As many Iranians feel betrayed by Trump, Big Brother's absence from his dad's funeral in Tehran leaves no doubt on who's really in charge

July 5, 2026

Source: CNN

A central question surrounding the funeral of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is whether his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, will appear to lead the prayers for his father. Mojtaba is believed to have sustained serious injuries, possibly even losing a limb, in an attack that also claimed the lives of his mother and wife. Since the war began, he has remained hidden, rarely showing his face or using his voice, choosing instead to communicate with his supporters through written statements. Yet, whether the big Brother is still alive or dead may hold little significance, as the real power in Iran lies with the ruthless apparatus of the Guardian Council and the Revolutionary Guard, despite the symbolic importance of the Supreme Leader's position to the public.

Scientists may have finally solved the black hole information paradox

Science News from research organizations
Date: July 4, 2026
Source: Institute of Experimental Physics SAS

Summary: Researchers have proposed that black holes stop evaporating at the last moment, leaving behind tiny remnants that preserve all the information they contain. The same seven-dimensional geometry behind this idea could also help explain why elementary particles have mass.

DOGE self-deletes on July 4th. The grand experiment fell apart long before that.

Tech mogul Elon Musk’s band of Silicon Valley disruptors has already moved on as DOGE’s charter is scheduled to expire

By Kevin Bogardus and Scott Waldman

07/04/2026

President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting commission that once plunged the government into chaos is nearing its destiny — becoming a former federal initiative.

Up for debate: how and when the end will truly come for the Department of Government Efficiency, which triggered thousands of federal employees to leave their jobs and voided billions of dollars in government contracts.

Trump's new take on 250 years of American expansionism

An 1811 drawing depicts Louis and Clark's exploration of the American frontier. Getty Images

23 hours ago

Anthony Zurcher

North America correspondent

In the 250 years since the US declared its independence from Great Britain, the nation has grown from a sparsely populated collection of settlements scattered along the Atlantic coast into a global power spread over the breadth of a continent and beyond.

Two Funerals and A Birthday

Story by Yiannis Damellos

July 4th 2026

Independence Day

As millions gather in Iran to mourn the loss of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ripple effects of his assassination echo far beyond Tehran, reaching all the way to Washington, D.C. On the same weekend that Iran's streets are filled with the grieving supporters of a theocratic regime, America celebrates a milestone: 250 years of independence and freedom. Yet, amidst the patriotism, there looms a second funeral—a somber reflection on the state of freedom under the Trump administration.

What are meme coins and how has Donald Trump made millions from his own?

By Fergus Gregg
Topic: Cryptocurrency
17 hours ago

US President Donald Trump has made $US1.4 billion ($2b) from cryptocurrency in the past 12 months. $US635 million came from celebration coins royalties and $US236m came from cryptocurrency "token sales", while the rest of his income came from assorted cryptocurrency wallets. His celebration coin income is linked to meme coins he launched before returning to office, namely $TRUMP.

Meta Paid Hundreds of Contractors to Pretend to Be Teenagers While Barraging Its Competitors’ AI With Disturbing Content

Behind the Scenes

"Surely we are going to get in trouble for doing this?"

By Frank Landymore Published Jul 4, 2026 9:02 AM EDT

Meta conducted a secretive program that directed hundreds of contractors to pose as teenagers while bombarding its competitors’ AI models with disturbing prompts ranging from suicide to cannibalism.

U.S.A.I.D. Cuts Killed People. That’s the Truth.

Opinion

July 1, 2026

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

Elon Musk is newly minted as humanity’s first trillionaire, but the world’s richest man seems grumpy. And he definitely is not a fan of mine.

“Kristof is lying through his teeth,” he announced on social media this week.

I got on his nerves for pushing back at his claims that his demolition of the United States Agency for International Development last year did not cost lives. The fracas began after Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said that Musk had “possibly sentenced to death” a large number of children, and Musk retorted that it was “time to sue this liar.”

Tankers U-Turn in Hormuz, With Some Taking Iran Route Instead

Weilun Soon
Sat, July 4, 2026 
(Bloomberg) -- At least eight ships attempting to leave the Persian Gulf along the Omani coast turned back between Friday and Saturday, in the latest sign that reopening the Strait of Hormuz remains complicated by Iran seeking to assert its control over the key waterway. Some of the vessels continued with their transits by switching to a route closer to Iran.

The rise of democratic socialists and what it means for the party

July 2, 2026 4:47 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
A Martínez
7-Minute Listen
Transcript
NPR's A Martínez speaks with Brad Lander, Democratic nominee for New York's 10th Congressional District, about the rise of democratic socialists in the Democratic Party.

Michael Jochum: Prayers for the Wicked

From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Progressives page on Facebook
Author: Michael Jochum 

Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Music, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition

Every morning I scroll through social media and inevitably stumble across another carefully crafted prayer for Donald Trump, usually wrapped in a Bible verse and decorated with enough patriotic imagery to wallpaper a megachurch. The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic. Somewhere along the way, the golden calf wandered out of the Book of Exodus, put on a red tie, boarded Air Force One, and convinced millions of people that idolatry was suddenly a Christian virtue.

Morning Coffee: How the most interesting woman at JPMorgan was abruptly axed + An "aggressive, clever" private equity boss got drunk and behaved badly, but it's ok

by Sarah Butcher 

18 hours ago

We have long observed that Marianne Lake at JPMorgan is an interesting person. With her flat English estuary accent, she is an anomaly in the upper echelons of Wall Street. She started in the middle office and she became JPMorgan's CFO. She's a single mother with three children born through a surrogate. She's been described as "fearless" by juniors.

Last Thursday, though, the Financial Times reports that Lake was 'abruptly axed.' After 26 years at JPMorgan and with an alleged $50m of deferred stock accumulated, she was reportedly given three days' notice that Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh were being elevated above her as heir apparents to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. At 6.45am last Thursday, the FT says Lake invited employees working directly with her to join a call at 7.30am. She told them she was leaving. She was 'emotional '; they cried. She hasn't been seen in the office since.

Coffee linked to significant new side effect, says massive study

Story by Thomas Westerholm • 1mo • 3 min read

Your morning cup of coffee might be doing you more good than just waking you up—according to a new study, coffee also has a positive impact on the a person’s microbiome, improving the health of the gut-brain axis

Researchers from the University College Cork in Ireland examined how regular consumption of coffee—both caffeinated and decaffeinated—affects the gut microbiome.

German coalition announces sweeping reform package on pensions and tax rates

POLITICS GERMANY
Richard Connor with dpa, Reuters
16 hours ago

After its first year in office, Germany's coalition government plans to push through sweeping changes with the stated goal of reviving a sluggish economy. The plans met with a mixed reaction.

Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said his conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had approved a "catalog of significant reforms" to "modernize" the economy and restore competitiveness.

Powerful general appears in public as Iran prepares for Khamenei’s dayslong funeral

By NASSER KARIMI and JON GAMBRELL
Updated 12:18 AM PDT, July 3, 2026

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A powerful general who leads Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard emerged publicly for the first time in months as Tehran prepared Friday for the dayslong funeral for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What to know about the Society of St. Pius X, the schismatic group excommunicated by the Pope

July 2, 2026 2:26 PM ET
By Noah LaBelle

ÉCÔNE, Switzerland (RNS) — A group of traditionalists directly defied Pope Leo XIV by ordaining four new bishops without his consent, calling it their "sacred duty" during a ritual-laden ceremony at the society's seminary in the Swiss village of Écône.

When US Saved Iran's Abbas Araghchi, Mohammad Ghalibaf From An Israeli Kill Plot

Edited by: Sanstuti Nath, July 03, 2026
Araghchi and Ghalibaf have been the key officials negotiating with various countries in the region to reach a framework agreement with the US that sought to open the Strait of Hormuz and set the outline for follow-on talks on Tehran's nuclear program.

Washington: The United States has reportedly asked its allies in the Middle East to warn Iran about a possible Israeli plot to assassinate negotiators Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Abbas Araghchi during the delicate ceasefire talks, which began in early April. According to a New York Times report, Washington was concerned that an Israeli effort to kill Iran's foreign minister and Parliament speaker would doom the negotiations to reach an interim peace deal and lead to renewed fighting in the Gulf region.

Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown University: ‘Academic integrity is at risk’

The renowned economist Roberto Serrano has ‘overwhelming evidence’ that his students cheated. He thinks the time has come for an in-depth debate so the technology does not signal the end of higher education

MANUEL G. PASCUAL - JUN 27, 2026 - 23:30 CDT 

The temptation to use artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat is shaking up elite universities in the United States. Professor Roberto Serrano, who is the Harrison S. Kravis University Professor of Economics at Brown University, has detected a massive fraud in one of the classes he teaches, ECON 1170, an advanced undergraduate course in mathematical economics. He has conclusive evidence that at least 50 students cheated on the March midterm exam, making it the biggest known scandal at Brown and in the entire Ivy League, which brings together the East Coast’s eight most elite private universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania.