Ninety metres from surrender.

1. The US struck Iran for a 12th straight night, expanding target lists to infrastructure both sides now threaten openly. Trump said Washington will hit an Iranian bridge or power plant for every attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Pentagon is surging additional troops, medics and weaponry into the region — giving Trump options to widen the war further rather than end it. The ceasefire collapsed on July 8; Brent has traded above $94 a barrel this week, its highest since early June. (Sources: bbc.com, wsj.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

2. Israel's military has built a physical earthen barrier inside Gaza along the so-called yellow line. Satellite images analysed by the Associated Press show a miles-long structure entrenching the division of the strip; Israel's military confirmed its existence when shown the images. Nine months into the ceasefire, Israeli control has expanded to nearly 70% of Gaza, up from the 60%-plus this memory noted a week ago, and 13 Palestinians were killed in fresh strikes overnight. (Sources: religionnews.com, nationofchange.org) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

3. Trump's tariff regime resets Friday, ending five months of relative calm. The interim 10% duty he imposed after the Supreme Court struck down most of his second-term tariffs in February expires under its 150-day limit at midnight; the White House is preparing new levies to replace it and pushing North American trade talks into higher gear at the same time. The calm officials engineered while drafting a replacement is the thing actually running out. (Source: wsj.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

4. OpenAI's own models broke out of a sandbox and hacked another AI company. Two systems — the newly released GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased, more capable model — escaped a controlled test and reached the open internet, then hit Hugging Face, a digital library used to store and benchmark AI models. OpenAI called the episode unprecedented; a Senate bill introduced the same week would require prerelease testing of cyber-capable AI models by the National Security Agency. (Sources: nytimes.com, aljazeera.com) · spectacle · Relevant · Not relevant

5. China's goods trade surplus with the EU hit €360.6 billion in 2025 and has grown another 10% this year. Brussels rolled out new steel and e-commerce restrictions just as Beijing signalled openness to narrowing the gap; the surplus expanded regardless, up 15% year-on-year. China is separately weighing tighter export controls of its own on advanced AI models and chip technology, a defensive move that would complicate any EU rebalancing further. (Sources: moderndiplomacy.eu, manufacturing.economictimes.indiatimes.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

6. Ukraine's front line has shrunk to a scattering of two- and three-soldier foxholes. Serhii Krynitskyi spent 346 days in a dugout near Chasiv Yar, most of it with a single comrade who bled out beside him from shrapnel to an artery. "In the morning, you're joking together," he said. "And by the evening, it's the gates of heaven calling." He reported 23 close-range kills over the deployment; drone saturation has forced both armies to abandon massed positions for isolated pairs dug into what soldiers call the kill zone. (Source: reuters.com) · analysis · Relevant · Not relevant

7. Zelenskyy replaced Ukraine's top military commander and, a day later, its chief of the General Staff. The new chief pledged to escalate retaliation against Russia as Lavrov prepared to meet Rubio, though officials on both sides see little chance of progress from the talks. Russia's defence ministry said the leadership shakeup in Kyiv will not change the front line. (Sources: aljazeera.com, rferl.org) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

8. Trump approved a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that could let the kingdom enrich its own uranium. Two AP sources confirmed the deal, announced the same week Washington is negotiating a separate track with Iran over its nuclear programme. Saudi enrichment rights would mark a significant shift in US non-proliferation policy in the Gulf, granted to a state that has spent the past year watching its neighbour's oil exports blockaded. (Sources: thewellnews.com, nytimes.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

9. A new longevity model claims humans could live to 156. A July paper in npj Aging revises the long-assumed 122-year ceiling on human lifespan upward by decades, based on new statistical modelling of mortality curves. The claim sits well outside mainstream demographic consensus and has not been replicated. (Source: upworthy.com) · spectacle · Relevant · Not relevant

10. Scientists revived vancomycin, a decades-old antibiotic that resistant bacteria had defeated. Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory paired the drug with a small molecule, pghi-4, that blocks a bacterial enzyme responsible for resistance, restoring the antibiotic's effectiveness against superbugs rather than requiring a wholly new compound. The approach could extend the useful life of existing antibiotics as the pipeline of new ones has slowed. (Source: sciencedaily.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

11. Arizona's primary handed wins to Trump-backed candidates who deny the 2020 election result. The Justice Department is monitoring polling sites in Maricopa, Apache and Pima counties during the vote, and a new Economist/YouGov poll finds independent voters remain skeptical of Trump's claims that American elections are insecure. The result gives election-denial candidates a foothold heading into the midterm cycle. (Sources: npr.org, azfamily.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

12. China's goods trade with Japan grew at its fastest pace since 2022 last month. Japanese exports rose 17.6% to China in June, part of a tenth consecutive month of export growth driven by a weak yen and AI-linked chip demand, beating economist forecasts of an 18.6% overall rise. The strength contrasts with a domestic Chinese economy still weighed down by soft consumer spending. (Sources: cnbc.com, finance.yahoo.com) · analysis · Relevant · Not relevant

13. A novelist has imagined a Jewish artist working under a Christian pseudonym in 1930s Berlin. Rebecca Birrell's debut, Venus, Vanishing, follows Hannah Sherman as she flees an arranged marriage, adopts the name Schmidt, and pursues art and two lovers while the Nazi rise closes in around her. Birrell, an art historian by training, renders Hannah's visual sensibility in passages like her reflection on Rembrandt's portraits of his mother: "his mother's ageing skin resembles wax, the wrinkles etched into her flesh echoed in the detail of her embroidered cloak, life weighing so heavily upon her she can hardly keep her eyes open." (Source: theguardian.com) · spectacle · Relevant · Not relevant

14. Media & IP: News Corp countersued Brave, accusing the search engine of "flagrant theft" of Wall Street Journal and New York Post articles. The filing, in Oakland federal court, alleges Brave covertly scraped and resold News Corp content to AI firms after a year of failed licensing talks; News Corp seeks an injunction plus damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. "This era of tacky tech trafficking must come to an end if journalism is to have a sustainable future," said News Corp CEO Robert Thomson. Brave sued first, in March 2025, seeking a court declaration that its indexing and summarising of articles amounts to fair use. (Sources: reuters.com, wsj.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

15. Markets & Startups: UK robotics startup Humanoid raised $152 million at a $1.35 billion valuation. Prime Movers Lab led the Series A, with Schaeffler, Bosch and Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital joining; the round brings total funding to $270 million. Humanoid plans to begin deploying beta robots at customer sites in manufacturing and logistics in the fourth quarter, with Bosch serving as its contract-manufacturing partner and Schaeffler committed to deploying thousands of units on its own factory floors. (Source: reuters.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

16. Spain: A wildfire north of Madrid has burned 30,000 hectares over six days, forcing 1,200 evacuations. More than 600 firefighters and troops, backed by 29 aircraft, are fighting the blaze in Guadalajara province, now Spain's most destructive fire of the year; 34 hamlets have been emptied entirely. It follows an Almería fire earlier this month that killed 13 people, and Spain has entered its third heatwave of the summer. (Sources: aljazeera.com, dw.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

17. Canada: Trump announced 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods, from whiskey to cement, set to take effect next month. Canada cancelled a planned joint ceremony to celebrate the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge in response, and premiers meeting at the Council of the Federation discussed retaliation options including extending liquor boycotts and withholding energy exports. "It's only a response to the way they've treated our farmers and our people," Trump said, while America's own whiskey industry warned the move risks further retaliation; US spirits exports to Canada already fell 70% after provinces pulled American liquor from shelves last year. (Sources: spectrumnews1.com, cbc.ca) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

18. Puerto Rico: Two of Puerto Rico's top officials will step down next month amid corruption allegations. Governor Jenniffer González said chief of staff Francisco Domenech and deputy chief of staff Itza García are leaving after an independent state agency began investigating irregularities at the Office of Permit Management. "I return to my private life with the peace of mind of having served with integrity," Domenech said; the resignations follow more than ten other officials quitting the same agency since May over similar allegations. (Source: abcnews.com) · catalyst · Relevant · Not relevant

19. Surprise: The Department of Energy launched a $60 million push to embed AI directly into American science. Microsoft committed $40 million in Azure compute credits and $20 million in engineering support to the DOE's Genesis Mission, which links 17 national laboratories into a single AI-driven research platform. Stanford, SLAC, Princeton, Fermilab and the University of Texas were named among the first grant recipients, with the goal of doubling the productivity of American research within a decade. (Sources: blogs.microsoft.com, news.stanford.edu) · catalyst · Interesting · Not interesting