“Police in Chile say they have captured a man convicted years ago of the kidnapping and murder of popular folk singer Victor Jara under military ruler Augusto Pinochet. Nelson Haase was one of a group of officers given jail terms for the killing, which took place just five days after the coup which brought Pinochet to power in 1973. He was sentenced to 25 years. Haase took flight when the sentence was announced in August 2023 but was found by police on Saturday in the south of the country. Jara, who became famous in the 1960s and 70s for his protest and pacifist songs and supported the ousted socialist president Salvador Allende, was subjected to torture and shot 44 times.” (07/28/26)
“Haiti’s CEP electoral council on Monday scheduled the first presidential elections in a decade for December with a runoff in February, after plans to hold the vote in August with a December runoff were postponed over security concerns. Haiti has not held elections since 2016. Its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021, after delaying a vote. Successive governments have been tasked with holding an election but said insecurity amid a conflict with powerful armed gangs made it impossible.” (07/27/26)
“U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday, with wars in Iran and Ukraine at critical stages and his ties with both leaders markedly different. Relations with Zelenskiy have warmed as Ukraine has blunted Russian advances, while Netanyahu arrives amid growing White House frustration over the lack of progress toward a broader settlement in the Iran conflict and criticism from some of Trump’s supporters who oppose deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East. The two men are in Washington to attend a memorial service for Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Republican who was one of Trump’s closest allies and who frequently tried to coax Trump into providing more support for Ukraine’s war.” (07/28/26)
“Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva agreed on Sunday night to accelerate negotiations for a trade agreement between China and Mercosur, a striking reversal for Brasilia, which for years led resistance to such a deal in the South American bloc. The two leaders spoke by telephone for more than an hour, according to a statement from the Brazilian presidency, and ‘coincided on the importance of speeding up the talks for a Mercosur-China agreement that contemplates the necessary flexibilities’. … The call came days after a 25 per cent tariff imposed by US President Donald Trump on [American buyers of] part of Brazil’s exports took effect.” (07/28/26)
“Iran has rejected US President Donald Trump’s claim that negotiations with Washington are underway, with the country’s Foreign Ministry insisting that no talks are currently taking place between the two sides. In a statement on Monday (July 27), the ministry said Iran was ‘not engaged in any negotiations with the United States’ and dismissed suggestions that Tehran had sought to restart dialogue, saying such an approach was ‘not in our DNA’. Instead, it claimed it was Washington that had requested talks, according to Iranian news agency Tasnim. The remarks came despite a pause in the recent military confrontation between Iran and the United States, with both sides refraining from launching fresh strikes for a second consecutive day.” (07/28/26)
“The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a legal fight over President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting, escalating the dispute 99 days before the November midterm elections. The emergency request came after a federal appeals court, in a 2-1 decision Saturday, left in place an order blocking key parts of Trump’s executive order issued in March that directs federal agencies to create voter eligibility lists and restrict U.S. Postal Service delivery of ballots not tied to those lists. A coalition of 23 states argue Trump lacks authority to impose federal rules on elections administered by state and local officials.” (07/27/26)
“The U.S. walked out as France addressed a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Monday, accusing its longtime ally of ‘disingenuous grandstanding’ over French comments comparing the U.S. to North Korea, Russia and other authoritarian states regarding votes on human rights issues. The move followed a tense weekend exchange between the two permanent Security Council members on X in which France blasted Washington for joining Russia, North Korea and seven other countries in voting against a proposal to extend the term of Volker Turk as the U.N. rights chief for four more years. … The U.N. General Assembly on Friday voted overwhelmingly to extend the term of Turk, an outspoken critic of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s conduct in Gaza who has also called for investigations into deaths in U.S. immigration custody. The term extension has been opposed by Russia, Israel and others, with Washington threatening to reassess its funding and engagement.” (07/27/26)
“The U.S. FDA has approved Freenome’s blood-based colorectal cancer screening test for older adults, paving the way for partner Abbott to launch it in the U.S. this fall, the companies said on Monday.
Shares of Freenome were up about 4% in morning trading. … The test, SimpleScreen CRC, detects signals linked to colorectal cancer from DNA fragments circulating in the blood. Abbott is likely to market SimpleScreen to people who do not complete or decline stool-based screening tests, Brennan said.” (07/27/26)
“A man attacked three women with knives in Paris before bystanders pinned him to the ground and an off-duty police officer detained him, the French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, has said. The man attacked the three women, aged 19, 24 and 36, with two kitchen knives, severely wounding two of them, near Porte de Clichy on Monday, Nuñez said. A video shared on Snapchat and verified by Reuters showed a man with long black hair and wearing a cream tracksuit wielding one big knife in each hand and attempting to attack and stab a young woman. It was unclear if the woman was injured. … Another part of the video shows the same man in a tracksuit lying on the ground immobilised by bystanders, while the two knives are seen lying nearby on a pedestrian crossing. ‘It is Allah who commanded me,’ the man lying on the floor says in the video.” (07/27/26)
“Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office released a health update Monday, saying he’s still not ready to return to in-person work in the Capitol after his June 14 hospitalization. ‘I’m still working hard to get back to my full schedule of work in the Senate and in Kentucky, keeping up with intense physical therapy per my doctors’ orders,’ McConnell, R-Ky. [or someone impersonating him], said in a statement. ‘Unfortunately, that means I won’t be able to make it to Fancy Farm, Kentucky this Saturday.’ … McConnell’s office did not provide a timeline for his return. He has missed the last 38 votes on the Senate floor, according to an NBC News review. The chamber is scheduled to be in session for the next two weeks before summer recess.” (07/27/26)
