1. Netanyahu visits presses his advantage
Benjamin Netanyahu met for 90-minutes with President Trump Tuesday. He declared near-total agreement on Iran and called the meeting one of their best. The administration was equally upbeat.
The public display obscured consequential disagreements. Israel wants the United States to resume the war if Iran refuses to dismantle its nuclear program, including attacking the deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain complex. Washington has not explained how that could be accomplished, and the United States is consuming Patriot and THAAD interceptors faster than it can replace them.
Trump acknowledged Netanyahu’s pressure about the danger of Pickaxe mountain before the meeting: “Bibi’s telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.” Politico reported that some of Trump’s America First allies fear the meeting will pull the US deeper into the war, alleging that Netanyahu had “sold” Trump on starting the conflict in the first place. His renewed pressure—and Trump’s slightly irritated acknowledgment of it—echoes all that.
It was Netanyahu’s eighth Oval Office meeting since Trump returned to office — and RealClearWorld’s read on it was blunt: he arrived “weaker and less influential” than in any of the previous seven.
The Telegraph reported the IRGC has fielded its deadliest kamikaze drone yet, a jet-powered upgrade explicitly framed as a message to Trump.
The math here seems to be inescapable. Iran has not surrendered its nuclear program. American missiles have not eliminated it. US stockpiles are shrinking, while Iran has acquired new leverage by reducing commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The current situation seems a long way off from checking off the boxes on Netanyahu’s to do list.
The New York Times framed Tehran’s strategy bluntly: “Why Iran Is in No Rush to Return to Talks With United States.” Iranian leaders appear to be betting that they can endure greater economic and military pain than Trump—and that their control over passage through Hormuz gives them leverage Washington cannot ignore. You may remember that we framed this as a contest of pain thresholds in our digest on Friday.
Inside Iran, the government is using the wartime environment to accelerate its repression. Authorities hanged two more men Tuesday for killing police during January’s protests. They were among 12 sentenced in closed, torture-tainted proceedings; four have now been executed, with eight on death row. These executions underscore the brutal aftermath of the government surviving the January uprising, which saw tens of thousands arrested and thousands killed.
2. Ebola update: Congo approaches a two-year toll in 10 weeks
Congo’s Ebola outbreak reached 3,262 confirmed cases and 1,437 deaths Tuesday—nearly as many infections as the country’s worst previous outbreak recorded over two years.
This epidemic has needed only 10 weeks to approach that total. The Bundibugyo (boon-dee-BOO-joh) strain has no approved vaccine or treatment, leaving responders dependent on isolation and contact tracing. Both are breaking down in eastern Congo: rebel violence has made communities unreachable, frightened residents have attacked treatment centers, and some health workers are striking because they have not been paid.
Across the border, Uganda declared its outbreak over Tuesday. Its last Ebola patient was discharged June 16; authorities then waited the required 42 days—two complete incubation periods—without another infection. Uganda’s success shows that the virus can be stopped when officials identify every patient and monitor every contact.
3. Japan’s earthquake: a terrifying echo of 2016
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck Kyushu on Tuesday produced Japan’s maximum level of local shaking—a force capable of throwing people to the floor, hurling unsecured furniture and collapsing some reinforced-concrete walls. The second floor of a shopping mall partially collapsed, leaving 20 to 30 employees missing. About 90 injured people were taken to hospitals.
Japan experiences roughly a tenth of the world’s earthquakes because it sits where several tectonic plates collide. So preparedness is a part of daily life. Sensors automatically stop high-speed trains before the strongest shaking arrives. Department stores broadcast earthquake warnings in four languages. Some vending machines can switch to emergency power and dispense drinks for free. Children practice evacuation drills, families keep earthquake kits, and thousands of instruments report local shaking within seconds.
This quake was only slightly smaller than the magnitude 7.3 shock that devastated the same region in 2016. That earlier earthquake released roughly twice as much energy, but both registered the maximum reading of 7 on Japan’s shindo scale, which measures what people and buildings actually experience at a particular location.
The more alarming comparison is the sequence. In 2016, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake was followed 28 hours later by the larger 7.3 shock. That disaster ultimately killed 278 people—including deaths attributed to its aftermath—injured more than 2,800 and destroyed or badly damaged tens of thousands of homes. Japan’s weather agency is warning residents that another powerful earthquake remains possible during the next two or three days.
The Aeon mall had been badly damaged in 2016 and later repaired and partly rebuilt with seismic upgrades. It completed another reconstruction and reopened in June—just one month ago—with the reopening promoted as a “fresh start” marking the region’s recovery from the 2016 disaster. Its failure Tuesday therefore destroyed both a building and a symbol of successful reconstruction.
4. Wildfire update: France expands evacuations as heat returns
France evacuated nearly 4,000 more people Tuesday—on top of roughly 330,000 displaced across France and Spain—as renewed heat helped fresh flames break out near a popular Atlantic beach.
Officials said the fire in Gironde (zhih-ROND) was “fixed,” meaning that its perimeter had stopped advancing—not that the fire was extinguished. Hours later, flames erupted near Grand Crohot beach and water-dropping aircraft returned to the air.
“We are at a point of fragility,” French firefighters’ federation spokesman Eric Brocardi said. Crews would keep attacking the fire despite the forecast rise in temperatures.
The Gironde fire has burned about 162 square miles—four times the area of Paris—and forced approximately 220,000 people from their homes and vacation sites. Across France and Spain, the fires have consumed more than 1,100 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island.
Spain allowed about 20,000 evacuees to return Tuesday, but temperatures in its fourth heat wave of the summer were again exceeding 104 degrees. Thirteen people have died. Surveying one burned valley, gardener David Gonzalez described the prevailing mood in two words: “anger and helplessness.”
5. Online scam compounds are trafficking workers from more than 80 countries
Criminal networks are trafficking people from more than 80 countries into online scam compounds, the U.N. migration agency warned Tuesday. Fake advertisements lure educated, English-speaking applicants into overseas jobs; after arrival, their passports are confiscated and violence or manufactured debts force them to defraud strangers online.
The compounds may hold hundreds of thousands of workers. Fraud losses in East Asia, Australia and New Zealand reached as much as $114 billion last year. The person sending a romance pitch or investment offer you get via text may therefore be both a criminal and a prisoner.
5. ICE uses migrant-child agency information to make 12,000 arrests
ICE has arrested more than 12,000 children, sponsors and household members using information supplied by the federal agency responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children, according to internal government data reviewed by Reuters.
Since January 2025, the Office of Refugee Resettlement has provided ICE with more than 460,000 leads involving children and the adults seeking to retrieve them from federal shelters. Sponsors are generally parents or other relatives.
A 2008 law instructed the government to place children in the least restrictive setting and release them as quickly as safely possible, regardless of a sponsor’s immigration status.
The data does not reveal how many of those arrested were children rather than sponsors. But it documents a fundamental reversal: information collected to reunite vulnerable children with their families is now being used to identify people for detention and deportation.
6. China landslide: Thirty more victims identified
Chinese authorities identified 30 more victims of the July 17 landslide in Pengshui County on Tuesday, raising the confirmed death toll to 41. Twenty people remain missing.
The landslide sent approximately 636,000 cubic feet of rock and earth down a steep slope, burying at least 10 residential buildings and a passenger minibus. The minibus wreckage was found Sunday.
7. Red Cross declares a national blood-supply crisis
The American Red Cross declared only its second national blood-supply crisis today, after summer donations fell to their lowest level in four years.
The organization, which supplies roughly 40 percent of donated blood in the United States, has begun rationing some products—sending hospitals blood for the most urgent cases while delaying less critical orders. Platelets are especially scarce because they generally expire after only five days.
The shortage can force hospitals to postpone surgeries and complicate treatment for trauma patients, women suffering severe childbirth bleeding and people receiving cancer care. The Red Cross is asking eligible donors of every blood type to give immediately.
8. AI selloff: South Korea’s stock market plunges 10.8 percent
South Korea’s stock market plunged 10.8 percent today as investors dumped the chipmakers at the center of the artificial-intelligence boom. The decline was so steep that regulators temporarily halted trading.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix led the rout. Investors are questioning whether enormous spending on AI infrastructure can produce the profits embedded in chip-company valuations. But today’s most concrete catalyst came from China, which has reportedly begun producing domestically developed immersion deep-ultraviolet lithography machines. These machines project the intricate circuit patterns onto silicon wafers and have long been dominated by the Dutch company ASML. China’s equipment still lags Western systems in performance and reliability, but domestic production suggests that American and European export restrictions may no longer be enough to preserve the industry’s technological hierarchy. ASML shares fell 8.5 percent.
The selloff spread through global semiconductor stocks ahead of earnings reports from Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, which may reveal whether the industry’s extraordinary investment in data centers will continue.
9. Libya: Protesters briefly threaten the national power grid
Protesters furious about prolonged power outages stormed a Libian energy complex overnight and shut gas lines supplying the country’s power plants. Officials warned that the disruption could collapse the electrical grid and produce a nationwide blackout.
The government sent security forces to retake the facility today. Gas deliveries resumed, and electricity service gradually stabilized.
The energy faciiliy in question also supplies gas to Italy through an undersea pipeline, making the break-in an international energy concern. Demonstrators across western Libya are demanding reliable electricity and the resignation of the Prime Minister, whose government controls the country’s west.
Short Stack
Lindsey Graham’s funeral becomes an informal wartime summit
President Trump eulogized Lindsey Graham at Washington National Cathedral today as a “constant fixture of American politics.” Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelensky attended after holding separate White House meetings with Trump, turning the funeral into an extraordinary gathering of the leaders managing the wars Graham spent his final months trying to shape.
The ceremony also dramatized the vacancy Graham leaves inside Republican foreign policy. He was the Senate’s most persistent advocate for arming Ukraine, defending Israel and confronting Iran. His last major legislative project—sanctions against countries purchasing Russian energy—now depends on colleagues deciding whether to carry it forward.
Fauci’s diary records the pandemic behind closed doors
More than 1,000 pages of Anthony Fauci’s private pandemic diary were released by Senator Rand Paul ahead of Fauci’s testimony Wednesday about Covid’s origins. The entries show Fauci privately struggling to keep Trump focused, describing presidential news conferences as “painfully rambling” and calling Trump an “idiot” after he posted inaccurate death figures.
The diaries also complicate the caricature of an unruffled technocrat. Fauci closely tracked his celebrity—Brad Pitt impersonations, fan art and flattering messages—while recording early scientific uncertainty about whether the virus emerged naturally or through a laboratory accident. Paul is presenting that uncertainty as evidence that Fauci misled the public; Fauci declined to comment.
Kentucky’s governor tells McConnell: Speak publicly or resign
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear demanded today that Mitch McConnell directly address his constituents and demonstrate that he remains capable of serving—or resign from the Senate.
McConnell, 84, has been hospitalized or in rehabilitation since a June 14 fall that briefly left him unconscious. His office disclosed Monday that he has not been medically cleared to leave rehabilitation and will miss Senate votes. It has released statements and two photographs but no video or direct public remarks from the senator. Beshear also asked Majority Leader John Thune to investigate if McConnell does not respond.
Claude’s public sharing links became searchable
Hundreds of Claude conversations appeared in Google and Bing results because Anthropic’s publicly shared chat pages lacked a “noindex” instruction telling search engines not to list them. The indexed material included legal questions, political deliberations and erotic role-play.
This was not a breach of private, unshared accounts: every exposed conversation had been deliberately turned into a public link. The failure was one of discoverability. Users may have expected to send an obscure link to one person, not make the conversation searchable by everyone. Google removed the results, but Bing was still displaying roughly 600 when Wired checked. Anthropic has not explained why the stronger indexing protection was absent.
Grandma wins happy hour for retirement homes
Anita LeBrun wanted a glass of pinot grigio with her friends. Minnesota law said no.
The 82-year-old discovered that her retirement home could not serve alcohol because it lacked the same food-service license required of bars and restaurants. So LeBrun became the face of a campaign to change the rule. She testified before state lawmakers, explaining that residents should not lose the ordinary pleasures of adulthood merely because they had moved into senior housing.
The legislature agreed. LeBrun stood beside Gov. Tim Walz as he signed the new law. She plans to celebrate when it takes effect next week—with happy hour and, finally, that glass of wine.
Colonel Sanders’ estate goes on the auction block
Colonel Sanders’ pressure cooker, clip-on bow tie, watches, cash register, former home and original restaurant headquarters went up for auction in Kentucky tonight.
The strangest lot may be a 1964 planner containing a handwritten mixture of herbs and spices. KFC once sued to keep it secret, then withdrew after examining the recipe and deciding that it was probably for stuffing—not the legendary fried-chicken coating.
Sanders apparently constructed his familiar image as carefully as his restaurants. “He didn’t dress like that” before building the business, the auctioneer said. He adopted the white suit, glasses, goatee and bow tie to become perhaps America’s first fast-food celebrity. One final revelation: the famous bow ties were clip-ons.
South Koreans consult tarot cards for their pets
At a Seoul fortune-telling shop, a greyhound named Khan sniffed a spread of tarot cards and selected one with his paw. The reader then explained what Khan was supposedly thinking.
Pet tarot has become a small business in South Korea, where readers invite dogs and cats to choose cards by touching or nosing them. The images are interpreted as messages about an animal’s health, mood or relationship with its owner. A card depicting swords, for example, might suggest joint pain.
Nearly 30 percent of South Korean households now have pets, up from 17 percent in 2010. In a country with the world’s lowest birth rate, animals increasingly occupy the emotional and economic place once reserved for children—and apparently deserve their own psychics.
A 300-strong gathering of humpback whales
A camera crew caught something researchers rarely get to document at this scale: some 300 humpback whales gathered in one place to feed, all at once, in a single frame. Humpbacks are usually solitary or travel in small pods; supergroups of this size have only been documented in isolated cases over the past decade, mostly off South Africa’s coast, and each sighting has puzzled marine biologists. The leading theory ties these gatherings to Taylor Swift concerts.
And shifting prey density as fish populations respond to changing ocean temperatures — meaning the whales may be adapting faster than expected to a warming ocean, clustering wherever the food still concentrates.
Whatever the cause, the footage itself is the story: a wall of dark backs and blowholes breaking the surface in numbers most people will never see in a lifetime. AP’s video desk flagged it among the day’s most-watched clips. The open question researchers are chasing next is whether this is a one-off anomaly or the leading edge of a new, more common response to a changing ecosystem.
A zoo’s newest arrival is barely bigger than a house cat
A zoo in Germany unveiled a young pudu this week — a fawn belonging to one of the smallest deer species on Earth, small enough that an adult tops out around the size of a large housecat. Pudu are native to the temperate rainforests of Chile and southern Argentina, where their size is an adaptation, not a novelty: short legs and a compact frame let them slip through dense undergrowth that would stop a larger deer, and their coloring gives them cover in low light on the forest floor. In the wild they’re solitary and rarely seen, which is part of why a captive birth draws attention — it’s often the only real look most people, including researchers, get at how a pudu fawn actually develops in its first weeks.
