The United States struck 170 targets in Iran over two days, Iran shot back at U.S. bases in the Gulf, and then both sides apparently decided to take a breather. Meanwhile, back at home, Donald Trump used the pause in global catastrophe to fire every single member of the federal commission that helps run American elections. Just a normal Thursday.
The Ceasefire Nobody Agreed To
Fighting between the U.S. and Iran appears to have paused, NPR reports, after what by any measure was an extraordinary two days of military strikes. The U.S. says it hit 170 targets inside Iran. Iran says it targeted American military bases across the Gulf. Both sides are now apparently sitting on their hands, at least for the moment.
The timing of all this was particularly grim. The exchange of strikes coincided with a weeklong funeral for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the conflict along with four of his family members. Huge crowds filled the streets of Mashhad for his burial on July 9th. So yes, the United States bombed Iran during the funeral of the man the United States bombed.
NPR's Carrie Kahn, reporting from Tel Aviv, says tensions in the region remain high despite the pause. Jordan intercepted incoming fire from Iran during the exchanges. Iran then turned around and threatened the United Arab Emirates. Israeli armed forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir told reporters his country is prepared if fighting resumes. Everyone is just one bad decision away from this getting considerably worse.
He Fired the Whole Election Commission. The Whole Thing.
While the Middle East teetered, Trump dismissed the remaining members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, according to NPR. The EAC is a small, bipartisan federal agency created after the 2000 Florida disaster to help states run elections more reliably. Trump wiped it out. All of it.
The White House says Trump can do this because of the Slaughter decision, last month's Supreme Court ruling that gave presidents broader authority to remove members of independent federal agencies. Democrats and voting rights advocates criticized the move, though at this point criticism from Democrats lands with about the same weight as a strongly worded Yelp review.
Here's the thing about eliminating the Election Assistance Commission specifically: it is the agency that certifies voting systems and distributes federal funds to states to improve election security. Getting rid of it, right now, with a midterm election cycle approaching, is not a neutral act. You do not have to squint very hard to see what this is.
300,000 People Told Their Work Permits May Be Gone
On top of everything else, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light to revoke Temporary Protected Status for more than 300,000 Haitian and Syrian immigrants, NPR reports. TPS allows people to legally live and work in the United States when conditions in their home countries are too dangerous for return. The court has now decided the administration can take that away.
NPR's Kathryn Mobley, reporting from Springfield, Ohio, where a large Haitian community lives, says many immigrants have their work permits tied directly to their TPS status, and their driver's licenses tied to those permits. Lose TPS, and the whole stack collapses. Some people are staying home. Others are calling nonprofits, who are encouraging them to apply for asylum, though that process is long and offers no guarantee they won't be deported anyway. Some Springfield residents, Mobley reports, have already lost manufacturing jobs following the ruling.
Springfield, Ohio. You might remember that name. Trump and Vance spent most of 2024 accusing Haitian immigrants in Springfield of eating people's pets, a claim that was completely fabricated and that local officials debunked in real time. Those same immigrants are now losing their legal right to work. The through line here is not subtle.
The Gaza Ceasefire Is a Ceasefire in Name Only
The U.S. brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas last year. Nine months later, as NPR reports, that agreement has effectively collapsed in slow motion. The deal called for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, new governance, and Hamas disarmament. What actually happened is almost the opposite.
At the start of the ceasefire, Israeli forces controlled roughly half of Gaza. According to Israeli officials and NPR's own analysis, that number is now nearly 70%. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the military is tightening its grip to surround Hamas. For Palestinians living inside that tightening grip, it means more displacement, less humanitarian aid, and more death. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
NPR reporters Anas Baba and Aya Batrawy documented what daily life looks like for families caught inside the expanding military zones: shelling at night, gunfire during the day, and nowhere safe to go. A ceasefire, technically. In reality, something that looks a lot like a slow continuation of the same war by a different name.
The Dingo Take
Let's take stock. The United States and Iran spent two days exchanging military strikes on a scale that would have dominated news coverage for months in any previous era. It is now the third story on a Thursday morning newsletter, sandwiched between TPS work permits and a British politician's career highlights. That is how thoroughly the chaos threshold has been destroyed. We are all processing world-historical events at the speed of a Twitter scroll and moving on by lunch.
The EAC firing deserves more attention than it is going to get. This is an administration that has spent years screaming about election integrity, and it just eliminated the one federal agency specifically designed to make elections more secure and trustworthy. The only coherent explanation is that election security was never the point. Control of the election apparatus was always the point. The Supreme Court handed Trump the legal cover with the Slaughter decision, and he used it within weeks. Whatever you thought the Slaughter ruling meant for the separation of powers, you now have a concrete answer.
As for Springfield, Ohio, the cruelty has a specific texture to it. These are the same communities Trump made famous with outright lies about immigrants, communities that received bomb threats after those lies circulated nationally, communities where local officials begged the national press to correct the record. Now the legal protections those same immigrants depended on are being stripped away by the same administration that smeared them. The lies were the advertisement. This is the product.
