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Ukraine's capabilities in drones technologies stabilizes the war fronts with Russia. It economic help from the European Union, and commitments of the governments of Germany, France and Britain, less dependence on the US, now creates a situation in which both sides Russia and Ukraine can make an agreement through which this war can be brought to a close. 

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Belarus relay stations turned off after Ukraine drone attacks. Ukraine's capabilities in drones technologies stabilizes the war fronts with Russia. For Ukraine economic help from the European Union, defense commitments of the governments of Germany, France and Britain, less dependence on the US, now creates a situation in which both sides Russia and Ukraine can make an agreement through which this war can be brought to a close. 

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Luis de la Fuente coached the Spanish under 19 and under 21 teams for 9 years- the results show Simon, Rodri, Merino, Ruiz, Olmo, Oyarzabal. Fuente 65 years old, says- “I never imagined anything like this. I always just wanted to enjoy those moments I was experiencing (with the development teams). I always worked and coached where I wanted to be. When you look at this process, we couldn’t have achieved anything on this journey without these players and with the knowledge of the raw materials and the way Spanish players play and compete.” This process is nothing like the fast fixes England and the US tried with Itlaian Pochettino and German Tuchel who never practiced with their team except for less than a year. Germany had changed coaches, France with Didier Deschamps was the only coach like Fuentes having many years of experience with his players. And the process showed. In the end Argentina crumbled, US stumbled, and France and even England with the passion of their players came out winners, their fans happy in the third place game in ways that the finals with the fights of the Argentine players with Rodri and Gavi after the whistle were not what fans wanted. ...

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Didier Deschamps on the 0-2 loss to Spain in World Cup semifinals July 2026-" we lacked offensive aggression" though he says aggression is not the right term as the Spanish put the French on the defensive right from the beginning. "We did not manage to make this game difficult for them, they forced us to defend." He says France were second best. "The players are devastated but we have to be ​clear-headed … technically we were second best … that is on us … we lacked ‌technical precision and energy … the Spanish are very ‌good at breaking up moves by reading interceptions and passes … we would have liked to cause them more problems going forward … I don’t want to take anything away from Spain, a really good team which knows how to master its plan, but we lacked offensive aggression … although aggression might not be the right term … they forced us to defend … we did not manage to make this game difficult for them.” ...

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The European Union is about to ban social media platforms from accessing children under age 13. This is how Ursula Van Leyen puts it - it is not about children accessing social media, it is about social media platforms accessing our children, says Leyen. She will announce this in her address to the European Union in September. A new report by a psychologist Fegert and an epidemiologist Melchior comes to the conclusion that social media is harmful for children, not just under 13 years, restrictions should be placed on 13 to 18 year olds also to prevent infinite scrolling and other addictive features. Australia has announced a ban setting the age at 16 years. Britain is tightening its ban. France is planning to ban setting the age at 16. The following countries are about to do this- Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. When the EU announces a ban it will apply to all of Europe. In the US Florida passed a ban setting age at 14 years. Across Europe children spend 4 to 6 hours on social media a day and for 60% of children it is having harmful effects on emotional health and creating psychosocial problems for children. It also affects the education, the reading comprehension of children as less books are read, and a whole new generation of children is growing up in a way that was never before seen in the Modern period where books and reading were a key aspect of modern society for the last 200 years. ...

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US collapsed against Belgium. Brazil lost to Paraguay. Argentina trailed Egypt for most of the 90 minutes only to recover with 3 goals in the last 20 minutes and the winning goal in overtime. Messi almost in tears, moved by the near failure of Argentina till the last minutes of the game gave a miraculous reprieve. One by one the highly advertised on television in the US teams and stars, from US's Pulisic, Mexican soccer players, Messi, Brazil's Neymar and Vinicius Jr, are all in shock. Less advertised, less well known players are making their way, and this may be a good thing as the advertising has gone overboard. Companies were pouring money into these ads turning the  players into constant presence in ads and creating an atmosphere that is not healthy for soccer as a sport. One just hopes France's Mbappe with his humility and quiet demeanor doesn't get into one more noisy ad on television like the others. Is Christiano Ronaldo, the little kid from Madeira, Portugal, coming out of nowhere at that time, a billionaire? Is Messi also from remote town of Rosario, Santa Fe province, Argentina, a billionaire? This doesn't do much for the sport. Germany's best goal scorer in this World Cup only dreamed of not having to do two jobs, and having a steady career, after struggling for a long period. There is something in this World Cup that has brought previously unknown players from unknown places like Cabo Verde to the forefront on world television, including the Egyptian and Moroccan players, the players from other smaller countries. Even the English players in the Premier League playing for England look good by comparison. ...

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Norway 2-1 against Brazil World Cup Soccer to enter round of 16 with 2 Haaland goals. Brazil failed to impress as Norway had most of the ball possession. Norway's goalkeeper Hyland made 4 brilliant saves to make it difficult for Brazil to score. Brazil's one goal came in the 98th minute when a Norwegian player was given a yellow card for elbowing a Brazilian player and Neymar made a penalty kick. Without that Brazil would have lost 2-0 after Haaland scored twice. Brazilian player Vinicius Jr. was hailed in the media but could do little, and Carlo Ancelotti as coach could not come up with any ideas to change the game. The entire World Cup in 2026 is different because of the way smaller nations have played. Nations such as Cabo Verde have held firm, Germany was defeated by Paraguay, Italy did not even make it to the round of 32 losing to Bosnia. The loss of Brazil leaves only France with Mbappe, Argentina with Messi, and England with Kane standing. US faces Belgium on Monday July 6, 2026. Argentina barely stayed on when Messi scored in overtime against Cabo Verde, nearly losing. Only the French team has played consistently. Spain meets Portugal on Monday. No one knows how it will turn out. ...

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The French under Macron commit to build a new aircraft carrier to come into service in 2038. This will be nuclear powered like the Charles De Gaulle, France's current aircraft carrier. U.S. carriers are also nuclear powered to reduce port stops for fuel. 

French and U.S. ships use American suppliers for some of the flight systems on carriers so that French aircraft and American aircraft can operate off of each others ships. For France it preserves "strategic autonomy" a policy France has pursued since Mr. De Gaulle. It also means tighter U.S. French cooperation with France being America's key ally in Europe. France has plans to increase defense spending by 4.5% and spends over 2% of GDP on defense like the U.S. 

India, Britain, China and Russia are the only other countries with aircraft carriers.

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1.2-2 million barrels a day go from Iran's Kharg island through Straits of Hormuz for ship to ship transfers in South China Sea, then labeled Emirati oil and unloaded at refineries on Shandong coast. These refineries are called teapot refineries. In this way US sanctions are avoided. Shipments of oil were about 700,000 barrels a day before 2023. After 2023 this more than doubled. China gets this at a 10-15%  discount costing Iran about a third of revenues it would otherwise be able to sell this oil if it decided to work with the US in a new arrangement. This report in FR24 shows China as limiting it's relations with Iran to oil, careful to not let it affect more important trading relations with US European Union, and Germany. This is similar to the situation for Venezuela -which under a new arrangement the US has with Venezuela- now gets market prices for its oil increasing it's revenues substantially by about one third to benefit the Venezuelan people suffering from high inflation and economy wrecked by sanctions. ...

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France per capital GDP $46000 compares to Mississippi's $55000- productivity and quality of life in the US vs France -healthcare, pharmaceutical, and vacation time, the serious drawbacks in the US. Lower taxes in the US yet the difference easily evaporating with expensive cost of healthcare and pharmaceuticals in the US, lack of maternity leave and health supporting vacation time.

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Milan Cortina Olympics 2026 Medals table  Norway and Italy on top US France Germany Sweden France Switzerland and Austria Japan in top 10 for gold medals. Britain with 1 was surpassed by Australia with 2 gold medals.

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Frances tax system places 40% tax on single earner family with 2 children compared to 20% in the US. France debates how to pass the budget and how to meet budget shortfalls in revenue, where to tax. France's top tax bracket is already at 55%, the second highest in Europe, which does not make the job of setting taxes easier. Additional 1.9 billion euros was to be raised by raising the tax rate for families that had tax liability of 20% if they made over 250,000 euros. This has raised 400 million euros only in 2025. This editorial in the Washington Post is critical of the French tax structure and says it is not just the rich who end up with higher taxes. It says that the average French single worker gets to keep only 53% of income after taxes, whereas American average single worker who gets to keep 70%. The extra 20% could be what the American worker pays for health care if as in some cases health care has become so costly in the US as to cost more than a mortgage, as reported in the WSJ in January 2026. Can government buy healthcare more efficiently and distribute it than families on their own. In the case of pharmacy products would removing the power to negotiate  prices with pharmaceutical companies conducted in government run by special interest groups as happened under US president Bush make it so expensive to buy pharmaceutical products that the advantage of smaller taxes is destroyed by a perverse healthcare system run by special interest groups with help of lobbyists. This is just to show that yes the US tax system with lower taxes can fail when other things go wrong in managing crtical costs such as healthcare and housing.   ...

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 Iranian drone attacks and French British interception efforts - a report from the French armed forces staff about shortages in munitions. Drone attacks by Iran in first 2 weeks of Iran war are as follows- 590 on Qatar and Kuwait, 500 and 550 on Saudi and Israel, 1700 on UAE. A flood of low cost Shahed drones intended to overwhelm defenses is used by Iran. Drones can be launched from all parts of Iran including from the countryside in a country 3 times the size of France. The drones also cost little to produce in large numbers in Iran. Munitions cost and cost of aircraft usage, other costs of Navy, run to $12.7 billion for the US and US asks for another $200 billion from Congress. France uses 24 Rafale jets Britain 8 Typhoon jets in this report from French armed forces and French munitions supplies are an issue as the war progresses. France uses MICA missiles for interception made at a factory in Bourges central France, with limited supply.

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An astounding 80% of France's medicines are manufactured in Asia, and France is highly dependent on China and India for manufacturing. Action is now underway to move the manufacturing back to France as part of a complete reassessment of the supply chain for critical infrastructure related supplies going on in France, Britain and the U.S.

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The largest US military community of outside the US is Kaiserslautern 73 miles from Frankfurt in Germany. Kaiserslautern is 10 miles from the Ramstein Base which is where the US European Command is located. US president is considering reducing the US military presence in Germany, as it shifts responsibilities for European defence to Europe. Failure of the EU , Germany, Britain, Italy and France to support the US in its Iran effort to get nuclear materials transferred outside to Russia or some other country is leading to a rift in trans-atlantic relations. 

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Automobiles, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and energy helped France reduce its deficit. French exports increase in 2025 and deficit decreases- euros 614 billion in exports to 703 billion in imports in 2025. Deficit with Germany down to euros 5 billion. Yet there is aproblem with deficit with China- going from euros 100 billion in 2019 to 315 billion euros in 2025. This is a major problem for France as it has been for the US.

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France is moving quickly with spending on the $37 billion stimulus. Public buildings, museums, cathedrals and historical sites are being renovated in 2009. About 50 chateaus, and 75 cathedrals are part of 100 million euros for cultural centres. About 75% of France's stimulus money will be spent in 2009, in contrast to the slow work in the USA.

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Carlos Alcaraz finishes a five set 4 hours at the US Open semifinals, after a quarter finals game that lasted 5 hours all the way to the early hours of the morning at 5 am. The youngster from Spain meets another new face at the US Open Casper Ruud of Norway. The old game had disappeared with very few net points and fewer lob shots. Ruud and Alcaraz are taking the game back to how it was played by the likes of Laver and Nastase in the 1960's and 1970's when a whole mix of shots and agility at the net was always part of the game.