5 things to know for June 18: Iran, Gaza, Cryptocurrency, Indonesia volcano, Stanley Cup final

President Donald Trump has nominated Jeanine Pirro to a full term as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, DC. The former Fox News host, who boosted claims that the 2020 election was stolen, is already serving as the interim US Attorney.
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If your day doesn't start until you're up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the '5 Things' newsletter. President Trump is reportedly warming to the idea of using US military assets to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, two officials familiar with the ongoing discussions told CNN. Although intelligence assessments showed Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon — and was up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target — Trump met with his national security team on Tuesday and spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also took to his social media site to demand Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER' and called Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an 'easy target.' Trump may have some difficulty selling a war with Iran to the American people, however. A poll conducted last year showed many more Americans felt China (64%) and Russia (59%) were major military threats than Iran (42%). And only 37% of Americans said limiting Iran's power and influence should be a 'top priority.' In the meantime, Israel and Iran continued to trade strikes for a sixth day.
Dozens of people were killed and more than 200 others injured by Israeli fire on Tuesday as they waited for aid trucks to arrive in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported. The casualties were taken to nearby Nasser Medical Complex, where one doctor described the influx of dead and wounded as 'catastrophic beyond imagination,' and said the hospital's morgue was full. The Israel Defense Forces said it was 'aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd's approach,' that 'details of the incident are under review,' and that it 'regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.'
After months of negotiations, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that aims to create a framework for regulating stablecoins, a specific type of cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are tied to the value of another asset, such as the US dollar or gold, so 1 stablecoin would be worth $1. Despite the bill's passage, some Democrats remain concerned that it does not place sufficient guardrails on stablecoins, particularly since World Liberty Financial, a company tied to the Trump family, has issued its own stablecoin. GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty, one of the lead co-sponsors of the bill, insists that 'this legislation is agnostic as to company, it's agnostic as to person.' The bill will now move to the House for consideration.
Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted on Tuesday, sending an enormous ash column into the sky over the tourist island of Flores in south-central Indonesia. The eruption, which could be seen more than 90 miles away, caused the delay or cancellation of dozens of flights to and from the island of Bali. The 5,197-foot twin volcano erupted again this morning, spewing a smaller ash cloud. With such activity, officials decided to evacuate residents in two nearby villages. Last November, the volcano erupted multiple times, killing nine people and injuring dozens more.
The Florida Panthers are back-to-back NHL champions! For the second year in a row, the Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win the Stanley Cup Final. It's been 32 years since a hockey team from Canada has won the championship in its own national winter sport. The Montreal Canadiens were the last such franchise to hoist the trophy named after Lord Stanley of Preston. But, there's always next year…
A TikTok reprievePresident Trump is expected to sign an executive order to keep TikTok up and running for another 90 days.
The big battery battleDuracell is suing Energizer, accusing its rival of running a deceptive advertising campaign regarding battery life.
Tyler Perry sued for $260MActor Derek Dixon, who appeared on the BET series 'The Oval,' has filed suit against the media mogul, alleging sexual assault and harassment. Perry has denied any wrongdoing.
Top Hollywood honorsThe organization behind the Academy Awards has decided to give honorary Oscars to Tom Cruise, Dolly Parton, Debbie Allen and Wynn Thomas for their contributions to cinema and humanity.
We have a new winnerVienna is no longer the most livable city in the world. After a three-year run at the top of the annual list from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Austrian capital was surpassed by another 'wonderful' place.
Popular Food Network chef Anne Burrell dies at 55Burrell hosted the series 'Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,' which ran for nine seasons and received two Emmy nominations. She also spent 14 years as a host on the show 'Worst Cooks in America.'
$1.3 billionThat's the amount in fines and restitution that reportedly could have been erased by President Trump's federal pardons and clemency grants.
'What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful. If you did anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms.'
— Biologist and natural historian David Attenborough, whose new documentary, 'Ocean With David Attenborough,' explores why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing.
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The shirt that sparked Austen-maniaThirty years later, folks are still swooning over Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy.

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8 minutes ago

• CBS News

Former Detroit home of Rosa Parks in line for historic district designation

A proposal is pending for the former Detroit home of Civil Rights Movement activists Rosa and Raymond Parks to be named a local historic district. The Detroit City Council Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee will hold a public hearing to consider the proposal. The designation is intended to honor the flat in the 3200 block of Virginia Park Street where Civil Rights activists Rosa and Raymond Parks lived for 27 years. "Their activism in Detroit helped shape the Civil Rights Movement," the Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board said on its social media post. A public hearing, which is part of the designation process, will begin at 10:35 a.m. June 26 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Woodward Avenue. Detroit's local historic districts are meant to be associated with people or events that are a significant part of Detroit's history, or have artistic or historical significance. Once a local historic district is established for a site, any exterior alterations to the building must go through the Historic District Commission. Rosa Parks, who was already active in the Civil Rights Movement, became known for her refusal to follow the Jim Crow-era laws in Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically, she refused to give up her seat on a bus and move to the back of the vehicle on Dec. 1, 1955. Her arrest in that incident helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott. After the boycott, Rosa and Raymond Parks moved to Hampton, Virginia, and then settled in Detroit. He died in 1977. She died in 2005.

The Hill

9 minutes ago

• The Hill

Israel, Iran trade strikes as Trump weighs US military involvement

Israel and Iran traded strikes on Friday as President Trump weighs the possibility of U.S. involvement and European officials seek to revive nuclear negotiations with Tehran. Israel said it hit 60 Iranian aircrafts early Friday morning along with the headquarters of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, which carries out nuclear weapons research, according to the Associated Press. Iranian media said Israel's strikes also hit the city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea early Friday. Reuters reported that at least one Iranian missile struck Beersheba, Israel's largest southern city, early Friday, ripping off the facade of at least one apartment complex and leaving a crater in a residential area. CNN reported it struck close to a tech park that houses a Microsoft office. Iran also struck near civilian sites in Haifa, injuring more than a dozen people and sending residents running for cover in a shopping mall, CNN reported. That followed an Iranian strike on Thursday that struck a hospital in Beersheba, wounding at least 80 patients and medical workers, according to Israeli officials. Israel's defense chief accused Iran of war crimes and said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be held accountable for the attack. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched overnight bombings in the heart of Tehran, along with the cities of Tabriz and Kermanshah, hitting 'missile storage and launch infrastructure components,' according to the AP. 'We are strengthening our air control in the region and advancing our air offensive,' Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters, according to the AP. 'We have more sites to strike in Tehran, western Iran and other places.' Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, met with Britain's foreign secretary on Thursday to discuss diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is slated to meet with European leaders in Geneva to discuss a new nuclear deal. Iran earlier this month rejected U.S. proposals to effectively end its nuclear program, and move enrichment facilities outside the country. The White House on Thursday released a statement from President Trump saying he would decide within two weeks on whether to join Israel's war. Israel is pressuring the U.S. to deploy it's 'bunker buster' bombs on Iran's Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is key to its nuclear program and buried deep inside a mountain. While Trump has been publicly non-committal on resuming talks with Tehran, Araghci said Thursday the U.S. is pushing for diplomacy behind the scenes. 'It is the Americans who want talks,' he said, according to AP. 'They've sent messages several times — very serious ones — but we made it explicitly clear to them that as long as this aggression and invasion continue, there is absolutely no room for talk or diplomacy. We are engaged in legitimate self-defense, and this defense will not stop under any circumstances.' Earlier this week, Trump urged civilians to evacuate Tehran immediately, as the U.S. ordered a third U.S. Navy destroyer to the eastern portion of the Mediterranean Sea. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking near the damaged Beersheba hospital, said he trusted that Trump would 'do what's best for America.' 'I can tell you that they're already helping a lot,' he added.

Yahoo

12 minutes ago

• Yahoo

An inflation surge could swamp Trump's presidency. This one investment will keep your money safe.

America's financial outlook has darkened under President Donald Trump's leadership. All three major credit-rating agencies now rank U.S. federal debt one notch below triple-A, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase JPM, has warned of a crack in the U.S. bond market. With the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y at 4.4% on Wednesday and the 30-year rate BX:TMUBMUSD30Y at 4.9%, holders of nominal U.S. debt should be prepared for significant real losses. The principal risk is not U.S. sovereign default, but rather unexpected increases in medium- and long-term interest rates, owing to market expectations of higher inflation. Fiscal policy under Trump is unsustainable, as it was under former President Joe Biden — but even more so if the Trump administration's 'big, beautiful' budget passes in anything like its current form. 'I'm at my wit's end': My niece paid off her husband's credit card but fell behind on her taxes. How can I help her? Why the biggest-ever 'triple witching' options expiration could deliver a jolt to Friday's trading Israel-Iran clash delivers a fresh shock to investors. History suggests this is the move to make. 'I prepaid our mom's rent for a year': My sister is a millionaire and never helps our mother. How do I cut her out of her will? I'm 75 and have a reverse mortgage. Should I pay it off with my $200K savings — and live off Social Security instead? The January 2025 Financial Report of the United States Government makes this clear. The U.S. ratio of federal debt held by the public to GDP at the end of the 2024 fiscal year was around 98%, although $4.7 trillion of the $28.3 trillion in federal debt was held by the Federal Reserve — meaning it is erroneously categorized as held by the 'public,' when really the central bank's accounts should be consolidated with those of the federal government. Under current policy and based on the report's assumptions, federal debt held by the public would reach 535% of GDP by 2099. Stabilizing the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio requires that the annual primary federal deficit (excluding interest payments) fall by an average of 4.3% of GDP over the next 75 years. And yet, the federal deficit and primary deficit were 6.4% and 3.3% of GDP, respectively, in fiscal-year 2024 — far above what can be justified with the economy near full employment. Read: America's debt is at a breaking point — Trump's tax bill might just push it over the edge With the U.S. Congress so dysfunctional, no one has any faith that it will deliver the required deficit reduction. Democrats do not do permanent spending cuts, and Republicans do not do permanent tax increases. The federal government does own about 28% of U.S. land (roughly 640 million acres), as well as other real commercial assets that could yield significant additional nontax revenues if properly managed. But neither party — nor even the misnamed Department of Government Efficiency — appears to have considered this option, so the federal deficit as a share of GDP is likely to rise over the next few years. With no foreseeable improvement in fiscal policy, there are two possible outcomes. First, the U.S. government could default. There has long been a small, but recurrent, risk of a technical, short-lived default if Congress fails to raise, suspend, extend, revise or abolish the federal debt ceiling on time. Fortunately, it has averted this scenario 78 times since 1960, and we expect it to continue doing so. As matters stand, the debt ceiling (including debt held by federal agencies) is set at $36.1 trillion, and debt subject to the limit is also $36.1 trillion. If needed, the Treasury has a highly liquid asset (the Treasury General Account held with the Fed) worth $332.9 billion that it can use to meet its obligations, and it may temporarily use 'extraordinary measures to continue to borrow additional amounts for a limited time.' The second, more likely possibility is that the Fed will monetize enough federal debt to prevent default. Since U.S. federal debt is serviced in dollars, 'printing money' is always an option. But, as the Fed well knows, a large-scale monetization of federal debt would result in significantly above-target inflation. We believe the Fed will do this without its operational independence being revoked by Trump. To get the Federal Open Market Committee to do something it does not want to do, the president would need to control the majority of its 12 voting members. These include the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and five (out of 12) regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents who vote at any given FOMC meeting. Neither the president nor Congress can appoint or fire Federal Reserve Bank presidents. The Board of Governors must approve them, and only the board can remove them. The president nominates board members, but the Senate must confirm them. Board members' current term limits imply that, assuming none are fired, Trump will have the opportunity to nominate only two new members. True, with the power to fire board members 'for cause' — meaning 'inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance' — Trump could try to replace a majority of the members with loyalists. But this seems unlikely. Whether the 'for cause' criterion has been met will be contested in the courts, and the Senate would have to confirm Trump's appointees. Read: Trump's pick to replace Fed Chair Powell could rock your mortgage and retirement. Buckle up. Similarly, Congress could revise the Federal Reserve Act to replace the Fed's monetary-policy objectives with a mandate to buy or sell sovereign debt according to the wishes of the Treasury. But this, too, is unlikely. And the same goes for a scenario in which the Treasury sets a rapidly depreciating exchange-rate target for the dollar DXY that can be achieved only through large-scale Fed purchases of U.S. public debt that generate high inflation. However, fiscal dominance — indeed, fiscal capture — is very likely, because the need to avoid a domestic and global financial crisis will force the FOMC's hand. It will do whatever is necessary to prevent a U.S. government default, because the Fed's financial-stability mandate (the Financial Stability Act of 2010 mentions the Fed 179 times) undoubtedly trumps its monetary-policy mandate of maintaining maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates. The Fed cannot credibly threaten to refuse to monetize debt and deficits to compel fiscal retrenchment by the Treasury, let alone Congress. Thus, the Fed will have no choice but to engage in sovereign-debt purchases that it knows to be incompatible with its monetary-policy objectives. With nominal interest rates for medium- and long-term U.S. sovereign debt far below the levels consistent with realistic expectations of future inflation, serious capital losses on nominal debt instruments (public and private) are likely. The inflation surge could be no more than three years away. As the prospect of fiscal capture comes into view, investing in Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS) and other indexed public and private debt instruments will become increasingly attractive. Willem H. Buiter, a former chief economist at Citibank and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, is an independent economic adviser. Anne C. Sibert is professor emerita of economics at Birkbeck, University of London. This commentary — 'U.S. Debt Holders Should Brace for Impact' — is published with the permission of Project Syndicate. Read: 'You are going to panic,' Jamie Dimon tells regulators about what will happen when the bond market cracks More: What's at stake if world's most powerful market finally buckles after decades-long U.S. debt splurge 20 companies in the S&P 500 whose investors have gained the greatest rewards from stock buybacks Israel-Iran conflict poses three challenges for stocks that could slam market by up to 20%, warns RBC I'm 51, earn $129K and have $165K in my 401(k). Can I afford to retire when my husband, 59, draws Social Security at 62? 'It might be another Apple or Microsoft': My wife invested $100K in one stock and it exploded 1,500%. Do we sell? Why the stock market will be performing a high-wire act over the summer, according to UBS