Hard-line cleric wins presidency in Iran

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi won the presidential election Saturday in a landslide amid the lowest voter turnout in the nation’s history. A protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Raisi is already sanctioned by the United States for his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. His strongest competition found themselves disqualified from running, sparking a boycott: Out of more than 59 million eligible voters, only about 29 million voted.

How are the nuclear talks going? On Sunday, top diplomats in Vienna said they’ve made more progress toward restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. The Biden administration hopes to rejoin the pact after President Donald Trump pulled the plug on it in 2018. But many Republicans as well as Israel's new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warn against it. In Bennett’s first Cabinet meeting Sunday, he slammed Iran's newly elected president and called on world powers to “wake up” to the perils of returning to the nuclear deal.

Dig Deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s interview with Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute on the new nuclear deal.