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A NOTE TO READERS AND LISTENERS | Related to our July 13 announcement, please note that there will not be an edition of the Daily Brief published tomorrow, July 31, 2026.

MIDDLE EAST WAR | Day 153.

• The U.S. and Iran continued to exchange airstrikes today for the second day in a row, with U.S. forces targeting facilities linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Iran launching missiles at facilities in both Kuwait and Jordan. [more]
• Drone strikes damaged two natural gas vessels at a port in Egypt yesterday. While investigations into the incidents are ongoing, analysts say the strikes would mark a significant widening of the Middle East war if it is confirmed that the attacks are linked to Iran. [more]
• Reports say Iran has warned authorities in both Cyprus and Bulgaria against allowing the U.S. to use bases in their countries to launch attacks on Iran, saying that "any party that participates in acts of aggression against Iran in any way will bear responsibility for the consequences." [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 1,615 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here are your updates:

• Ukrainian officials say Russia launched at least 70 missiles and 280 attack drones at targets across 10 Ukrainian regions overnight, killing at least eight civilians and wounding more than 50 others. The barrage came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a large, pending Russian attack. [more]
• In a social media post today, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said a Russian cruise missile crossed into NATO member Poland's airspace and crashed during overnight attacks on Ukraine. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said today that while investigations are ongoing, an object that crashed in Polish territory was likely a Russian CH-101 cruise missile. [more]

U.S. TERRORISM COURT | According to court documents filed yesterday, the first-ever petition submitted to the U.S. Alien Terrorist Removal Court since its establishment in 1996 requests the deportation of Nazira Haji Zada, of Fort Worth, Texas, who, according to an FBI memo, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of supporting an Islamic State-inspired plot in the United States. [more]

TRUMP DEFAMATION CASE | President Donald Trump and the Justice Department asked the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to overturn an $83 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused Trump of sexual assault. The requests argue that Trump cannot be sued for comments he made while serving as president. [more]

U.S. ECONOMY | According to Commerce Department data released today, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, a key indicator of inflation, rose 3.7% in the 12 months through June. Additionally, the Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis says in an advance estimate that U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 1.5% annualized rate in the April-to-June quarter – down from a 2.1% growth rate in the first quarter of the year. [full PCE report] [full GDP report] [more]

MORE U.S. ECONOMY | As expected, the Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at about 3.6% following yesterday's policy setting meeting. Reports note that three regional Fed bank presidents who had previously signaled their openness to raising rates amidst inflation pressures dissented from the decision to keep the benchmark rate unchanged. [more]

U.S. AIRPORT RENOVATION | President Donald Trump announced plans yesterday for a $22.5 billion renovation of Washington Dulles International Airport, which opened in 1962 and serves about 29 million passengers per year. [more]

U.S. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | The Elon Musk-owned artificial intelligence company xAI filed a lawsuit this week seeking to block Minnesota's first-in-the-nation law that bans technology that lets people use AI to create fake nude images of real people. The law is scheduled to take effect on Saturday. [more]

COVID-19 | Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment yesterday in declining to answer questions before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Fauci was subpoenaed to testify by Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul, who has long argued that Fauci should be criminally investigated, based on Paul's belief that the Fauci was dishonest in previous testimony to Congress. [more]

MYANMAR | Activist group Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee-Mandalay says nine of its members were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 27 to 37 years this week in Myanmar after being convicted under election and counterterrorism laws for staging a protest last year calling on the public to reject the election, abolish the country's military conscription law, and release political prisoners detained after the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. [more]

CUBA | Amidst ongoing humanitarian and economic crises and the U.S. energy embargo, new government-approved measures took effect in Cuba this week that ease longtime restrictions on private vendors and imports. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said last month that the reforms were necessary because Cuba "simply cannot continue on its current course." [more]

PAKISTAN | Authorities in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province say 11 police officers and 15 militants were killed yesterday in an hours-long raid on the Khazina police post in Hangu district. Reports say no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but that suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which has carried out multiple similar attacks in recent months. [more]

MORE PAKISTAN | Authorities say more than 100 people have died in monsoon rain- and flooding-related incidents in eastern Pakistan over the past month, including nine people who were killed yesterday when a multi-story house in the city of Lahore collapsed amidst heavy downpours. [more]

FRANCE | French authorities have approved the return to their homes of nearly two-thirds of the 224,000 people forced to evacuate recently amidst southwestern France's ongoing wildfires. Reports cite local officials as saying higher humidity, cooler temperatures, and light rain have raised hopes of progress in containing the blazes. [more]

EUROPEAN DATA CENTERS | The European Commission announced €10 billion in funding today for firms to construct seven so-called AI gigafactory data centers to power artificial intelligence development in the 27-nation European Union. [more]

R.I.P. | Irish actor and singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, best known for his role in the 1991 movie "The Commitments" and for winning an Oscar for his song "Falling Slowly" in the indie musical "Once," died in a motorcycle accident early yesterday on the outskirts of Dublin. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1945, some 900 U.S. sailors were killed when a Japanese submarine sank the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered the internal components of the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. [more history]