Good evening everyone. It’s been a busy news day. I spent part of the day back at Mitch McConnell’s home to see if there was any new information, and there was. McConnell now appears to have a home health aide, while his staffers continue to refuse to answer basic questions about his condition. Meanwhile, any hope of an Iran deal just got further away. Trump signed an executive order gutting the childhood vaccine schedule. Air defense systems are apparently needed when Trump golfs. There’s new Epstein information. Blanche was sworn in. And that’s just part of it.
My reporting keeps ruffling feathers, and that’s fine by me. The latest? Some people want to send me to Guantanamo Bay. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll keep pushing.
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Kushner/Mobster:
Villagers in the Albanian coastal village of Zvernec warned Jared Kushner’s development group in a September 2024 letter not to build on land they say was stolen by Artur Shehu, a suspected gangster who fled to Miami after a 1999 bar shootout, but the Kushner-backed venture paid Shehu over $120 million for the land anyway earlier this year. Two months after the sale, Albanian prosecutors sought Shehu’s arrest, accusing him of a leadership role in an international cocaine-smuggling ring that moved drugs from Ecuador to Europe hidden in shipments of charcoal and fruit paste, and of laundering the proceeds through Albanian real estate, including the disputed Zvernec peninsula, using forged Ottoman-era land records.
Shehu’s lawyer denies he’s a drug dealer or land thief, saying he’s “simply a landowner” with legitimate documentation, while a spokesman for Kushner’s development group said it believes “the underlying land acquisitions were conducted lawfully” and that Albania’s courts are the proper venue to resolve ownership disputes. The project has already sparked over two months of daily protests in Tirana, dubbed the “Flamingo Revolution,” after video surfaced of the group’s private security guards punching a villager and dragging him across a beach, though Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama continues to back the $5 billion development as a major foreign investment. Villagers like Zvernec leader Kostaq Konomi say they simply want their land back, even as retrials and appeals over ownership continue to wind through Albania’s courts.
Mitch McConnell:
I went back to Mitch McConnell's home again today, still on the beat nearly two months after he went dark following his June 14 hospitalization. Nearly two months after McConnell disappeared from public view following his June 14 hospitalization, one reporter (not me) staked out the senator’s home and approached his in-home caregiver as she arrived for her shift. She told him she was a caregiver making her first visit to the house and that she was scheduled to stay overnight.
Moreover, Elaine Chao’s alleged driver was spotted leaving with bags from the home. The bags contained Chao’s name on them:
Here’s where things stand officially: McConnell’s office says he’s been discharged from a rehab center to recover at home, but they still haven’t given any timeline for his return to the Senate, and TMZ reported his own chief of staff is staying silent when pressed on his condition. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has repeatedly demanded real answers about McConnell’s health, and so far he hasn’t gotten them either. McConnell, the third-oldest sitting senator, is already set to retire when his term ends in January, so this isn’t about his political future. It’s about whether the public has a right to know if a sitting U.S. senator is fit to serve right now, and I’ll keep tracking this story until someone actually answers that question. Right now, McConnell’s aides are not saying anything:
Iran:
Trump added a new condition to Iran negotiations Monday, demanding compensation for Americans and Iranian dissidents harmed by Tehran, after Iran said over the weekend that US compensation would be required to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In a Truth Social post, Trump called Iran’s compensation request “an interesting idea” but said he’s “likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs,” including “the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years.” This follows Trump’s earlier signal that the US is “low-keying” negotiations and shifting toward economic pressure, while Tehran insists it isn’t currently engaging in talks at all. Maritime firm Kpler reported traffic through Hormuz “weakened further” over the weekend, with confirmed crossings dropping from 15 on Friday to just 6 on Sunday, even as Iran and Oman signal a navigation agreement could be near.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a flurry of decrees Monday reshaping the country’s military leadership, appointing six senior officials including Ali Abdollahi as armed forces chief of staff and Ahmad Vahidi as IRGC commander-in-chief, while calling for stronger deterrence and readiness for “powerful offensive operations.” Separately, Pakistan’s foreign minister briefed his Iranian counterpart on “key aspects” of the new NATO-style mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, though Iranian officials expressed skepticism, with one lawmaker warning “a paper agreement with Turkey and Pakistan will not bring them security.” Meanwhile, a US-mediated diplomatic track between Israel and Lebanon also appears stalled, with an Israeli official telling CNN there are no dates set for further talks after the last round in Rome was overshadowed by increased Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Tensions between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia have escalated as well, even as traffic through the alternate Bab al-Mandeb Strait route remains comparatively steady.
An Iranian photojournalist, Yalda Moaiery, announced she’s been sentenced to 15 years in prison for allegedly acting in the interests of Israel and the US, after a Tehran court held her hearing in absentia last month; she’s previously been arrested and imprisoned for covering the 2022 protests following Mahsa Amini’s death. A human rights monitoring group warned of an “unusually intense period” of pressure on Iranian journalists, noting at least 225 outlets or journalists faced judicial or security action in 2025, with 25 sentenced to a combined 30-plus years in prison. CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen also detailed his June interview with Iran’s newly appointed security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, who calmly threatened to expand the war “by attacking other American bases” if the US strikes again, while also saying Iran is willing “to turn a page” with Washington if a broader peace deal is reached and demanding the release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
Trump appeared to be golfing alongside surface-to-air missile defense systems over the weekend in Bedminster:
Other news:
Trump signed the “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” executive order Monday, declaring at the signing, “Today, we’re proud to officially announce the United States of America’s Gold Standard Childhood Vaccination Recommendations and that has to do with many subjects but including autism in particular.” The order divides childhood vaccines into three tiers and pushes states to reconsider school vaccination requirements, while directing HHS’s newly resurrected “Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines” to reassess vaccine sequencing and timing within 90 days. It calls for administering vaccines at separate appointments “to the maximum extent feasible” rather than combining them, and specifically targets breaking the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot into three separate vaccines given at separate visits, despite the combined shot being proven safe and effective. Public health experts warn that spacing out shots this way increases the risk that children go unprotected against preventable diseases for longer stretches, and decades of research have found no causal link between vaccines and autism, the concern Trump has repeatedly cited in pushing for the change. The order follows a similar administration effort in January that a federal judge blocked in March after ruling Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had unlawfully changed vaccine policy, and this time the White House is directing agencies to advance the changes “to the fullest extent allowable by law.” Trump struggled to stay awake during the executive order signing session today:
A newly released independent report from Interlochen Center for the Arts details roughly 70 allegations of sexual abuse by nearly 50 adults affiliated with the elite Michigan boarding school from the 1950s through the 2010s, including abuse allegedly committed by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who recruited students on campus. NPR spoke with alum Paul Busch, who was abused as a 16-year-old in 2005 by ballet teacher Thomas Clower; Clower pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, served 90 days in jail, and was fired, but Busch says the school offered no counseling or follow-up afterward and instead made him feel like “the perpetrator” during its investigation. Clower has continued teaching children for years since, most recently as director of the men’s division at a Dallas-area dance academy, where he led international student trips as recently as this summer; his name was removed from the school’s website only after NPR’s reporting, and the academy has not responded to requests for comment. Interlochen says it has since overhauled its safety practices and established a counseling fund for affected alumni, but Busch and other survivors say meaningful accountability is still lacking, with Busch noting the fund “has come too late” after two decades of self-funded therapy.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, was sworn in Monday as US attorney general at a White House ceremony, cementing his role atop the Justice Department after serving as acting attorney general since April. The 52-year-old previously represented Trump in the New York hush-money case and other criminal matters before joining the administration as deputy attorney general in early 2025, and he becomes Trump’s second Senate-confirmed attorney general after Pam Bondi, whom Trump ousted earlier this year over frustration with insufficient DOJ action against his political foes. The Senate confirmed Blanche in a narrow 50-49 vote early Saturday morning, with every Democrat opposed along with Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Since taking over, Blanche has overseen the departure of more than 200 prosecutors and agents who worked on Trump-related investigations, pushed expansive theories of presidential power, and suffered a notable courtroom setback when a federal judge referred her findings against him to bar authorities for possible disciplinary action. His confirmation also comes as Democrats accuse him of continuing Bondi’s pattern of stonewalling survivors and Congress on the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a controversy that continues to shadow the department.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department plans to award up to $300 million next month to as many as four cities for Memphis-style policing surges, requiring recipients to comply with federal immigration enforcement, adopt conservative anti-homelessness policies, and potentially repay costs if violent crime or “civil unrest” surges under the program. The grant document holds up Washington, D.C. and Memphis as models, despite Memphis’s controversial federal anti-crime taskforce having been linked to four officer-involved deaths since its September launch and facing calls for suspension that the administration has ignored.
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia Monday morning, killing at least 71 people and causing widespread building collapses, trapped victims, and serious damage across multiple regions, according to the Association of Capital Cities of Colombia. The epicenter was in San José del Palmar in Chocó, where Gov. Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi reported nine deaths and 80 injuries, while in Valle del Cauca, Gov. Dilian Francisca Toro reported 27 deaths, including three children, and said the University Hospital of the Valley suffered “structural collapses.” Additional deaths were reported in Pereira (18) and Manizales (2), and in Cali, Mayor Alejandro Eder said at least 20 buildings collapsed “with people trapped inside,” prompting rescue teams to set up tents and begin clearing rubble in search of survivors. Newly inaugurated President Abelardo De La Espriella declared a national disaster and said he has “personally taken charge” of the emergency response, establishing a Unified Command Post, while Colombia’s civil aviation authority suspended flights at six affected airports pending structural assessments.
Tyler Boebert, 21, the eldest son of Rep. Lauren Boebert, is facing his most serious charges yet: five felony counts in Garfield County District Court, including sexual exploitation of a child, inducing/enticing, possession with intent, video exploitation, and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Court records indicate the alleged offenses began January 1, 2024, when Tyler was 18; the case was filed August 6, and he was released on $10,000 bail that same day, with no further details disclosed about the allegations. Boebert said in a statement, “I love my son. We take these allegations very seriously and pray for everyone affected during this challenging time.” This adds to a lengthy string of legal trouble for Tyler, including a 2022 careless-driving citation after flipping his father’s SUV, a 2024 arrest on 22 charges tied to thefts and stolen credit cards, and two separate child abuse cases involving his young son wandering off while in his care, both of which have upcoming sentencing hearings. Boebert herself has drawn repeated controversy over the years, from promoting 2020 election conspiracy theories to being removed from a movie theater for vaping and being amorous with her date, and once bringing a loaded gun into Congress.
Louisiana health officials are urging beachgoers to take precautions after confirming nine Vibrio vulnificus infections this year, all requiring hospitalization and five resulting in death, well above the state’s decade-long average of seven cases and one death over the same period. The bacterium, which thrives in warm coastal seawater and brackish estuaries, is most active from May to October along the Gulf coast, and as many as one in five infections prove fatal, a much higher rate than other Vibrio types, with symptoms able to progress from bruising and swelling to septic shock within hours if untreated. People typically become infected either by eating raw or undercooked shellfish like oysters or through small skin breaks exposed to ocean or brackish water, and severe cases disproportionately affect the elderly, people with weakened immune systems, and those with liver disease or diabetes.
Montana Democratic Senate nominee Alani Bankhead said Monday she will not drop out to clear the way for independent Seth Bodnar, who is backed by former Sen. John Tester, declaring “I’ll never bow down” and “I am staying through Nov. 3” ahead of the 7 p.m. ET withdrawal deadline. Her refusal creates a three-way race with Bodnar and Republican Kurt Alme that polling suggests heavily favors the GOP, since Alme leads by more than 20 points with both Bankhead and Bodnar on the ballot, compared to a much tighter head-to-head matchup between Bodnar and Alme alone. More than 20 local Democratic lawmakers and former party leaders had urged Bankhead to step aside, and a pro-Bodnar super PAC has been running ads against her while another group posted signs calling for her exit, but she accused her opponents of being “hand picked” by the establishment. Bodnar, who also confirmed he won’t drop out, criticized Bankhead publicly for the first time, saying “millions of dollars of outside dark money poured into a primary” to produce “a candidate who’s unvetted,” a split that likely narrows Democrats’ already difficult path to flipping the seat and retaking a Senate majority.
During deliberations in a DC federal robbery trial, jurors discovered a Chinese yuan bill and a suspected white powdery substance stashed in a jacket and sweatshirt that had been entered as evidence, items neither prosecutors, FBI agents, nor the defense had known were there. Judge Rudolph Contreras called it flabbergasting, writing he “shares Mr. Joyner’s amazement at law enforcement’s failure to uncover” the items, though he ultimately told jurors to disregard them since they weren’t part of the case against defendant Shamell Naquan Joyner. The jury, unable to agree on 15 of the 28 counts he faced, still convicted Joyner on 13 charges tied to an April 2023 armed robbery and a spate of May 2023 robberies and a carjacking, resulting in a 31-year mandatory minimum sentence. The mishap adds to a string of struggles for the DC US Attorney’s Office, which has faced unusual difficulty winning full convictions from local juries this year.
July was the hottest month ever recorded in the US, with the contiguous US averaging 3.3F (1.8C) above the 20th-century norm, according to NOAA data, surpassing previous records set in July 1936 during the Dust Bowl and July 2012 in 132 years of measurements. The month saw three separate heat dome events trap extreme temperatures over the West, Rockies, upper Midwest, Gulf Coast, and Southeast, with Wyoming recording its hottest July ever at 5.1F (2.8C) above average, while wildfire smoke from Canada and the Pacific Northwest blanketed large portions of the country. Scientists say this heat, along with the accompanying fires, was significantly amplified by human-caused climate change, and AP-NORC polling found nearly half of Americans reported “major” impacts on their electricity bills, about 40% altered travel plans, and roughly two-thirds saw their outdoor family activities disrupted, all more widespread than when the same questions were asked two years earlier. Despite this, President Trump has continued pushing to cut clean energy and boost fossil fuel production, having previously called climate science “bullshit” and a “con job,” even as an unusually strong El Niño makes it likely that 2027 or possibly even this year will break the global temperature record set in 2024, according to climate scientist Michael Mann.
OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Monday, avoiding a second-degree murder charge that could have carried up to 30 years in prison, in the April 2022 stabbing death of her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, at their Miami condo. She was sentenced to six years with credit for time served, followed by five years of probation and a required mental health evaluation and treatment; since she’s been jailed without bond since 2022, she’ll serve roughly two more years. Prosecutors said the plea, reached with the Obumseli family’s input, reflected a pattern of escalating violence by Clenney against him, while her attorneys had argued she acted in self-defense during an abusive relationship, telling detectives, “I grabbed a knife, and I said, ‘Don’t come anywhere close to me.’” The years-long case also spawned separate computer-related charges against Clenney and her parents over an alleged laptop break-in, which were later dropped after a judge found prosecutors improperly accessed privileged evidence. Clenney, known online as Courtney Tailor, had more than 2 million Instagram followers at the time of her arrest.
Andy Green, the only person to break the sound barrier in a car (a record he set in 1997 at 763.035 mph using twin jet engines), returns to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats this week to attempt a new land speed record for hydrogen-powered vehicles. Now 64 and driving JCB’s 32-foot Hydromax, powered by two hydrogen combustion engines with a combined 1,600 horsepower, Green hopes to beat the 350.092 mph diesel-car record he also set two decades ago, and he already hit 368.347 mph in practice last week. JCB, which has invested over $134 million in hydrogen engine technology, is using the attempt to promote hydrogen as a clean-energy alternative, though the company acknowledges hydrogen is only as clean as its source and has signed a deal for renewable “green hydrogen,” which remains a small fraction of global production. Green must complete the official attempt Tuesday before the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile to have it count, and he says the team is “managing the risks very carefully” given hydrogen’s flammability, a concern underscored by a fatal crash at Bonneville’s Speed Week just a year ago.
Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, goes to trial in Las Vegas this week on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon tied to the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur, with jury selection beginning Monday and the trial expected to last about a month. Prosecutors aren’t arguing Davis pulled the trigger; instead they plan to show he, as a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, orchestrated the shooting and supplied the gun, drawing partly on Davis’s own tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legends,” which helped revive the long-cold case after his 2023 arrest. His nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, has long been suspected as the actual shooter but was never charged and died in an unrelated shooting two years after Shakur’s death; prosecutors are expected to call 35 to 45 witnesses, including a gang associate who testified that Anderson lacked a clear shot and handed the gun to another man, Deandrae Smith, who fired instead. Marion “Suge” Knight, who was driving the car with Shakur and is the only other living eyewitness, is currently in prison for an unrelated killing and has said he won’t testify, though Davis’s attorney suggested his testimony could actually help the defense. Sean “Diddy” Combs, whom Davis’s book claims offered him money to kill Shakur and Knight (an allegation Combs denies), does not appear on the witness list, and it remains unclear whether he’ll be called.
An oil slick now covers roughly 150 square miles off Oman’s coast near the Hallaniyat Islands, Oman’s Environment Authority said Monday, after the sanctioned tanker Caroline Bezengi, carrying nearly one million barrels of Russian crude bound for Asia, sustained damage in what maritime security sources described as an onboard blast on June 8 off Yemen. No party has claimed responsibility for the incident, and Oman hasn’t offered an explanation for the damage; the ship last transmitted its location on June 11 and Greenpeace estimated the slick was even larger, around 230 square miles, based on its own satellite analysis last week. The oil has spread to within roughly seven kilometers of Oman’s mainland, and environmental microbiologist Tony Gutierrez warned that if it reaches shallower coastal waters, the damage to marine life like coral, birds, and fish could persist for years, citing lingering effects still visible a decade after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The Caroline Bezengi is part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of aging tankers used to skirt Western sanctions on Russian oil exports, and both the EU and Britain have sanctioned the vessel specifically for its role in transporting Russian fuel.
Tommy John, the 83-year-old former pitcher whose name became synonymous with the career-saving elbow surgery he underwent in 1974, announced his departure from public life on Saturday, skipping Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium and instead issuing a farewell statement through the team, citing health issues at his Florida home. John, who disclosed a bladder cancer diagnosis in 2024, pitched across 26 seasons from 1963 to 1989, racking up 288 wins (26th all-time) and over 4,710 innings pitched (20th all-time) with teams including the Yankees, White Sox, Dodgers, Angels, A’s, and Indians. He’s best remembered for overcoming a torn ulnar collateral ligament that would have ended his career before Dr. Frank Jobe pioneered the now-common procedure of replacing the torn ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in the body, using John’s own right wrist; after sitting out 1975 to recover, John returned to win 20-plus games in three of the next four seasons. The surgery has since saved the careers of countless pitchers, including modern stars like Justin Verlander, Shohei Ohtani, Tarik Skubal, and Chris Sale.
See you soon.
— Aaron
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