The U.S. continues to strike Iran for an 11th straight day as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified on Capitol Hill that the cost of war has soared to over $37 billion. That’s an increase of nearly $8 billion since the last public estimate. Hegseth also asked Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional Pentagon funding to finance the war on Iran. In retaliation, Iran struck U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan on Tuesday. Kuwaitis are reportedly forced to ration electricity after Iranian strikes on power infrastructure raised fears of outages. This comes as far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel has “no interest” in joining U.S. military operations against Iran. The U.S. reportedly requested Israel to stay out of the most recent conflict while negotiations were ongoing following a so-called ceasefire agreement brokered last April. Meanwhile, the Trump administration approved a deal with Saudi Arabia that allows the country to enrich its own fuel for nuclear reactors. This is President Trump speaking from the Oval Office yesterday.

President Donald Trump: “Iran is bigger. It’s more — it’s a more complex situation. But we’re probably doing equally as well, if you look at the damage that’s been done. And again, as I said to the young man that just posed the question over here, if we left today, it would take them decades to rebuild. And I don’t believe they could ever rebuild. And honestly, they haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve been nice.”

Yemen’s Houthi rebels are warning shipping companies that their tankers risk being attacked if they use Saudi Arabian ports. This comes after the Houthis announced the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi ships in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen. Two oil tankers that were reportedly loaded with Saudi crude oil en route to China and India on Tuesday were forced to divert toward the Suez Canal.

In Gaza, the Israeli military is moving to quickly build a giant barrier separating the portion of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the enclave. In recent months, more than 23 kilometers, about 14 miles, have been constructed. Israel currently controls just over 50% of the territory. This comes as an Israeli airstrike killed a family of six, including four children, in Gaza City Tuesday. Since last October’s so-called ceasefire, more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

In Lebanon, three villages in the south of the country will be the first to implement the framework agreement brokered between Israel, Lebanon and the U.S. Under the deal, the Israeli military is set to retreat from areas it occupies in southern Lebanon to allow the Lebanese military to take over and oversee the disarmament of Hezbollah. This is Ali Allaw, who is a resident of the southern Lebanese town of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh.

Ali Allaw: “We are waiting for the army’s decision to allow the residents to enter the town, as the army promised that once the engineering regiment finishes its work, the residents may be allowed to enter. But so far, as we’ve been told, the engineering regiment hasn’t finished yet because there are explosive devices and unexploded ammunition.”

Meanwhile, President Trump on Tuesday said he would allow U.S. carriers to resume direct flights to Lebanon — more than 40 years after the U.S. suspended the route following the hijacking of a U.S. passenger plane back in 1985.

A three-judge federal appeals panel has overturned a lower court’s ruling that ordered the release from ICE custody of Palestinian rights activist Mohsen Mahdawi, in a ruling that could allow the Trump administration to rearrest the Columbia University graduate. In May, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against Mahdawi, who is a green card holder. In April of last year, masked and hooded ICE agents detained him when he appeared for what he believed would be a naturalization interview in Vermont. He spent two weeks in ICE custody before a federal judge ordered his release. After his release, he came back to Columbia University and graduated. He’s now a graduate student. Click here to see our interviews with Mohsen Mahdawi.

The Trump administration arrested a record more than 43,000 immigrants in the month of June, the highest number since Trump returned to office. That’s according to an analysis by The Guardian, which reports more than 65,000 immigrants are estimated to be in ICE detention, while the Trump administration has deported more than a half a million immigrants since January of last year. The majority of immigrants targeted by Trump officials have no criminal record.
In related news, Time magazine reports the Trump administration is planning to expand immigrant detention across over a dozen locations nationwide, including the Virgin Islands and Guantánamo Bay, the U.S. military base in Cuba.
This comes as Citizens Bank has announced it will officially begin to cut ties with two of the nation’s largest private operators of ICE jails — GEO Group and CoreCivic — amid growing calls to boycott the bank over its financing of the two for-profit prison companies. Click here to see our interview on the subject.

In Texas, a federal judge has prohibited Trump’s Homeland Security Department from deporting one of the key witnesses in the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, the 52-year-old Mexican father killed by an ICE agent on July 7 in Houston. The order comes in the case of José Trinidad Rojas, who was in Salgado Araujo’s van at the time ICE killed Araujo. Rojas is from Mexico and has lived in the United States since 1998. The two other passengers in the van the morning of the fatal shooting — Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Salgado Araujo’s younger brother Victor — have also filed petitions to be released from ICE custody. Click here to see our coverage of the case.

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking work permits for tens of thousands ​of asylum seekers and immigrants with temporary protected status, TPS. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton said in his decision, “The consequences faced by plaintiffs are potentially severe.” Gorton is expected to issue another ruling on August 5.

The lawsuit was filed earlier this month by Democracy Forward on behalf of the plaintiffs. In response to the ruling, Democracy Forward President Skye Perryman said in a statement, “Without this relief, families who have followed the law and relied on longstanding humanitarian protections faced the sudden loss of their employment authorization and ability to support themselves through no fault of their own.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing civil rights and anti-discrimination laws, has ended a decades-old requirement for private sector employers to collect demographic data in the workplace, slashing a policy that had been in place for more than 60 years. The EEOC’s Republican majority voted 2-1 Tuesday to rescind the data collection requirement. EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas is a Trump ally and outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The EEOC was created under the 1964 Civil Rights Act establishing protections that prohibited discrimination based on race, gender, sex, national origin and religion. Kalpana Kotagal, who is the sole Democrat left on the EEOC since Trump overhauled the agency, said, “Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect workers.”

In India, police have detained Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, the Congress party, as student-led protests against the government continue. Gandhi and other opposition leaders were arrested during a sit-in outside right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on Tuesday. Demonstrators were condemning the brutal crackdown on student protesters. This is a lawmaker with the opposition Congress party who spoke through a police van’s window after being arrested.

K. Suresh: “We are protesting in front of the prime minister’s office, prime minister’s residence, because our students were brutally attacked. And that’s our students very cruelly attacked yesterday by Delhi police. Honorable prime minister is not saying anything. Honorable home minister is not making any statement. So hundreds of students, they are in the hospital.”

Back in the U.S., the Trump administration has paused more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota. That includes more than $867 million for California and about $200 million for Minnesota. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims it’s part of the administration’s strategy to “stop the fraud before it happens.” But in their news conference Tuesday, neither RFK Jr. nor Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, offered new evidence of fraud. California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X, “California isn’t being targeted because Trump has evidence of fraud. We are being targeted for political reasons — and because Dr. Oz doesn’t understand that we are SAVING taxpayers money by keeping seniors and people with disabilities out of far more expensive nursing homes! We hate fraud. That’s not what this is.”

Several U.S. states are facing an outbreak of diarrhea caused by cyclospora, a parasite that contaminates fresh food or water. Thousands of people, many in the Midwest, have fallen sick with severe diarrhea. On Saturday, the FDA announced that lab tests had confirmed cyclospora contamination in iceberg lettuce from Mexico. The company Taylor Farms has recalled several lettuce products after health officials linked it to the outbreak. In a press conference Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed the outbreak was under control.

In France, lawmakers passed a bill banning social media for children under the age of 15. The legislation also bans students from using mobile phones in schools. France is the third country to introduce a social media ban for children, following Australia and the UK.

In Kenya, Pan-African feminist educator and advocate Njoki Njehû passed away at her home in Nairobi Saturday. She was a committed Kenyan grassroots organizer and activist who played a pivotal role building the Fight Inequality Alliance movement. Njehû notably led the “50 Years Is Enough” campaign in the United States, marking the 50th anniversary of the World Bank and the IMF, denouncing their neoliberal policies and catastrophic impacts on communities in the Global South. The Fight Inequality Alliance said in a statement, “Njoki was a visionary leader whose wisdom, conviction, and generosity shaped our movement in countless ways across Africa and globally.” Click here to see our interviews with Njoki Njehû over the years.