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A satellite overview shows the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, near Qom, Iran, June 29, 2025

Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS

1: A new US intelligence assessment says that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month destroyed only one of the three sites targeted. While Fordow – Iran’s most fortified enrichment site – was mostly destroyed, the Natanz and Isfahan sites likely did not suffer the same damage. US President Donald Trump, who has said all the sites were “obliterated”, reportedly rejected a more thorough, weeks-long bombing campaign because it would have clashed with his stated objective of disentangling the US from foreign conflicts.

18: The European Union on Friday approved the 18th package of sanctions against Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The centerpiece of the measures is a new cap on the price that members can pay for Russian oil. The package, which requires unanimous approval from EU members, overcame opposition from Slovakia, which won some exceptions from wider EU plans to phase out Russian energy imports altogether.

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People walk out of the West Wing of the White House with "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" binders, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 27, 2025.

REUTERS

Trump, under GOP pressure, orders release of Epstein materials

“Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” US President Donald Trump reportedly wrote in a 2003 note to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump says the letter is “fake” and has threatened to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Journal. But after days of claiming that the Epstein case was a “hoax” – despite promising to publicize the files during his 2024 campaign – Trump instructed the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony from the Epstein prosecution. This falls short of some MAGA demands for the release of all investigative materials, but Trump is under pressure: 62% of Republicans now believe he is hiding Epstein’s “client list.” Could the scandal undermine Trump’s vice-like hold on his own party?

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Japanese Prime Minister and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is surrounded by security policemen as he meets with his supporters after he delivered a campaign speech for his party's candidate Masaaki Waki for the Upper House election in Yokohama, suburban Tokyo, Japan, on July 18, 2025.

Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO

Over the past decade, the world’s leading industrial democracies have become intensely polarized, particularly with the rise of anti-immigration populism in Europe and the United States. Japan, where the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has led governments for all but four of the past 70 years, has defied that trend. But with elections looming this weekend, opinion polls say that may be changing fast.

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Members of Syrian security forces ride on a back of a truck after Syrian troops entered the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria July 15, 2025.

REUTERS

The latest round of deadly sectarian violence in Syria started off small. Last Sunday, a Bedouin tribe reportedly robbed and attacked a Druze man at a checkpoint in southern Syria, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The incident quickly escalated into a battle that has left more than 350 people dead and drawn in not only Syrian government forces, but also Israel, which intervened forcefully under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

The clashes add to a series of sectarian flare-ups since the fall of the Assad dictatorship seven months ago. In March, forces aligned with the government massacred nearly 1,500 Alawites in response to a failed rebellion by Assad loyalists within the community, and in April, dozens were killed when the Druze clashed with security forces near Damascus.

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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hold a press conference during a visit to the Airbus factory in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Britain, July 17, 2025.

Stefan Rousseau/Pool via REUTERS

UK and Germany sign major bilateral pact

The UK and Germany have signed a wide-ranging pact that covers defense, trade and cultural exchange. The deal is historic – it’s the first ever major bilateral mutual defense agreement between the two countries – and it comes amid wider concerns about the US commitment to defense of its European allies. This is in fact the second big European defense pact that Downing Street has signed recently – it inked a nuclear defense deal with France just last week. The moves suggest that, while last month’s NATO summit ended with smiles, flattery of Trump, and big new spending pledges, Europe’s trust deficit with the US remains significant.

Senate claws back federal funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting

The US Senate on Thursday approved President Donald Trump’s request to cancel $9 billion in previously-earmarked federal funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. The House will likely follow suit before week’s end. $8 billion of the funds will be cut from USAID-related foreign assistance programs, while $1.1 billion will be pulled from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a major funder of PBS and NPR. The broadcast decision, based on accusations of liberal bias, could cripple local news in rural areas and smaller communities, where stations typically rely more heavily on federal funding.

Togo to go to the polls

The small West African nation of Togo holds municipal elections today under unusually tight security, owing to protests touched off by the recent arrest of an anti-government rapper. While nominally a democracy, Togo functions as a military dictatorship, run for decades by one family. Youth-led demonstrations calling for the ouster of Faure Gnassingbe, who has ruled since 2005, gained fresh momentum recently in opposition to constitutional changes that could enable him to rule for life. Any instability in Togo could reverberate more widely in West Africa and the Sahel.

Syrian residents in Madrid have gathered in Puerta del Sol to celebrate the fall and end of the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the Arab country on December 14, 2024.

David Canales / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

12,800: Spain replaced Germany in May as the top destination in the European Union for asylum seekers, receiving 12,800 applications that month. Germany had 9,900 asylum applicants, down from 18,700 in the same period last year, as Berlin tries to stem the influx of Syrian nationals – who represent the largest of asylum seekers – following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

69: At least 69 people have died in a fire at a shopping mall in the city of al-Kut in eastern Iraq. The origin of the fire is not yet known, but initial analysis of the site suggests that it started on the floor where cosmetics and perfumes are sold.

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 Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

President Lula
US-Brazil relations have been heating up for a bit, but President Donald Trump ratcheted up the temperature on the Lula administration a week ago when he announced that the United States would slap a 50% tariff on all Brazilian imports effective Aug 1. Trump is lashing out against South America’s largest economy with the steepest penalty yet, not over trade – Washington actually runs a surplus with Brasília, which is why the country initially faced only the 10% baseline announced on April 2 – but in retaliation for the ongoing trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro and recent court decisions regulating (mostly American) social media giants.
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