Tehran buries Khamenei as the ceasefire text still splits Washington and its own negotiators
Crowds gathered in Tehran for a second day of funeral rites for Ali Khamenei. President Masoud Pezeshkian attended alongside members of the team currently negotiating with Washington, a pairing that underlines how thoroughly the succession and the diplomacy are now entangled. Turkish President Erdog…
Trump offered Iran an improved deal as the second round of talks teetered. The 14-point interim agreement already ends fighting on all fronts for 60 days and sets out terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but negotiators on both sides continue to argue over what the existing text actually commit…
Putin donned fatigues at a frontline military installation, vowing to take more of Ukraine. The staged visit followed a Ukrainian drone campaign that has reached deep into Russian territory, and the Kremlin used it to counter a narrative of Russian stumbling. Zelensky said Ukrainian long-range strik…
Nine bodies were recovered from Gaza rubble over 48 hours, taking the confirmed dead past seven. Israeli forces continued demolitions in Gaza City even as the ceasefire that supposedly governs the territory remains, months on, unfulfilled in practice. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Stockholm to …
Kevin Warsh took the oath as Fed chair on May 22, and the AI spending boom is already complicating his case for lower rates. Warsh argues an AI-fuelled productivity surge justifies cutting rates, but June hiring came in worse than expected, a combination the Fed has not had to reconcile before. The …
Oil drifted toward $70 a barrel as diplomatic progress between Washington and Tehran calmed markets. OPEC+ is set to approve a modest production increase this week even as Iraq threatens to withdraw from the group amid the negotiations. The easing comes despite weak manufacturing data, a sign that t…
China expanded zero-tariff treatment to cover all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic ties. The policy, in force since May 1, is being read in Brussels as Beijing hedging against the EU's own trade threats. Von der Leyen has separately warned Beijing it will act if trade reforms lag by…
A Chinese chip startup unveiled a 3D-stacking architecture designed to bypass US export controls entirely. Dongfang Suanxin, led by China Semiconductor Industry Association vice-president Wei Shaojun, is betting on packaging innovation rather than smaller transistors to close the gap with Nvidia. Th…
UCLA researchers found a hidden weakness in small cell cancers that have resisted new treatment for decades. Tumors lacking the RB gene turn out to depend heavily on a protein called E2F3 to survive; blocking it halted tumor growth in laboratory models using existing FDA-approved drugs.
Meta says its next model, internally called Watermelon, has caught up with GPT-5.5 on benchmarks. Alexandr Wang, head of Meta Superintelligence Labs, told employees the model matches OpenAI's flagship on internal tests, a claim that will be tested the moment it ships publicly rather than in a memo. …
Trump delivered a Fourth of July address from the National Mall marking America's 250th anniversary. The speech opened with soaring rhetoric on American exceptionalism before veering into an extended attack on his political opponents, drawing criticism even from outlets covering the celebration stra…
An Elon University poll found Americans entering the 250th anniversary with genuinely mixed feelings. Separately, a POLITICO poll found a majority think politics has intruded too far into places it doesn't belong — sport, celebrity culture, family life — even as the same respondents concede they rem…
Christopher Nolan's $250 million adaptation of The Odyssey is set to dominate the summer box office. Shot entirely on large-format IMAX, it casts Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland in a nearly 3,000-year-old story Nolan chose as his follow-up to Oppenheimer. "I was looking to challen…
Apple told a federal court that scraping public YouTube videos for AI training is fair game. The company argues three YouTube creators suing it failed to show Apple bypassed any DMCA access controls, since the videos were publicly viewable to begin with. The filing tests a distinction — public visib…
Kalshi posted a record $31 billion in June trading volume, driven by the World Cup. That is up from $17.9 billion the prior month, and Polymarket also hit record highs as a new entrant, Rothera, managed $2 billion of its own. The surge confirms prediction markets are no longer a niche curiosity but …
Spain face Portugal in the World Cup round of 16 on Monday. Real Madrid's Marc Cucurella has started every match of Spain's run so far, contributing two assists in the group stage win over Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile PwC's economic consensus still forecasts growth for Spain despite the Iran-linked oil s…
US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra wants American liquor back on Ontario shelves within a year. Canadian provinces pulled US booze from shelves last year in retaliation for tariffs, and Hoekstra used his Fourth of July party to press the point beneath a flypast of American F-35s. "Next year, hopefully we c…
A federal audit finds only 25% of $14 billion in grid funds has reached Puerto Rico. Nearly a decade after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island's power system, lawmakers now have documentary proof of how little of the promised money has actually arrived. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez marked the ten-…
A Connecticut man fought off a black bear for 40 minutes to save his pet goat. Joe Reda grabbed a shovel when the bear seized his goat, Cole, with his bulldog Heavy providing backup and his wife firing a rifle into the air. Cole survived; so did everyone else. The episode reflects a real spike in en…