U.S. Central Command completed a fourth consecutive night of strikes against Iranian military targets in and around the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday, describing the campaign as a “seven-hour wave” targeting missile sites, drone facilities, and coastal defense systems. The four-night campaign has now struck more than 140 Iranian military positions across facilities at Bushehr, Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas. CENTCOM’s overnight statement was reported by Tribune India.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded overnight with what it designated Operation Nasr-2. IRGC drones and missiles struck a surface-to-air missile base in Kuwait, the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet’s command and control center in Bahrain, and al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan, which houses American F-15, F-16, and F-35 aircraft and MQ-9 drones. Four Kuwaiti military personnel were injured. The IRGC claimed it destroyed HIMARS rocket launchers and associated warehouses at the Kuwaiti site. Al Jazeera is tracking the exchange of strikes. CENTCOM has not confirmed or disputed the IRGC’s damage assessments.
Iranian cruise missiles struck two UAE supertankers, the Mombasa and the Al Bahiyah, in Omani territorial waters in the strait’s southern shipping lane on Monday. One Indian crew member aboard the Mombasa was killed. Eight others were injured, six of them Indian nationals and two Ukrainian. The National in Abu Dhabi reported on the strikes. The Quint reported on the Indian sailor killed. The UAE condemned the attacks as “blatant aggression” and reserved the right to respond. Brent crude was above $83 per barrel Tuesday morning. Hormuz traffic has fallen by more than half since the blockade was reimposed Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern.
President Trump reversed his proposed 20 percent toll on commercial cargo transiting the strait, according to the Washington Post, opting instead to seek investment commitments from Gulf states, the UAE and Saudi Arabia among them, as the arrangement for American military protection of the waterway. The toll had been announced Sunday and drawn sharp resistance from European and Asian shipping interests before the administration reversed course Monday.
Qatari and Pakistani mediators are pressing for de-escalation talks. A Qatari official described conversations in Tehran as “positive,” with the U.S. signaling through back-channels that negotiations remain an option. The Inquirer has been following the Qatari effort. In July 1988, after more than a year of American naval operations in the Persian Gulf and several direct military engagements, Iran accepted UN Security Council Resolution 598 and ended the Iran-Iraq War. Ayatollah Khomeini described the decision as drinking from a poisoned chalice. What brought him to it was a combination of battlefield attrition, economic strain, and the judgment that continued fighting risked destroying what remained of Iran’s military capacity. Whether the Qatari conversations this week matter at all may depend on whether that same arithmetic is forming somewhere in Tehran.
Ten governments established a formal anti-ballistic missile coalition at a Coalition of the Willing summit in Paris on Sunday, alongside a German commitment to purchase hundreds of American Tomahawk cruise missiles. The coalition members are Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine. Their centerpiece announcement is the Freyja project, a European-developed alternative to the Patriot system that combines components from defense firms across multiple member states, with planners saying it could reach operational status within twelve months. NBC News reported on the coalition and the Freyja project. The Kyiv Independent covered the technical details.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attended the summit alongside French President Macron, Ukrainian President Zelensky, and outgoing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “The conditions of peace will be determined only by us and Kyiv, not Moscow,” Merz told reporters. The Tomahawk purchase follows the NATO summit in Ankara, where alliance members committed more than 70 billion euros in military support to Ukraine for 2026 and 2027. The front lines in Ukraine remain largely static. Neither side has achieved a decisive breakthrough since winter. Drone strikes and long-range precision weapons have replaced massed ground assaults as the primary instruments of a war that has settled into attrition.
Three sitting judges of the International Criminal Court filed a federal lawsuit late last month in the Southern District of New York, the first time ICC judges have sued the United States government. Al Jazeera reported on the filing. The judges are Kimberly Prost of Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, and Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin. They allege the sanctions against them exceed the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, violate the Administrative Procedure Act, and deny them Fifth Amendment due process. The sanctions have severed all three from U.S. bank accounts, credit card networks, health insurance systems, and major digital platforms. The case is pending.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Monday announcing a campaign to “dismantle brick by brick” the ICC’s ability to operate and to target American citizens, and urged U.S. allies to join the effort. Time reported on the announcement. The administration has sanctioned more than ten ICC officials in total, including the court’s chief prosecutor. The United States hasn’t been an ICC member since President George W. Bush withdrew the American signature from the Rome Statute in 2002. Congress has never submitted the treaty for ratification.
The fire in the Fontainebleau forest has burned more than 1,900 hectares since it started last week, scorching a section of the UNESCO biosphere reserve roughly three times the area of Gibraltar. About 1,000 residents remain evacuated. The A6 motorway is closed. French emergency services declared the blaze “contained but not extinguished” on Monday, but new outbreaks continued through the night. Eight hundred fifty firefighters, backed by four Canadair water-bombers making their first deployment to the Île-de-France region, returned to the forest Tuesday morning. Euronews has been following the firefighting operation. France 24 has the updated scope of the damage.
Four people are in custody. A volunteer firefighter admitted to using a lighter and an accelerant to start a fire in the forest. Investigators identified roughly ten ignition points within a 1,000-meter perimeter, pointing to coordinated arson rather than a single fire that spread. Several Bastille Day fireworks events were cancelled Monday because of the blaze.
The confirmed death toll from Venezuela’s June 24 twin earthquakes has reached 4,490, with more than 16,700 people injured and nearly 18,000 displaced, according to Venezuelan officials. Global Nation Inquirer has the current toll figures. International rescue teams from more than twenty countries remain in the field, working alongside Venezuelan emergency personnel in the coastal communities where the damage was greatest.
Forecasters have placed roughly 100 million Americans under dangerous heat alerts for the coming week, according to ABC News, as a new heat event builds across the eastern United States. The latest alert follows a July 4 heat dome that set all-time temperature records in Atlantic City and Philadelphia and killed at least 29 people in New Jersey, most of them found in homes without air conditioning. Extreme heat kills more Americans in an average year than any other weather-related cause. It doesn’t trigger federal major disaster declarations under the Stafford Act, the law governing emergency federal aid after catastrophic events. That gap left New Jersey communities relying on state and local resources during the July 4 wave. The same gap is present now.
Carol Gifford, who writes the Health section, published a piece this month worth knowing about if you or someone close to you has recently had open heart surgery or is expecting to. It’s called What to Expect After Open Heart Surgery, and it covers the recovery in the practical terms that hospital discharge paperwork rarely does. It’s in the Health section.
Spain defeated France 2-0 Monday in the first World Cup semifinal, with goals from Mikel Oyarzabal and Pedro Porro. Kylian Mbappé was held scoreless. Spain plays in the final July 18. FIFA has the full match record.
England and Argentina play the second semifinal at 3 p.m. Eastern today at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. ESPN has the match details. The two countries have never met in a World Cup semifinal. The match people remember most between them was June 22, 1986, in Mexico City, where Diego Maradona scored two goals in Argentina’s 2-1 quarterfinal victory, one he punched in with his hand and one he dribbled from his own half through five English defenders, the two goals existing in almost perfect opposition and being discussed ever since. Today’s match is in Atlanta. Ninety thousand people are expected in the stands. The World Cup hasn’t been played in the United States since 1994. That tournament ran into skepticism about whether Americans would show up for a sport they weren’t sure they cared about. They came. Thirty-two years later the country is hosting the final again, and nobody’s asking that question anymore.
Howard Fenn writes The Day, Monday through Friday.
