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Tonight marks The Way Home's Season 4 finale.

It wasn’t the start to the World Cup that anyone expected for Spain.

How a "Cary Grant-ish" New Yorker taught studious types to outwit the Nazis.

Poland Revokes Top Award From Zelensky As Row Over Nazi Symbolism Deepens

Poland and Ukraine's ties continue to fray, worsening an ongoing diplomatic crisis - despite Warsaw being an 'eastern flank' key NATO ally in the broader Western campaign against Russia. 

President ​Karol Nawrocki has just announced the country's highest state honor previously awarded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been revoked. 

"In light of President Volodymyr Zelensky's consent to name one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine 'Heroes of the UPA,"... I have decided to revoke the Order ⁠of ⁠the White Eagle from the President of Ukraine," Nawrocki said in a statement. According to more of the statement:

Polish President Karol Nawrocki branded Ukraine's decision late last month to name the unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) "outrageous", "incomprehensible" and "deeply disappointing".

For Warsaw, uplifting this name is tantamount to backing a Nazi-orchestrated genocide against the Polish people:

For Poland, the UPA, or the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, is responsible for a campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing in the 1940s that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia (known as Volyn in Ukrainian and Wołyń in Polish), a historic region with deep Polish and Ukrainian roots. This violence also systematically targeted Jewish survivors who had escaped the Holocaust.

Amid the diplomatic dispute sparked by the renaming, the Polish government is still promising not to let the issue steer its thinking on Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union. It is pledging to remain objective related to examining Ukraine's status.

Ironically this highly symbolic diplomatic slap in the face aimed at Kiev comes ahead of a conference on Ukraine's reconstruction in the Polish city of Gdansk.

That Poland is still hosting this high-level conference suggests that Poland is not willing to cut off its overall diplomatic and military support to Ukraine amid the war with Russia - but it is perhaps an early sign that things are headed in this eventual direction. 

Ukrainian Foreign ​Minister Andrii Sybiha has made his country's outrage known - though is still trying to make nice given it needs the military support - responding to the Polish presidency by saying Warsaw committed ​a "strategic error" in revoking the state award.

President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki's decision regarding the stripping of the Order of the White Eagle from President Zelensky:

Decyzja Prezydenta RP Karola Nawrockiego w sprawie odebrania Orderu Orła Białego Prezydentowi Ukrainy Wołodymyrowi Zełenskiemu. pic.twitter.com/8gr1iRhM3y

— Kancelaria Prezydenta RP (@prezydentpl) June 19, 2026

"The decision to strip the president of Ukraine ⁠of the Order of the White ​Eagle is a ​strategic ⁠error ‌by ‌the President ⁠of Poland ‌that ​only benefits ⁠Moscow," ⁠Sybiha wrote ⁠on ​Facebook.

Poland also has other pressing concerns, not the least of which is the immigration and war refugee issue. Poland has throughout over four years of the Ukraine war had to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees and war-displaced families.

A future where Ukraine could become part of the EU might prove a major drain on Poland's own struggling economy and resources.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 07:35

Britain's Greatest Betrayal: The Rape Gang Inquiry Report

Authored by Celina via American Greatness,

Rupert Lowe’s Rape Gang Inquiry Report opens with two quotations before a single piece of evidence is presented.

The first is Albert Einstein’s observation:

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Human history has always contained violent and predatory men, every society has had to confront them, punish them, and do its best to protect the innocent from them. That is a perennial feature of the human condition. Yet the significance of Einstein’s quote is that it shifts our attention away from the perpetrators alone and towards those who witnessed wrongdoing and failed to stop it. This report is so horrific because it illustrates how people who were supposed to protect vulnerable children failed to act. The report argues that those crimes became possible on such a scale because too many others looked away.

The second quotation is from Friedrich Nietzsche:

Man is the cruelest animal.

Nietzsche explains the existence of the perpetrators, Einstein explains the existence of the scandal. Throughout the report, readers encounter testimony describing acts so degrading and sadistic that they transcend ordinary criminality. This article will start with one such story.

At 12 years of age, a girl identified in official records only as Chloe was abducted by an adult male who drove her to a secluded, darkened graveyard. Once there, he supplied the child with an entire bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. He then forced himself upon her, pinning her down in the darkness and raping her. Withdrawing just before ejaculation, the man picked up the emptied glass whiskey bottle and violently forced it up inside the 12-year-old child’s body until it shattered.

When Chloe eventually arrived at a local Accident and Emergency department, bleeding and in a state of unfathomable physical and psychological shock, the medical staff attended to the immediate anatomical emergency. They placed her on a table, removed the shards of shattered glass from deep inside her body, and then, according to the official records, they simply discharged her. No probing questions were asked, no police officers were summoned to the hospital ward to take a statement, no urgent safeguarding referrals were initiated to remove her from harm. A child had presented with injuries unmistakably consistent with extreme, sadistic sexual torture, and the institution specifically tasked with her care patched her up and sent her back out into the night.

Elsewhere in the country, a young victim named Michelle endured a reality of comparable horror. Michelle was subjected to an industrial scale of violence, repeatedly gang-raped in local bin sheds and threatened into terrified submission with a knife and forced into sex with multiple men waiting in cars. She was drugged, beaten, burned with cigarettes, locked in rooms, and passed between men. Of her abusers, she states: “98 percent of them were Pakistani Muslim. If not, they were Iraqi Muslim or Kurdish.” One of the most chilling details of Michelle’s ordeal occurred inside a police station. When the authorities finally became involved, the system failed her with such spectacular absurdity that police officers permitted one of the very men who had been violently abusing her to sit beside her during proceedings, officially accepting her rapist as her designated “appropriate adult,” a legal role exclusively designed to protect the welfare of vulnerable minors.

What Actually Happened

The history of group-based child sexual exploitation in the United Kingdom stretches back generations. While Alexis Jay, the independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection, previously identified the 1970s as the era when immigrant rape gangs first began operating in Britain, the Inquiry traces the first recorded case of a specifically Pakistani rape gang back to 1955 in Bradford, shortly after the British Nationality Act of 1948 altered the nation’s demographic makeup. However, the report highlights that the scale of these crimes expanded exponentially from the late 1990s onward, mutating from isolated local incidents into an industrialized, nationwide criminal enterprise.

What emerges from the Inquiry’s findings is the standardization of the abuse. The report confirms that these networks operate, or have operated, in at least 149 local authority districts, representing nearly 40 percent of all such districts across the United Kingdom. Britain quite literally faced a single, cohesive national model of modern-day child sex slavery.

The Victims

Reading the Rape Gang Inquiry Report is to descend into an abyss of human suffering. The abstract statistics of 250,000 victims, 149 districts, decades of cover-ups cannot adequately convey the reality of the crimes. The emotional and moral heart of the report is truly in the testimonies of the survivors, who detailed the complete annihilation of their childhoods and the lifelong shadows cast by their exploitation.

Fiona: The Care Home Pipeline

Emerging from a household marred by domestic violence and her mother’s repeated suicide attempts, Fiona was placed into state care. Tragically, this environment functioned as a heavily stocked hunting ground for the ethnic gangs. Fiona was trafficked across multiple UK cities. The networks utilized extreme violence to ensure total compliance. Fiona was forced not only to endure sexual torture but to act as a courier for drugs and to clean up the blood and knives from the scenes of fatal stabbings. The abusers bragged to her about hiding dead bodies in specific locations, facts that Fiona later saw corroborated by local news reports of recovered corpses.

At 14, Fiona fell into the hands of a man known as “Rambo,” an illegal immigrant who had reportedly been castrated in Pakistan as a punishment for child abuse before fleeing to the Philippines, where he allegedly attacked women and children with a machete, eventually arriving in Britain. Rambo locked Fiona and another girl in a room, subjecting them to extreme sexual torture that, according to the Inquiry, illustrated how the abuse was often driven more by sadism, racial humiliation, and absolute control than by just sexual gratification.

At 15, while living in a mixed-sex state care home, Fiona became pregnant. The state removed her infant son for adoption, citing the “ongoing exploitation risks” present in her life, yet deemed it acceptable to leave the 15-year-old mother behind in the exact same care home, fully exposed to the gang that had impregnated her. She estimates she was abused by between 50 and 100 men, all but two of whom were of Pakistani origin, before the abuse ceased only when she aged out of the system at 18, leaving her with chronic physical injuries, substance dependency, and complex PTSD.

Michelle: Industrial Scale of Violence

The report contains a litany of similar horrors, but the testimony of Michelle highlights the industrial scale of the abuse and the collapse of authority. Michelle detailed a relentless pattern of violence, describing how she was routinely gang-raped in local bin sheds, threatened with knives, and forced into compliance through physical terror.

The volume of perpetrators she was forced to endure resulted in repeated pregnancies, transforming her body into a site of continuous trauma and medical intervention.

Yet, the defining tragedy of Michelle’s account is in the absolute inability, or refusal, of the authorities to intervene on her behalf. When Michelle was finally brought into contact with law enforcement, the system failed her so profoundly that it could be described as complicity. While in police custody, the authorities permitted one of the very men who had been violently abusing her to accompany her, officially accepting her rapist as her “appropriate adult.” This legal role, designed to safeguard the rights and welfare of vulnerable minors during police interviews, was handed to the architect of her suffering. The authorities had essentially outsourced their safeguarding duties to the predator.

These testimonies confirm that the trauma inflicted by the perpetrators was endlessly compounded by the very institutions established to prevent it. The girls were not just victims of the gangs; they were victims of the state.

The Failure of the State

The central thesis of the Rape Gang Inquiry Report is unequivocal: the estimated 250,000 victims were the victims of a deliberate collapse of the British state’s safeguarding architecture. Across every crucial sector, the state chose institutional convenience over the lives of children.

The Police: Criminalization and Complicity

The Inquiry documents how officers frequently arrived hours late to missing persons reports, actively discouraged parents from filing complaints, and routinely closed cases without conducting basic forensic or digital examinations.

The most pervasive failure was the ideological decision to view the victims as willing participants in their own destruction. Children like Chloe, found highly intoxicated in the cars of adult men, were labeled “prostitutes,” making “lifestyle choices.” By framing the organised rape of children as consensual sex work, the police absolved themselves of the legal requirement to launch resource-heavy investigations into organised crime syndicates.

When victims or their families did provide actionable evidence, it was routinely mishandled, ignored, or actively destroyed. Ross, the father of a survivor named Phoebe, testified that vital digital evidence handed over to the police was inexplicably deleted from the device while in police custody. When Grace’s abusers repeatedly breached their bail conditions and stalked her family, the police took no action, rendering protective non-molestation orders entirely meaningless.

The bureaucratic responses were often farcical. In some instances, the only formal action taken by police was issuing “harboring notices” to the men, pieces of paper warning them not to associate with the child. When the men inevitably ignored these notices, no further enforcement followed. Furthermore, the Inquiry uncovered a deeply entrenched “two-tier” policing system. While forces surrendered to the fear of disorder from certain communities, they aggressively targeted the victims and their families. Chloe was arrested in her pajamas after her mother called the police for help, kept in a cell until 2:00 AM, and released onto the streets without transportation, leading directly to her being picked up by a gang member and trafficked nationwide.

Most disturbingly, the report highlights allegations of direct police complicity, referencing whistleblower accounts of “cop nights” where officers were allegedly active participants in the trafficking and abuse of girls using police vehicles. The revelation that an abuser could be legally accepted as an “appropriate adult” for Michelle during police questioning underscores a force either dangerously incompetent or wilfully blind to the dynamics of coercive control.

Social Services: Abandonment and Retaliation

If the police failed to enforce the law, social services failed to enforce basic humanity. Across multiple districts, social care systems identified the precise markers of severe exploitation - truancy, self-harm, sudden wealth, STIs, missing episodes - and consistently chose to look away.

The Inquiry demonstrates that social workers frequently undermined protective parents, isolating children from their families and placing them in residential care homes and semi-independent units that functioned as drive-through delivery systems for the gangs. Children were centralized, making them easier targets.

Jane, a victim placed in semi-independent living at 16, was trafficked directly from her state-provided accommodation. When she disclosed the abuse and the exchange of money to the staff, she was told it did not constitute trafficking because she was over 16. The staff then blackmailed her, threatening to blame her for the exploitation if she complained further. Following a psychiatric hospitalization, Jane discovered that all statutory care records from her placement had been mysteriously “lost or destroyed,” legally obstructing any path to future accountability.

When internal whistleblowers attempted to expose the ongoing grooming, trafficking, and financial abuse of children in these units, they were met with severe retaliation. An unnamed social worker who acted as an Interim Co-Manager testified that after raising concerns about untreated exploitation risks and unlawful housing practices, she faced sudden suspensions, the removal of payments, fabricated allegations, and career-ending professional isolation orchestrated by senior leadership to protect the council’s reputation. Social services actively punished those who tried to protect children.

Schools

Teachers and school administrators observed older men waiting at the school gates to collect young girls in taxis. They noted sudden drops in attendance, drastic changes in behavior, and physical exhaustion.

Instead of recognising these as textbook indicators of exploitation, schools responded with punitive measures that pushed the children further to the margins. When Chloe’s trauma manifested as truancy, the school repeatedly placed her in isolation, compounding her emotional distress and alienation. When Jen was bullied to the point of wetting herself because a teacher refused her access to the toilet, the school ignored her subsequent self-harm and suicidal ideation, failing to initiate any safeguarding response.

In the most tragic instances, schools actively protected the abusers to avoid scandal. When Rachel’s autistic daughter disclosed that she had been orally raped by a peer, the school failed to effectively safeguard her, allowing the alleged perpetrator to remain on the premises. She was subjected to relentless physical and online bullying by students linked to the abuser, which was filmed and shared online. The intimidation escalated until the 12-year-old took a fatal overdose of colchicine, stating she “just wanted everything to stop.”

The National Health Service

The National Health Service (NHS) is uniquely positioned to identify physical and psychological trauma. Yet, the report highlights a staggering clinical detachment among healthcare providers, who repeatedly treated the biological symptoms of extreme violence without ever questioning the cause.

Victims repeatedly presented at A&E departments, sexual health clinics, and GP surgeries with injuries that could only be the result of severe abuse. Chloe’s arrival at the hospital with shattered glass in her vagina is the most visceral example; the medical staff treated the physical wound but entirely ignored the 12-year-old patient attached to it.

The NHS treated the collateral damage of the gangs, administering antibiotics for gonorrhea, managing pregnancies caused by rape, performing abortions on children, and stitching the physical wounds of suicide attempts, without ever triggering automatic safeguarding referrals. When Chloe was diagnosed with severe, multiple STIs at age 13, clinic staff just discussed contraception rather than contacting the police. When victims sought psychological help, they were frequently dismissed. One survivor requested antidepressants to cope with the trauma of multiple STIs and a miscarriage between the ages of 13 and 15, only to be told by a doctor that she was “too young” to warrant the medication.

The Ethnic Dimension of the Crimes

According to the official data cited in the report, including independent analyses of conviction records from the late 1990s onward, approximately 87 percent of those convicted in group-based child sexual exploitation cases bore distinctively Muslim names. However, the Inquiry notes that because the vast majority of perpetrators were never prosecuted or convicted, the true demographic concentration is believed to be even higher. The report cites Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam with the Oxford Islamic Congregation, who estimates that 95 percent of the men involved in these specific gang networks are of Muslim heritage, a figure that vastly exceeds the Muslim share of the overall United Kingdom population, which stands at roughly 6 percent.

The Inquiry found that the overwhelming majority of these networks consisted of men from Pakistani backgrounds, though smaller factions of Somali, Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and Iraqi Kurdish men were also identified.

The report concludes that the perpetrators operated under a clannish, honor-, and shame-based cultural code that viewed non-Muslim girls, specifically white, working-class girls, as subhuman property available for sexual consumption. This cultural worldview, the Inquiry argues, was reinforced by specific interpretations of religious texts. The report outlines eight theological and legal aspects of Islam that were allegedly filtered through immigrant sub-cultures to provide a framework of religious justification for the atrocities.

The abuse was explicitly racialized and religiously motivated.

Victims were routinely demeaned for their race and faith. Perpetrators referred to the girls as gora (a derogatory term for white people), “white trash,” “easy meat,” and “kuffar bitches.” Kate, a survivor of extreme trafficking, testified that her abusers mocked her for wearing a Christian cross, telling her that her God had abandoned her and that her Christian faith offered her no protection.

The gangs drew strict moral boundaries based on ethno-religious lines. Survivor testimony highlighted that white girls and Christian girls were viewed as having degraded moral character and were thus fair game for torture, while Muslim girls within the community were seen as possessing dignity and higher moral standing. As Eleanor noted in her testimony: “I’d had friends that were Muslim, girlfriends, and this never happened to them . . . the men would treat them differently.”

Why Did Nobody Stop It?

If the crimes were known, the perpetrators visible, and the victims continuously presenting at hospitals, schools, and police stations, the central question of the Rape Gang Inquiry Report remains: Why did nobody stop it?

The answer is institutional incompetence, bureaucratic self-preservation, and an overriding fear of being accused of racism.

Across every agency, the fear of inflaming “community tensions” superseded the statutory duty to protect children. Police officers, social workers, and council leaders were terrified that identifying the perpetrators as predominantly Pakistani Muslim men would invite accusations of institutional racism or empower far-right political factions. When Fiona’s mother called the police to report her daughter missing and explicitly mentioned a history of abuse by Asian men, the police call handler reprimanded her, stating: “You can’t describe them as Asian men because that’s racist.”

The report reserves its harshest condemnation for the political class, identifying a nationwide abandonment of children driven by cynical electoral arithmetic.

The Labour Party is cited as bearing particular responsibility in many of the hardest-hit municipal areas. In towns like Rotherham, Rochdale, and Oxford, Labour-controlled councils and police forces repeatedly shelved investigations and threatened whistleblowers to protect their reliance on Muslim voting blocs. The inquiry documents that local politicians received direct briefings, sat in multi-agency meetings, and read internal intelligence, yet deliberately blocked inquiries to preserve community relations and retain power.

The scandal even touched the party’s own ranks, with figures like former Rotherham Labour councillor and peer Lord Nazir Ahmed convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, and other councillors, such as Carol Clark, formally accused of tipping off pedophile relatives about impending police raids. The report also notes that during Sir Keir Starmer’s tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions, an estimated 13,000 suspected rape gang members and pedophiles were let off with mere warning letters rather than facing prosecution.

In London, identified by the report as the epicenter of institutional denial, Mayor Sadiq Khan repeatedly insisted that grooming gangs did not operate in the capital, describing whistleblower evidence as “malicious and politically motivated.” This denial persisted even as the Metropolitan Police held internal HM Inspectorate of Constabulary documents detailing exactly these patterns of offending occurring in London hotels, exposing a massive cover-up.

The Conservative Party, while in national government, is also heavily implicated for its inaction. Despite the damning revelations of the 2014 Jay Report in Rotherham, successive Conservative administrations failed to impose mandatory ethnicity recording for these crimes or launch a full statutory national inquiry. The report cites former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, who publicly downplayed the phenomenon as a “small problem” confined to the north of England, a statement reflecting a broader political reluctance to confront the national reality of the abuse.

When individuals within the system did attempt to halt the abuse, they were crushed. Campaigners like Caven Vines in Rotherham compiled multi-agency records proving that police and councils knew about the organised grooming, only to be ignored. Former detective constable Maggie Oliver exposed the catastrophic failures in Rochdale and Manchester, pointing out that senior figures blocked reviewers from accessing vital documents. The institutions of the state did not fail due to a lack of resources or intelligence. They failed because they calculated that the lives of working-class white girls were an acceptable price to pay to maintain the illusion of multicultural harmony and organizational self-preservation.

The Scale of the Damage

For the estimated 250,000 victims, the end of the abuse rarely marked the end of the suffering. The focus of the report’s conclusion is deliberately stripped of politics, returning entirely to the human cost borne by those who survived.

Survivors live with chronic pain, severe internal injuries, and reproductive destruction resulting from years of sexual violence. Jane developed endometriosis that was so severe it required the surgical removal of half her uterus. Chloe’s reproductive system was so damaged that her child was born with failing organs, including a defective kidney. Other children endured multiple pregnancies, suffering trauma-induced miscarriages or forced backstreet abortions arranged by the gangs to hide the evidence of their crimes. Leanne, held captive and beaten while pregnant at 15, miscarried and now suffers from chronic fibromyalgia.

Psychologically, the survivors carry the heavy burden of complex PTSD, dissociation, and severe substance addictions that were originally forced upon them by the gangs as mechanisms of control. The report details a tragic trail of suicide attempts, with victims like Rachel’s 12-year-old daughter ultimately taking their own lives simply to make the relentless abuse and intimidation stop.

Furthermore, the state’s habit of removing children born of rape, adopting them out or placing them into the care system while simultaneously leaving the young mothers in the hands of the abusers, has institutionalized a cycle of intergenerational trauma. Survivors find themselves navigating a bleak adulthood, haunted by criminal records acquired under duress, devoid of educational qualifications due to years of truancy and school exclusions, alienated from their families, and permanently terrified of the networks that still operate freely in their hometowns. They mourn lost childhoods that can never be returned.

Conclusion

The testimonies of Chloe, Fiona, Michelle, and countless others stand as an indelible public record of unimaginable cruelty. They document a world where girls as young as 11 were hunted, drugged, mutilated, and passed around like commodities, while the adults paid by the state to protect them simply averted their eyes.

How could industrial-scale child torture continue for half a century across 149 local authorities despite repeated, glaring warnings? It continued because the modern British state permitted it. From the police officer who deleted the evidence, to the social worker who ferried a child to an STI clinic in silence, to the school that punished the victim, to the hospital physician who pulled shattered glass from a girl’s vagina without asking why, every safety net was intentionally dismantled by cowardice and political calculation.

Until the nation stops prioritizing the political sensitivities of the abusers over the survival of its children, the ghosts of these hundreds of thousands of girls will remain chained to the very institutions that betrayed them.

Download the Full Report.

This article was first published on June 17, 2026, on Substack. Celina is a young Australian writer who focuses primarily on history, culture, and politics. She publishes on Substack at Celina101.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 07:00

"I always say we never had two nickels to rub together, but we figured it out and the house was always full of love," Matt Proulx said.

Wyndham Clark has a six-shot lead following a windy round three.

Vance 'Skeptical' That Iran Closed Hormuz Strait Again, Pentagon Declares Safe Passage Remains 'Intact Today' Summary

• Vance & CENTCOM push back against reports of Hormuz 'closure' by Iranians. 
• Iran's Ghalibaf, Araghchi en route to US Talks in Switzerland, IRIB reports. Also Witkoff-headed US delegation still expected.
• Iran declares Strait 'closed' again over US failing to reign in Israeli action in Lebanon.
• Rising death toll in Lebanon, after over 50 new rockets fired on Israeli positions by Hezbollah. 

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by end of June?
Yes 8% · No 93%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Iran Closes Strait Again? Vance & CENTCOM Address the Claims

Vice President JD Vance has newly told Fox News that he's 'skeptical' of the morning reports and claims that the Iranians once again 'closed' the Strait of Hormuz. Watch:

FOX & FRIENDS: The Journal is reporting that the remnants of the Iranian navy are turning ships back in the Strait of Hormuz. Is that a violation of the MOU?

JD VANCE: I'm skeptical of that reporting, or at least of some of the conclusions that could drawn from it. We're not… pic.twitter.com/D4iWxq769p

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2026

US Central Command is also trying to portray that all is well. It issued this statement after the Iranians announced it closed the vital oil transit waterway:

Commercial ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz increased June 20 as U.S. forces continued operating in the general area to support freedom of navigation. Safe passage through the international waterway remained intact today as 55 merchant ships transited, moving large amounts of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.

The Joint Maritime Information Center issued an advisory this week affirming safe passage for all vessels along a designated route that is free of arbitrary requirement claims or impediments.

The Pentagon says it is remaining vigilant with regional forces on high alert. Overall, it seems the White House is keep to at least see its delegation get in the same room with the Iranians in Switzerland. This will certainly be a real start in terms of face-to-face engagement, after the MoU was remotely signed by each side.

Iran says Hormuz Strait Closed Again

As has become the 'norm' after well over 100 days of war - which some pundits have been calling the "third Gulf war" - there are deeply conflicting headlines emerging Saturday. On the one hand, diplomacy based in Switzerland is said to be in motion, with a potential top level Trump delegation (led by Witkoff and to be joined later by Kushner reportedly/allegedly) - but fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon still rages, with the death toll climbing, and also with Hezbollah rockets still landing against IDF positions as well as in northern Israel.

Will the US and Iranian sides actually meet in Europe for the 'technical' side of further talks toward final peace? Saturday has seen reports of Iran having again 'closed' the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israeli aggression in Lebanon, after Tehran has insisted that the tenuous freshly signed MoU included a Lebanon ceasefire and peace. The latest newswires out of Iranian state media:

• IRAN SAYS HORMUZ TO CLOSE, CITING CEASEFIRE VIOLATION: TASNIM
• IRAN SAYS STRAIT OF HORMUZ HAS BEEN CLOSED: TASNIM
• IRAN'S IRGC NAVY SAYS HORMUZ STRAIT CLOSED TO ALL VESSELS: FARS
• *VESSELS WARNED TO AVOID STRAIT OF HORMUZ OVER SECURITY: FARS

VP Vance Expected in Switzerland, But He's Ambiguous in FOX Appearance

Vance expected in Switzerland, reports Axios on Saturday:

🇺🇸🇮🇷Trump envoys arrive in Switzerland for Iran talks planned for Sunday. Vice President Vance could travel to Switzerland today or tomorrow. My story on @axios https://t.co/suNH9rkVk9

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) June 20, 2026

And yet, some of the same state sources have been saying that an Iranian delegation will travel to Switzerland where it will seek to hold Washington to its commitments. 

“In Switzerland, we intend to press for the fulfilment of the other side’s commitments and clarify how they plan to act on their obligations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, according to Fars, also as cited in Al Jazeera.

Per the same report Saturday mid-morning (US time): "The delegation will leave for Switzerland in a few minutes, Mehr news agency also reported. The spokesperson also said that if the US refuses to implement its commitments, Iran will respond with necessary measures."

Vance non-committal in Saturday FOX interview:

FOX & FRIENDS: Do you have any immediate plans to join Jared and Steve?

JD VANCE: It's always a delicate coordination dance with the diplomatic protocols. I've gotta be honest with you -- I don't really understand these things pic.twitter.com/tFr2QZOjQC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 20, 2026

So things remain very fluid, and could implode at any moment. The Wall Street Journal adds some fresh details as follows:

Iranian security officials said they had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing what they said was the U.S. failure to stop the fighting in Lebanon as required under the agreement signed earlier this week by President Trump.

The announcement by Iran’s joint military command came as clashes between Israel and Hezbollah flared again in Lebanon on Saturday, just hours after the two sides agreed to a renewed ceasefire. It undid for now the main achievement of the deal, which was to set the stage for reopening a waterway vital to world energy markets.

Even before Iran’s announcement, however, the recovery of traffic through the strait had been halting. Iran had imposed new procedures, including a demand that ships register to cross two days in advance, and wary shipowners were monitoring the still uncertain environment in the waterway.

Widening Split Between US & Israel

Since the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding was signed days ago it's increasingly obvious there's been a widening split between Washington and it's closest Middle East ally Israel over the terms of the deal. The political interests between the Trump administration and Israel, which have been typically lock-step, have increasingly diverged on the question of the Iran peace and terms of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Ground zero for this divergence has remained south Lebanon, where the overnight the death toll from fighting - and especially from Israeli air raids - have risen.

Lebanon's civil defense agency has announced that Israeli attacks on the southern Nabatieh district have killed 16 people and wounded 12 others. The significant death toll comes a mere day after the latest Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was announced.

Still, Al Jazeera is on Saturday confirming that "the wheels of diplomacy" appear to be "back in motion" after the delay to the technical talks from Friday. "Pakistan and Qatar – mediators – are holding a series of meetings in Switzerland, Iran and Egypt and according to Al Jazeera’s team on the ground," the publication writes. Top American negotiators are reportedly on the way to Europe.

via Reuters

Iran too is optimistic, while calling out certain Israeli hardliner politicians for seeking to sabotage peace. State media is hitting this theme hard, and naturally Tehran is going to seek to drive a deep and permanent wedge between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations. 

Iran: 'Ready to Move Forward'

Iran's deputy foreign minister has said the Islamic Republic is "ready to move forward" on diplomacy with Washington, and the big elephant in the room is that "the United States must ensure Israel abides by the terms of the deal to end the war" - according to Al Jazeera.

As a reminder, President Trump appears in the mood to play nice with Iran while bringing the (very rare) pressure on Netanyahu. However, Trump himself is facing immense rising pressure from outraged pro-US hawks at home:

Donald ⁠Trump told NBC News ⁠in a phone ⁠interview that ​he spoke with Israel ⁠on Friday and asked them to ⁠agree to ​a ‌ceasefire ‌with Hezbollah.

“‘You just gotta calm down sometimes and use your head,’” Trump ‌was quoted as telling Israel.

Trump declined ​to specify ​whether ​he spoke ​with ‌Benjamin ​Netanyahu directly. A senior US official earlier confirmed the ceasefire to Reuters, though Israeli attacks continue across Lebanon.

Israeli Objections & Overnight Carnage in Lebanon

One of the key elements of the MoU the hawks vehemently object to is the creation of a $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran. But in terms of the main aspect which could derail ongoing negotiations altogether is that the US committed that it and its allies (read: Israel and the Lebanese government) will initiate the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon." This is a major concession by the US to the Iranian side.

❗️FOUR IDF soldiers killed after Hezbollah struck IDF tank in southern Lebanon

Including 52nd Battalion Commander who assumed command only days earlier after his predecessor was seriously wounded

Hours later, five more wounded, including SERIOUSLY, in drone strike in same area pic.twitter.com/RQBjyKoxme

— RT (@RT_com) June 19, 2026

But Israel has much more than these things to complain about, as it continues to lose troops in recent Hezbollah attacks:

Israel immediately responded to that agreement by pounding Lebanon, killing at least 47 people on Friday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed overnight [Friday] by the armed Lebanese group, Hezbollah, prompting Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to say that “all of Lebanon must burn”.

Vice President JD Vance's own recent remarks putting these Israeli officials in their place has been unprecedented spectacle to behold. The "special relationship" remains tenuous, at least in terms of weighing the current heated rhetoric and atmosphere.

But again, Israel can point to Hezbollah aggression, with Times of Israel (TOI) reporting the latest figures as follows:

The Israeli military says it is striking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to overnight projectile launches at troops in south Lebanon by the Iran-backed terror group, despite a ceasefire announced a day earlier.

⚡️Consequences of an Israeli airstrike (3 bombs) on a building complex in Southern Lebanon

Multiple casualties. pic.twitter.com/CF4riEgu3E

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) June 20, 2026

"Overnight, the Hezbollah terrorist organization launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Following the attacks, the IDF has been striking Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Lebanon," an Israeli military official said was cited in TOI as saying.

Meanwhile, CNN also confirms that diplomacy is in "motion", writing: "US envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Switzerland for technical talks with Iran, a US official said, with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also expected to join. Meanwhile, mediator Pakistan’s interior minister has arrived in Iran for talks with senior Iranian officials as part of efforts to encourage them to Switzerland."

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/21/2026 - 05:44

"Squad" Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is now claiming her husband earned less than $1,000 from all his jobs last year -- after scrutiny over the couple's sudden ballooning wealth sparked a Congressional investigation into the lawmaker's finances.

The royal couple dutifully swapped out the bright orange scarves they wore to their earlier match with bright blue ones.

Carrie Underwood is proud to be an American.

Carrie Underwood is proud to be an American.

The funds were used in recent months to pay terrorists and finance attacks against Israeli troops and civilians, the IDF said.

Authorities said the operation used call centers to steer patients toward medically unnecessary orthopedic braces.

"Landman" star Michelle Randolph is soaking up the summer sun in a new bikini photo.

The "Landman" star was soaking up the summer sun in a new bikini photo.

Christian Scott took a positive step Saturday toward potentially returning to the Mets as soon as his required 15 days on the injured list pass.

McIlroy finished in the top 10 at both of the majors earlier this season, winning the Masters — his second consecutive victory in the tournament — and finishing in a tie for seventh at the PGA Championship last month.

The fan plunged from an "elevated position" and was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

They almost did it again. The Dodgers nearly produced their second miracle in as many nights, their 3-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday night ending with the tying run on third base. In their series-opening walk-off win the previous night, the Dodgers scored three runs in the ninth inning to reverse a two-run...