July 13, 2026 - Aorta Rupture Likely Killed Sen. Graham

The Last Amigo

I first interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham in June of 2015, two weeks after he'd entered a presidential field of sixteen. I didn't give him much of a chance. But I did my homework, and I came away taken with his story: raised above a small-town South Carolina pool hall, orphaned at 22, he adopted his 13-year-old sister and put himself through college before serving three decades in the Air Force.

That man died Saturday, at 71, and I've been wrestling with how to remember him.

Graham was, to me, one of the most interesting and most frustrating figures of our era — and you can't honestly mourn him without holding both. I admired that he was never doctrinaire: the "fire and humor" of the "Three Amigos," alongside John McCain and Joe Lieberman, two men I revered. He was the last survivor of a vanishing kind — the across-the-aisle patriot.

But Anne Applebaum, in The Atlantic, indicts that same flexibility, calling the man who once branded Donald Trump a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot" a "collaborator" who buried his ideals.

Here's my read: those weren't two men. They were one trait, seen two ways. Flexibility built the bridge-builder — and, once McCain and Lieberman were gone, left him without a floor. Yet even at the end, the internationalist held: ten trips to Ukraine, a Russia sanctions deal the day before he died.

Decent, patriotic, complicated. The alternative to his flaws was never the purity of the extremes — it was the courage to sit down with people you disagree with, and try.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham's office says a preliminary medical examiner's report found the longtime South Carolina senator died from an aortic dissection, ending a more than three-decade congressional career marked by his close alliance with President Trump.

Associated Press

Sen. Mitch McConnell said a June fall left him briefly unconscious and hospitalized with pneumonia, and that he remains in rehabilitation and physical therapy as he works to regain strength and return to the Senate.

USA Today

Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor who starred in 'Jurassic Park,' 'The Piano,' 'Dead Calm' and 'My Brilliant Career,' died Monday in Sydney at 78, his family announced on Instagram, saying he remained cancer-free after his 2022 lymphoma diagnosis.

The Hollywood Reporter

The 2026 FIFA World Cup has smashed U.S. viewing records and packed stadiums to 99.7% capacity, even after the U.S. men's team's 4-1 loss to Belgium amid a red-card controversy, raising hopes the sport's popularity in America can outlast the tournament.

Axios

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says Democrats need a major ideological showdown ahead of 2028, but has so far avoided directly confronting the party's ascendant socialist wing as he positions himself as a potential unifying presidential contender.

Axios

Democrats are increasingly recruiting blue-collar, military, and working-class male candidates, like Ohio ironworker and Democratic House candidate Brian Poindexter, in hopes that a message of authenticity and traditional masculinity can help reconnect the party with male voters who have drifted toward Republicans.

The Atlantic

Meghan McCain reflects on Senator Lindsey Graham's decades-long friendship with her father, John McCain, remembering the last surviving member of the "Three Amigos" as a loyal friend whose humor, warmth and devotion to public service shaped her family's life.

The Washington Post

The Wall Street Journal offers a quiz to test your views against a recent WSJ-NORC survey. See how your values compare with other Americans as attitudes toward traditional national identity continue to shift.

The Wall Street Journal

A 4-year-old North Carolina boy's daily waves to neighbors blossomed into an unlikely multigenerational community, bringing comfort to his own life while inspiring a neighborhood to become a true village.

CBS News

Michael Cohen, once the key witness whose testimony helped secure Donald Trump's criminal conviction, has quietly rebuilt ties with the president through private meetings and public criticism of the prosecutors who pursued the case, a remarkable reversal in one of Trump's most contentious relationships.

The New York Times