6 Big News Stories Overnight - Thursday, June 18, 2026

Ukrainian Drones Hit Moscow Refinery in Large-Scale Assault

The New York Times reports:

Ukrainian drones hammered a refinery in Moscow on Thursday and disrupted local air traffic, in what appeared to be the largest such attack on the city since Russia invaded Ukraine over four years ago.

The aerial assault was the latest in a series of drone strikes that have demonstrated Ukraine’s growing ability to pierce Russia’s air defenses after years during which large Russian cities were mostly insulated from the fighting across the border.

Russian missile defenses shot down at least 194 drones that were flying toward Moscow in several waves on Thursday morning, Sergei S. Sobyanin, the city’s mayor, said in a statement. The assault on the capital was part of a broader drone attack across Russia on Thursday, with the Russian Defense Ministry saying that it had stopped over 550 drones overall.

Former Mariupol Museum Director Faces Charges Over Stolen Paintings Handed to Russia

Kyiv Post reports:

The former director of the Mariupol Local History Museum has been served with an in-absentia notice of suspicion for personally handing five original paintings to Russian occupation authorities.

According to the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation found that at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the suspect used her access to the museum’s storage to illegally remove five paintings from the Arkhip Kuindzhi Art Museum, a branch of the Local History Museum.

“First, she moved them to her own home, and later, following agreements with representatives of the occupation administration, she personally handed them over to the invaders,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Amazon driver raked in £300k sitting students’ exams

The Telegraph reports:

A fraudster has been jailed after making £300,000 by doing university students’ coursework and exams for them.

Shahid Adnan, a “highly educated” Amazon delivery driver, sat students’ online exams while posing as them and charging £250 a time.

The 43-year-old part-time tutor, who has a PhD in electrical engineering, was jailed for three years at Liverpool Crown Court.

Adnan made £300,000 from “unlawfully sitting exams and submitting coursework”, although initial suspicions suggested that he could have earned as much as £2m, the court heard.

His “sophisticated” scheme was discovered when one of his clients accidentally exposed the operation when handing in a memory stick as part of an assessment in February 2023.

PHOTO: Anirudh, Unsplash

Trump Claims Iran Will Not Have Nuclear Weapons

Trump posted:

I will be doing a Press Conference in 45 minutes from France. I’ll then be heading to Versailles for Dinner with French and other European Leaders, and then back home tonight! The trip was a Great Success but, mostly what people wanted to talk about, is the fact that Iran will not have a Nuclear Weapon, and that the Strait of Hormuz will immediately be opened! Great Numbers in all categories for the United States Economy with more people working today than have ever worked before. Over 19.1 Trillion being invested in the U.S.A. with Factories and everything else happening but, importantly, recent Stock Market numbers are through the roof because of the settlement and, likewise, Oil Prices are tumbling down! President DONALD J. TRUMP

Apple to Raise Prices Due to Memory Chip Crunch

WSJ Exclusive:

Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”

Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone.

Mamdani gambled in Albany and won. Can he hit the jackpot twice?

Politico reports:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged from Albany with billions of dollars in cash to help close a historic budget gap and partially fulfill a key campaign pledge. Pulling off a repeat next year will likely be more difficult.

The state-sanctioned windfall gives Mamdani breathing room as he prepares to finalize his first budget this month — and he largely has Gov. Kathy Hochul to thank. But with cash in hand, the young democratic socialist has embraced a short-term strategy that sets him up for another challenging cycle in just six months, when the respective grinds of the city and state budgets begin anew.

Mamdani will undoubtedly make the case for Albany to increase income taxes on the wealthiest New York City residents and large corporations as part of a “tax the rich” rallying cry, which would give him enough money to fill looming budget shortfalls and then some. And a coalition supporting him is already making plans for an aggressive push they believe will be successful. Yet there are early signs Mamdani will find the keepers of the state purse less receptive to New York City’s fiscal woes a second time around.