Dear Commons Community,

Today is Juneteenth in commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth was first used in the 1890s and refers to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York City celebrated the NBA Champion New York Knicks yesterday with a parade and City Hall ceremonies.

Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. (Photos: The White House and IRNA).

Dear Commons Community,

Trump signed an initial agreement with Iran on Wednesday that calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and waives U.S.-backed sanctions on the country, immediately allowing Iran to sell its oil freely in a major concession from Washington, according to details released by both countries.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Trump told reporters that he signed an agreement with Iran yesterday while leaving a dinner in Versailles, France with French President Emmanuel Macron. “It’s signed, yeah. We signed it in Versailles. We signed it,” Trump commented.

The initial deal to end the war takes “immediate effect” after leaders from both countries signed it, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who helped mediate the agreement, said online.

The agreement calls for a permanent end to hostilities and starts a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, though Trump left the door open to resume attacks. It appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

The deal had been shrouded in secrecy for days and questions still remain.. U.S. officials refused to disclose the terms even after saying Trump and Vice President JD Vance digitally signed it over the weekend. Trump signed a physical copy Wednesday while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at Versailles, the palace where many historic agreements have been signed over the centuries, ending wars or territorial disputes.

The White House had planned a signing ceremony on Friday in Switzerland, but its fate is now uncertain, with conflicting information from the U.S., Iran and Pakistan.

“It’s signed,” Trump said as he left the dinner at Versailles, which followed his trip to the Group of Seven summit in France.

In a video posted online by a White House aide, Trump was seen seated at a table next to Macron signing a paper copy of the agreement. Trump then handed the document and pen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as people in the room applauded.

“This was not easy,” Trump said right before he signed it, according to a video posted to social media by Macron.

In Tehran, a stone-faced President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the deal on behalf of Iran, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, which posted an image of him holding up the deal with his signature and Trump’s.

Terms of the agreement have been released by the Americans and U.S. officials dictated draft language to journalists after days of secrecy. Iranian state media has released text that largely tracked what the U.S. put out.

The deal will stop the fighting and start more negotiations

Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities, restarting talks between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

The agreement opens the strait without tolls for two months, but does not preclude fees in the future, according to the drafts from both countries.

In return, the U.S. will move to waive, but not eliminate, some wide-ranging sanctions against Iran.

The deal also affirms a commitment to Lebanon’s territorial integrity in the face of Israel’s invasion against the Hezbollah militant group. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal, a condition Israel has already rejected.

The U.S. and Israel went to war Feb. 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government.

The interim deal falls short of all those goals, but Trump hailed it as “very strong.”

He also opened the door to abandoning it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions are major concessions that go beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew America from that Obama-era pact in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.”

Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though it is the only country to enrich uranium to 60% purity without a weapons program, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The interim deal calls for the IAEA to monitor the “downblending” of that uranium in Iran, without elaborating.

The accord likely will draw intense opposition in Washington, and it appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under criticism at home from the media, his opponents and even some allies as details emerge.

Under the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump pulled out of, Iran also agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program and promised never to build an atomic weapon in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Major concessions have been offered to Iran

Some concessions to Iran — including the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — would happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to Pakistani officials. They outlined some of the deal’s major points on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

But in the meantime, the U.S. will issue waivers to sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely.

The Islamic Republic’s oil export revenues in 2024 were more than $46 billion. Its main buyer of oil, China, is believed to have bought at below-market prices because of its willingness to ignore the sanctions.

Granting oil waivers at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were sanctions on Iran’s oil lifted.

The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — including those over Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that far surpasses the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. The money also appears dependent on the progress of further negotiations.  However, it is not clear who will fund the $300 billion.

Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount. But Gulf countries would likely be reluctant to help Iran after Iranian attacks in the war destroyed oil facilities and other sites in their territory.

Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. would not contribute and said it was up to other countries if they wanted to invest.

The pact would provide relief to the global economy

The initial deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait.

The strait’s closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let through some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which has long been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic was nowhere near levels before the war.

The deal also says the U.S. will lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the strait will return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.

Tony

Horses and carriages wait for customers near Central Park in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Dear Commons Community,

Carriage horses in New York City’s Central Park are a part of every tourist’s schedule when visiting the Big Apple. Yesterday, however, a teenager from India was thrown to the ground and killed when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away.  As reported by The Associated Press and other media.

The 18-year-old was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers when the accident happened just before 3 p.m., according to the New York Police Department. At least two passengers were sent flying out of the careening cab. 

The teenager was initially hospitalized in critical condition. The other passengers refused medical treatment.

A representative for the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage industry employees, said the driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do.

The horse had been in the park for only six weeks, according to Alexander Kemp, the administrative vice president of the union’s local chapter. He said he wants a full investigation.

“Safety in the park has been a growing concern among many, and improvements are needed to be made with respect to all vehicles, including e-bicycles, delivery vehicles, pedicabs, and horse-drawn carriages,” he said in a statement.

Video showed the horse sprinting through the park as two people appeared to jump from the four-wheeled carriage. A second video shows the cab toppling over after clipping the wheels of another carriage on the park’s busy loop.

It’s a fraught moment for Central Park’s 150-year-old horse-drawn carriage industry. The industry has long been seen as a quaint attraction that offers tourists a romantic remnant of a bygone New York, while providing hundreds of jobs to drivers, along with many farm and racing horses. But they are now facing the growing threat of a ban from opponents who say the rides are both inhumane to horses and a danger to city residents.

Wednesday’s event follows several recent horse-related problems in the park, including the fatal collapse of a horse last week.

The Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit which operates the park and came out last summer in support of banning horse-drawn carriages, said the back-to-back events should bring an end to the industry.

“A young man came to enjoy our park and lost his life,” the group said in a statement. “That is not an acceptable cost of an antiquated industry operating in the middle of one of the most heavily used public spaces in America.”

Central Park is nearly 850 acres and attracts millions of people every year.

Sad story!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading a novel by Shelby Van Pelt, entitled, Remarkably Bright Creatures. I was on vacation last week visiting my daughter in Seattle and wanted a fun novel to read on the long flights back and forth.  My wife suggested Van Pelt’s book, which has received critical acclaim from reviewers – see:  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/books/remarkably-bright-creatures-shelby-van-pelt.html

The story involves a super-intelligent octopus (yes an octopus) who solves a mystery in a small fictional town in Puget Sound in Washington.  I won’t give away too much of the plot because there is joy in trying to figure out how relationships among main characters including Marcelus, the octopus, evolve and how the story will end. Let me say that once you pick it up, you will have trouble putting it down.  It has also just been released as a movie starring Sally Field and Lewis Pullman.

Try it – you’ll like it!

Tony

 (Reuters)

Dear Commons Community,

Jeffrey Epstein sought to leverage his connection to Donald Trump in an apparent last-ditch request for leniency while in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, a 35-day stint inside prison that ended with his suicide in 2019.

Previously unreleased handwritten notes obtained by The New York Times reveal Epstein’s half-baked sentences and phrases scribbled on legal pads, including what appear to be ideas for federal prosecutors to investigate then-President Trump. As reported by The Times and the Independent.

“Trump is a total con artist,” he wrote, adding the phrases “smoke & mirrors” and “never had money.”

He also suggested former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg “knows all” and suggested the president’s “college transcripts” should be publicly released. “Not a stable genius,” he wrote.

The circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death and his alleged connections to a wider network of powerful pedophiles have consumed Congress and the Trump administration, which is eager to move on from federal investigations into Epstein and the political blowback surrounding the release of millions of documents connected to his cases.

The newly published messages — obtained as part of a sprawling investigation from The Times that examines the wealthy and well-connected pedophile’s final days — do not appear to have raised any new allegations against the president.

Epstein’s attempts to provide potentially useful information to federal prosecutors in exchange for the possibility of clemency in his own case do not appear to have moved the needle in his favor.

His writings suggest he wasn’t able to offer up anything that wasn’t already known. Trump and Weisselberg were later subject to extensive investigations that resulted in bombshell fraud verdicts targeting the president’s real estate empire and his family wealth.

Weisselberg spent 100 days inside Rikers Island in 2023 after he was convicted on a range of tax crimes in a separate case stemming from a sweeping criminal investigation into Trump’s business. He returned to jail in 2024 after pleading guilty to perjury over testimony he gave during a blockbuster fraud case targeting the president’s business.

That same year, a judge determined Trump and his business partners illegally enriched themselves by defrauding banks and investors as part of a decade-long scheme to secure favorable financing terms for some of his brand-building properties.

Epstein and Trump – birds of a feather!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The U.S. Department of Education has begun outsourcing responsibility for overseeing the nation’s special education system and enforcing civil rights law in schools to other federal agencies, after months of previewing dramatic efforts to restructure both core functions.

Department officials announced the moves—made possible by four new interagency agreements – yesterday morning to advocacy group representatives, and to reporters and the general public.

The Education Department office that oversees special education and employment programs for adults with disabilities will move to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The U.S. Department of Justice will take on the Education Department’s office for civil rights, student privacy enforcement, and a quartet of equity assistance centers that help K-12 schools with desegregation efforts.

Department officials have teased many of these moves for more than a year. The conservative policy agenda Project 2025, which has guided many Trump administration actions, recommended moving both special education and civil rights enforcement to their respective new agencies.

Yesterday’s announcement marks the latest step by the second Trump administration toward its goal of eliminating the Education Department. As part of 10 previously announced interagency agreements, more than 100 K-12 and higher education programs are already relocating to five agencies—Interior, Labor, State, Treasury, and HHS.

Tony

Dear Colleagues,

Elaine and I are returning to New York today after spending a week with our daughter and her family in Seattle. It was a good visit, but we are looking forward to coming home.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Bob Ubell, had an essay entitled, Online Is a “Safe Space” in War, that was posted in AI-Learn Insights. It provides descriptions of how “…online learning is tasked with the quite forbidding job of keeping education alive in wartime.” The essay focuses on how universities in places like Gaza and the Ukraine are relying on remote learning to deal with the trauma of war in their countries.

It is worth a read.  The entire essay is below.

Tony

AI-Learn Insights

Online Is a “Safe Space” in War

How students and faculty find resilience amid the trauma of war

By Robert Ubell

Jun 01, 2026

When I first entered digital education a quarter of a century ago, I envisioned all sorts of unconventional students enrolling in remote learning—full-time workers, home-bound patients, parents caring for young children, older folks, and rural families far from campus. Digital education has become essential, giving them access they can’t manage on campus.

Now, online learning is tasked with yet a new, quite forbidding job, keeping education alive in wartime. I never imagined digital education holding classes together under missiles and drones. When remote classes were first tested so many years ago, who would have dreamed they would become a refuge for students and faculty cut off from campus by traumatic conflict? When the U.S. and Israel unexpectedly launched a war with Iran in late February, American colleges with branches in the Middle East took cues from the global Covid epidemic, closing campuses, moving everything online.1 Qatar ordered all schools and universities to switch to distance learning on the first day of the conflict. By late March, after Iran threatened that U.S. campuses were legitimate targets, American campuses in the country—including those run by Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, and Texas A&M—had moved online-only, where they remain.2

Universities in Ukraine and Gaza also found a haven in remote education, moving to digital learning to maintain classes. Online education has assumed a grim challenge for which it was never intended, securing higher education for students as campuses crumble under attack. In Gaza, for example, despite the destruction of nearly all universities in the zone, learning and academic life continues remarkably online.

“Universities in the Gaza Strip have demonstrated exceptional resilience by resuming distance learning despite the ongoing challenges resulting from the Israeli war,” say a couple of Palestinian psychologists at the Islamic University of Gaza.3

In Ukraine, Internet access is still reliable, except for villages and remote areas without good coverage. Internet services are relatively inexpensive and Ukrainians are largely comfortable using digital tools, exhibiting an unexpected level of faculty and student readiness, allowing online classes to continue relatively uninterrupted. A local observer claims, “From the beginning of the Russian invasion, distance learning has become the only available option.”4

It surprised me to learn that university classes in Iran continue entirely online in the aftermath of the U.S.-Israeli assault. The country’s faculty and students transitioned to remote education almost immediately.5

Trauma in War

Despite the speed with which students in these war-torn countries today have been able to go online, war affects nearly everything else in their academic and daily lives—concentration, commitment, resilience, and especially emotional wellbeing.

“The war may have begun with military strikes, but some of its deepest consequences are appearing quietly inside classrooms—or in many cases, in the absence of classrooms,” reports the Financial Tribune. “If these educational wounds are left untreated, their effects will outlast the conflict itself.”6

Students in war zones encounter death and destruction on nearly every street corner. Faced with the day-in, day-out grind of war, they are gashed with deep emotional scars. Traumatized by school closure, with no clear way of earning their degree or getting a job, many struggle with being separated from campus friends and faculty. At home, students may encounter family tensions, with members confronted with job losses, financial stress, illness and death.7

Exposure to violence often leads to anxiety, depression, anger, hopelessness and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other afflictions, hindering students’ ability to concentrate, engage, and perform academic tasks. Psychologists say trauma disrupts cognitive functions, emotional regulation and social interaction, with sufferers often experiencing feelings of intrusion and avoidance, often forcing them to react negatively, their mood disorders making them feel paralyzed.8

Faculty, too, are subject to the effects of trauma, affecting instruction, limiting their capacity to engage fully and effectively. They can often feel restless, irritable, and angry. Or disconnected, numb or fatigued, often suffering unexplained aches and pains.9

How Online Mitigates Trauma

Unexpectedly, it turns out that online learning can partially mitigate the psychic damage inflicted in war. In the midst of cascading bombs, terrorizing missiles, and bewildering, AI-propelled drones, digital education uncannily provides a sense of normalcy and continuity when cities are torn apart and campuses crushed. Remote learning can help build resilience, allowing students to continue learning, despite being damaged by trauma. With flexible pacing, it enables students to learn at their own pace, a vital option for the traumatized, giving them time to gain their footing. It provides structured, predictable routine, reducing trauma and anxiety—a “safe space” for learning and interaction.

Of course, digital education is no panacea. In war, digital tools and platforms are often cut off by power outages and Internet failure. And for some, remote classes don’t meet their social needs. Many are unhappy not meeting in person, feeling alienated, learning exclusively online. In totally destroyed zones, some institutions now rely on low-bandwidth, offline solutions, exploiting digital libraries to avoid constant Internet disruption.10

Collective Trauma

The Guardian reports that “eighty percent of schools have been destroyed or damaged in Gaza” as of 2024, amounting to “scholasticide, the systematic destruction of Palestinian education ongoing since the Nakba.” All 19 universities in Gaza have been bombed, wholly or partly destroyed. Numerous libraries, archives, publishing houses, museums, bookstores, and archival materials are in ruin.11

In Ukraine, more than 340 educational facilities were damaged or destroyed in 2025 alone, with some 2,800 schools struck since the start of the Russian invasion.12 And in Iran, authorities say at least 30 universities have been struck by U.S. and Israeli fire since the start of the war. In a recent bombing of Shahid Beheshti University, fortuitously, no fatalities or injuries were reported because the campus was vacant, with students and faculty now only online.13

In these new conflicts, schoolhouses and college campuses have themselves become targets, not merely casualties caught in the path of war. The damage reaches past any single student or teacher. Columbia curator Betti-Sue Hertz, in a different context, describes “collective trauma [as] a blow to the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairs the basic sense of community. When a university is destroyed, what is lost is not only its buildings but the shared life they held.”14

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

With campuses being bombed in Europe and the Middle East, I jumped at the chance to write about online learning in war because it didn’t seem like a contested field. High-tech alternatives looked right, with little or no good reason to oppose them. As everyone knows, since the invention of digital education, online has been subject to vigorous opposition, mostly from those who believe the only good education is conducted in a classroom, with a teacher’s desk up front, students sitting in rows facing it, just like schoolrooms we occupied as children. Conventional education has been good for very long, they say, no reason to go for something new and foolish. But war seems to have ended the online versus on-campus dichotomy because it turns out that the reasons online learning is good for students facing desperate attacks are the very same that make it good in ordinary times.

Researching what has come to be known as “trauma-informed pedagogy,” I was struck by how much methods proposed by specialists aligned with online instruction. In my early book, Going Online, published nearly a decade ago, I outlined key principles faculty might follow to teach effectively using active-learning strategies online15 Taking cues from John Dewey and other early twentieth-century reformers, digital education at its best places the student at the center of instruction, encouraging active participation, peer-to-peer interaction, group discussions, among other active-learning approaches.

Faculty in bombed-out campuses are turning to those same methods to help students overcome war’s devastation. Earlier this year, a hundred faculty members from Gaza’s universities joined online training sessions covering how to implement trauma-informed pedagogy. With electricity cuts and unstable internet, the training itself persisted on WhatsApp, delivered in tiny, low-bandwidth pieces so it could reach teachers anywhere. To manage student trauma, faculty move them to safety online as trusted stewards, flexibly encouraging resilience.16

“When your university is destroyed, when you’ve been displaced more than once, when your students are living through unimaginable loss—how do you keep teaching?” asks Saida Affouneh, Professor of Education in Emergency and Online Learning at An-Najah University in Nablus, a West Bank city in Palestine. Her answer, and that of faculty across the war zones, is that you keep teaching online—not because it’s ideal, but because it’s what remains.17

1 Johanna Alonso. Amid War in Iran, Campuses Close and Study Abroad Trips End. Inside Higher Ed. March 31, 2026.

2 Adam Pourahmadi. Universities become new frontline as the US-Israel war against Iran escalates. CNN. March 31, 2026.

3 Basel El-Khodary, Sanaa Aboudagga. The impact of Gaza war: online educational challenges and mental health of university students. Springer Nature. Middle East Curr Psychiatry 32, 48 (2025).

4 Tetiana Perepelytsia. Online Learning and War: How Pandemic Experience Can Help Ukrainian Education? Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation. May 27, 2022.

5 War’s Deep Scars on Education in Iran. Financial Tribune. April 26, 2026.

6 Ibid.

7 Karen Gross. Can Online Learning Be Trauma-Responsive? New England Board of Higher Education. August 18, 2020.

8 Tuğba Yılmaz. Victimology from clinical psychology perspective: psychological assessment of victims and professionals working with victims. Curr Psychol. 2021;40(4):1592-1600.

9 Megan MacFarland. Supporting ourselves After trauma: a guide for faculty. OAI+. Portland University.

10 Caroline Damren, Emily Canosa. Teaching Through Trauma: Insights on Trauma-Informed Pedagogy in Online Learning from University of Michigan’s Leading Educators. University of Michigan Online Teaching. July 11, 2025.

11 Chandni Desai. Israel has destroyed or damaged 80% of schools in Gaza. This is scholasticide. Guardian. June 8, 2024.

Dear Commons Community,

The Atlantic has an article this morning questioning the peace deal that Trump is getting ready to sign with Iran. While details are sketchy, The Atlantic piece, written by Tom Nichols, suggests that Trump has capitulated to Iran’s demands and it is an Iranian victory.  Here is an excerpt.

“President Trump has announced that the United States and Iran have reached a deal to end their war. “Congratulations to all!” he said in a posting on his Truth Social site this evening. He then headed off to oversee the garish public spectacle he’d arranged for his birthday on the South Lawn of the White House. The United States, however, has little to celebrate: Trump and his team, in record time, just lost a war to a militarily mediocre—but nonetheless extremely dangerous—adversary.

The details of the agreement remain unconfirmed, but the president, of course, is eager to spin the outcome as a victory. (Trump was in a hurry to sign the deal on his birthday; the Iranians, who now seem to be in charge of this whole business, instead said they will send someone to a meeting in Switzerland on Friday.) But even before we have the details, it is clear that Trump has failed to achieve every one of the goals he put forward for this war of choice, and now he is determined to sign, seal, and deliver America’s capitulation as quickly as possible.

If defeat seems a strong word, consider what we do know about how this war will end. Iran has suffered significant damage from U.S. and Israeli military action. But as I and others warned at the outset, killing people and bombing things do not by themselves produce victory. The reality is that the war will close with the regime in Tehran intact and in the grip of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the Strait of Hormuz will remain under the threat of Iranian attacks; Iran will continue to possess significant drone and missile stocks; the regime will maintain the capability to be a state sponsor of terror; and many sanctions will be lifted and billions of dollars in unfrozen assets will flow to Iran. In other words, the Iranians have achieved their key strategic aims—regime survival above all—while the Americans have achieved none of their own.”

We will have to wait and see!

Tony