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Why The U.S. Just Banned Roombas & The Iran War Spills Over

The U.K. Faces Drought & The Lakers And Dodgers Are In Danger

Author

Marcus Gee-Lim
July 30, 2026

Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today, we’re covering the Iran war’s spillover, a drought in the U.K., a massive earthquake in Japan, the Fed’s rate meeting, financial trouble for the Lakers and Dodgers, and why the U.S. is banning foreign robots.

“The thing is you keep existing whether you have a plan to do so or not, until you don’t exist, and then your plans are meaningless.” ― Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room

War Is A Flat Circle

“USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Conducts Flight Operations” by NAVCENT Public Affairs.

And just like that, we’re back here again. After both the U.S. and Iran appeared ready to cool down the war over the weekend, the conflict returned to full strength yesterday, as Trump ordered the U.S. military to unleash a “powerful response” against Iran for its attack on U.S. bases in Jordan the day prior. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard, because it’s our turn to hit them,” he stated before the U.S. launched its missiles on Wednesday night. 

The return to a hotter conflict comes as the war has expanded across the Middle East and even further. Last week, Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced that they were planning to drag Saudi Arabia into the war by attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, which the petrostate has been using to export most of its oil over the course of the war. The Saudis are pushing for the establishment of an international coalition to protect Red Sea shipping lanes, though details on that collaboration are scarce. Over the weekend, Ukraine also attacked an Iranian tanker moving through the Caspian Sea, raising concerns that the two conflicts could eventually merge, dragging Europe into the Middle East conflict.

Yesterday, Iraq was pulled into the war as well. The U.S. and Saudi militaries launched a joint attack on the country’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an Iran-backed militia, hitting multiple targets within Iraq’s borders and killing at least 20 people. The attacks, which the Saudis chose to put their name on, have brought Riyadh directly into the conflict, and have also angered Baghdad, which described them as “a blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, targeting its official institutions.”

Egypt was also dragged into the mud yesterday, when a drone (of unknown origin) struck a U.S.-owned gas storage ‌tanker sitting in the country’s Mediterranean Sea port of Damietta. The drone struck a tanker named Energos Winter, starting a fire that also jumped to a nearby vessel named Gaslog Salem. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and no humans were hurt by the drone strike or fire.

Overall, the signs point to this conflict stretching on for much, much longer than the Trump White House initially expected. “When Trump started the war, he thought he could control it. The Iranian response is to extend the battlefield much, much wider, so the United States has to defend a broader battlefield,” said one professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “As long as issues such as who controls the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved, let alone concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and other initial drivers of the war, the cycle of hostilities and temporary pauses will continue,” added the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

London Bridge Is Burning Up

“The classic view over Greenwich Park now savaged by weeks of extreme heat and drought” by Alisdare Hickson. CC BY-SA 2.0

  • When you think of the weather in the U.K., what comes to mind is probably a gray, wet afternoon in London. But despite that, it appears that the majority of England is actually in a drought. Yesterday, the U.K.’s Environment Agency (EA) declared that more than half of the country – mainly central, eastern, and southern England – is officially facing a drought, which has affected crops and rivers while increasing the risk of wildfires.

  • “The hot and dry weather means we are currently using water faster than nature can replenish it,” said Helen Wakeham, director of water at the EA. The drought conditions have arrived despite a particularly wet January and February – so far, this July has seen England receive just 7% of its usual rainfall for the month, and the agency projects that August won’t see enough rainfall to compensate for that shortage. Currently, 20 million people are already under hosepipe bans, which make it illegal for people to water their gardens, clean vehicles, or use hoses to wash outdoor surfaces.

A Shakeup In Southern Japan

  • On Tuesday, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost main island. The quake killed at least 30 people and injured more than 530 others, and also led to an explosion at a local mall and the collapse of a paper mill. Since the initial quake, the region has been rocked by more than 200 aftershocks, making rescue efforts riskier than they would be under the intense summer heat.

  • More than 4,600 military personnel have led the rescue campaign, with help also coming from local police and fire departments. The affected region experienced another massive earthquake just 10 years ago, and was entering the last stages of its rebuilding process. Locals “were just thinking that the recovery process was entering its final phase, when this happened,” said a senior priest at the Yatsushiro-gu Shrine in Kumamoto prefecture, near the epicenter of the quake. “Honestly I just felt like, ‘wait, why?’” At least 31,000 households are still without electricity right now, and 84,000 homes are also surviving without water.

Additional World News

This Fed Meeting Could’ve Been An Email

  • Yesterday, the Federal Reserve voted to keep interest rates flat (at 3.5%-3.75%) once again. That’s despite the new influence of Trump – who wants the bank to cut rates, allowing companies to access money more easily – via recently-appointed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh.

  • During Wednesday’s meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted 9-3 in favor of keeping interest rates flat for the seventh month in a row. The three dissenting members called for a rate hike in response to worries about rising inflation, marking the first time since September 2016 that three dissenters held the same opinion during an FOMC meeting.

  • Bond investors signalled that they thought the Fed was being too lax about the inflation issue by selling off their bonds, prompting yields to rise. As a result, stock markets also took a tumble after the meeting: the Dow closed down 2.19%, the S&P dropped 1.52%, and the Nasdaq fell 1.74%.

Mark Walter In Troubled Waters

  • Mark Walter, who owns both the Lakers and Dodgers, is in big trouble. Maybe. Over the past week, it’s become public knowledge that Walter’s other businesses – which are mainly focused on insurance – are under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and other government regulators for allegedly dealing in $16 billion worth of fraudulent loans.

  • According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the investigation is related to loans from Delaware Life, an insurance firm owned by Walter, to other companies either owned by him or affiliated with TWG Global, his holding company. Normally, insurance companies are supposed to disclose transactions between themselves and affiliated companies as “related party” transactions due to conflict of interest issues. Before the investigation, Walter’s Delaware insurance firm had listed just $1 billion in related party transactions, but changed its disclosures to show that it had actually made a whopping $16 billion of those loans.

  • While it’s unlikely that the investigation will result in any real legal repercussions for Walter, his sports teams, or any of his other companies, credit agency S&P Global downgraded the credit outlook for Delaware Life to “negative,” noting higher credit risks for the company. “In addition, such outcomes could weaken Delaware Life’s regulatory relationships and damage its reputation, which could erode its competitive position,” the agency added.

Additional USA News

 

These Roombas Are A Security Threat

  • On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a new ban on importing new foreign-made robots and power inverters. The White House claims that the ban is needed to protect the U.S. from the threat of Chinese surveillance and supply chain disruptions – while it broadly targets all foreign-made robots, it’s likely that the government will only actually apply the law to technology produced in China. According to the FCC, China-made robots “collect data that could be leveraged by malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities ​of foreign intelligence services, or to remotely commandeer the robots.”

  • For some strange reason, headlines are mainly focused on the ban’s application to futuristic humanoid and quadruped robots. But the text of the new rule is much, much wider, and could affect mundane technology such as the robo-vacuums that keep your floors clean. The regulation actually targets “advanced robotic devices” made abroad, which are defined as robots weighing more than 4.4 pounds that are capable of moving, remote operation, are equipped with environmental sensors and network connectivity, and somehow apply machine learning software.

  • The government has a process allowing it to hand out waivers to the companies it chooses to let U.S. consumers buy from. Firms can apply for waivers by telling the government where their devices are designed and manufactured; if the White House doesn’t like the information it receives from the application, companies can get their robots into the U.S. by pledging to manufacture a majority of their parts within the U.S.

Additional Reads

Peanut For Your Thoughts

Looks like LeBron got out of LA at the perfect time, maybe.

Editor + Writer: Marcus Gee-Lim

Designer: Joe Stella