Sunday, July 26, 2026

The AI industry has already spent $65 million ahead of the midterm elections with no signs of slowing down

By Bryan Metzger and Brent D. Griffiths

Jul 26, 2026, 2:27 AM PT
Some of the biggest names in AI and tech are using the midterm elections to fight a proxy war over the future of their industry.

Anthropic, Meta, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among those linked to networks of outside groups and super PACs aimed at shaping the next Congress and the balance of power in some state legislatures.

Bombing for Nothing And The Memes For Free

By Yiannis Damellos
July 26, 2026

You know that feeling when someone flaunts their bravado like a chest-thumping alpha-male gorilla, eager to flex their supposed prowess, only to spectacularly crash and burn? And yet, fueled by an insatiable narcissism, they dive back in, face-first into failure—time and again—while the bill is picked up by the unsuspecting public? That’s precisely the spectacle we witnessed with Donald J. Trump. He embarked on a war with Iran, treating it less as a dire national necessity and more like a calculating investment in his own grandiosity and servitude to the MIC and Israel, all while parading around with a swagger only he could muster, believing wholeheartedly he had mastered the Art of the Deal. Well, it turns out there’s a stark difference between business negotiations and the brutal realities of war. Now, the U.S. finds itself halting strikes on Iran for a second consecutive night, pressed by his (Omn)impotence to cease the bombings, conserve ammunition, and navigate a way out that would allow America and himself to preserve some semblance of dignity. 

Massie: Hegseth is breaking the law with Iran war

by Finya Swai 
07/24/26 12:13 PM ET

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of “breaking the law” on Thursday, arguing the Trump administration is attempting to portray the Iran conflict as two separate wars in order to avoid seeking congressional authorization.

The Guardian view on a US-Saudi nuclear agreement: an offer that further erodes international safeguards

Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation
Sun 26 Jul 2026 17.29 BST

Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.

Transcript: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," July 26, 2026

Updated on: July 26, 2026
CBS NEWS
The following is the full transcription of an interview with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent, a portion of which aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 26, 2026.

The rise of the military-technology complex


The AI Power Trip
How Silicon Valley tech firms remade US defense contracting. And then opened the Pentagon’s checkbook—wide.
By Bernice Yeung
July 23, 2026

The tale of how the Pentagon lost its spirit of innovation often begins with an incident known as “the Last Supper.”

It was the fall of 1993. About two dozen executives from leading defense contractors had received an unexpected invitation to dinner at the Pentagon. After the meal, the group was ushered into a briefing room where William Perry, then the deputy secretary of defense (and soon, the defense secretary), gave a presentation that startled the room.

Suspect in deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in a confrontation with police

By GEIR MOULSON, KIRSTEN GRIESHABER and STEFANIE DAZIO
Associated Press
Updated 10:46 AM PDT, July 26, 2026

BERLIN (AP) — The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said. 

Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.

Israel and the cost paradox of the Iran war

Opinion
US-Israel war on Iran
Israel instigated the war on Iran, and yet it has borne few of its costs.
By Abdulla Banndar Al-Etaibi
Published On 26 Jul 2026

Since the outbreak of war on February 28, the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has been framed as an existential threat for Tel Aviv and Tehran. Yet a calm, structural reading of the past five months of fighting and faltering truces reveals a striking paradox: the party that incited this war has become the one least exposed to its fire and the one collecting most of its returns.

Saturday, July 25, 2026

Like father, Like Son: Lula leads Jair's son, Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil election poll

July 24, 2026

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva continues to hold a lead over opposition Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, according to a new Datafolha poll released on Friday, ahead of Brazil's presidential election scheduled for October.

Why is Mister T Pushing Data Centers for the Military?


July 25, 2026
Written by Yiannis Damellos
On a Saturday evening, after two beers and a statin

I picked up this story at Mother Jones, and I said to myself, this is a good story for a lazy Sunday afternoon, so there you go, this is it. The original was written by a good woman, Sophie Hurwitz, a reporter for Mother Jones covering breaking news, politics, and social movements. 

Well, if you live anywhere near a military base, says Sophie, you may soon notice something new popping up in the neighborhood: a privately owned data center moving in right alongside the fences and runways. You know data centers, cause everybody hates them. They are built to serve cloud computing and AI, but they are as dirty as a stinky baby's diaper and as dangerous as Dr. Kevorkian.

Donald Trump Is Very, Very Angry

Iran is destined to become the signature failure of his second term. There’s almost nothing he can do about it.

BY JIM NEWELL July 25, 2026, 5:45 AM
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, which figures we must be living in truly dark times if even a trip to Taco Bell can make you feel gross afterward.

This week: Maine Democrats have a new Senate nominee; just be sure to wear a helmet if you get near him. We have a brief couple of weeks to make jokes about the candidates in South Carolina’s quickie Republican Senate primary, and we intend to use them. Ukraine has picked up a powerful new ally in an internet weirdo who has Donald Trump’s ear. Seriously, though.

Berlin: 1 dead after vehicle drives into CSD Pride event


Karl Sexton | Louis Oelofse with AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters

Published 2 hours agolast updated 1 hour ago

Police said around 15 people were injured, some seriously, after a white van struck several people in central Berlin during Pride celebrations, known locally as Christopher Street Day (CSD). A manhunt is underway.

Here's why Nolan Wells' death is more than just a mystery

N'dea Yancey-Bragg
USA TODAY
July 25, 2026, 6:03 a.m. ET

The death of Mississippi teenager Nolan Wells, whose body was found after a July 4 boat trip to Horn Island, remains unresolved with conflicting witness accounts, an indeterminate autopsy, and concerns about racial bias influencing the investigation.

If another advanced civilization lived on Earth before us, would we know?


By Laura Paddison
7 hr ago

When astrobiologist Adam Frank walked into the office of NASA's Gavin Schmidt, he had what he believed was the weirdest question: do aliens experience climate change? It took just moments for Schmidt to out-weird him.

Defense tech investors thought the war in Iran could make them millionaires. Instead, they faced a Wall Street bloodbath

Success Reporter
July 25, 2026, 5:54 AM ET

The U.S. has racked up a $37.5 billion tab on the war in Iran following President Donald Trump’s launch of Operation Epic Fury in late February. Yet despite continued conflict and historic levels of defense spending requested by the Pentagon, investors betting on a defense windfall have watched many top contractors lose value.

Oops. These people accidentally went to the 4DX version of 'The Odyssey'



By Katie Notopoulos 
Senior Correspondent covering technology and culture
Jul 24, 2026, 2:05 PM PT

In "The Odyssey," Odysseus and his men arrive on a beach in search of provisions and find an unpleasant surprise in the form of angry giants, who proceed to kill a bunch of the men.

Much like the Greeks' deadly surprise, a handful of unfortunate moviegoers are sailing blindly into treacherous waters with fateful consequences. Some people accidentally went to see "The Odyssey" in 4DX, not realizing that the chairs shake and water sprays at them throughout the nearly 3-hour film.

I became aware that people were suffering through this mistaken adventure when a friend of mine told me it happened to him. This friend (who requested to remain anonymous due to a desire to conceal his recreational drug use as an otherwise respectable adult with a job and family) took a small dose of weed gummies and some magic mushrooms and went to see the movie by himself — and ended up begging Zeus for mercy.

There’s only one way out of Trump’s reckless war

Pay off Iran to open Hormuz and freeze its nuclear program
July 24, 2026 at 5:42 a.m. EDT
By Philip H. Gordon, Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy is a global affairs magazine offering diverse perspectives on issues shaping nations and the world.

Thinking about how to get out of the dire strategic predicament that U.S. President Donald Trump has created with his ill-considered war in Iran brings to mind the old joke about the lost traveler who asks in a remote Scottish pub how to get from there to Aberdeen, to which the bartender replies: “Well, sir, if I were trying to get to Aberdeen, I would not start from here.”

Democrats nominate Troy Jackson to replace Graham Platner in must-win Maine Senate race


Jackson was selected as the party’s nominee at Saturday’s state party convention, running as a staunch progressive against GOP Sen. Susan Collins

July 25, 2026

BANGOR, Maine —
Former state Senate President Troy Jackson officially became Democrats’ Senate nominee in Maine, starting a 101-day sprint to Election Day in a nationally watched, must-win race for his party.