, which supports the stability of our entire economy," Taylor said. "When states deny people their bodily autonomy, they're also limiting their ability to pursue the education and career options that are right for them and to build financial stability for their family and community. Abortion restrictions don't just harm those who may become pregnant—they harm everyone."
President Donald Trump delivered mixed messages during the last campaign cycle: bragging about being the one to appoint the justices who helped reverse Roe with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, but also suggesting that he wasn't in favor of a nationwide ban on abortion and that the issue doesn't really matter to Americans.
Since returning to the White House, the Republican and his allies in Congress have taken steps to reduce access to reproductive healthcare, and although the right-wing Supreme Court last month declined to restrict access to mifepristone, at least for now, Trump's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing the medication, which is commonly used in abortion and miscarriage care.
Reproductive rights advocates have sounded the alarm over the FDA review. In response to reporting on it earlier this month, Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson called it "a politically motivated farce."
"Mifepristone is safe and effective. We know it, the FDA knows it, and the more than 7.5 million people who've used mifepristone for abortion and miscarriage care over the past 25 years know it too," Johnson said. "But the Trump administration is bulldozing the overwhelming body of medical research and evidence to try to make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get an abortion. It's time for every American to take this threat seriously."
'Another Unauthorized Trump Fund': Democrats Fume Over $300 Million in Taxpayer Money for Ballroom
Democratic lawmakers are reacting with disgust amid new reporting on how the White House has been using sneaky budget maneuvering to get US taxpayers to fund President Donald Trump's luxury ballroom that was never approved by Congress.
According to a Thursday report in The Washington Post, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) mysteriously shifted $352 million within the US Secret Service budget that had been earmarked for training and recruitment, but that will now be spent on White House security measures.
An insider familiar with the process told the Post that the redirected funds were related to the construction of the ballroom.
A White House spokesperson did not deny that the money was going toward the ballroom project, while insisting that "the East Wing Modernization Project is inextricably tied to the security of the president, the White House grounds, and the certain security infrastructure assets."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, told the Post he was concerned that money "intended to pay Secret Service agents and ensure they have the technology and resources they need to keep individuals under their protection safe" is now being spent on the president's "vanity project."
In a Wednesday interview with NOTUS, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said it appears Trump "was just flat out lying when he said the taxpayers will not pay a dime for his ballroom," adding that it appears "he is now trying to find ways to funnel public money into it."
In a Thursday social media post, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) contrasted Trump's willingness to use taxpayer cash for his ballroom with cuts he and the GOP made to vital healthcare and food assistance programs.
"While Republicans slash healthcare and other programs Americans depend on," Krishnamoorthi wrote, "President Trump is reportedly using hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for a White House ballroom he claimed would be privately funded."
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) similarly argued that while the GOP's 2025 budget law "kicked 4.3 million people off SNAP and 5 million people off [Affordable Care Act] health insurance coverage," the administration is now "dishonestly spending millions of dollars of YOUR money to fund a ballroom instead of helping struggling Americans put food on the table and receive essential medical care."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) linked the ballroom money to other Trump schemes to enrich himself through the presidency, including his acceptance of a luxury jet from the government of Qatar and his $1.8 billion slush fund for political allies.
"Now we learn that Trump’s bad architecture obsession is costing us all $600 million," Raskin wrote, in reference to earlier reporting on how the ballroom project has ballooned in costs from the White House's early estimates. "Turn your illegal Qatari jet over to the people and we’ll sell it for $400 million and we’ll take the rest out of other illegal emoluments and slush funds, including the $1.776 billion fund for insurrectionists, and the Board of Peace, another unauthorized Trump fund bankrolled by money misallocated from the State Department."
Letting Big Tech Off the Hook, UK Kids' Social Media Ban Called 'Right Diagnosis' But 'Wrong Prescription'
It's not yet clear whether Australia's ban on social media for children under age 16 has had a positive impact on kids' mental health and safety, but British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that the country's law is being used as a model for the United Kingdom's own blanket ban—leading critics, including the parent of a child who died by suicide after viewing harmful content on social media, to question whether Starmer was simply opting for a "politically expedient" solution to the harms of online platforms.
Banning young teenagers and children from using social media, said advocacy groups, does nothing to ensure powerful tech companies will make their products safer by design for all users.
Starmer announced the ban online in a video in which he highlighted his support for the policy "as a parent as much as a prime minister," and noted that in public comments, "thousands of parents" said their children "are addicted to social media."
We are banning social media access for under 16s.
These days kids must find their feet in a world where technology intrudes into every area of their life.
I just can’t let that go on anymore. So we’re giving children their childhoods back. pic.twitter.com/jn7iQrcwk8
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 15, 2026
"It can leave them trapped in a cycle of endless scrolling that displaces play, sleep, and time with the family," said the prime minister, who leads the Labour Party and is facing threats to his leadership following the party's major losses in May's elections. "It can harm their mental health, and frankly, parents need our support on this. That is why today the government has decided to ban social media access for children under 16."
Starmer said new age-related regulations for social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, as well as gaming and livestreaming platforms, will be introduced by the end of this year, with the new laws going into effect in early 2027. The government also said it was examining restrictions for users under 18, such as "overnight curfews" and mandated blocking of "infinite scrolling."
More details about the ban are expected to be released next month.
But Kerry Moscoguiri, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said that removing children from platforms that broadcast harmful content is "a case of the right diagnosis but the wrong prescription."
“The UK government is right to recognize that many children face serious harms online," said Moscoguiri. "Too many social media companies have built products and business models that prioritize keeping children engaged for longer, often at the expense of their well-being, privacy, and rights."
“But the problem is not that children exist on social media; it’s that social media companies have built platforms that are unsafe by design," she added. "Banning under-16s risks treating children as the problem rather than addressing the companies and systems that create the risks in the first place."
The ban comes after mounting reports of Big Tech companies' efforts to keep all users, including young people, on their platforms for as long as possible using algorithms and "infinite scrolling." Numerous cases have linked children's suicides to their exposure to thousands of posts regarding self-harm and suicidal ideation, as well as to cyberbullying through social media. And reporting by Reuters last year revealed that Meta's artificial intelligence chatbots were permitted by the company to have sexually provocative conversations with minors.
Advocacy groups like Amnesty have called for restrictions on social media platforms' most addictive and manipulative features, such as infinite scrolling, autoplay, and hyper-personalized recommendations.
Moscoguiri warned that bans like the one imposed by Australia last year will force children "to surrender their privacy in order to participate in modern digital life." In Australia, companies are required to perform age verification by collecting data from bank accounts or scanning users' photo IDs.
Instead of a blanket ban, she said, "we need strong regulation that tackles surveillance-based business models, protects children’s data, and puts safety ahead of profit.”
“The responsibility for children’s safety should rest first and foremost with the companies that build and profit from these platforms," said Moscoguiri. "Government action should focus on ending invasive profiling of children, [and] tackling addictive and manipulative design features."
As children's safety groups in the UK were expecting Starmer's announcement in recent days, Ian Russell, chair of the Molly Rose Foundation and the father of a 14-year-old girl who died by suicide in 2017 after viewing content related to self-harm and suicide on social media, told the BBC that he was, "quite frankly, dismayed" that a blanket ban was likely coming to the UK.
"Keir Starmer promised to tighten up the online safety world by regulating better," said Russell, who has called for social media giants like Meta to remove and regulate content that's harmful to young users' mental health. "If he's playing politics, what he's doing is gambling with young people's lives, and I find that deplorable."
https://t.co/oqDAdFFI8p
Very strong words ahead of expected social media ban from @mollyroseorg -
Ian Russell tells us govt is rushing in a blanket ban, rather than more sophisticated controls, under political pressure, in a 'deplorable way' pic.twitter.com/AMxcleLixU
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) June 13, 2026
In Australia, which last year became the first country to impose a nationwide blanket ban on kids under 16 using social media, the law has had unclear benefits, with many young teens still managing to use the platforms—where Big Tech has not been forced to place controls that would make it safer for young users to be there.
Carole Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist, said that imposing a ban that includes age verification, as Australia's does, "looks like rushed populist techsolutionism that will hand more power to the platforms."
"This is going to hand even more surveillance powers to the very companies that already know way too much about us. Do you want [X executive chair] Elon [Musk] to have a copy of your biometrics? Do you want [Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg] to scan your face? That’s what we will all be doing," Cadwalladr added. "This isn’t reining in Silicon Valley power. It’s gifting them even more power. Of course, parents want these companies safe and regulated but that’s a job for government, not the end user."
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, acknowledged that he has advocated for a ban on social media for children under 16 and called it "the right step to protect young people"—but said the UK government must impose restrictions on social media giants themselves, not just their most vulnerable users.
"Bans only treat the symptom, not the problem," said Khan. "Social media companies need to reimagine their platforms so they can offer a safe and healthy environment for all users, where restricting access wouldn’t be necessary."
"There’s nothing inevitable about algorithms which feed us a diet of dangerous content," he added. "Londoners deserve platforms which prioritize people, not just profit."
US-Iran Talks Delayed as 'Renewed Israeli Aggression' in Lebanon Kills at Least 18
US and Iranian delegations delayed plans to travel to Switzerland on Friday for the opening round of talks to cement the details of a peace agreement as the Israeli military bombarded southern Lebanon, killing at least 18 people and threatening once again to derail momentum toward a diplomatic resolution.
The Associated Press reported that "mediators worked to reschedule the meetings crucial for starting talks over a permanent end to the Iran war, with much of the attention focused on Lebanon." Iran's leadership has insisted that ending Israeli attacks on Lebanon is critical to ending the war, and the memorandum of understanding signed earlier this week calls for "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon."
Israel's military, which joined the US in launching the war on Iran in late February, carried out strikes throughout southern Lebanon on Friday, hours after US Vice President JD Vance—who was supposed to travel to Switzerland—publicly complained about the Israeli leadership's tendency to launch bombing campaigns during critical stages of the Trump administration's talks with Iran. Last weekend, Israeli forces bombed Beirut shortly after US President Donald Trump announced plans to sign the memorandum of understanding.
"We seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden, there's a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives," Vance told reporters on Thursday. "That's not acceptable."
JD Vance criticizes Israel:
We seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden there's a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their… pic.twitter.com/Roi6BVtpnt
— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 18, 2026
Roqayah Chamseddine, a southern Lebanese writer, reported that "the intense Israeli bombardment" on Friday "targeted populated residential neighborhoods in the Nabatieh district, committing massacres in the towns of Dweir Harouf, Al-Sharqiya, and Kfar Sir, while also striking Kfar Roumman, Haboush, Jebchit, Toul, and Deir al-Zahrani."
"People had only just begun returning to their villages," Chamseddine wrote. "The renewed Israeli aggression quickly expanded into the Western Bekaa Valley, where Israeli warplanes targeted the heights of Abu Rashed and launched attacks along the Litani River valley near the town of Zalaya."
Apocalyptic scenes in Harouf, South Lebanon.
Israel dropped bombs on residential buildings in the middle of the night.
Entire families are now buried under the rubble. pic.twitter.com/kuKVB0ffjQ
— sarah (@sahouraxo) June 19, 2026
Four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon on Friday by a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli tank, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The attack prompted Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to declare that "all of Lebanon must burn."
"With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeited," Ben-Gvir added.
The Trump White House cited logistical challenges in a statement announcing the delay of the US delegation's departure to Switzerland, not mentioning Lebanon.
But the Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen reported that the Israeli assault on Lebanon was central to the Iranian delegation's decision to postpone its planned trip on Friday.
"The delegation had already been preparing to depart Iran and launch the first round of negotiations, scheduled to span 60 days, before the decision to suspend the trip was made," Al Mayadeen reported, citing an unnamed source. "Tehran had previously informed both Washington and the mediators that the Lebanon file remains a central component of the negotiations and will directly influence whether the talks proceed."
'The World Is Watching': Top Economist Rips Newsom for Working to Tank Billionaire Wealth Tax
"You have chosen to protect California's billionaires at the expense of Californians' health," said Gabriel Zucman.
A world-renowned economist and expert on wealth inequality castigated California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday for working to kill a proposed tax on billionaire fortunes in the Golden State, warning that the Democratic leader and likely 2028 candidate appears bent on handing President Donald Trump "an unexpected ideological and political victory."
Gabriel Zucman, a research professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed to a recent Bloomberg story detailing Newsom's "last-ditch pressure campaign" to prevent a healthcare union-led initiative from appearing on California voters' ballots in November. Last week, organizers announced that they had collected the number of signatures required to get the initiative—a one-time, 5% tax on the wealth of California billionaires—on the ballot ahead of the June 25 deadline.
In a lengthy thread posted to X on Monday, Zucman wrote that he is "shocked" by Newsom's "efforts to defend Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg at the expense of Californians' health," referring to two of the state's most prominent billionaires. Thiel has donated millions to an industry group looking to defeat the ballot initiative, which would use revenue from the wealth tax to offset the impacts of federal Medicaid cuts approved last year by Trump and congressional Republicans.
"Yet you are now devoting all your energy to preventing this ballot initiative from taking place and denying Californians the opportunity to express their democratic will this November," Zucman wrote. "You have chosen to protect California's billionaires at the expense of Californians' health."
By stridently opposing the proposed billionaire tax in California, the economist warned, Newsom is lending credence to "familiar conservative arguments against taxing great fortunes: the threat of capital flight, tax avoidance, harm to growth, etc."
"Instead of reinforcing these arguments, you could have chosen to challenge them. Take the risk of tax flight, a classic objection. It is effectively nonexistent," Zucman wrote. "Beyond the ideological victory you risk handing Trump, you may also be giving him a political victory."
Politically, Zucman warned Newsom that his opposition to the proposed wealth tax—which has proven extremely popular among likely Democratic voters—risks giving Trump and his right-wing allies a political victory by blunting momentum for a wealth tax not only in California, but beyond as well.
"If the 'Yes' prevails, California's tax could quickly inspire similar efforts in other states," Zucman argued. "Ultimately, that process could pave the way for a federal tax on extreme wealth. This is precisely what happened more than a century ago with the progressive income tax."
"The world is watching," the economist added. "In the struggle between democracy and oligarchy, one must choose a side. I hope you will choose ours."
Zucman has been outspoken in support of the proposed wealth tax in California, writing in The New York Times' op-ed pages last month alongside fellow economist Emmanuel Saez that the proposed levy would "be tiny relative to billionaires’ recent wealth gains."
"In the past three years alone, the total wealth of California’s billionaires grew by a staggering 144%, to over $2 trillion," the economists wrote. "Critics of the ballot measure have voiced concerns that even a small number of billionaires leaving the state would lead to lower state tax revenues overall. Their math doesn’t add up. California’s billionaires currently pay such a low tax rate that even if all of them left the state, it would take 25 years for the loss of their tax payments under the current set of rules to surpass the amount the state would raise if the one-time tax succeeds this fall."
"Defending 200 billionaires at the expense of the millions of Californians who will lose healthcare absent the passage of a billionaire tax is not a tenable position for the governor or the state of California."
Last week, organizers of the wealth tax initiative offered to withdraw its proposal if Newsom threw his support behind legislation imposing a 2% tax on California's billionaires—a compromise plan that the governor swiftly rejected.
"The governor supports making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share, but this poorly designed state-only measure will defund teachers, schools, clinics, and public safety," said Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos. "Changing the tax rate doesn't change this measure's fundamental flaws that harm working Californians."
Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West—the union leading the ballot initiative—hit back, accusing Newsom's office of "engaging in Trump-like misinformation tactics, which is sad and indefensible."
"The billionaire tax explicitly funds clinics, hospitals, schools, teachers, and food assistance to the tune of billions," Jimenez said in an emailed statement. "All objective reports have shown that the wealth tax raises billions to fund healthcare, education, and food assistance—and the revenue that will be raised far surpasses any potential income tax erosion—in no small part because billionaires pay very little relative income tax."
"Defending 200 billionaires at the expense of the millions of Californians who will lose healthcare absent the passage of a billionaire tax is not a tenable position for the governor or the state of California," Jimenez added.
Insulted by Trump's Threats, Iranian Negotiators Walk Out of Peace Talks
"Don’t they think that if their threats had worked, they wouldn’t have ended up in today’s desperate situation?" said Iran's chief negotiator.
US President Donald Trump’s threats to destroy Iran and send US forces to occupy the country on Sunday appear to have derailed peace negotiations in Switzerland, with the Iranian delegation reportedly walking out and demanding an apology.
Following Iran’s announcement that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again after Israel intensified its assault on Lebanon, Trump went on a tirade Sunday in which he threatened to assassinate negotiators and said Iran “won’t have a country” if access to the critical waterway was shut off, while also threatening to “take over” Iran with a full US invasion.
But after Trump’s threats—which broke the first clause of the memorandum of understanding—Iran’s negotiators filed a complaint with the Pakistani and Qatari mediators and stormed out of the mountain resort where talks were being held, according to several outlets.
While Trump clearly sought to project strength, Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said his team “do not take American threats seriously.”
In previous months, as Trump sought to squeeze concessions from the Iranians, he issued escalatory threats to wipe out their “whole civilization” and “blow up” the whole country. However, he did not act on those threats, even as Iran refused to budge from its negotiating posture.
"Don’t they think that if their threats had worked, they wouldn’t have ended up in today’s desperate situation?" Ghalibaf said.
Ghalibaf said the US had “better be more careful with their statements,” adding that “our armed forces are ready to respond in a different way." He said, “No matter what they say, we are the ones who act.
While the Iranian delegation left the venue, talks are reportedly continuing via mediators. However, according to the Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen, the delegation said it will not return until Trump apologizes for his threats and Israel fully withdraws from Lebanon.
According to senior Israeli officials cited by Channel 12, Israel is reportedly considering “limited withdrawals” from Lebanon, including in areas within its so-called “buffer zone.” Despite Iranian claims, the officials said the US has not requested Israel’s withdrawal from the country.
Previous peace talks have been derailed by Trump’s threats to commit indiscriminate war crimes in Iran. But this past week has seen perhaps the most violent swing yet in his approach toward Iran.
Where earlier this week, Trump acknowledged Iran's right to enrich uranium and maintain a nuclear energy program like that of other nations, his outburst Sunday appeared to have been prompted by a statement by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who said the US would be "forced to accept" its right to enrichment.
And while Trump has raged against Israel’s actions in Lebanon while privately claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to sabotage peace, he has not taken concrete action to force Israel to comply with the memorandum’s terms.
"The mixed messages coming out of the White House," remarked Jeet Heer, a writer at The Nation, "are going to make it much harder to end the war, and could in fact spark further conflict."
'You Won't Have a Country': Trump Threatens Full Ground Invasion and Destruction of Iran Amid Hormuz Closure
One expert said Israel's continued assault on Lebanon, which led Iran to announce its closure of the strait, posed an "existential threat" to the ceasefire.
Rather than force Israel to halt its occupation in Lebanon in accordance with the memorandum of understanding, President Donald Trump on Sunday responded to Iran's announcement that it was closing the Strait of Hormuz with a new litany of psychotic threats—claiming that if the waterway were closed, he would blow up the country, launch a full ground invasion to take it over, and assassinate Iranian negotiators.
According to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Trump told the Iranian negotiators overnight that if they close the strait, which Iran claimed to have shuttered once again on Saturday, “you won’t have a country,” adding that they “won’t even make it back to their f***ing country,” in what appeared to be a threat to assassinate the negotiators, as happened during the initial phase of the war.
Responding to statements by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who said Iran would not give up its “right to enrich uranium” and that the US “will be forced to accept it,” Trump reportedly said Pezeshkian had better “watch his mouth” and “shape up,” or the US “will take over the rest of the country.”
It’s yet another sharp reversal from Trump, who—after months of claiming Iran must agree to “zero enrichment”—suddenly acknowledged this week that it was “common sense” for the nation to be allowed to have a nuclear energy program as other countries do.
Trump’s renewed threats against Iran, which mirror his genocidal threats earlier in the war to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” and “blow up” the entire country, also appear to violate the first clause of the memorandum of understanding, which calls on signatories to “refrain from the threat or use of force against each other.”
The threat to fully occupy Iran, which Trump made publicly for the first time on Sunday, stands in sharp contrast to his comments that continuing the war for much longer would cause “economic catastrophe” and that even limited ground operations, such as one he had proposed to seize Iran’s uranium, would be too big an effort to be worth it.
The war with Iran is already deeply unpopular among the American public, even without US boots on the ground. Polls have shown that even a majority of Republicans would be opposed to Trump escalating the war by deploying ground troops, and military officials have shelved planned operations to occupy certain strategic locations, including Kharg Island, fearing a large number of American casualties.
Nevertheless, Trump also told Yingst that the US could become the “guardian angel” of the Strait of Hormuz, collecting tolls and taking oil from countries using the waterway for exports. He did not make clear how the US would gain control of the strait under such a scenario.
Iran announced that it would close the strait again on Saturday after Israel deepened its occupation and escalated its bombing of southern Lebanon, despite the MOU’s ceasefire agreement covering all fronts.
Iranian negotiators have described an end to Israel’s Lebanon occupation, which has killed more than 4,000 people and forced more than 1.2 million Lebanese civilians from their homes in the south, as a red line for negotiating peace.
Behind the scenes, Trump has acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using Lebanon to sabotage the ceasefire and drag the US back into a full-scale war.
In the phone call with Yingst, Trump once again said he was “disappointed Israel can’t put Hezbollah away,” adding that Israel “can’t do anything without knocking buildings down.” He also said he was close to allowing Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa—the former leader of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate—to take over the operation against Hezbollah.
While this is yet another instance of Trump using harsher rhetoric toward Israel—which Vice President JD Vance has also done in recent days—there is no indication yet that he is willing to take the next step of forcing Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire agreement by imposing material consequences, such as suspending military aid.
Even as Israel’s attacks continued unabated and threatened to derail the deal entirely, Vance did not indicate that he thought the US needed to exert more pressure.
“I think Trump and the US have done more to stop the conflict in Lebanon than any government anywhere in the world,” he said at a press conference in Switzerland on Sunday.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, described Israel’s continued escalations as “an existential threat” to the peace process between the US and Iran.
He told ABC News on Saturday that Iran’s threat to close the strait just before a meeting in Geneva this weekend was meant to be “part of a background of how serious they are” about ensuring that the US understands the stakes if Israel refuses to withdraw.
“Israel would prefer for this war to continue until you have a complete defeat of the Iranians, which, of course, is not in the cards,” Parsi said. “The Israelis sold this war to Trump as a quick, easy fix to the region’s problems that would take no more than four days, and they were dead wrong.”
“Now, Trump is recognizing that US interests necessitate that he pull out of this war and strikes this deal, but the Israelis are trying to sabotage it because they are afraid they’re going to be left out, that the balance in the region is going to shift against their interests,” he added. “They’re willing to essentially jeopardize their relationship with the United States over this.”