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The internet was stunned on Monday after Vice President JD Vance confirmed that Iranians could gain access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund, one of the terms in the Iran agreement.In an interview with CBS, Vance described that component of the agreement and argued that Tehran hard-liners would emphasize the benefits of the deal and not what the country will have to give up to secure it."That's the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation," Vance said, adding that Iran would have to make concessions regarding the country's nuclear program, including oversight of it.Social media commentators and political experts were quick to question the agreement."Can we talk about the scale of problems that are going to arise from spending 300 billion? This is 500%-600% larger than the entire annual budget of the Iranian govt. It is one year of Iranian GDP *of the ENTIRE COUNTRY.* This is insane," Karl Rohe, Statistics Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote on X."Kinda makes Obama's giving back $1.7 billion of Iran's own money seem insignificant," Scott Greenfield, Criminal defense lawyer and blogger at Simple Justice, wrote on X."We are going to pay Iran $300 billion to rebuild from the war we started. Wrap your head around that when they claim that Trump is a master negotiator," Fred Wellman, a U.S. Army veteran and Lincoln Project communications strategist, wrote on X. "Oh, look. Trump’s deal is explained as providing no money for Iran…unless they stick with the deal. Which means, of course: IRAN IS GETTING MONEY under the deal. Yet, Trump said 2 months ago it’d already been agreed Iran would receive no money 'in any way, shape, or form,'" Joel Lawson, political strategist and former chair of Gender Action, wrote on X.We are going to pay Iran $300 billion to rebuild from the war we started. Wrap your head around that when they claim that Trump is a master negotiator. https://t.co/smHwEohk2z— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) June 15, 2026

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's jobs may be at stake if they continue to oppose President Donald Trump's Iran deal, a senior White House official warned.The threat emerged in a report published Sunday by the right-leaning Israeli daily Israel Hayom, which detailed a bitter internal White House battle over the emerging memorandum of understanding with Tehran."The debate has been settled. Those who oppose it may pay a personal price," a senior US official told the outlet.According to the report, Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump envoy Jared Kushner have driven the push for a deal, arguing the Iranian regime is unlikely to collapse soon and that Gulf states — particularly Qatar — have pressed hard for an agreement.Rubio and Hegseth argued the opposite: that Iran is buckling under economic pressure and Washington should tighten the screws, not ease them. The two men had been the public faces of that harder line — touting "Project Freedom," a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, only for Trump to shelve it hours after they publicly praised it.Trump has since sided firmly with the deal camp. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly warned that lifting sanctions would be nearly impossible to reverse, but the Israel Hayom report said his objections changed the terms only slightly."This is an American game being managed with utter foolishness…Trump is acting badly and against the American interest, not only the Israeli one," Oded Ailam, a former senior Mossad official, told Israel Hayom.Sanctions on Iranian oil sales are expected to be lifted — at least in part — after the Strait of Hormuz fully reopens, according to the report.

Outpouring of public grief for Lidia ‘Taty’ Almeida, leader of group of mothers that has marched every week since 1977The human rights activist Lidia “Taty” Almeida – who spent more than half a century searching for her son after he was forcibly disappeared by Argentina’s military junta – has died aged 95, prompting a public outpouring of grief.Almeida, 95, was the president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, made up of women who have marched around the square outside Argentina’s presidential palace every Thursday since 1977, demanding the return of children who were disappeared during the country’s 1976-1983 dictatorship. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump celebrated the tentative deal his administration reached with Iran Sunday to end the war, but according to one veteran journalist, the president’s troubles related to the conflict were far from over given the persistence of a key issue that risks reigniting the conflict.“Let the oil flow!” Trump broadly boasted Sunday after the tentative agreement was reached, adding that the Strait of Hormuz would be accessible to sea vessels immediately.As part of the tentative agreement, however, Iran has demanded that Israel halt its bombardment of Lebanon, which it’s currently occupying around 10% of. Israeli officials have instead announced they will not be withdrawing troops from Lebanon, likely ensuring continued attacks from Hezbollah, which Israel has vowed to respond to forcefully.“Ultimately, as those who announced the deal said, it’s only a ceasefire, good for 60 days while yet more talks take place,” journalist Martin Pengelly wrote in an analysis published in Zeteo Monday. “It’s not a nuclear agreement or a peace treaty. And new hardliners have emerged in Tehran, determined to make the U.S. suffer in response to this war of aggression. In other words, Trump made this mess; it’s still all over the floor, and he’s by no means free of it yet.”Israeli officials have been explicit in their threats to continue the bombardment of Lebanon, which since Israel’s most recent invasion of the country in March has killed more than 3,750 Lebanese, injured more than 11,600 and sparked a humanitarian crisis by displacing millions.“Trump's agreement does not bind us,” wrote Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, according to an automatic English translation from Hebrew. “Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation!”Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warned that “for every shot fired toward our territory, ten buildings will fall” in the Lebanese city of Dahiyeh.And Iran has been explicit in its demand that Israel cease hostilities with its northern neighbor in its negotiations, leading Pengelly – who previously worked for Raw Story as an investigations editor – to conclude that the U.S.-Iran agreement was far from settled.“Five days until a promised deal signing in Switzerland, after Trump has attended the G7 summit in France, is plenty of time for Israel to intervene,” Pengelly wrote. “The Israelis were not directly party to the talks that produced the U.S-Iran deal. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, discontent is widely reported.”

Trump's announcement of killing the leader of a Venezuelan gang carries a "chilling" detail, according to a legal expert.According to Trump, the U.S. military launched a "swift and lethal" strike against the leader of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that was a hot topic during the 2024 presidential election. Ryan Goodman, a chaired professor at NYU and editor-in-chief of Just Security, called out the details in Trump's Truth Social post announcing the strike.Goodman was alarmed in particular by a line of Trump's post calling the gang a "foreign army." "If they're this 'army,' what's the limiting principle for stopping that use of state lethal force?" Goodman asked. "More significant and chilling is how far you have to read down this Trump post to learn the individual was not extrajudicially killed inside the U.S."Additionally, he said the Justice Department's position on the Alien Enemies Act seemed to "fall completely apart," when the president said the strike was coordinated "closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well."Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act against Tren de Aragua in March 2025, claiming the gang acts as an arm of the Nicolás Maduro government. The designation, his administration claimed, allowed him to deport Venezuelan migrants without ordinary due process. A declassified U.S. intelligence assessment contradicted Trump's claim that Tren de Aragua operates under Maduro's control."DOJ position - and statute - requires TdA to be acting on behalf of Venezuelan government," Goodman noted.

The U.S. launched a military strike against the leader of a Venezuelan prison gang, Trump announced in a Truth Social post."At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren de Aragua," Trump wrote.Tren de Aragua was at the center of unfounded claims that Venezuelan gangs took over a Colorado city amid the 2024 presidential race. "Joe Biden opened our Southern Border to millions of Illegal Criminals," Trump wrote, adding that the strike was "coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela...Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela."

World Cup audiences showed their anger with the United States by booing renditions of the Star-Spangled Banner.Canadian spectators at a watch party jeered nonstop during the U.S. National Anthem at the opening of the U.S. versus Paraguay match in Los Angeles, according to a social media video.Those boos followed heckling and hissing as the U.S. flag came out during the opening ceremony of the Canada versus Bosnia match in Toronto earlier in the day, per more video.Trump was notably booed during his appearance at Madison Square Garden when the Knicks played the Spurs during Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

A young woman missing for nearly 11 years has resurfaced in Jeffrey Epstein's files, her name pitched to the convicted sex offender by an alleged recruiter now under investigation in France for human trafficking.A Der Spiegel and ZDF investigation published Friday identifies the woman only as Michele — her last name withheld at her family's request — who was 22 when she walked out of her mother's home in September 2015 and never came back. Her parents only learned her name was in the Epstein documents when reporters told them."I fear she's no longer alive," her mother Annett said. "That something was done to her."The man who apparently put Michele's name in front of Epstein was Daniel Siad, a Swedish modeling scout whose name appears nearly 2,000 times in the documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice. In one email, Siad described himself as a "fisherman" who catches women for Epstein across France, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe."You will love her," Siad wrote to Epstein, according to Der Spiegel — his second apparent attempt to broker an introduction, describing Michele in an earlier message as "the girl you missed from Germany."Michele's father, Vlado, says he once confronted his daughter after overhearing a call with Siad. "Michele said she worked for him as an escort," he recalled. An ex-boyfriend told the outlet he believed "her drug addiction was exploited."Siad is under investigation in France, where five complaints have been filed against him, including for human trafficking. Separately, two women — a former Swedish model and a German woman — have accused him of rape. Siad denies knowing them and says he has "never in his life" raped anyone. He denies all wrongdoing. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau has said around 20 suspected victims have come forward in the broader French Epstein probe, about 10 of them new.German prosecutors are expected to decide soon whether to open a formal criminal investigation into Michele's disappearance — a move that came only after Der Spiegel and ZDF published their findings. As recently as March, German police said they saw "no concrete indication of a crime," despite apparently being aware her name appeared in the files of a convicted sex offender.Her family is still waiting. "We just want to find her," her father said, "no matter what her situation."A second cell phone belonging to Michele has been sitting with German police for more than 10 years. Authorities told Der Spiegel a forensic analysis had not been possible for technical reasons — and that they now plan to try again.