It’s Friday, June 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Michael Doran unpacks the memorandum of understanding with Iran—and what comes next. Uri Berliner on growing up in 1970s New York and the magic of the Knicks. The great American sculptor who died with his masterpiece. And much more.

But first: Coleman Hughes on loving America.

There is no denying that for many African Americans, the legacy of slavery makes patriotism complicated.

Today, on Juneteenth, we mark the day that American slaves in Galveston, Texas, heard the news of their emancipation. Two weeks from now, on July 4, some will find celebrating more difficult. Can we revel in the birth of American liberty that did not extend to black people?

Today, I’m making a case that I hope will persuade skeptics. Telling conservatives and independents that America deserves their love would be preaching to the choir. So I’m making the progressive case for loving America.

As I write today, progressives often take for granted the “precious gifts that most people on Earth still don’t have or have only partially—societal wealth, reliable law and order, political rights.”

If you’re a progressive, I hope this changes your mind. If you’re a conservative, read it for a different reason: a patriotism that can persuade only traditionalists is fragile. It might make you a better advocate for the country you already love.

—Coleman Hughes

Five years after Juneteenth became a federal holiday, Isaac Newton Farris Jr.—the nephew of Martin Luther King Jr.—reflects on the tension at the heart of the day: the horror of American slavery and the vindication of the founding principles that ultimately undid it. As Dr. King put it, “the goal of America is freedom.” And Juneteenth was one incredible step toward that goal.

At first glance, Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran appears to be a wish list drafted by the mullahs. They get sanctions waived and $300 billion for reconstruction in exchange for a vague commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon. But “real significance [of the MOU] is that it buys time,” argues Michael Doran—enough time to prepare for Iran’s next attempt to rebuild its nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, Jack Goldsmith argues that there’s another problem with the deal: It may violate a law Republicans passed to stop Barack Obama from making a similar move a decade ago. Will the courts intervene to block its implementation? Read Jack’s piece to find out.

Our columnists also weighed in: Niall Ferguson is cautiously optimistic, while Douglas Murray sees a regime with too dark a record to trust. Read the full pieces here.

In today’s Great Americans essay, Josh Code traces the life of Harvey Fite—a sculptor who spent nearly 40 years building a seven-acre stone sculpture with no plans, no collaborators, and no interest in either. His story reads like something out of an Ayn Rand novel. In the end, a tragic accident killed Fite at the site of the sculpture, uniting him forever with his masterpiece.

And speaking of Great Americans, we want to hear from you. We’ve launched a new channel in The Free Press Forum dedicated to America at 250—a home for patriotism, history, and spirited debate about the American experience. We’re also running a subscriber contest: Tell us who we missed by nominating your pick for a Great American in 500 or fewer words. We’ll be reading every entry, and as the series wraps up around Independence Day, we plan to publish a few of our favorites.

SpaceX’s massive IPO last week did more than make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. It also minted 4,000 new millionaires. Suzy Weiss spoke to some of Silicon Valley’s twentysomething nouveaux riches about what they’re spending the riches on—$36,000 glass sculptures, a pied-à-terre in Paris, a sports team, and solving world hunger.

If you don’t have AI money and are in search of a get-rich-quick scheme, read Joe Nocera’s deep dive into the world of prediction market betting. For a week, Joe left behind his day job with $1,000 at his disposal, becoming a prediction market day trader. He found that the most successful traders in this world carve out a niche and cash in. What will yours be?

This week, ahead of Father’s Day, social science professor Brad Wilcox took a close look at new fatherhood data to answer the question: Has fatherhood become the exclusive domain of the rich, religious, and right-leaning?

As Independence Day approaches, America has been celebrating in split-screen: One side relishes the spectacle of Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship battle while the other agonizes over essays like The New Yorker’s “How Problematic Is Patriotism?” Both sides are doing it wrong, argue our editors. Here’s how to celebrate America’s birthday, the right way.

And tomorrow, we’re bringing you a Father’s Day–themed Weekend Press—including a personal essay from P.G. Sittenfeld about why he chose to have a child when staring at five years in prison, and Liel Leibovitz’s review of Toy Story 5. (He’s a fan!) Also: Douglas Murray and Abigail Shrier will be advising you on what to read this summer.

British feminism, once a universalist moral insurgency, now stands indicted by its own silence in the face of industrial-scale sexual abuse of vulnerable girls. The Rape Gang Inquiry, published Tuesday by Rupert Lowe of the right-wing Restore Britain party, documents a scandal that should have summoned the full ferocity of the UK’s feminist tradition. Yet the dominant institutions of “gender equality” mostly responded with caution, euphemism, and procedural language where plain moral speech was required. I was interviewed as part of the inquiry, and I have studied firsthand many of the failures it documents.

The horrifying stories covered in the report have been discussed throughout Britain for more than a decade, and one government after another has passed around blame, unable to explain why the state failed to stop the ruination of thousands of young women and girls. Yet an unlikely intervention helped bring the scandal back to the surface. Elon Musk began to discuss the story on X in January 2025 and demanded a fuller accounting from British authorities. His request spurred a new round of debate and launched the inquiry that culminated this week.

The Rape Gang Inquiry describes “the systematic targeting of vulnerable girls, overwhelmingly White British, by predominantly Muslim Pakistani gangs across towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom,” and concludes that “this scandal constitutes one of the most horrendous failures in the history of the country.” It documents “organised networks of perpetrators” who transported victims between locations, supplied them with alcohol and drugs, recorded their abuse for distribution and blackmail, and “passed girls between multiple adult men.” These crimes “have been committed for decades, since the 1950s by Pakistanis in particular, and have affected every region of our nation.”

Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a literary treasure that all of us should commit to heart. This week, on Juneteenth, Isaac Newton Farris Jr. reflects on the famous words of his uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., and how they embody the meaning of a holiday that is a reminder not only of the darkest chapter in America’s history, but of how our country has continually sought to realize its founding promise of freedom and democracy for all.

To receive Things Worth Remembering directly in your inbox, sign up here.

“We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny. . . . If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail.”

So wrote my uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

I was only 1 when he wrote these words. But today, on Juneteenth, five years since the day was made a federal holiday, those words remain profoundly relevant. Juneteenth officially commemorates the end of a dark chapter in American history: June 19, 1865, when enslaved blacks in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom. That day came a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—a long, arduous delay resulting from slaveholders deliberately withholding the news, and a shortage of Union troops to prevent them from doing so.

Yet equally as important as that history is Juneteenth’s demonstration of how the principles that inspired America’s creation—democracy and freedom—can, like Dr. King said, be temporarily compromised, but never ultimately replaced or defeated.

America’s 250th birthday is sure to be an occasion for competitive displays of patriotism emanating from every corner of the country. But while many Americans find that patriotism comes effortlessly, others struggle with it mightily. Every July 4, Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” circulates on what people used to call “Black Twitter.” At the time, Douglass’s speech was a much-needed call to action and a stinging rebuke of America’s hypocrisy in tolerating slavery while claiming to be a nation devoted to liberty. Now slavery is long gone, but the speech remains as a symbol of the fact that for many African Americans, the historical fact of slavery makes patriotism complicated. Can we celebrate the birth of American liberty when we were not included in it?

Back in 2019, The New York Times released the The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones. It is remembered by its admirers as an ambitious and necessary attempt to retell the American story with white supremacy and slavery at its center. It is remembered by its critics as an exercise in ahistorical nonsense—in particular for the falsehood, put forth in Hannah-Jones’ lead essay, that the American Revolution was fought in order to preserve slavery.

What is less remembered is that the thesis of that essay was a progressive case for American patriotism—albeit a bizarre and twisted one. Hannah-Jones argued that African Americans, more than any other group of Americans, can claim ownership of this country’s great ideals. “Our founding fathers may not have actually believed in the ideals they espoused,” she wrote, “but black people did.” In fighting for our freedom and equality, she argued, we have made the American ideals of freedom and equality true for everyone.

Her backdoor case for patriotism, in other words, was that the Founding Fathers were ideological frauds whose poor handiwork in creating America 1.0 was luckily bailed out by African Americans—who built the America 2.0 that we all enjoy today. Nor was Hannah-Jones eager to share credit for this accomplishment with any other group of people. In her words, African Americans “fought back alone” against the forces of white supremacy that plagued the country prior to the civil rights movement. Thus, black people should be the most patriotic flag-wavers of all.

Welcome back to Great Americans, a countdown to our country’s 250th birthday. We’re bringing you a writer we love on an American they love, every weekday between now and July 4. Previously, Philip K. Howard paid tribute to Mary Parker Follett, the social thinker who understood the secret of group behavior—and why American democracy keeps getting it wrong. Today, Josh Code remembers Harvey Fite, the visionary sculptor who spent nearly four decades building one of America’s greatest works of land art, alone. —The Editors

It looks like an alien creation, like something extraterrestrials would make after graduating from crop circles.

In a forest near Woodstock, New York, circular platforms wrought from bluestone wind into curving edifices, wrapping around stone staircases, crevasses, and some scant foliage across nearly seven acres that are altogether a work of art. Two pools of natural freshwater sit at the sculpture’s base, enveloped by winding walls of stone. At the center of it all, a nine-ton monolith juts into the sky.

America has its own Stonehenge, and one man built it—all alone.

It’s called Opus 40.

The experience of seeing Opus 40 is hard to describe, and no photograph can do it justice. You can be in it, on top of it, and around it. You can walk through its narrow passageways, where cool air flows through, up steps and down inclines. Like Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty or the huge, contoured steel sculptures of Richard Serra, the artwork’s beauty lies in its simplicity, size, and harmony with the environment around it.

On Thursday morning, my son Ben and I joined more than a million Knicks fans in Lower Manhattan to raucously celebrate New York’s NBA championship win last Saturday—its first in 53 years. An hour before the posted start time, the adjoining streets near the parade route on Broadway were mobbed. A sea of blue and orange spread through the city, families decked out in Jalen Brunson jerseys, vendors moving stacks of merch, young fans leading chants while perched atop sanitation trucks—all as the smell of weed drifted through the air, drones buzzed overhead, and confetti fell.

The New York Knicks have bookended my life, with elation on both ends and a deep trough of disappointment and agony in between. Measured by time elapsed, the bad years outweigh the good ones, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Looking back on my life, in this moment of great triumph for my team and my hometown of New York, it’s no exaggeration to say the Knicks helped rescue me.

In 1970, I was 13, an introverted kid, unsettled and frightened by the disorder and random violence of New York at the time. I was intrigued by drugs and spent a lot of time indoors. In other words, I was a mess. The Knicks were my escape.

At the Palace of Versailles, on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in France, President Donald Trump on Wednesday formally signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran. A senior U.S. official disclosed the full text ahead of the ceremony.

The MOU states that the United States pledges “immediately” to “issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services, including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.” These waivers presumably mean the removal of U.S. statutory sanctions against Iran.

The president lacks the authority under domestic law to waive these sanctions. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) of 2015, a law requiring congressional review of nuclear deals with Iran, temporarily bars a president from doing just that. The executive branch has counterarguments, and it’s doubtful that any institution will make the president comply. But INARA, properly read, bars the president from acting until Congress has had its review.

INARA was enacted with broad bipartisan support. It sought to make President Barack Obama submit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran—to Congress, force his administration to publicly defend it, and give Congress a short window to review and possibly reject it, during which the president was barred from providing Iran with certain sanctions relief.

Welcome back to TGIF, a new summary, where I do my absolute best to get my wife fired.

→ Iran? Oh well, nevertheless: President Donald J. Trump traveled to France where, at Versailles, he signed an agreement giving Iran everything it ever wanted and more. He said that you gotta let them enrich a little bit of uranium. Trump: “It is a little hard, though, when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It’s always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense.” As for ballistic missiles, it’s what anyone would want: “I’m saying that if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.” And, actually, Hamas might be alright. When it comes to Hamas, Trump says: “They’ve actually behaved pretty well.” It looks worse than Obama’s Iran deal, which is a shock to all the neocons who thought Obama was Voldemort, but a vindication to the neolibs who thought he was fine. Not a great man of history like Hillary Clinton (I’m a 2008 election denier; it was stolen), but he was fine.

J.D. Vance—Mr. Eyelashes, Mr. Chicken Coop, a fellow who definitely spends too much time on right-wing Twitter/X—has been selling the deal all week. And he came out swinging yesterday against Israel, which has balked at the seeming surrender. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left.” And: “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.” I’m appalled and offended and want him to be wrong. But he’s not that much wrong. Increasingly, Israel stands alone. I guess there’s always India. But here, the heir apparent of the Republican Party is close friends with Tucker Carlson, whose every podcast episode is him shrieking why can’t we talk about how evil Israel is, no one can say it. So I’m just saying this is what time it is. It’s name-change o’clock in America. I mean, I’m changing mine to Nili Bowlsky but I do understand that this is not popular at the moment.

→ Give me back my AI: Top artificial intelligence company Anthropic released its new ultra-powerful model, Fable 5. It was—in my brief moments with it, asking about rashes and the best swim shoes for kids—so incredible. And then the Trump administration forced them to suspend access to Fable 5, along with another model, Mythos 5. They stole from us the greatest artificial intelligence on Earth. Anthropic says that the government basically gave them no information other than vague hand-waving that it’s not safe enough. Inside sources said that Anthropic just began to displease the administration. From Axios:

Following Anthropic’s models going dark, the optics added fuel to the fire. Anthropic came out with a blog post dismissing the Amazon report. Then the company enlisted a cybersecurity expert viewed by the administration as a “radical Democrat,” who was then celebrated by Chris Krebs, who Trump just fired.

Oh, no! Anthropic, you have forgotten how to please the king. Amazon, whose executives have the permanent taste of metal in their mouths from all their truly impressive ring-kissing, apparently tattled to the admin to get this started. Per Axios: “On Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing concerns that Anthropic’s most powerful models, Mythos and Fable, could be jailbroken.” I love that. Amazon kneecaps a competitor and then makes sure everyone knows it was them. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei should expect a bloody horse head in his bed, delivered via Amazon package, any day now.

Rye Barcott, co-founder and CEO of With Honor, veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and author of Courage Can Save Us, joins School of War to discuss the meaning of courage, the enduring value of service, and the challenge of bridging America’s growing political divides. What separates courage from bravery? Can military service help heal a polarized Americ…

According to Luke Burgis, our biggest social problem isn’t loneliness or polarization or the decline of trust in institutions. Our problem is that most of us don’t even really understand ourselves.

We dress dress alike, flock to the same restaurants, and chase the same goals—not because we’re adjusting our behavior to fit in, but because the people aroun…