Two-week Iran deadline, Putin, LA Lakers and immigration
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Today, Trump says he'll decide within two weeks on U.S. action in Iran. We hear Vladimir Putin's take as the conflict with Israel enters its second week. Left-leaning voters in the U.S. want new leadership from the Democratic Party. What's behind that dissatisfaction? And what the sale of the L.A. Lakers means for the team and the city, as Los Angeles businesses struggle to regain their footing after immigration raids and protests.

It's Friday, June 20th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

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Two weeks. That's US President Donald Trump's timeframe for his decision on whether to join Israel in strikes against Iran. Israel continued its air attacks overnight, bombing Iranian nuclear targets, while Iran retaliated with missiles and drones hitting an Israeli hospital. Their air war entering its second week as Europeans meet in Geneva in an attempt to coax Tehran back to the negotiating table.

As Trump weighs further involvement, Russia's President Vladimir Putin says he's closely watching the attacks on Iran, a close ally of Russia. Putin sat down with senior editors of several news agencies this week to address a range of topics during an annual economics forum in St. Petersburg. Our executive editor, Simon Robinson, was part of the two-and-a-half-hour interview.

So Simon, what did Putin focus on? He became most animated around questions that focused on Germany's role in Ukraine in that conflict and then also about the growing conflict between

between Israel and Iran, the escalating strikes. He refused to answer a question that asked around the possibility that Israel or the United States would kill the Iranian supreme leader. He said it was simply something that he did not want to contemplate. On a number of occasions, he said that

that he saw the way forward as one of de-escalation. And he talked a bit about the relationship between Iran and Russia, which is a relationship that has grown closer over the last 10 years or so. And that close relationship means there are a number of Russians in Iran, right? How is Putin thinking about their safety during this conflict?

That's right. He pointed to the fact that Russia has a number of scientists who work and help at a nuclear facility in the south of Iran and said that those scientists were safe, that the other parties in the conflict were aware of their presence in Iran, and that he wanted to see de-escalation and didn't want to see anything happen to that facility.

Democratic voters in the U.S. are ready for new political leadership. That's according to a new Reuters Ipsos poll, which shows that more than 6 in 10 respondents who identified as Democrats thought that the party leaders should be replaced.

Our politics editor, Scott Malone in Washington, D.C., is unpacking what's behind that dissatisfaction. Democratic respondents to the poll perceived a real gap between what they cared about and what they think that Democratic Party leaders care about. The Democratic poll respondents' concerns were very much economic. They'd like to see wealthy people pay more in taxes.

They'd like to see the power of super PACs through which corporations and other money interests are able to steer political outcomes. They'd like to see those reined in. And this was interesting. We found that younger Democratic respondents to the poll put a really high priority on economic issues. That's universal health care. That's affordable child care. That's higher taxes on the wealthy. And they prioritize those things far more highly than they believed party leaders weighed them.

They saw a real divergence there and a dissatisfaction. And that was very different in that group, the 18 to 39, which is, it's a wide branch of early life, right? That's from in college to right out of college to getting first jobs and maybe moving on into starting families, buying homes, which is something that younger people are having a very hard time doing. America's major trading partners are trying to negotiate trade deals with D.C. before a pause on President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs runs out next month.

And European officials think that a 10% tariff might be as good as they're going to get. Kamil Grimans has more. European officials are increasingly resigned to a 10% rate on reciprocal tariffs being the baseline in any trade deal with the United States. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has ruled out going below that rate for the tariffs that cover most goods that the EU exports to the US.

Now, Brussels is still pressing for the rate to be lower, but negotiating that has become harder since the US started getting revenues from its global tariffs. The EU has said publicly it won't settle for a double-digit baseline rate, but so did Britain, and London agreed to a limited trade deal in May that retains 10% tariffs on British exports, while cutting higher rates for steel and cars.

A U.S. appeals court has allowed President Trump to retain control of California's National Guard. It comes as the state's Democratic governor is proceeding with a lawsuit challenging the president's use of the troops to quell protests in Los Angeles. Trump was elected for his second term with a promise to be tough on border security.

But many community leaders in heavily Democratic L.A. have publicly opposed the operations. Demonstrators there praising the Los Angeles Dodgers for saying they denied U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents access to the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. It's the team's first sign of opposition to immigration raids that have rattled California's largest city.

As the protests in LA wind down, the immigration raids that inspired them are taking a toll on local businesses. You know, my workers got a little bit spooked last week because they saw a couple of people outside. So they're like, I'm out of here. I'm like, yeah, go ahead, you know. That's Juan Ibarra. He runs a fruit and vegetable outlet in LA's Fresh Produce Market. Ibarra says that since immigration and customs enforcement officials began conducting raids, business has virtually dried up. Ted Hessen covers immigration.

So we've seen this more intense immigration enforcement in recent weeks that has also hit businesses. And then last week, somewhat unexpectedly, we saw a Truth Social post from President Trump where he seemed to acknowledge that farmers and hotel owners and other businesses were suffering because of the increased enforcement. That same day, we later learned that ICE issued a directive that essentially said

that officers should stand down on worksite enforcement at these sorts of businesses. Now what we're seeing is that there's been a change in ICE policy where they've essentially reversed what they previously said they would do and now say that those businesses are back on the table and that there can be enforcement at them. So what are the political risks from going after these businesses?

business owners speaking out or industry groups speaking out really underscores the economic risk that comes with this mass deportation effort. Trump has framed deportations around criminals, saying he's removing threats from the country, violent criminals.

But when we look at ICE statistics, what we have available to us anyway, we see that the people who are arrested by ICE and going into detention, the percentage of non-criminals has really grown exponentially since Trump took office. Many of them are here working or have lives here and are part of their communities. And it's not just people that are removed from this country. It could also be people afraid to go to work because they don't want to be arrested or they don't want to be deported. And while we're in LA,

The $10 billion sale of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball organization is the largest sale of a sports franchise of all time. The sale sets the stage for the new owner, Mark Walter, to helm the Lakers as sports in L.A. come into focus in a big way. Our sports reporter Rory Carroll is in L.A. reporting on what the new owner could mean for the storied franchise.

Yeah, well, we know Mark Walter has deep pockets and he has got a mighty checkbook and he's not afraid to use it. L.A. sports fans only need to look just across the way to the L.A. Dodgers. And since he was part of the group that bought that team in 2012, they've made 12 consecutive playoff appearances, won two of the four World Series that they've appeared in and have managed to land the biggest names in the game.

Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman. So Lakers fans will likely expect a similar thing to happen for their franchise with him digging deep to come up with the cash, but meanwhile being a hands-off owner who allows the general manager, his presidents to run the team as they see fit. SpaceX's Starship spacecraft exploded into a fireball during testing in Texas. It's the latest in a series of setbacks for Elon Musk's Mars rocket program.

All personnel are safe and the explosion was attributed to a nitrogen storage unit failure.

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That's it, Phil, don't get your hands dirty. Slow Horses, now streaming on Apple TV+. And for today's recommendation, a recommended listen for the weekend. As the US considers whether to join Israeli strikes on Iran, we take a look at the country and its vulnerabilities and what Iran's future could look like. Tune in to a special episode of Reuters World News for that conversation on Saturday morning.

For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.