New York Knicks Win NBA Championship

The U. S. and Iran finally agree to a deal Reuters explains what's known and what's not. President Trump is saying this all happens on Friday that the deal will be signed and then the Strait of Hormz will finally reopen And what remains unclear is Everything else Iran plays its first World Cup game tonight Guardian looks at how the conflict has overshadowed the team's road to the tournament and how Nicks fans reacted to their first title in more than fifty years. This is a really passionate fan base that's kind of been waiting for a team to be worthy of their passion. And when they get one, they go nuts It's Monday, june fifteent. I'm Gid Resnik in Fhamit to Basu. This is Apple News today Last night, the US and Iran both confirmed that an interim agreement had been reached to stop the fighting. Halting a war that began more than three months ago In a social media post yesterday, President Trump said, quote, The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete There's no formal text, but some details have emerged from briefings Reuters reports that it involves a sixty day ceasefire and it will lead to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to the U.S military blockade of Iran. A standoff that had created a global economic crisis Vice President JD Vance, a key member of the negotiating team, spoke to Fox after news emerged. My primary message to the American people is thank you because of your patience. I think that we've solved the problem that has plagued this country again for well before I was even born. which is a terrorist supporting Iran that was pursuing a nuclear weapon. We are now at a place here where we can say with confidence they're not going to get a nuclear weapon Momentum was gaining for a resolution in recent days. But Vance acknowledged fears yesterday that it would be derailed after Israel targeted Hezbollah in Beirut with retaliatory strikes. After the Israelis struck Beirut, we were very worried and we saw a lot of evidence that the Iranians were going to launch a large number of missiles at the Israelis with our communication with them over the course of getting to this signed peace deal, they assured us that they were not going to respond to the Israelis And they were going to sign this agreement and get to peace. Reuters' Pil Stewart was covering the announcement as it came in. It seems pretty clear that Lebanon was a major sticking point. at the very final part of this marathon of negotiations And one of the terms, according to Iran's MAR news agency, is an immediate permanent halt to war on all fronts, including Lebanon. It specifies Lebanon. So I really do think we have a lot to learn about what the final moments were like, but Lebanon must have been key. Iranian state media quickly released its interpretation of the deal in a fourteen point memorandum It acknowledged its commitment to not produce nuclear weapons, something it had pledged before the conflict And it said that final negotiations would not start until half of Iran's frozen funds were released and oil sanctions were suspended That could be a sticking point for some Republicans Senator Lindsey Graham said that he was, quote, somewhat concerned that the two countries appeared to be interpreting the deal differently. The US has been saying for a long time that there won't be any funds until Iran shows that it's complied with everything in the deal. So that would be seen to be a contradiction. And we need to find out what's actually in this agreement. Yesterday, Trump posted, ships of the world, start your engines and let the oil flow He also told The New York Times in a phone interview that the strait of Hormz would be, quote, permanently toll free But it might take some time for shipments to return to pre war levels, depending on how severely Iran mined the waterway is possible. is that there could be a safe passage through even a mine strait that's established in the coming days that would allow for ships to get out in an orderly and safe way. in an environment which Iran isn't threatening to fire, shoulder fire rockets or send drones to attack v Over the next sixty days, negotiators will still need to get into the details of a whole variety of issues, ranging from the money for Iran to what happens with its uranium stockpile Stewart says that any one of these could change the dynamics very quickly. There is no way you could look at this and say that there is peace now What you have is a framework agreement that aims to end the conflict And a lot of diplomatic footwork has to be done between now and mid August for this agreement to reach any kind of successful conclusion. And there's no saying that whether or not that timetable might need to be extended into the fall, or you know, whether or not it'll even last that long The formal signing ceremony is set to take place in Geneva this Friday This year's World Cup began with an unwelcome record. It was the first time the host of the tournament was actively at war with one of the countries involved Tonight, that context is impossible to ignore, as Iran takes to the field in Los Angeles to play their first match against New Zealand For months, it's been an open question if the Iranian team would even be allowed to compete They were one of the first teams to qualify, but players were only granted visas ten days ago. Donald Trump even cast doubt over the appropriateeness of Iran participate in the tournament and said several times that perhaps it would be better for the Iranian team to stay away. That's Robert Tate, the US political correspondent for the Guardian. FIFA's Pident Giane Infantino effectively overruled that by saying that Iran must compete. I told them if had to go with a bus to Tehran and drive them here I will do that Their answer was we will take the bus ourselves and drive it if need be We qualify and we want to play The US. did, however, decide to deny visas for nearly a dozen members of the team's support staff Plus the head of Iran's football Feder, Medit Taj, who is a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The State Department told the BBC that it did not want Iran to, quote, sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses The team's head coach, meanwhile, has decried the fact that various personnel have not been allowed entry The Iranian team originally planned to train in Arizona throughout the tournament. But after the war started, Taj told the New York Times that they made the call with FIFA to move the team to Mexico to minimize the amount of time they spent on US. soil The team has three scheduled matches in the US during the group stages, and Tate says they'll only be allowed to enter the country the day before each match. It's really going to be anort of intense turnaround for them and time will only tell how that will affect their performance on the field Media access to the team ahead of the tournament has been limited, and Iran's players rarely speak to international journalists But the Associated Press managed to talk with midfielder Said Ezatolahi earlier this month It' going to be difficult for us because at the same time we are following the news in our country And the politics things, of course, can affect the mind of the players and the people at the same time LA is home to the largest Iranian population outside of the country. Orinarily that could provide a big boost to team morale inside the stadium But as Tate told us, not in this case Normally any rAan team be able to expect avid backing from the Iranian community, whatever it plays This is very, very different. comes against not only the backdrop of the ongoing war between Iran and the United States, but also follows five months after Mass protests against the Islamic regime in Iran which led to the deaths of thousands of protesters. Opposition to the regime is widespread and intense And at the same time, the regime is trying to depict the team as representatives of their ideology. In recent days, members of LA's Iranian community have called on FIFA to kick Iran out of the tournament Some have said that they plan to sneak Iranian flags that predate the regime into the stadium which FIFA has banned and a lawsuit is challenging. Iranian officials have instructed the team to stop playing if that occurs It was a moment New Yorkers had been waiting on for a very long time It's over. It's over. fans, this is not a dream. Your long, long wait has ended o ahead and cry after fifty three years. the Kicks are finally NBA Champions once again. While the team took the title in San Antonio almost two thousand miles away, the city of New York erupted en joy. This Nix win carries special significance. Not only have they not won a title in more than five decades They suffered through some pretty awful seasons through the two thousands that made the Kicks the butt of jokes from NBA pundits like Charles Barkkeley. Rem we used to start this season out in New York Yeah I left two tinkers at the hotel for one of my family members And when I got back to the hotel it was four tickets To understand the significance of this Kicks turnaround, we called up Fred Katz, a senior writer for the athletic, and author of the upcoming book Under the Bright Lights, The Revival of the New York Kicks. These were teams that didn't just lose. the time. They were teams that were some of the most expensive in the NBA. The team was criticized for paying players too much. its front office leaders were frequently absent, and the team was mismanaged. They were hurting their future while also not necessarily helping their president enough to justify it. and over time All of these moves just add up and add up and the Kicks just sort of snowball into this cellar Kat says the twenty twenty season is what really kickstarted the Nick revival The team got a new head coach and added some key players, most notably Jalen Brunson, the MVP of this year's finals He is in an underdog story He was a second round pick He's been doubted by a lot of people He's too small. He's too slow He's not your conventional NBA superstar They can barely dunk. It doesn't have the stature or the sheer athleticism of Michael Jordan Kobe Bryant, but what he does have is the skill coordination. It's a cliche the mentality and the toughness to go with all of that on top of the leadership skills Kat says that Brunson's performance now puts him in the conversation for the best Nick ever And at just twenty nine years old, he's got plenty of years left to build on his legacy. New York is unique when it comes to proports. There's not one but two teams for every major American league. The Cats argues that only the Kyx can unite the entire city This is New York's team especially now that they're good They were New York's team when they were terrible for twenty years. And they're New York's team now and you can see it from the way that the city is rallying around this and how all encompassing this has been all different parts of the city. people who probably we're not even huge basketball fans as of three months ago, the way that this entire run has just wrapped up everybody around it. Despite winning the title in the seventies, the Kicks have never had a parade in the city either That will change Thursday, when New Yorkers turn out to celebrate their newly crowned champs. Here are a few other stories we're following today. In another busy week of primaries, President Trump has put himself at odds with his party once again This time in Georgia, where voters head to the polls tomorrow for a Senate primary runoff Trump has weighed in into to support U.S Representative Mike Collins over the former football coach Derek Dooley, who has the support of the outgoing Governor Brian Kemp. The Associated Press says that the endorsement is reminiscent of Trump's backing of Texas attttorney General Ken Paxton, who did go on to win his primary In Georgia, the winner will face off against Democratic Senator John Ossof in November in what will be one of the closest watched races around the country In Switzerland, voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have capped the country's population at ten million It was proposed by the Conservative Swiss People's Party in response to significant population growth since two thousand, driven in large part by immigration. The Swiss government had opposed the measure and in fact implored people last year to vote against it The business community also worried that if the measure had passed and EU citizens were potentially excluded from living and working in Switzerland, that could have a big impact on the country's economy The final margin of about fifty five percent no to forty five percent yes was larger than what some analysts had anticipated. The measure would have marked the first time a country voted to limit its own population And finally, yesterday, the White House hosted a unique event on its grounds, inviting UFC fighters to step into the ring on the South lawn The event served in part as a kickoff of sorts for upcoming US two hundred fiftieth anniversary events, but also as a kind of birthday present to the president, who turned eighty yesterday While the UFC event did draw some criticisms, it's not the first time that there has been sanctioned fighting at the White House The Washington Post has the story of Theodore Roosevelt's penchant for inviting friends, aides, and even athletes to come to the White House for fighting and other sports One boxing dout actually left him partially blind in one eye. And he was told by a doctor to take a break from his various vigorous activities, which included jiu jitsu, a horse ride, and a sport called Single stick that involved wooden swords. It was only when Roosevelt was out of office that the injury and its origins were revealed with a newspaper article dramatically showing a rendering of him getting hit in the face You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listing in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next The Wall Street Journal reports on an enormous ponzi scheme involving cattle And how one man spent one hundred seventy million dollars of investor money on cows that turned out to be imaginary. If you're sting the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus narrative to find that story, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow