“President Trump said that he’s seriously considering restarting major combat operations in Iran — including strikes that would be bigger than the ones carried out during Operation Epic Fury,” Axios reports.

“President Donald Trump’s Iran war was dealt fresh setbacks today by the House and oil markets — just as he threatens to escalate it to heretofore unseen levels,” Politico reports. “For the second time, four House Republicans joined with Democrats to approve a war powers resolution to hem in Trump’s authority and end the war. […]

“A congressional candidate from Louisiana who was the subject of a police report accusing him of rape – which he denies – says he is hoping to again ‘earn’ Donald Trump’s endorsement as he considers precisely where to run amid redistricting,” The Guardian reports. “The candidate, Blake Miguez, is weighing running in one of two […]

“Sen. Mitch McConnell’s extended absence has thrown a number of the Senate’s top priorities into limbo,” NOTUS reports. “McConnell has not voted since he was hospitalized following a fall on June 14, and it’s still unclear when the Kentucky Republican will return to the upper chamber. His absence has complicated the math for leadership on […]

“The U.S. will impose tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on its major trading partners as part of a new set of duties that the Trump administration says are designed to combat forced labor,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The new duties, announced by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s office on Thursday, are meant to […]

“President Trump said the U.S. would hold Iran responsible for future attacks by Houthi militants after the group fired on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, sending oil prices skyrocketing,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Said Trump: “The Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon […]

“The Justice Department told a judge Thursday it will withdraw its subpoenas for grand jury testimony and phone records from New York Times reporters over an article on security systems in the new Air Force One jet,” CBS News reports. “During a heated court hearing, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian grilled federal prosecutors working for the […]

“The Trump administration has cycled through trade law after trade law as it tries to find a sound legal basis to impose the steep tariffs on foreign products that President Trump wants,” the New York Times reports. “It is poised to try yet another approach.” “A global 10 percent tariff that Mr. Trump imposed in […]

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“For four years, the Kremlin sought to shield Russians from the fallout of the war in Ukraine, maintaining a veneer of normality in everyday life and ensuring that affluent city dwellers could still enjoy the conveniences of a 21st-century economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “That effort is now crumbling.” “Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes have […]

“In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine,” the New York Times reports. “President Trump has previously threatened to retaliate against the European Union for what he views as the unfair […]

“Merging companies will get a shortcut to ending antitrust investigations under a Justice Department change meant to make the government review process less burdensome for businesses,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The department’s antitrust division plans to announce on Thursday a new model for streamlining merger reviews that would quickly focus on the most apparent […]

“A day after the United States signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, President Trump added a new condition to the sale of nuclear reactors to the kingdom, declaring that the entire arrangement now depends on the Saudi willingness to establish diplomatic relations with Israel,” the New York Times reports. Washington Post: Trump adds […]

“Tariffs are back — and they couldn’t come at a worse time for the GOP,” Politico reports. ”Some Republicans fear the eye-popping new levies President Donald Trump threatened to slap on Canada and generic drug makers this week will aggravate Americans who were already blaming the tariffs for stubborn inflation ahead of a midterm election […]

“The Democrats’ main Senate super PAC is booking another $54 million in TV ads for the midterm campaign’s final stretch, targeting four Republican-held seats,” Axios reports. “The new reservations offer a roadmap to where Democrats think they can flip seats.” The four states: Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina and Alaska.

A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.

“When President Dwight D. Eisenhower went to the United Nations in 1953 to offer countries nuclear technology and know-how in return for a promise to use them peacefully, the policy went by a memorable shorthand, ‘Atoms for Peace.’ Seven decades later, it could go by a less idealistic name: nuclear hedging,” the New York Times […]

“Prime Minister Mark Carney swept to power promising an ‘elbows out’ stance against President Trump’s tariff threats and rhetoric, vowing he would never accept a bad trade deal,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Sixteen months later, Carney says he has avoided making a bad deal but critics say it has come at a cost: a […]

“Oil prices are racing back toward $100 this morning after Tehran-backed Houthi militants claimed attacks on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, threatening another important route for oil flows and stoking fears that the U.S.-Iran conflict could escalate further,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“A little-known court tasked with handling highly sensitive deportation cases against alleged alien terrorists has laid dormant since its 1996 creation, lacking even a website for tracking any proceedings before it,” CNN reports. “But this month, the Alien Terrorist Removal Court sprung to life with a first-of-its-kind case filed by the Trump administration as it […]

“The number of Senate-confirmed officials who have left their roles in the Trump administration is more than double the amount of departures at this point of President Trump’s first term,” NewsNation reports.

“The Trump administration is back at war. It just doesn’t want to admit it,” The Atlantic reports. “In the 11 days since the United States resumed its air strikes against Iran, neither President Trump nor any other senior administration official has publicly addressed the campaign. U.S. forces began by striking Iranian military facilities but later […]

“Melania Trump urged a federal court earlier this week to sanction journalist Michael Wolff, after he unsuccessfully sued the first lady in an effort to thwart a $1 billion defamation lawsuit,” the New York Post reports.

Adam Serwer: “The Roberts Court accelerated its assault on the freedoms guaranteed by the Reconstruction amendments this term, leaving only the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship intact—and that by only one vote.” “Across multiple cases dealing with voting and immigration, a consistent theme has emerged from the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence: a determination to ignore, […]

“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has kept the city’s business leaders waiting to see his plan to grow the local economy,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “This week, the city’s business elite received an unexpected surprise when Mamdani named a new chair of the city’s powerful Economic Development Corporation: Lina Khan, the 37-year-old who […]

David Graham: “Every politician does some pandering, but few do it as clumsily, or with such evident disdain for their own supporters, as the vice president.”

“A number of congressional Republicans are worried Iraq’s new leader won’t be the partner the U.S. needs in an increasingly turbulent Middle East,” Politico reports. “Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met with both President Donald Trump and a slew of lawmakers last week in Washington — his first international trip since taking office. But those […]

“The trap began with a routine bureaucratic ritual: the head of a family-run contracting company and a small town public-works director trading emails about when the municipality would cut a six-figure check for utility work,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “But lurking online, a cybercriminal pounced with staggering ease. Someone posing as a company employee […]

“Whitney Cummings told a few jokes at the expense of President Donald Trump during last month’s Mark Twain Prize for Humor — but a particularly biting one didn’t make it to the broadcast version,” the Washington Post reports. “The ceremony, which honored Bill Maher, premiered on Netflix on Tuesday. During the event, Cummings joked that […]

Punchbowl News: “Senate Majority Leader John Thune declared earlier this week that he wouldn’t move on the House’s budget blueprint until the Senate solves the Sept. 30 funding fight. That means reconciliation won’t move in the Senate anytime soon — and passing a bipartisan stopgap spending bill could still take weeks or months of additional […]