Headlines for June 12, 2026

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Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman

President Trump is claiming a deal has been reached to end the war with Iran, but Iranian officials say nothing has been finalized yet. Trump made the announcement on Thursday following two days of strikes and after threatening to take Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil hub. Trump spoke at the White House on Thursday.

President Donald Trump: “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran, and we’re going to be subject to finalization of documents. We should get done over the next few days.”

Trump went on to say a signing ceremony could be held in Europe in the coming days. A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the text of a deal is “mostly finalized,” but also said that the U.S. keeps “changing their positions.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel was not party to any new U.S.-Iran agreement.

On Thursday, U.S. forces struck another commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman in the third U.S. attack on a boat in the region this week. Oman’s military led efforts to rescue the sailors. India has condemned the strikes, which have all targeted ships with crews from India. Three Indian sailors died in one of the strikes. U.S. Central Command claimed the three boats were targeted for violating the U.S. blockade of Iran and for failing to comply with U.S. orders.

In India, the father of one of the sailors killed called for his son’s body to be returned home.

Rajesh Sharma: “I only have one demand, that the mortal remains of my son be brought back. I want to know about his last moments. Was he provided rescue help or not? What were the circumstances that led to the death of three crew members of our country? All others were rescued. Why not them?”

Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire when his rocket company SpaceX makes its debut on Wall Street today in the largest IPO in history. The company says it is selling over 555 million shares at a price of $135 a share. Musk claims his company is worth over $1.7 trillion.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has written to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for the agency to investigate the SpaceX stock sale. She said, “This is shaping up to be the most rigged I.P.O. in American history.”

Meanwhile, environmental and conservation groups have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block a land swap that would give SpaceX more than 700 acres of a national wildlife refuge in South Texas. This is Bekah Hinojosa of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network.

Bekah Hinojosa: “SpaceX getting more money means the rocket facility getting larger, creating more damages to poor people’s homes, dumping more pollution into the environment, onto our beach. The SpaceX IPO means a bigger environmental disaster for this South Texas community.”

President Trump said Thursday he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence to oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. Clayton is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trump had faced bipartisan criticism for his decision last week to name MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence after Tulsi Gabbard announced she was resigning. To show opposition to Pulte, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers voted Thursday against a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The provision is set to expire today. Many expressed fear Pulte would use the provision to gather intelligence to target critics of Trump. Trump’s new pick to be intelligence chief, Jay Clayton, has faced criticism as U.S. attorney over his handling of the unsealing of grand jury materials, records related to Jeffrey Epstein.

The family of the Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya say they fear he is being tortured in Israeli detention after the doctor appeared by video link at an Israeli Supreme Court hearing in Jerusalem. One of the doctor’s sons, Ilyas Abu Safiya, told Al Jazeera, “We did not only see the face of a father we have missed for many long months, we saw the marks of torture, pain and exhaustion clearly etched on his face.” Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya has been detained without charge for over 500 days. Prior to his detention, Dr. Abu Safiya had served as a pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. His lawyer, Nasser Odeh, spoke after Wednesday’s hearing.

Nasser Odeh: “The doctor explained to us and also to the court that he is still suffering from severe back pain and neck pain as a result of an assault he suffered during his transfer two months ago from Nafha Prison to Negev Prison. He has not received treatment yet and needs medical follow-up due to chronic illnesses. He is experiencing vision problems due to the confiscation of his eyeglasses, which he has not yet received. Also, we continue to see signs of skin diseases that were on the doctor’s hands and are widespread in the political prisoner sections within Israeli prisons. These diseases have spread significantly and as a result of medical negligence.”

The Trump administration has issued fresh sanctions on Cuba’s oil and gas company as the island already faces a near-total fuel and naval blockade and worsening humanitarian crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement Thursday, claiming without evidence that Cuban officials “resell countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military.” In response, Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on social media, “The US Secretary of State, driven by … the vindictive sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, is now further tightening the [blockade]. To justify this, he doesn’t resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but rather to the usual vulgar lies.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a growing political crisis. On Thursday, Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns resigned, accusing Starmer of failing to invest enough money in the military. This comes as Starmer faces pressure to shift government spending from welfare to warfare.

Protests continue in Albania with thousands of people taking to the streets of the capital Tirana demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama over the development of a massive resort linked to Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. The multibillion-dollar project would turn an abandoned Soviet weapons base, known as Sazan, into a luxury island resort. Protesters held signs that read “Albania is not for sale.”

Sara Bregasi: “The government is corrupted. The opposition is corrupted. They’re in this together. So, we hope we can reach something. It’s the first time that we protest, the protest is at this scale. It’s the first time that no political party is included. So, we are very happy to be here, and we hope we can achieve something.”

Pope Leo has appealed to world leaders to treat migrants more humanely. During a trip to the Canary Islands, he threw a wreath of flowers into the waves to remember those he called “our brothers and sisters” who had died while trying to reach the shores of Europe.

Pope Leo XIV: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead. Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border. May history not accuse us of turning the pain of those who suffer into a common sight along our shores. Today, here by the sea, every individual that arrives asks us what remains of our humanity. Sooner or later, it will be known whether we protected life or whether we yielded to indifference.”

Many migrants who had fled to Spain’s Canary Islands praised Pope Leo’s trip. Sankoun Camara is a migrant from Guinea.

Sankoun Camara: “It gives you hope. The pope came for the migrants. I’m one of them, so I’m happy to see the pope. Maybe he can solve the migrants’ problems.”

In New Jersey, immigration rights advocates say dozens of women detained at the Newark ICE jail known as Delaney Hall have joined an ongoing hunger and labor strike that is in its third week. Among their demands is for the facility to fire a female guard accused of sexually assaulting at least 10 immigrant women. The initial hunger and labor strike began on May 22, led by an estimated 300 detainees. In retaliation, activists say most of the hunger strikers have been transferred out of Delaney and sent to other ICE jails in recent days. Delaney Hall is run by the for-profit company GEO Group.

In related news, the Jersey City Council has unanimously approved a resolution to divest from Citizens Bank as calls to boycott the bank grow over its financing of GEO Group and CoreCivic, two of the nation’s largest private operators of ICE jails.

The State Department has reportedly opened an investigation into the Iranian-born political analyst Trita Parsi in a move that could result in him being deported, according to the online media outlet The Free Press. Parsi, who holds a green card, has lived in the United States for 25 years. He co-founded the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the National Iranian American Council. In recent months, Parsi has been a leading critic of Trump’s war on Iran and has appeared on numerous media outlets, including Democracy Now! Click here to see our interviews with him.

The FIFA World Cup kicked off Thursday with the opening match played between Mexico and South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Protests have continued against FIFA over its complicity with Trump’s policies and exorbitant ticket prices that have made matches inaccessible to most fans. FIFA has also faced backlash after Haiti’s qualifying team was forced to change the design of its World Cup jersey when it was deemed too political by FIFA. The front of the jersey originally included a depiction of Haiti’s final revolutionary battle for independence in 1803.

In a victory for housing rights in New York City, a landlord that owns about 5,000 apartments has agreed to waive millions of dollars in back rent after Mayor Zohran Mamdani took action on behalf of thousands of tenants. Summit Properties purchased 93 buildings from bankrupt owner Pinnacle Group in March. Many of the tenants said they had for years refused to pay rent to the Pinnacle Group over unsafe living conditions in their buildings. Mayor Mamdani said the landlord was responsible for “more than 5,000 housing violations and 14,000 complaints.” Affordable housing and tenants’ rights have been at the center of Mamdani’s agenda.