🪖 McConnell's Absence Threatens Trump's $1.5T Defense Bill
Sen. Mitch McConnell's ongoing hospitalization is complicating President Trump's push for a $1.5 trillion defense spending package.
McConnell, who has been hospitalized for more than three weeks, chairs the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee — the panel that controls Pentagon spending — leaving a key seat vacant at a critical moment in budget negotiations.
⚡ First U.S. Sodium-Ion Battery Plant Opens in Sacramento
A 183,000-square-foot sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility is under construction in Sacramento, California — set to become the first U.S. plant dedicated solely to sodium-ion battery production.
The facility will have a production capacity of 4 gigawatt-hours per year, enough to power nearly four million households. The project is framed as a step toward reducing U.S. dependence on China in the battery supply chain, and as a boost to California's clean energy sector.
Sodium-ion technology is viewed as a next-generation alternative to lithium-ion batteries, with China currently dominating global production.
🇮🇷 U.S. Strikes 140 Iranian Targets — Trump: "Bombed the Hell Out of Them"
The U.S. military carried out strikes on 140 Iranian targets in the latest round of attacks, President Donald Trump confirmed Sunday.
"We bombed the hell out of them last night," Trump told NBC's Meet the Press. Iran simultaneously launched attacks against Persian Gulf neighbors amid the ongoing conflict.
The scale of the strikes — 140 targets in a single round — marks a significant escalation. No casualty figures or target types were provided in the available details.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it conducted a third round of strikes against Iran this week, targeting around 140 military sites, including missile and drone facilities.
The operation followed an attack by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the Cyprus-flagged cargo vessel M/V GFS Galaxy in the Strait of Hormuz, which left one crew member missing and the ship disabled after a fire broke out on board.
💻 Crypto Regulation Bill Faces Final Four-Week Window
The Senate's Clarity Act — a bipartisan bill to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets — is entering what experts call its last realistic window for passage before midterm elections.
Negotiators have four weeks before the August recess to resolve outstanding policy disputes. Experts warn that if the bill does not advance before the break, the midterm election cycle will effectively kill its chances this Congress.
The legislation aims to provide long-sought regulatory clarity for the cryptocurrency industry, a sector that has lobbied aggressively for defined federal rules.
🏦 Fed Chair Warsh Testifies as New Inflation Data Drops
Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is set to make his first appearance before Congress, delivering two days of testimony alongside the release of new U.S. inflation data.
Warsh's remarks will give lawmakers — and markets — their first major read on his policy direction since taking the Fed's top post. The inflation figures will provide fresh context for his testimony and shape expectations heading into the July Fed decision.
💵 Five Overlapping Forces Keep Inflation Elevated, Economists Warn
A convergence of pressures — the "Godzilla" El Niño weather pattern, surging AI energy demand, Trump-era tariffs, a fuel supply crunch, and the ongoing war in Ukraine — is keeping inflation persistently high, with little near-term relief in sight.
Economists note that businesses are still passing costs through to consumers. "These results suggest that many businesses are still adjusting their prices, more than a year after tariffs were first introduced," according to new analysis cited in the report.
Each factor compounds the others: El Niño disrupts agricultural supply chains, AI data centers drive up energy consumption, tariffs raise import costs, fuel markets remain tight, and the Ukraine conflict continues to pressure global commodity prices — leaving households and policymakers caught between multiple simultaneous shocks.