Friday, July 24, 2026
Trump announces next phase of global tariffs, affecting 99.4% of US imports (Yahoo/AP) The Trump administration on Thursday announced the replacement for 10% "global tariffs" that expire at midnight. They will be immediately supplanted by a suite of new duties that Trump's team hopes will be permanent and will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday, levying rates of 10% to 12.5% on America's top trading partners. Trump's trade office said in a fact sheet that this order will apply to 60 of the top US trade partners and cover 99.4% of U.S. imports. A senior administration official previewed this week's action on Thursday by calling it the "most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken," while downplaying the notion that this was done simply to replace the expiring tariffs.
Stocks and the Economy Are Increasingly Relying on the A.I. Boom (NYT) Major stock indexes have set record after record in recent years, fueled by seemingly boundless appetite among investors for anything connected to artificial intelligence. The total value of the U.S. stock market has more than doubled over the past decade to over $75 trillion, roughly two and a half times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, itself a record ratio. Much of that value exists only on paper, bets on future profits that may or may not materialize in the years ahead. But the boom is supporting real economic activity today, pumping trillions of dollars of investment into semiconductor factories, data centers, power plants and transmission lines. That spending and investment have helped carry the U.S. economy through a tumultuous period of inflation, tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty. But it also creates a vulnerability: If investor confidence in A.I. falters, the economic activity built atop it could come crashing down. “The thing that has been holding everything up is the A.I. story,” said Torsten Slok, the chief economist at Apollo Global Management.
Historically low water level in two crucial US reservoirs threatens water and power for millions (CNN) The combined water level in two of the United States’ biggest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, has fallen to a historic low, in what experts are calling a significant moment in the Colorado River crisis—threatening a water system that supplies tens of millions. On July 12, Lake Powell was at 3,524 feet and Lake Mead was just under 1,043 feet, breaking a record set in March 2023, according to an analysis published by five Colorado River experts last week. Together, the two reservoirs haven’t been this low since 1957, during the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam, before Lake Powell even existed. The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the Southwest. It irrigates more than 5 million acres of farmland, generates enough electricity to power around 700,000 homes and provides water for 40 million people.
The Choice Facing Some Immigrants: Pay $1.8 Million in Fines or Leave (NYT) The Trump administration is aggressively deploying a potent tool to pressure undocumented immigrants into self-deporting—civil fines that can total as much as $1.8 million. More than 100,000 people have received letters from the Homeland Security Department informing them that they owe $998 for each day that they have stayed in the United States after an immigration judge has ruled they have no legal right to remain in the country. Fines for failing to heed a “removal” order have been permitted since the passage of immigration legislation in 1996. Until President Trump, however, no commander in chief had imposed such penalties. For immigrants who receive one, the notices amount to an agonizing ultimatum: abandon the lives they have built, or face the threat of financial ruin if the government moves to collect on the debt. Even under a five-year statutory limit, the accumulated penalties can reach a $1.8 million per person.
France recorded 5,700 more deaths than usual during its historic June heat wave (AP) France recorded at least 5,700 more deaths than usual during a historic heat wave last month, the public health agency said Wednesday, sharply increasing its estimates of the feared toll from record-shattering temperatures. Public Health France said regions hit by the heat from June 17 to July 2 recorded 21,674 deaths from all causes. But without a heat wave, those same regions would have been expected to have seen far fewer deaths, or 15,910, based on statistical modeling using data from previous years, it said. The difference between expected and actual deaths—a total of 5,764—are therefore considered to be “excess” deaths during the heat wave, the agency said.
Russia’s biggest online retailer is the latest target of Ukraine’s attacks (AP) The Ukrainian attacks on the sprawling Russian warehouses produced stark images, with massive pillars of black smoke rising above fires that raged at facilities for Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer and its equivalent of Amazon. Kyiv’s drones first hit the sites over the weekend in Elektrostal, just east of Moscow, and in the Tambov region, killing eight people and injuring scores more. Two more Wildberries warehouses -– in the southern Krasnodar and Stavropol regions -– were attacked and set ablaze early Wednesday. One person was killed, and 14 others were hurt. While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not name Wildberries directly, he has said the facilities his country attacked were involved in supplying gear and various technical components to the Russian military. An AP search of the Wildberries website showed goods that could be used for both civilian and military purposes, such as body armor, helmets, radios and other electronics. Some of those were even marked as “tested in the SVO” or “SVO fighters’ choice”—a Russian acronym for “special military operation,″ the term used by the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine.
China’s shadowy maritime militia is worryingly active (Economist) The bays of the Zhoushan archipelago are crammed with blue-hulled fishing boats, laid up after a busy season scouring the East China Sea for crabs and croaker. Some of the boats, though, have been doing more than just fishing. In December over 1,000 vessels from Zhoushan and other parts of China’s eastern seaboard did something unprecedented. They lined up to form an L shape in the seas north of Taiwan, held the formation for more than 12 hours, then dispersed. Over the next few months Chinese fishing boats coalesced again in the East China Sea, on four more occasions. Chinese state-run media claim all this is normal commercial activity. Something fishier is surely going on. China is unusual in having three separate maritime forces at its disposal. The first two are the navy and the coastguard. But since as far back as the 1950s, China’s leaders have also commandeered part of the country’s fishing fleet as a paramilitary “maritime militia”. This shadowy force is made up of a mixture of normal fishing boats and larger, steel-hulled ones which appear to be purpose-built for aggressive manoeuvres. It is notorious for its activities in the South China Sea, where militia boats are often sent to disputed reefs and islets to secure China’s sovereignty claims, sometimes violently. Unlike its navy, China’s militia gives officials plausible deniability for ambiguous “grey zone” activities: they can claim, for instance, that violent spats with other countries’ ships were caused by “patriotic fishermen” acting independently.
Mideast oil producers step up plans to bypass the Strait of Hormuz (AP) Before the war in Iran, roughly 15 million barrels of Persian Gulf oil were shipped each day through the Strait of Hormuz. Within a few years, much of that oil could bypass the strait. As Iran’s chokehold over the strait drags on and oil prices surge, countries across the Gulf are planning to spend billions of dollars to build pipelines enabling them to redirect more supplies to ports along the Red Sea, Suez Canal and Gulf of Oman. At least seven major pipeline projects are under construction, in the planning stage or being discussed as possibilities, according to government officials, oil companies and analysts. Even alternatives to Hormuz can become vulnerable, as Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have shown this week with a stated blockade on Saudi-linked vessels attempting to transit the Red Sea. But the war has been a wake-up call for Gulf oil producers, who are determined to become less dependent on a transit point that hugs Iran’s coast.
U.S. Surges Forces Toward Middle East (WSJ) The U.S. is surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle East to give President Trump more muscular military options as he considers expanding the conflict against Iran, according to people familiar with the matter. In the past week, special-operations forces have deployed to the region from their U.S. bases, according to flight-tracking data and U.S. officials. Squadrons of jet fighters have been staged across the Middle East, and bomber aircraft at bases in the U.S. and U.K. are on high alert to ramp up operations, according to one of the officials. Additionally, more than 150 medics have arrived at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in recent days, another official said. The hospital is the primary location for treating troops injured in combat in the Middle East. The preparations are the latest indication that Trump is considering escalating the conflict. “Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned. Secretary of State Marco Rubio batted that comment away. “The president’s policy,” he said, “is a head for an eye.”
Israeli security minister joins Jewish extremists as they storm al-Aqsa mosque compound (Guardian) Israel’s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, joined thousands of Jewish extremists who stormed Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Thursday. Escorted by armed police, they prayed, waved the Israeli flag and sang the national anthem in a provocative display of political power. Under a fragile, decades-old agreement known as the status quo, non-Muslim prayer is banned at the site, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif compound and to Jews as the Temple Mount. Ben-Gvir has eroded the agreement in recent years through a series of inflammatory visits to the compound, and unilateral changes to rules for Jewish visitors, including allowing them to bring prayers and printed religious material to the site. In a social media post, Ben-Gvir wrote “we see enormous progress here”, and Jews praying there “feel like the owners”. He has previously said he wanted to raise the Israeli flag at the compound and build a synagogue there.
Trump adds condition to nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, throwing pact into doubt (Washington Post) Saudi Arabia would need to normalize relations with Israel to receive the U.S. nuclear technology it has long sought, President Donald Trump said Thursday, adding a new condition to an agreement signed a day earlier and throwing the future of that deal into confusion. The nuclear deal is "totally subject" to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, Trump said in a social media post. The Saudis have thus far refused to join the accord. If the Saudis "don't join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a few hours later, responding to questions from reporters. Asked why that condition had not been included in the deal when it was announced Wednesday, Leavitt said that Trump is "always the final deal maker."
Trump administration weighing military options in Mali, officials say (Washington Post) The Trump administration is weighing military action in the West African country of Mali to target an al-Qaeda-affiliated group known as JNIM, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations. If approved, it would add an eighth nation to the list of countries where President Donald Trump has ordered strikes since the start of his second term—a chapter of his presidency that he initially said would be dedicated to ending global strife and redirecting U.S. resources to Americans. The militant group, whose full name is Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, has established a stronghold in Mali and increasingly launched attacks in coastal West African nations, establishing itself as the most well-armed militant group in the region and among the most powerful in the world.