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Pakistan says strikes were aimed at a terrorist group while Taliban condemn ‘cowardly act of aggression’Pakistani airstrikes in three eastern provinces of Afghanistan killed 36 civilians and wounded 163 others, Afghan officials have said, as attacks between the two countries showed no sign of abating.Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations on Sunday night were aimed at a terrorist group his country blamed for a deadly militant attack in Karachi that killed three security personnel over the weekend. Continue reading...

The Wall Street Journal editorial board lambasted President Donald Trump over his efforts to secure a durable peace deal with Iran.U.S. and Iranian officials have agreed to halt their attacks on one another and meet Tuesday to talk out their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, and the conservative newspaper's editors bashed the 80-year-old president for failing to keep the crucial waterway open – as it had been before he launched the war on Feb. 28."The best selling point for President Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran was that at least it opened the Strait of Hormuz," the board wrote. "Well, now the regime is trying to nullify those terms by using force against commercial vessels, Gulf states and U.S. bases. All of this violates the deal and calls into question why Mr. Trump signed it."The U.S. and Iran have traded strikes, and Trump has hyped what he called “gentlemen’s agreements” with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders to "turn over a new leaf," but the Journal's editors said the president was wrong to trust them."Well, these are no gentlemen," they wrote. "It’s the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought he had ducked. In case there was any doubt, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran is solely responsible for managing the Strait under the memorandum. He said 'no other country has any responsibility in that regard.'""Force is the regime’s means to make the world bend," they added. "Without it, shippers refused to heed Iran’s dictates for Hormuz during the deal’s early days."The editorial board wondered why Trump was willing to give Iran anything without an assurance that the strait would remain free and open."The U.S. needs the leverage for nuclear negotiations, and it was never wise to give Iran a blank check," the board wrote. "All the more so now that the regime isn’t respecting the deal, which mandates a cease-fire as well as Iran’s 'best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels.' That means don’t shoot at them, for starters.""More U.S. 'love taps' against Iranian targets won’t impress the hard men in Tehran," the editors added. "They behave as if they have escalation dominance because they think Mr. Trump won’t return to war before the midterm elections. They don’t believe Mr. Trump’s social-media bluster because they see his reluctance to enforce the cease-fire terms."

Tehran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait amid efforts to open strait of Hormuz without Iran’s direct oversightFresh hostilities in Gulf suggest US-Iran memorandum was too broadly wordedA new round of escalating strikes between Iran and the US has continued, further undermining the fragile interim peace agreement between the two countries, and prompting Donald Trump to threaten violence that would ensure Iran “will no longer exist”.On Sunday, Tehran launched drone and missile attacks against Bahrain and Kuwait after new US strikes on sites in southern Iran, and threatened a “complete halt” to negotiations to end the war. Trump said that a moment might come soon when he abandoned talks and the US would “militarily finish the job”. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump’s decision to launch his unpopular war against Iran earlier this year has already sparked a global “shift,” renowned economic professor Richard Wolff argued recently, one that also set the president on an imminent path toward total irrelevancy in “only a few months.”A professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and former professor at Yale, Wolff pointed to the recent progressive sweep last week in New York as evidence of his theory, and compared it directly with the civil unrest sparked during the Vietnam War that ultimately helped – at least, in part – bring about the U.S. withdrawal.“We're beginning to see a significant self-defined socialist presence in our political life, and because it is coming at the time of the Iran war – and at the time of heightened focus on Israel and Palestine – it's very important to understand that there's a shift going on,” Wolff said in a recent appearance on the podcast “Dialogue Works,” adding that the “shift” had extended to “international affairs.”“Not everywhere in the same way, but, in a number of districts where that was the issue, the vote of the people has clearly been in the direction of criticism of Trump, the war in Iran [and] Israel.”Wolff, whose Jewish parents fled Nazi Germany for the United States, has been a fierce critic of Trump, the U.S. war against Iran and Israel. However, it’s been only after the Trump administration’s continued failures in achieving its stated war objectives in Iran that his views have gained enough traction to drive a major “shift,” he argued, one that would also result in Trump becoming largely irrelevant – and soon.“People should also be aware that there's really only a few months left for Mr. Trump,” Wolff predicted. “Once those elections happen in November – if, indeed they happen – he will then be a lame-duck president. And, given how badly his situation has developed over the first part of this year, we are looking at a man who is facing political pressures that include losing support and moving ever-closer to a day after which his relevance will be sharply reduced.”

Vice President JD Vance delivered a warning to Tehran on Friday night after the United States launched a series of air strikes.The strikes came over a week after President Donald Trump signed a ceasefire deal meant to end the war. U.S. Central Command said its forces hit Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar stations. It called the strikes a response to an Iranian attack on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz.Vance responded to the attacks in a post on X."Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone," Vance said. "But violence will be met with violence."Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence. https://t.co/VWnBS1PWaV— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 26, 2026

The United States launched airstrikes on Iran on Friday, just over a week after President Donald Trump signed a ceasefire deal meant to end the war.U.S. Central Command said its forces hit Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar stations. It called the strikes a response to an Iranian attack on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz.That attack came a day earlier. Iran struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely with a one-way attack drone on June 25, as the vessel left the strait along the Omani coast.Trump said the drone hit the ship's upper deck, but it kept moving. He blamed Iran directly."Obviously, this is a foolish violation of our Ceasefire Agreement," he wrote on Truth Social."The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire," CENTCOM said, adding that Iran's behavior threatened the free flow of ships through the vital trade route.Trump signed the deal on June 17, starting a 60-day window of talks aimed at a permanent end to the fighting. The truce has looked shaky from the start.A central fight is the Strait itself. Iran insists it controls the waterway and can charge ships to pass. The United States and six Gulf states have rejected that.Roughly a fifth of the world's oil and gas moves through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices fell about 3% on Friday as traders weighed the conflicting signals.Trump warned this month that if Iran did not honor the deal, including keeping the strait open, the U.S. would probably go back to bombing the country.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) confused World Cup soccer and hockey during a live broadcast Friday on Fox News — and the internet didn't miss it.Jordan apparently mixed up the current FIFA World Cup with MMA and hockey, confusing the sports events in the interview. He was asked about the upcoming match between Team USA and Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1."I hope we go all the way to the championship and win it," Jordan said. "Golly, I mean, we're on a run. Look at the UFC fight where the American beat the Spanish guy in the main event. We're on a roll so let's hope the hockey team can do the same."The anchors did not correct him, but repeated that it was the World Cup they were referring to.Social media users mocked the MAGA lawmaker's comments."I love World Cup Hockey!" Mueller She Wrote, popular political social media account, wrote on Bluesky."You do not understand how f------ hard this made me laugh oh my god lmaooooo," writer Karlee Suszann posted on Bluesky."Jim Jordan on the World Cup: 'Look at the UFC fight where the American beat the Spanish guy in the main event. We're on a roll so let's hope the hockey team can do the same.' (The World Cup isn't a hockey event ...)," journalist Aaron Rupar wrote on X."LOL if you don't watch soccer, just say so and don't comment on it. Now Jordan looks like a dumb---," Marty Golingan, journalist and former OAN producer, wrote on X."It would definitely be bigger than the 'Miracle on Ice' if the US Hockey team wins the #FIFAWorldCup," journalist Robert Lusetich wrote on X.Jim Jordan on the World Cup: "Look at the UFC fight where the American beat the Spanish guy in the main event. We're on a roll so let's hope the hockey team can do the same."(The World Cup isn't a hockey event ...) pic.twitter.com/pSOjRS2p4D— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2026

Reacting to reports that Michael Boulos, who is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Tiffany, is being included in meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Middle East, MS NOW Host Stephanie Ruhle blurted, “Are you kidding me!?” and suggested something didn’t smell right.Bloomberg Opinion columnist and former Trump biographer Tim O’Brien agreed.“Michael Boulos, yes, I know you don't know this guy's name,” she began. “Rubio said he was just there to see me and to catch up. He also said that Boulos did not participate in any policy discussions. Are you kidding me? Okay, like, seriously? We are talking about a war, we're talking about peace negotiations, we're talking about meeting with international leaders and Donald Trump's son-in-law, Michael, just needed to catch on up with Marco Rubio? And this was the place to do it? How did he fly there? Who paid for that ticket?”“Let's put that meeting in context to the meeting with sheikhs,” O’Brien offered. “The UAE spymaster, a UAE power broker, a very wealthy man who invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the Trump family's crypto operations --.” "World Liberty Financial,” Ruhle helpfully pointed out. “The Trump White House lifted the sale of highly classified semiconductor chips to the UAE that the Biden administration had forbidden to be exported on national security grounds, because chips now are the stuff of military dominance, AI dominance and technology dominance, and they're valuable things to monitor,” he continued.“Marco Rubio is in this meeting with the same sheikh and he has Michael Boulos sitting there like a potted plant who has no foreign policy experience? I don't think has a security clearance,” he added. “Okay, he has been doing rather shifty things, according to the New York Times reporting around deals in the Middle East, also something hinky with a yacht sale to Jared Kushner, et cetera et cetera.”"The only thing Michael Boulos appears to bring to the table is a hunger to cut deals, some of which appear skeevy,” he claimed. “Why is he at the table? And then, when Michael Rubio was asked about it, he said I just thought it would be good for him to attend so he could watch me and hang out. — this is like Animal House.”“Animal House, was a silly movie about boys in a fraternity; this is a war,” Ruhle exclaimed. “This is our national freaking security.” - YouTube youtu.be