The News You Need on Monday, June 15, 2026
Peace Now? The multiple grifts on the White House Lawn, British intercept a Russian vessel and more.
Peace In Our Time?
The Washington Post
Charles: Donald Trump, a top Iranian diplomat and the leader of Pakistan announced a new deal to end the war in Iran on Sunday night.
Trump said he would end the American blockade of Iranian ports in exchange for the Iranians reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The Iranians’ Mehr News Agency said the U.S. was unfreezing $24 billion in Iranian assets during the next 60 days of talks, and the US and its allies must present a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran.
Neither side published the agreement which gave both sides ample leeway to deny all the parts they weren’t happy with.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif once again emphasized the new agreement included the ”permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” Sharif said the same thing when the last ceasefire was announced, but the Israelis kept right on trying to turn as much of Lebanon as possible into Gaza.
The Times reported that “Israelis across the political spectrum” denounced the latest agreement even before it was announced. Then Bibi did his very best to derail it by bombing the suburbs of Beirut.
Even J.D. Vance told Fox News on Sunday, “After the Israelis struck Beirut, we were very worried.”
The Strait of Hormuz
The Washington Post reported:
“The naval blockade against Iran will end immediately and completely,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a statement, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on social media that both sides “have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” and that an official signing ceremony will be on Friday in Switzerland. Mediators will hold a series of meetings this week, Sharif said.
The deal appeared to leave significant areas of disagreement unresolved and subject to further negotiations, especially Iran’s nuclear program and the wide range of U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Tehran. Gharibabadi said his government expected to discuss a full lifting of U.S. sanctions in talks he said would take place over the next 60 days, according to IRNA, a state-supported news agency.
Gharibabadi said those negotiations would only begin once Iran can verify that the U.S. has complied with the current agreement, which he said included unfreezing Iranian assets and lifting the naval blockade. U.S. officials, however, said Iranian assets would not be unfrozen until Tehran had demonstrated compliance with the agreement.
Neither side released the text of what they had agreed to. Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened on Friday to remove the mines that Iran has laid, which have obstructed shipping traffic and driven up oil prices for months.
Despite the question marks, oil futures prices began to decline on Sunday after the deal was announced.
UFC pays White House fighters in Trump crypto coins
The Guardian
UFC arena construction White House Washington DC. Photo: Edwad Johnson, Jun 5, 2026
Scott: The Roman satirist Juvenal ridiculed the propensity of Roman leaders to offer lavish entertainment to the masses to ensure their loyalty as “bread and circuses.” But Trump has considerably improved on this formula. While the $60 million operations budget for the event was paid by sponsors like Morgan & Morgan, Bud Light, Dodge Ram, Corona Extra and Polymarket, this does not include the costs of some seven federal agencies which oversaw the entire operation and furnished security for it. But as with his deal to license the renaming of the Palm Beach International Airport in his honor, Trump has found a way to profit privately from the entire entertainment. The Guardian reports:
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced on Friday that it will pay bonuses to fighters in a form of cryptocurrency issued by Trump family business World Liberty Financial at the heavily publicized White House mixed martial arts event on Sunday.
The development connects the Trump family’s financial interests to the high-profile UFC competition being promoted on government property. The competition on the south White House lawn is scheduled for 14 June, Donald Trump’s birthday.
The UFC said some fighters will receive bonuses in World Liberty Financial crypto called “stablecoins”, whose value is pegged to the US dollar. World Liberty named the currency “USD1”.
World Liberty is a venture of the Trump family and the family of Steven Witkoff, Trump’s friend and special envoy to the Middle East. The company is now listed as an “official sponsor” of UFC Freedom 250, the fight scheduled for Sunday. The use of its stablecoin in the fight would appear to boost efforts to have it used more more broadly.
As a Reuters special report documented, people who invest in Trump crypto lose their shirts, but the Trumps make out nicely every time their coins are used.
Sidney Blumenthal on All the Other Cage-Related Grifts
Charles: Guardian columnist Sidney Blumenthal explains how Trump pals like Larry and David Ellison stand to gain almost as much as he does from the Crypto connection to last night’s night’s fights.
For an $8.99 plus tax subscription fee, viewers at home can see the event on Paramount+, owned by Larry Ellison and his son David Ellison, who are seeking Department of Justice approval of the takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery, and who put CBS News under the unerring mismanagement of Bari Weiss.
The cage match is expected to leverage millions of subscription sign-ups, sell expensive commercials to corporate sponsors that want to curry Trump’s favor, and establish Paramount+ as a live sports competitor with Netflix and Amazon Prime.
In fact, Paramount+ has emerged as the home for all UFC events under a seven-year contract with the TKO Group. The deal has a projected annual value of $1.1bn. That agreement came almost immediately after the Trump justice department granted approval for the Ellison-owned Skydance company to purchase Paramount for $8bn.
A Republican lobbyist told NBC News about the Trump political operation’s frenetic activity surrounding the UFC event: “They are raising a shit-ton of money and have used it as another unofficial vehicle for corporate donors to give and gain favor with Trump.”
The night before the match, Trump is holding a $1m-a-person dinner at the Trump National Golf Club at Potomac, Virginia, for Super Pac Maga Inc.
British forces intercept Russian shadow fleet vessel in Channel
The Times
Ministry of Defence: British forces board a tanker of the Russian shadow fleet anchored in the English Channel
Scott: With the introduction of sanctions following its ground invasion of Ukraine, Russia developed a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, which the Kremlin operates through proxies to circumvent Western sanctions and price caps. Many of the tankers are staffed with Russian paramilitary personnel, and they have been linked by NATO intelligence services to drone incursions in Scandinavia, France, Germany, the Low Countries and the UK. NATO members have begun to clamp down on these clandestine operations, as witnessed by today’s boarding and seizure of one which was moored in the English channel.
Royal Marines commandos have boarded and seized a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the first operation of its kind.
In an intense six-hour mission in the early hours of Sunday, the commandos, along with specialist officers from the National Crime Agency, intercepted the oil tanker in the Channel. This is the first time such an operation has been led by UK forces. At least five other shadow tankers turned sharply away from British waters in the aftermath of the operation…
The Times understands the marines fast roped from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter. Video footage shows marines carrying KS-1 advanced 5.56mm assault rifles and searching the tanker.
British troops have been preparing for such a mission for months but were waiting for the green light from government departments that were caught up in red-tape and legal wrangling.
Dan Jarvis, who was promoted to defence secretary on Thursday night and is a former paratrooper, said: “Operations like this require skill, professionalism and courage. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel and all those involved.
“Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin’s illegal war.”
Far-right activist Tommy Robinson detained under terrorism legislation
Financial Times
Stephen Lennon-Yaxley, aka Tommy Robinson, at Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, London (2018)
Scott: Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon has used a number of aliases, most prominently Tommy Robinson, to cover up his long history of criminal convictions, including mortgage fraud, assault, threats of violence and contempt of court—for several of which he has served time. He is a major star of the English fringe-right nationalist scene and has mounted large-scale “nationalist” protests. He has a long history of unexplained connections with Russian intelligence operatives, appears to have taken money from them and travels not infrequently to Russia. Most recently he has been funded by two tech bros, Robert Shillman and Elon Musk, and has been aggressively boosted by JD Vance. As racist riots broke out in Belfast, Robinson was in a luxury hotel in Moscow, with Errol Musk, Elon’s father, preparing social media posts inciting protests which were promoted by Elon Musk on his X social media platform. Robinson’s dealings reflect a perfect demonstration of the confluences of forces behind the Belfast riots: US tech bros, British populist politicians, and the Kremlin and its intelligence services. When he returned from his latest jaunt to Russia this weekend, the Met Police were waiting for him.
