July 30, 2026 | U.S. - Iran War Enters New Phase

I saw a funny headline at The Hill: “5 Takeaways on Fauci’s Hostile Senate Hearing.” Five? There was only one takeaway: our system is broken.

Fauci took the Fifth — 111 times, according to Fox News — explaining: “Given Senator Paul’s obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this Committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars.’”

You’d think that would have ended the hearing. But no — theater of the absurd ensued. After all, this was the perfect moment for committee members to do what they’d come for: manufacture video clips of themselves either browbeating or defending the nation’s former top infectious-disease official, in pursuit of accolades from opposite ends of the media landscape — and the fundraising that follows.

It was a lost opportunity for substantive dialogue on matters of real importance, including the origin of the coronavirus and whether gain-of-function research played a causal role.

Credit to John Fetterman, who didn’t attack Fauci, but didn’t defend him either. Fetterman observed that the lab-leak theory came to be seen by some as a right-wing conspiracy theory, which kept those on the left — himself included — from entertaining the possibility. “I hope … the next time our nation’s facing something like this, we are not … as I might have been, blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that’s different than you are,” he said.

The hearing was both a Rorschach test and a glimpse of everything that’s wrong with our politics.

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The U.S.-Iran conflict intensified as Saudi Arabia joined U.S. strikes against Iranian-backed militias following attacks on regional targets, while renewed military exchanges, stalled diplomacy, and deepening mistrust between Washington and Tehran raised fears of a broader regional war.

Associated Press

The Dow tumbled 2.19% Wednesday after the Federal Reserve, led by Chair Kevin Warsh, kept its benchmark rate unchanged despite three FOMC members dissenting in favor of a hike, while oil surged more than 6% following President Donald Trump's vow to retaliate against Iran over an attempted missile strike on U.S. forces.

CNBC

A NYT opinion essay argues that Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Senate hearing generated more political theater than factual clarity, contending that his repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment allowed lawmakers from both parties to reinforce competing narratives about the pandemic rather than resolve lingering questions.

The New York Times

The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination after Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis withheld support, demanding written assurances that a proposed $1.776 billion DOJ “anti-weaponization” compensation fund would be permanently abandoned.

The Hill

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued the U.S. should accelerate AI development rather than impose restrictive regulations, saying historical trends and current evidence support an optimistic outlook, while warning that limiting advanced AI to a small number of institutions could hinder its transformative potential.

The Wall Street Journal

Kevin O'Leary's $100 billion, 40,000-acre Project Stratos in Utah's Box Elder County shows data centers can be built responsibly—with closed-loop cooling, piped-in natural gas, and paying $30 million in annual local taxes—yet even a remote site far from any town has quickly drawn organized opposition.

The Free Press

Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser and national security expert, explains four key AI issues under discussion in Washington as the Trump administration rethinks its hands-off approach to regulating the rapidly evolving technology.

Richard Clarke

A Mississippi college instructor went viral after embedding a hidden instruction in a midterm prompt that exposed students who pasted the assignment into AI chatbots, leading 32 of 35 students to fail that portion of the exam and sparking debate over AI's role in education.

USA Today

Netflix's The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare revisits the 2022 University of Idaho killings with new interviews and investigative details about the case, survivors' accounts, Bryan Kohberger's behavior before and after the murders, and the victims' families' continued search for answers about his motive.

Page Six

AMC CEO Adam Aron urged regulators to approve the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, arguing that a stronger combined studio would produce more theatrical releases, maintain longer exclusive theater windows, and support the continued recovery of the movie theater industry.

Variety