“Israeli strikes killed at least five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said …. Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed two people near the Tuffah neighbourhood in the north of the enclave, while a third person was killed in Israeli tank shelling in the Zeitoun suburb in eastern Gaza City. Another airstrike at a tent encampment for displaced people in western Gaza City killed one person and wounded several, while an attack on a vehicle in Khan Younis, in the south, killed another, medics said.” (07/16/26)
“A disclaimer up front: I am not a Russia specialist. I have no particular expertise on the war in Ukraine, and no informed view on whether another round of sanctions on Moscow is necessary, sufficient, or beside the point. But I do know something about what happens when Congress hands the executive branch, and President Trump in particular, unilateral and discretionary tariff authority. And the tariff title of the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026—the long-stalled package championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑SC), now backed by the White House and more than two dozen senators—deserves a hard look on those grounds alone.” (07/16/26)
“Americans are increasingly unable to afford housing. For many young people, the ‘American Dream’ seems out of reach. In moments of economic frustration, populists on both the Left and Right rush to identify villains. Left-wing populists like Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker, or Bernie Sanders, blame the very wealthy and cite rising wealth and income inequality as the reason why, for example, home prices have soared. Right-wing populists often blame immigrants, arguing that more people inevitably mean more expensive rents and higher home prices. What populists on both sides of the aisle refuse to grapple with—whether it’s due to ignorance or the need to feed their click-bait audiences with the usual outcasts to blame—is that excessive government intervention in markets is to blame for rising home prices.” (07/16/26)
“Within hours of federal immigration agents killing a 26-year-old man named Joan Sebastian Guerrero, in Biddeford, Maine, hundreds protested in the streets of the small town demanding answers. Just days earlier, ICE agents shot and killed a 52-year-old man named Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, in Houston, Texas, also sparking protest. Although seemingly disparate — one in a small town in the nation’s whitest state, and the other in a large, cosmopolitan city in one of the most populous states — the two killings have a common throughline: both are the result of an officially-sanctioned imperative to hunt down and hurt people who Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican Party have deemed enemies. … But most Americans aren’t falling for it. From Maine to Texas, Wisconsin to California, North Carolina to Minnesota, communities are organizing and fighting back against the most well-funded police institution in history.” (07/16/26)
“Eli Lilly will acquire psychedelic drugmaker AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion up front, the company said Thursday, as momentum grows for using versions of the drugs as mental health treatments. The transaction gives Lilly access to AtaiBeckley’s experimental DMT-based drug that’s being studied in Phase 3 clinical trials for treatment-resistant depression. AtaiBeckley is developing several other psychedelics for mental health conditions, including one related to MDMA, also known as ecstasy.” (07/16/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on new polling which shows that Haley Stevens has significant leads over Abdul El-Sayed among working class and minority voters in the race for the Michigan Senate seat.” (07/16/26)
“Every July 4th, Americans light fireworks, wave flags, and sing songs. This year, we do all of that and more: the nation turns 250, a milestone grand enough to demand something beyond the usual celebrations. So here is a question worth sitting with this weekend: What holds us together? Not what should hold us together in theory, but what actually does. What shared inheritance, what common story, what sense of mutual obligation binds 340 million people into something we can still honestly call one nation? Our national motto offers a clue, and a challenge.” (07/16/26)
“The wife of Spain’s prime minister will stand trial before a jury on charges of influence peddling and embezzlement, a court ruled on Thursday, in a further setback for the government embroiled in months of graft investigations and scandals. Begoña Gomez’s defence team had launched an appeal, asking Madrid’s high court to drop the charges made against her that she denies, and lift other orders imposed on her by a lower court last month. The Madrid court dropped a third charge of corruption in business against Gomez, and lifted the lower court’s order barring her from leaving the country, making her regularly report to court and requiring her to surrender her passport.” (07/16/26)
