Trump's Memorandum of Understanding with Iran presents an unprecedented opportunity to reduce tensions and promote cooperation across the region. For this reason, progressives should stop denigrating the deal that Trump clumsily, but fortunately, stumbled into.

There is a concerted effort to undermine a potential peace deal with Iran. That is not surprising. What is concerning about it is that it is not only coming from the pro-Israel right but also from liberals and some parts of the progressive left.

There needs to be a sober assessment of the potential deal on the table, which is far from concluded. Right now, that isn't what we're getting.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) commits to only a few specifics. The rest is aspirational and depends on talks between the U.S. and Iran. There are many pitfalls, including the fact that, to the extent that any deal includes sanctions relief, the law gives Congress the potential to torpedo it.

As things stand now, there's every reason to believe it will do so, and that is because Democrats are not only blasting the deal while grudgingly accepting it as necessary to end the war, but they're being supported by liberal and even some more left-wing discourse in doing so.

The Israeli regime's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and war minister Israel Katz have openly declared that Zionist forces will maintain their illegal military occupation of parts of southern Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza "for as long as required," defying international law.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for combat officers in southern occupied Palestine on Thursday, Netanyahu stated that Israeli troops will remain in the so-called "security zones" across these territories indefinitely.

Katz reinforced the provocative stance, rejecting any pressure to withdraw and insisting that occupation of these areas will continue as long as the regime deems it necessary.

Katz said on Wednesday that the Tel Aviv regime "will not withdraw from southern Lebanon," even in the event of a request made by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

His defiance comes despite Article 1 of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding which explicitly requires the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon" and commits all parties to ensuring Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem says the resistance has reached a stage of "breaking the Israeli project," and the occupation has no choice but to fully withdraw from all Lebanese territory.

"We are now in a new phase in the history of Lebanon, its Resistance, its army, its people, and its future, a phase called 'Breaking the Israeli Project,'" Sheikh Qassem said in a televised address on Tuesday.

He said the project that sought to eliminate Hezbollah "militarily, politically, culturally, socially, and humanly" over the past two to three years had failed.

"This does not mean they will not try again or that there will not be other phases, but there was a major project called the military, political, cultural, social, and human elimination of Hezbollah, and erasing its existence and the existence of all those with it on the path to Greater Israel. This project has been broken."

Sheikh Qassem said the Israeli occupation has no choice but to withdraw entirely from Lebanese soil.

A federal judge in Boston has blocked key parts of President Donald Trump's March executive order that sought to impose new limits on mail-in voting and create a nationwide list of eligible voters using federal citizenship data.

The ruling, issued June 25 by Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, prevents the administration from enforcing the directives for the November midterms in the two dozen Democratic-led states and jurisdictions that challenged the order. Talwani found that no federal law authorizes the government to build the type of voter database outlined in the order or to use the threat of criminal prosecution to pressure state and local election officials into using it.

The March order directed the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to compile a national list of potentially eligible voters based on citizenship information and share it with states. It also called for new design standards for mail ballot envelopes and directed the U.S. Postal Service to create its own list of voters eligible to receive mail ballots.

The judge wrote that there was no US law that authorized the federal government to create the type of voter databases Trump had called for and to use the threat of criminal prosecution to "intimidate" state and local officials into using those lists.
- Bloomberg

Well, that didn't take long...
Back in April, Secretary Hegseth signed "Updated Guidance on Influenza Vaccination" making the annual influenza vaccine voluntary for all Department of War Active and Reserve Component Service members and civilian personnel.

Now, with the stroke of a pen, that policy has been gutted. Many of our military and Department of War civilians will once again be forced to take the annual seasonal influenza vaccine — their choice in the matter erased.

So much for medical freedom. After two months, the military has issued exceptions to policy (ETP) for the Army, Air Force, and Navy. New recruits in basic training, deploying and deployed forces, and healthcare and child‑and‑youth‑program personnel, among others, will now be required to roll up their sleeves.

Ironically, as detailed in my previous post on the flu vaccine, our troops are being commanded to take a product with highly questionable efficacy that may well leave them sicker.

Another 'bombshell' has been released by WSJ regarding the extent of the damage dished out by Iran onto US regional bases, corroborated by detailed new satellite photos:

The most shocking revelation from the report surrounded findings about the US's NSA (Naval Support Activity) Bahrain base, where the Fifth Fleet Headquarters are housed.

Less than 150 miles from Iran's southern coast, NSA Bahrain has been the anchor of American naval power in the Middle East for more than three decades. The base can host every type of ship in the U.S. fleet, and has played a critical role in countering Iranian weapon smuggling, minelaying and tanker attacks.

The Supreme Court sided with the maker of Roundup weedkiller Thursday in a ruling expected to block thousands of lawsuits alleging it failed to warn people the product could cause cancer.

The case came before the justices after a tidal wave of litigation that included some multibillion-dollar verdicts against Bayer, a German agrochemical manufacturer that acquired Roundup's original producer, Monsanto, in 2018.

The decision is a victory for President Donald Trump's administration, which argued in support of Bayer. But it provoked outrage from allies in the " Make America Healthy Again" movement who want to rein in pesticide use.

The high court, in a 7-2 ruling, held that Roundup cannot be sued in state courts for failure to warn because federal regulators have found a cancer link unlikely and do not require a warning label. Federal law also bars states from imposing additional or different labeling requirements, the opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh states.

On the night of June 21, 2026, as Colombia's preliminary vote count rolled in showing far-right candidate Abelardo De La Espriella ahead of left-wing Iván Cepeda by less than one percentage point, the narrowest margin in any Colombian presidential runoff in recorded history, something happened that most international outlets buried under boilerplate electoral procedure. Colombia's outgoing President Gustavo Petro went on the record, in public, with a specific technical claim concerning IP addresses of multiple servers belonging to Colombia's National Registry, which he maintained had been changed mid-count. He accused external actors of having used that access to write results directly into polling station fields and named the entity he holds responsible. Not a rogue hacker. Not Russia. Not a domestic cartel, but the State of Israel.

That accusation was processed by the global press as a conspiracy theory, a sore loser's cry, an embarrassing parting shot from a leftist president on his way out the door. Reuters filed it under "Petro refuses to accept results." El Colombiano ran the headline: "Petro, without arguments." The story was managed, packaged, and shelved within 48 hours, precisely as AcidReport had documented that the three industrial conglomerates owning 57 percent of Colombia's cross-media audience would inevitably do. Three conglomerates whose balance sheets depend on the stability of the financial and legal order that a big corporate De La Espriella government will now protect.

Scotland Yard has announced plans to install live facial recognition cameras throughout London's West End before the end of the year.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that fixed surveillance equipment will be positioned across Soho, near theatre venues, and in major retail areas by December.

Officers will retain the flexibility to relocate the cameras should criminal activity patterns change across different locations.

The force described the initiative as "transformative" for some of the capital's busiest and most crime-affected neighbourhoods.

A new generation of Ukrainian mid-range drones is severely disrupting the Russian military's supply lines to the southern front lines, striking bridges, trains and fuel trucks - and giving Kyiv a chance to derail Moscow's plans for a summer offensive.

Video and images of about 150 strikes against Russian fuel tankers, trucks and other vehicles have been geolocated and analyzed by French open-source analyst Clément Molin and the volunteer-run OSINT group Geoconfirmed, as well as CNN's OSINT team.

It's likely that many more strikes have gone unrecorded. Most have occurred since the beginning of May, in addition to a surge in strikes on other targets such as port facilities and ships.

With a range of 50 to 300 kilometers, the drones, all made in Ukraine, are designed to throttle the Russian army's logistics - adding a new dimension of strikes to Ukraine's strategy as the war grinds through its fifth year.

Among the newly designed drones are the FP-2 and the Behemoth, which has a cruising speed of 180 kmh (110 mph) and can carry a 70 kilogram warhead.

Ukraine sets its sights on Russia's military supply lines

The number of mid-range strike missions in the past year has risen 28-fold, according to Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces. Their aim is to disrupt supplies headed to enemy forces and to wipe out air defenses in occupied areas to open "corridors" for longer-range Ukrainian drones.
"The Ukrainians have obtained the means to start a large-scale drone campaign to cut Crimea from its main supply roads and to complicate Russia's logistical situation throughout the frontline," Molin told CNN.

In a statement to CNN, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, the military branch which runs its drone operations, said that over the past year the number of mid-range strike missions had risen 28-fold.The aim, it said, is to suppress Russia's offensive potential; create insurmountable logistical and supply problems for enemy forces; and wipe out Russian air defenses in occupied areas to open "corridors" for longer-range Ukrainian drones.

The drone strikes have made several routes between Russia and occupied Ukraine too dangerous to use. The knock-on effect is a shortage of fuel and munitions for Russian frontline troops in southern Ukraine, further disrupting Russian President Vladimir Putin's wartime goals.

A highway between Crimea and the city of Melitopol, occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the war, is littered with burned-out trucks and tankers, according to geolocated video. There are also persistent fuel shortages in Crimea.

Ukrainian drones have taken aerial control of three highways running along the coast to Crimea, according to analyst Mick Ryan, author of the blog Futura Doctrina and formerly a senior officer in the Australian army.

"Petrol tankers and lorries are regularly set alight," acknowledged one Russian military blogger. "One by one, the links connecting the peninsula to the mainland are being severed."

Extended 'kill zones'

Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov calls it a "logistical lockdown" to "systematically destroy Russian capabilities" far behind the front lines and "deprive them of the ability to conduct active assault operations."

"The enemy will no longer feel safe, even at a considerable distance from the line of contact," Fedorov said last month. Molin's research suggests the strategy is working.

Ukraine has redefined the depth of the "kill zone," he said, after mapping hundreds of Ukrainian strikes extending up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the front lines.

"Roving munitions that fly over key routes and target Russian logistics, particularly military equipment and fuel trucks," have also been highly effective, Molin said. Twenty trains have been targeted since January 2026, many of them fuel trains, spread across the entire front, he added.

Other researchers see a similar pattern. "Geolocated footage in May similarly shows Ukrainian forces striking at least 35 Russian trucks and other vehicles near highways" in Crimea and elsewhere in southern Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

One example is the most important road route linking Crimea with occupied Ukraine - which uses a bridge near a village called Chonhar. A Ukrainian drone unit has repeatedly struck the bridge and published images of large holes in its road surface.

The Russian-backed administration in the occupied Kherson region has acknowledged damage to the Chonhar and other bridges - with traffic repeatedly suspended and inefficient pontoon bridges set up to replace them.
Russian air defenses have appeared incapable of dealing with the threat. Freight traffic using the Chonhar bridge declined 71% in just two weeks this month, according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's drone forces.

The targeting led the Russians to use an alternative route, according to the Ukrainian military, with a large number of trucks carrying military supplies sent further west. That route - through the city of Armiansk - was also hit.

"At that point, around 50 vehicles had gathered there," said Dmytro Filatov, commander of Ukraine's 1st Separate Assault Regiment. The persistent strikes mean that another bridge, linking Russian territory with Crimea across the Kerch Strait, is now an even more critical artery.

Ukraine's attacks "have increased the importance of the Kerch bridge for sustaining logistics to Crimea. I suspect Ukraine will try to target the bridge with Ukrainian-made drones or missiles," wrote analyst Rob Lee. The Kerch road and rail crossing, opened by Putin in 2018, has been the target of previous Ukrainian attacks.
No-go routes

Some highways running from Russia into occupied Ukraine are now off-limits to military traffic because of the threat from these mid-range drones.

Russian-backed authorities in occupied Luhansk announced a halt to traffic on two highways from Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don in Russia, critical routes for resupplying the military and occupied territories. "Attacks on the region's transport infrastructure have become more frequent recently," it said. Ukraine has also begun targeting the port of Mariupol - a strategic and industrial hub on the Sea of Azov in occupied territory.

The port has "been completely cut off from power, and the logistics of Russian troops have been significantly hampered," claimed the Ukrainian National Guard, which published video of multiple drones striking the port area earlier this month.

Russian military bloggers are unhappy at what they see as the Russian Defense Ministry's sluggish response. Ukraine's campaign "is knocking out oil refineries in the south, creating fuel and logistics problems, and now the enemy is grounding civilian aviation with 'caravans of drones,'" wrote one of the most popular bloggers, Two Majors.

The disabling of Starlink satellite connections among Russian forces has also helped the Ukrainian campaign. But analysts, as well as some in Ukraine's military, acknowledge the advantage may not last long.

"Ukraine likely has a unique and time-constrained opportunity to exploit its current initiative while Russian forces remain vulnerable," according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Even so, in Ryan's view, Ukraine's three tiers of drones - on the battlefield, against supply lines and deep inside Russia - "increase pressure on Russian forces, degrade their offensive capabilities, and shape the battlespace for future Ukrainian offensive operations."

Russian forces in southern Ukraine have already lost ground this year, partly because of the greater vulnerability of their supply lines compared to those further north.

"The capability to control everything moving through the southern part of the occupied territory, particularly from Crimea" is within reach, according to independent Ukrainian analytical group Deep State. putting Russian forces in the south on a "starvation ration."