NEWS - WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2026 - NEWS
Iran fired missiles into Jordan last week, killing three American service members. Jordan's growing role in the war is prompting uncomfortable conversations for the desert nation's leaders. LA Times
VOA VIEW: Trump must stop playing games with Iran.
Lawyers for California and 22 other Democratic-led states sued, arguing that the states, not the federal government, have the constitutional authority to set the rules for voting and elections. LA Times
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimates that up to 444,000 of the more than 1.4 million asylum cases in its backlog could be affected by the rule. LA Times
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The board of an immigrant led business group is preparing to sue New York City over its plan to open five subsidized grocery stores that will undercut existing food stores in the neighborhood. New York Post
VOA VIEW: Mamdani has gone madder.
“They attract gang members, stolen vehicles, gunfire, and reckless driving." New York Post
The attack in the Caspian Sea was an unusually direct encounter between two countries that have been on opposite sides for years. New York Times
VOA VIEW: Iran must be destroyed!
The acting deputy commissioner for food said the agency was taking action even though finding the root cause of the outbreaks is difficult. New York Times
VOA VIEW: It is out of control.
Amid a reprieve in the fighting, Iran’s leaders are betting that they can endure more pain than President Trump can, and they have leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. New York Times
VOA VIEW: Tran must be terminated.
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met at the Oval Office prior to late Senator Lindsey Graham's funeral service in Washington, D.C. OANN
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Permits for the Minocqua Brewing Company are being revoked by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), according to the owner, Kirk Bangstad. OANN
VOA VIEW: They should be shut down.
South Korean authorities have ordered civilians to evacuate after an apparent white phosphorus leak was reported at a United States military base near the capital, Seoul. OANN
Two days of funeral ceremonies are set to begin for late Senator Lindsey Graham, with President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance. OANN
A large earthquake has rocked Southern Japan, with reports of damage to infrastructure, collapsed buildings and tens of thousands left without power. OANN
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Hundreds of teenagers on e-bikes and motorized scooters swarmed downtown Orlando streets earlier this month, running red lights and blocking an ambulance in a scene that led to detentions and citations. Washington Times
VOA VIEW: They should be fined and arrested.
A tornado with peak winds near 140 mph tore roughly a 12-mile path through Wisconsin's Fox Valley on Monday, severely damaging and destroying homes and businesses in Menasha and Appleton and cutting power to tens of thousands of residents as cleanup entered its second day Tuesday. Washington Times
Newly released audio tapes, disclosed by a conservative activist group, appear to show Joe Biden sharing classified information with a biographer and sometimes claiming memory lapses during interviews that occurred before his election to the presidency in 2020. Washington Times
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A key U.S. government report on mental health, substance use and addiction showed continued improvements in several metrics, especially among young people. Washington Times
A shooter fired at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto early Monday morning, police said, the second time this year someone shot at the building. No one was injured in the incident, but a single shell casing was found and there was damage to the building's facade. Washington Times
Moviegoers are turning out in droves for the IMAX spectacle "The Odyssey," but they're also flocking to something else: the 2,700-year-old source material. CBS
Roughly 70 hours of recordings of an interview former President Joe Biden did with a ghostwriter in 2017, before he was president, were released Monday over Biden's objections. CBS
VOA VIEW: He is going to sound cpnfused
Diary entries by Dr. Anthony Fauci are shedding light on his soaring notoriety during the COVID-19 epidemic. The documents, released by Republican Sen. Rand Paul, include Fauci's reflections about being invited to A-list parties, but also some uncertainty about the origin of COVID. CBS
VOA VIEW: Sounds like a lying fool.
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Amazon Leo wants to launch a constellation of thousands of satellites to connect devices directly from space. CBS
Coca-Cola restarts production of Fairlife brand milk after a ransomware attack forced it to halt operations at several factories. CBS
Military investigators found more than a dozen Navy SEALs had been in a group chat containing racist memes targeting a Black SEAL. CBS
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Nvidia had held the top spot as the most valuable company since June 2025, when it took the crown from Microsoft. CNBC
A federal appeals court on Saturday kept the restrictions blocked in 23 states that sued, finding states must prepare for potentially disruptive election changes. CNBC
VOA VIEW: Time will tell.
President Trump Monday voiced support for Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh while insisting that the U.S. should have the lowest interest rates in the world. CNBC
President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. has sold more than $13 billion of Venezuelan oil since taking control of the South American nation's energy exports. CNBC
The funeral for Sen. Lindsey Graham is bringing world leaders to Washington at a time when many are eager to meet with President Donald Trump amid wars. CNBC
About 7 million American children have been signed up for Trump Accounts, according to a new tally from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. CNBC
A mass casualty response was launched at a Maryland National Guard youth academy after cadets reported dizziness, headaches and nausea on Sunday. FOX News
A Maine jury awarded a woman $17 million after a routine surgery for a benign ovarian cyst ended with the accidental removal of her bladder. FOX News
Authorities are searching for missing North Carolina physical therapist Elizabeth Waddell after she vanished during a vacation in Grenada near Grand Anse Beach. FOX News
President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States paused attacks on Iran for negotiations; Iran says there are no new negotiations. UPI
VOA VIEW: One side is lyimg.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Monday that it seized nearly 20,000 counterfeit FIFA World Cup 2026 items totaling about $9 million. UPI
The Education and Justice Departments said Monday that they're targeting school districts because of policies protecting students' gender identity. UPI
Panama has been named the world's best country for expatriates for the third consecutive year, according to the 2026 Expat Insider survey. UPI
Xbox Live experienced an outage Monday with more than 3,000 users unable to access their games or launch titles on their systems. UPI
Oil prices dropped and stock futures rose Monday amid a three-day pause in attacks between the United States and Iran. UPI
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The United States murder rate has plummeted to what experts project is its lowest level since at least 1900.According to an extensive annual crime trends report released by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), homicides nationwide have fully reversed their staggering pandemic-era spikes. Thanks to Trump.
Data analyzing major American municipalities suggest that murders plummeted by roughly 21% from 2024 to 2025, marking the single-largest one-year percentage drop recorded in modern U S history. Although the CCJ report states that the projected 2025 rate of ~4.0 per 100,000 would be “the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900,” FBI data (uniform crime reports) provides the most commonly cited modern national homicide/murder statistics, and reliable, standardized national FBI estimates begin around 1960.
The previous modern low was 4.4 – 4.7 in 2014, and similar levels in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Pre-1960 data, going back to 1900, comes primarily from public health records. These are not as complete or nationally representative as later FBI data — as early 20th-century coverage was limited to certain states and had underreporting issues. Adjusted historical estimates often put early 1900s rates higher than the raw reported figures, which sometimes looked artificially low. Critics of the report have called the phrasing misleading since FBI’s consistent apples-to-apples national tracking starts later, and the true modern-era lows are in the 1950s–60s and 2014.
“The United States almost certainly had the lowest murder rate ever recorded in 2025, with the FBI having data back to 1960,” stated crime data analyst Jeff Asher. “And the available evidence suggests that we’re going to go even lower this year.” The massive drop in lethal violence is part of a sweeping, broad-based decline across nearly every category of criminal offense. Alongside the historic drop in homicides, the CCJ data revealed that 11 of 13 tracked crimes fell significantly over the same period. Gun assaults dropped by 22%, robberies declined by 23%, and carjackings fell by an astonishing 43%.
Criminologists note that the data signals a complete deflation of the sudden, chaotic crime wave that gripped the country between 2020 and 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted social institutions and pushed the national murder rate to a modern high of 6.8 per 100,000. The year 2020 also saw a significant surge in civil unrest, marked by widespread protests and outbreaks of violence tied to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Nonetheless, public safety officials who previously feared that the country had settled into a permanently violent “new normal” are now looking at unprecedented peace across major hubs, with cities like Richmond seeing a 59% drop, Los Angeles down 39%, and Atlanta recording fewer than 100 homicides for the first time since before the pandemic. While politicians across the ideological spectrum have been quick to claim credit for the positive shift, CCJ researchers argue that the record-low numbers are driven by a “complex, multifactorial web of social recovery and focused intervention” rather than a single policy.
While the drop to a 125-year low is a major achievement for public safety, crime data analysts remind the public that a rate of 4.0 per 100,000 residents still equates to roughly 13,000 to 14,000 preventable American deaths per year.
