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City Electric: My Mayor Muslim, My Bagel Jewish
After the greatest comeback in NBA finals history - 29 points! - "the greatest shot in Knicks history" - Anunoby's last-second tip-in - some divine intervention - a Pope Leo jersey - and a smudging to erase the vile Trump stench, the New York Knicks are in sight of their first title in over 50 years. "Bedlam at the Garden!" ESPN exclaimed. And across the city, now a jubilant, unified sea of orange and blue watch parties, viral chants, rare hope against hope. One fan: "The city feels alive. Thank God for the Knicks."
The Knicks had won a remarkable 13 straight playoff games, last losing in April, before the seven-game finals against the San Antonio Spurs; of those, they won the first two, only to fall to Trump Disaster Syndrome - everything he touches dies - in the third. In Wednesday's nail-biter of a Game 4, they began their historic rally in the second half, chipping away at a seemingly hopeless 29-point deficit, gaining ground in the 4th quarter and, with a stunning 1.2 seconds left, taking it 107-106 after OG Anunoby gently tipped in a Jalen Brunson shot that ricocheted short. The epic win leaves the Knicks within one game of a championship they haven't won since 1973, when their city looked like this. Now, residents say, it's "electric."
The Knicks' success has created frenzied joy in a city beset by high prices, traffic snafus and years of sports heartaches - amidst which long-suffering Knicks fans, says one, "have endured, a specific species of human that should be studied." They also present a unified front in a city split between baseball's Yankees and Mets and football's Jets and Giants. New Jersey will host this year's World Cup finals, but its tribute to "the beautiful game," long plagued by scandal and corruption, is already marred by a racist regime hassling, interrogating or barring players, officials, journalists and fans from Somalia, Senegal, Haiti, Iraq, Iran and other dark-skinned locales, with a looming threat of ICE goons in attendance.
In contrast, the come-from-behind Knicks have done what sports at their best should: bring people together. New York's rush hour has become a vast sweep of blue and orange caps, jerseys, hoodies, with a “Please win before I die” t-shirt from Old Jewish Men. Strangers on streets and subways do a peculiarly New York call-and- response: “Let’s go Knicks!” to “Knicks in five!” Bar and neighborhood watch parties pop up, some using bedsheet screens. One was just held at a Brooklyn funeral home - "If things go wrong, there's room for grief" - with a poster board for fans to write the names of those they're missing, "just like the the guy down the street and the lady in the bodega...so people know they're not alone.
The finals have given a boost to legit pan-sports nerd - "New Yorkers can smell a phony" - Mayor Zohran Mamdani. A rabid Arsenals fan, he's heavily promoted the World Cup - choosing Morocco to win in The Guardian's Bracketology game - "The heart wants what it wants" - offering $50 tickets to 1,000 New Yorkers, celebrating the vision of Brazilian, German, Ecuadorians who will "watch together, celebrate together, shout at referees together - respectfully." With the Knicks, he's likewise praised how Knick fever has "lit this city up" and relished his role as head, albeit ambivalent, cheerleader against a common sports foe. Asked in April about a possible win, he said, "As a New Yorker, I can't wait. As the mayor? Absolute chaos."
Again, he's all in. As a candidate, he interviewed Knicks fans and made Go-Knicks videos. During the finals, he's turned up at watch parties, put hand-painted cutouts of former Knicks greats at City Hall, visited a Knicks-hued subway stop, touted the $90 million in revenues from each home game, sported a Knicks jersey under his suit jacket and signed a symbolic executive order repealing bedtimes for kids during the finals. While resale ticket prices to home games have obscenely soared to over $8,000, and many courtside seats are reportedly gifted to local celebrities, Mamdani shelled out $1,000 for a standing room only ticket to the Monday game - unfortunately, the one hijacked by the Narcissist-In-Chief.Like New Yorkers didn't hate him enough already, Trump's random, clueless attendance saw watch parties cancelled, hours-long lines, bags banned, fans and even players (understandable, given most are black) TSA-wanded, and a blocks-wide, NYPD-enforced "frozen zone" that turned the area outside Madison Square Gardens from "a showcase of unbridled humanity to a post-apocalyptic wasteland" - all for him to be thunderously booed as he smirked, saluted and promptly fell asleep until his granddaughter poked him awake. It probably didn't help when those who'd waited in line for hours also got to see fucking Jared Kushner, "patron saint of failing upward," respectfully, infuriatingly escorted in by police.
Before Wednesday's game, a fan thoughtfully burned sage outside the Garden "to remove the sulfuric stench and bad vibes" from Pres. Poopy-Pants' visit. The Knicks also reportedly got help from on high: From the three "Nova Knicks” - Brunson, Hart, Bridges - who graduated from Catholic Villanova, and Pope Leo XIV, who earned a math degree there in 1977. To ensure his blessing, die-hard Knicks fan Spike Lee had earlier worn a custom Knicks jersey - "Pope Leo #14" - he'd had "P🏀PE LE🏀" sign at the Vatican last year. Thus, the surreal 29-point comeback, and "the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball" - per OG, "right hand from God." The Nation's Dave Zirin: "With the Trump Stench Gone, the Knicks Make History."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
What Ben Stiller courtside called “the most insane comeback I’ve ever seen” left astounded fans and MSG staff roaring, leaping, open-mouthed with joy and shock. Within minutes of the buzzer, thousands of blue-and-orange-bedecked fans had surged into the city streets, chanting "Knicks in five!" and, in a few feral instances, "Fuck you Wemby!" A Knicks robot chased some Spurs fans, cops arrested a few rowdy fans, the Empire State Building glowed in orange and blue. The New Yorker's David Remnick couldn't sleep after "the greatest Knicks win ever" and OG's "most astonishing shot in franchise history"; he got up at 3 a.m. to grimly doomscroll on "the truth machine to see if this had really happened," and finally "realize it was true."
"Curb your enthusiasm," he warned, and yes, Larry David was courtside, thrilled. "At least a little." Remnick noted that Saturday is the fifth game, and anything can still happen. Fandom, he added, "is complicated, also mostly a matter of patience. Real fandom is about endurance and waiting." Likely nothing that MD Ahnaf Hossain, a 23-year-old Knicks fan and TikToker with smart marketing skills, doesn't know. Reveling in a moment of sportsmanship "bringing a type of love we haven’t seen in the city for a long, long time,” he created a hip-hop, Haiku-like anthem to celebrate its unity in toxic, racist, divisive times. “I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis,” Hossain said. “I just had to bring everyone together.”
His first "pure New York City poetry" came after the Knicks lost the third game. He wrote and recorded, "My mayor Muslim/My bagel’s Jewish/My Christian Dior/Knicks in four." It got over 7 million views. After Wednesday's impossible win, he filmed an updated version: "My mayor still Muslim/My bagel’s still Jewish/The pope’s on our side/Knicks in five." Meanwhile, his mayor, Mamdani, posted his own response to the win: “SPEECHLESS. LFGK,” aka "Let's fucking go Knicks." He also made a brief, giddy video. "The energy in our city is incredible," he said. "Time and again, people have doubted the Knicks. Time and again, the Knicks have proven the doubters wrong... I have just three words for my fellow New Yorkers. Knicks in 5."
Jun 12, 2026
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Lawsuit Aims to Halt Trump Giveaway of Wildlife Refuge to Appease Elon Musk's SpaceX
Several environmental organizations are suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service to stop the agency from handing over hundreds of acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge to Elon Musk's company SpaceX.
The complaint—which was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network—alleges that the government is violating federal law that requires any transfers of wildlife refuge lands to private ownership to result in net conservation benefits.
Instead, the complaint says the proposed deal with SpaceX would lead to a loss of more 715 acres of wildlife refuge land in exchange for 683 acres of private land.
Bekah Hinojosa, co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, expressed particular concerns about SpaceX building facilities on the land given that the company's rockets regularly cause environmental damage by exploding.
"Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands," said Hinojosa. "There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here."
Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, accused President Donald Trump's administration of handing over vital public lands to "the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets."
"We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands," added Jordahl, "just to give Elon Musk another payday.”
Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV, said that SpaceX's presence in the area has already been an "unmitigated disaster" for the local environment, and she warned the land transfer plan would "permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979."
"This corridor, running along the Rio Grande... is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal," Branch emphasized. "This will be a huge loss."
In addition to opposition from the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the proposed transfer to SpaceX has drawn significant opposition from some local residents. According to a report published last week by the San Antonio Express-News, more than 3,400 letters have been submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service expressing opposition to the transfer.
Musk, who on Wednesday was accused by politicians in the UK of stoking racial hatred that led to violent pogroms in the city of Belfast, is aiming to become the world's first trillionaire ty making SpaceX a publicly traded company this month.
Jun 10, 2026
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Trump's 'I Love the Inflation' Remark Seen as Latest Display of Contempt for Working Class
US President Donald Trump's remarks Wednesday expressing "love" for new inflation figures were seen as yet another callous dismissal of the economic pain facing the nation's working class as price hikes driven by the Iran war erase wage gains and make it harder for Americans to afford basic needs.
“You know who doesn’t love inflation, Mr. President?” asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rhetorically. “Working families struggling to afford gas, groceries, and other necessities because of your disastrous actions.”
Asked about the new inflation numbers in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said, "I love it, the numbers were great."
"I love the inflation," the billionaire president continued, celebrating figures showing that the Consumer Price Index hit a new three-year high last month.
Reporter: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?
Trump: No, I love it. I love the inflation. pic.twitter.com/vktX6C9lbk
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2026
Much of May's inflation was driven by increases in the cost of fuel, which is a direct result of Trump starting an illegal war of choice with Iran in February.
An analysis published by Ben Zipperer, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, found that the price increases caused by the Iran war have been so large that they've wiped out any prior gains in real wages during Trump's second term.
Zipperer also warned that "as long as the war continues, there is a heightened threat that price increases will spill over to the broader economy, triggering a more permanent increase in the cost of living and further reductions in real earnings."
Fresh data released Thursday by the BLS signals that inflation isn't slowing down anytime soon. According to the BLS' latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report, wholesale prices in May posted a yearly increase of 6.5%, the fastest rate since November 2022.
Because PPI measures input costs paid by businesses, it is usually predictive of future retail increases as companies pass the cost increases off to consumers.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) was among the lawmakers highlighting and condemning the president's remarks.
"Trump just said 'I love the inflation,'" Beyer wrote. "I guess he doesn’t care if you're being squeezed by higher costs as long as he and his cronies get richer."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media, "So there you have it: President Trump loves that you’re paying higher prices."
Andrew Mamo, a Democratic campaign adviser, said in an interview with The Hill that "every day the president says he loves something Americans clearly hate is a good day for Democrats."
In interviews with The New York Post published on Wednesday, multiple Republican strategists expressed concern not only about the rise in inflation, but Trump's apparently blasé attitude about the impact it's having on Americans' pocketbooks. The president's latest remarks came weeks after he confessed, on camera, that he doesn't "think about Americans' financial situation" as he wages war on Iran.
One former Trump campaign adviser told the Post that comments about "loving" inflation "are simply not productive unless he's looking forward to the impeachments from the Democrats in 2027."
Another GOP strategist told the Post that the clip of Trump saying he loved inflation would be "the centerpiece of a lot of effective ads" targeting Republicans this fall.
GOP strategist John Feehery went on the record to tell the Post that Trump needed to wrap up his war with Iran by early next month or "independents are going to swing hard against the Republicans in the election."
Jun 11, 2026
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Alarm Grows Over Vought Plan to Give Trump Cronies Control of Federal Grant Money
A Trump White House plan to give political appointees more power over federal grant money has sparked alarm among scientists, public health organizations, environmental groups, and others who fear that the proposal amounts to an attempt to subordinate critical funds to the whims of the president and his far-right allies.
More than 300 organizations signed a joint letter on Friday calling on White House budget director Russell Vought, the proposed rule's architect, to extend the public comment period that's set to end on July 13, warning that the "scope and impact of [the Office of Management and Budget's] rule is vast."
"The rule will impact the entirety of government grant-making across the United States," the groups warned. "OMB itself says the revisions suggested would relate to over $179 billion of funds to small entities."
Politico, which exclusively obtained the letter, noted that the "proposed rule has already garnered over 15,000 public comments, with many expressing alarm that the changes could undermine research across fields."
Under Vought's rule, federal agencies would be required to perform "pre-issuance reviews" of federal grants—funds appropriated by Congress—to ensure their distribution is consistent with "applicable law, federal agency priorities, and the national interest."
The rule lays out a number of standards that political appointees at federal agencies must screen for when deciding whether an organization can receive federal grant dollars. For instance, the rule would prohibit the distribution of federal grants to organizations that "promote anti-American values" or support "ideologies that deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans."
The New York Times reported that the consequences of Vought's rule "could fall hardest on health and science, a field in which [President Donald Trump] has pursued some of the steepest cuts in his second term."
"In exchange for federal assistance, researchers would face limits on the subjects that they can explore, the foreign labs with which they may collaborate and even the conferences at which they can appear," the Times noted. "Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, the chief executive of the American Public Health Association, a professional organization and advocacy group, said the policy could 'devastate innovation, science, and research' in the United States."
"This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans."
Earlier this month, Lawyers for Good Government and the Environmental Protection Network said that "if finalized, the rule would put senior political appointees in charge of approving and canceling individual grants, while stripping recipients of due process rights" while attaching "ideological conditions to nearly every federal dollar, raising First Amendment and equal-protection concerns."
The two organizations published a fact sheet warning that the proposed rule has the potential to halt billions of dollars in funding that communities across the US depend on for "health, public education, scientific research, public safety, and economic development projects."
“This is an executive power grab that would hand presidential political appointees unchecked control over more than a trillion dollars that Congress appropriated in the interests of all Americans,” said Jillian Blanchard, senior vice president for climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government. “Conditioning funding for critical programs on ideology and viewpoint discrimination, while erasing basic due-process protections, violates freedoms of speech, equal protection, and eviscerates Congress’ power of the purse.”
Democratic lawmakers have also sounded the alarm about Vought's proposal. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that she has given her Republican colleagues two opportunities to denounce Vought's rule—and they declined both times.
"Vought continues to attempt to steal from communities across the country. Now, he is trying to set a new political test on grants for a wide swath of the federal government," said DeLauro. "The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the denial of lifesaving disaster relief, funding for research into cures, the closure of Head Start offices, and more. If you are not loyal enough, if you speak out against this administration, the president and his cronies will take away resources Congress provided."
Jun 13, 2026
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Despite Court Protection Orders, Trump Admin Deports Refugees to War-Torn Central African Republic, Putting ‘Lives at Risk’
The US government advises Americans not to travel to the Central African Republic "for any reason." But it just deported nearly two dozen people to the war-torn country, including several refugees who fled persecution in other nations.
On Friday morning, Human Rights First's deportation flight tracker reported that a plane used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had landed in Accra, Ghana, after departing from Louisiana the previous day and was believed to be en route to the CAR's capital, Bangui.
Per The New York Times on Thursday, the administration was preparing to deport "at least two Iranian women who had sought refuge in the United States" as well as "migrants from Afghanistan and Syria."
According to their lawyers, several of the migrants had received court orders from judges prohibiting their deportation to their home countries, citing the risk of persecution there.
A lawyer for one of the Iranian women told the Times that neither of them has a criminal record and that they both have been granted court protection due to fear of threats to their freedom or lives if they returned to Iran. One is a Christian convert, and the other is a pro-democracy activist.
According to Reuters, just the activist ended up on the flight from Louisiana. But the Christian woman is still at risk, along with another Iranian national.
Human Rights First's @ICEFlightM is monitoring this egregious situation, and we urge our policy makers to decry this life-threatening flight and other deals that send people seeking safety back to the very harms from which they fled.
https://t.co/ABZZMTQNuS
— Human Rights First (@humanrights1st) June 11, 2026
The burden of proof to receive what is known as a “withholding of removal” status from an immigration judge is even higher than that needed for migrants to qualify for asylum.
Those seeking their deportations to be halted must demonstrate that it’s more likely than not that their life or freedom would be threatened if they returned to a specific country due to their race, religion, nationality, or political or social affiliation.
In order to get around orders protecting these migrants from deportation to their home countries, the administration is instead dumping them in what have been described as "third countries."
The flight departed on Thursday is the first US deportation flight to the CAR, which is one of the poorest countries in the world and is reeling from a civil war that's displaced more than a million people both inside and outside the country.
The country is under the State Department's highest travel advisory, warning US citizens not to go there "due to risk of unrest, crime, kidnapping, landmines, health, and terrorism."
This is the @StateDept travel advisory for the Central African Republic.
The United States—a self-proclaimed nation of refuge—is about to send refugees here. https://t.co/uxfexS5S73 pic.twitter.com/pvYyxIQHdN
— Sarah Pierce (@SarahPierceEsq) June 11, 2026
"People on this flight proved to a judge that they were likely to be persecuted in their home countries," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. "This is profoundly unjust."
Human rights law experts Anjli Parrin and Savi Arvey wrote on Wednesday for Just Security that the administration was putting "lives at risk" by sending these migrants to a dangerous country where they know nobody and where basic healthcare infrastructure hardly exists.
They said the administration's deportation of these migrants "is the latest example of its dangerous and potentially life-threatening strategy: using secretive deals with countries to expel asylum seekers and migrants with no legal or personal connection to the places where they are being sent."
"Since early last year, the US government has signed a growing number of third-country forced transfer agreements with over 30 countries worldwide to expel and deport people to places where they have no legal or personal ties," they said.
"These deportations are often carried out in secrecy and without any semblance of due process," they added. "Individuals are often not given any advance warning or the opportunity to challenge their deportation to a third country—with many only discovering they are being sent to a country they may have never heard of while airborne."
Emily Trostle, a lawyer for the Iranian activist, told Reuters that the migrants facing deportation to the CAR "have absolutely no connection to this place."
“These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection, and no support network,” she said. “We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled.”
According to Human Rights First's Third Country Deportation Watch, governments around the world have been given $44 million from US taxpayers to receive these migrants. More than 19,000 people, it found, have been deported across 24 countries.
Most of them have been sent to Mexico, but the US has also shipped migrants to some of the poorest, most unstable nations in sub-Saharan Africa, including Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Many have faced arbitrary detention and torture or been returned to the country where they fled persecution.
In order to avoid having to allow over 1,000 Afghans who fought alongside US soldiers to settle as refugees in the US as planned, the Trump administration is reportedly trying to ink a deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to take them instead, but the plan was stalled amid public backlash, and the administration is seeking other options.
It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war. https://t.co/JaN8z2LFI2
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 11, 2026
The Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said on Thursday that the deportation of Iranian nationals was a “potentially fatal action,” as they could face danger in the CAR or be sent back to Iran.
Another person scheduled to be deported to the CAR was an elderly man from Syria, whose immigration attorney, Margaret Stock, told the Times that he had scars all over his body due to torture in his home country.
He is a Sufi Muslim and feared persecution if he returned there, and is in danger of lacking access to care for his diabetes if sent to the CAR. According to Stock, he received an emergency temporary order halting his deportation.
Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee in charge of funding for the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration agencies, responded to the Times report on the deportations with outrage.
"It's hard to fathom how deeply evil this is, and that we have people running our country who get sick pleasure from sending women fleeing violence in Iran to an African country in the middle of a brutal civil war," he said.
Reichlin-Melnick agreed: "Evil is the right word for... taking people who are safe in the United States, who have proven to a judge they would be persecuted in their home country, and dumping them in a random country in the middle of a civil war."
"No previous administration would have done this, despite it likely being legal," he added.
Jun 12, 2026
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'Evidently Hoping to Sabotage' US-Iran Deal, Israel Bombs Beirut
Update:
US President Donald Trump, Pakistan's prime minister, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Sunday that the US and Iran have reached an agreement on a framework to end the war that Trump launched in late February.
Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the terms of the deal will be made public after the memorandum of understanding is signed on Friday in Switzerland. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrote on social media that "both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon."
The memorandum of understanding is expected to extend the current ceasefire agreement by 60 days while detailed negotiations take place.
Gharibabadi said the start of the 60-day negotiations will be contingent on the US lifting its naval blockade of Iranian ports, "ending the state of war and military operations," and "releasing Iran's frozen funds."
Earlier:
The Israeli military bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday just as Iranian and US officials voiced optimism that a diplomatic agreement is in reach, prompting accusations that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to derail the negotiations.
Israel's strikes reportedly targeted a five-story apartment building, killing at least three people, according to Lebanese authorities. Netanyahu said the bombing was a response to Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
The latest bombing of Beirut came hours after US President Donald Trump said he expected a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be signed as early as Sunday, potentially setting the stage for negotiations to end the illegal war Trump started in late February. Iranian officials have pushed back on the US president's claim that the MOU will be signed Sunday, but Iran's foreign minister said Friday that an agreement had "never been closer."
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Israel's new strikes on Beirut "threatened to hamper negotiations over a deal, which in its current form is a deep disappointment to Israel’s government."
"The last time Israel struck the Beirut suburbs a week ago, it set off the most serious escalation of fighting between Iran and Israel since the tenuous ceasefire took hold April 7," AP added.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote on social media that "as a US-Iranian deal seems like it might be closer, Israel predictably bombs the Beirut suburbs, evidently hoping to sabotage the deal."
"Why does Trump put up with this and continue to arm and fund such obstructionism?" Roth asked.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator and speaker of parliament, said Israel's strikes indicate that the US "either does not have the will or the ability to fulfill its obligations."
"You cannot gain concessions by giving [Israel] a green light," he added. "The good cop, bad cop routine has become old. If you do not have the will or the ability to fulfill your commitments, then there is no basis for talking about continuing down this path."
As the US & Iran reportedly near a deal that includes ending the war in Lebanon, Israel is attacking Beirut again.
Either Trump can't restrain Netanyahu, or the deal is already being violated before it's signed.
Either way, it undermines the deal's value for Iran. pic.twitter.com/v08c21i7wa
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) June 14, 2026
While the MOU that's reportedly under consideration has not been released in full, its broad outlines have been reported in media outlets and divulged by Iranian and US officials in recent days. Reuters reported Sunday that "a final draft of the memorandum of understanding with the US covered a range of issues, from Tehran’s nuclear work to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and US waivers on oil sanctions, with a final deal to be discussed in the 60 days following agreement by the two sides."
Under the MOU, Iran would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US would end its illegal blockade of Iranian ports, according to Reuters. The US would also agree to waive oil sanctions on Iran and release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets, while Iran would agree to "maintain the current status of its nuclear program, refraining from further uranium enrichment and expansion of nuclear facilities."
Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said in a television interview on Friday that the MOU's proposed 60-day ceasefire extension would include Lebanon.
Axios reported that Netanyahu has "found himself in the dark" as US-Iran negotiations have progressed in recent days, "calling allies close to the Trump administration to try and gather information."
Following Sunday's strike on Beirut, Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid that Netanyahu "has no fucking judgment."
"I passed this message on to him—that I am very unhappy with the attack in Beirut," said Trump, whose administration has approved billions of dollars worth of weapons sales to the Israeli government.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warned that "Israel will do more sabotage unless Trump imposes a cost on Israel."
"Netanyahu knows exactly what he is doing and is judging that an attack on Beirut—rather than southern Lebanon—is exactly what's needed to derail the pending US-Iran deal," Parsi argued.
Jun 14, 2026
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‘Bad Day to Be a Duck’: Trump Reflecting Pool Disaster Continues With Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment
"Is this what happens when you have zero scientists in your administration?" said one critic.
Jun 16, 2026
National Park Service employees on Tuesday were seen pouring a bleaching agent into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, apparently to kill algae that had sprouted up shortly after the completion of a $14.2 million renovation commissioned by President Donald Trump.
The bleaching of the pool was spotted by CBS News journalist Bob Kovach, who posted video of workers dumping 12% hydrogen peroxide into the water.
This morning at the reflecting pool pic.twitter.com/uygkbcn7Mn
— bob kovach (@bkovoDC) June 16, 2026
The pool in recent days has turned a bright green due to algae growth, which threatened to spoil Trump's effort to make it appear "American flag blue" ahead of the celebrations of the country's 250th anniversary next month.
As noted by The New Republic, 12% hydrogen peroxide is strong enough to "cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"Hydrogen peroxide is generally considered less environmentally destructive as its compounds readily break down in water," The New Republic added, "but the high concentration could nonetheless pose a risk to some of the pool’s frequent visitors, such as ducks or other birds."
Michael O'Brien, a Washington DC-based primary care pediatrician, expressed skepticism that the plan to dump bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool would succeed in fixing the algae problem.
"Y’all, not to be a huge nerd but for the reflecting pool you would need a minimum of about 8,000 liters of 12% hydrogen peroxide to reach the 50 parts per million concentration to kill algae," O'Brien wrote. "Is this what happens when you have zero scientists in your administration?"
NOTUS reporter Igor Bobic, upon seeing the chemical being dumped into the pool, remarked it was a "bad day to be a duck."
A Fox News reporter on the scene tried to put a good spin on the pool being green by pointing out that "there's pool guys cleaning it up," and then exclaiming, "No other president would do that!"
FOX: I'm here at the newly renovated reflecting pool. It's painted American flag blue. The Democrats will tell you there's green algae. There's pool guys cleaning it up. No other president would do that. pic.twitter.com/19MzxnEcq5
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 16, 2026
Trump's efforts to renovate the reflecting pool raised eyebrows even before it became overrun by algae. According to a Tuesday report in The Guardian, the pool was renovated by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a no-bid contract from the Trump administration after having "previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of the president's golf clubs."
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Canadian Youth, Groups Sue Over Carney 'Failure' on Climate Crisis
"Everyone in Canada deserves to be safe and healthy," said one organization leader. "Instead, our government is putting people at risk by dismantling key climate policies without a credible plan to reduce emissions."
Jun 16, 2026
"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."
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'Montana Plan' Targeting Corporate Money in Politics Secures Enough Signatures for Ballot
"More than 500 Montanans gathered signatures in all 56 counties, without a single paid signature gatherer, and blew past the 30,121 signatures needed to qualify. That is what grassroots democracy looks like."
Jun 16, 2026
In a direct challenge to the US Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and a potential model for the rest of the nation, Montana campaigners announced Tuesday that they had collected nearly 20,000 more signatures than required to force a statewide vote in November on a ballot measure to block corporations from dumping money into elections.
The high court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision opened the floodgates for companies and other organizations to spend unlimited amounts of money on US politics. If approved by voters, "The Montana Plan," as advocates in the state are calling the legal strategy behind the proposed Initiative 194, would "stop corporate and dark money cold" in Big Sky Country.
Initiative 194 would bar "artificial persons," including "nonprofits, trusts, partnerships, corporations, trade associations, or unincorporated associations," from "contributing anything of value to candidate elections, supporting or opposing political parties, or supporting or opposing state or local ballot issues." Violators would be "punished by forfeiting all privileges to do business in Montana."
The Transparent Election Initiative in March got the go-ahead to start collecting signatures to put the initiative on the ballot, and as of Tuesday, TEI's all-volunteer campaign had collected nearly 50,000 across all 56 counties, "far surpassing Montana's 30,121-signature statewide qualification threshold." As of last week, the Montana Secretary of State had already verified 34,906 of them.
"This campaign has been powered by Montanans from the very beginning," said Jeff Mangan, TEI's founder, in a statement. "To the out-of-state corporate and special interests trying to spread disinformation about who we are and what we're trying to accomplish: Look at the power of this volunteer army."
"More than 500 Montanans gathered signatures in all 56 counties, without a single paid signature gatherer, and blew past the 30,121 signatures needed to qualify," he noted. "That is what grassroots democracy looks like."
Mangan, a former Montana Commissioner of Political Practices, also acknowledged that "we know the road to November will be a tough fight."
Already, the campaign secured a key legal victory earlier this year, when the Montana Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge filed by "a group of corporations and industry groups—comprising the Montana Mining Association, the Montana Chamber of Commerce, Montana Stockgrowers Association, Montana Petroleum Association, Montana Trucking Association, Montana Contractors Association, Treasure State Resource Association and Billings and Kalispell’s respective chambers of commerce," as the Daily Montanan reported in April.
Mangan said Tuesday that "this is David versus Goliath. Corporate and special interests are going to spend millions of dollars on TV ads, mailers, and scare tactics trying to make Montanans afraid of their own power. But the way we win is the same way we got here: real Montanans, in real communities, having real conversations."
"Over the next six months, we're going to be everywhere—answering questions, sharing the facts, and looking voters in the eye," he pledged. "The Montana Plan is about a simple principle: Real people should govern, not artificial persons created on paper. A vote for The Montana Plan (I-194) is a vote to put Montanans back in charge of Montana elections."
TEI's announcement came a month after Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed into law a bill that also takes aim at the infamous ruling that corporations are effectively people in terms of political spending—legislation that Michael Beckel, who directs the Money in Politics project for the advocacy group Issue One, also called a "model for the country."
At the federal level, progressives have repeatedly introduced bills that would abolish super political action committees (PACS) and overturn the Citizens United decision—though, at least until the November election, both chambers are controlled by the GOP.
"Corporations are not people and money is not speech," US Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) stressed while introducing a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling last year. "In every election cycle since the disastrous Citizens United decision, we have seen more and more special interest dark money poured into campaigns across the country—this year, with a billionaire paying millions to buy a seat as Shadow President."
"My We the People Amendment hands power back to the people," she explained, "by finally ending corporate constitutional rights, reversing Citizens United, and ensuring that our democracy is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people—not corporations."
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