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Barack Obama confronts the work that remains for Democrats — and for him

2026-06-18T09:00:26.485Z / CNN

• As Barack Obama opens his $850 million presidential center in Chicago, he remains a primary unifying figure in the Democratic Party even as some criticize his time in office.
• Obama continues advising candidates and shaping strategy ahead of November’s midterm elections.
• His legacy faces debate from critics who see his presidency as insufficiently bold.

AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

Chicago—

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday is getting what he wanted for so long: his words carved into stone, a monument to his presidency entering the Chicago skyline.

Walking through his $850 million, multiuse presidential center the past few months, Obama went down the slide in the playground and tried out the chairs, noting which ones needed stoppers to keep from scuffing the floors. He asked for the whole text of an exhibit on sports to be redone, frustrated that the original text didn’t seem written by a true fan.

But he also told a gathering of his campaign and administration alumni, the night before the center’s opening, that he didn’t believe in nostalgia and didn’t intend to wallow in it.

“I think nostalgia implies this sentiment that there’s this thing in the past that was somehow golden and better, but is unattainable now,” he said Wednesday. “And it lets us off the hook, because it makes us feel like, ‘Well, you know, that was wonderful, but now, this is the reality, and there’s not much we can do about it.’”

The 44th president isn’t ready to fade into history. And many top Democrats don’t want him to.

“Hope and change still remain incredibly powerful as a counter-narrative to what the Republican Party at this moment stands for in America,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.

A decade after he walked out of the Oval Office, Obama is still the most popular living president and the primary unifying figure in a party racked by leadership disputes and fights over its direction on key issues. But his legacy beyond those elbowing for their spots in the VIP section of Thursday’s opening is more complicated.

To some, talk of hope and change can come off as naïve or a disconnected relic after President Donald Trump’s two successful campaigns. Particularly to his critics on the rising left, Obama’s perceived lack of boldness while president, particularly on foreign policy and economic issues, is exactly what led their party and the country overall to now.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, an old Obama friend, described the presidential center as an “active, engaged endeavor to lift up and train leaders for the future.”

“I really reject the notion that somehow Barack Obama is responsible for what came after,” he added. “I guess we’re all responsible in many ways for where we are. I mean, I didn’t vote for it, but we all have a share of responsibility for where the country is today.”

Throughout the presidential center, there are signs Obama asked to be added throughout, all on the same theme: “The Work That Remained,” a phrase that popped up in his second-term speeches and throughout his post-presidency.

Voices are featured in several spots through the museum arguing that Obama went too far or didn’t go far enough, including on topics such as immigration, climate change, healthcare and gun violence — the last of which he has often cited as a great failure of his presidency.

Hagiography comes with every presidential library. The “Economic Crisis and Recovery” exhibit, for example, notes the banking collapse Obama inherited and explains how he “responded boldly to rescue and rebuild it on a new foundation for growth and prosperity.” The “Work That Remained” plaque blames Congress for not addressing what Obama believed were the underlying problems of the economy, including “to make it easier for employees to form unions, for guaranteed paid sick and family leave, and for a higher minimum wage,” according to a preview photograph shared with CNN.

“He took the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and traded it to Wall Street,” said Matt Stoller, a writer on economics who leads the liberal American Economic Liberties Project. Added Stoller: “He lit the fuse for authoritarianism under Donald Trump. He created the world for Donald Trump to come into.”

But top Democrats are eager to stand with Obama whenever they can.

“It’s very hard to sit 10, 20 years later and cast judgment. I was a beast of an athlete back in my day, but there’s not a game that I played that I can’t think of things I could have done better if I could go back and relive them,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who played football at Stanford. “But in the time, Barack Obama was a hero and saved our economy and advanced our nation along really specific indices that are lasting and still are making a difference.”

Jeffries is frequently on the phone or in rooms with Obama. Their conversations range from the personal to gut checks on strategy to political advice like supporting what became last year’s government shutdown.

Jeffries, who is on track to be House speaker if Democrats take the majority in November, offered a Chicago sports reference to describe how central he sees Obama’s ongoing role for the party.

“President Obama was Michael Jordan while he was in office,” Jeffries said, “and he’s Phil Jackson out of it.”

Obama, 64, has bristled publicly and privately about how involved he’s been in politics, in part due to Trump’s enduring influence and the way that former President Joe Biden’s time in office turned out.

But despite his annual reluctance to campaign more than a few days in each election cycle, Obama still loves the dominance he has in Democratic politics – even as his closest advisers, several of whom spoke to CNN for this story, argue his engagement is about more than ego.

“It’s certainly flattering, but points to something more important: the country is still largely aligned with his vision and his story,” said Eric Schultz, an adviser who’s been helping Obama craft his post-presidency since working for him in the White House. “It’s a dark time, but if elected officials from across the country are seeking his voice, that’s a pretty good sign that his theory of the case still very much resonates.”

An easy measure of how Democratic candidates feel about Obama is the rate of endorsement requests coming into his office that, according to people familiar with the matter, has remained as high as ever. Another is the focus groups in California last year that showed him the best messenger for Democrats’ ballot proposition to newly gerrymander the state. Or all the ways he’s invoked, from Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt arguing, “I feel like him and I have the same experience,” to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz announcing she would run in a majority-Black district in a video with a vintage “HOPE” poster displayed over her shoulder.

When Obama got involved with the spring campaign for Virginia Democrats’ successful but since-overturned gerrymandering referendum, Jeffries noted that ads on both sides of the issue featured comments from the former president.

Not long after Zohran Mamdani won his primary for New York City mayor in June 2025, Obama was on the phone, giving advice on getting governing right, offering to be a sounding board. Both got a credibility bump: Mamdani with skeptics of a then-33-year-old democratic socialist, Obama with the young change-makers he always wants to be counted with.

According to people familiar with the matter, toward the end of a meeting earlier in the year, Obama made his standard offer to let him know if there was more he could do to help. Mamdani pitched one idea that didn’t gel, then came back asking for help promoting his push for universal childcare.

Obama joined Mamdani to read to preschoolers and sing “Wheels on the Bus” at a childcare center in the Bronx, arranged around a trip to New York the Obamas were making to see a performance of the play they are co-producing on Broadway. It felt an especially long way from Mamdani’s 2013 tweets, like the one still up from the then-21-year-old Bowdoin student, “Hasnt Obama shown that the lesser evil is still pretty damn evil?”

Though he has not been officially bringing in prospective 2028 presidential candidates as he was already doing at this point ahead of the 2020 election, Obama has hosted both Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro at his Washington office for longer meetings.

“I understand the frustrations that people have right now with the way things are going,” Moore said. “I share them. I think there are people frustrated with the level of defensiveness, I think the people frustrated with the direction the country’s going right now. President Obama is not the reason for it. It was leadership like his that was the antidote when we saw this before.”

It’s not just in the museum where Obama is debating his own legacy.

“Of course I would have wanted something better and single-payer and the rest,” Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari, who introduced him last year at a meeting with other freshman House Democrats and described his eye-opening rundown of dealing with the politics of passing the Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010. “But this was the 2000s and that wasn’t going to happen.”

As a junior in high school, Ansari was knocking on doors for Obama’s campaign. She said seeing him 20 years later in the room with her, just a few months after she got her own congressional pin, was surreal.

“We have a new generation of leaders coming up right now, current members, people running for office at different levels across the country who represent hope and change for the new group of high schoolers that are out there right now,” Ansari said. “That’s Obama’s entire legacy.”

Hope and Trump

Obama sees his role at this point more as ensuring a different worldview will win out through carefully chosen moments of speaking out, according to people familiar with his thinking. He is building his Obama Fellows civic engagement programs. He wants to keep doing more of the bending of “the arc of the moral universe,” as Martin Luther King Jr. said in a quote he often cites, while also trying to provide a rudder to keep his party from moving in directions he fears will be self-defeating.

Neither Obama nor Trump is letting the other go, given the issues like healthcare and the Middle East that shaped both their presidencies. Trump often posts about Obama using his middle name, Hussein. And just on Wednesday, Trump said in comparing their respective negotiations with Iran, “They laughed at Obama and they said, ‘He’s a stupid son of a bitch.’”

That was, of course, after Obama in an interview with “Good Morning America” leading up to the library opening criticized Trump’s war in Iran and said, “It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place.”

Obama decided not to invite Trump to the opening, eschewing the traditional bipartisanship around presidential centers last seen at George W. Bush’s library in 2013. Trump posted an AI-generated image showing a garbage bag atop Obama’s tower and saying it will be “a ‘Mecca’ for those who hate America!”

Obama’s despair about Trump’s second term remains high, particularly around Republicans not pushing back. But he was pleased when he heard GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his Louisiana primary last month after failing to re-ingratiate himself with Trump for his vote in an impeachment trial to convict him over the January 6 riots, made an unannounced visit to the center two weeks ago.

Cassidy was in the area for his granddaughter’s graduation from the University of Chicago a few blocks away, and staff reached out for advance tickets to the soft launch. The two don’t have an active relationship and didn’t talk after. According to a person familiar with his reaction, Obama said that’s part of the spirit he wants for the center.

Appearing with her husband on Wednesday night at the campaign and administration alumni event, Michelle Obama offered a more pointed goal. She said the center was there “to lay this legacy so that nobody — nobody — can act like this didn’t happen.”

分析：特朗普虽不惜大让步 美伊协议恐难达成

2026年6月18日 / 联合早报

美伊宣布签署谅解备忘录，初步达成停战协议后，德黑兰在星期三（6月17日）晚间举行聚会，支持伊朗政府的群众高举手机亮起灯光并挥舞国旗。 （路透社）

（华盛顿综合电）美国政府借伊朗绝不能发展核武和导弹等红线，作为对德黑兰采取军事行动的理由，不过特朗普总统的最新表态凸显他为求与伊朗达成停战，几乎完全摒弃了这些红线。分析指美伊签署的谅解备忘录文本显示美国做出巨大让步，却仅仅换来伊朗放松对霍尔木兹海峡的钳制，最后仍可能无法达成终极协议。

特朗普星期三（6月17日）在法国出席七国集团（G7）峰会后，召开记者会说明美伊签署的初步停战协议，他虽然重申伊朗永不会拥有核武器，但随后却暗示伊朗应当有权拥有浓缩铀、获准研发弹道导弹，以及动用被美国冻结的巨额美元资产。

对于浓缩铀，特朗普说：“一些周边邻国有，你却不让他们以发电和其他目的持有，这有点说不过去……你得有点常识。”

说到弹道导弹，特朗普同样称周边邻国也有，“导弹不是问题，它们可以破坏一些地区，但不会将地球炸毁。”

至于伊朗被冻结的庞大美元资产，特朗普说：“这不是我们的钱，是他们的。我们在某个时刻冻结，终究还是得归还。如果不还，以后就没人投资美元了。”

对此，彭博社发表分析文章点出，自前总统奥巴马2015年与伊朗签署“联合全面行动计划”（JCPOA，简称伊朗核协议）后，这三大课题就一直是美国处理伊朗问题的核心争议所在，特朗普本身更多次以此抨击奥巴马在遏止伊朗的威胁方面遭遇重大挫败。

曾在小布什和特朗普首个任内担任国务院幕僚的惠顿（Christian Whiton）向彭博社说：“特朗普做了很多他之前一直批评奥巴马的事。不论他的本意是什么，他要表明的是美国不会恢复军事行动，因为这么做会造成大萧条时代以来最严重的经济衰退。”

CNN评论指特朗普满足了伊朗过往要不到的好处

美国有线电视新闻网（CNN） 全球事务分析员麦格克（Brett McGurk）则发表分析文章指出，以美伊公布的14点谅解备忘录文本来看，特朗普似乎认定能达成任何协议，都比胶着于现状好，伊朗以霍尔木兹海峡要挟美国的策略看来已成功。

麦格克曾在小布什、奥巴马、特朗普首任和拜登政府的国家安全委员会任职，以往也曾参与跟伊朗的艰难谈判，他指出，这份14点备忘录“给了许多伊朗以往要求过却极少得到”的好处。

根据备忘录，美国将撤除美军在霍尔木兹海峡的封堵，伊朗将清除水雷等障碍，确保海峡航运恢复至战前水平。然而，伊朗除此就没有其他义务，美国却须在协议签署后豁免伊朗原油和其他石化产品的制裁，等同于恢复在伊朗核协议下，伊朗可享有的条件，每年可从中赚取600亿至700亿美元的石油收入。

麦格克分析，备忘录关于伊朗资产解冻的条款相当棘手，美国甚至可能须在伊朗履行开放海峡的承诺前就处理这个事项，而且伊朗央行有权指定解冻资金的受益人，除了伊朗核协议，以往其他协议都不曾这么设定。

麦格克进一步点出，伊朗并未针对核武器做出任何新承诺，特朗普签署备忘录付出极大代价，却仅换来伊朗重申了与伊朗核协议类似的承诺。

至于外界广为关注的3000亿美元重建基金，备忘录虽没有直接设立这个基金，却要求美国和区域伙伴在未来60天内制定全套计划，且须作为终极协议的一部分。这意味着，没有这笔资金，就没有终极协议。

麦格克根据备忘录文本和伊朗过去47年来的谈判套路预测，美国政府很难将这份一面倒的备忘录转化成完整的协议，“备忘录标榜要达成的和平，恐怕难以持久”。

Arrests of immigrant parents create mental health crisis for children

June 18, 2026 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News

Los Angeles— Damian Zermeño, 15, sensed something was wrong the moment he got home from school.

His aunt sat at the dining table, sobbing. His father, who’d walked him to the bus stop that morning and promised to take him to dinner when he got back, wasn’t there.

Saúl Zermeño, a 45-year-old single dad, had gone to a routine check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that morning, a requirement he’d complied with for years. The father had deferred action that allowed him to stay and work in the U.S., according to his attorney. But that day, Oct. 3, officers deported him to Mexico, where he hadn’t lived since he was 9 years old. Zermeño had been Damian’s sole caregiver since he was a baby because his mother chose not to be involved in the boy’s life, the family said.

Suddenly, Damian, who was born in the U.S., found himself separated from his father by thousands of miles and a heavily guarded border. The previously cheerful 10th grader, who doesn’t have a driver’s license and can make a few basic dishes but isn’t used to cooking for himself, faced navigating his teenage years alone, his dad’s presence reduced to a two-dimensional image on his phone.

“I thought it wasn’t true,” Damian said. “I just went to my room. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t even want to eat.”

Damian Zermeño talks to his father over video chat. Saúl Zermeño, a single parent, was deported to Mexico in October after living 36 years in the United States. Karla Gachet for KFF Health News

Damian is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of children, most of them U.S. citizens, separated from a parent by the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Their mothers and fathers have been deported or locked for months inside detention centers, often miles away from where their families live. These children are separated, sometimes violently, from the adults they depend on. Parents have been arrested while dropping kids off at school, inside their homes, and at immigration check-ins with their children present. Most people detained have no criminal conviction. (Being in the U.S. without authorization is typically a civil offense). With their parents gone, kids’ lives are plunged into fear and uncertainty.

As a result, a generation of children from immigrant families are exhibiting mental health problems that could affect them for years.

Parents, therapists, and others who work with immigrant families said they’ve already encountered preschoolers with speech delays, elementary school children who talk of suicide, and teenagers too anxious to leave the house. Research has shown repeatedly that separating children from their parents harms their health and development. The stress of losing a primary caregiver creates havoc in a child’s brain and body, increasing their risk for mental and physical health problems, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, a weakened immune system, and developmental delays.

“You can just see it in their faces; it’s almost like the light has been dimmed in their eyes,” said the Rev. Tanya Lopez, a pastor at Downey Memorial Christian Church who regularly visits immigrant families as part of a support organization made up of Los Angeles-area religious leaders.

The health risks from this stress response are long-term. People who experience parental separation and other traumatic events as children are more likely to have heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic conditions as adults.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE does not separate families, and that parents are asked if they want to be removed from the country with their children or to designate a safe person for them to stay with in the U.S.

However, a report by the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights found that many parents aren’t given that choice, and that ICE often doesn’t ask detainees if they have children or take steps to ensure that children left behind are safe. Saúl Zermeño said ICE officers didn’t ask about his son or check on Damian’s well-being when he was deported.

For days after his father’s deportation, Damian didn’t want to leave his room, eat, or go to school. He stopped talking to his friends. He stopped playing his favorite video game, Fears To Fathom. When he returned to school a week later, the teenager would cry in class or walk out overwhelmed with sadness. Even his favorite subject — English — lost its appeal.

Damian and his father were inseparable; family members joked that they never saw one without the other. Zermeño took Damian, who has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, and other health conditions, to his medical appointments. He cooked for him and combed his hair. He loved to take Damian to his favorite Thai restaurant or to get boba drinks after school. As much as they joked around and played pranks on each other, Zermeño also taught Damian the importance of work by bringing him along to construction jobs and to find supplies at Home Depot.

Damian used to get annoyed with his father’s motivational chats about responsibility. Now they’re one of the things he misses most.

“I thank my dad every day for teaching me to be strong before he left,” Damian said.

Elsewhere in Los Angeles, Jacob, a shy 9-year-old with cropped, curly hair, skinny limbs, and a serious expression, was missing his mom. On a Saturday in May, he clung tightly to his father’s hand as they walked among homeless people, street peddlers, and the stench of urine that hangs in the air outside the building where they live in a cramped apartment. He hoped his mom would soon be released from immigration detention so that he could hug her again.

“If my mom was here, I’d be happy,” he said. “Right now, I’m not.”

Jacob is in some ways a typical 9-year-old. He likes playing Roblox and Street Fighter. He dreams of becoming a police officer and of owning a guard dog, “because you can train them and they defend you.”

But he also endured a harrowing journey, even before being separated from his mom in January. Jacob’s family fled their home country of Colombia in 2024 because members of a paramilitary group threatened to kill them, his father, Andreis, said. During their journey to the United States, Jacob saw dead bodies while trekking through the jungle, was kidnapped and robbed at gunpoint with his parents, witnessed a rape, and had to sell candy and beg for money, his dad said. KFF Health News is not using the father’s or son’s real name because the family fears it would jeopardize their asylum cases.

After the family arrived in Los Angeles, Jacob suffered from nightmares and an intense fear of being alone. He started to recover once he began attending school and got connected to therapy through the school district, his dad said. For a short while, the family felt they had found peace.

Then, immigration officers detained Jacob’s mother at a check-in appointment while he and Andreis sat in the waiting room. The mother has a pending asylum application and no criminal record, Andreis said. The father said he and his son broke down when officers informed them of his wife’s detention, handing them a bag with her wallet and cellphone. They returned home without her, leaving Jacob inconsolable.

“He was terrified,” the father said, fighting back tears, his voice growing quiet as he recounted that moment. “He was crying with rage.”

After that, Jacob didn’t want to eat or go to school. When he went to school at his dad’s insistence, his teacher called home to ask why he was crying in class. Jacob couldn’t sleep. He acted out. He blamed his dad.

“When will my mom come back?” he asked his dad. “Why do they have my mom? I miss my mom.”

At the same time, Andreis said, he was going through his own crisis, trying in vain to console his son while wrestling with grief, worry, and desperation over what happened to his wife. He stopped his work as a laborer for two weeks to take care of Jacob, but that created financial stress and meant he sometimes couldn’t afford to fund his wife’s commissary account so she could buy better food and make phone calls. Jacob lived for those phone calls.

Jacob listed all the things he missed about his mom, including her cooking (rice with meat, corn cakes with egg), visiting the park together, and her taking him to get his hair cut, treating him to McDonald’s on the weekend, and bringing him to church. Most of all, he missed being close to her.

“I would lie down with her, and I’d watch videos with her,” he said. “My mom would hug me and I’d hug her.”

Sometimes he sprayed her perfume on himself so he could smell her.

After almost five months at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Jacob’s mother was released based on a habeas corpus petition in May. The family is still living in fear of detention or deportation. The father worries he too could be detained, and what that would mean for Jacob. Andreis is currently appealing a removal order for the two of them.

A recent analysis published by the Brookings Institution estimates that over 200,000 children — including 145,000 U.S. citizen children — have likely had at least one parent detained since President Trump returned to office. About a third of those children are under age 6. The number of children with detained parents is expected to grow as the federal government pours over $200 billion into immigration enforcement, including funding from the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and a $70 billion appropriation Trump signed this month.

More than 4.6 million U.S. citizen children live with a parent at risk of deportation, according to the report.

Families broken

Noemi, a Guatemalan mother and asylum seeker, stood in the parking lot at an ICE office north of Los Angeles, her three children wailing and clinging to her, glass from the family’s car scattered at their feet.

Moments earlier, immigration agents had smashed a window and forced her partner out of the car while he waited for Noemi and the kids to finish a check-in appointment. While they were inside, officers tried to separate Noemi from the couple’s children, ages 9, 7, and 1, but gave up after the kids started screaming, Noemi said. Meanwhile, her partner, a Mexican national who’s lived in the U.S. for almost 20 years, was sent to the ICE detention center in Adelanto.

“It was something tragic, something inexplicable that happened that day,” said Noemi, who asked to withhold her full name because she fears government retaliation for sharing her story. “It’s something that marks you for your whole life. My family was broken.”

Located in the Mojave Desert, the privately run Adelanto ICE Processing Center is the immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles and one of the largest in the U.S. It held a daily average of over 1,700 people as of April, and a facility next door called the Desert View Annex held an additional 426.

Since her partner’s detention in December, Noemi said, their children haven’t been the same.

Her 7-year-old daughter, till then usually happy and smiling, became depressed and refused to eat. Her once-high grades plummeted, and she forgot the names of letters and numbers in both English and Spanish. She and her 9-year-old brother struggled to sleep and asked constantly about their dad, wondering if he was taken because they’d done something wrong.

“Why is this happening to us?” they asked her. “We’re good. We’re studying.”

Noemi’s youngest daughter went back to crawling for three months, even though she’d already learned to walk before her father was taken. The little girl would cry out in her sleep, “Pa! Pa!”

Sofia Mendoza, a therapist who works with immigrant families at a community clinic in Los Angeles County, said separated children can experience a form of grief. It’s hard for them to come to terms with their parent’s absence because the parent is still alive, but not with them. This can disrupt the child’s bond with that parent and their ability to form trusting relationships in the future, she said.

Many children also become extremely anxious, angry, and fearful, Mendoza said. Young children often complain of physical symptoms such as stomachaches, develop separation anxiety, and regress to earlier behaviors like bed-wetting. Older children may have panic attacks, nightmares, and difficulty focusing, Mendoza said. Caregiver loss is also associated with increased risk of suicide and substance use in children.

Norma Gómez, a project manager for the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project in Oxnard, said after immigration raids shook the community last summer, her 9-year-old daughter refused to go to school for a week and was afraid to leave her mom and dad, even though they’re legal U.S. residents. She’d seen other kids at school crying because family members had been detained. Gómez showed her daughter their U.S. residency documents to reassure her. The child asked to make copies for her classmates, hoping they would protect them too.

“Time to be an adult”

Back in East Los Angeles, Damian is living with one of his aunts and struggling to adapt to not having his father around. He said his grades have dropped because he can’t focus in school. He no longer wants to do things he used to enjoy with his dad, such as going out to eat.

“Fun is over,” he said. “It’s time to be an adult right now.”

Damian Zermeño helps his aunts make lunch at his home in East Los Angeles. Since his father was deported, Damian says, he’s learned to be more independent, but he still misses his dad and often feels sad, worried, or angry. Karla Gachet for KFF Health News

Being without his father has forced Damian to become more independent, he and his aunt Claudia Zermeño said. Before, his dad did almost everything for him. Now, Damian does his own laundry, helps with housework, and styles his own hair. He’s protective of his aunts, who are both devastated by their brother’s absence; he hugs them frequently and tells jokes to try to cheer them up. He doesn’t want to upset them more by showing his own sadness.

Damian receives therapy both in and outside of school. He said he’s learned breathing exercises that have helped, but he still feels sad and worried a lot of the time. Sometimes he feels angry.

“I try my hardest to think, to stay focused,” he said. “But with everything that’s going on, I can’t keep the facade of ‘everything’s normal’ when I feel heartbroken.”

Saúl Zermeño, now living in Guadalajara, said he’s worried about his son’s health. Damian has a genetic condition called neurofibromatosis Type 1, which causes tumors to grow on nerve tissue in his body, including one in his head that, if not checked regularly by a doctor and monitored by his family, could interfere with his brain. He also suffers from epilepsy and was born with only one kidney, which means he tires easily and doesn’t play sports. Saúl is afraid his son won’t get the care he needs without him there. As Damian’s legal guardian, Claudia Zermeño is doing everything she can for him, but she has two children of her own and is also caring for her mother, who has neurological problems from a stroke.

Damian talks with his dad as often as he can. He hopes to visit his father in Mexico, but he doesn’t have a passport and, as a minor under 16, there are more requirements to get one without his dad present. Saúl is working with an attorney to get permission to legally return to the U.S., but the process is complicated and uncertain.

So, for now, Damian’s hanging on to hope that his dad will be allowed to return and is trying to become the man he believes he should be. He’s making plans to get his driver’s license when he turns 16 this month. He’s given up his goal of going to college and instead wants to get a job right after high school to help his aunts and send money to his dad.

He still cries, but only when he’s alone in his room.

_KFF Health News_is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at_KFF_— the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism._

赫格塞斯：若伊朗不守承诺 美方准备好重启军事行动

2026年6月18日 18:45 / 联合早报

赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后告诉媒体，如果伊朗不遵守协议，美国“完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁”。 （路透社）

赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后告诉媒体，如果伊朗不遵守协议，美国“完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁”。 （路透社）

美国战争部长赫格塞斯说，如果伊朗不履行与美国协议中的承诺，美方会重启军事行动，并重新实施封锁。

路透社报道，赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后说：“（美国）总统（特朗普）已经指出，如果在谈判时限内，伊朗未能履行承诺，我们会做好重启行动的准备。”

他也表明：“如果伊朗不遵守协议，我们完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁。”

美伊预计星期五（19日）正式签署结束冲突的谅解备忘录，为进一步谈判达成协议做准备。

赫格塞斯：若伊朗不守承诺 美方准备好重启军事行动

2026年6月18日 18:45 / 联合早报

赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后告诉媒体，如果伊朗不遵守协议，美国“完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁”。 （路透社）

赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后告诉媒体，如果伊朗不遵守协议，美国“完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁”。 （路透社）

美国战争部长赫格塞斯说，如果伊朗不履行与美国协议中的承诺，美方会重启军事行动，并重新实施封锁。

路透社报道，赫格塞斯星期四（6月18日）在布鲁塞尔参加北约防长会议后说：“（美国）总统（特朗普）已经指出，如果在谈判时限内，伊朗未能履行承诺，我们会做好重启行动的准备。”

他也表明：“如果伊朗不遵守协议，我们完全有能力重新实施铁一般的封锁。”

美伊预计星期五（19日）正式签署结束冲突的谅解备忘录，为进一步谈判达成协议做准备。

特朗普称不满美伊谅解备忘录的人是“蠢货”

2026年6月18日 18:47 / 联合早报

特朗普称不满美伊谅解备忘录的人是“蠢货”

特朗普在贴文中说，批评美伊谅解备忘录的人“要么是嫉妒，要么是坏人，要么就是愚蠢”。 （彭博社）

美国总统特朗普愤怒回应批评美国与伊朗谅解备忘录的人，称这些批评者是“蠢货”。

特朗普星期四（6月18日）在真相社交上发贴，用粗俗语言“回怼”对美伊谅解备忘录持批评意见的人。他写道：“这些蠢货，居然认为我对伊朗还不够强硬。要知道，股市刚刚创下历史新高，油价也暴跌了！”

法新社报道，美伊宣布达成初步协议后，原油期货星期四下跌约2%。

特朗普在贴文中说，批评这份谅解备忘录的人“要么是嫉妒，要么是坏人，要么就是愚蠢”。

作为美伊外交谈判的调解人，巴基斯坦总理谢里夫星期四早些时候已签署美伊谅解备忘录。美伊预计星期五（19日）正式举行签字仪式。

Hegseth announces review of US forces in Europe and again criticizes NATO allies

2026-06-18 06:40 AM ET / CNN

By Issy Ronald
Updated Jun 18, 2026, 7:29 AM ET
PUBLISHED Jun 18, 2026, 6:40 AM ET

Pete Hegseth was speaking at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

Jeremias Gonzalez/AP

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on the Trump administration’s combative posture towards NATO on Thursday, announcing a six-month review of US forces in Europe and lambasting Washington’s allies for limiting their involvement in the war in Iran.

“This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly towards Europe stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” he said at a meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers in Brussels.

The review will “examine America’s force posture and basing in Europe,” he said, as he sought to characterize it as a way to “transform NATO back into a real military alliance that’s focused on hard power and real deterrence.”

“It’s a review that some countries will fail and others will pass with flying colours,” he said.

His comments come at a critical time for Europe, which has been rattled by statements from Trump administration officials about plans to draw down the amount of US forces and hardware stationed in Europe.

On Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed the US had reduced its contributions to the alliance’s force model – the framework by which the organization organizes its joint forces and war plans – but sought to downplay that impact.

“We have looked at the division of labor in the context of conventional forces and we see that European allies and Canada are ready, willing and able to do more. Based on this, the United States has adjusted its pledges to the NATO force model,” he said, insisting that the US, with its nuclear umbrella, remained “committed” to the alliance.

Hegseth, President Donald Trump and other US administration officials have frequently railed against NATO, accusing Washington’s European allies of freeloading off US military spending.

Last month, the defense secretary abruptly cancelled two US military deployments to the continent and ordered the removal of other personnel, sources told CNN at the time.

The Pentagon announced specifically that it would withdraw roughly 5,000 troops from Germany over the next year. Trump threatened further cuts following a spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran as negotiations over a peace agreement dragged out. A future deployment to Germany of a battalion that specializes in firing long-range rockets and missiles was also cancelled.

Meanwhile, European countries, have dramatically increased their own military spending, pledging last year to spend 5% of their gross domestic product on defense by 2035, more than double the previous 2% target.

特朗普称不满美伊谅解备忘录的人是“蠢货”

2026年6月18日 18:47 / 联合早报

特朗普在贴文中说，批评美伊谅解备忘录的人“要么是嫉妒，要么是坏人，要么就是愚蠢”。 （彭博社）

美国总统特朗普愤怒回应批评美国与伊朗谅解备忘录的人，称这些批评者是“蠢货”。

特朗普星期四（6月18日）在真相社交上发贴，用粗俗语言“回怼”对美伊谅解备忘录持批评意见的人。他写道：“这些蠢货，居然认为我对伊朗还不够强硬。要知道，股市刚刚创下历史新高，油价也暴跌了！”

法新社报道，美伊宣布达成初步协议后，原油期货星期四下跌约2%。

特朗普在贴文中说，批评这份谅解备忘录的人“要么是嫉妒，要么是坏人，要么就是愚蠢”。

作为美伊外交谈判的调解人，巴基斯坦总理谢里夫星期四早些时候已签署美伊谅解备忘录。美伊预计星期五（19日）正式举行签字仪式。

中国开展新能源车下乡活动 乡村消费者换购可申领补贴

2026年6月18日 15:34 / 联合早报

中国开展新能源车下乡活动 乡村消费者换购可申领补贴

中国官方启动2026年新能源汽车下乡活动，以激发下沉市场消费活力。图为停放在上海港口的中国制造电动汽车。 （法新社）

为激发县域及乡村市场消费活力，中国官方启动2026年新能源汽车下乡活动；换购新能源汽车的乡村消费者可在活动期间按规定申领汽车以旧换新补贴，不受补贴资格数量限制。

新华社星期四（6月18日）引述中国工信部消息报道，工信部、商务部、国家发改委、农业农村部和国家能源局组织开展2026年新能源汽车下乡活动，旨在活跃线下消费、激发下沉市场消费活力、加快补齐乡村地区绿色出行基础设施短板，以及推广绿色低碳、智能安全的乡村出行新体验。

官方称，此次活动以“绿色、低碳、智能、安全——智行千县万镇，绿惠乡村万家”为主题，将推动智能网联技术、新型充换电技术、“光储充”一体化以及车网互动等技术在乡村地区应用。

据悉，活动选取满足乡村地区使用需求、口碑好、质量可靠的新能源车型；同时，继续落实车购税、车船税减免、县域充换电设施补短板等政策，积极扩大新能源汽车乡村地区消费。

活动还将设立汽车以旧换新专区，开展补贴政策宣介推广，提供旧车检测评估回收、补贴申请手续代办等“一站式”服务，进一步提高优惠政策知晓度、覆盖面，便利乡村地区消费者参与享受补贴。

延伸阅读
市场内卷下 中国官方开展新能源汽车下乡活动

此外，官方将选择新能源汽车普及率较低、市场潜力较大的县域开展线下推广活动，通过车型展示、试乘试驾等体验式消费场景，吸引周边乡镇居民选购新能源汽车，并带动实体零售发展。

活动期间，新能源汽车销售和售后服务企业、充换电服务企业，以及保险、信贷等金融机构也将协同下乡，持续优化乡村地区新能源汽车应用配套环境，提升服务水平。

酒吧紧急调车运啤酒 苏格兰球迷险些“喝空”波士顿

2026年6月18日 15:39 / 联合早报

AI摘要

• 苏格兰球迷涌入波士顿观赛，几乎喝空当地酒吧啤酒库存，部分酒吧紧急调车运酒应对。
• 萨缪尔·亚当斯精酿酒吧总经理称此为从业30余年所见最疯狂场面，球迷清晨即返店续饮。
• 波士顿市长吴弭盛赞苏格兰球迷热情友善，积极支持本地商户，并欢迎“花呢格纹军团”常来。

本摘要由AI辅助生成，仅供参考

苏格兰男足的2026年世界杯首战在波士顿举行，图为波士顿的The Sevens酒吧为客人倒啤酒。 （路透社）

（波士顿路透电）波士顿的各大酒吧正严阵以待，准备迎接苏格兰球迷带来的第二波“酒精海啸”。在上周末的世界杯狂欢中，成千上万涌入这座城市的苏格兰球迷几乎把当地不少酒吧的啤酒库存喝了个底朝天。

苏格兰时隔28年重返世界杯，并在新加坡时间星期天（6月14日）于波士顿进行的首秀中以1比0战胜海地。赛后，面对数万名以狂热和海量著称的苏格兰球迷，波士顿各大酒吧的员工不得不紧急四处调配啤酒，以满足这些“无底洞”般的胃口。

位于市中心的萨缪尔·亚当斯精酿酒吧（Sam Adams Tap Room）总经理德凯恩（DeCain）感慨道：“我入行30多年了，还从来没见过这种阵仗。”

比赛期间，由于苏格兰球迷对啤酒永无止境的需求，这家酒吧甚至不得不紧急调用了一辆专车，直接从萨缪尔·亚当斯啤酒厂（Sam Adams brewery）拉来一整车啤酒。即便如此，德凯恩当时还是担心他们最后可能沦落到只剩罐装啤酒可卖的尴尬境地。

他在当地时间星期三（17日）接受采访时说：“我们总算是熬过来了。多亏了那几次紧急送货，要不这绝对是一项不可能完成的任务。”

德凯恩：他们难道不用睡觉？

同时，不少球迷正在酒吧内悠闲地品着啤酒消磨时间，静候星期六（20日）对阵摩洛哥的比赛。

与对阵海地的比赛一样，这场对决也将在位于波士顿郊区福克斯堡的美式橄榄球职业联盟（NFL）新英格兰爱国者（New England Patriots）的主场举行。

德凯恩认为苏格兰球迷的狂热，简直不亚于自己钟爱的美式橄榄球队历史上首次打进超级碗时的兴奋程度。他感叹道：“整个周末你都处于肾上腺素飙升的状态，你完全能从他们身上感受到这一点，他们难道不用睡觉吗？他们难道不会累吗？第二天上午11点，他们就又准时出现在酒吧开喝了。”

苏格兰球迷在酒吧外和堆满推车的啤酒合影。（路透社）

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq6L3xA4koY

苏格兰球迷得波士顿市长好评

苏格兰球迷在波士顿展现出的狂欢活力赢得了当地市民的好评。伴着风笛合奏的宏大乐声，他们还一路游行到了美国棒球豪门波士顿红袜（Boston Red Sox）的传奇主场芬威公园（Fenway Park）。

波士顿市长吴弭说，当地居民立即就被这些远道而来的球迷所展现出的纯粹热爱所感染。

身穿一件蓝色苏格兰队球衣的吴弭，在波士顿市政厅的台阶上对路透社记者说：“我们自诩是世界上最狂热、最疯狂的体育迷。因此，能看到那种同样程度的投入与热爱，我们感到由衷的敬佩。”

吴弭补充说：“苏格兰球迷绝对是最棒的。他们非常热情，有力地支持了本地商户，努力融入我们的社区，把波士顿当成了自己的第二个家，所以，我真心希望‘花呢格纹军团’（Tartan Army，苏格兰球迷外号）以后能常来波士顿。”

在对阵摩洛哥的比赛后，苏格兰将前往迈阿密迎战巴西，而下星期三（24日）英格兰则将来到福克斯堡对阵加纳，意味着波士顿还要准备迎接苏格兰的“宿敌”英格兰以及三狮球迷大军的到来。

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eurBAClEWS4

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