Latest Headlines for Thursday, June 18th.

These are the stories you need to know about for June 18th.

President Trump personally signed the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding during a dinner with French President Macron at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday night, confirming what Vice President Vance had digitally co-signed days earlier. The 14-point MOU calls for an immediate ceasefire including Lebanon, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz without tolls, and 60 days of nuclear negotiations — though critics say major questions remain unresolved. Read More

A string of unrelated aviation accidents — including a B-52 bomber crash at Edwards Air Force Base that killed eight, a fatal business jet crash on a Texas highway, a fatal skydiving plane crash in Missouri, and an F/A-18 crash in Washington state — has alarmed the public, but experts emphasize the tragedies are unconnected and each under separate investigation. Read More

Tropical Storm Arthur, the first named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast and weakened to a post-tropical cyclone Thursday, but forecasters warn its remnants will continue dumping 5 to 10 inches of rain — with isolated totals near 20 inches — across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle through early Friday, threatening dangerous flash flooding. See Details

Unease among Senate Republicans hardened into open opposition Wednesday as details of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding surfaced, with Sen. Bill Cassidy calling it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades” and other hawks arguing the deal fails to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The White House is dispatching Vice President Vance — seen as the chief negotiator and most vulnerable political target — to defend the agreement publicly. See Details

President Trump threw Senate Republicans’ plans into disarray Wednesday by canceling the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, his nominee for Director of National Intelligence, demanding Congress first approve a voter ID requirement as part of renewing the FISA surveillance law. The abrupt move left an empty committee room and exposed fractures between the White House and GOP Senate leadership over the scope of executive control over nominations. See Details

Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs, armed services, and intelligence committees sent a three-page letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, demanding a full congressional briefing on the U.S.-Iran MOU, saying they welcome the move toward diplomacy but need transparency on what the agreement commits the United States to. The State Department responded that the administration has “routinely briefed Congress” and that Trump’s actions have made Americans safer. See Details

Attorneys for Luigi Mangione, charged with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, announced Wednesday they will assert he was suffering from “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of the killing — a legal claim that, if successful, could reduce a murder charge to manslaughter under New York law. The case has drawn intense public attention amid ongoing debate over the U.S. health insurance industry. Read More

The Trump Justice Department joined a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to halt a housing reparations program in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, arguing that the program constitutes unconstitutional race-based discrimination in the distribution of public funds. The DOJ’s intervention escalates a broader administration effort to dismantle diversity and equity programs at the state and local level. See Details

The Air Force publicly identified all eight people killed in Monday’s B-52 crash at Edwards Air Force Base, including Lt. Col. Gabriel Estrella, Maj. Robert Dee, civilian contractor Jeromy Smith, and Boeing engineer Col. Gregory Watson, among others. Military officials say the investigation into the deadliest B-52 accident in over four decades could take up to six months to complete. See Details

U.S. stock futures rose modestly early Thursday — S&P 500 futures up 0.83% and Nasdaq futures up 1.32% — after a sharp Wednesday selloff in which the Dow fell more than 500 points following the Federal Reserve’s first meeting under new chairman Kevin Warsh. The median Fed dot plot now projects a potential rate hike in 2026, rattling bond markets and pushing the two-year Treasury yield to 4.22%. Source

The Federal Reserve voted to hold its benchmark interest rate unchanged at its June meeting, the first chaired by Kevin Warsh since taking over from Jerome Powell, but the central bank’s updated projections — including several members signaling a potential rate increase later this year — sent stocks sliding and bond yields surging. Warsh notably abstained from submitting his own rate forecast, adding to investor uncertainty about his monetary policy direction. Find out More

Fox Corporation officially closed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, the streaming hardware and platform giant, in a deal that dramatically expands Fox’s distribution reach into connected TV households. The acquisition is seen as a strategic response to the accelerating shift from linear cable to streaming and gives Fox a powerful data and advertising platform with over 90 million active accounts. Find out More

	Symbol	Last Close	% Change
Dow Jones	DJIA	$51,492.55	-0.98%
S&P 500	SPX	$7,420.10	-1.21%
Nasdaq Composite	IXIC	$26,021.66	-1.34%

	Symbol	Last Close	% Change
Dow Jones	DJIA	$35,000.00	0.32%
S&P 500	SPX	$4,500.00	-0.57%
Nasdaq Composite	IXIC	$14,000.00	1.81%
Alphabet Inc.	GOOG	$371.10	1.09%
Tesla, Inc.	TSLA	$404.66	-1.58%
Apple Inc.	AAPL	$299.24	0.95%
Microsoft Corp.	MSFT	$393.83	-1.48%

World leaders at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, welcomed the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, with French President Macron calling it “an excellent agreement” and praising Trump at a bilateral meeting. Despite the diplomatic optimism, critics across the political spectrum note the MOU leaves Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, nuclear program, and sanctions relief to a second round of negotiations with no guarantee of resolution. Source

South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced Wednesday it will reduce the size of the military-controlled buffer zone along the heavily fortified demilitarized zone with North Korea, a move analysts say could signal either a warming in inter-Korean relations or a restructuring of South Korea’s defensive posture amid shifting regional security dynamics. Find out More

Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone offensives of the war Thursday, sending more than 500 drones toward Moscow and striking the city’s largest oil refinery for the second time in a week, hours after President Zelenskyy told reporters he had held an “important coordination call” with President Trump and French President Macron that he said could “bring about significant change.” Russia said its air defenses intercepted the majority of the drones, but multiple drones struck civilian and industrial targets. Read More

Toy Story 5 is tracking for a domestic opening weekend of $145 to $175 million when it opens June 19, which would make it the largest debut in the 31-year franchise’s history and the biggest opening of 2026, according to Variety. The Pixar sequel, directed by Andrew Stanton and featuring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen reprising their roles, follows the toys as their owner becomes addicted to a kiddie smart tablet. Link

Daveigh Chase, the actress who voiced Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and portrayed the terrifying Samara Morgan in The Ring, died Tuesday from meningitis and sepsis, her boyfriend confirmed to TMZ. Friends told TMZ they had been desperately searching for Chase, who had battled personal struggles for years, and believed she had been living on Skid Row in the months before her death. See Details

Guillermo Rodriguez, the beloved security guard and on-air personality from Jimmy Kimmel Live!, has signed on to compete in Season 35 of Dancing With the Stars, TMZ first reported. Rodriguez joins a cast that already includes reality stars Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller, and social media personality Jackson Olson of the Savannah Bananas. Read More

New York Knicks owner James Dolan announced the team accepted an invitation to visit the White House to celebrate winning the NBA championship. The Knicks are the first NBA champion to visit the White House while Donald Trump is President. Source

Harry Kane scored twice, and Jude Bellingham added another as England beat Croatia 4-2 in their World Cup opener in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday, with Kane’s tenth World Cup goal tying Gary Lineker’s 1986-1990 record. The result was a dramatic affair — Croatia twice pulled level — before England pulled away in the second half with Bellingham and Marcus Rashford adding goals. See Details

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is off to a spectacular start for American broadcasters, with the U.S. team’s 4-1 win over Paraguay drawing more than 27 million total viewers across all platforms — a record for a men’s World Cup game on English-language TV in the U.S. — and Mexico’s opening win drawing more than 19 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Read More

Scottish soccer fans descending on Boston for World Cup matches proved so enthusiastic about beer that the Sam Adams Boston Taproom sold four times its normal volume of Boston Lager over a recent four-day stretch — and completely ran out, requiring an emergency delivery on Saturday morning. Multiple other bars also sold out, with one Irish pub manager saying, “We tripled St. Patrick’s Day.” See Details