“The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week but layoffs remain in the historically healthy range of the past few years. U.S. filings for jobless aid in the week ending July 25 rose by 9,000 to 197,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week’s figure was revised up by 1,000 to 188,000 but remains the lowest in more than 50 years. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast 207,000 new applications. Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the U.S. job market.” (07/30/26)
“Australia is taking Telegram to court over its alleged failure to remove ‘pro-terror’ material, including video of the Christchurch shootings, the country’s eSafety commissioner has said. Julie Inman-Grant, who last year led Australia’s world-first ban on social media for under-16s, said the platform faced a fine of up to to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to comply with its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act. The platform had left content ‘linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history’ online long after it had been put on notice, she alleged.” (07/30/26)
“A man who gave his son the gun used to kill two students and two teachers at Appalachee High School in Georgia is set to be sentenced Thursday after he was convicted of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Colin Gray’s sentencing comes just days after his 16-year-old son, Colt Gray, pleaded guilty to murder and other charges and was sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for the Sept. 4, 2024, shooting …. The elder Gray is one of a handful of parents around the country who have been charged criminally after their children were accused in shootings. … Prosecutors have said that Colin Gray gave his son the rifle as a Christmas gift and also bought him ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories.” (07/30/26)
“Pope Leo XIV has appointed San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who made international headlines after barring then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from receiving Holy Communion over her support for abortion rights, to serve on the Vatican’s highest judicial body, in an announcement Saturday. Cordileone was among seven clergy named to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Catholic Church’s highest court after the pope. The appointment allows him to continue leading the Archdiocese of San Francisco while serving a five-year term on the Vatican tribunal, which oversees the administration of justice within the Church. … In 2022, Cordileone said that Pelosi would be banned from receiving Holy Communion in her own San Francisco Archdiocese because of her pro-abortion position.” (07/29/26)
“The death toll from an overnight deadly militant attack on a police post in northwestern Pakistan rose to 11 early Thursday, police and a government official said. Security forces killed 15 militants in an hourlong gunbattle after they targeted the Khazina police post in Hangu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, police official Irfan Khan said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault. Suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which has stepped up attacks on Pakistani security forces in the region in recent months.” (07/30/26)
“A major fault on Ghana’s national power grid has triggered widespread outages, leaving the capital, Accra, the commercial hub of Kumasi and much of north without electricity. Several power plants across the West African nation were forced to shut down in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the state-run power distribution company said. … Ghana, one of the world’s biggest producers of both gold and cocoa, has in recent years started using gas to generate electricity to help with demand as the population grows and becomes more urbanised. Most of the country’s electricity is generated by ageing hydropower plants, which have suffered from poor maintenance over years.” (07/29/26)
“A Falcon 9 rocket topped with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office launched from Florida’s east coast early Thursday. The rocket launched at 3:10 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Little information about the NROL-95 mission has been made public aside from the fact that the payload was designed, built and will be operated by the NRO. The broadcast of the launch was restricted at the request of the NRO, SpaceX said, with the second stage two and deployment of the payload not shown.” (07/29/26)
“The U.S. Army on Sunday revealed it has tested a new warfare system overseas designed to covertly scramble the navigation signals used by enemy precision weapons, making it harder for adversaries to accurately strike targets from long distances while avoiding detection. The electronic system, dubbed ‘Hammer of the Gods,’ was tested at sea off the U.S. West Coast for the first time in mid-July as part of the Project Convergence Capstone 6 (PC-C6) experiment. While land-based versions have been demonstrated over the past two years, the exercise marked the official debut of the maritime variant, the Army said.” (07/29/26)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled plans to revamp Dulles International Airport that would create an underground train and ditch the controversial ‘people movers,’ the bus-like mobile vehicles that transport passengers arriving from international destinations. Trump has taken a keen interest in the long-discussed overhaul of the airport in Northern Virginia, while disparaging it as ‘terrible’ and ‘incorrectly designed.’ … The proposed upgrades would significantly overhaul the experience for passengers at Dulles. Expanded parking, redesigned check-in areas and more efficient security screening aimed at reducing congestion are among the proposed upgrades. The project will preserve Dulles’ legendary main terminal, which was designed by Eero Saarinen, officials said.” (07/29/26)
“A San Francisco robot startup, already embroiled in a local controversy over an Airbnb rental, is now facing a class action lawsuit from former workers who say the company failed to pay them. Former contract workers are suing the Bot Company, also known as Botco, and multiple contract agencies for allegedly unpaid overtime wages, reimbursements of expenses, allegedly not providing work-free lunches and breaks, and termination pay. Originally filed in San Francisco Superior Court in April, the lawsuit obtained class action status on June 29, with three more former Botco workers signing on to a new complaint. Botco is the latest venture of Kyle Vogt, the former CEO of failed robotaxi startup Cruise.” (07/29/26)
