Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed the "final text" of a US-Iran peace deal has been agreed upon, as Islamabad continues its mediation efforts between the two sides.
In a statement on X on Friday, Sharif said Islamabad is now "working closely" with Washington and Tehran on the "next steps" to finalize the agreement, while warning against what he described as a "misinformation campaign being waged by those who want to sabotage the peace deal.
The announcement comes amid intensive diplomatic activity involving Pakistan as a key intermediary. Sharif said peace is now "closer than ever," echoing previous remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has retracted intelligence community reports on mysterious health problems known as Havana Syndrome, according to a memorandum released on June 11.
Gabbard found that the intelligence community assessments of the anomalous health incidents, released in 2023 and 2025, failed to meet the community’s analytic standards.
That included selectively excluding intelligence and evidence that did not support the conclusions and relying on an “ethically flawed medical study without noting methodological critiques,” Gabbard’s office said in the memo, sent to members of Congress.
The 2023 assessment concluded it was very unlikely that a foreign adversary was behind the incidents, which have impacted staffers in countries such as Cuba and China.
The updated assessment released in 2025 said most intelligence agencies still held it was very unlikely an enemy was responsible for the syndrome, but two components judged there was a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor had used a novel weapon to target Americans, or had developed such a weapon.
Gabbard’s team said future assessments on the matter would adhere to “rigorous ethical standards incorporating all available intelligence sources and engaging a broad range of experts from agencies including the CIA.”
Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), the former chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence CIA Subcommittee, who has criticized the government reports, praised the new development.
“The assessment was deliberately manufactured and used to discredit some of our nation’s bravest and impede their access to medical care. As was the case with other high-visibility intelligence assessments, it fell far short of analytic integrity standards,” Crawford wrote in a post on X.
He added that the retractions were “a glimmer of hope for our nation’s intelligence officers, service members, and diplomats stationed around the world who have defended this country in austere locations and subsequently had the nation they served turn its back on them.”
The subcommittee said in a 2024 report that it was increasingly likely that a foreign adversary was behind some number of the reported health problems, and that the 2023 assessment was developed “in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity and thoroughness.”
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in 2020 that the most likely mechanism behind the incidents was directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy, citing symptoms people have described, such as perceptual dizziness.
Government employees reporting the problems have had difficulty obtaining treatment, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in July 2024, recommending that the military develop written guidance and create a plan to rectify those difficulties.
Gabbard said last month that she is resigning from her position as the director of national security, citing her husband’s recent cancer diagnosis.
President Donald Trump said on June 11 that he is nominating Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, as director of national intelligence.
The job oversees the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies.
The market may be in full-blown face-ripping bubble mode, and software stocks are now gripped in by a category 5 gamma squeeze hurricane, but not even that is helping the ongoing debacle that is private credit.
One week after Cliffwater's Private Credit fund gated investors for a second straight quarter, and days after Blackstone also gated investors in its private credit fund for the first time (recall during Q1, the fund allowed investors to redeem a record 7.9% after tapping senior executives to help finance the withdrawals with hundreds of millions of their own cash, but when faced with an even bigger flood of redemptions in Q2 it gave up and decided to join the gate parade), BlackRock capped redemptions from its flagship private credit fund for the second straight quarter after investors sought to pull about 13%, a sign that shareholders remain extremely nervous about the health of the $1.8 trillion private credit market.
Blackrock's HPS Corporate Lending Fund, known as HLEND, said it would allow only 5% redemptions, according to a filing Friday. The request for 13.3% was about 50% higher than the prior quarter when shareholders asked to redeem 9.3% of their shares.
So far this quarter we have seen an acceleration in redemption requests as private credit investors clearly are concerned about their liquidity despite the raging bull market in all other asset classes.
“This liquidity feature is critical to HLEND’s ability to provide its investors with a premium return to public credit markets,” the firm said in a letter to investors. “This profile is further bolstered by continued subscriptions and distribution reinvestment, which together are expected to more than fully offset repurchases during the first six months of 2026.”
As Bloomberg reminds us, HLEND’s decision to cap redemptions in the previous quarter was the first major instance of a private credit manager taking action to enforce the limit and manage liquidity since concerns over underwriting standards and exposure to software businesses vulnerable to AI disruption bubbled to the surface early in the year.
The move was a contrast to its top rivals including Blackstone, which had gone to great lengths to satisfy investor demands for cash. But this quarter, Blackstone also enforced the 5% limit on its flagship private credit fund after investors asked to redeem even more money than in the prior period.
Indeed, redemption requests are set to increase across the industry as investors redouble efforts to claw back money after being restricted. And there’s persistent concerns about the credit cycle turning, with industry leaders warning of a rise in defaults as artificial intelligence continues to disrupt businesses and borrowings from the era of ultra-low rates comes due.
HLEND has produced a 10.2% annualized total return since it was formed, the letter said, which is cold comfort to those investors who are hoping to redeem their profits and instead receive a gating notification.
Vague new rules will allow UK regulators to pressure platforms over "legal but harmful" content whenever government ministers declare a crisis, while the same government ploughs ahead with mandatory phone scanning, digital ID lockdowns, and jail threats for tech bosses who refuse to spy on every device.
The latest move from Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn makes explicit what privacy campaigners have long warned: the Online Safety Act is being weaponised far beyond any child-protection claim.
Benn confirmed that the internet regulator will now wield enhanced powers to tackle "false information" online during "times of crisis," directly tying the recent Belfast unrest to this framework. The regulator has already contacted platforms, with ministers asserting that violence "appears to have been incited online."
Benn stated that if people put online 'false information,' "it is not acceptable and it may well be a criminal offence depending on the circumstances as the chief constable made clear yesterday."
When asked how a "time of crisis" would be defined, Benn said it "will be set out in due course."
The unrest followed a serious knife attack on a local man by an asylum seeker and escalated into protests involving vehicle fires, arson attacks on homes, and clashes with police that injured a dozen officers.
In addition, Ofcom, the UK's regulator for communications, responsible for overseeing broadcasting, telecommunications and - since the passage of the Online Safety Act - the major online platforms, is now using its powers to direct platforms toward enhanced, crisis-specific moderation measures whenever it or ministers identify spikes in 'illegal 'harmful' content during whatever it deems a 'crisis' event.
An Ofcom open letter published this week directly addresses the Belfast situation. It states: "Following a serious knife attack that took place in Belfast on Monday night, we have seen civil unrest in the city, some of which appears to have been incited online. This has included racially motivated incidents of violence, arson attacks on homes and vehicles, and attacks against police."
The letter goes on to remind online service providers of their duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 to assess and mitigate risks of 'illegal' content, including material amounting to offences of stirring up hatred or provoking violence.
It emphasises that "previous crises have shown how a sudden increase in the amount of illegal content circulating online can manifest in hate crime and violence in the real world" and that "usual content moderation systems and processes may not be sufficient in such circumstances."
Crucially, Ofcom confirmed new measures added to its online safety codes of practice under which platforms "should have procedures in place to respond to spikes in illegal content during a crisis." These measures, confirmed the day before the letter, are expected to be enacted by platforms immediately, without waiting for parliamentary approval. The letter stresses that services must "act now to address illegal content" and follow existing crisis protocols where they exist.
This directly engages the core claim in widely shared analysis on X that the Online Safety Act - repeatedly sold to the public as a child-protection measure - is now being applied to adult content and civil unrest with no reference to children in the regulator's own crisis guidance.
Given that the government and it's mouthpiece media has spent the entire week claiming Elon Musk and Nigel Farage, along with anyone commenting on the latest savage migrant attack, is inciting violence, you can see exactly where this is going.
The same analysis highlights how the definition of crisis has been stretched. Cabinet Office guidance in the Amber Book states that the terms "emergency" and "crisis" are used interchangeably under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
An emergency covers events or situations which cause or may cause serious damage to human welfare, the environment or UK security - explicitly including situations that "have not yet been harmful but have the potential to be." No fresh parliamentary debate or vote was required for this expansive interpretation to underpin regulatory action during the Belfast unrest.
Statements from Technology Secretary Liz Kendall also indicate that the government intends to amend online safety laws to give the regulator stronger powers to require platforms to take tougher action on material that it says could incite violence or disorder during periods of "heightened social and political tension."
Critics argue this effectively allows the state to restrict access to real-time footage and non-government sources of information during such periods, framing it as a direct threat to freedom of expression and the public's ability to access unfiltered information.
These concerns sit alongside the Ofcom letter's call for platforms to have crisis response plans ready for spikes in 'illegal' content, including content that the government decrees could stir up hatred or provoke violence.
Further reports emerged of the UK government contacting journalists covering the Northern Ireland events to instruct their reporting, attributed to an anonymous government source.
According to the communications shared online, journalists were reportedly directed on the preferred framing of the unrest, including how to characterise the protests and the underlying causes.
This intervention occurred as Ofcom was simultaneously issuing its crisis guidance to platforms, prompting concerns that the government is attempting to align coverage across both traditional media and online spaces to limit unapproved narratives during periods of public disorder.
Alongside the new regulatory powers, the UK government is rolling out something called PoliceAI, a new National Centre for AI in Policing launched with £115 million in funding. This centralised body consolidates AI development and deployment across all 43 forces in England and Wales, focusing on tools such as live facial recognition, predictive analytics, automated data analysis and deepfake detection.
The government states that it is designed to speed up investigations and automate routine policing tasks while creating a single national framework for testing and rolling out the technology.
In the context of the new crisis powers, PoliceAI provides authorities with automated systems capable of scanning vast amounts of online content and communications in real time. These tools can flag material deemed to spread "false information" or incite disorder during government-designated crisis events, enabling rapid coordination with Ofcom for content removal.
Combined with facial recognition and predictive capabilities, the system allows police to identify and target individuals posting or sharing information the authorities wish to suppress, turning AI into a powerful mechanism for narrative control and the blocking of inconvenient facts.
These developments do not come in isolation. They connect directly to the surveillance architecture we've relentlessly detailed: plans to jail tech CEOs for up to five years if they refuse to build client-side scanning systems capable of reviewing every photo, video and message on user devices before encryption.
The same framework underpins the coming digital ID lockdown on every phone, under which biometric verification and government-issued ID would be required for full smartphone functionality, with non-compliant devices restricted to limited "child mode."
Encrypted messaging service Signal is resisting the wider demands for phone screening and content scanning. President Meredith Whittaker has stated Signal would "absolutely, 100% walk" from the UK rather than weaken its end-to-end encryption.
Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has warned that the plans "will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops" and amount to "ID checks for the internet." She described the requirement as invoking "the death of anonymity and internet privacy" and the overall approach as "a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world."
The UK digital ID scheme is the lynchpin of a dystopian mass surveillance grid to be implemented for all from cradle to grave.
The government is pressing ahead to expanded regulatory powers over online content during vaguely defined "crisis events," with platforms told to implement special moderation protocols immediately. At the same time the government is advancing device-level scanning, embedding digital ID requirements on every phone, and threatening executives with prison for non-compliance. Instructions to journalists and pressure on platforms complete the picture.
This is nothing less than the construction of a complete surveillance control grid that monitors devices, verifies identity for basic access, and suppresses inconvenient information whenever those in power declare an emergency.
Free speech, privacy and access to unfiltered reality are the direct targets. Resistance from platforms willing to exit rather than comply, and from citizens who refuse to accept the pretext, remains the only obstacle to its full dystopian implementation.
Graham Platner may have easily won Maine's Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, but his own party is already trying to figure out how to get rid of him. Democrats openly admit they cannot afford to lose this race if they want to retake the Senate, and Platner is already complicating their plans. Yet, the chaos involving Platner may have only just begun. Maine's Democratic establishment is clearly uneasy, and national Democrats are not hiding it.
According to a report from NBC News, behind the scenes, party operatives are reportedly circulating negative polling on Platner, exploring whether funding threats might pressure him to withdraw, and testing public opinion with a text poll sent on primary day that asked voters about the allegations of his abusive and demeaning treatment of women.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is fully in Platner's corner, and he made his reasoning transparent. "There is no great secret that there is a strong division within the Democratic Party," Sanders said, criticizing the party establishment and praising Platner for challenging it. On the abuse allegations specifically, Sanders is choosing to take Platner's denials at face value.
"He denies it, she says something else, but what I do know is that there are people in the United States Senate right now who are not saints." He then pivoted to senators who voted for the Iraq War and tax cuts. Sanders is essentially arguing that Platner's personal failings are less disqualifying than the establishment's policy sins. Even Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who replaced Al Franken after his resignation over groping allegations, endorsed Platner without hesitation.
But the anxiety over Platner with the Democratic Party is very real. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) outright said she is "not comfortable" with Platner as the nominee. "I will not defend someone with that kind of history." Former Rep. Tom Malinowski argued that the steady stream of revelations says more than any single allegation. "If a man's past keeps surprising us, it's a safe bet that his present and future will continue to surprise us as well," he said, calling Platner a "moral dilemma" and warning Democrats against repeating what he described as the mistake of embracing candidates more defined by their anti-establishment appeal than their fitness for office.
"The easiest, most logical and most likely path to picking up seats is with Maine in our column," a senior Democratic strategist said. "It's a struggle to see how we get the majority without Maine." Platner's internal polling already shows his lead over five-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) shrinking to four points - this in a state that went for Kamala Harris by seven in 2024. He is underperforming the baseline in the most favorable environment Democrats have had in years.
But the Platner campaign is showing no signs of leaving voluntarily.
"The Democrats of Maine have made clear who their choice is," Platner adviser Rebecca Katz said. "And the rest of the party should honor that choice." That may be true. It may also be exactly what the Republican Party is counting on.
Under Maine law, Platner would need to voluntarily withdraw by July 13 for Democrats to replace him on the ballot. According to NBC News, a Republican strategist involved in Senate races said the GOP is deliberately withholding additional opposition research until the candidate-replacement deadline passes, so Democrats are unable to replace him the same way Joe Biden was pushed out of the 2024 presidential race after it became politically impossible to keep him on the ticket.
Once that deadline passes and Republicans unleash whatever opposition research they have been sitting on, the Democrats will have no options left, just a nominee they cannot fully defend in a race they cannot afford to lose.
Kardigan, a Phase 2b/3 biotech developing therapies for cardiovascular diseases, announced terms for its IPO on Thursday.
The Princeton, NJ-based company plans to raise $350 million by offering 23.3 million shares at a price range of $14 to $16. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Kardigan would command a fully diluted market value of $1.6 billion.
Kardigan is advancing three late-stage product candidates: danicamtiv, an oral cardiac myosin activator in a Phase 2b/3 trial for genetic dilated cardiomyopathy caused by MYH7 and TTN gene variants; ataciguat, an oral soluble guanylate cyclase activator in a Phase 2b trial targeting calcific aortic valve stenosis progression; and tonlamarsen, a subcutaneous antisense oligonucleotide administered once monthly that targets hepatic angiotensinogen for blood pressure management in post-hospitalization acute severe hypertension. Kardigan also operates the Prolaio platform, a proprietary data and analytics system incorporating FDA-cleared algorithms and wearable sensor integration designed to collect continuous real-world physiologic data from patients during clinical trials.
Kardigan was founded in 2023. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol KARD. J.P. Morgan, Jefferies, Leerink Partners, and TD Cowen are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price the week of June 15, 2026.
Amid the push to digitise the UK health service, a study has sounded a note of caution about entrusting important patient appointments to chatbots.
In a paper published in the journal Lingua, researchers at the University of Surrey polled 300 patients who used a chatbot called Asa to book a cervical cancer screening test, which revealed that the manner in which an AI assistant communicates matters as much as what it does.
While the patients tended to respond positively to friendliness and choice-oriented language, they were put off by "over-messaging, pushy reminders, and blurred human-AI boundaries," according to the team, led by Dr Doris Dippold, associate professor of intercultural communication at the University of Surrey.
"Our analysis shows that anthropomorphism is not universally positive," said Dippold. "Human-like features can build rapport – but when they clash with patients' expectations for transparency in a healthcare setting, they undermine exactly the trust the chatbot is trying to build."
Understanding why that can occur is important, particularly as cervical screening uptake across the UK fell more than 5% in 2023-24, with ethnic minority groups consistently underrepresented in screening programmes – something that Asa was specifically designed to overcome. And doubly so, given the likelihood that AI assistants are likely to become an increasingly common component of NHS delivery, now that the UK government has made digital engagement a pillar of its health reforms.
Developed by SPRYT with funding from pharma company MSD, Asa was the first WhatsApp and AI-based appointment scheduling app to be approved for use by the NHS after a successful pilot at the NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board (ICB).
That chatbot is designed so patients can interact with it as they would with a human receptionist, and allows them to book, reschedule, and cancel appointments via WhatsApp at any time, without requiring a new app or website.
The Surrey study found that, on the whole, Asa users described the chatbot positively, using terms like "friendly", "kind", and "not forceful", with some reporting that the female persona presented by the AI made it easier to disclose sensitive information, such as needing to cancel an appointment due to menstruation. Asa was also seen to provide anonymity benefits in a sensitive health domain.
However, the research also uncovered what the researchers call "friction points," noting that "many patients found follow-up messages sent within 24 hours intrusive, and described imperative phrasing such as 'Let's book you in' as aggressive, rather than helpful." Those perceptions tended to be exacerbated for patients managing mental health challenges, neurodivergent conditions, or demanding caring responsibilities.
Patients also disliked a lack of dialogue opportunities with Asa, for example, when the AI did not respond to queries or did not offer opportunities to ask questions.
At the same time, many of the respondents said they had ethical concerns about the use of Asa, including data security, impersonation, and anthropomorphic features that blurred the boundaries between human and AI.
Chatbots should be designed with several key considerations, beyond simply helping patients achieve a goal. A feeling of control over decisions is critical, as is the chatbot's ability to respond appropriately, strike a respectful tone, ensure fairness, and – crucially – be transparent about the underlying technology.
"Feeling seen, appreciated, and emotionally supported is not a luxury feature in health AI - it is a condition of access," said Dippold. "If patients disengage because a chatbot feels pushy or untrustworthy, the health service loses them entirely."
