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Senate Republicans Thursday blocked a resolution directing President Trump to end the war in Iran. Again.Only three Republicans—Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky—crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to advance the measure. Again. Mitch McConnell didn’t show. Again. And Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted with Republicans against the measure.Again.The final vote was 49–50 to vanquish a resolution out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that would have instructed the president to withdraw U.S. troops from Iran, blocking him from military action in the country without congressional approval. The resolution only needed a simple majority to pass, but Fetterman tanked it.Although Fetterman initially ran his 2022 campaign for a Senate seat with a progressive mask, his M.O. since entering office has been the exact opposite. He is one of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in Congress, he supports the deadly and expensive campaigns against Iran and Lebanon, he voted with Republicans to confirm Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and he has become increasingly aligned with President Trump on a host of other issues.The House of Representatives has now passed two separate war powers resolutions, and for a moment there it looked like the upper chamber might join them, but the Senate (and one senator, in particular) continues to hold out. This was its thirteenth vote on a resolution to end the Iran war this year.These resolutions are only growing in importance as the war spreads, with the U.S. resuming airstrikes and Iran launching missiles at targets across the Middle East. Just Wednesday night, U.S. Central Command struck dozens of Iranian targets for the first time in days, following Iran’s attacks on American military sites earlier this week.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is asking Congress for an additional $67 billion for the war in Iran.

Modern translations and adaptations of the Greek epic poem reveal as much about our present politics as that of the past.

Wisconsin wunderkind lays out a strategy for Democrats to reclaim power, state by state.

FIFA unveiled a plan to sell a major stake in the World Cup to a firm run by Joshua Kushner, Jared Kushner’s brother.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s mass immigration detention policy was struck down twice in a single day on Thursday, in a brutal loss for President Donald Trump.  Two separate federal appeals courts rejected the Trump administration’s bid to detain immigrants—many of whom have lived in the U.S. for years without a criminal record—without a hearing. The rulings mark the administration’s fifth and sixth consecutive losses on the case.In a 2–1 ruling by the Wisconsin-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the majority found that the government could not refuse bond hearings to undocumented immigrants who were already living in the U.S. In executing its mass detention policy, the government had been improperly applying a rule meant to apply to immigrants “seeking admission” at the U.S. border. Earlier Thursday, there was a 2–1 ruling by the California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which similarly found that the government had misconstrued decades-old immigration laws to justify its actions. The majority opinion was written by Trump appointee Judge Daniel Bress.These rulings follow the same logic as decisions from the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit, the New York–based Second Circuit, the Colorado-based Tenth Circuit, and the Ohio-based Sixth Circuit. Only two federal appeals courts have sided with the Trump administration’s mass detention policy as it inevitably makes its way to the Supreme Court. Mass detention isn’t merely a step along the way to achieving Trump’s goal of mass deportation: It’s also the goal. 

Fresh off what was, in spite of everything and largely with no thanks to himself, the tremendous success of the 2026 World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was always going to find a way to turn that success into a monument to his own vanity and greed. What is surprising is just how quickly he managed to squander whatever undeserved goodwill he had generated during the tournament. On Tuesday, just eight days after Spain won the World Cup for the second time, Infantino and FIFA announced a plan to create a $20 billion subsidiary to ‌run the World Cup and its other events, offering stakes to private investors worth up to 20 percent. The World Cup was for sale, in other words—and, to make matters even more ridiculous, that sale was going to be overseen by Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. UEFA, which oversees European soccer, has already unanimously voted to boycott all subsequent FIFA tournaments if the measure passes. Those tournaments very much include the 2030 World Cup, which is set to partially be hosted in Portugal and Spain—and would mean 11 of the top 20–ranked nations in the world would miss out on FIFA’s premier competition. CONCACAF, which oversees soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, voted to “reject” the sell-off hours later. If the backlash grows, Infantino’s presidency—or even FIFA—could be destroyed.How we got here is much clearer, however. The 2026 World Cup, hosted primarily in the United States, was a lesson in avarice for the already power- and money-hungry Infantino. Hobnobbing at every opportunity with the president and his cronies, Infantino came away with a clear lesson: Though he is plenty corrupt and greedy, he wasn’t being corrupt and greedy enough. Modeling both his public persona and his leadership of FIFA increasingly on Trump, Infantino is now making a move that could remake the centerpiece tournament of global soccer—and make him and his allies fabulously wealthy. FIFA, not Trump or America, may have been fully responsible for the 2026 World Cup’s most irritating quirks: the commercial breaks disguised as pauses for “hydration”; the championship rings; the god-awful halftime show; and, of course, the insanely inflated cost of everything. Infantino may be an evangelist for soccer’s power as a force for harmony, togetherness, and collective prosperity, but in practice everything always comes back to the bottom line. For FIFA and its bald president, the United States was an unmissable opportunity to line pockets, and no potential source for revenue was missed. Even the grass on the pitch for the final was sold by the square. There were howls of outrage at Infantino’s brazen profit seeking throughout the tournament. FIFA is ostensibly a nonprofit, but Infantino holds onto power by distributing its revenue to its 211 member nations—many of which are allowed to spend it with minimal, or even nonexistent, oversight. For Infantino, the 2026 World Cup was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver the goods for his clients, as the World Cup is never held in a nation this wealthy and hypercapitalistic. But it also was an opportunity to put his own spin on the World Cup. For Infantino, the World Cup is a luxury experience, one available only to oligarchs and autocrats. It seems clear Infantino increasingly sees himself as the latter—the god emperor of global soccer. For all the deserved grousing about that Americanization—and about Infantino’s cozy, obsequious relationship with Trump—the World Cup was largely a success, at least from Infantino’s perspective. His refusal to speak out when teams were harassed and a Somali referee was literally prevented from entering the U.S. may have been pathetic, while FIFA’s decision to reverse a red card for U.S. striker Folarin Balogun was astonishingly corrupt, even by the organization’s standards. But the outcry that followed those incidents never fully subsumed the competition, which was largely excellent and was, by financial metrics, the most successful (i.e., profitable) in history. One way to read Infantino’s decision to partner with Kushner to quite literally sell the World Cup is that he now feels untouchable. His critics hit him hard and repeatedly during the tournament, but it did not change the fact the World Cup is bigger than any controversy or criticism. Recognizing this, Infantino decided that no one can lay a glove on him because he—not FIFA—owns the World Cup. He is behaving like a king, even more so than usual. Another, however, is that Infantino is tired of his critics and wants to cement his status as the god emperor of global soccer. On Monday, a day before the announcement that he planned to sell a portion of the World Cup to private investors, he released an extraordinarily petulant 15-slide statement on Instagram aimed at his detractors. “Sorry that the matches are now over and sorry that you missed all that joy and togetherness. Sorry that you were so consumed by hate and criticism that you missed it all,” the FIFA president posted on Instagram. “To those behind their pens and papers, behind their screens spreading hate and false rumours, I want to say that while you are sitting behind, we at FIFA are on the frontlines organising, working hard, and delivering ‌the best show in the ‌world.” Infantino is a wealthy and powerful adult, but this is the pose of a 15-year-old who overheard their supposed “friends” picking on them at a school dance. Of course, it also sounds like Trump, who increasingly appears to be Infantino’s hero, idol, and model. The backlash from UEFA—which has waged a proxy war against Infantino for years—should have been predictable. The argument against privatizing the World Cup is obvious and simple: It makes no long-term strategic or financial sense. Owning the World Cup, all of it, is what gives FIFA power. Trading that to investors for a one-time windfall makes no sense at all, especially if those investors respond by depreciating its value by staging more competitions (which seems likely). FIFA, moreover, does not need the money. The 2026 World Cup made at least $15 billion, which is more than enough for it to live off. The only argument for selling off a chunk of the tournament is that it will make the leaders of corrupt federations—and likely Infantino himself—a sizable chunk of change now. Ultimately, that’s how we got here. Infantino spent June and July jetting around the U.S., rubbing shoulders with every member of the Trump administration he could. The lesson he took was not just that he was leaving money on the table by not being more venal, but that there would be no consequences for engaging in more blatant corruption. After all, Trump has turned America into his personal piggybank, and no one is stopping him. How hard could it be for Infantino to do the same thing with the World Cup?

India’s Gen Z-led movement confronted Modi, but some see it as a missed opportunity for transformational change.

When Donald Trump came to Michigan last week to speak at a General Motors vehicle-testing facility, he likely expected to find a friendly crowd.  That wasn’t entirely the case. A group of protesters holding yellow signs that read “stop data centers” interrupted the president, chanting, “Data centers no, people pay the bill,” until they were […]