It’s Tuesday, July 14. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: America’s abandoning a crucial ally. Arthur Brooks on how the self-help industry can survive AI. Prince Harry’s much-needed life lesson. And much more.
But first: What’s going on with Iran?
The on-again, off-again war against Iran is very much back on. Consider yesterday’s developments alone:
Trump ordered U.S. forces to “reinstate” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and proposed a 20 percent toll on all cargo that travels through the strait;
The White House sent a letter to Congress, dated July 10, declaring a resumption in hostilities with Iran beginning July 7;
The U.S. conducted a third consecutive night of strikes on Iran to “impose a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack shipping in the strait”;
The UAE said that Iran had struck two of its tankers in the strait;
Oil futures saw their largest single-day gain since April;
Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that the U.S. might strike the Iranian nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain with “a nice big fat shot right near the front door,” and that the U.S. would hit Iran “very hard” Monday and Tuesday.
Free Press columnist Aaron MacLean saw much of this coming last week, when he argued that the reality of the president’s predicament pointed to him reinstating a naval blockade to take control of the strait. That now appears to be the administration’s strategy. But will it work? And at what cost? To make sense of the flurry of Iran news over the last 24 hours, read Aaron’s latest column.
And for more on the conflict, don’t miss the latest episode of School of War. He talks to Mike Doran about the state of play in the Middle East, just how weak the Iranian military actually is at this point, and whether or not the conflict’s end is in sight.
Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday, accusing the company of trade secret theft at “every level”—from technical staff to its chief hardware officer. The allegations are explosive, but are they the whole story? Apple-watcher and Free Press tech writer Patrick McGee isn’t so sure. He dives into this clash of the tech titans, and what he thinks it’s really all about.
Over the weekend, congressman Ro Khanna had a run-in with a handful of armed Israelis that went viral. If you listen to Khanna’s version of events , you would think that this was an illegal detention of an American lawmaker by armed settlers. But that’s not what happened, writes Haviv Rettig Gur. Read Haviv’s latest on the stunt, why the congressman’s story fell apart, and what the incident reveals about the rocky relationship between Israel and the new Democratic Party.
In January, Donald Trump liberated Venezuela from Nicolás Maduro. But since then, Washington has hugged the socialist puppet Delcy Rodríguez and undermined and demeaned opposition leader María Corina Machado. It’s a dismaying turn of events, including for Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Venezuela during the first Trump administration. Today in The Free Press, Abrams outlines what is becoming nothing less than a betrayal of the Venezuelan people.
Who needs a self-help book when you have a chatbot to apply the wealth of human knowledge to your personal problems? As a writer in the self-improvement space, Arthur Brooks admits we may soon see a decline in sales for books like “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” But Arthur says he’s not worried. Read why in his latest column.
Last week, Prince Harry suffered a major defeat in his bitter war against the tabloids after claiming they illegally invaded his privacy. Harry had, for a time, convinced the world that the media was an insatiable monster that ruined his childhood. But “the fairy tale has finally run out of road,” argues Kara Kennedy—and become a cautionary tale of its own. Read her column on the fable of the prince who complained too much.
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THE NEWS
A federal judge ruled Monday that President Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for “improper purpose.” The Obama-appointed judge claimed the IRS settlement with Trump was an exercise in self-dealing. She did not explicitly void the deal that created the $1.776 billion legal defense fund for alleged victims of Biden DOJ lawfare, though she recommended disciplinary action for one of Trump’s lawyers.
A federal immigration enforcement officer shot and killed a man in Maine on Monday. Senator Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the motorist, a 26-year-old Colombian national, attempted to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents.
Fergie Chambers was arrested Friday morning in Spain on a U.S. extradition request for alleged money laundering, among other offenses. The heir to the Cox family fortune has spent the last decade funding radical left-wing causes and has worked alongside anti-Israel activists like Calla Walsh. (Read Suzy Weiss’s profile of Fergie Chambers: “He’s Got $250 Million to Spend on Communist Revolution.”)
Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline Graham Nordone will serve out the remainder of his term in the Senate after South Carolina governor Henry McMaster formally appointed her on Monday. President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune publicly indicated their support for Graham Nordone in advance of her appointment.
Twelve state attorneys general are attempting to block Paramount’s $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, alleges the combined entity would control almost a third of theatrical films and basic cable assets in the United States. Paramount, The Free Press’s parent company, says the suit “distorts settled antitrust law and is based on a misrepresentation of competition in the entertainment industry today.”
Madonna’s latest album, CONFESSIONS II, hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 this weekend. The record, a spiritual successor to her 2005 dance-pop hit Confessions on a Dance Floor, marks the 10th chart-topping album in her four-decade career.
Sam Neill, Jurassic Park’s leading man, died Monday at 78. The actor starred in more than 150 movies and TV shows during his five-decade career. His family announced his death via Instagram on Monday, though the cause of his death remains unknown.
Ah, the arrest of Fergie Chambers is such a good news ! 🍾
Ro Khanna lauded the nazi tattoo guy as the 2nd coming, so the only way he thought to undo the damage to his reputation is to go to Israel and try to cause trouble to make himself some kind of left wing hero. Turns out even if you are a US congressman and go into another country's restricted military zone you are going to be held by the military....whodathunkit...(also why does it take 2 days to manufacture your outrage?) meanwhile, homeless encampments, housing crisis, water crisis, people feeling cali because of taxes and ridiculous regulations, crime and drugs out off the charts in his district but he decided what will help his bona fides is to pick a fight with Israel....the democrats sure know how to pick them. I hope the entire party implodes.
So shocked just shocked that the Mullahs, people that slaughtered 40,000 of their own countrymen in 2 days, murders women for not having their hair covered, have killed thousands of US service personnel cant be trusted to keep to an agreement......our foreign policy is being run by the ignoramuses Witkoff and Kushner ...
So the liberals are upset that a conservative is going to buy one of their propaganda outlets so they are suing to stop it...that is what the lawsuit is...funny how these 12 attorney generals had no issue supporting liberal companies taking over movie companies....and they also seem to have no issue with Chinese communist investment and control in the US movie industry, but to the left wing US conservatives are the enemy apparently
I'm sorry but why do we keep having to hear about Harry and by extension Meghan? Talk about a spoiled nepo baby who made some poor choices in life.