CNN 5 Things

Hey, from CNN, I'm Ifeoma Dike with the five things you need to know for Thursday, June 11th.

President Donald Trump says he called off strikes on Iran tonight, suggesting the two sides agreed to, quote, "final points" of a deal and that it would be finalized in the coming days. Oil prices fell and all three major U.S. indexes had their best day since April 8th, with the Dow soaring 930 points. CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House.

From the conversations I've been having with Trump administration officials over the last couple hours or so, they told me that the president had reached this level of impatience. You know the president last sent back a US proposal to the Iranians roughly two weeks ago and has been frustrated with how long it has taken them to respond. However, we know that the Qataris who have been really kind of taking on a new leadership role in mediation and these talks. They were in Tehran this week, and sources are saying that the level of progress they were able to make with the Iranians was beneficial. We also have a person familiar with the matter telling CNN's Kevin Liptak that the Iranians had delivered their response to the U.S. via the Qataris just this week. So that also likely changing some of this.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is casting doubt on Trump's latest remarks of a potential agreement, saying Iranian officials had not confirmed such a deal.

More news coming up, including Trump's new pick for intel chief.

President Trump announced he's nominating Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, Jake Clayton, to be the next director of national intelligence. He's currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and served as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term. The pick comes amid a firestorm on Capitol Hill over Trump's earlier decision to make top housing official Bill Pulte the temporary DNI chief after Tulsi Gabbard resigned. Pulte has no national security background, prompting pushback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and putting FISA, the government's key spy powers authority that expires tomorrow, at risk of not being extended. Here's CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.

'Jay Clayton, though, I think is different than Bill Pulte when it comes to his level of political loyalty to Donald Trump. Bill Pulte was a 2020 election denier. Bill Pulte was an over the top pro-Trump political partisan. Jay Clayton certainly is a Trump person. He was nominated both to his SEC job and now to the U.S. attorney job by Donald Trump, so he does have that sort of typical amount of allegiance to Donald Trump, but he does not appear to be a frothing partisan. He does not seem to be somebody who has espoused false conspiracy theory. So I think there's a difference in kind here between Jay Clayton and Bill Pulte.

Live webcam images from the top of the Washington Monument show what appears to be the numbers 8647, etched into the grass on the National Mall. That's a phrase sometimes used to signal opposition to President Trump, though the administration has interpreted them as a threat against the president. 86 is often used as a code in the restaurant industry, meaning to get rid of or remove something and Trump is the 47th president. The numbers were spotted as dead grass days before massive crowds are expected in the area for a UFC match at the White House on Sunday, which is also Trump's birthday. It's not clear when the numbers first appeared. A spokesperson for the U.S. Park Police said the cause of the discolored grass hasn't been determined and samples were collected for testing. A spokesperson from the Department of Interior, which manages the National Mall, described the markings as, quote, "deranged vandalism." In April, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on charges of threatening the president for posting an image on Instagram showing the numbers spelled out in seashells.

El Nino is officially here, and it's forecast to possibly develop into a super El Nino. That's according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. CNN lead meteorologist Brandon Miller is here to tell us what this means.

El Nino is this recurring climate cycle that alters wind patterns in the atmosphere and allows warmer than normal water to shift across the Pacific. And that in turn affects weather patterns around the globe. And a stronger El Ninho meets hotter oceans and that's gonna add more heat to the atmosphere and all but guarantee that this year and especially next year will be Earth's hottest on record. A super El Nigno also means potentially catastrophic disruptions to weather and economies worldwide are gonna be more likely. From impacting hurricane seasons to increasing rainfalls in California, even decreasing the monsoon in India. These impacts will be felt by billions.

Coming up, the World Cup officially kicked off today. Updates on the opening match.

'So, we're finally here, the FIFA World Cup. The opening match in Mexico City kicked off with Mexico scoring the earliest first goal in a World Cup in 20 years, and then taking a two-zip lead against South Africa. However, this South African fan is still pulling for a win.

I came here two days ago, soaking up the energy and excitement here, kick off to the World Cup, and I'm here to support my team.

CNN's Patrick Snell has more.

Three and a half years after Argentina won it all, the biggest World Cup in history is underway with 104 matches across three host nations: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The U.S. Will stage the majority of the games, 78 in total, and America also gets the final in New Jersey as well on July the 19th. The U S will kick off Friday against Paraguay. It's a truly North American sized tournament that will span thousands of miles for different time zones as well, and scores of different climates and sporting cultures too. And this will likely be also the last World Cup for icons of a sport, Argentina's Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, while younger superstars such as teenage phenom Luminio Malle and the iconic Kylian Mbappe are expected to take center stage for Spain and France respectively.

That does it for us. We're back tomorrow morning.