“U.S. applications for jobless aid inched down last week as layoffs remain at historically healthy levels. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the week ending June 27 fell by 1,000 to 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 225,000 new applications forecast by analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet. Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.” (07/02/26)
“Ether and solana led crypto higher on Friday as a squeeze on bearish traders pushed bitcoin toward $62,000, capping the market’s first genuinely strong week since mid June. Bitcoin traded around $61,360, up 2.5% over seven days, per CoinDesk data. Ether rose 4.2% in 24 hours to about $1,702 and is up 9.7% on the week, while solana held near $80 with a weekly gain of 18.6%, the strongest among the majors. XRP added 5.7% over the week to $1.09 and Hyperliquid’s HYPE rose 5.1% on the day. Traders betting against crypto lost $281 million to liquidations over the past 24 hours, against $159 million in longs, out of $440 million in total forced closures across 95,690 traders, according to Coinglass data.” (07/03/26)
“A Southern California man pleaded guilty in federal court to sending fake ransom notes to Nancy Guthrie’s family shortly after her disappearance, prosecutors announced on July 2. Derrick Callella, 42, of Hawthorne, California, pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment using a telecommunication device at a federal courthouse in Tucson, Arizona, on July 2, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The charge has a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a potential fine of up to $250,000. … Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on the morning of Feb. 1 after she failed to show up at a friend’s house to watch a virtual church service. While the FBI obtained footage of an armed and masked individual captured by her Google Nest doorbell camera, investigators for months have been unable to identify a suspect behind her likely abduction.” (07/03/26)
“The World Health Organization has declared the hantavirus outbreak over after the last identified contact of an exposed person linked to a cruise ship completed quarantine and tested negative for the virus. The outbreak, which infected 13 people and killed three, involved the rare Andes hantavirus strain that typically circulates in Argentina and Chile. The cruise ship Hondius sailed from Argentina on April 1. … The Andes virus is the only known hantavirus that can spread through close, prolonged human-to-human contact.” (07/02/26)
“South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and Kia posted record first-half sales in the United States, driven by strong demand for hybrid vehicles and sport utility vehicles despite elevated borrowing costs and slowing electric vehicle demand. Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday that Hyundai, Kia and the Genesis luxury brand sold a combined 920,383 vehicles in the United States from January through June, up 3% from the same period last year.” (07/02/26)
“Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda on Thursday said the Baltic country’s top political leaders had agreed that a constitutional ban on the domestic deployment of nuclear weapons should be removed. The decision comes shortly after lawmakers in Finland, another NATO member that shares a border with Russia, voted to lift its longstanding ban on nuclear weapons. … The removal of the provision means Vilnius can adapt to evolving security circumstances in the future, Nauseda said. He added, however, that there were no immediate plans to store nuclear weapons in the country.” (07/02/26)
“Amazon says it now has enough satellites operating in low-Earth orbit to light up its Starlink internet competitor. With last night’s launch, Amazon Leo has 396 satellites deployed, which is “enough to support continuous service across initial latitudes,” according to Chris Weber, VP heading up business and product for Amazon Leo. That puts the company on track to meet its “mid-2026” target for commercial availability. Just don’t expect miracles on day one. SpaceX went live with its ‘Better than nothing beta’ back in 2020 when it had almost 900 satellites operating in low-Earth orbit.” (07/02/26)
“OpenAI has proposed handing the U.S. government a 5% stake in the company, the Financial Times reported Thursday, as the artificial intelligence startup seeks to defuse mounting political pressure in Washington. A 5% holding would be worth roughly $42.6 billion, after the AI lab closed a record-breaking funding round in March at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman argued that giving the public a financial interest in the company is the best way to share the upside of AI, the FT reported, citing two people familiar with the talks. Altman suggested a stake of that size in early discussions with the Trump administration, as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold 5% of each of the leading U.S. AI developers via a government vehicle, according to the report.” (07/02/26)
“For a quarter century, Jane Calvert has been on a mission shared by few scholars of the Revolutionary War era. She has championed a founder mostly remembered, when remembered at all, as the man who wouldn’t sign the Declaration of Independence — the lawyer and statesman John Dickinson. ‘It has been a constant struggle’, says Calvert, a former associate professor at the University of Kentucky who has written often about Dickinson and is the founder of the John Dickinson Writings Project, which aims to make his works widely available. For much of the country, the 250th anniversary of independence on Saturday is a time for celebrating and debating the country’s birth. But for Calvert and others, it’s also a moment to challenge the lingering image of a man who at times has been ignored, ridiculed or literally cast aside.” (07/02/26)
“The Vatican announced Thursday that priests and members of a breakaway Catholic group that ordained four new bishops in defiance of Pope Leo XIV’s wishes are in schism and excommunicated. The Society of Saint Pius X, an ultra-traditionalist group, went ahead with the ordinations on Wednesday without papal approval and despite appeals from Leo to reverse the decision. In response, the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Thursday published a decree saying that the four bishops are excommunicated, along with the two bishops who participated in the ordination ceremony. Excommunication means they are excluded from the sacraments of the church. It added in an explanatory note that priests belonging to the society and lay members who ‘formally adhere’ to the group are also in schism and excommunicated.” (07/02/26)
