Let’s get you up to speed.

NEWS NEWS.

Todd Blanche ended a proposed one-point-eight billion dollar Justice Department fund for people claiming political targeting by the federal government. Two Republican senators had refused to advance his attorney general nomination without a written rescission, and both backed him after he signed it. The fund never opened. It came from Trump's I R S settlement and would have put payment decisions in the hands of an attorney-general-appointed commission.

Next, Gaza. Hamas accepted a Board of Peace roadmap for disarmament and phased Israeli withdrawals, but Israel has not accepted it. That means the fourteen-day implementation clock has not started. The central dispute remains sequencing: Israel says withdrawing first could let Hamas rebuild; the roadmap calls for a verification committee to certify each step.

Iran then denied Trump's claim that new talks would begin Monday. Trump had held off on another round of strikes and announced negotiations, but Tehran said no talks or delegation were scheduled. This is another pause in escalation, not a confirmed diplomatic process or a ceasefire.

In Ukraine, Zelensky says Russia launched about nineteen hundred drones, sixteen hundred guided bombs and one hundred forty-four missiles in one week. His figures put missiles roughly fifty-two percent above the prior week. POLI did not find an independent weekly tally, but the increase matters because Ukraine says it is short of interceptors for ballistic missiles.

Spain raised the death toll from the mass crossing into Ceuta to seventy-two. Roughly sixty thousand people arrived from Morocco over two days. Spain also installed a five-hundred-meter floating sea barrier along the enclave's border, while searches for more victims continued.

California Democrats endorsed Proposition Forty, a one-time tax generally equal to five percent of a qualifying billionaire's full worldwide net worth. The state analyst says it could raise tens of billions, mostly for health care. The hard part is administration: California would have to value private companies, trusts, art and other illiquid assets, then use a temporary windfall for services that need money every year.

NOT NEWS NEWS.

An N B E R working paper estimates that a uniform ten-percent tariff would raise consumer-goods prices about two-point-six percent. Imported finished goods explain most of the increase, but imported inputs and higher domestic markups matter too. The border effect arrives quickly; the supply-chain and markup effects can take nine to twelve months.

Pew found China viewed more favorably than the United States in twenty-five of thirty-six countries. The reversal is especially stark in Canada and Mexico. The U.S. still leads on favorability in India, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea, and it retains an advantage when people are asked which government respects personal freedoms.

Finally, the United States and Japan intervened to strengthen the yen after it hit a forty-year low. The dollar fell from above one hundred sixty-three yen to about one hundred fifty-five. A weak yen makes Japan's imports more expensive; the rate gap between the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve is still pushing investors toward dollars.

You’re caught up.