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Commercial vessels and oil tankers preparing to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most critical strategic waterways for global trade flows, maintain their wait in the Gulf of Oman, on June 17, 2026.

Oil fell Tuesday, reversing slight gains at the start of the session, as investors showed cautious optimism about an end to the conflict in the Middle East.

International benchmark Brent crude futures for August fell 1.57% to $76.68 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for August declined 1.53% to $72.73 per barrel.

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Gas ⁠station ​operators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by California drivers ⁠who accused them of using artificial intelligence to boost prices at the pump.

According to a proposed class action, the defendants ⁠violated California’s main antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, by using an AI-based tool that ​uses data from competing gas ‌stations to “coordinate high prices ‌and wring more money from the pockets of consumers”.

The lawsuit in the ‌Sacramento federal court said the scheme violated assembly bill 325, a California law that took effect on 1 January and was intended to crack down on algorithmic price fixing.

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Israel loves President Trump, but “the security of Israeli citizens comes first,” the country’s far-right national security minister said Monday.

“We love President Trump but first and foremost – Israeli soldiers, our fighters, our residents, the security of Israeli citizens comes first,” Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

“No more daredevil ceasefire,” he added.

Ben-Gvir, who has been sanctioned by the U.K., Canada, Australia and several other countries for inciting violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, said the deaths of Israeli soldiers taking part in operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last week showed “the containment policy failed.”

He criticized “years of measured responses” and “attempts to buy temporary peace” with Iran and its proxy forces – Hezbollah being the most serious threat to Israel among them – and said those initiatives had been interpreted by Israel’s enemies as “weakness.”

“The State of Israel must be safe, if not – Beirut will look like Beit Hanun,” he said, referring to a city in Gaza that was once home to more than 50,000 Palestinians. The city was “level[ed] to the ground” during Israel’s war with another Iranian proxy, Hamas, according to Israel’s defense chief.

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U.S. naval power is undergoing its greatest transformation in a generation, and the nation’s status as the top global military superpower may hinge on the outcome.

That transformation and all the challenges that come with it — including advanced technology integration, shipbuilding labor shortages and budgetary tensions — will be at the center of a special event to be hosted Wednesday by The Washington Times’ Threat Status national security team at the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington.

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Board members of a small township in Michigan agreed to “fight to our very last breath” against an AI data center planned in their community. America’s nuclear scientists and the University of Michigan want to build a massive data center in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. If built, the data center will, among other things, run simulations to help America build nuclear weapons.

The residents of Ypsilanti Township overwhelmingly oppose the construction of the data center and voiced their opposition to the computer warehouse during a public board meeting on June 16. In a show of support that’s often rare from local leaders in communities with data centers, Ypsilanti Township’s board vowed to fight UofM and Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is partnering with the university, with everything they had.

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BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian lawmakers late on Monday rejected a new government proposed by Prime Minister-designate Adrian Vestea, who had hoped to bring an end to the country’s protracted political crisis.

The vote in Parliament failed — with 189 votes for and 23 against — and more than half of lawmakers abstained. It needed at least 233 to pass. The outcome caps a monthslong political crisis that started when a no-confidence vote toppled the previous government in May.

Romanian President Nicusor Dan said he designated Vestea, a longtime member of the National Liberal Party, or PNL, to try to form a government based on his past administrative experience. Vestea was Dan’s second prime ministerial nomination after his previous pick, Eugen Tomac, failed to present a cabinet within 10 days.

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An Ohio voting-rights group is insisting it did nothing to justify the “swarms” of FBI agents who fanned out across the state on June 12, searching offices and visiting the homes of employees and volunteers with the Ohio Organizing Collaborative.

Meanwhile, the FBI hasn’t given any public hint of its reasons for the action or shown that they were justified.

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Rev. Michael Harrison Sr., chairman of the collaborative’s board, said in an interview on MS Now. “In the midst of having done nothing wrong, there’s nothing to find, and there are no charges to be filed.”

The collaborative says it has registered more than 600,000 Ohioans to vote. It focuses particularly on traditionally disempowered groups. Its leader said the FBI effort didn’t come as a complete surprise.

“Whenever you’re doing the right thing, there will always be pushback,” he said during the MS Now interview. “Whenever you’re providing opportunity for the marginalized or left out, there will always be some level of pushback.”

President Donald Trump has officially signed a deal with Iran that is effectively a 60-day ceasefire intended to lead to a final peace deal. Details of the plan have not been clearly given, but already Trump faces skepticism from both progressives and conservatives at home.

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Toronto police have linked multiple shootings, including one at the U.S. Consulate in March, to complex gun-for-hire networks

TORONTO — Police in Canada said Tuesday they have linked multiple shootings, including at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto in March, to “multilayered” gun-for-hire networks that have also targeted synagogues in the city.

Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw told a news conference that young adults are being recruited through encrypted messages and paid by the networks to carry out the shootings and have to film them to get paid. Some of the firearms used in the attacks have since been seized by investigators.

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Ukraine hit a major Moscow oil refinery for a second time in a week and disrupted commercial flights at the city’s airports in one of its biggest drone attacks since Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago, Russian officials said Thursday.

The attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the United States and France, and had won key pledges of further support from the G7 summit this week.

Zelenskyy was expected in Brussels later Thursday for talks with NATO and European Union leaders, including discussions about the possible building of a continental system to protect against ballistic missiles. Russia has relentlessly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defenses struggle to counter.

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A ⁠suspect in ​the murder of a Russian national has been ​detained, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, after an artist critical of President Vladimir Putin ​was ‌shot dead in eastern ⁠Poland this week.

The suspect was detained by police in ‌cooperation with Poland‘s Internal Security Agency, Tusk said ⁠on X, adding that the man was using a Georgian passport. Local police ​in Lublin said the document belonged ‌to a 36-year-old man.

Prosecutors have said the victim, identified as Robert Kuzovkov and also known as ‌Semyon Skrepetsky, was hit by five bullets, including one to ​the head. Two Belarusians have also been detained in connection with the killing in the ​city of Biala Podlaska but have not been ​charged.

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As Trump obfuscates over Iran concessions in his new ‘peace deal’ major tension grows between Israel and Washington over the inclusion of Lebanon – as it is seen as protecting Hezbollah

A police officer inspects buildings damaged in Israeli strikes in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon(Image: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Israel has continued to hammer Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon in defiance of a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran. At least one person has died in the attacks despite Lebanon being included in the ‘memorandum of understanding’ on the Iran war. US President Donald Trump’s controversial MOU concedes the inclusion of Lebanon, effectively limiting Israel’s ability to attack Iran’s proxy extension Hezbollah. It has infuriated many Israelis who see the MOU as severely restricting their ability to protect themselves from Hezbollah by attacking it.

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Oh, Trump is now speaking with reporters, sitting next to the Emir of Qatar.

As we suspected (9:43), he confirms he had a “very good” meeting with Zelenskyy this morning and will meet with him again later today.

“Look, Russia should make a deal. Russia’s lost tremendous amounts of people, and so has Ukraine. Last month, they lost 35,000 soldiers between the two; it’s on a monthly basis. They averaged 25,000 people, mostly soldiers, young,beautiful people, and it’s crazy what’s going on there.

But we had a meeting, and we’ll see… I spoke with President Putin on Sunday.”

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Trump and Starmer have both spoken at the G7 Summit in France today.

The US president told reporters that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon and that if that does happen, “all hell will rain down on them”.

Trump said: “The only thing that really matters to me is Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. If they do, they’ll suffer unbelievable consequences. The consequences are the ultimate consequences.

“The biggest thing is they will not have a nuclear weapon. They will not develop, purchase, buy or require a nuclear weapon. If they do, all hell will rain down on them.”

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Both sides say the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s trade in oil and liquefied natural gas, will be open from Friday.

On Tuesday, Iranian state television reported operations to lift its maritime blockade, while stressing that vessels must still coordinate with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Trump said earlier that tankers were starting to move out of the strait, and Reuters reported that the US – which had imposed its own blockade on Iranian ports – had been overseeing scores of secretive ship-to-ship oil transfers to keep Gulf energy exports flowing.

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Iran’s decision to hold a July funeral for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a high-stakes bet that any emerging peace deal with the United States will hold, potentially creating a “target-rich” gathering of Tehran’s most isolated leaders, a counterterrorism expert warned Sunday.

The multi-day state funeral, announced by Iranian state media on June 13, is scheduled to begin in Tehran on July 4 and end with Khamenei’s burial in the holy city of Mashhad on July 9, Reuters reported.

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A cargo ship crossing the North Pacific encountered a powerful storm that swept several shipping containers into the ocean. One of those containers carried 28,800 plastic bath toys consisting of yellow ducks, blue turtles, red beavers, and green frogs. What appeared to be a routine shipping accident soon turned into one of the most unusual scientific experiments in history. As the toys drifted across oceans for years, researchers tracked their movements and used the information to gain a deeper understanding of how ocean currents move around the planet. The accidental spill provided scientists with valuable data that would have been extremely difficult and expensive to collect through traditional methods.

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A heroic Indiana mother was killed when she stepped in between her son and an 18-year-old gunman who had pulled a firearm on them during a Facebook marketplace sale.

Jean Gragg, 40, and her teenage son were selling a watch to prospective buyer John Ford during an arranged meet-up on the front porch of their Edison Park, Ind., home near the University of Notre Dame on June 10, South Bend Police said.

Gragg’s son had planned to sell the watch to Ford just before 10 p.m.

Jean Gragg died days after she was shot in the head during a robbery while her son

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President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Tuesday on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, as the leaders of the world’s largest economies renew their focus on the war in Ukraine amid hopes the Iran conflict is nearing a conclusion.

Mr. Trump told reporters after the sit-down that the two had a “very good meeting” and that he planned to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart again later in the day.

Asked about the war, Mr. Trump responded, “Russia should make a deal.”

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KAMPALA, Uganda — An opposition figure in Uganda was detained Monday on the orders of the army chief, whose increased role in his father’s administration has worried opposition and human rights defenders.

Erias Lukwago was taken from his house by armed soldiers after he had sought to serve Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is army chief and the president’s son, with court papers related to Kainerugaba’s threats against another opposition figure, according to Lukwago’s party. Kainerugaba confirmed the arrest on his social media and threatened to inflict “hurt and pain” against him.

Lukwago is a former mayor of the Ugandan capital of Kampala and the president of the People’s Front for Freedom opposition group. He is the attorney for Kizza Besigye, a four-time presidential candidate who faces treason charges in a criminal case that his supporters see as politically motivated.

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The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Carter Page’s case against former FBI officials who oversaw what the government now concedes was an ill-advised attempt to surveil his activities during the 2016 campaign.

The justices rejected the case without comment.

Mr. Page had said the FBI fabricated information to obtain four warrants obtained against him under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then leaked information to the press.