Morning Briefing #110 — July 25, 2026

Morning Briefing #110 — July 25, 2026Your daily briefing connecting world events, technology, and education.No political slant. Just facts.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━📋 IN TODAY'S EPISODE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌍 WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE WORLD────────────────────────────────_Here's what's shaping the world today._US Strikes on Iran Continue for 13th Consecutive Night as Ceasefire Efforts StallThe United States carried out its 13th consecutive night of airstrikes on Iranian military targets on July 23, hitting command centers, drone facilities, and coastal surveillance sites, according to the Pentagon. The renewed campaign follows the collapse of a ceasefire reached under a mid-June agreement, with talks now stuck over Iran's demand for control over shipping fees in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has retaliated with strikes on US-allied Gulf states including Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, and rejected a ceasefire proposal relayed by Iraq's prime minister. Iran's health ministry has reported dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries since late June, President Trump has said he is weighing larger strikes, and the US House voted to require congressional approval for further military action, though a matching Senate measure failed. Oil prices have climbed past $100 a barrel as the conflict disrupts Gulf shipping routes.Fragile Gaza Ceasefire Faces Mounting Strain Nine Months After TruceNine months after a US-brokered ceasefire took hold in Gaza in October 2025, Israeli forces continue to carry out near-daily strikes that Palestinian officials say have killed civilians, while Israel says it is targeting Hamas fighters and efforts to rebuild militant infrastructure. Al Jazeera reported Israeli strikes killed at least six people in Gaza in early July, and on July 25 Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians in West Bank raids amid a rise in settler violence in the territory. Negotiations over the ceasefire's next phase, including Hamas's disarmament and Gaza's reconstruction, remain deadlocked, and the United Nations estimates roughly 1.7 million Palestinians are still displaced and living in tents or makeshift shelters. Hamas denies violating the truce and accuses Israel of restricting aid deliveries, while Israeli officials describe the Gaza strikes as responses to attacks on its forces. Other reporting this week describes Israel expanding a physical barrier and entrenching control over more than half of Gaza even as the ceasefire nominally holds.Astronomers Detect First Atmosphere on a Rocky Planet in a Habitable ZoneA team of astronomers led by Harvard University's Collin Cherubim has confirmed the first known atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone of another star, publishing the findings in the journal Science on July 16. The planet, LHS 1140 b, is a rocky super-Earth about 1.7 times Earth's radius located roughly 48 light-years away, and researchers detected its atmosphere by observing helium escaping from the planet during a 2024 transit, using a telescope at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Scientists say the finding suggests small rocky worlds can retain atmospheres for billions of years, a key condition for a planet to potentially hold liquid water. Researchers stressed there is no evidence of life on LHS 1140 b and that the detected gas, helium, could not support life on its own, but the discovery gives astronomers a promising new target for future habitability studies. The result is considered a milestone because rocky, habitable-zone exoplanets had previously yielded little to no confirmed atmospheric data._Before we move on, here's one to hold onto._…(continued in the episode — full sources pinned in comments ⬇)━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━(continued in YouTube show notes)