Welcome to June 14, 2026, shabbos for gentile cats (remember that the Sabbath was made for cats, not cats for the Sabbath), and National Strawberry Shortcake Day. I don’t have a photo, but here’s a substitute: a strawberry shave ice from Hawaii, photographed in 2019. Shave ice, in all its various forms, is one of the epicurean delights of the islands.
It’s also Army’s Birthday (“on June 14, 1775, the American Continental Army formed, in order to present a unified opposition against Britain”), Flag Day, International Bath Day (my father hated them, saying, “who wants to sit in their own schmutz?”; and so I, his son, take only showers), International Feta Day, National Bourbon Day, National Cucumber Day, and World Blood Donor Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 14 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Big news for basketball fans. The San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks 94-90 in the NBA finals, taking their first championship in 53 years. (The Knicks won four games to one in a seven-game series.)
At long last, the New York Knicks are NBA champions.
In a Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night that looked much like the previous four, the San Antonio Spurs took a double-digit lead in the first quarter. But like in three of the previous four games, the Knicks rallied — this time from a 16-point deficit — to secure a 94-90 Game 5 win and a 4-1 series victory.
Jalen Brunson led the way with a legacy-securing 45-point effort as New York‘s only reliable source of offense on a night when both teams struggled from the field. But for New York, the win didn’t have to be pretty. The result is the franchise’s first NBA championship since 1973. And Brunson has secured his place among New York’s sporting greats.
Here are the last few minutes of the game. New York is going wild.
*There are several reports that a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran is close. First from the Times of Israel:
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says that the United States and Iran have agreed to a framework for a peace deal that would end the months-long conflict in the Middle East, with a final text of the deal reached.
Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic signing expected within the next 24 hours, followed by technical-level talks next week, Sharif added.
Mediators have said they are close to completing an agreement that reopens the strait and relieves restrictions associated with the U.S. blockade of Iran, leaving other issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and the unfreezing of Iranian assets abroad, to be negotiated later.
“There’s lots of ways Iran can just buy time,” said William Wechsler, the director of Middle East programs at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, and a former Defense Department official. “It’s in their interest, and it will continue to be the pattern.”
A turning point in the past week of drama came on Wednesday when a Qatari delegation of diplomats returned from a trip to Tehran with new language for the draft peace agreement, people familiar with the matter said. Pakistani officials convinced Trump that a deal was close at hand, U.S. officials said, and he called off strikes that he had promised for that evening.
Gaps remain between the Iranian and American positions, though, a Qatari official said, on Iran’s billions of dollars in frozen assets, control of the strait and the disposal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium. Iran continued to push for early access to its frozen funds, people familiar with the matter said.
Trump was frustrated when text purporting to be from the final agreement—and which was friendly to the Iranian position—was leaked, U.S. officials said. He instructed his team to push back on the narrative that the deal would be weak or that Iran would receive funds before fulfilling its commitments.
From the NYT:
In the course of this war, Iran has gone from appearing weak and defenseless to a regime not only surviving, but also retaining important military and nuclear abilities. Iran’s extensive security apparatus seems firmly in control of all aspects of governing, society and foreign policy.
Iran is now led by “a younger, more brazen generation in power,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, in what Aaron David Miller, a former American diplomat at the Carnegie Endowment, called “a transition from divine power to hard power.”
Let’s face it: as it looks now, even if you were opposed to the war with Iran, the U.S. is losing the war. There are 60 days for further negotiations, and that will entail even more waffling about what to do with enriched uranium. It’s not clear whether the Straits of Hormuz will be free and open, and how many of its frozen assets Iran will get back. And what about Israel in Lebanon? At least the Israelis, I think, will not accept any stipulations that they stop fighting Hezbollah and withdraw from southern Lebanon. It’s an ungodly mess, and I predict an acceptable cease-fire won’t be signed in the coming week.
*Trump has just suffered four losses in court. Here they are with links to the NYT articles:
- Workers began taking down President Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center’s facade after a judge’s order.
- The Trump administration said it would comply with a court order to restart processing asylum and other immigration applications
- A judge prevented the Trump administration from removing signs from National Parks that Trumpies consider offensive; the judge said the Administration was engaging in “censorship”.
- A federal judge indefinitely banned the creation of the president’s $1.8 billion payout fund, citing mixed messages from the administration about the fund’s future.
A couple of paras from each:
Trump’s name off the Kennedy Center:
After a night of storms, both political and meteorological, workers removed President Trump’s name from the white marble facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts early on Saturday morning, responding to a federal judge’s ruling that its rebranding was unlawful.
The letters began coming down just past 3 a.m., after the center was granted an extension of a midnight deadline. Matt Floca, the center’s executive director, attributed the delay to a cluster of summer storms. On Saturday morning, he filed a sworn declaration with the court confirming that Mr. Trump’s name had been removed.
Restarting immigration procedures:
The Trump administration said on Friday that it would comply with a court order to restart processing asylum and other immigration applications filed by a broad swath of people who had been left in legal limbo for months.
The move comes after a federal judge in Rhode Island last week struck down a suite of policies imposed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a major blow to the administration’s expanding efforts to restrict legal immigration. The policies included a global hold on asylum applications filed with the agency and a freeze on immigration applications filed by people from 39 countries, largely in Africa and the Middle East, that are subject to President Trump’s travel ban.
More than a million applications had ground to a halt as a result, preventing many people from obtaining green cards, citizenship and other immigration benefits. The halt also disrupted people’s ability to legally work and left them waiting indefinitely for decisions on their applications.
National Park signs:
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the National Park Service from removing or revising signs, films and other materials at national parks across the country to comply with a directive from President Trump.
The ruling pauses enforcement of an executive order that called for removing or covering up materials at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans” or cast the United States “in a negative light.”
To comply with the president’s directive, the Park Service has taken down plaques about slavery at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, a sign about climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a sign about Indigenous people at Acadia National Park in Maine.
Trump’s payoff fund:
A federal judge on Friday barred the Trump administration until further notice from setting up a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people claiming to have been unfairly prosecuted by the government, saying that her order was needed because of mixed messages about the scheme from President Trump.
The ruling by the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, was the strongest effort to date by anyone in government to hold the administration to its word that the proposal to create the fund had actually been set aside. While Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, told Congress last week that the fund would not move forward, Mr. Trump has been much more circumspect, insisting that he still loves the idea and believes that people who suffered in court at the hands of the government should get financial compensation.
*The National Review reports that NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to provide $65 million in “gender-affirming care” to the people of his city.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is looking to make good on his campaign promise to invest $65 million in taxpayer funds toward expanding access to “gender-affirming care” in the Big Apple.
“As a first step, my administration has made a $15 million investment in gender-affirming care over the next two years, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to make sure every trans and gender non-conforming New Yorker can live with the dignity, safety and freedom they deserve,” Mamdani said at a Pride month celebration Tuesday. “The threats will continue and so will our relentless protection of trans people across this city.”
Despite efforts from the Trump administration to keep taxpayer dollars from funding gender-transition services, the mayor and his administration are doubling down on their attempts to fund these procedures — and even looking for ways to circumvent the president’s restrictions on gender-transition treatments for minors.
NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin recently spoke at a City Council health budget hearing where he made public the city’s desire to endorse these procedures for gender-confused youth without getting caught in the crossfire of the federal government.
“We are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth as well as making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give,” Martin said.
Two major city hospital systems, NYU Langone Health and Mount Sinai Health, shuttered their youth transgender programs amid concerns over threatened federal funding. The Mamdani administration, however, seems committed to maintaining access to the controversial treatments for the city’s youth.
. . . The city, through the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, plans to open a “gender-affirming care clinic” in Corona, a neighborhood in Queens. Martin said this is “one of the first times that the public health department has ever taken that step.”
The department has told other media outlets that it will only offer treatments to patients that are at least 19 years of age, in order to avoid running afoul of the Trump administration’s mandates. However, the department did not immediately return National Review‘s request for comment regarding the timeline on the opening of the clinic and if it will serve minors, in light of the mayor’s comments.
The whole concept of “gender-affirming care”, rather than objective assessment rather than gung-ho treadmill through therapy to hormones and/or surgery, is misguided, and has been abandoned in other countries. The “19-and-above” stipulation is a good standard for hormones and surgery, but I’m betting the city won’t adhere to it. Care for dysphoria, yes; affirmative care, no way. This seems to be more performative wokeness by the mayor, but, hey, people who voted for him had an idea of what they were getting.
*The Democrats have finally admitted that yes, Graham Platner has his problems, but that hesitating to vote for him is “purity politics” that is not needed in the drive to limit Trump’s reach.
“Look who’s in the White House,” said Abigail Woods, a 37-year-old city councillor in Biddeford. “Purity politics don’t get us anywhere.”
Democrat Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and veteran, faces Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the fall, and winning the blue state is crucial to Democrats’ uphill battle to retake the Senate. Platner won his party’s nomination in the state’s primary Tuesday, easily overcoming a small protest vote for Gov. Janet Mills (D), who suspended her campaign in April.
Platner has weathered reports that he sent sexually explicit texts to multiple women while married and had volatile relationships with women in the past. He also faced questions over a Nazi-linked tattoo he said he mistakenly got while serving in the military and has now covered up, and over deleted social media posts in which he insulted rural Mainers and police officers and downplayed the seriousness of sexual assault. Platner has disavowed the posts, saying that when he made them he was suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder after multiple tours in Iraq as a Marine.
The controversies have opened up a debate among Democrats about how much matters of personal character should count after a decade when they’ve decried the thrice-divorced Trump’s personal failings, with little result. Before he won reelection, Trump was held liable for sexual abuse in a civil case in New York. (He denied the charge and has never been criminally charged with sexual assault.)
Some Democratic voters in the Trump era are not impressed by lesser scandals and don’t want to play by a different set of rules than the opposition.
Joan Brown, 77, who lives in Skowhegan, was disappointed by Platner’s texts, but she said they weren’t a dealbreaker for her.
“Is this the first man in civilization who’s ever been a pig?” she asked.
Senate Democrats’ decision to let a key surveillance authority lapse comes as they are increasingly emboldened in their legislative fights against President Donald Trump, blocking even traditionally bipartisan bills as they push back against his policies and personnel.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the feud between Hili and Kulka continues, and it will last forever. Hili is at bottom right here.
Hili: Don’t even think about coming over here.
Kulka: I’m going in the opposite direction.
Hili: Nawet nie próbuj do mnie podchodzić.Kulka: Przecież idę w inną stronę.
*******************
From Stacy, who agrees that this is an outrage:
Another great letter from TherionArms:
From Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Group:
From JKR, and yes, the guy is uttering complete and utter bullshit? What is “THE PLAN” and who is this guy. It doesn’t matter for assessing his BS-emission, though.
Every single person who still cringes at the memory of trying to bullshit their way through an interview or exam question: today, the slate is wiped clean. Set down your burden of shame. Nothing – nothing, I say – could touch this. pic.twitter.com/n0hSdThavw
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 12, 2026
From Luana, who says that with near certainty Hunter Biden’s post was posted with AI. I’m starting to recognize this style, which I often see on Facebook posts:
To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:
Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.…— Hunter Biden (@HunterBiden) June 12, 2026
From Captain Ella (really a Lieutenant Colonel now), who sees the World Cup through the focus of Iran:
English translation from the Arabic:
From the field to the goal… the Defense Army deserves the World Cup rightfully after crushing the heads of terrorism and crime. For no goal is too difficult for us, and no net too far.
من الميدان إلى المرمى…جيش الدفاع يستحق كأس العالم بجدارة بعد سحق رؤوس الإرهاب والجريمة. فلا هدف يصعب علينا، ولا مرمى بعيد pic.twitter.com/8XxUfCcpXa
— Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya | إيلا واوية (@CaptainElla1) June 11, 2026
How did I miss that David Hockney died? I learned it from Larry the Cat, who shows one of Hockney’s paintings (an obituary is here):
Rest in peace David Hockney xhttps://t.co/ev7D7ifNV2 pic.twitter.com/XSFztCcJtX
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 12, 2026
One from my feed, showing evolved antipredator behavior. Sound up to hear the call:
When a mother boar senses danger, she issues a sharp, specific vocalization. The piglets react instantly by dropping flat and staying perfectly still
Watch this
📹Drakis pic.twitter.com/P4MffvuxCA
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) June 13, 2026
And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was three years old, and would be 87 today had he lived. https://t.co/CLsYQ8MIhe
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) June 14, 2026
Two posts from Matthew in Switzerland, both showing the Matterhorn. First morning, then night:
Matterhorn in the morning
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T05:38:47.471Z
Matterhorn at night.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-12T20:54:41.124Z
T***p’s name is off of the Kennedy center, though it seems that they are not removing the tarps so we can see the facade any time soon. I wonder what will be done to repair the residual damage from the attachments.
In the end, the biggest crime in this entire thing isn’t the hubris, it is the embarrassingly poor execution of the job. The poor kerning; the visible mismatch in typeface. It is as if the effort wasn’t there from the start. I am so glad it is gone.
You say at the beginning that the Spurs won, but the Knicks did?
Hi Jerry, You got this one backwards: “The San Antonio Spurs beat the New York Knicks 94-90 in the NBA finals,”
There is a straight forward interview from amanda with ToI correspondent Lazar on the possible Iran deal in 20-minute video this morning. Pretty depressing, but where did people think that the dynamic duo of trump and bibi would end up anyway? Url should be
And while I am happy knicks won over the texas team…in the old nfl spirit of i pull for the redskins and anybody who plays against dallas…i tried watching both game 3 and last night’s game for awhile but left because i could not see how this version of basketball was anything like what i played as a kid or even watched through the 70’s. Fouls? Walking? It all seemed pretty nihilistic to me. You kids get off my lawn!
So we are close to agreeing to a framework of continued negotiations with Iran (again). I’m reminded of the prolonged Paris Peace talks the USA had with North Vietnam, which extended from May 1968 to January 1973. Note that Trump, Hegseth, and Rubio remind us how long other wars like WWII took as some attempt to justify what is happening with Iran.
Just reading PCC(E)’s derring do with the ducks yesterday. Boy.
I’ve started to go back to the local park to feed the pigeons here, with puppy, but I doubt I’d have the emotional resilience for such an adventure as Botany Pond.
“And we could be heroes,
Just for one day.”
– Bowie
D.A.
NYC 🗽