U.S. CFTC Acting Chairman: Enforcement Division Restructured, Refocused on Combating Fraud

June 19 (Reuters) — U.S. officials have announced that Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have agreed to a ceasefire, which will take effect at 4 p.m. local time this Friday, corresponding to 9 p.m. Beijing time.

June 19th. U.S. President Trump stated: “It’s not the United States that’s eager for a meeting—it’s Iran. They’re finished! We will stick to our 60-day plan. Iran won’t receive a single penny, not even one cent.”

On June 19, the spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israel’s attack on Lebanon, warning that this action will have consequences for regional security. He stated that the United States bears direct responsibility for Israel’s strike on Lebanon, adding that Iran will take all necessary measures to protect its own interests and alliance relationships.

DATELINE: WALLER, Texas, June 19 — Two brothers have pleaded guilty to an armed kidnapping that unfolded in Minnesota last year, according to recent court documents. Isiah Angelo Garcia and Raymond Christian Garcia, both from the Houston area, admitted to breaking into a family home in Grant, Minnesota, on September 19, 2025. They held the family at gunpoint, tied them up for more than eight hours, forced the household’s father to transfer over $8 million from his cryptocurrency account, and coerced him to travel to a northern cabin to retrieve additional digital storage devices. After the victims’ son contacted police, the Garcia brothers fled the scene but were arrested later in the Houston area. In a Minneapolis federal court, the pair entered guilty pleas to the charge of “interference with commerce by means of robbery.” Each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and has agreed to pay over $8 million in restitution to the victims. No sentencing date has been set yet.

June 19 (Bloomberg) — A select group of early testers for Anthropic Public Benefit Corp.’s (Anthropic PBC) Mythos AI model—chosen to test the system at scale ahead of its public launch—have retained access to the preview version. This comes even after a U.S. government mandate forced the permanent shutdown of other Mythos variants. Per sources familiar with the matter, multiple enterprises, including banks and tech companies, are accessing the Mythos preview via Project Glasswing. The initiative is a collective of roughly 200 organizations that Anthropic has authorized to use the AI system for hunting network vulnerabilities. Dragos Inc. CTO Jon Lavender confirmed his firm still has access, and Cisco Systems Inc. also verified it is retaining that preview access.

Local time: June 19. On the 19th, Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Authority stated that, citing the signed Iran-US memorandum of understanding and relevant regulatory directives, it is notifying strait passage applicants: Vessels that submit passage applications as required and meet all relevant criteria within the announced timeframe will be arranged for transit. Per the strait passage requirements released by the authority, transit applications must be filed at least 48 hours prior to a vessel’s arrival in the Strait of Hormuz region.