July 18, 2026
Guns
Newsweek
- A federal appeals court on Friday struck down
New Jersey's decades-old ban on assault weapons, becoming the first federal
appellate court in the country to rule that a state prohibition on
semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 violates the Second Amendment.
The decision from the
Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes as the U.S. Supreme
Court prepares to weigh in on the constitutionality of similar state-level
assault weapons bans, setting the stage for what could become one of the most consequential
Second Amendment rulings in years.
ICE
Independent - Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are making arrests at a record pace,
averaging over 1,400 people daily in the first 12 days of July.
…The current arrest rate has seen
ICE hit a target of at least 2,000 arrests a day multiple times this month.
The increase in arrests comes
amid new controversy, including two fatal shootings of motorists by ICE agents
in Texas and Maine, and the death of a man struck by a tractor-trailer while
fleeing authorities in Florida.
The Trump administration had
previously set a goal of deporting 1 million migrants annually, which would
require an average of almost 2,800 arrests per day
Climate
Newsweek
- Three U.S. cities rose to the
top of a global ranking for worst air quality on Friday amid widespread smoke
from Canadian wildfires across the Midwest and Northeast.
Detroit recorded a "very
unhealthy" (201-300) U.S. Air Quality Index reading of 240 between 1 and 2
p.m. ET, placing it first (worst) among the major cities tracked by Swiss
air-quality company IQAir. Chicago followed with an “unhealthy” (151-200)
reading of 199, followed by Washington, D.C., at 172. New York City placed
eighth at 131.
The three worst cities outside the U.S. were Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at 186, Delhi, India (the world's most polluted city in 2025), at 163, and Jakarta, Indonesia, at 144, which is considered "unhealthy for sensitive groups" (101-150).
Supreme Court
Transcend
- The Supreme Court of the
United States, the most powerful court in the country, operates under no
binding code of ethics.
Federal judges at every other
level of the judiciary are bound by ethics rules. Members of Congress are bound
by financial disclosure requirements.
But the nine justices who sit on
the highest court in the land — who decide the future of reproductive rights,
voting rights, and the boundaries of presidential power — answer to no one.
When a justice has an obvious
conflict of interest – or accepts lavish trips, gifts, or favors from the very
people whose cases later land on their desk – they face no consequences.
This isn’t an accident or an
oversight. It is the direct result of decades of Republican obstruction — every
serious attempt at Supreme Court ethics reform blocked, stalled, or
filibustered before it could become law.
Health
Newsweek
- As summer heats up, tiny ticks are busy spreading diseases that most
Americans have never even heard of, with doctors calling one of them almost
akin to Lyme disease in public health risk.
"It is true that both mosquito and tick-borne illness reports, more inclusively called 'vector-borne' illnesses, are increasing, in part possibly due to regional climate changes and expanding insect and tick habitats," Dr. Natasha Wyndham Hanners, infectious disease specialist at Children’s Health and Assistant Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, told Newsweek. "It is also true that ease of worldwide travel along with more advanced diagnostic techniques are revealing emergence of previously unknown organisms or organisms new to an area."
The
Hill - A one-year ban on
abortion providers being able to bill Medicaid for non-abortion services, which
was included in the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Trump
signed last year, expired on July 5.
Anti-abortion activists have for
months been calling for such a provision to be included in another bill that
could go through the same special budget reconciliation process that bypasses
the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, allowing Republicans to
push partisan legislation through both chambers.
Republicans’ second shot at a
reconciliation bill, however, was a “skinny” package aimed at restoring funding
for immigration enforcement and Border Patrol. And this week, House Republicans
released a $95 billion reconciliation 3.0 framework teeing up money for
defense, farm aid, and grants to encourage voting restrictions — omitting any
measures to offset that new spending, or any other special provisions,
including the measure to restrict Medicaid funds from going to abortion
providers.
Donald Trump
Independent
- President Donald Trump said
American television networks that didn’t air a speech he gave on 16 July night
should lose their licences.
Speaking
during his address to the nation, which focused on election security, Trump
also said that TV networks that did not air his speech were engaged in a
"plot".
“They
and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud
for whatever reason,” he said. “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of
their licences”.
Two
of the three major US television networks, NBC and ABC, as well as CNN did not
broadcast the primetime address by Trump on their primary platforms, risking
the ire of the administration.
Networks
enjoy broad First Amendment rights to decide what to broadcast, experts say.
Historically, though, broadcasters carried most such speeches on the grounds
that they provided information of public importance.
5 things to know about Trump’s election claims
Alternet
- While Americans are dealing
with higher gas prices, high grocery prices and less healthcare, President
Donald Trump is living his best life, says Jonathan Swan, co-author of the new
book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, with
fellow New York Times writer Maggie Haberman.
“[In his first term], there was
always a feeling he felt under siege,” Swan told John Dickerson, host of
Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast. “He was under investigation. He was
reactive. He was surrounded by people who — whatever you think about Donald Trump,
he’s not stupid when it comes to reading people — he understood that many of
them had contempt for him and thought that he was dangerous and whatever. So I
think it was just generally a stressful, unpleasant experience. This time
around, he comes in with a sweeping immunity decision from the Supreme Court
and with, especially last year, total command over his own party.”
Swan pointed out that never has
he seen a president command his own party and force them to do things they
don’t want to do like Trump did last year.
“We haven’t seen that before,” said Swan. “He’s richer than he’s ever been. His family’s making just inordinate sums of money from the presidency. He’s using power in the ways that he wants to without much pushback. He’s entirely surrounded by flatterers. He’s basically housebound. He doesn’t really travel around. He’s not really doing events. He goes from people flattering him in the Oval Office to people on the Mar-a-Lago patio.
Polls
Ballotpedia has Trump with a 43.5% approval rating.RealClearPolitics has Trump with a 40.9% approval rating.Quinnipiac University has Trump with a 39% approval rating.The Economist/YouGov has Trump with a 37% approval rating.ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos has Trump with a 37% approval rating.Emerson College has Trump with a 39% approval rating.
CNBC POLL: Net Favorability Ratings
Sep 2018
Capitalism: +37
Socialism: -33
July 2026
Capitalism: +23
Socialism: -20 (new highMiddle East
The
Hill - A senior Iranian adviser
threatened on Friday to launch a wider war in the Middle East following days of
intense fighting, warning that “full-scale offensive operations” could resume
if U.S. military strikes do not cease.
“Iran will no longer limit itself
to retaliatory, like-for-like responses…and no political border will be safe,”
Major-General Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei,
said, according to several outlets, citing Iranian news agency IRIB.
U.S. forces launched a seventh
consecutive night of strikes on Friday, hitting bridges around Bandar Abbas, a
port city in the Persian Gulf where the Iranian Navy is headquartered.
The fresh wave of strikes, which
ended around 9:30 p.m. EDT, also targeted surveillance sites, military
logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage and maritime
capabilities, according to U.S. Central Command (Centcom).
National Guard takes control of DC
The Guardian - For months, roughly 2,000-2,500 national
guard troops have been patrolling metro stations, parks, city streets,
neighborhoods and tourist attractions throughout Washington DC. In July, that
number doubled to more than 5,000 troops from more than a dozen states as part
of the federal government’s “summer surge” of law enforcement surrounding major
events for the nation’s 250th birthday celebration.
District of Columbia officials
are pushing for the troops’ withdrawal, but they have limited control because
the nation’s capital isn’t a state and the mayor, Muriel Bowser, doesn’t have
the authority to call up the DC national guard, only to request them. City
officials also don’t have any control over the troop deployments from other
states.
”The national guard is not
contributing to law enforcement,” said the DC council chair, Phil Mendelson.
“The presence of armed soldiers on our streets is unnecessary, hurts potential
visitors to the district, creates the wrong impression about safety, and that’s
not helpful.”
DC councilwoman Janeese Lewis
George is the presumptive Democratic nominee for DC’s mayor and will probably
secure the top spot after November’s general election. She has pledged to work
with the federal government and the Trump administration to improve conditions
for DC residents.
“Governors across the country
have been bullied, bribed and misled into misusing their national guard for
armed patrols of DC neighborhoods that result in harm to the troops themselves
and our community in DC,” Lewis George said. “It’s been almost a year, and we
must not normalize this.”
Immigration
In
These Times - The Trump
administration unleashed federal immigration enforcement agents on states
around the nation, including those with relatively miniscule immigrant
populations. This includes Maine, the whitest state in the country, where a
mere 4 percent of the population is of immigrant origin. ICE agents wreaked
havoc on the state in early 2026. Even after Republican Senator Susan Collins
requested an end to the operations, tensions remained high and ICE sightings
continued.
Earthquakes
The
Congresional Insider - A
powerful 7.3 earthquake off southern Mexico’s coast shook four countries and
triggered a tsunami alert, raising fresh questions about how prepared everyday
people really are when nature hits harder than government plans.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck
off the Pacific coast of Chiapas near the Guatemala border, with shaking felt
as far as El Salvador. U.S. and Mexican agencies issued a tsunami threat for
parts of the coasts of Mexico and Guatemala, warning of waves up to about 1
meter.
Officials reported no immediate
deaths and no serious damage, but confirmed several injuries and localized
structural problems. The quake revived memories of past Mexican earthquakes and
exposed how people in the region still depend on strained public systems when
disaster strikes.
July 17, 2026
The war on democracy
The
Hill - Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin went further than
President Trump in an address on election security Friday, asserting foreign
adversaries could hack voter machines, threatening states that refuse to
partner with his department and saying he would use “maximum pressure” to root
out any illegally cast votes.
While Trump in his primetime
address Thursday called voting machines “vulnerable and they’re easily
compromised,” Mullin raised the specter of hackers entering such systems to
manually change votes — something the U.S. intelligence community has concluded
has never happened.
He also said state election officials will pay a price if they refuse to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) efforts, laying the groundwork to access states’ vote tabulators and even their voter rolls — something various courts have repeatedly denied federal government efforts to access.
Climate change
 |
Air quality |
Inside
Climate News - Attribution science measures how much human-caused
global warming loaded the dice for an extreme weather event, making it more
likely or more intense. Recent research shows climate extremes, like the deadly
2021 heat dome over the Pacific Northwest and this summer’s early heat wave in
Europe that killed more than 5,000 people, would have been impossible without
human-caused warming.
To determine how global warming affects an extreme event, researchers compare its intensity and likelihood in the current climate with the same event modeled in a world without human-caused emissions. A combination of observational data, weather and climate models and statistical models help quantify the effect of human-caused warming on the extreme event.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)