.@POTUS welcomes U.S. Army Major Kyle Key, descendant of Francis Scott Key, onto the stage for his Independence Day remarks on the National Mall, where Major Key salutes the homemade American flag discovered in Nazi-occupied Belgium. 🇺🇸

The Japan Rugby League One 2025–26 runners-up: Kubota Spears 🥈 What a season for the Spears and the Orange Army 👏🍊🦄 After a final that went right down to the wire, congratulations to @Kubota_Spears on an incredible campaign filled with unforgettable moments, relentless rugby, and a fight worthy of the biggest stage #NTTLeagueOne#

As much as I hate pumpfun, it’s hard for me to put the blame on them. Pumpfun fulfilled its function. Even if that function was to extract, you can’t lay the blame on them for doing what they were designed to do. The blame lies squarely on Q, Mert, Toly, the Solana FDN, Andem, Joe McCann, Salami, Kang, Alliance, Multicoin, and all of their influenza underlings that battery packed ppl into embracing a culture of rugs and PnDs. I think all of those ppl are complete sociopaths. Evil even. I’ll never forget in 2024 I was watching a podcast with Q Qiow, and I was absolutely floored by the shit he was spewing. I was amazed that he believed himself and even more shocked that the hosts just sat there nodding in the air like bobbleheads. He was saying something to the effect that every single human being would create a memecoin and trade it Solana and that this was the natural evolution of the internet, all to justify price targets for his bags (which were fucking retarded). And then I’d check X and see an army of indented craniums regurgitating his nonsense, and calling for VCs to fund this degeneracy and for builders to abandon their projects in favor of building more memecoin apps. “Just build things ppl want to use bro” Remember how often we used to hear that? Fast forward to 2026, and the “trenches” have been bled dry. Starved. Depraved. Famished. Pumpfun is still extracting to this day. But the blame lies with the ppl who encouraged that culture. Go back and look at the receipts from January 2025. Everyone who celebrated the launch of TRUMP is to blame. Dw though, most of these ppl have either existed stage left or are about to. It’s sad that they butchered an entire class of onchain users but hey, at least they onboarded all those celebrities right!?

Madrid, June 19, 2014. An eight-year-old girl stepped onto the balcony of the Royal Palace and waved to thousands gathered below in the Plaza de Oriente. By the following day, she had become the future face of Spain’s monarchy. Yet more than a decade later, despite years of preparation, Spain’s constitutional rules still leave a small question mark hanging over her future. Her name is Leonor. Only hours before that balcony appearance, King Juan Carlos I had officially ended his 39-year reign. His son became King Felipe VI, instantly moving Leonor to the front of the line of succession. She was granted the title Princess of Asturias, the traditional title reserved for Spain’s heir. The transformation happened almost overnight. One day she was simply a young schoolgirl. The next, she carried the expectations of an entire institution that stretches back centuries. But royal titles did not erase childhood. Leonor continued attending Santa María de los Rosales in Madrid, the same school once attended by her father. She studied alongside other students, sat through lessons, completed assignments, and took exams like any other child her age. For several years, ordinary school life existed alongside extraordinary responsibilities. As she grew older, however, the preparation became far more deliberate. At sixteen, Leonor left Spain to attend UWC Atlantic College in Wales, an international boarding school known for bringing together students from around the world. The move placed her far from the carefully managed environment that surrounds most royal families. In May 2023, she graduated with an International Baccalaureate diploma. Then came the next phase of her education. Military training. Beginning in 2023, Leonor embarked on a three-year program designed to expose her to all three branches of Spain’s armed forces. Her first stop was the General Military Academy in Zaragoza, where she trained with the army. After that came the Naval Military School in Marín. The final stage would take her to the General Academy of Air and Space Warfare in San Javier. New locations. New instructors. New uniforms. The program exposed her to military discipline, physical endurance, navigation, field exercises, naval routines, and aviation training. She trained alongside fellow cadets, followed military schedules, and faced many of the same expectations as those around her. For someone who could one day serve as commander-in-chief of Spain’s armed forces, the experience carries obvious significance. Yet there remains an unusual constitutional twist. Although Leonor is first in line to the throne, Spain’s succession laws still favor male heirs. Under the current system, if King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were ever to have a legitimate son, that child could move ahead of both Leonor and her younger sister Sofía in the line of succession. In theory, Leonor could spend years preparing for the role, complete military training, perform public duties, and fulfill every constitutional expectation placed upon her, only to lose her position to a younger brother who does not currently exist. It remains one of the most debated contradictions within Spain’s modern monarchy. On October 31, 2023, Leonor reached another major milestone. On her eighteenth birthday, she stood before the Spanish Parliament and swore loyalty to the Constitution, formally committing herself to the responsibilities associated with the crown. The moment carried powerful symbolism. She pledged herself to uphold the very constitutional framework that still contains the succession rule capable of placing a future brother ahead of her. History, however, may ultimately favor Leonor. If she ascends the throne, Spain would see its first reigning queen since Isabella II. Isabella ruled during the nineteenth century before being forced into exile following the Glorious Revolution of 1868. The years that followed brought dramatic changes to Spain. Monarchs rose and fell. Governments changed. The country experienced republican rule, civil war, dictatorship, and eventually the restoration of the monarchy. Against that backdrop, Leonor’s position carries significance beyond her family. She is not simply preparing to inherit a royal title. She may become the first woman in generations to reign over Spain in her own right. What makes her story particularly interesting is how much of that preparation has looked surprisingly ordinary. Early mornings. Physical training. Military drills. Classroom instruction. Long days following schedules set by commanders rather than palace staff. In those moments, success depends less on a royal title and more on discipline, performance, and effort. That may be exactly why the training exists. Unlike many young royals who attract attention through controversy, Leonor’s public image has largely centered on education, military service, ceremonial duties, and constitutional responsibilities. The larger debate surrounding her is therefore less about Leonor herself and more about the institution she may one day inherit. Can a monarchy historically shaped by kings fully embrace a reigning queen? And in a modern democratic nation, what place should a hereditary head of state continue to occupy? Leonor rarely speaks publicly about such questions. Instead, she continues preparing. An eight-year-old girl once waved from a palace balcony as crowds cheered below. A decade later, she stood before Parliament and took an oath as an adult. Since then, she has worn the uniforms of Spain’s army, navy, and air force, learning to serve within institutions she may one day formally lead. Yet throughout every stage of that journey, one remarkable reality has remained unchanged. She is preparing for a throne that is not completely guaranteed. And perhaps that is what makes her story so compelling. Few people spend years training for a role while knowing that a constitutional technicality could still change everything. For now, Leonor continues moving forward, carrying both the privilege and uncertainty that come with being Spain’s future queen—at least, as things currently stand.

2026, day 241 Good morning from Asia. ‘For Trump, the Iran War Is Stuck Between Combat and Genuine Peace’ (NYT); ‘Iran’s Khamenei bans acts that ‘harm social cohesion’’ (Reuters); ‘Iran Urges Countries Not to Implement New U.S. Sanctions as Mediators Focus on Reopening Strait’ (Reuters); ‘US Treasury imposes limits on Egyptian bank for doing business with Iran’ (FT); ‘Hezbollah chief again rejects Lebanon-Israel deal, refuses ‘surrender’’ (ToI); ‘What will happen if Iran, Egypt, Bangladesh join Mecca Joint Defense Agreement? - analysis’ (JPost); ‘The commander who smashed ISIS just surrendered to Syria's ex-Al-Qaeda president’ (Ynet); ‘Drain on U.S. Munitions From Iran War Raises Fears Over Ability to Deter China, Russia’ (WSJ); ‘Is China's 'wise camel' the winner from the US-Iran war?’ (FT) - “Beijing has threatened to retaliate with 'all necessary measures' if the US hits it with sanctions”; ‘Zelenskyy says he ordered army to launch 1,000 drones a day at Russia’ (Reuters); ‘Drones hit Zaporizhzhia power plant: IAEA’ (AFP); ‘Russia is running out of cash due to its war in Ukraine: report’ (Defense News); ‘Putin risks accidental confrontation with NATO’ (Telegraph) - “Intel sources warn that Russian sabotage attacks in Europe could lead to dangerous ‘miscalculation’”; ‘NATO and Moscow must increase dialogue to avoid accidental war, Russian envoy says’ (Politico); ‘Baltic Sea states warn of ‘escalating’ hybrid warfare’ (Euractiv); ‘Sweden to deploy jets and warships to help Finland counter drones’ (Euractiv); ‘Ceuta warns it is 'on the brink of collapse' as Spain seeks Frontex and Europol help’ (Euronews); ‘Iceland’s EU referendum: What to know ahead of vote and what's at stake for Europe’ (Euronews); ‘US threatens Britain over Falklands Pentagon officials warn UK to boost’ (Telegraph) - “Pentagon officials warn UK to boost defence spending or risk losing support for sovereignty over the islands.” ‘Healey’s budget to duck setting a date for 3% defence spending target’ (Guardian); ‘The G20 needs more carrots to rebalance away from China’ (Atlantic Council); ‘Trump says US to take control of 65bn barrels of Venezuelan oil’ (FT); ‘Trump announces new US ‘space academy’’ (AFP); In geoeconomics, ‘China's hypercompetition goes global as Beijing frets over backlash’ (Nikkei Asia); ‘Google waves goodbye to China’ (Nikkei Asia); ‘Escalation tactics in trade negotiations with the U.S. prove to be a minefield’ (Globe & Mail); ‘Canada-U.S. free trade was a model for the world. Can anything save it now?’ (Financial Post); ‘Former IMF deputy Gita Gopinath: It's straight-out protectionism'’ (FT); ‘Trump vows legal order to break up food processing ‘nasty monopoly’’ (Reuters); ‘Japan Energy Plan Seeks to Back Pipelines Bypassing Hormuz’ (BBG); ‘Capacity Squeeze Looms as Panama Canal Restrictions Tighten’ (The Loadstar); ‘India turns to private sector to ramp up missile production’ (Defense News); ‘China’s actors written out of dramas as AI doubles ready to take their roles’ (FT); ‘China needs 600% child subsidy rise to prevent deeper birth crisis: scholars’ (SCMP); In politics, ‘Republicans Are Worried About the Midterms. Trump Is Focused on His Legacy.’ (WSJ); ‘Trump Postal Service board nominees held up by Republican senator over mail delay concerns’ (The Hill); ‘AOC shakes up team ahead of 2028 decision’ (Axios); ‘Germany’s far right taps nostalgia for communist East to propel election surge’ (Politico); In markets, ‘Hawkish Kevin Warsh hints Fed will raise rates if inflation does not fall soon’ (FT); ‘The case for the U.S. dollar's digital edge’ (Axios) - “research presented at Jackson Hole suggests financial innovation may tighten the dollar's grip on global finance”; ‘Hong Kong’s long-term wealth hub status safe from mainland investment curbs: JPMorgan exec’ (SCMP); ‘Yen Passes 160 Per Dollar to Hit Weakest Level in a Month’ (BBG); ‘Why the World Needs to Force China’s Yuan to Revalue’ (WSJ)

President Donald J. Trump has announced via Truth Social that the current Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Adam Telle, has been appointed to the position of Acting Secretary of the Army, effective immediately. Telle previously served as Chief of Staff to Sen. Bill Hagerty, as President Trump’s chief Senate liaison in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, and spent a decade working for Sen. Thad Cochran, including as his top national security staffer. A native of Northport, Alabama, Telle holds degrees in computer science and communication from Mississippi State University. Telle was sworn into his Assistant Secretary position on August 5, 2025.

Wyoming hanged Tom Horn in 1903 on a machine specifically designed so that no human being would have to feel responsible for killing him. Which, given what Tom Horn did for a living, is about as tidy as history ever gets. He was born in Missouri in 1860 and left home at sixteen. He ended up in Arizona working for the Army as a packer, scout and interpreter under the chief of scouts Al Sieber during the Apache campaigns, and he was with the column that brought Geronimo in. He also won a steer roping championship out there. Years later he wrote an autobiography that inflated most of it considerably, which was standard for the genre. In the early 1890s he worked for the Pinkerton agency out of Denver, running down train robbers. He was extremely good at the tracking part. He was reportedly much less interested in the part where you bring a man in alive. Then he went north to Wyoming and hired on with the big cattle outfits as a stock detective. The job title was a formality. What the cattlemen were paying for was for suspected rustlers to stop existing, and Horn delivered that with a rifle, at long range, frequently from a couple hundred yards, with nobody around to see it. Historians credit him with the 1900 killings of Matt Rash and Isom Dart in Brown's Park and suspect him in several others. The line most often attributed to him is, "Killing men is my specialty. I look on it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market." Whether he actually said it is argued about. It was his reputation regardless, and he did nothing to discourage it. Then on July 18, 1901, a 14 year old boy named Willie Nickell was shot dead by a gate at Iron Mountain. Willie was big for his age, and he was wearing his father's coat and hat. His father, Kels Nickell, was running sheep in cattle country and was in a poisonous feud with his neighbors. Nearly everyone who has looked at it since has reached the same conclusion, which is that whoever fired thought he was shooting the father. Six months later, a deputy US marshal named Joe LeFors got Horn into an office in Cheyenne to talk about a job in Montana. He got Horn drinking. He flattered him, and let him brag, and kept nudging. Behind a door left open a crack in the next room sat a deputy and a court stenographer named Charles Ohnhaus, writing down every word. Somewhere in that transcript is the sentence, "It was the best shot that I ever made and the dirtiest trick I ever done." That was the case. Everything else the prosecution had was circumstantial. He was tried in an election year, in a state that had finally had enough of cattle barons buying outcomes, and the jury convicted him. Here is the complicated part. Most historians who have gone back through the evidence now believe Tom Horn probably did not kill Willie Nickell. There were other suspects with better motive and better opportunity. The physical case was weak, and the confession was a drunk man performing for a lawman who was steering the conversation. He had certainly killed people. He was very likely hanged for the wrong one. He got out of the jail in August 1903 with a pistol taken off a guard, and then could not figure out how the pistol worked. A man on the street who happened to know that model took him back into custody. So on November 20, 1903, one day short of his 43rd birthday, they walked him out to the gallows in Cheyenne. That gallows had been built by a local architect named James Julian. Julian had come through the Civil War, and he had thought a long time about what it does to a man to be the one personally responsible for killing another. So he engineered the person out of it. The condemned man stood on the trapdoor. His own weight tipped a lever that opened a valve on a water tank. The water ran out of the tank into a pan below, and as it drained the balance shifted, and when enough had run the mechanism pulled the bolt and the floor opened. Nobody pulled a lever. Nobody gave a signal. The man walked onto the platform, started the clock with his own body, and then stood there listening to water run. For Tom Horn it took about 35 seconds. A newspaper of the day described the machine as a device that simply compelled the condemned to commit suicide. Tom Horn had spent his career being the instrument that wealthy men used so that they would never have to be the ones who pulled the trigger. Wyoming killed him with a machine built on exactly the same idea.

I hadn’t read the Declaration of Independence since high school history class. Ah, yes, history class! In fact we had American history throughout the tenth grade, then world history during our junior year. When I listen to the TikTok crowd spew the nonsense they champion today, I think how easily their knuckle-headed thinking could have been cured with a few good history classes. Alas, I don’t see much hope for the future, as long as the teachers in our urban areas are in the clutches of politicians and unions with a far different agenda from real education. Now rereading the document for the first time in decades (shame on me for taking so long), I had forgotten that the bulk of the text is a list of grievances suffered by the American colonists at the hands of the king and various elements under his tyrannical regime. What has truly stunned me these 250 years later, however, is how familiar these grievances feel in our contemporary situation. Let’s take a peek at the exact text, and see if anything feels uncomfortably close to home (the “He” refers to King George, of course, and I will use the original spelling and punctuation): “He has refused to Assent to Laws” Hmm, every “sanctuary state” governor today for starters… “He has made Judges dependent of his Will alone” Hmm, activist judges anybody? “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people” Hmm, 87,000 new armed IRS agents. Ring a bell? “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent” Hmm, ever looked at your tax bill? “…transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny…” Hmm, thirty million military-age males pouring across our open borders from 2020 to 2024… “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us” Hmm, BLM and Antifa riots… SHORT VERSION: LEAVE US ALONE! The very essence of the Declaration of Independence is a concerted celebration of God’s gift of our “unalienable” right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” It was argued, researched, debated yet again, drafted by Jefferson, then edited by Adams, Franklin, and others. Together the bravest men stood together against the storm of tyranny and gambled it all. As I reread it today, I literally shed tears at those miraculous words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortune and our sacred Honor.” And then, of course, there were those who shed more than tears. They shed their blood, watched their homes burn, and too many gave the ultimate sacrifice. Whether they formed local militias or joined the Continental Army, colonists now dedicated to the cause, gambled their very lives. One of those Americans was my ninth generation ancestor. He fought in one of the most consequential battles of the American Revolution, the Battle of Cowpens. I am forever honored that his blood runs in my veins. I know that this will be a joyful and glorious weekend for all of you, God willing. It should also be, if I may presume to say, a solemn one as well. The sacrifices made by simple men and women those many years ago have made these precious rights and this glorious day possible. Take a moment and honor them in your heart. I know I will.

TRUMP JUST SENT ANOTHER STATE'S ARMY INTO TWO STATES THAT NEVER ASKED FOR IT Four hundred Texas National Guard troops. Ordered into Illinois and Oregon. Tonight. No phone call. No coordination. Governor Pritzker found out the same way you did "No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate," Pritzker said. Then he said the quiet part: "We must now start calling this what it is: Trump's Invasion" Texas Governor Abbott confirmed it independently because apparently that's how federalism works now under Donald Trump. Governors learning about their own states from press releases Here's the part that should make you scream. The Supreme Court already told him no on this exact thing days ago. Left the block in place. Said the government "failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois" Second loss at the Supreme Court in four days. Even a judge appointed by his own side wrote that the administration never even tried using regular forces first Trump lost. So what does Trump do. He doesn't stop. He just picks a new city and sends the troops anyway That is not law enforcement. That is a man testing how many times the courts will say no before nobody stops him Four hundred and ninety six million dollars. That is the taxpayer bill so far for shipping soldiers into Los Angeles, DC, Memphis, Portland, Chicago, New Orleans, courts blocking half of it, and Trump billing you for the privilege of being told he broke the law Two hundred more troops sitting on standby in Texas right now costing four million dollars a month to do absolutely nothing except exist as a threat The lawsuit over Chicago got dismissed only because Trump's own orders became "no longer operational" — legal speak for he got caught and quietly backed off Blue state governors get treated like occupied territory. Trump gets his "invasion" theater for the cameras. Taxpayers get the invoice This isn't border security. This isn't crime response. This is Donald Trump deciding which American cities count as enemy soil They lost in court and did it anyway This is only the beginning

State House Speaker Lisa Demuth will win the Republican nomination for governor in Minnesota, CNN's Decision Desk projects. Demuth defeated MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Kendall Qualls, an Army veteran and former health care executive, in a raucous primary fight. She'll face Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November. Follow live updates: