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Good morning! Today is Tuesday, the 21st of June, 2026 and this is the Tuesday Edition of GEORGE.
GEORGE continues the week with a concise briefing on the global stories shaping the day. Here is the reporting, commentary, and context curious readers need this morning.
Our @Passings obituary columnist writes about the life of former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who not only held the second longest term in that office but also became the best known economist in in history.
GEORGE’s upgraded @The War Room feature now covers multiple battles and conflicts across the globe. Important dispatches from our @The War Room correspondent include how Ukraine is carrying through on its promise to bring to war to not just Russian living rooms on television, but to their homes via long-range drones with powerful and destructive explosives and how negotiations to end the war in Iran are progressing.
The newspaper’s @The Sketch editorial cartoon columnist borrows / drew inspiration from the story of an eight-year-old girl from northern England who went viral for complaining in a video about the high cost of ice cream. Find out how she reacts to news that executives of ice cream companies in Japan colluded on price fixing.
In today’s @World News Roundup, our correspondents report that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resigned and that his likely replacement will be former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, the death of a teenage boy thrown from a horse-drawn carriage in New York’s Central Park and how planet Earth is about to get the planetary equivalent of a black box for the end of civilization.
There is more exclusive reporting in today’s GEORGE – but don’t touch that dial. Scroll down for today’s editorial cartoon in @The Sketch, then continue with additional news, commentary, and stories readers will not find elsewhere.
GEORGE will return tomorrow with a new editorial cartoon and more original dispatches and reportage.
Until then, remain curious!
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VOLUME VI… № 1,745
@THE LEDE (above)
@THE SKETCH (above) Marnie on ice cream inflation / Fish celebrate legislative victory
IN THIS ISSUE
@INTERMEZZO I Central Park in New York City
@ON THE PITCH World Cup 2026 Coverage
@INTERMEZZO II Burlington Arcade in London
@PHILLIPIC ON STATECRAFT Mr. Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Moment
@INTERMEZZO III A horse-drawn carriage in Central Park
@THE WAR ROOM
@INTERMEZZO IV Family mmebers enjoy a glorious day int he park
@WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP
@INTERMEZZO IV Parkscape
@THOMASHEFSKY ON THEATRE “Paddington” is Coming to Broadway
@INTERMEZZO V Starry Night
@HERODOTUS ON HISTORY Watergate took place 54 years ago today
@RECENT DISPATCHES OF NOTE
@ABOUT GEORGE
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A lake in Central Park
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— The United States became the second nation to reach the knockout stage of the 2026 World Cup, this on Friday, with a commanding 2-0 victory over Australia at Seattle Stadium. The win means that the team will follow fellow co-host Mexico into the Round of 32. The U.S. team made a lightning-quick start and took the lead when Cameron Burgess turned Folarin Balogun’s pass into his own net. Meanwhile, Alex Freeman’s 43rd-minute header – his first-ever World Cup goal –effectively put the game out of reach.
— Lionel Messi scored a brace against Austria, becoming the men’s all-time FIFA World Cup goalscoring leader and securing a 2-0 victory against Austria. The 2026 campaign is Mr. Messi’s sixth World Cup, making him the first men’s player in history to appear in six editions of the tournament.
— Paraguay’s Miguel Almirón, who plays as an attacking midfielder or right winger for Major League Soccer club Atlanta United, received the first-ever red card for talking with his mouth covered during his country’s World Cup game against Turkey. Paraguay was leading 1-0 at the time of Almirón’s send off, thanks to a second-minute goal from Matías Galarza, and went on to win the match.
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— Norway beat Senegal to reach the knockout stage, prompting fans to ask whether Erling Haaland the scariest thing in football? The same could be asked of the team’s fans. Norwegians fans have sought to recreate the spirit of the Vikings and charm their American hosts by rowing in unison be it on trains, subways, escalators, and in Manhattan’s Times Square.
— Kylian Mbappe, France’s captain, was in his element at FIFA’s Philadelphia Stadium. That is, until the elements caught up with him. It was then that his team and the Iraqi team were given a bigger-than-life hydration break, courtesy not of a beverage company but of Mother Nature. The weather suspension, which occurred midgame, lasted for two hours and ten minutes. due to severe thunderstorms and lightning in the Philadelphia area
— World Cup ticket buyers are being left stranded as resale purchases fall through and FIFA and social-media sites have been flooded with complaints about tickets that never arrived or were cancelled at the last minute before a match. Some spent hours trying to sort out problems between FIFA’s ticketing system and outside resale platforms such as StubHub. StubHub in a statement blamed FIFA for the transfer problems that have experienced. In said that FIFA has “poor technology infrastructure,” had put into place last-minute transfer restrictions, and didn’t launch its ticketing app in use for the current World Cup until a few weeks before the tournament.
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The Burlington Arcade in London’s Mayfair district
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U.S.-Israeli War in Iran
—U.S. and Iranian officials concluded a round of talks in Geneva over the next stage of the peace deal between the two nations and Israel. Qatari and Pakistani mediators said there was “encouraging progress” had been made towards a lasting agreement. After U.S. President Donald Trump warned that “I can do whatever I want” after an agreed upon 60-day pause in fighting, including “take over the rest of the country,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and Iran’s lead negotiator, warned the United States against issuing threats.
— Israel and Hizbullah agree to renewed ceasefire as Iran peace talks postponed, this after fighting intensified between the two sides and threatened to derail peace talks between the United States and Iran. Since Saturday, Israel and Hizbullah appeared to be maintaining a tense cease-fire in Lebanon.
— Iran announced plans to bring in maritime fees for Strait of Hormuz. As Tehran lifts its blockade, it said that it plans to charge fees to cover the cost of the waterway that will go into effect after the 60-day negotiation period.
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Russo-Ukrainian War
— Volodymyr Zelensky has a message for Russians living in Moskow: “If Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn too… “This War Has Now Reached Your Homes” To back that up, the country has been regularly attacking Moscow with nearly 200 drones on a nightly basis, another demonstration of its ability to reach deep into Russia. Specks of black oil have rained down on part of Moscow after a refinery was hit during the largest Ukrainian attack since the start of the full-scale war.
— At a secret warehouse, under the cover of darkness, masked specialists from Ukraine’s military intelligence service GUR drill are assembling a line of 15-foot (4.6-meter) -long aircraft. These are Ukrainian Liutyi long-range kamikaze drones, carrying explosive payloads of up to 150 pounds or 68 kg and capable of traveling nearly 1,300 miles or 2,092 km. Later that night, they will be launched towards major targets inside Russia.
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Photograph of a portrait of Queen Victoria on her wedding day
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Keir Starmer resigned as the United Kingdom’s prime minister, yielding to a Labour Party mutiny. His departure, which will be in the coming weeks, will Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade that has been filled with turmoil since the country’s departure from the European Union. It will also pave the way for former Manchester Andy Burnham, a popular figure in the party, to take the reins as prime minister.
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The Bank of England voted 7-2 to hold its benchmark interest rate at 3.75%. In a statement, it said that it expects the war in Iran’s lingering impact on energy prices to push up inflation further. Annual inflation was 2.8% in May, above the 2% target, although that figure was less than the bank had forecast. The bank also said Britain’s relatively weak labor market could bring inflation down in the long term.
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The world may not yet know what the end of civilization looks like, but it does know how the end will be recorded. Earth’s Black Box – a kind of planetary flight recorder – that continuously downloads and stores climate data, environmental measurements, and geopolitical events to tell future civilizations what caused the collapse of our civilization. Rouser Lab is currently assembling and testing the Black Box and will install it on the edge of a Tasmanian airfield in December, The Guardian reports. The Black box is an indestructible, bus-sized steel vault that has been designed to outlast humanity. It continuously downloads and stores climate data, environmental measurements, and geopolitical events to tell future civilization what transpired here, even if we human beings are no longer alive to do so. The hope is that it will warn future civilizations from making the same mistakes but plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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In Japan, six major ice cream makers were the subjects of an early dawn raid by the government fair trade watchdog authorities on suspicion of price fixing. Officials from the Japan Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday carried out searches of the corporate headquarters of Akagi Nyugyo, Ezaki Glico, Lotte, Meiji, Morinaga Milk Industry, and Morinaga & Co due to suspicions they had violated antimonopoly laws and had formed a cartel. In a statement, the JFTC said that it suspected that the six had colluded to fix the prices of popular ice cream treats, using inflation in food prices to raise the prices beyond the increase in raw material costs. Senior executives at the six companies face allegations they held meetings and exchanged emails for years to coördinate the price increases with their peers at other firms.
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The move by Japanese authorities brought the 2024 rant of an eight-year-old girl in Burnley, England, back into focus. Eight-year-old Marnie, accompanied by her twin, Mylah, was enraged after seeing the price of a single-scoop ice creamcone at her local ice cream truck in a park. The ice cream van was “selling two ice creams for nine quid ($11.43 in 2024 U.S. dollars), bloody nine pounds for two of them,” Marnie says incredulously, in a thick northern accent. “Nine quid – he’s going to get nowhere with that, he should know,” the cute critic continued. “And he only does bloody card – [I] stood there with my cash, bloody hell,” she added before starting to walk away, tossing a furious “bet he can hear me” and a withering eyeroll in the ice-cream vendors direction.
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The 150-year-old New York City tradition of a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park may become something for the history books after the death of a young tourist who jumped from a runaway horse-drawn carriage after his mother was ejected from the same carriage. Now, horse-drawn carriage rides in New York on hold after the accident. “Our hearts go out to the family” of Romanch Mahajan, said Alexander Kemp, administrative vice president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, in a statement. Mr. Mahajan is believed to be the first person to die in a horse carriage accident since they were introduced in Central Park more than 150 years ago, according to the Central Park Conservancy. Rides will resume on Tuesday as new safety protocols go into effect.
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A horse-drawn carriage waits for passengers in New York City’s Central Park district
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Scientists believe that they have finally pinpointed the cause of Atlantic Ocean warming, and have discovered that a long-held belief that this was due to natural ocean circulation was incorrect. Long-term swings in ocean temperature have been caused by human activity which results in higher greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. A new study led by Michael Diamond, an assistant professor of meteorology at Florida State University, and meteorology graduate Anthony Freveletti, who worked with Robert Wills, an assistant professor at the ETH Zürich Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, entitled “Multidecadal SST Variability Assessed as Primarily Forced in the Atlantic and Internal in the Pacific Using Rotated Low‐ Frequency Component Analysis” and published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that long-term temperature changes in the Pacific Oceans are driven primarily by internal ocean variability, while those in the Atlantic are largely the result of human emissions. Long-term shifts between increasing and decreasing Atlantic sea-surface temperatures were typically thought to be driven by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that’s part of the network of natural ocean currents moving water around the world. While most variability in global oceanic sea-surface temperatures were often thought to be driven by natural causes, the team’s findings suggest that only the oscillations in the Pacific are primarily driven by natural climate processes. “Our findings contradict this theory, as we found that long-term changes in the Atlantic are more directly related to anthropogenic – human produced – causes such as greenhouse gases and aerosols,” Dr. Freveletti said in a statement.
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In Washington, D.C., as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, efforts are underway to apply last-minute touches to monuments and buildings to put them in the best possible light for the millions of photographs visitors will be taking in the coming weeks. One monument, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which opened in 1922, the same year as the Lincoln Memorial, has been the subject of multiple unwanted headlines after Mr. Trump decided to hire a contractor to repair the pool’s leaks and rid it of the algae that obscures part of the reflecting-pool effect. It was Mr. Trump who decided to paint the 2,030-by-167-foot (619-by-51-meter) concrete-bottomed rectangular pool a deep shade of blue, “American Flag blue,” as the president called it and scientists now say that that decision has raised the water temperature and accelerated the growth of algae instead of retarding it. There remains yet another problem: The sealant at the bottom of the pool, which comprised the bulk of the $16.4 million renovation project, is beginning to peel off. By Friday evening, a large chunk of it was gone, and some pieces were even taken by tourists.
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Much of the European continent is under extreme heat warnings and three deaths are already associated with the soaring temperatures in France. The warnings include Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Luxembourg,, and Germany which are all expected to face high-level heat. The most intense conditions are forecast in large parts of France, Spain, England, and Wales, where temperatures are expected to reach or exceed 40° (104° F). “exceptionally high temperatures, both day and night,” were expected. Métêo-France said that parts of central France could endure highs of 43° C, or around 109° F, and the mercury in Paris could hit an unprecedented for June 40° C (104° F). Europe as a whole recorded more than 60,000 heat-related deaths during the severe heatwave of 2024, and even higher temperatures are expected in the current year. In Spain, AEMET said temperatures were expected to reach 40° C across large areas, with highs up to 44° C, or 111° F.
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Japan’s government said that the fee for a tourist visa would quintuple starting in July. Entry into the country will now cost ¥15,000 ($93), up from the current ¥3,000. The increase represents the first rise since 1978. It comes at a time when Japanese are souring on tourists. Many Japanese locals and officials are indeed souring on the explosion of mass tourism. While welcoming overall, residents are increasingly frustrated by severe overcrowding, poor visitor etiquette, and the economic strain of the weak yen.
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Parkscape scene: Family members enjoying a glorious day
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Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice.
Sunday marked the summer solstice on the Northern Hemisphere, the day of the year with the longest period of daylight and fewest hours of darkness. Moreover, this year’s summer solstice is the earliest it will have occurred in the past 228 years.
Also known as midsummer or the festival solstice, the summer solstice is an astronomical phenomenon at which the Northern Hemisphere is tilted closest to the sun, and takes place simultaneously everywhere on earth.
The last time the summer solstice fell on a June 20 was in 1796. George Washington was president of the United States at the time.
In 2025, the solstice occurred on the continental United States at 4:24 a.m. (04:24) EDT, when the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer and the earth’s maximum axial tilt toward the Sun will be 23.44°.
In other time zones, it were at 3:50 a.m. CDT, 2:50 a.m. MST, and 1:50 a.m.. PDT, 9:24 a.m. BST in the United Kingdom, and 10:50 a.m. CET in Austria, Germany, and other countries in the Central European time zone. In Hawaii, the solstice occurred on 20 June at 10:24 p.m. (22:24) HST.
Depending on calendar adjustments such as leap year, the summer solstice occurs each year between June 20 and June 22 in the Northern Hemisphere and between December 20 and December 23 in the Southern Hemisphere. The summer solstice will continue to occur about 40 to 50 minutes earlier than usual until the next century.
The summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight although not the day with the earliest sunrise or the latest sunset.
On Sunday, in the United Kingdom, London will enjoy 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight, while that figure will be 15 hours and six minutes in New York City. The difference is due to London’s location (51.51 N latitude), being farther north than that of New York City (40.71 N).
In the United States and many other countries in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice marks the first day of summer. However, meteorological summer began on June 1, as, in accordance with the meteorological definition, the seasons begin on the first day of the months that include the equinoxes and solstice.
As is customary, many people will gather on Thursday at Stonehenge in southern England, believed to have been erected to celebrate celestial events such as solstices and equinoxes.
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Starry night in New York City
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Alan Greenspan, who in nearly two decades as chairman of the Federal Reserve who navigated almost as long a run of prosperity of prosperity as his term in office that was followed by powerful crises, died on Monday at his home in Washington. He was 100.
The cause of death was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Andrea Mitchell, ‘ the chief foreign affairs and chief Washington correspondent for NBC News, said in a statement.
Mr. Greenspace was first nominated to the Federal Reserve by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, and he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after 18 years and five the second-longest tenure in the position, behind only William McChesney Martin, who served for 18 years and ten months in the period 1951 to 1970.
Mr. Greenspan was arguably the most recognizable economist of any era, as well as the pre-eminent economic policymaker of his time, leading the Federal Reserve under four presidents. His record remains the subject of debate, given the financial collapseof 2008, but he was clearly a powerful and a polarizing force in shaping market-friendly policies during his tenure. He was remarkably successful in keeping down inflation, a job he considered the central bank’s primary task, and he defly helped the United States deal and recover from numerous shocks including the “Black Monday” stock-market crash of 1987, when the market fell a record 22.6%, some 508.32 points, in a single trading session, a near-meltodwn of Asian financial markets that started in 1997, and the aftereffects of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.
As the long-serving chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mr. Greenspan masterfully utilized a complex, deliberately ambiguous dialect of English dubbed Greenspeak or Fedspeak. With a goal of saying a lot without moving markets, using wordy, vague language intentionally so he could answer questions from Congress or the press without actually revealing any policy signals. He confessed to engaging in what he termed “syntax destruction,” which sounded profound but meant very little.
Alan Greenspan was born on 6 March 1926 in New York City. He was the only child of Herbert and Rose (née Goldsmith) Greenspan. When young Alan was 5, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the home of her parents in the Washington Heigths section of Manhattan.
His mother encouraged him to pursue his intereset in music and, after graduating from George Washington High School, he was admitted to the Julliard School and spent several years playing saxophone in a swing band. He read books and articles on virtually every subject during breaks during the band’s gigs, and “got a book on business, finance or something on the stock market,” he told the New York Times Magazine and was hooked.
With that impetus, Mr. Greenspan left Julliard and enrolled at New York University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a master’s in 1950, both in economics, folloed by a Ph.D. at Columbia, where he studied under Arthur F. Burns, who would later become chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Greenspan completed his Ph.D. studies at New York University in 1977.
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The Trump administration has abandoned plans to dismantle a $368 million network of instruments that collect data in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, bowing to a bipartisan backlash in Congress. Known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the system, which was put into place ten years ago – with a life-expectancy of 25 years – to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate, has been crucial to climate and ocean research. On Thursday, the National Science Foundation said that it will pause efforts to take apart the system and convene an expert panel to determine its future. “Effective immediately, NSF will not proceed with further removal or de-scoping of equipment,” the agency said in a statement. The NSF had said in May that it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea that collect data on coastal flooding, marine heat waves and other climate and weather events. The moorings in the Irminger Sea are are affixed to seafloor 9,200’ (2,804 m) below the surface. The Ocean Observatories Initiative are part of an international collaboration of scientists studying the overturning current.
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Psychiatrists think inflammation may be at the root of some people’s illnesses, and a medication for rheumatoid arthritis was the focus of a small study published last month, building on decades of research examining a connection between inflammation and depression. A small study addressed the question: “Can systemic interleukin 6, or IL-6, inhibition with tocilizumab improve depressive symptoms in patients with difficult-to-treat depression and low-grade inflammation?” Roughly 25% of people with depression have elevated levels of inflammatory proteins in their blood, and the inflammation seems to develop before the depression does. In studies where people were given a substance to stimulate inflammation, participants experienced feelings of depression and anxiety shortly thereafter. The link between depression and inflammation stems from how inflammatory proteins affect the brain. These proteins can lead to lower levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, which are important for mood. They can also disrupt activity in some of the same areas of the brain that are altered in depression, including regions that process reward and motivation.
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Decades of research on how readers consume information when faced with Information Overload – led by George co-founder Jonathan Spira, one of the foremost authorities on the subject – ensures that each article gets straight to the point with no fluff and no bias.
George presents important news and events of the day clearly and concisely in a format better suited to the modern reader’s limited time and focus, without forsaking the founders’ traditional commitment to fact-driven news, commentary, and dispatches – all prepared by curious thinkers, for curious thinkers.
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Jonathan Spira, Alexander Khusid, Tim Perry, Christian Stampfer, Kurt Stolz, Anna Breuer, and Paul Riegler contributed to this issue of George.
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