Headlines for June 12, 2026
Trump Claims “Great Settlement” Has Been Reached to End War, But Iran Says Nothing Has Been Finalized; India Condemns Deadly U.S. Strikes on Boats After 3 Sailors Killed Near Oman; Musk Poised to Become World’s First Trillionaire as SpaceX Goes Public; Trump Taps Jay Clayton to Head National Intelligence After Bipartisan Opposition to Bill Pulte; Detained Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya Appears in Israeli Court with Signs of Torture, Family Says; U.S. Issues New Sanctions on Cuba’s Oil & Gas Company; Two Top U.K. Military Officials Resign in Row with Starmer over Military Spending; “Albania Is Not For Sale”: Protests Mount over Proposed Jared Kushner Luxury Development; “Dignity Has No Passport”: Pope Leo Visits Canary Island to Show Solidarity with Migrants; Detained Women Join Hunger and Labor Strike at Delaney Hall ICE Jail in NJ; Report: State Dept. Opens Probe of Iranian-Born Trita Parsi, Critic of Trump’s War; Protests Held as World Cup Opens in Mexico; Landlord Waives Back Rent for Tenants After Being Targeted by NYC Mayor Mamdani
“Cautionary Tale”: NYC’s The New School Guts Faculty & Staff as Colleges Intensify Austerity
The Trump administration is continuing its assault on higher education, but in a departure from its earlier high-profile fights with individual institutions like Harvard, it is now rewriting the federal rules that govern all universities and colleges. Rules are being proposed by the Education Department and other agencies to impose the administration’s preferred policies on thousands of schools — including on racial equity, transgender rights, immigration and antisemitism — or face funding cuts and possible disaccreditation.
The pressure from the federal government comes at a time of intensifying austerity at many schools. Last week, one of New York’s most iconic universities, The New School, laid off 19 full-time faculty and 68 staff members. Along with coerced “voluntary” separations and early retirements since December 2025, these mass firings constitute a major gutting of The New School’s full-time faculty.
“It’s a chilling message to all of academia,” says Jeremy Varon, professor of history at The New School and president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “We fear that the number will grow as universities act more and more like corporations, concerned above all with the bottom line.”
“Hell’s Army”: New Film Tracks Russia’s Wagner Group & Rise of Mercenary Armies
We speak with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rick Rowley about his new documentary, Hell’s Army. The film tracks the Wagner Group, the notorious Russian mercenary army that has fought in Ukraine and other parts of the world. The group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was a confidant to Putin until a failed 2023 mutiny against the government. He died in a suspicious plane crash two months later.
“We realized that he could be killed, the leader of this army could be killed, but its model continues,” says Rowley. “Around the world, oligarchs are turning to mercenary armies, and it’s a scourge that needs to be stopped.”
Hell’s Army has its North American premiere Friday in Washington, D.C.
Palestinian Activist Mohsen Mahdawi: Trump Admin “Weaponizing Immigration Laws” to Deport Me
Palestinian activist and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, who was targeted by the Trump administration last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism, faces a new deportation threat. A federal immigration judge has sided with the administration and renewed removal proceedings against him, reviving a case that had been dismissed by an earlier immigration judge. Now he is taking his case directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, telling Democracy Now! that he is “technically without a backup plan” and relying on the federal courts for justice “because I believe that what the Trump administration has done is unconstitutional.”
“New Form of Imperialism”: Renowned U.N. Scientist on AI Boom’s Huge Water, Carbon & Land Footprint
The environmental toll of the artificial intelligence boom continues to mount as tech companies use ever more power to run their data centers and enormous amounts of water for cooling. A new investigation by U.N. scientists warns that AI’s water use in 2030 will match the needs of 1.3 billion people, while its power use will be triple that of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria combined — countries with a total population of 650 million.
“Most people understand AI as a digital technology, as a virtual thing, as something that is in the clouds,” says Iranian environmental scientist Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health. “What we tried to do in this report was to remind people that there’s some physics to all of this.”
U.S. Attacks Iranian Water Reservoirs Amid “Normalization” of Targeting Civilian Infrastructure
We continue our conversation with acclaimed Iranian environmental scientist Kaveh Madani, who comments on U.S. strikes targeting Iranian water reservoirs, which have exacerbated the country’s water shortage. He criticizes the “normalization of targeting civil infrastructure as a part of a war.”
“Who suffers from the consequences of this? The poor community, the vulnerable communities,” says Madani.
“Keep the Game Beautiful”: Why ICE Crackdown & FIFA Greed Could Spoil the World Cup
“People are really, really afraid … that ICE will go and raid communities where people are watching and gathering together” to watch the FIFA World Cup, says Nelini Stamp. She is an organizer with the Our Copa campaign, a grassroots initiative that aims to protect immigrant fans, center the sport’s working-class roots, and host accessible local watch parties during the World Cup. “We will keep each other safe as much as possible during these games,” says Stamp.
World Cup Kicks Off in Mexico Amid Protests Against Austerity and Forced Disappearances
We continue our World Cup coverage in Mexico City, where local protesters are using the global event to bring attention to their causes. A sit-in by a teachers’ union is targeting World Cup festivities. And “the mothers of disappeared people have been protesting, trying to reach the stadium in the far south of the city,” says José Luis Granados Ceja, who covers Latin America for Drop Site News. Meanwhile, due to high ticket prices, “the people who love this sport are not going to be able to attend the games. They have been extraordinarily inaccessible to the population,” adds Granados Cejas.
Will Congress Renew Controversial Surveillance Law? Electronic Frontier Foundation's Cindy Cohn http://www.democracynow.org/2026/6/11/cindy_cohn_eff
#leftist #progressivenews #left #DemocracyNow #VSN
Will Congress Renew Controversial Surveillance Law? Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cindy Cohn
A key provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is set to expire Friday unless it is reauthorized by Congress. Section 702 allows for the warrantless surveillance of foreign nationals believed to be outside of the U.S., yet, in practice, it also sweeps up and stores vast amounts of data from people inside the country, including their emails, texts and cellphone data. The FISA provision was enacted in 2008 to legalize George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program that was developed after 9/11.
A bipartisan group of senators is opposing the reauthorization of Section 702 due to President Trump’s naming of MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation in May. Pulte has no known background in intelligence. He currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he has used his position to carry out Trump’s campaign of retribution against his political enemies.
“It took this nomination of a completely unqualified guy to get enough members of Congress to really stop [Section 702],” says Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s time to take a look and listen hard about the privacy protections that are needed, at a minimum, for this program to go forward.” Cohn notes that the “massive national security surveillance state that was built after 9/11 has always been a threat to freedom.”
Report from Tehran: Amid More U.S./Iran Bombing, Trump Warns Iran Is ”DEAD…Will Pay the Price”
After the downing of an Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz, the United States and Iran have begun trading missile and drone strikes in the most serious escalation of hostilities since the April ceasefire agreement. President Trump posted on social media Wednesday morning that Iran has taken “too long to negotiate a deal” and would now have to “pay the price!!!” For more, we speak to Mohammad Eslami at Tehran University, who says Trump’s “lies and broken promises” have shattered Iranians’ trust in a diplomatic solution. “Every night, there are lots of peoples chanting all around the street against Trump. And also, … unfortunately, many of them are chanting against negotiation with Donald Trump,” he says. “Right now they are asking the Iranian [forces] to retaliate.”
Verdant Square Network