Global

In Donald Trump’s America it is always possible to wake up in the morning and peruse online the overnight headlines to discover something new and exciting. Over the past week it has been a medley of going to war (again) with Iran coupled with a complicated performance on other issues as President Trump apparently takes aim at his enemies in the US and elsewhere. America’s Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is fully on board with a surge in worldwide mayhem. He is looking forward to an increase in US initiated violence, ordering that male soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines be tested for their testosterone levels.

In a thrilling conclusion to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Spain emerged victorious, defeating Argentina 1–0 in extra time. While the sport will focus on Ferran Torres’s decisive 106th-minute goal, for many observers, this result carries a weight that extends far beyond the pitch at New York New Jersey Stadium. 

​A Stark Contrast on the Global Stage ​

The final match served as a symbolic intersection of diverging global politics. Argentina’s recent international posture has drawn significant criticism, most notably its position at the United Nations. In March 2026, the UN General Assembly passed a landmark resolution regarding historical accountability; notably, only three countries—the United States, Israel, and Argentina—voted against it. For those concerned with historical justice, this vote was seen as a troubling alignment with ideologies that seek to minimize or deny the enduring legacies of systemic oppression. 

Following seven consecutive nights of U.S. strikes in Iran, the IRGC announced it was targeting U.S. military bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan and warned other countries hosting U.S. forces of possible retaliation.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense stated that two U.S. troops were killed, one remains missing, and four others were seriously injured after an Iranian strike in Jordan on Saturday, July 7, 2026. Al Jazeera reported today that 16 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 430 others have been wounded since the outbreak of the war with Iran last February.

Iran says it will continue to resist what it describes as foreign aggression. In my view, President Trump is using the war with Iran to bury the Epstein files in much the same way that President Bill Clinton did in 1998 when he ordered the bombing of the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan.

The factory produced medicines for both human and veterinary use and employed more than 300 workers. At the time, the U.S. government claimed the factory was being used to produce VX nerve agent, according to Wikipedia.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On Thursday night, Donald Trump told the country that U.S. election systems are vulnerable to electronic manipulation and that Americans have been lied to for years.

Election security experts have been testifying to Congress about this for decades, and we’ve been investigating and writing about it for the last 18 months.

Which means a portion of Trump’s unhinged Thursday night speech contained a kernel of truth.

Please watch this two-minute video to understand how he gave away the game:

“This reporting included precise details about methods the regime developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went…”

For context, Trump was talking about Venezuela and the method of manipulation supposedly used to put Maduro in power in 2020.

When crafting a book review, each author is faced with the unenviable task of writing just enough to pique the reader’s interest while resisting the temptation to delve too deeply for fear that doing so will quench the reader’s thirst and dampen any enthusiasm one might have had to purchase the book or check it out at the local library. 

An original piece of scholarship, Jack Marchbanks has produced a tour de force. In this seven-chapter book of more than 300 pages readers learn about the intersection between the world of jazz, literature, and the modern civil rights movement. 

The book’s first sentence sets the stage for all that follows. Marchbanks writes, “this book tells the story of how a select group of jazz musicians and jazz-admiring writers used their creative gifts to raise their audiences’ awareness of the social, economic, and political forces affecting African Americans” (p. 1). 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Observers Report Brooklyn Board of Elections Mixing Copies of Ballots with Actual Ballots After Defying Court Order in Tight State Senate Primary

​NEW YORK, July 15, 2026 —Election observers watching the ballot sorting for the recount of New York’s State Senate 22nd District Republican primary say that, on Tuesday, copies of ballots were intermingled with actual ballots at the Voting Machine Facility where preparations for a close primary race were taking place. On July 2nd, during the audit that preceded the hand count, observers reported that the Brooklyn Board of Elections (BOE) prevented them from viewing ballot handling even after a New York State Supreme Court judge ordered the BOE to allow observers to stand “four feet away from where the ballots are being counted.”

Haga clic aquí para español - Click here for Spanish

Keep your eyes on the Bab el-Mandeb, or Strait of Tears, the narrow strait at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Twenty-five percent of the world’s container shipping passes through this vital strait. This is the mandatory passage on the fastest route from Europe and the Mideast to Asia. The alternative is the lone, long passage from Europe around the vastness of the African continent, thence around the Cape of Good Hope, and then across the Indian Ocean to the heart of Asia – China, Japan, Singapore and Korea.