10 things you need to know today: June 22, 2021

Iran's president-elect backs nuclear talks but won't meet Biden, the Supreme Court backs student-athlete payments, and more

Ebrahim Raisi
(Image credit: AFP via Getty Images)

1. Iran's president-elect supports nuclear talks, won't meet with Biden

Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi said Monday that he would not meet with President Biden, but supported negotiations with world powers to revive the country's 2015 nuclear deal. Raisi said, however, that any agreement must protect Iran's national interests. The deal required Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Raisi, speaking in his first news conference since his win in Friday's election, said Iran would keep its ballistic missile program, and that was "not negotiable." Raisi, a hardline cleric and the country's ultraconservative judiciary chief, is an ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Raisi won in a landslide, but turnout was just 49 percent, the lowest since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Dissidents and some reformists boycotted over the disqualification of several potentially strong rival candidates.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.