Macro

Trump continued his run on tariffs by raising them on several key products. This move has sparked concerns about the economy, especially in light of a perceived softening US labor market and inflation persistence. Meanwhile, international attention remains on the ongoing war in Ukraine, Israel's plans for Gaza, and various environmental concerns, including wildfires in France and the expansion of the US border wall impacting wildlife.

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• Palantir reported a 53% increase in earnings from government contracts in the second quarter. This raised them over $1 billion in revenue for the period, demonstrating government demand for AI software.

• Japan’s population has continued to decline, with a drop of over 900,000 people last year. This marks the largest annual decline since record-keeping began in 1968 and the 16th consecutive year of population loss.

• Fast-moving canyon fire burns 1,500 acres, spurs evacuations in Ventura and L.A. counties.

Read the full stories and more at theweeklyyield.com.

The confrontation could reshape national politics. With the U.S. House divided by only a handful of seats, a new Texas map would strengthen Republican odds of keeping control through the next election cycle. Critics say the mid-decade move sidesteps normal census timing and dilutes minority voting power in a state where Latino and Black Texans account for most recent population growth. Legal challenges are already in draft, setting the stage for another round of voting-rights litigation.

Economic fallout is also possible. Court fights could slow federal infrastructure grants tied to population formulas, while prolonged partisan gridlock may delay state budget bills that fund universities, hospitals, and highway projects. Businesses weighing relocations to Texas must now factor in political uncertainty on top of tax and workforce considerations. If other fast-growing states copy the Texas model, investors could see greater swings in local policy after every election rather than each decade.

For residents, the immediate question is representation. Lines drawn this summer could shape which communities receive federal resources and how effectively constituents can push for local projects. The broader lesson is clear: who controls the pen often controls the agenda, and Texas is testing just how far that power can reach between censuses.

The deal will need regulatory approval, and given the size and power of the NFL and ESPN, it might face some scrutiny from lawmakers. Assuming the partnership gets approved, Disney’s stake in ESPN will drop 8% to 72%, while minority owner Hearst will drop 2% to 18%. Despite this concern, these two have been very close over the past decade. In 2021, the NFL hired Goldman Sachs to explore a strategic partner, but didn’t land on ESPN quite yet.

The NFL hasn’t been able to post a positive performance in its media. Roughly 14 months ago, several NFL Network on-air personalities were let go, canceling NFL Total Access after 20 years of streaming. This partnership will look to turn things around.

In the NFL Network, ESPN will have a 24/7 news channel for the league. It will also host seven exclusive regular-season games. NFL Network currently reaches about 50 million homes. As part of the deal, ESPN will need to license NFL Network’s games from the league. Although much smaller than NFL Network, the NFL’s RedZone has a very loyal audience. The in-season Sunday-only network that carries live action from all the afternoon games is particularly popular among hardcore fans and fantasy football players. The channel is in fewer than 10 million homes, which the league hopes can increase with help from ESPN’s network.

There have been limits to how aggressively the NFL can make RedZone available, as rights holders to Sunday games have expressed concern that the network is a potential threat to their own coverage of games.

President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill eliminates Grad PLUS loans for new borrowers after July 1 2026 and imposes lifetime borrowing caps of one hundred thousand dollars for most graduate students and two hundred thousand dollars for professional degrees. Analysts at the Urban Institute note that many master’s and doctoral students currently borrow well above those limits, which means thousands will need new sources of funding.

Private lenders are moving quickly. Navient and SoFi both told investors they expect a “significant expansion” of new business once the caps take effect, pointing to an addressable market worth several billion dollars a year. Lawmakers led by Senator Ron Wyden have asked lenders to detail their underwriting practices, warning that variable rates and the loss of federal protections could burden borrowers with higher costs over time.

Industry groups argue that private loans will fill only genuine funding gaps and note that interest rates have fallen for top-tier borrowers. Consumer advocates counter that fewer safety nets, such as income-driven repayment or public-service forgiveness, will widen wealth gaps among graduates. Ascent Funding estimates that the shift could push more students toward co-signers and require schools to bolster scholarship aid to remain competitive.

The long-term impact hinges on how many universities adjust tuition or expand institutional grants and whether Congress revisits the caps after the first cohort feels the pinch. For now, private lenders appear to be the clear winners, while students face a more complex and potentially costly borrowing landscape.

Debt to GDP

One critical metric is the national debt. U.S. federal debt as a share of the economy has surged in recent years to levels not seen since World War II. In 2020, pandemic-related spending and economic contraction drove gross federal debt to 126% of GDP, an all-time high. Although growth resumed and emergency programs wound down, the debt ratio in 2023 remains roughly 120% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office projects debt will keep rising or maintain its level in the decade to come. There is no hard “collapse threshold,” but such high debt burdens historically have posed risks. For example, advanced economies with debt above 90% of GDP often see slower growth, and at some point, markets demand higher interest rates to continue lending. Exceeding 130% of GDP would put America in uncharted fiscal territory outside of wartime. For context, after 235 A.D., the Roman Empire was forced to debase its currency and struggled to pay its armies, contributing to an acute economic crisis and political instability within the following decades. High debt alone may not cause the U.S. to fail, but it is often a symptom of broader problems. Today’s U.S. debt trajectory is often described as unsustainable by bipartisan observers.

Wealth Inequality

The United States is also experiencing wealth inequality at a level not seen in living memory. Federal Reserve data show that as of early 2025, the top 1% of households own about 31% of all U.S. wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 2.5%. Even more striking, the super-rich top 0.1% (roughly 130,000 families) now hold around 14% or $22 trillion in assets, comparable to the combined wealth of the bottom 80% of Americans with ~$40 trillion. In practical terms, a tiny elite owns as much as tens of millions of ordinary U.S. households. This concentration of wealth has been accelerating as the top 0.1%’s share roughly doubled since the 1980s, while the bottom 90%’s slice has shrunk. For comparison, historians note that on the eve of the French Revolution (1789), wealth inequality in France had reached similar heights, a small fraction of the population controlling most land and resources, and the common citizens holding very little. No society in history has sustained such a wide wealth gap without turmoil. Stanford historian Experts conclude that extreme inequality has almost always been corrected only by disruptive events such as wars, revolutions, state collapses, or pandemics, rather than gradual policy adjustments. In other words, peaceful regimes that allowed wealth inequality to reach the levels we see typically saw social rupture before inequality could ever naturally diminish. While the United States in 2026 is a very different society from late-18th-century France or ancient Rome, the lesson remains cautionary.

Social Cohesion

A third metric in 2026 is the erosion of social cohesion, as evidenced by collapsing trust in institutions. In the late 1960s, a large majority of Americans expressed confidence in the federal government. In 1970, roughly 54% of the public said they trusted Washington to do the right thing most of the time. That trust has steadily declined across decades of Vietnam, Watergate, economic stagflation, and partisan conflict. In recent years, public trust in the U.S. government has hovered at 20–25%. In 2023, only about 1 in 5 Americans said they trust the federal government most of the time, near the lowest levels ever recorded. The Pew Research Center notes that since 2007, trust in government has not exceeded 30%, and it hit historical lows around the mid-2010s. This decline in institutional trust is not limited to government, as surveys show falling confidence in media, business, and even in each other. For instance, social trust has dropped since the mid-20th century. Such trends indicate fraying social cohesion, a sense that the public no longer unites around common narratives or faith in the system’s fairness. History suggests that when trust in governance falls below a certain threshold, governments face a legitimacy crisis. A dramatic example, by 1990-91, as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, a majority of Soviet citizens “lacked confidence in the Soviet regime” and supported dramatic reforms. Low public trust alone did not dissolve the USSR, but it was a telling indicator that the social contract had broken down. In the United States, trust-in-government metrics approaching 20% or lower are alarming flashing lights. Some political analysts warn that if Americans broadly lose faith that their institutions work, unrest and fragmentation could follow. Avoiding that outcome will require rebuilding confidence, something that neither major party nor institution has managed to accomplish.

Military Overextension

Another pressure point is the cost and strain of the United States’ vast global defense posture. The United States today maintains an unparalleled network of overseas military bases and security commitments. As of recent counts, the U.S. has nearly 800 military bases or installations spread across 70+ countries and territories worldwide. In contrast, other great powers like Britain, France, Russia, and China have only a few dozen foreign bases combined. The U.S. spends more on defense than the next 10 nations combined, and military spending has grown in recent years. In the federal budget for FY2024, core defense programs account for about $842 billion, while non-defense discretionary programs total about $758 billion. That means defense now consumes roughly 53% of the discretionary budget. Historically, great empires often began to falter when military and imperial upkeep drained their treasuries. For example, by the 17th century, the once-dominant Spanish Empire had suffered a series of sovereign bankruptcies. Enormous military expenditures on wars in Europe led Spain to repeatedly default on its debts in the 1500s and 1600s. Spanish government finances became so strained by war costs that eventually its power waned and territories slipped away. In the case of the United States, there is no immediate risk of bankruptcy; the U.S. can still finance its military easily for now. Yet the trajectory is concerning: if America’s defense commitments and costs keep expanding while the economic base stagnates or shrinks, relative to debt, the nation could face the classic imperial dilemma of “guns versus butter.” While drawing direct parallels is tricky, the Spanish case shows that spending over 60% of state resources on military endeavors is not sustainable long-term.

Political Polarization

Finally, the political polarization gripping the United States is projected to hit new extremes by 2026. America’s internal political divisions, conservative and liberal, have been widening for decades, but recent measures show we have entered truly historic territory. In Congress, the ideological gap between the two parties is the widest it has been since the late 19th century. In the 1960s and 70s, there was substantial overlap – many conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, such that about 50% of lawmakers overlapped ideologically between the parties. Today, that overlap is effectively zero. Every Democrat in the House and Senate is now more liberal than every Republican, and vice versa, which was not the case even in the early 20th century. Polls also indicate ideological sorting is nearly complete. For example, in 2025, only 34% of Americans identified as political moderates, while 77% of Republicans now identify as conservative and 55% of Democrats as liberal. If these trends continue to 2026, the U.S. will have levels of polarization not seen in any stable democracy. No advanced democracy today operates with the kind of hyper-partisanship the U.S. is experiencing; comparable levels have been observed mainly in cases like pre-civil war America or in countries that underwent democratic collapse. For example, Weimar Germany in the early 1930s saw severe polarization between communists and fascists. The United States is, of course, unique in many ways, with strong institutions. But by 2026, it is on track to break the known benchmarks for polarization in a surviving democracy. Party-line voting rates in Congress are already near 90-100% on major issues, indicating virtually no cross-party cooperation. As polarization exceeds prior highs, some analysts fear the U.S. could face a constitutional crisis or widespread civil unrest if, say, a disputed election occurs in 2028. While such worst-case scenarios are speculative, the underlying polarization metrics leave little room for complacency.

2026

In summary, by the year 2026, the United States will simultaneously confront five historic challenges. A debt burden approaching uncharted highs, gaping inequality not seen since the 1920s, collapsing trust in institutions, the mounting costs of a global military empire, and polarization that cleaves the nation’s political life in two. Each of these issues alone would be cause for concern. Converging together, they paint a picture of a nation at a crossroads. It is important to underscore that convergences are not destiny. The U.S. is not fated to collapse in 2026 simply because Rome or Britain faced turmoil around a similar relative age. However, the alignment of these stress indicators suggests that the mid-2020s will be a decisive period for America’s trajectory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Thursday that Israel intends to take full military control of the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to remove the militant group, Hamas.

In an interview, Netanyahu clarified that Israel does not plan to permanently occupy or govern Gaza, but establish a security perimeter and then hand the territory’s administration over to other Arab authorities. If carried out, such a campaign would mark the first re-entry of Israeli forces throughout Gaza since the country’s 2005 withdrawal of troops and settlers from the area, a pullout that Hamas’s rise to power a year later was partly attributed to by Israeli hardliners.

The war between Israel and Hamas erupted after Hamas militants launched a surprise cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducting over 250 others. In response, Israel began a massive military offensive aimed at wiping out Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007. Nearly 22 months into the conflict, Israeli forces have recaptured large parts of the territory, totaling close to 75% of Gaza. Israeli officials say around 50 hostages seized in 2023 are still held in Gaza (with an estimated 20 believed to be alive) after prisoner-exchange talks broke down in July.

The prolonged fighting has taken a devastating toll on Gaza’s civilian population. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 61,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the war began. Continuous Israeli bombings and ground battles have reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble. Most of Gaza’s 2 million residents have been displaced multiple times, and aid groups warn the region is on the brink of famine due to severe shortages of food, clean water, and medicine. The United Nations has called reports of a wider Israeli campaign “deeply alarming,” cautioning that further escalation would worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis.

Macro

The market stays steady with a slight downturn this week, with no significant movement. The biggest news of the week is Powell holding interest rates despite Trump’s call for cuts. In addition, the economy has shown signs of cooling, with first-half GDP growth slowing, consumer spending decreasing, and the labor market contracting. Yet, inflation is still above the 2.7% which most likely held the Fed Chair back.

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• Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern officially struck a merger deal to create the country’s first coast-to-coast railroad.

• Roughly 1 in 10 U.S citizens have a net worth of over $1 million. This is the most out of any country, and four times that of second-place China.

• A powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 29, 2025, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific, including Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, but the resulting waves caused only minor flooding and no major damage due to effective early warnings and the quake’s offshore location.

Read the full stories and more at theweeklyyield.com.

These credit risk transfers, known as synthetic risk transfers, reduce the amount of capital they must use to guard against losses on the loans they have underwritten. SRT transactions involve entities such as banks and insurance companies paying investors to assume the credit risk from their portfolios, reducing the Protection Buyer’s risk of loss without removing the underlying assets from their books. This process applies to various assets, including mortgage loans, consumer or commercial loans, and corporate loans, and it also helps lower the regulatory capital requirements for the Protection Buyer under Basel III standards.

The use of SRTs for margin loans marks a large jump from corporate and consumer loans that traditionally underpinned capital relief trades. SRTs don’t only protect the downside but unlock the upside. Banks can now pursue these transactions to see growth in specific asset classes.

Despite this, banks find it difficult to complete SRTs for prime broking loans because they agree to strict confidential terms with clients and cannot reveal hedge fund positions. Just describing them can reveal trade secrets. Additionally, positions can change rapidly, which may result in changes to the collateral underlying credit risk transfer. Instead of relying on positions, investors must base their decisions on their view of the bank’s prime brokerage business and risk management policies, essentially betting on the financial infrastructure not to collapse. This is betting that the margin call mechanisms work and that they have enough liquidity to cover the position.

These SRTs work in the cases of money managers that may have separate investments in hedge funds, which could be included in the exposure. They can then assess the risk by checking the fund’s trading book.

Columbia University has agreed to pay the United States government 221 million dollars to settle multiple civil‑rights investigations, including claims that the school failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from harassment. The deal restores hundreds of millions in frozen federal research grants and sets up an independent oversight board to monitor campus policies.

Most of the settlement consists of 200 million dollars over three years which goes to the Treasury, while 21 million dollars resolves related employment discrimination charges brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas called it the largest religious‑discrimination resolution in the agency’s history.

The payout is less than one year of Columbia’s research funding but it signals a tougher federal stance that could reach other elite universities now under review. Compliance costs will rise as schools expand training, security, and reporting systems. For donors and grant makers, the case raises questions about governance and risk at institutions that rely on public money.

A year later, mega caps and AI-dominance continue to be the face of performance. Since 2021, the S&P 500 has returned a little less than 70%, of which roughly 54% of the total gain can be attributed to the 10 biggest companies. As of now, these large companies are supporting their monumental valuations with strong margins and quarterly reports. This still brings concentration risk as the premium in large caps’ book multiple is the widest it’s been in 25 years.

This raises the argument that small caps’ cheapness could mean that there is under-appreciated growth potential. Perhaps there is undiscovered value in the investment, which could hedge against large corporations if we see any volatility. Yet, companies, with only a few exceptions, are judged on a quarter-to-quarter basis and get rewarded for posting revenue beats. Until small caps consistently perform to expectations, they may not provide the result some hope for.

On the evening of Monday, July 28th, a gunman opened fire inside the lobby of 345 Park Avenue. This building houses the NFL’s headquarters, Blackstone - an investment firm, and Rudin Management - a real estate firm. The shooter killed four people and wounded a fifth before ultimately taking his own life, and was later identified as Shane Tamura, a 27-year-old from Las Vegas.

Tamura was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and reportedly “sprayed the skyscraper’s lobby with bullets” before riding the elevator to the 33rd floor, where he shot another victim and eventually himself. Among the four killed were an off-duty NYPD police officer, a lobby security guard, a real estate executive at Blackstone, and an employee of the building's management company. The injured was an NFL staff member who is currently hospitalized and in stable condition.

Authorities say Tamura intended to target the NFL’s league offices on a higher floor, blaming the NFL for his mental health issues, but he took the wrong elevator and ended up on a different floor of the building. Investigators recovered a handwritten, three-page note from Tamura’s wallet in which he claimed to suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma in contact sports.. In this note, Tamura also alleged that the NFL “knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits”, leading officials to believe his grievance with the NFL motivated this act of violence.

Macro

Markets continue to push higher throughout the week. Many are unsure about the drivers behind the movement due to increasing trade tensions with many key international trade partners.

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• Famous heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne passed away this week at the age of 76.

• The Trump administration on Thursday sued New York City over local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

• The Chinese owner of TikTok must come to a sale agreement, otherwise the app will become banned in the U.S, states U.S Commerce Secretary.

• Hulk Hogan brought pro wrestling to new heights of popularity and was a pop culture icon for decades, passing away this week at 71.

Read the full stories and more at theweeklyyield.com.

General Motors reported second-quarter operating income of three billion dollars, down 32%, after absorbing about one point one billion dollars in new tariff costs. Revenue fell 2% to forty-seven billion dollars. The immediate hit to cash flow limits funds available for electric vehicle plants and other capital projects, and investors responded by marking the stock lower.

In the short run, GM plans to offset about one-third of the tariff bill by shifting more parts production to North America and trimming nonessential spending. Those moves could steady margins but add near-term restructuring expenses and disrupt supplier contracts. Smaller parts firms that rely on imported inputs face the greatest pressure as they negotiate new pricing or risk losing GM business.

Longer term, the company warns that tariff costs could top five billion dollars a year if rates remain in place. Persistence would slow the pace of battery and software investment, which management sees as critical to staying competitive with Tesla and Chinese competitors. Higher production costs may also trickle down to car buyers, keeping vehicle prices elevated and dampening demand.

The wider auto industry now faces a strategic choice: spend heavily to rebuild domestic supply chains or lobby for policy relief. Either path carries uncertainty. Until there is clarity on trade rules, capital plans across the sector are likely to stay cautious, and growth in related manufacturing jobs may stall.

The House called an early recess after lawmakers from both parties demanded that the Justice Department release full investigative records on Jeffrey Epstein, including FBI reports and potential client names. Speaker Mike Johnson ended votes two days ahead of schedule when a resolution forcing disclosure stalled on the floor, leaving the chamber at a standstill.

At the center of the fight is the department’s refusal to unseal thousands of pages tied to the 2019 case, even after an internal review again ruled Epstein’s death a suicide and found no hidden client list. Critics say the limited release fuels suspicion of a cover‑up and erodes trust in federal law enforcement. Many political figures from both parties used the Epstein case as a talking point in their campaign, stating that they would push the case forward and release the files. These claims came from all over the political world, including the President himself. Now, these figures seem to be backtracking on their initial claims and stating that there is no more to be done, and that the files are “corrupt” or “fraudulent”.

The moral stakes are high. Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking minors, and many of his victims have urged full transparency. Epstein was also known for his relations with high profile individuals, people that run our country, make our movies, music, and art, and most importantly people that we pay our tax dollars to. Withholding records sends a clear message that powerful interests can bury evidence in cases that expose abuse of vulnerable children.

Permitting a government to suppress evidence in a case involving the exploitation of minors shows how federal power can override the public’s right to know and sets a dangerous precedent even in a democracy. When officials can seal records and silence scrutiny, they signal that accountability applies only to the powerless, undermining the principle that all citizens deserve equal protection and transparency. Such a cover‑up erodes trust, weakens the checks that keep government authority in balance, and suggests that privilege, rather than law, determines who faces full investigation.

The FCA found Barclays failed to properly assess money-laundering risks, ignoring red flags such as discrepancies in Stunt & Co.’s business activity and millions in suspicious transactions from a jeweler. This was later implicated in a major laundering scheme. Despite law enforcement warnings and a police raid in 2016, Barclays took no meaningful action until many years had passed, after a related investigation into rival NatWest spurred a review.

Barclays said it cooperated fully and has since strengthened its financial crime controls. The case marks another compliance setback for the bank, which has been working to move past prior scandals involving unregistered securities and former CEO Jes Staley’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The real estate industry was hoping for a rebound in 2025, but sales have been slow for the third consecutive year. This sluggish spring casts doubt on a late-year rebound, especially without evidence of falling rates. While President Trump has publicly criticized Fed Chair Powell for high mortgage costs, the connection isn’t direct. Mortgage rates are more closely tied to long-term government bond yields than short-term Fed policy.

Lately, those yields have been climbing.. Heightened uncertainty stemming from the ongoing trade war and economic instability has pushed investors to demand higher returns on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, which are seen as a benchmark for mortgage rates. Low demand for long-term bonds has also boosted their yields. As yields rise, so do mortgage rates, making home borrowing even more expensive. Until trade tensions ease and investor confidence stabilizes, these elevated borrowing costs may continue to weigh on the housing market and delay recovery.

The United States has announced new trade agreements this week with Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, scaling back hefty tariffs imposed on imports from those countries. President Trump was to set steep “reciprocal” tariff hikes starting August 1st, but last-minute deals were negotiated to soften the blow. In exchange for lower U.S. import taxes, each country is offering major investments or market openings, creating a win-win scenario instead of inciting a trade war.

Japan, instead of facing a 25% duty as threatened, will now be subject to a 15% U.S. import tariff. In return, Japan is pledging a whopping $550 billion to invest in American projects, with the U.S. set to receive 90% of the profits from those investments. Tokyo also agreed to open its market to U.S. exports, including cars, trucks, rice, and other agricultural products. The deal will also slash the tariff on Japanese automobiles from 25% to 15%, thoroughly boosting the Japanese auto industry. The two nations even hinted at teaming up on a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Alaska as a strategic collaboration down the road.

Indonesia also struck a compromise to avoid these tariffs. The U.S. will impose a 19% tariff on Indonesian imports, much lower than the previous 32%. In exchange, Indonesia agreed to eliminate tariffs on 99% of American goods and scrap a host of trade barriers that hinder U.S. firms. Indonesia is also removing export restrictions on critical minerals and making huge investments in American products such as aircraft, energy, and agriculture. The Indonesian government has committed to buy about $3.2 billion in U.S. aircraft, $4.5 billion in agricultural commodities, and $15 billion in energy products as part of the deal.

The Philippines’ deal follows a similar trend on a smaller scale. The new agreement sets a 19% U.S. tariff on Filipino exports, just under the 20% rate President Trump had originally threatened. In return, the Philippines will open its market to U.S. goods at a zero percent tariff, meaning American products will enter the Philippine market duty-free. This is a big change, especially for sectors like automobiles, as the Philippines agreed to drop tariffs on U.S. cars that used to carry import duties. Philippine officials say they’ll also boost imports of U.S. farm goods, such as soybeans and wheat, and other products to help even out the trade balance. Both nations cast the deal as a “significant achievement” that strengthens their long-term alliance.

Macro

This week's macro overview suggests a mixed global economic picture with both positive and negative factors at play. Central banks are poised to potentially lower interest rates, but inflation remains a concern. U.S. economic data indicates a potential slowdown, while China's rising capital outflows suggest hedging strategies.

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• Inflation reported on Monday rose, and the President’s approval rating tumbled in the opposite direction.

• The Justice Department released a memo stating that no more files from the Epstein case will be released.

• This is the “worst week of the year” to be a sports fan, as the day before and after the MLB All-Star Game are the only days out of the year that don’t host a single MLB, NBA, NFL, or NHL game.

• Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao is set to face Mario Barrios on July 19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for his first fight since his 2021 retirement.

Read the full stories and more at theweeklyyield.com.

On July 17, 2025, Israeli forces carried out major military strikes in both Syria and Gaza that caused civilian casualties and triggered widespread international backlash. Syrian government and military sites around Damascus and in the southern Suwayda province were struck, reportedly killing and injuring dozens; the Syrian government condemned these attacks as illegal aggression, and even the United States publicly distanced itself from Israel’s actions. Meanwhile, in Gaza, an Israeli shell struck Gaza City’s Holy Family Church, the enclave’s only Catholic church, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians, killing at least three people and wounding several others, including the parish priest. Israeli authorities said the church strike was accidental and voiced regret. Still, the unprecedented attack on a place of worship drew criticism from Israel’s allies and religious leaders, adding to growing international calls for restraint and a ceasefire.

Syrian reports said at least 3 people were killed and 34 wounded in the Damascus strikes, and five Syrian security personnel died in the blast at the ministry site. The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli strikes as part of a “systematic…policy to ignite tension and chaos” and urged urgent international action. The United States government, which had been involved in bringing about a ceasefire involving Israel, publicly distanced itself from its actions. A State Department spokesperson said Washington “did not support” the Israeli strikes and had made its displeasure clear.

That same day, an Israeli strike hit the Holy Family Church in Gaza, the only Catholic church in the area. On Thursday morning, a shell struck the church compound in Gaza City, which was being used as a shelter by hundreds of displaced people. It is reported that two women and one man were killed in the blast, and several others were wounded. Among the injured was the parish priest, Father Gabriele Romanelli, who suffered a leg wound. The Catholic Authority for the area condemned the attack, stating that the victims had fled to the church seeking refuge “after their homes, possessions, and dignity had already been stripped away.” Israeli officials quickly expressed regret. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying, “Israel deeply regrets that a stray ammunition hit Gaza’s Holy Family Church”, and pledged to investigate the incident further. The White House press secretary confirmed President Donald Trump was displeased about the church strike, describing his reaction as “not a positive” one.

The United States is starting to lose some of its most talented researchers. A combination of budget cuts and tougher immigration rules is making it harder for scientists to stay. As a result, more are heading to countries like Canada, Germany, and China, where support for research is growing.

In a recent survey from Nature, 75 percent of U.S.-based scientists said they are thinking about moving abroad. With grants from places like the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation shrinking, many labs are downsizing or closing. Other countries are stepping in with offers of funding and residency to attract those looking for stable research careers.

The economic impact could be severe. If fewer scientists are working in the U.S., progress in biotech, artificial intelligence, and climate technology could slow. These industries are not just about innovation. They also drive job growth and economic development.

Young scientists and students are among the most affected. With fewer job openings and lower chances of funding, early career researchers could look elsewhere. Universities and research institutions could struggle to keep programs alive, especially outside major cities.

The U.S. still leads in science for now, but if talent keeps flowing outward, that edge could fade. Decisions made in the next few years may determine whether the country remains the center of global innovation.