“For the fourth time since the end of the Vietnam War, a United States aircraft carrier made a port call in Vietnam on Thursday, promoting joint security ties at a time when tariffs and the war in Iran have hurt American influence across Asia. The carrier George Washington pulled into the quiet waters near Da Nang on day 70 of its deployment — not far from the beaches where U.S. Marines first landed in 1965, accelerating a war that killed around 58,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese. Both countries celebrated the 7-day port call, the longest stay in Vietnam for an American warship since the two countries restored relations in 1995, as a sign of how far the former enemies have come.” (07/30/26)
“Obviously, the DSA feels energized and validated by having defeated establishment Democrats and captured the mayoralties of New York and Seattle, the Democratic nomination for Washington, D.C.’s mayoralty, plus four likely seats in the U.S. House in recent months. This raises a troubling question: What if the radicalism of the DSA’s constitutional plan is not its weakness but its strength? That is the really scary possibility. And it’s worth taking seriously.” (07/30/26)
“Mamdani presents democratic socialism as little more than libraries, public schools and fire departments. The Democratic Socialists of America describe something far more sweeping. Recasting those ambitions as familiar public services is an effort to launder radical ideas into the mainstream. … Democratic socialists in office aren’t shy about wanting to replace capitalism. They are, after all, socialists. But their ambitions extend well beyond shifting some industries from private to public ownership. The Democratic Socialists of America’s platform calls for abolishing the police and prison system, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, establishing universal rent control, enacting reparations and much more.” (07/30/26)
“The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people in eastern Congo, official data released on Thursday showed, marking a 50% increase in around a week that shows the emergency continuing to outpace response efforts. As of Tuesday, 3,442 cases had been recorded, with 1,521 deaths, according to the latest government update. The outbreak, which was declared on May 15, has been linked to the Bundibugyo virus, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.” (07/30/26)
“No one has ever seen anything like it, as Donald Trump himself might say. Buried in a new CNN poll is something striking: Trump isn’t just cratering by conventional approval measurements; he’s also absolutely collapsing by many metrics involving personal traits, from his mental state to his disconnectedness from ordinary people to his fondness for building monuments to himself. Welcome to the era of Late-Stage Trumpism. The ‘personalist’ aspects of Trumpian rule—the shaping of much of the government and even the physical capital of Washington, D.C., around one man’s relentless self-dealing and self-aggrandizement—have all started imploding in on themselves, in a collapsing supernova of venality and megalomania.” (07/30/26)
“Trump inherited a perfectly functional Iran nuclear deal in his first term and ceasefires between Yemen and Saudi Arabia and between Israel and Hezbollah in his second term. He had the possibility of peace in the middle east handed to him on a golden platter, and he actively torched it.” (07/30/26)
In early July, NASA launched a spacecraft designed to rescue the Swift observatory, which is currently decaying at a faster rate than normal, in hopes that it could still collect data for scientists over the coming years. But now that spacecraft itself is in trouble, and the fate of the mission remains unclear. In an update on the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory blog, NASA has revealed that the spacecraft called LINK experienced attitude control issues last weekend, meaning it had problems managing its orientation in space. That caused the spacecraft to spin, which in turn resulted to sporadic communications. … Thankfully, the ground team still has communication with LINK, and it’s planning to use the spacecraft’s electric propulsion thrusters to try and stop its spinning over the coming days.” (07/30/26)
“Scott interviews Nick Cleveland-Stout from Responsible Statecraft about his reporting on the Israel lobby’s multifaceted attempt to influence the American public.” (07/30/26)
