Important Takeaways:
- One of the multiple fires burning along Colorado’s Front Range this week — the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, just west of Denver — is now being investigated as arson, law enforcement officials announced Friday morning.
- This week’s wildfires have killed one person, damaged or destroyed at least 30 buildings, prompted the evacuation of thousands of people along the Front Range and triggered Gov. Jared Polis to deploy the Colorado National Guard.
- All four major fires currently burning — the Quarry fire in Jefferson County, the Alexander Mountain fire in Larimer County, the Stone Canyon fire in Boulder and Larimer counties and the Bucktail fire in Montrose County — began this week and grew rapidly, fueled by hot, dry weather and arid conditions on the ground.
- The Deer Creek Mesa, Kuehster, McKinney Ranch, Murphy Gulch, Sampson and Maxwell areas remain under mandatory evacuation Friday, according to the county’s evacuation map.
- The Hilldale Pines, Oehlmann Park, Silver Ranch, West Ranch, Homestead and Silver Ranch South neighborhoods are on pre-evacuation notice.
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Important Takeaways:
- President Joe Biden is weighing more US defenses in the Middle East as the US prepares for an Iranian retaliation against Israel that officials say could include an attack on American forces.
- In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, Biden said the US would “support Israel’s defense against threats,” which would include “new defensive US military deployments,” according to a readout of the call.
- The statement did not detail what new deployments would occur ahead of an anticipated Iranian attack in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
- The USS Wasp amphibious assault ship and several other Navy vessels are currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea. The group includes a Marine expeditionary unit capable of carrying out an evacuation of American citizens from Lebanon if the US ordered such an evacuation.
- The US is expecting the anticipated Iranian attack may be similar to the barrage of ballistic missiles and drones launched against Israel on April 13, officials said. But this attack could be larger and more complicated than before, including the possibility of a coordinated attack with Iranian proxies from multiple directions.
- “Because they have picked a fight with everyone, they don’t know where the response will come from … the response will come separately or coordinated,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Thursday.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah’s leader warned Thursday that the conflict with Israel has entered a “new phase,” as he addressed mourners at the funeral of a commander from the group who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut.
- Iran has vowed retaliation against Israel for the strike that killed Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said, “We … have entered a new phase that is different from the previous period.”
- “Do they expect that Hajj Ismail Haniyeh will be killed in Iran and Iran will remain silent?” he said of the Israelis.
- “The enemy and the one who is behind the enemy” — an apparent reference to Israel’s chief ally, the United States — “will have to wait for our coming response,” he said.
- In his speech, Nasrallah praised Shukur as a veteran commander and denied that Hezbollah carried out the deadly strike on the soccer field in the mainly Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan.
- “We have the courage to take responsibility for where we strike, even if it’s a mistake. If we made a mistake, we would admit and apologize,” he said, adding, “The enemy made itself the judge, jury, and executioner without any evidence.”
- Speaking Thursday in the Mongolian capital of Ulaaanbataar, Blinken appealed for countries to “make the right choices in the days ahead” and said a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was the only way to begin to break the current cycle of violence and suffering. Blinken did not mention Israel, Iran or Hamas by name in his comments.
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Important Takeaways:
- The number of unlawful crossings by migrants at the US southern border has dropped for the fifth consecutive month, according to official data.
- US Border Patrol agents apprehended around 57,000 migrants along the border in July – the lowest recorded since September 2020.
- The numbers are down significantly from December, when around 250,000 migrants were caught crossing the border.
- President Joe Biden’s administration has credited the decrease to recent actions by him to tackle illegal immigration into the US, an election-year political vulnerability for the Democrats.
- Government data shows that the number of migrants stopped at the US-Mexico border had dropped even before the order.
- Border Patrol recorded 141,000 apprehensions in February, 137,000 in March, 129,000 in April, 118,000 in May and 84,000 in June.
- The figures do not include official border crossings, where the Biden administration has been processing around 1,500 migrants each day through a smartphone app that schedules appointments between migrants and US border agents.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Park Fire is now the fourth largest wildfire to ever tear across California.
- The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Friday morning that the fire has grown to 397,629 acres and is only about a quarter contained
- At least 540 structures, including homes, have been destroyed
- Cal Fire said this week that as of Tuesday, wildfire activity is 2,816% higher than last year for the same time period.
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Important Takeaways:
- Kamala Harris came alarmingly close to a pipe bomb during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a new report.
- The report says the pipe bomb had been “placed near the building the night before” according to ABC News
- “Advance security sweeps by the Secret Service at the DNC building did not include the outside area where a pipe bomb had been placed,” DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari writes in the report, which was shared with members of Congress on Thursday, according to the network.
- “[Harris], traveling in an armored vehicle with her motorcade, entered the DNC building via a ramp within 20 feet of the pipe bomb,” the report says. It claims that the device wasn’t found for an hour and 40 minutes after Harris’ arrival at the building, with the report further suggesting it then took the Secret Service 10 minutes to evacuate her, meaning she spent around 1 hour and 50 minutes in the headquarters.
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Important Takeaways:
- State Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters threatened to hold “rogue” public school districts accountable if they didn’t incorporate the Bible as part of their curriculum.
- At least a dozen of the state’s largest districts – Norman, Moore, Stillwater, Bixby, Deer Creek, Piedmont, Yukon, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Collinsville, Owasso and Tulsa – have publicly said they have no intention of altering their curriculum to incorporate Walters’ directive.
- Without providing examples, he said those same districts “want pornography in front of kids under the name of inclusivity but don’t want the historical context of the Bible.”
- In a five-page guidance document, issued in late July, Walters reiterated his demand: “Immediate and complete implementation of these guidelines for the 2024-2025 school year is required. This memorandum and the included standards must be provided to every teacher as well as providing a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments as resources in every classroom in the school district. These documents are mandatory for the holistic education of students in Oklahoma.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel’s military on Thursday confirmed the death of Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’ military wing — the third high-profile Hamas or Iran-linked figure it says it has killed in recent weeks.
- As head of the Qassam Brigades, Deif was believed to have been one of the masterminds of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on southern Israel
- The announcement came as the funeral was held for Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, a day after he was killed in Iran.
- As fears of an all-out war in the Middle East deepen, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said what it called an “intelligence assessment” had confirmed that Deif had been killed when fighter jets struck an area in the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on July 13.
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Important Takeaways:
- After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all of whom are expected to arrive on American soil by nightfall.
- Under the terms of the agreement, 12 political dissidents held in Russia have been released to Germany
- In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were being held in U.S. prisons: Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznyov.
- Two Russians held in Slovenia, one in Poland and another in Norway are also headed home. All have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence, according to U.S. officials.
- The painstakingly choreographed exchange, apparently one of the most complex in history, finally took place on Thursday on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey.
- Not all Americans currently imprisoned in Russia were involved in the swap. American teacher Marc Fogel, musician Michael Travis Leake, U.S. Army staff sergeant Gordon Black, and Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina remain imprisoned, among others.
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Important Takeaways:
- Analysts agree that both strikes hit too close to home to pass without a response, and were serious security breaches for both Iran and its proxy terror group.
- Calibrating that response to restore deterrence without sparking an even more damaging escalation may be the most delicate balancing act in nearly a year of teetering on the brink of a regional war.
- Tuesday’s rare strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs killed a top Hezbollah commander who Israel says was responsible for a missile strike on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, killing 12 children.
- Less than 12 hours later, the Palestinian terror group Hamas — a Hezbollah ally also backed by Iran — announced that the chief of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran
- “In the Israeli-Hezbollah confrontation, this is a major escalation whereby Hezbollah has to respond adequately in a more or less timely fashion” to restore deterrence.
- “We are in the territory of too many ‘ifs’ to avoid a war, and this doesn’t bode well.”
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