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Vice President JD Vance’s becoming the face of the Iran peace negotiations has all the appearances of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Donald Trump leaving the veep out to dangle in the wind by defending a deal that will go nowhere.That is according to MS NOW’s Jake Traylor, who told host Stephanie Ruhle on Tuesday morning that one administration insider called Vance’s hyping up the negotiators' efforts a “complete capitulation” to Iran and characterized Trump’s initial praise of it as “salesmanship,” before adding, “That’s putting lipstick on a very ugly pig.”Traylor reported on Tuesday that Rubio has artfully “sidestepped” becoming involved in the negotiations, effectively dumping them on Vance.“I was told by a White House official that initially Rubio sort of strategically sidestepped this role as the lead of negotiations, this official told me that Rubio knew, Rubio had the foresight and awareness to say, ‘This deal is not going to be successful. I don't want my name attached to it,'” Traylor told the host. “Another White House official told me that they thought Vance was the wrong person for the job but Rubio didn't really want it. It kind of fell in Vance's lap and, as the Vice President, he had to sort of play a long.”“Probably the most illuminating moment for how difficult this uphill battle is for Vance right now comes from over the weekend,” he reported. “During the negotiations, we saw Vice President Vance touting progress, saying they were going to turn over a new leaf, a new relationship between the US. And Iran, and literally minutes later, we have a Truth [social media post] from President Trump that is threatening to restart military strikes again.”“It just it just shows the juxtaposition here that ultimately Vance can be the face of this thing, but it doesn't mean he has the control here,” he added.“Yeah, so Marco Rubio sidesteps this thing, noting that it's putting lipstick on a very ugly pig and maybe more importantly, Donald Trump lets him do it,” the amused Ruhle observed. - YouTube youtu.be

Rights campaigners and MEPs say meeting would normalise regime that erases women from public lifeRights campaigners and MEPs have warned that a meeting between EU officials and a Taliban delegation in Brussels risks normalising a regime that has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade and sought to erase women from public life, while its ranks include two leaders accused of crimes against humanity.A spokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that a delegation representing the ⁠Taliban had travelled to Brussels after the Belgian foreign ministry issued five single-day visas. Continue reading...

Iran is moving unilaterally to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz — and to start collecting revenue from it – even as it negotiates with the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors over future management of the waterway.Iran's top insurance regulator, Mousa Rezaei, announced Sunday that a new insurance company has been created specifically for the strait, according to Iranian state media, and days earlier, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority — an entity Iran established in May — began requiring vessels to register and carry a new mandatory Iranian insurance policy, reported the New York Times.For now, that coverage is free, but shipping experts say the 60-day free period is telling. That matches the length of the cease-fire and free-passage guarantees in last week's U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding ending the war and reopening the strait.Once that window closes, maritime historian Salvatore Mercogliano said, Iran could begin charging vessels for "insurance" against risks — attacks, detained mariners — that didn't exist before Iran itself created them by striking commercial ships earlier this year.Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd's List, called the arrangement effectively a toll by another name, designed to get ahead of the broader negotiations over the strait's security framework that Vice President JD Vance said are still to come.International law generally bars charging tolls for mere passage through a strait, though fees for actual services — like tugging waste disposal — can be legitimate. Iran has not specified what services its new insurance would provide, and the International Maritime Organization said the scheme has not been submitted to it and carries no basis in international law allowing mandatory fees or tolls.The maneuver also creates a trap for shippers. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Persian Gulf Strait Authority in May, accusing Iran of trying to monetize attacks on vessels through extortion, and has warned that paying the authority could itself trigger sanctions — leaving companies caught between Iranian demands and U.S. enforcement.The result, Meade said, is that shippers remain stuck in limbo, unable to return to how transit worked before the war and unable to know what rules will govern it next. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority did not respond to a request for comment by the outlet.

A U.S. fighter jet pilot described a seemingly extraterrestrial sight before he ejected from his aircraft during hostilities in Iran.The downed F-15 pilot told intelligence officials during a debriefing after the April incident that he saw multiple Iranian drones hovering in air in a formation resembling a jellyfish, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN, and one source said the pilot described the formation as a “minefield of drones.""It immediately set off a firestorm of debate within the US intelligence community that has yet to be resolved," CNN reported. "If the airman really saw what he described — a formation moving in unison — it would be an alarming advance in Iranian drone capabilities."The downing remains under investigation, but initial reports indicated the formation had allowed Iran to shoot down a U.S. fighter jet for the first time during the war, two of the sources said.“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” one of the sources told CNN. “Real alien s---.”The pilot was rescued hours later, but the weapons systems office on board the two-person craft evaded capture for more than a day in the mountains of Iran before also being rescued.A second aircraft, an A-10, was also downed during the rescue effort but that pilot ejected safely outside Iranian airspace.U.S. intelligence officials disagreed on their interpretation of the pilot's recollection, and some cast doubt on his account, pointing out he was concussed in the crash – his second time being shot out of the sky during the Iran conflict."Had he witnessed a mature capability that U.S. intelligence wasn’t aware of? A beta test? A mirage in the desert?" CNN reported.The technical term for what the pilot purportedly described is “one-to-many meshed networking,” according to the sources, and U.S. intelligence agencies had not been aware Iran was capable of using.Multiple reports have indicated that Iran received assistance in developing its drone technology from China and Russia, which are both believed to possess that capabbility.

A foreign-relations expert offered blunt advice to President Donald Trump as negotiations between his administration and the Iranian regime deteriorate. Joseph Cirincione, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, told MS NOW's Alex Witt on "Alex Witt Reports" that Trump appears to have a way to make a stronger deal with the Iranian regime, but the president is blind to it because of how much he is blustering about the state of the war. His comments come at a time when Trump's deal with Iran has become the "joke in Washington," according to Cirincione, and the Iranian regime seems to be backing away from an agreement struck between the two sides over continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi refused to shake hands with Vice President JD Vance when the two met for peace negotiations, which some observers described as a "humiliation" for Vance. While the two sides appear far apart on the war, Cirincione pointed out that Trump could still accomplish one of his major goals by preventing the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear weapon. "The Obama approach to negotiation worked. If Trump hadn't torn that up, we would have a fundamentally different relationship with Iran now, and Iran would still be many, many years away from the ability to build a bomb," Cirincione said. "So the only hope is to go back to negotiations and to hope that because Iran has emerged stronger from this war ... it doesn't really need a nuclear weapon as much as they thought they did." "They thought they needed it for defense," he continued. "Well, they have stronger deterrence right now." Cirincione said there is one catch that could make or break the talks. "I think they are willing to compromise on the program if Trump can just shut up and let the negotiators get to work and force the Israelis to stop their war in Lebanon; you could get a deal," he said. "You could still salvage this. But Trump has to act, not bluster."

Sen. Chris Murphy says a single image from this week's G7 summit captures one of his deepest fears about the growing power of the tech industry: the chief executives of major artificial intelligence companies seated at the table alongside presidents and prime ministers, as if they were heads of state themselves."At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers," the Connecticut Democrat wrote, sharing a photo of the summit's main session. His reaction was blunt: "This is the nightmare scene."For Murphy, the optics were not a harmless photo op but a visual representation of how far corporate influence has crept into the highest levels of government. The concern is that companies building the most powerful AI systems are no longer simply lobbying governments from the outside, but are being granted a seat among the elected leaders who are supposed to regulate them.Murphy paired the warning with a call for governments to push back against what he described as the "state-like power" of these firms. He floated several possible responses, suggesting officials consider "taking ownership shares, breaking them up into smaller entities, or imposing a regulatory structure that controls their power over citizens." The range of options, from partial public ownership to outright breakup, signals how seriously he believes the threat should be taken.The senator has emerged as one of the more vocal critics in Congress of concentrated corporate and technological power, and his framing fits a broader unease on the left about the cozy relationship between the tech sector and the current administration. The sight of AI executives integrated into a gathering traditionally reserved for the world's most powerful elected officials, in his telling, is evidence that the balance has already tipped too far toward private industry.His underlying argument is that state-like power demands a state-like response. If a handful of companies can shape economies, information, and security on a scale once reserved for governments, Murphy contends, then leaving their authority unchecked is itself the danger. The photo, to him, is less a snapshot of cooperation than a warning about who is really sitting at the table when the world's decisions get made.At the G7, the CEOs of the big AI companies sat at the table like heads of state, alongside presidents and prime ministers.This is the nightmare scene.Governments need to have a response to the state-like power of these companies, whether it’s by taking ownership shares,… pic.twitter.com/aPdK7FFRaE— Chris Murphy ???? (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 21, 2026

Directive aimed at government workers, but reports of wider implementation spark warnings of future Afghanistan-wide prohibitionThe Taliban have ordered a sweeping ban on the use of smartphones by government officials – in what some analysts say could foreshadow broader, population-level restrictions.In a directive issued by the Taliban’s military courts and reviewed by the Guardian, the ban was to take effect this week and prohibits “high rank, low rank, general mujahideen, or service staff” from using mobile phones. Continue reading...

Campaigners welcome announcement cutting levies on menstrual health items, but say their work to end period poverty is ‘far from over’Pakistan plans to abolish “period tax”, in a victory for young campaigners who had taken the government to court over the charges.Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced that sanitary towels and related items were “daily necessities that are indispensable for women’s health, dignity and full participation in social activities”, and said he intended to remove the sales tax. Continue reading...