The Headlines - How Iran Could Benefit From Its Deal With the U.S., and an A.I. Arms Race in Schools

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Plus, the “Obamalisk” opens. Here’s what we’re covering: Trump Defends Deal to End the War With Iran as Details Emerge, by Erica L. Green, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Farnaz Fassihi and Michael Levenson Trump Feuds With Thune and G.O.P., Stoking Election-Year Rift, by Carl Hulse Trump Administration to Pay $765 Million to Cancel 4 More Wind Projects, by Brad Plumer How A.I. Apps Teach Students How to Cheat, by Dana Goldstein Obama Center’s Two Sides: A Lovely Park and a Forbidding Tower, by Michael Kimmelman Tune in, and tell us what you think at [e-mail]. For corrections, email [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Thursday, June 18th. Here's what we're covering. A senior Trump administration official gathered reporters on a conference call yesterday in order to release the full text of the deal the U.S. has reached with Iran. Until that point, the specific language of the agreement had been secret. In going paragraph by paragraph, the official read the document aloud,

stopping to defend each section along the way. As the terms of the deal were laid out, what became clear was that the document, which is being called a memorandum of understanding, is far from the unconditional surrender President Trump had demanded from Iran. At the start of the war, Trump said the goal was the total destruction of the country's nuclear and missile programs and the fall of its regime. That hasn't happened, and the deal pushes off talks about Iran's nuclear program to future negotiations. Beyond that, the deal opens the door for Iran to receive broad financial relief, something Trump spent years criticizing President Obama for doing during his administration. The new framework outlines a $300 billion plan for Iran's reconstruction, and, among other things, immediately grants waivers for Iran to begin exporting its oil.

One of the more remarkable elements of this agreement is that at least, at least, you when it comes to oil sales, Iran stands to walk away from the war on much stronger footing than when it entered the war. My colleague Rebecca Elliott, who's been covering the deal, says that for years, Iran has only been able to sell its oil at a very steep discount to try and lure buyers who are willing to take the risk and go around U.S. sanctions. The lifting of U.S. sanctions means that Iran's oil will start flowing to a wider array of buyers. And that stands to benefit Iran financially in significant ways. Meanwhile, how do you go back to the United States and convince a skeptical American public that this deal is a way? Well, look, here they lost militarily, okay? Speaking at the G7 summit yesterday, Trump defended the deal, emphasizing the fact that the U.S. decimated Iran's Navy and Air Force and destroyed much of its defense industry.

This agreement now provides Iran with a historic opportunity. If they follow the path of cooperation, we'll have open for them. Their country will have a chance to survive. Trump said that when it comes to some of the benefits for Iran, like the unfreezing of billions of dollars of the country's assets, that will be able to be able to. only happen in return for, quote, good behavior. And for now, Trump is leaving open the possibility of more military action if he's not happy with the next round of negotiations. It's a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn't get done in 60 days, it's all right. We go back to bombing. You know, I don't want to do that because it's so good. But we might have to. Now, two other quick updates on the Trump administration. First, as the president tries to wind down his war with Iran, he's ramping up a fight with his own party in Congress. Yesterday, he made a series

of moves that blindsided Senate Republicans. Trump pulled his nomination for National Intelligence Director just hours before a confirmation hearing. And he said he would only agree to renew a critical surveillance law if the Senate attached it to a set of controversial voting restrictions that he's been pushing for months. He's passionate about it, and we are doing everything that we can, but it is a function of math. I mean, we are bound by arithmetic in the United States Senate. The votes currently aren't there. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that Republicans just don't have the numbers to give Trump what he wants, short of changing Senate procedure altogether to get rid of the filibuster. That's considered something of a nuclear option. But Trump seems

to be making it clear he wants the voting restrictions passed ahead of the midterms, no matter what it takes. Also, the Interior Department has announced the government will pay an energy developer over $700 million to abandon its plans for new offshore wind farms. The company had bought leases for projects in the Atlantic and Pacific under the Biden administration. Now, the Trump administration is reimbursing them with the understanding that the company will put the money towards new natural gas and geothermal power plants. This is the third time the administration, the administration, the administration, administration has cut a deal like this to cancel offshore wind projects, spending $2.5 billion to do so. And officials have indicated more deals could be in the works.

President Trump, for his part, has long criticized offshore wind turbines, calling them ugly and inefficient, ever since a wind farm went up near one of his golf courses in Scotland. My teacher is asking me to write a five-page lab report, and I'm not about that life. So we're just going to tell the comment assistant to draft the paper and watch the magic happen. Across the internet, high school and college students are being targeted with a lot of videos about how to use AI for their assignments and how not to get caught. Right now, this text is 100% AI. But after I click humanize and wait a couple of seconds, it's 100% human. The videos are pushing tools that are made by both big tech companies and small startups.

This paper is 100% natural sounding because the pauses, errors, and changes in speed and rhythm. Basically, as schools and universities have tried to push back on students using AI by turning to things like AI detection software, a whole industry has sprung up to get around that. For example, you get assigned an essay question to complete at home. In order to make sure you really do it, the professor might use software that records all your keystrokes as you type.

They want to see you writing the essay as you go, complete with mistakes, not just cop. copy pasting it in from a chatbot. But now, an autotyper can help get around that. It can take your AI-generated answer and mimic how a human would have typed it in. Other tools called, yes, this is real humanizers, take text that might be obviously AI written and smooth it out to make it less robotic or formulaic. Schools are trying to keep up, but AI detection is becoming a significant expense for them. And in some cases, the very same companies selling detection tools are also the ones making apps that allow students to cheat. One consequence of this whole

cat and mouse game may be that everyone has to work on their handwriting again as more teachers shift to requiring students to write inside the classroom where they can be observed. And finally, On the south side of Chicago, there's now a massive new structure that's really the tallest thing around. It's an unapologetic 225-foot-tall gray brooding stone building, and it's been dubbed the Obama-Lisk. Michael Kimmelman is the Times architecture critic, and he's been covering the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, which is being officially dedicated today in Chicago. It's not a presidential library, like what many other former presidents have, research. won't go there to dig through papers or a physical archive. Instead, Obama went his own way, raising over $800 million for a huge multi-use complex and museum.

At its heart is this tower, which contains a history. It's a history of abolition, civil rights in the U.S. That's woven through a story of Obama's tenure as the country's first black president. But the tower itself has been a lightning rod. For some, it's uplifting, For some, it's an eyesore. That said, the Obama Center is more than just that tower or museum. It's a campus of some 19 acres intended for people in that neighborhood, a historically poor black neighborhood on the edge of the University of Chicago. There's a community garden.

There's a new public library. There are meeting rooms and recording studios. There's a fantastic new playground. There's a sports center and other places. that are intended to really turn this into an integrated part of the city and an integrated part of the neighborhood. And I think part of the interesting thing about the architecture, which at first can be really alienating or divisive,

can end up being something that people embrace because it becomes a symbol of the neighborhood, a landmark for a community. We'll see what happens in this case. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest, and the Friday News Quiz.