Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Welcome to CaturSaturday, June, 20, 2026, shabbos for Jewish cats, and World Juggling Day. Here’s a short performance by a man who’s been called “the best juggler in the world”:
There’s another Google World Cup Doodle today. Click to see the results of yesterday’s games and today’s upcoming games:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Footy news: The U.S. beat Australia 2-0, winning its second game and advancing to the knockout stage in the World Cup. From yesterday’s ESPN:
The United States were back in FIFA World Cup action today in Seattle as they took on Australia.
Following its impressive 4-1 win last week against Paraguay in its group stage opener, Mauricio Pochettino’s team continued their winning streak by defeating the Socceroos 2-0, with an own goal from Cameron Burgess and another from Alex Freeman as they have now booked their spots into the next round.
The highlights (the two U.S. goals are at 2:22 and 5:35):
Black smoke from a burning oil refinery filled the Moscow sky. The city’s four airports were urgently closed. And part of the busy highway that rings the Russian capital, a metropolis of 13 million people, was shut down.
As Ukraine escalated its effort to bring the war home for Russians, the strikes on Thursday appeared to be the largest drone attack on the Russian capital since President Vladimir V. Putin launched the war more than four years ago.
No deaths were immediately reported. But the large-scale assault seemed likely to feed fears among Russians that the Kremlin’s ability to isolate society from the impacts of the war was sharply eroding. That would usher in a new stage for a conflict that has now run longer than World War I.
For days, lines have formed and rationing has been implemented at gas stations in dozens of Russian regions, as persistent Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries and processing facilities have threatened a fuel shortage.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in a voice memo shared with journalists on Thursday, warned, “If Ukraine burns, then your Moscow will burn as well.”
I wonder where Zelenskyy is getting his drones, but I had no idea they would go so far: the distance between the Ukrainian border and Moscow is over 11oo km. The Russian invasion was over four years ago, and scrappy Ukraine is striking back hard. I had no idea that the fightiong would go on this long; as I recall, I predicted that Russia would take over all of Ukraine within a year or two.
Four IDF soldiers were killed overnight in a Hezbollah attack in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Tebnit, and five soldiers were wounded there hours later, the military said Friday.
Lebanon’s health ministry, meanwhile, reported at least 18 people killed by Israeli strikes. The tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The violence was the latest in deadly clashes between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group that have continued in Lebanon since the US and Iran this week reached a memorandum of understanding that committed them and their allies to halt hostilities in the country.
Israel, which was not party to the MOU, has rebuffed Iranian demands that it withdraw from a buffer zone in south Lebanon meant to protect border towns against Hezbollah attacks. A US official told Axios that Iranian anger over Israeli military activity there may be the reason US-Iranian talks scheduled for Friday were canceled.
In the Hezbollah attack shortly past midnight, a suspected drone or anti-tank missile struck the tank of Lt. Col. Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, commander of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion, killing all four crew members, the IDF said.
The names of the three other soldiers killed in the incident will be published later. The exact cause of the explosion is under further investigation by the IDF.
All the news I get implies that Hezbollah struck first and Israel was retaliating, but I’m pretty sure that Israel is not going to listen to Trump’s demands that it stop attacking Hezbollah as it could scupper the misguided “MoI.” This is an existential fight for Israel, and it won’t tolerate the northern part of the country being under continuous attack. Yesterday a cease-fire was supposed to go into effect, but it is not holding in Lebanon.
From the NYT:
Israel awoke to a frightening new reality on Thursday as it absorbed, with disbelief and largely in silence, the terms of President Trump’s preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran.
It accomplishes none of Israel’s war aims, analysts and officials said, and arguably leaves the country in worse shape on each of them.
Regime change? The government in Tehran is emerging from the war even more hard-line and emboldened, despite being decapitated at the outset of the conflict in late February. The deal’s requirement that American forces retreat from the “proximity” of Iran within 30 days means that Iran can boast that it has chased the U.S. military out of the region.
Ballistic missiles and proxy militias? The agreement does nothing to address Iran’s missile arsenal or its support of Israel’s enemies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Worse still for Israel, by constraining its military in Lebanon — indeed, by requiring that Israel withdraw its forces from that country — the agreement seeks to handcuff Israel in a way that it was not before the war.
The hundreds of billions of dollars that Iran may receive in sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, or reconstruction aid could wind up funding more missiles in Iran and aiding Tehran’s militia allies around the Middle East.
And from Amit Segal:
It’s Friday, June 19, and overnight Hezbollah has continued its campaign against IDF forces in southern Lebanon. A commander’s tank was struck by a drone or missile, killing four—among them the battalion commander, while in another sector of the front five Israeli soldiers were badly wounded by an explosive drone. In response, the Israeli Air Force has carried out an extensive bombing campaign across numerous villages.
The fallout was swift. Talks scheduled for today in Switzerland between the United States and Iran—meant to implement the peace deal—were canceled, with Iran citing the IDF’s actions in its fiefdom in southern Lebanon.
This confrontation was inevitable from the moment digital ink hit digital paper on the Memorandum of Understanding. Neither Hezbollah nor Israel is a signatory to the agreement, and the two have been touting entirely different versions of it. Iran has assured its proxy that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon is written into the U.S.-Iran MoU, to unfold over a phased 60-day period. Israel, meanwhile, has declared that it will not evacuate its positions in southern Lebanon—and insists it has not been asked to—while U.S. officials have reportedly told it that its right to respond to threats will not be infringed.
The larger question—whether Israel may strike “emerging” threats—isn’t addressed here directly, since this was a response to an attack, not a buildup of Hezbollah forces. But if the Trump administration won’t tolerate an Israeli reprisal to a Hezbollah strike, it certainly won’t stomach Israel hitting a growing missile storage facility on its border.
Trump’s own comments have been ambiguous. Beyond an endorsement of the “precise and humanitarian” warfighting style of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa—the former ISIS leader—he has not told Israel to stop outright. Most of his remarks echo the sentiment he offered two days ago: “I want Israel to be able to protect themselves, but I do want them to use good judgment.” “Good judgment,” one suspects, means Trump’s judgment—a phrase I’ve lately found hard to pair with so flattering an adjective. When the president wakes up, I imagine Truth Social will feature a more profane word for Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making.
For all that, the recent conversation between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was surprisingly friendly. On the outside, they reported—and quite rightly so—a rift in relations, about throwing Israel under the bus, but between the driver and the one being run over, a calm and quiet conversation took place. For listeners, it brought to mind the story of King David, who fasted and prayed for his sick son. Precisely when the son died, he arose and shook off his mourning: “Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?”
Trump’s MoI and his behavior is unprecedented, as it demands that an (erstwhile) U.S. ally stop defending itself against terrorists who aren’t even soldiers of a sovereign nation. And it tacitly allows Iran to keep funding terrorism against Israel. I keep saying that Israel is the only country on earth that is prevented from winning a defensive war, and that’s what we see now.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday lashed out at members of Israel’s government, saying that the country is deeply isolated and its leaders have failed to appreciate American diplomatic and military support.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance said during a a news briefing at the White House. “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”
Israel and the U.S. jointly launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, closely coordinating the more than monthlong military operation.
AD
But disagreements quickly emerged following a preliminary April 8 ceasefire agreement, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushing to continue the campaign and Trump moving to wind down a war that was deeply unpopular in the U.S. and rattled the global economy.
Vance of course is acting on Trump’s orders, but I’m sick of him rebuking Israel, just as he rebuked Zelensky for not being “grateful enough” for U.S. aid. It’s like Roosevelt demanding that Churchill show gratitude to the U.S. during WWII for the huge amount of aid we gave the Brits.
But just wait what you see if a Democrat becomes President in a few years. I suspect that Israel will become our enemy and Palestine our ally. (I’m not a one-issue voter, but where the Democrats stand on Israel is pretty clear.) And Israel is isolated because of antisemitism and ignorance, not because of Netanyahu, who, while he has serious political problems, will be replaced by some other PM who will be equally demonized and made the focus of the world’s ire. Are the Palestinian territories “deeply isolated”? I don’t think so. Hamas, as you know, is still in control of Gaza despite Trump’s “peace plan” there. That plan called for them to have disarmed and disbanded by now.
→ Now you’re just gay-baiting: Sometimes I think President Trump reads TGIF and wants to give me fodder—I call this joke laundering—then I remember he only consumes visual media (animated videos of smiling jumping vegetables, Megyn Kelly’s podcast, and Rosie O’Donnell’s Instagram stories). But here is Trump talking about Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: “He was in a hotel and I met him, and we fell in love, deeply in love. . . . we didn’t know each other before that. We had great chemistry, and I stayed twice as long as I was supposed to.” Are you sure you’re not just sprinkling in these quotes every week to taunt me? If you’re reading this, T, how many Big Macs am I holding up?
→ Nick Kristof investigation: Nicholas Kristof—beloved mascot of The New York Times, moral beacon for all young writers who wonder if they, too, could claim that Israel is training dogs to rape humans—is in trouble. Remember how he briefly took a hiatus to run for governor of Oregon? Well, people donated to that campaign. And now he’s back at TheNew York Times paying those donors back by quoting them, a ton, very positively, in the newspaper of record. A little tit-for-tat, if you will. “Previous political donations made by some people Nick Kristof mentioned in his columns should have been made more clear to readers,” the paper’s spokesperson told Semafor when called on to comment. Nothing will happen. This scandal will disappear. If your politics are seen as good by America’s intelligentsia, you can literally be a journalist taking money from sources. . . and it won’t touch you. Me, I do no crimes, and I give it a 50/50 chance I end up in literal jail when this is all over.
→ I wonder what they have in common?: The Zohran Mamdani–endorsed candidate for New York’s 13th Congressional District is socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier. She has fun hobbies, like championing a convicted terrorist behind an Israeli supermarket bombing that killed two people. Oh, and she co-founded the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group that posted things like “Death to America.” At their debate this Tuesday, she also had to apologize for posting “fuck Kamala Harris” and attempted to explain why she attended a Times Square rally celebrating the October 7 massacre (she got lost on her way out of the M&M’s store after the purple M&M’s turned hallucinogenic). And just a million posts like this:
Soon, she’ll be paid by those taxpayers she hates so much. It’s perfect.
→ The rape commission: The independent rape gang inquiry report, spearheaded by United Kingdom MP Rupert Lowe, was released this week and it’s a very tough read. It claims that 250,000 British girls have been abused by these grooming gangs since the 1950s, that Prime Minister Keir Starmer let off 13,000 alleged rapists with just a warning letter, and London mayor Sadiq Khan was made personally aware of the rape gangs but publicly denied their existence. At one point, when a victim’s mother called the police, they reportedly told her: “You should just be glad your child is being taught a different culture.” It’s a very imperfect document, relying on unverified testimonies from victims. Still, it’s damning.
Labour doesn’t want to release data on who occupies social housing, fearing that the information will lead to “racism” on social media. And according to this Daily Mail article, the UK’s Research, Information, and Communications Unit (RICU), which was originally created in 2007 to help monitor and curb al-Qaeda and Islamist propaganda, is now being used to influence public opinion around immigration. The agency allegedly handed out flowers in the wake of the 2017 London Bridge terrorist attacks to promote an environment of “grief” instead of anti-Muslim anger. Aww. . . so thoughtful. And by “thoughtful” I mean tactical and villainous. The group influences families of the rape gang victims not to reference race or religion in their statements. And as recently as last week, when protests spread across Northern Ireland after the stabbing of Stephen Ogilvie, allegedly by Sudanese asylum seeker Hadi Alodid, RICU allegedly advised police to remove any mention of Alodid’s background from their messaging and to paint the protesters as thugs.
Three other Vermont towns [besides Bristol]—Hardwick, Hartford, and Underhill—also passed the four-part resolution this spring. It states:
WE AFFIRM our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people;
WE OPPOSE all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and
WE DECLARE ourselves an apartheid-free community and to that end,
WE PLEDGE to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.
The ultimate goal of the campaign, according to both public and internal materials reviewed by The Free Press, is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and ultimately isolate the Jewish state financially, politically, and culturally.
Since the October 7, 2023, attack against Israel, American entities have embraced BDS with open arms. In May, a Brooklyn food co-op voted to strip Israeli products from the shelves after a push that dates back to 2009. More than a thousand artists and labels, including Björk, Lorde, and Paramore, have pledged to block and remove their music from “genocidal Israel,” since September 2025, according to No Music for Genocide organizers. Earlier this month, a group of Stanford students walked out of their graduation ceremony while Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered the commencement address in protest of the company’s $1.2 billion contract with Israel.
“This is BDS on steroids,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, who now runs the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s happening on Main Street, Wall Street, and college campuses. There is a breathless effort to isolate Israel at this moment.”
. . . Vermont, a state estimated to have fewer than 17,000 Jews, is an unlikely epicenter for the anti-Israel grassroots movement. Ten out of the 12 U.S. towns that have passed anti-apartheid pledges are in Vermont. And it’s already spreading beyond New England. Hundreds of unions, houses of worship, and businesses across the country have adopted the pledge, according to the Apartheid-Free network, an anti-Israel coalition led by the American Friends Service Committee. That includes an animal hospital in Florida, an Emmy-winning production company whose founder directed Taylor Swift’s documentary, Miss Americana, and NYU Women Founders, a student club at New York University dedicated to ending “gender inequality in the business sphere.”
Many Vermont residents I spoke with said these abstract pledges about a faraway conflict have created a tense environment in the towns they once loved for their progressive values.
But the question of “why Vermont’ has been asked and answered. “Progressive” values now include demonization of Jews and Israel, masquerading as “anti-Zionism” or “Netanyahu is evil.”
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej and Hili both miss Malgorzata, who died just a bit over a year ago:
Hili: This is Małgorzata’s phone. Andrzej: Yes, sometimes people call her.
In Polish:
Hili: To jest Małgorzaty telefon.
Ja: Tak, czasem do niej ktoś dzwoni.
I’ve been following this but haven’t written about it. Luigi Mangione, accused murderer, changed his plea from “not guilty” to a “psychiatric” defense: a tacit admission that he did indeed kill Brian Thompson. But a day after that, they withdrew the psychiatric defense. Can they withdraw the public impression that Mangione in effect pleaded guilty?
In a stunning reversal, Luigi Mangione’s lawyers told a judge that he will no longer be asserting a psychiatric defense at his state murder trial in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. https://t.co/hOw4AvaC0U
The Number Ten Cat calls attention to algae in D.C.’s reflecting pool. I suppose it’s from Trump ordering the pool’s bottom to be pained dark blue, which makes the water warmer, but I’m not sure. (We have a refractory algae problem in Botany Pond).
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was ten years old. She would be 92 today had she lived. https://t.co/o4NVRhOkhr
Two from Doc Cobb en France. First, a cave-adapted wasp, already evolutionarily losing wings and eyes:
Introducing the world's only known cave-adapted spider wasp… Troglopompilus miracaecatus (Pompilidae) from the caves of the Nullarbor, Australia.A world first: Eyeless, long limbs and antennae, highly reduced wings.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/…#cave #wasp #biodiversity
A very weird plant, but one related to “regular” plants including rhododendrons and cranberries.
Dried Ghost pipe – Indian PipeThis fascinating plant (Monotropa uniflora) is definitely one of nature’s weird wonders. Because it has no chlorophyll and doesn’t depend on photosynthesis, this ghostly white plant is able to grow in the darkest of forests.
Apparently they received a large shipment of drones from the US some time ago, but these were ineffective. So the Ukraine techs and engineers upgraded and repurposed these basic vehicles to their specific needs, including hitting Putin in the pocketbook to cut off his ability to pay soldiers and the oligarchs. The Ukraine seems to take the initiative to solve their problems, much like Israel did in her several existential wars over the years.
Being an Australian born American (but not a sports fan) whoever won that game: I win! 🙂 Surprising outcome though as Aussies are pretty good at soccer I thought. I guess they’ll be crying into their usual breakfast Fosters down there today. No shrimp barbies for YOU!
Love those medieval calligraphers’ tweets every day. Keep them coming.
Lebanon has to be occupied by Israel AT LEAST South of the Litani River. I’m sure you’d agree if you were trying to live your life in Northern Israel. PBS, being a Hamas/Hezb public relations arm mentioned the Israeli strike but not the IDF deaths that caused it. Of course.
“Israel, which was not party to the MOU…”
I’m reminded of the withdrawal agreement the Trump administration negotiated with Afghanistan. Negotiations were held with the Taliban while the Afghan government was totally excluded from the talks. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban was signed in February 2020 and in August 2021 the Taliban entered Kabul and took over the country.
Where did they get the drones? The always reliable Anne Applebaum discusses the Ukraine drone development and strategy in her substack at url
https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/moscow-is-burning
Apparently they received a large shipment of drones from the US some time ago, but these were ineffective. So the Ukraine techs and engineers upgraded and repurposed these basic vehicles to their specific needs, including hitting Putin in the pocketbook to cut off his ability to pay soldiers and the oligarchs. The Ukraine seems to take the initiative to solve their problems, much like Israel did in her several existential wars over the years.
Being an Australian born American (but not a sports fan) whoever won that game: I win! 🙂 Surprising outcome though as Aussies are pretty good at soccer I thought. I guess they’ll be crying into their usual breakfast Fosters down there today. No shrimp barbies for YOU!
Love those medieval calligraphers’ tweets every day. Keep them coming.
Lebanon has to be occupied by Israel AT LEAST South of the Litani River. I’m sure you’d agree if you were trying to live your life in Northern Israel. PBS, being a Hamas/Hezb public relations arm mentioned the Israeli strike but not the IDF deaths that caused it. Of course.
D.A.
NYC
Consequent to America’s victory over Australia in the World Cup, Steak ‘n Shake is offering shakes for $0.20, one per customer.
“Israel, which was not party to the MOU…”
I’m reminded of the withdrawal agreement the Trump administration negotiated with Afghanistan. Negotiations were held with the Taliban while the Afghan government was totally excluded from the talks. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban was signed in February 2020 and in August 2021 the Taliban entered Kabul and took over the country.