The United States and Iran exchanged fresh missile barrages Thursday.
Jordan’s air defenses intercepted five Iranian missiles Thursday without casualties. That was the second consecutive day that Jordan had to play whack-a-missile. Kuwait’s military said an Iranian strike hit a Chinese company’s building, killing a worker.
Iran’s official news agency said an American strike on Qeshm (pronounced “GHESH-m”) Island killed three people and wounded two. Egyptian officials said drones caused fires aboard two natural-gas vessels.
The war feels like it’s jumping the box despite months of bombs and boasts.
Reuters reported that Tehran expects within weeks to receive the first part of an order for Chinese shoulder-fired air-defense launchers. These portable systems, commonly called MANPADS (man-portable air-defense system) allow small teams to fire at low-flying aircraft. They can force American pilots to fly higher, change routes or rely more heavily on long-range weapons. The sale would mark an unusually direct Chinese contribution to Iran’s war effort after Beijing had tried to support Tehran without becoming a combatant.
Bloomberg placed that purchase inside what it called a “third missile age.” Nuclear missiles defined the first age and expensive precision weapons the second. Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated a third model: firing conventional missiles by the hundreds or thousands to overwhelm defenses, destroy infrastructure and exhaust interceptor supplies. Iran has fired about 2,000 missiles since February 28.
Thursday’s reporting showed a widening difference between the allies over how to end the Iran war. Netanyahu urged Trump to intensify military and economic pressure. The administration still hopes negotiations can stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Netanyahu also confronted JD Vance, who had accused Israeli officials of undermining American diplomacy because it wanted to keep hitting Iran and warned that Israel was alienating Republicans. The Israeli PM said neither was true.
The Commerce Department said the economy grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate from April through June, down from 2.1 percent and below forecasts. But the headline was weaker than the economy underneath it. Consumer spending accelerated to a 3.2 percent rate, and business investment excluding housing grew at an 8.4 percent rate. When economists removed volatile government, inventory and trade figures, spending by American households and businesses grew at a 3.9 percent rate.
A lot of the expansion in this quarter came from spending on AI. That expansion is creating demand for workers. The New York Times reported that hundreds of electricians building OpenAI’s project in Saline Township, Michigan, are working 10-hour days, seven days a week. Michigan calls it the largest single investment in the state’s history. A separate $50 million program backed by Google plans to increase annual enrollment in electrician apprenticeships from 19,500 to 30,000 during each of the next three years—a 54 percent increase.
The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, the PCE price index, rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier—down from 4.1 percent but still well above the Fed’s 2 percent goal.
The Fed declined to raise rates, although three officials wanted to do so. The weak GDP headline supports caution; strong private demand supports higher rates to restrain prices. The Fed confronts a weak headline, sturdy spending and too much inflation. None of the choices is clean.
Investors are also making borrowing more expensive without waiting for the Fed. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond reached 5.23 percent Thursday, its highest level since 2007.
A Treasury yield is the return investors receive for lending money to the U.S. government. When the 30-year yield rises, investors are demanding more compensation to tie up their money for 30 years. That can reflect expectations of higher inflation, higher future interest rates, stronger growth, or weaker demand for long-term Treasuries; heavier government borrowing can also put upward pressure on yields, though it’s usually one factor among several.
Rates on mortgages and other long-term loans commonly follow Treasury yields, so the increase means higher borrowing costs can spread through the economy even when the Fed leaves its own short-term rate unchanged.
Two national polls delivered the same basic finding: most Americans oppose the Iran war, and they increasingly connect it to the cost of living. AP-NORC found that about two-thirds of adults said the war was not worth fighting. Only one person in five wanted the attacks to continue. Trump’s approval on Iran fell to 28 percent, six points below June.
Quinnipiac found 60 percent of registered voters opposed American military action and 34 percent supported it.
Americans considered preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon important, but ranked fuel prices and a ceasefire higher.
A CNN poll found the political damage extending to November’s congressional elections. Democrats led Republicans by eight points among registered voters on the generic ballot, which asks which party a person would support for Congress without naming candidates. That measure is seen as a rough proxy of how the parties will fare across the most contested races. Among voters who said they were extremely motivated to vote, Democrats held a 20-point advantage.
The president’s nominee for attorney general is in danger. Two Republicans, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, have demanded that Todd Blanche confirm in writing that the approximately $1.8 billion fund created through Trump’s settlement with the IRS will not exist and that protections against future Trump family audits cannot be revived. Blanche has not provided those guarantees. The senators will not support him until he does, so the Judiciary Committee canceled Thursday’s vote. Trump later said he might withdraw the nomination for now. For now, the disputed fund has also stalled Blanche’s nomination.
An update on Trump’s prime-time speech alleging Chinese interference in American elections: The Washington Post reported that officials in 12 of the 15 states named in administration intelligence reports said federal authorities never told them China had compromised their voter-registration systems, directly contradicting the White House’s public account.
Major hospital systems reported a sharp increase in uninsured patients after enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired. Congressional Republicans allowed the larger premium tax credits to end on January 1, 2026. Hospitals told The New York Times that more patients were arriving without coverage and could not pay their bills.
When the credits disappeared, some families dropped coverage they could no longer afford. They did not stop getting sick; many delayed treatment until they reached emergency rooms, which must stabilize them whether they can pay. Hospitals absorb the resulting unpaid bills or shift costs elsewhere, potentially raising premiums for people outside the ACA marketplaces.
The National Urban League released its 50th annual “State of Black America” report Thursday and said Trump administration policies had pushed the American Dream farther away for Black Americans than at any point since the civil-rights movement. The organization cited the dismantling and redirection of parts of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, changes at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and administration-backed voting restrictions. The report also measured persistent material gaps: the median Black household income remains 37 percent below the median white household income.
In Ukraine, Russian missiles and drones killed at least nine civilians and wounded more than 50 overnight. Poland said a Russian missile crossed deep into Polish territory and fell there, prompting NATO aircraft to scramble.
France allowed 84,000 wildfire evacuees to return home Thursday after firefighters gained control of the southwestern blaze.
Congolese authorities reported that the official Ebola death toll has passed 1,500, an increase of about 50 percent in one week. Authorities called it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record.
Thousands of migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta (SAY-oo-tah), Spain’s small territory on the North African coast, after border controls broke down Thursday. At least three people died trying to arrive by sea. Spain and Morocco agreed to cooperate in returning illegal entrants. In May 2021, more than 8,000 people entered Ceuta in two days.
AP said the immediate trigger for Thursday’s mass crossing was not clear. Surveys of migrants using the western Mediterranean route found that 54 percent cited economic reasons, 33 percent war or conflict, 23 percent targeted personal violence and 14 percent gradual environmental change (respondents could name more than one reason.) Most people crossing Thursday appeared to be Moroccan, while others had traveled to Morocco from elsewhere in Africa. Ceuta matters because reaching it means reaching Spanish—and therefore European Union—territory without making the longer sea journey to mainland Europe.
WIRED reported that American children are running faster than ever, a phenomenon the track world has dubbed “trackflation.” An Ohio high school senior ran the indoor two-mile in 9 minutes, 37.15 seconds, breaking a national record that had stood since 2013, while a Texas sophomore covered 100 meters in 9.92 seconds, only one-tenth of a second off the collegiate record. The most exuberant performance may have come from a 12-year-old Utah girl who ran a mile in 4:40.98, nearly six seconds faster than the age-group world record, despite performing the Scuba Dance just before reaching the finish line. “Nobody was even in the camera with her,” one astonished commentator said.
WIRED traced part of the change to the spread of elite coaching methods once largely confined to professional runners. Some teenagers are experimenting with Norwegian-style double-threshold training, completing two carefully paced workouts in a day and using blood-lactate readings to adjust their effort. Private coaches are also emphasizing efficient mechanics, deliberate recovery, nutrition and heat acclimatization. One coach said a program that once consisted of a 20-minute jog and a game of Capture the Flag now asks girls to run eight 400-meter repetitions at five-minute-mile pace. Young runners also benefit from carbon-plated “super shoes,” fast polyurethane tracks, pace lights and a growing national competition circuit that gives them opportunities to race equally fast peers. Coaches and researchers caution that such intensive training can also cause injuries, burnout and excessive pressure.
The Financial Times highlighted a South Korean trend involving “dopamine sites,” imitation shopping and food-delivery services on which nothing is sold and nothing arrives. Waiting for Godot’s packages. The platforms reproduce the ritual in elaborate detail: users examine menus and reviews, compare products, fill a cart, check out and sometimes follow an animated courier across a live map. One service called Food Never Comes allowed one user to add 1,000 toppings to an imaginary order. What no pickles?! About 30,000 people a week were pretending to order food through the service by mid-June. Other sites offer fictitious clothing and merchandise, while some tell users how much money or how many calories they avoided consuming. The premise is that anticipation and selection supply much of shopping’s excitement, allowing users to indulge the ritual of an impulse purchase without receiving an unwanted package, an unnecessary meal or a credit-card charge. Therapists have said the sites may interrupt costly behavior, although some question whether rehearsing the shopping ritual reinforces the same habit it is intended to control.
