Source: Persuasion
by Mitra Vand

“It is not surprising that June’s Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States has proven to be shaky to the touch. Nothing about this conflict has ever been resolved, only paused. Not because either side is incapable of diplomacy, but because neither side has ever fully believed the other side to be trustworthy. But for people inside Iran, the news meant what it has always meant: life was about to get harder. Both countries hold competing narratives about why, but the result is the same: the war has returned to Iran’s southern provinces.” (07/21/26)

https://www.persuasion.community/p/there-is-a-new-iran

Source: New York Post
by Shirin Yadegar

“As a California mom, I don’t wake up wondering whether an algorithm determined which coupon landed in my inbox. I wake up wondering why a quick trip to the grocery store now costs hundreds of dollars. I wonder whether my children will ever be able to afford a home in the state where they were raised. I wonder how many more families are quietly putting groceries on a credit card just to get through the month. Like millions of parents across California, I’m asking a simple question: When will Sacramento start making life more affordable instead of more complicated?” (07/21/26)

https://nypost.com/2026/07/21/opinion/let-california-moms-keep-our-grocery-coupons/

Source: Wired
by Maddy Varner

“Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work.” (07/22/26)

https://archive.is/l2bAv

Source: Reason
by Katarina Hall

“Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced on Sunday that the country will no longer hold elections, preventing the opposition from competing for power and further cementing his authoritarian grip on the country. … Ortega, now 80 years old, is a former guerrilla fighter who first came to power after the Sandinista Revolution and served as president from 1985 to 1990. After suffering a defeat in 1990, he returned to power in 2007 and has remained there ever since. His regime, which he now formally leads alongside his wife and ‘co-president,’ Rosario Murillo, had long since extinguished what remained of democracy in the country. Over the years, it has cracked down on political dissent, free speech, independent media, and civil society. Ortega’s most recent announcement is just an escalation of that trend.” (07/21/26)

https://reason.com/2026/07/21/nicaraguas-regime-drops-the-pretense-of-democracy/

Source: The American Conservative
by Daniel E Zoughbie

“‘If you cross the Halys River and attack the Persians, you will destroy a great empire.’ According to Herodotus, when Lydia’s King Croesus asked the Oracle at Delphi whether to make war on Cyrus the Great, he heard only what he wanted to hear, crossed the river and lost. The empire he destroyed was his own. Today’s oracles are far less discerning. When pastors gathered in the Oval Office this past March to lay hands on the president and pray for war, not one paused to warn him of the cost. Yet this modern hubris was not born in a vacuum. The crisis was a decade in the making.” (07/22/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-lesson-trump-can-take-from-herodotus-paradox/