July 29, 2026

Tara Copp, et al., of the Washington Post: “Fighter jets from the United States and Saudi Arabia conducted joint military strikes overnight targeting Iranian proxy forces in Iraq, officials said, marking what appeared to be Riyadh’s direct entry into the ongoing conflict between Washington and Tehran. U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the two countries hit 'logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq' in response to more than 30 drone attacks directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in recent days. The Saudi Defense Ministry acknowledged its involvement in the operation.... The two countries launched strikes hours after U.S. forces in the Middle East intercepted multiple ballistic missiles launched by Iran, thwarting what officials called an 'attempted surprise attack' on American personnel in the region. The developments threatened to upend a recent pause in hostilities that ... Donald Trump had sought in a bid to advance stalled peace negotiations. The strikes signaled a potential expansion of the five-month war....”  

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “The only thing ... [Donald] Trump seems to enjoy more than showing off his gilded room is letting a wall of news photographers and reporters capture him as he [hosts world leaders]. So it was revealing that Mr. Trump kept two Tuesday audiences — one with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and the other with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — out of the public eye. It was also unusual that Mr. Trump then spent the day letting his two visitors sum up the meetings.... Over time, they have become symbols ... of intractable conflicts with U.S. adversaries, and of Mr. Trump’s failed promises to end them.” The link is a gift link. Politico's report is here. ~~~

~~~ Mark Satter, et al., of Politico: “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pulled off a feat Tuesday that seemed impossible a year ago: convincing Washington that Kyiv can win the war. Unlike Zelenskyy’s tortured Oval Office visit in February 2025, he left a meeting with ... Donald Trump in high spirits. And he capped off the trip with another victory, watching the Senate overwhelmingly vote to advance new sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil.... The Ukrainian leader emphasized that the sanctions could help solidify the gains Ukraine has made in combat and force Putin into peace talks, even as he renewed his request for expanded access to key weapons systems.” Stories on the Senate vote linked below.

Trump Dozed Through Lindsey Graham's Funeral. Rishabh Shandilya of Mandatory, republished by Yahoo! News: "The White House forcefully rejected online claims that ... Donald Trump fell asleep during Tuesday's funeral for Sen. Lindsey Graham, responding with a sharp rebuke aimed at critics circulating videos from the memorial service. The footage prompted widespread speculation after it appeared to show Trump sitting with his eyes closed following his eulogy at Washington National Cathedral.... Some posts claimed the president looked 'completely passed out,' while others said he appeared to be fighting sleep during the memorial.... White House spokesman Davis Ingle [said that anyone claiming Trump was sleeping] was a 'depraved moron.'"  

Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to step in and overturn an $83.3 million jury award against him for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of a decades-old sexual assault in a Manhattan department store. The president urged the justices to reject the jury’s award, asserting that the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision granting presidents sweeping immunity for actions they take in office shielded him from liability in the case.... Lawyers for Mr. Trump asserted that the question of whether he had immunity in the case was “straightforward on the undisputed factual record.” An appeals court had rejected that argument.... Lawyers for the Justice Department separately also asked the justices to take up the case.... In late June, the Supreme Court rejected a separate request from Mr. Trump that the court review a $5 million judgment against him from a previous 2023 jury finding that he had sexually abused and defamed Ms. Carroll.” The link is a gift link. An NBC News report is here.

Hang onto Your Carry-ons: Decorator-in-Chief to Announce New Project. Dan Diamond & Liam Scott of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday is set to announce a sweeping plan to remake Dulles International Airport, including building new terminals and doing away with the airport’s long-criticized shuttles.... Trump has spent months considering how to overhaul the airport, hearing pitches in the Oval Office from rival construction and design firms and looking at mock-up designs. Under his plan, the current underground train would be fully built out to take passengers to their terminals — rather than relying on the airport’s shuttles, nicknamed 'people movers' — and new terminals would be built to replace the existing ones.... Dulles is about 25 miles from downtown Washington and run by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.”

Maria Sacchetti of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration launched a plan Tuesday to channel hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers directly into deportation proceedings, a change that some attorneys said could lead to people being removed from the United States without a hearing. Trump officials introduced a rule designed to reduce the 1.4 million asylum cases pending in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security agency that processes immigration applications, by nearly a third. The rule took effect immediately, before the public could weigh in.... Under the new rule, officials say as many as 444,724 cases could be transferred directly to one of the Justice Department’s immigration judges. Trump officials have empowered judges to dismiss certain cases without a hearing, so attorneys say it is possible that many asylum seekers will be deported without a chance to be heard.... The United States is a signatory to the 1967 United Nations protocol on refugees, which prohibits member countries from expelling immigrants to nations where they face serious threats to their lives.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As we have learned, treaties (or protocols) are like all deals: they are meant to be broken on Trump's whim.

Hamed Aleaziz & Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: “The Trump administration has begun arresting foreign citizens with expired U.S. visas as they travel through airports, including spouses of Americans ... — a tactic that opens up a vast new pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates, with enforcement actions in at least 15 airports in recent weeks.... The recent arrests appear to be an expansion of an arrangement between the Transportation Security Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Times reported in December that ICE officers were arresting people with deportation orders at airports with the help of information provided by airlines to the T.S.A.” The link is a gift link. 

Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: “Federal prosecutors in Atlanta are bringing an obstruction charge against a U.S. citizen who gave customs officers what is known as a duress passcode, which activated software that erased the contents of his phone. The authorities stopped Samuel Tunick, an Atlanta resident, for interrogation at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as he returned to the United States on Jan. 24 last year, according to a November grand jury indictment.... Mr. Tunick’s lawyers argued during the hearing last week that the seizure was unlawful, and that he was targeted because of his political activism against Atlanta’s plan to build a police and fire training center within a 1,000-acre stretch of urban woodland.... The federal statute underlying the charge makes it a felony to destroy evidence or transfer assets to keep the government from seizing them, or to tip someone off about an upcoming search or wiretap. It carries a penalty of up to five years in federal prison, a fine, or both.” The link is a gift link. 

Dustin Volz of the New York Times: “The Senate confirmed Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, on Tuesday to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies, installing a longtime ally of the president into a top national security post that has waned in significance during the second Trump administration. The vote, 51 to 47, was along party lines. Though his nomination was initially met with some good will from Democrats, Mr. Clayton shed that bipartisan support during his confirmation hearing this month after he refused to clearly state that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had won the 2020 presidential election.” The link is a gift link. An ABC News report is here. ~~~

~~~ Clown Exits Right, Lying. Julian Barnes & Dustin Volz of the New York Times: “Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has spent his final days on the job celebrating his efforts to terminate employees in his office. But current and former officials said few people have actually been fired in recent weeks from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.... 'Good News! In addition to the Historic DECLASSIFICATIONS (Transparency!) by the President, we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago,' Mr. Pulte wrote in an X post that mimicked President Trump’s social media patois. 'The Intelligence Community must protect the American people, NOT the political whims of the bloated and corrupt elite class.' But Mr. Pulte’s office has provided no details or explanations of the purported cuts, sowing doubts on Capitol Hill. 'The acting D.N.I. has been quick to announce firings and make public claims about them, but has so far declined to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with the information necessary to assess the accuracy of those statements or the basis for those decisions,' said ... a spokeswoman for Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee.” The link is a gift link.

But Maybe Dr. Oz Will Share His Recipes for Catfood Casserole & Lessons on Foraging Crudites. Rebecca Robbins & Reed Abelson of the New York Times: “The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it intended to end a Biden-era program that for the past two years has helped tamp down the cost of monthly premiums for drug coverage for people on Medicare. The decision means that millions of Americans 65 and older could face higher Medicare drug premiums next year, when the cost of living is already a major concern. That could be politically damaging for Republicans in the midterm elections. In the weeks leading up to November, Medicare beneficiaries could experience sticker shock while shopping for next year’s drug plan. For 2025 and 2026, the federal government gave health insurers billions of dollars in subsidies to help them keep down drug premiums for people on Medicare.... Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a post on social media on Tuesday that the subsidies had been ended because the insurers no longer needed them. He said every Medicare beneficiary would still have options for low-cost plans.... But it is not clear yet how many people may have to pay more, and how much it will cost them.” The link is a gift link.

Carmen Paun of Politico: “The State Department will dispense the $600 million Congress appropriated to an international partnership helping developing countries buy and distribute vaccines, Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine safety skeptic, has held up the funding for months because he believes the partnership, Gavi, uses outdated and dangerous shots.... Collins’s announcement comes after months of delay in disbursing the funding, appropriated for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, to Gavi, which the U.S. co-founded a quarter century ago. The $600 million expires on Sept 30. Gavi provides vaccines for 20 diseases, including measles, malaria and polio, to more than 50 low-income countries globally. It estimates that it’s vaccinated over 1.2 billion children in the world’s poorest countries, preventing more than 20.6 million potential deaths.”

Jake Spring of the Washington Post: “Research that used a federal grant to pay for asthma patients to have their gas stoves replaced showed a dramatic fall in asthma attacks. [The project] was one of thousands cut short after ... Donald Trump took office and launched aggressive efforts to reduce government spending. But unlike many others forced to halt their research, [Case Western medical professor Ash] Sehgal and his co-authors released their study anyway, publishing it in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Practice this month with a fraction of the intended sample size. Still, removing the gas stoves relieved the participants’ asthma so much that the results were clear even with only 85 of them, according to two scientists who reviewed the methodology but were not involved in the study.... The EPA has terminated $28.5 billion in grants, according to Grant Witness, a tracking project, with much of that money intended to focus on helping communities respond to climate change or reduce pollution.”

Robert Jimison of the New York Times: “The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly advanced a bipartisan measure to impose sweeping sanctions against Russia and extend penalties against Iran, paving the way for passage of long-stalled legislation championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. The vote was 86 to 12, with nearly all Republicans and a majority of Democrats joining together to push it well beyond the 60 votes needed to tee up a final vote. It came hours after Mr. Graham, who died suddenly this month, was memorialized in ceremonies at the Capitol and Washington National Cathedral, and not long after senators had met on Capitol Hill with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who had come to honor the senator who dedicated himself to supporting the country in its fight against Russian aggression. Mr. Zelensky looked on from the Senate gallery as senators filed in to cast their votes, waving and smiling.... The legislation still must pass the Senate and be approved by the House before it can head to the president’s desk. Speaker Mike Johnson and ... [Donald] Trump have signaled support.” The link is a gift link. A CNBC report is here.

Oren Oppenheim of ABC News: "Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called on Monday for Sen. Mitch McConnell to either 'verbally' show proof to Kentuckians that he can still serve in the Senate or to resign from Congress. 'Important events are happening in our country right now during your absence,' Beshear, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to the Republican senator, according to a copy obtained by ABC News." (Also linked yesterday.) Here's a New York Times story; the link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Somebody is being taken advantage of here. It could be Mitch, who may not have any idea of what is going on. Or maybe it's the people of Kentucky, whose only senator now is Rand Paul, currently concentrating on making fun of Dr. Fauci. I don't know who is doing the manipulating: Elaine Chou, Mitch's staff, Thune, Trump, or Mitch himself? But something is rotten.

These Scientists Are Fed Up. Anna Betts of the Guardian: “More than 155 scientists, physicians and public health advocates have called for an end to what they describe as the  'vilification and harassment of many American scientists' by the Trump administration and its allies. In an open letter published one day before Anthony Fauci, the former top US government science adviser, is scheduled to appear at a high-profile hearing in US Congress, after the Republican-controlled Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee compelled him to testify, the scientists and physicians dismissed allegations against ... [Fauci] as 'baseless'. Fauci, 85..., is set to testify under subpoena before the committee on Wednesday as a part of its investigation into the origins of the virus and whether US federal officials, including Fauci, misled the public and Congress about the source of the outbreak, a claim that has been made by Senator Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky who chairs the committee, for years.” ~~~

~~~ Here's the Washington Post's report on Dr. Anthony Fauci's personal diaries which Rand Paul released. The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) A New York Times story is linked yesterday.  

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: Elon “Musk spends much of his time on X, his social media website, where he amplifies far-right accounts and shares his own white nationalist, anti-immigrant politics for all the world to see. Over the past month in particular, he has adopted the imagery of a recent film, 'Citizen Vigilante,' in which the actor Armie Hammer spends the run time playing a Charles Bronson-esque character who targets alleged criminals, framed mostly as Arab and African migrants. Musk uses that imagery to state his views about what must be done to save Western civilization.... 'Remigration' is the call, from far-right European political parties, to forcibly remove nonwhite citizens to their supposed countries of origin, regardless of whether they are immigrants or native-born.... As Musk sees it, opponents of remigration are traitors to 'the West.' And as 'traitors' their proper fate, according to the logic of his posts, is to be killed as punishment for their role in the demographic transformation of majority-white nations....” The link is a gift link.

Annals of “Journalism,” Ha Ha Ha. Benjamin Mullin & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: “Ross Douthat, an opinion columnist at The New York Times, is leaving to join the CBS News program '60 Minutes' as a correspondent, the show’s executive producer said in a memo to staff on Tuesday. Mr. Douthat is among a group of journalists joining for the show’s 59th season, which will premiere on Sept. 13. The writer Sebastian Junger and Gianna Toboni, a former Vice News correspondent, will become contributors, along with Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS last month. Norah O’Donnell, the former anchor of 'CBS Evening News,' will be a correspondent as well. They are the first significant hires at the long-running Sunday program since CBS’s new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, orchestrated a shake-up that led to the departure of three top correspondents this spring, including the veteran journalist Scott Pelley.” The link is a gift link. The Guardian's report is here.

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Ohio. Quinn Glabicki of the New York Times: “... buried deep beneath Marietta[, Ohio]: Hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive fracking wastewater. For years, it has arrived in a caravan of tanker trucks that come night and day to deposit the toxic brine in injection wells that pump it thousands of feet underground, where it is supposed to stay forever. But the brine is spurting to the surface, and locals fear it could soon contaminate the drinking water source for 32,000 people.... Residents and local officials were for years 'completely unaware' of their place at the heart of an interstate marketplace for toxic waste, [said Marietta City Council president Susan] Vessels.... They’ve come to realize, she said, that their corner of Ohio has become a major destination for fracking brine. 

“Ohio has permitted more than 240 injection wells for the disposal of oil and gas waste. By comparison, there are 19 such injection wells in Pennsylvania, and a few dozen in West Virginia, both of which border Ohio.... The fracking boom has transformed the United States into the world’s largest producer of natural gas. But fracking also produces huge volumes of salty wastewater laden with heavy metals, radioactive materials and cancer-causing benzene, as well as hazardous chemical additives from the fracking process. Ohio became a destination for wastewater because decades ago, long before fracking, it received permission from the federal government to regulate its own injection wells....” The link is a gift link. 

Ohio Congressional Race. Annie Karni & Robert Draper of the New York Times: “A sordid, yearslong family drama involving two powerful Republican members of Congress from Ohio and allegations of domestic abuse is threatening to put a fairly safe G.O.P. House seat at risk.... Representative Max Miller, a second-term Republican representing northeast Ohio whose political rise was fueled by his close relationship to ... [Donald] Trump, has been accused by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, of domestic abuse against her and their 2-year-old daughter. Ms. Moreno, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, also an Ohio Republican, has said that Mr. Miller scalded her chest and stomach by throwing hot water from a skillet at her body; held a gun to her head; pushed her against a wall and hit her head; and fractured their daughter’s collarbone and bruised her shoulder.... Mr. Miller has not only denied it all, he has gone on offense against Ms. Moreno, making damaging accusations of his own in a series of media interviews, court filings and countersuits that have kept the family’s personal trauma in the headlines.”