Six Months into a Four Week War

Here are the news stories that deserve your attention for the week of August 23, 2026:

#1) War on Iran: Six Months Later

BREAKING: Just before publishing, AP and various outlets are reporting that the US hit Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz. It's the first military action in weeks, the AP says.

As of Friday, we were six months into a war that the Trump administration said would take "four to six weeks."

Thousands are dead, the US weapons arsenal is dangerously depleted, and the money to pay troops and fund the war is running dry.

The 60-day Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran — during which both sides were supposed to negotiate a permanent end to the hostilities — lapsed in mid-August. There are no active negotiations between the US and Iran.

President Trump told Al Jazeera this week that he's "not in a hurry" and has "no time schedule" for returning to the negotiating table.

"We are winning very big," Trump said. "They've got massive inflation, their economy is falling apart, they're treating their people very badly, they are killing many, many protesters. I have no time schedule; whatever it takes." One might wonder: Is he talking about Iran or the US?

But not to worry, there's a plan, apparently.

• New Strategery. Instead of continuing to lose an air war, the Trump administration's new plan is to impose "secondary sanctions" — to punish other countries and entities for doing business with Iran. The US has already sanctioned Iran in a campaign known as "Operation Economic Fury."
  • This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the plan, calling it Operation Economic Outcast. "Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone… The clock just started ticking," Bessent said.
  • Well, kind of. The government's plan, apparently, is to tell about 60 countries they have a deadline to stop dealing with Iran — and to impose secondary sanctions on them if they don't. Asked why the US doesn't just sanction them now, Bessent said: "Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"
  • Iran's top trading partner is China, which buys roughly 80% of Iran's oil. Bessent said China would not be immune from sanctions. But, do we think Trump et al are going to pick a fight with China? No, and China knows it. Beijing buys nearly $15 billion in goods from Iran and sells almost $18 billion back. That's a lotta billions.
  • China responded, saying it would take "all necessary measures" to protect its interests. Adding: "Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted."
  • Complicating matters: "Financial and trade experts say the administration is well aware of the risk of Chinese retaliation before a scheduled summit next month between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. China could strike back through financial markets or with limits on its export of critical minerals," The Guardian reports.
  • Iraq, the UAE, Türkiye and Afghanistan round out Iran's top five trading partners. In total, 112 countries and territories buy $56 billion worth of Iranian exports, Al Jazeera reports. Pakistan and Oman — two countries helping broker talks between the US and Iran — rank 7th and 9th among buyers. Is the US going to sanction them too?
  • Iran's response: "No honorable state that values its sovereignty and national interests will accept the normalization of such gross lawlessness and systematic bullying."
• Could this work? "Tehran has proven more resilient during this conflict than Washington expected, analysts say, and new sanctions will likely make things more difficult for Iranians, but are unlikely to force Iran to reach an agreement with the US," Al Jazeera reports. "'I think they will likely be quite impactful and painful for the Iranian people,' Trita Parsi, the head of the Washington, DC-based Quincy Institute," told the outlet. "'But translating that pain into a shift in their policy is a completely different thing.'"

• Weapons stockpiles. The US is facing a “beyond critical” shortage of Patriot missile interceptors in Europe because so many were moved to the Middle East for the Iran and Ukraine wars, the AP reports citing one US and one NATO official. The Pentagon denies the characterization. Whether it’s true or not — there’s evidence Russia’s Vladimir Putin believes it is, and that’s not good.
  • Earlier this month, the WSJ reported that a recent US intelligence analysis suggests Putin could “test NATO’s resolve with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years… ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion.”
  • This week, Tthe Washington Post reports 🎁 that a new CIA intelligence assessment concluded that Putin views the US as “weakened” by the war on Iran and could use this time to stage another attack.
    • “In the event of a Russian ballistic missile assault on, for example, a military headquarters or power plant, NATO could be in a similar position to Patriot-starved Ukraine and be forced ‘to take punch after punch in the mouth,’ [a] U.S. defense official said. In Europe, the American military ‘definitely’ does not have enough Patriots to stop any possible sustained ballistic missile attack and would have ‘very limited’ capability to defend against a single ballistic missile strike or a stray Russian missile that goes off course, the U.S. official said.”
• The matter is so serious, that CIA Chief John Ratcliff made a rare, top-secret, unannounced trip to RUSSIA, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Sources tell the paper that Ratcliffe went to warn them not to attack NATO countries. Per the Journal: “The last known visit by a CIA director to Moscow was in November 2021, when William Burns, who led the agency under former President Joe Biden, warned Putin not to attack Ukraine.” That obviously worked out so well.
• And, the trip was so secretive that even top White House aides didn’t know. The WSJ reports that Trump “personally dispatched” Ratcliffe and “kept trusted aides… in the dark” about the trip.
• Trump told reporters this week he isn’t worried Putin will do anything to NATO allies but European officials worry that “Russia is waging an escalating hybrid war against Ukraine’s European allies, which have been targeted with drones, cruise missiles, cyberattacks and even explosive-filled packages—the kind of moves that could spark a crisis.”
• Trump and Russian officials claimed the trip was "semi routine."
• Troop and military impact. American troops continue to suffer because of a disorganized, unplanned, and illegal war run by people who either have no idea what they're doing or don't care. Or both.
  • A 19-year-old Navy sailor who jumped off the USS Abraham Lincoln in a suicide attempt could face disciplinary action, MS NOW reports. His family says he was struggling, had been denied paternity leave after the recent birth of his second child and was offered no mental health counseling while hospitalized for five days after his suicide attempt.
  • Remember: The Lincoln set a record for the longest deployment (250+ days) without a port call. Sailors reported mental health problems and reported squalid conditions, including moldy showers and food shortages. The ship is now heading home after a port stop in Thailand, and will be swapped out for another carrier after troops' families spoke publicly about what their loved ones were enduring. Not because anyone in charge maybe planned to give them a break.
  • The number of troops filing papers to get formally discharged from the military as conscientious objectors has "skyrocketed," MS NOW reports. The troops cite the war on Iran and the alleged drug boat strikes as leading reasons.
    • "Mike Prysner, who runs a hotline to help service members file as conscientious objectors at the Center on Conscience and War, said his group has seen applications increase by six times their normal rate since the start of Operation Epic Fury against Iran in late February, adding that the rate right now is higher than at any point in the past 25 years. In a typical year, Prysner said CCW works with around 50 conscientious objectors, but the organization has already taken on about 140 applicants since the start of the war with Iran."
• Behind the scenes, "firings and feuds" have left the Army "essentially rudderless," The New York Times reports 🎁. In April, Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George and has not replaced him. Hegseth has forced out other senior leaders, and now Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll — the branch's top civilian leader — is expected to leave soon, too.
  • "[Hegseth] has fired or forced out a half-dozen senior officers — a generation of the Army's most combat-hardened leaders — thinning the service's top ranks for the next several years, officials said... A long-term worry is that the firings send a message that officers who provide frank military advice or fail ideological litmus tests have no place in a force that is supposed to be nonpartisan, military and congressional officials said."
• Money probs. A lack of planning always contributes to money problems, and war is no different.
  • The Pentagon is raiding other accounts to pay troops as it faces cash shortages caused by the prolonged war on Iran, The Guardian's Aram Roston reports, citing official documents and government and military sources. Hegseth asked Congress last month for more money, citing future shortfalls. That money has not been approved.
    • "A navy official who was briefed on how the service is planning to address the shortfalls said money is shifted around in imaginative ways. 'The money for payroll,' he said, 'was robbed to pay for overseas contingencies and is being backfilled by money that hasn't been spent. They are backfilling payroll so we get enough money in our paycheck.'"
  • The Pentagon says it's "actively managing its resources to meet current pay obligations on time."
• Strait of Hormuz. The US is still blockading Iranian ports and claims the Strait of Hormuz is open. The traffic data says otherwise.
  • Energy Secretary Chris Wright says more than 15 million barrels left the strait on Tuesday. Commercial trackers put the flow at "roughly 2 million to 6 million barrels a day," The Wall Street Journal reports.
  • As of last week, about five ships a day were crossing the strait, Al Jazeera reports. Before the war it was about 100 — and nearly all of the traffic is moving under US military escort. If the strait was "open", they wouldn't need a military escort.
  • Meanwhile, Oman, Qatar and Pakistan are meeting with Iran to find ways to reopen the shipping route. Qatar — a US ally — says it appealed to Iran to respect international law and reopen the strait.
  • Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned the US that while diplomacy "isn't impossible… pressure doesn't work. The U.S. should build trust, speak respectfully, acknowledge our rights, and uphold commitments."
  • There's no final word on what happens next, but NBC News reports that Iran has drafted a list of conditions for reopening the strait.

#2) Gaza and the West Bank

I could write you pages of news from Palestine this week alone. But nothing I watched or read this week — or in the last few weeks — paints a more desperate, horrific and, sadly, accurate picture than what Athena Rayburn, executive director of the Association of International Development Agencies, told the UN Security Council this week.

She describes the situation on the ground, what aid groups are telling her, and how Trump's Board of Peace is "failing" as it does "nothing" except "further entrench Israel's unlawful presence" in Gaza.

Rayburn told the UNSC that Israel continues to restrict goods into Gaza. For example, Israel won't allow in scissors, crutches or prosthetic limbs — essential medical tools. It is barring specialized medical professionals from entering Gaza. It has banned watermelon and onions.

If you take in one thing about Gaza this week, watch an excerpt of Rayburn's remarks here.

In other news from and on Gaza:

• Palestinian civil defense workers recovered 233 bodies — including 73 children and 106 women — from under the rubble of 20 homes destroyed by Israel, Drop Site News reports. Gaza's Civil Defense division says "Israeli restrictions on heavy machinery and rescue equipment are slowing efforts to reach the remaining bodies and return them to their families."
• Israel has killed an estimated 1,303 people since the so-called October 2025 ceasefire. At least 73,438 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023.
• The UN says half of families in Gaza ran out of food at least once in the past month, and 20% say they're eating just one meal a day. Under the October 2025 ceasefire deal, Israel committed to allow in 600 trucks a day of goods and humanitarian aid. It has averaged 217.
• Because Israel continues to restrict humanitarian aid, Gaza's hospitals are at a breaking point. Al Shifa Hospital engineer Ahmed Younis tells Drop Site that "most of the equipment at the hospital—diagnostic devices, laboratory equipment, X-ray machines, echocardiography machines, and ultrasound machines—have been refurbished in this way. 'But the equipment is not operating at the level of efficiency it is supposed to,' he warned. 'The MRI machines and other radiology equipment, such as CT scanners and lithotripsy machines, were completely destroyed. Not a single one is currently operational at Al-Shifa hospital. There are no CT scanners, no MRI machines, no catheterization machine, and no other radiology equipment.'"
• Hamas leader Osama Hamdan says the group told Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in a recent meeting that if Israel won't honor its commitments under the ceasefire deal, Hamas won't either.
• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is threatening to kill Palestinian children for flying kites, because the kites bring Israelis bad memories.
  • "Several kites not carrying incendiary devices were reported to have drifted into southern Israeli communities over the last month. The incidents have evoked memories of incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza in 2018, in what Palestinians said was a protest against the Israeli blockade of the enclave," Al Jazeera reports.
  • "Based on the instructions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and my instructions, the Israeli army will use all necessary tools, including evacuating Gaza residents from any area or neighborhood from which [kite and balloon] launches are carried out," Katz said. "If the launches continue - powerful actions will be taken to put an end to the phenomenon. A balloon and kite shall be treated the same as a drone - with or without explosives."
  • Israel bans various toys from entering Gaza, and what's available is expensive: Barbies can cost $70, a football as much as $50, Truthout reports. Kite flying has always been a favorite pastime of children in the enclave, and kites are cheap and easy to make.
• Nochi Mendel, the Israeli military commander responsible for the triple-tap strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers in April 2024, says he's "not sorry." "Mendel said that his main disappointment is that he was dismissed by the Israeli military after the strike," Truthout reports.

In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem:

• For the first time in about 10 months, Israel carried out an airstrike in the West Bank, killing at least three people in Jenin, per Reuters, which also reports that Hamas confirmed one of its members was among the dead. Drop Site and Reuters report that the Israeli military blocked ambulances from reaching the scene and detained paramedics. A Drop Site News contributor on the ground said two missiles hit a home. Netanyahu praised the attack with glee on X: "Shabbat shalom!"
• Israel is holding at least 370 Palestinian children in notoriously horrific Israeli prisons, according to a new report from the Palestinian Center for Prisoners Advocacy. At the end of 2025, an estimated 180 children were being held without charge under "administrative detention" — effectively hostages.

"Testimonies from children who have experienced detention repeatedly describe beatings during arrest and transfer, insults and threats, being kept restrained for hours, and being denied food, water, or access to a bathroom before interrogation even begins."

• For the sixth time this year, Israel raided the Qalandiya Vocational Training Center in occupied East Jerusalem — Palestinian territory, Al Jazeera reports. "But this time it was different, with Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir accompanying the police during the incursion. 'Here sat the director of UNRWA, and now I sit in his place,' he said."
  • The 70-year-old UNRWA school graduates about 340 Palestinians a year into fields like carpentry and interior design. The military has withdrawn but left drones hovering overhead after expelling the school's personnel.
  • Israel's Foreign Ministry claims UNRWA "occupied it unlawfully," and says the site will now become a boys' high school. Israel closed six other UNRWA schools last year, attended by an estimated 800 Palestinian children.
  • Several countries, including Poland and Qatar, called out Israel, noting that the move violates international law and the UN charter. The State of Palestine said Israel's move "represents an attempt to dismantle the mechanisms established by the international community to provide refugees with relief, education, healthcare, and protection."
• Israeli forces detained Palestinian journalist Mohammed Awad at his home in Ramallah. Awad, who has worked for AFP and the US news site Drop Site News, was ordered held without charge for four months by the Israeli military, his lawyer told Drop Site. The Palestinian Prisoners' Society says Israel is currently holding at least 39 other journalists.
• A Palestinian woman and an NBC News crew were attacked and injured by masked Israeli settlers on Saturday, the outlet reported. A spokesperson for Netanyahu claims the suspects will be arrested and "brought to justice." But statements like that are usually meant to placate an outraged public in the moment; settlers are rarely held accountable afterward. Take the Israeli settler who attacked a French Catholic nun, all of it caught on camera. He was acquitted this week.

#3) Trump's Midterm Interference

There are about 65 days until the midterm elections in November. It's been a little quieter than usual on this front, but that just makes me worry that some bigger shoe is about to drop. In the meantime, a couple developments this week:

• On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a Trump EO restricting mail-in voting could take effect while lawsuits filed by a group of states and voting rights organizations challenging its legality move through the courts.
  • Trump's EO called on the DHS to build a list of people the government considers eligible voters, and ordered the USPS to deliver mail-in ballots only to those people. About one-third of voters vote by mail.
  • The Court said the plaintiffs had no legal basis to challenge it because they hadn't been harmed by it – yet; the USPS hadn't published any plans to carry it out.
  • On Thursday, the USPS published a plan. States and voting rights organizations filed a new wave of lawsuits and a federal judge agreed with them, ruling that Trump's EO would impose a "significant risk" of disenfranchisement.
• "U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani found that states don't have the time or money to design and produce new ballots, update their systems and train officials to upload voter data to the Postal Service in the short time before the midterm elections," the AP reports. The first mail-in ballots are scheduled to go out on September 4.
• The Trump administration says it will appeal Talwani's ruling. So what now? Democracy Docket: "The Supreme Court is likely to have the final say about whether Trump's order is in effect this fall. But with the clock ticking down, the confusion among voters and election administrators caused by the uncertainty over the order's fate is likely to have a suppressive effect of its own. And for Trump and his team, that's clearly part of the point."
• The DOJ said this week it has sent 80 election monitors to primaries in seven states this season. Wyoming's Gov. Mark Gordon – a Republican – said he was concerned that the DOJ monitors were "aggressive" and said he's asked his state's attorney general to look into it, NBC News reports. The DOJ says it plans on deploying 1,000 election monitors in November.
• Also troubling, Democracy Docket reports that the DOJ has hired David Michael Levin who "was charged with three felonies in 2016 after Florida investigators said he used a cyberattack to obtain credentials, then entered restricted portions of a county elections website, and separately accessed the state Division of Elections website" so he could investigate "the integrity of elections."
  • Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) sent a letter to Blanche asking him to explain Levin's hiring and why he was sent to monitor Minnesota's August primary.

• ICE arrested 49,571 people in July, the highest monthly total of Trump's second term, according to new government data analyzed by the Deportation Data Project. And, for the first time, a majority of them, 51%, had no criminal record at all, The Guardian calculated. That breaks out to about 800 people with no criminal records arrested every day in July, CBS News reports.
  • Overall, arrest rates spiked in every state, The New York Times 🎁 reports. Florida and Texas have the most, with 380 and 230 a day respectively, up from about 100 a day in the spring. "ICE appears to be hitting new arrest records in a couple of ways: The agency has hired thousands more agents — growing to 29,000 employees in June, up from about 21,000 when Mr. Trump took office, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management. And it has relied more on state and local law enforcement partners."

"This latest data confirms what attorneys and immigrant advocates have been seeing across the US – although the administration has moved away from the high-profile, militarized raids that came to define its immigration enforcement approach last year, it is quietly ramping up its operations." - The Guardian

• Two weeks ago, I wrote about dwindling U.S. oil reserves — drained by the war with Iran and the supply disruption caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In March, as the US announced the release of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Energy Secretary Chris Wright promised to replace them with about 200 million barrels "within the next year — 20% more barrels than will be drawn down — and at no cost to the taxpayer." He offered no details on how.
  • This week, Trump announced that the US had entered an agreement with a private company to create a new oil company that would invest in rebuilding 17 of Venezuela's oil fields. In return, the US would get majority control of the new venture, which would have rights to develop fields containing about 65 billion barrels of proven reserves. Venezuela says the deal could generate about $209 billion in tax revenue.
  • "The deal cements the United States' long-term dominance over Venezuela, which has become a neo-colony since the U.S. military's capture of Maduro in January, when Trump vowed to 'run' the country and exploit its oil wealth. The agreement now stands to lock in the United States as Venezuela's primary oil partner for generations," The Washington Post writes. 🎁
  • The private company at the center of the arrangement is controlled by a Venezuelan businessman who has become a key intermediary between the Trump administration and Venezuela's new government. And he has a complicated history.
  • His name is Alejandro Betancourt López. Betancourt controls North American Blue Energy Partners, one of Venezuela's largest private oil producers, and has emerged as the Trump administration's go-between for bringing American companies into Venezuela's oil industry, The New York Times reports. 🎁
  • Betancourt has "been the subject of investigations in multiple countries into alleged money laundering and faces a Swiss warrant for his arrest," according to The Washington Post — which also reported that the administration intervened on his behalf "to resolve the case in Switzerland in a way that would avoid criminal charges and end travel restrictions against" him. Given this administration's history of corruption and grift: who is Betancourt, why was he chosen, and what does he stand to gain?
  • Also, the administration makes it sound like the Venezuelan reserves will help replenish America's depleted oil supply and bring down gas prices. But any meaningful benefit could take years, especially if the new company has to rebuild the fields' infrastructure first. And the full agreement has not been made public, leaving major questions about who will finance the rebuild, who controls the oil, and how the profits will be divided
• Oh, Canada. Last month, after trade talks with Canada broke down, Trump announced he was imposing 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including athletic equipment and agricultural products. They took effect August 22. This week, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney announced he would match them "dollar for dollar" — on US imports like aluminum and furniture, beginning September 8. It would also raise the cost of things like toilet paper and cheese — a bad combination to pay more for, especially if you shouldn't be eating cheese.
  • "The US imported $328m worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, according to the World Bank, making it by far the largest exporter of the product to the US. Retailers including Costco source much of their paper products from the country," The Guardian reports.
  • Canada did change its mind on Maine lobster, dropping seafood tariffs because the two countries' supply chains are connected and taxing one would hit the other.
  • All this made Trump mad, and he said he'll impose a 50% tariff on Canadian autos and parts starting in January. Then, in his pièce de résistance, Trump signed an Executive Order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America — which, as many have noted, turns the mnemonic for the Great Lakes from HOMES to SHAME. The EO governs how the federal government refers to the lake but, like the Gulf of Mexico, we'll keep calling it what we damn well please. Well, except Google Maps; they've already given in.
• The US military killed another four people in strikes on boats this week — one in the Caribbean, one in the eastern Pacific. The Trump administration has now killed 227 people in 68 strikes on vessels it accuses of trafficking drugs, the AP reports. The government has offered no evidence for its claims, experts say the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings, and the administration is now looking for ways to extend the campaign from sea to land in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras.
• The Ebola outbreak in Congo has spread to two more areas and "is spreading at an unprecedented speed, faster than efforts to track and slow it," the AP reports.

• President Trump and his family made $1.4 billion in crypto profits while their investors — including everyday Americans — are $4.7 billion underwater, a new report from Citizen.org finds.
• Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal known as the "spy sheikh" who serves as the UAE's national security adviser and is the brother of the country's president, holds a 49% interest — worth more than $500 million — in a new Trump family crypto company, The Wall Street Journal reports.
  • "Ethics experts said the timing of the new banking venture is significant because the expansion of Trump's business relationship with a foreign government official is taking place while he is a sitting president—and at a time when his administration was actively negotiating with the U.A.E. over its access to U.S. artificial-intelligence chips."
• Trump made more than 1,000 stock trades in June alone including in energy companies that would be impacted by the war on Iran. Trump claims his portfolio is managed by a third party. Trump's gains "far [outpace] the profits that prior presidents have made while in office, many of whom sought to minimize any personal investments that could be seen as a potential conflict of interest," CNN writes.
• Last week, SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts lifted an injunction on Trump's $600 million ballroom project, meaning Trump can keep building while the Court weighs the underlying legal issues.
  • In court filings reviewed by The Washington Post, 🎁 the administration argued the project will also include an underground bunker, hospital and shelter for government officials. Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told the court the facility "serves continuity-of-government interests by ensuring that the President and senior national security staff are able to operate from a protected facility during any attack on the nation's capital." Except we already have one of those.
  • The Post reported this week 🎁, citing former government officials, that the Obama administration secretly built an underground bunker able to survive a nuclear blast and hold dozens of people for weeks. After 9/11, the government concluded that the Presidential Emergency Operations Center sitting just below the East Wing — which Trump demolished to make way for the ballroom — would not be enough in a major terrorist attack. The White House argues the new project will also include a drone landing zone to protect the White House.
• The Trump administration has banned refugees except white South African Afrikaners, falsely claiming they are victims of a white genocide. Now the government wants to nearly double the taxpayer money given to each of them on resettlement, from $2,400 to $4,500 — the most ever offered, The Washington Post reports. This probably has something to do with Bari Weiss' Free Press reporting that the Afrikaners felt "neglected" by the Trump administration.
• The Trump administration wants the National Park Service to facilitate the sale of a parcel of land in Yosemite to a private developer, NOTUS reports, citing four sources and official documents. The land, in California, would be used to build a private road connecting the developer's adjacent 83 acres to the park — "exceptionally rare private access to a park that is otherwise almost entirely buffered by national forests... If the deal goes through, the Trump administration would be breaking with 150 years of American precedent at the birthplace of the national park system. The federal government has historically strived to expand the crown-jewel national parks, not give up land within them."
• Just weeks after screaming about indicting Dr. Anthony Fauci for pleading the Fifth during his recent congressional testimony, Republicans — led by Sen. Rand Paul (KY) — are "skeptical that the current approach is procedurally sound enough to indict him," The Wall Street Journal reports. Paul bypassed the normal process for a contempt vote, using a workaround that lets Vice President JD Vance sign off on a referral to the Justice Department which would trigger an investigation. Vance's office hadn't received anything until this week, when the WSJ asked about its status. The Journal reports that Trump "hasn't determined whether he wants the Justice Department to act on the referral, according to people familiar with the discussions, who say the issue hasn't been a high priority for the president."
• A Trump-appointed federal judge declined to approve a Justice Department request to toss out former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's conviction. Bannon served four months for refusing to testify before Congress about January 6, the AP reports. The judge said the DOJ failed to make a good argument, but is free to keep trying and refile.
• The Kennedy Center saga continues. A federal court ordered Trump's name removed from the building in May because it violated the 1964 law that names it. After the name came down, the center's Trump-appointed board decided to add an inscription instead, reading: "…renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump" — Trump's name on the building without officially renaming it.
  • Now a federal judge has asked the DOJ to pause those plans while he considers a legal objection from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH). The DOJ argues that without Trump's name, it can't raise the money to renovate the building — and that an unrenovated building could fall into disrepair and, gasp, might have to be demolished. In reality, revenue plunged by nearly $100 million after Trump's name went up, because performers and groups didn't want to appear there anymore. You can't sell tickets to watch nothing.
  • Beatty's attorneys told the court: "'In plain English, Defendants have not-so-subtly said: 'What a nice Kennedy Center you have here. What a shame should something happen to it.' This is a breathtaking assault on the rule of law. It is delusional. And it must stop,'" Deadline reports.
• The State Department has removed Syria from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, leaving only Cuba, Iran and North Korea. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has become an unlikely White House ally and met with Trump at the White House last year. In practice, sanctions are lifted and American companies and investors can do business in the country.
  • Reuters: "The delisting also followed months of negotiations between Damascus and Washington over Syria's economic and foreign policy. Reuters reported this month that Damascus agreed to drastically reduce imports of Russian oil during discussions with Washington over lifting the terrorism designation, according to three sources familiar with the talks."
• The Secret Service has put three officials, including its chief spokesperson, on leave pending a misconduct investigation, The Washington Post reports. No word on what it's about.
• The Trump administration is planning to revoke up to 200,000 visas of people seeking asylum in the US, the AP reports. "If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges."
• Democrats appointed three pro-Israel lawmakers to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (FL) will be the party's ranking member; if Democrats win the House in November, he would chair it. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) and Wesley Bell (MO) also got seats. The committee shapes US foreign policy, including oversight of the US relationship with Israel, which is committing genocide against Palestinians with the help of US aid. "Ben Rhodes, who served as the deputy national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, was among those lambasting Tuesday's selections, which he called a 'giant f* you from Democratic leadership to Democratic voters,'" Al Jazeera reports.
• Days before the announcement, The New York Times reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who undoubtedly drove the decision to put Moskowitz, Wasserman Schultz and Bell in those roles, and who would become Speaker if Democrats win in November — met privately in recent weeks with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also running negotiations with Iran, Israel and Russia (none of which are going well). "Through aides, neither man would comment on the session, which was described by one person with knowledge of it as a broad conversation on a range of topics. Still, its timing underscored that those around Mr. Trump were well aware of the likelihood of a Democratic-led House, and trying to foster as much of a working relationship as possible before any change. Mr. Jeffries is in line to be the speaker, were Democrats to win the majority."

• A federal judge ruled the Trump administration can't deport students for criticizing Israel or expressing support for Palestinians. Plaintiffs including Stanford's campus newspaper sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, saying they feared deportation. In her ruling, federal judge Noel Wise said the government was violating the Constitution: "Stated plainly, in the United States, freedom of speech belongs to the people. It is not the government's to take." More from Al Jazeera here.
• A federal judge rejected Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell's request to overturn her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction. Maxwell is serving 20 years after being convicted on five felony counts. The judge said she had not "made a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right," ABC News reports. The Supreme Court has already declined to hear the case, so this may be the end of her legal options.
• "A federal judge has struck down a Texas law restricting drag shows, ruling that it was unconstitutional and telling those offended by the performances: 'Just don't go,'" The Washington Post reports.
• Trump won't attend a 25th 9/11 anniversary event at Ground Zero because the organizers haven't allowed political speeches since 2012, The New York Times reports. "The National September 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, has worked rigorously to keep the venue nonpartisan and focused on the solemnity of the day." So the President of the United States will go to the Pentagon instead. Vance and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will attend.
• Meta will pay up to $18 billion — pocket change — to settle lawsuits filed by 29 states accusing it of "undermining children's mental health," the AP reports. More coverage from Tech Dirt and Politico.

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