August 4 2026 News

US President Donald Trump claimed that talks with Iran are ongoing, but are Tehran’s last chance to reach a deal with Washington “before decapitation,” while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. He alleged that Iran, with the backing of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, initiated the renewed talks because they “did not want to be hit” by strikes Trump claimed would have been the biggest attacks since World War II. “They knew what was coming. It was going to come last night, and it would have gone on for a long time, and there’d be essentially very little left,” he warned. “This is the last chance for them to sign a good document.”

Lebanese and Israeli delegations were set to resume their negotiations in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, with discussions due to focus on evaluating the results of the first phase of the Israeli withdrawal from two “pilot zones.” Meanwhile, the terror organization Hezbollah, which is the main object of the negotiations but openly opposes them, continued to rail against the government’s direct contacts with Israel while attempting to re-link the negotiations to the separate U.S.-Iran talks.

Built more than 2,000 years ago to supply Jerusalem with water, Solomon’s Pools have become the center of a modern political dispute, with officials from the nearby Israeli town of Efrat accusing the Palestinian Authority of allowing the historic site to deteriorate after it was placed under Ramallah’s jurisdiction following the 1993 Oslo Accords. Most archaeologists date the construction of Solomon’s Pools, three ancient reservoirs located between Efrat and Bethlehem, south of Israel’s capital, to the Hasmonean period in the second century B.C. The reservoirs were built to supply water to Jerusalem during the Second Temple period. Herod the Great (37–4 B.C.) later expanded the system to provide water to his palace-fortress at Herodium. “Solomon’s Pools are not only the history of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and the source of Jerusalem’s living water, but also the future of Efrat in our ability to exercise our sovereignty, preserve Efrat’s development space and sustain tourism for all religions in the area between Jerusalem and Hebron,” Dovi Shefler, mayor of Efrat, told Fox News Digital.

Jews, who make up about 10% of New Yorkers, were the targets of nearly 70% of all hate crimes in the Big Apple last month, according to newly released city data, and anti-Jewish hate crimes, which the city said it confirmed, were up 53.3% compared to the same period last year. The New York City Police Department said that it recorded 33 “confirmed” hate crimes in the city last month, of which 23 targeted Jews (69.6%). In July 2025, there were 15 anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city, it said.

A peer-reviewed study published July 20 found “significant” concentrations of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone in the water supply of three U.S. cities. Environmental and medical researchers found levels up to 0.041 micrograms per liter (41 parts per trillion) of active mifepristone compounds in the environmental waters in Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois. Mifepristone levels up to 0.039 micrograms per liter (39 parts per trillion) were found in the drinking water.

A chilling new study has reignited concerns over the San Andreas Fault, with experts warning the catastrophic “Big One” may strike sooner than previously thought. Caltech seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, who developed a magnitude 7.8 San Andreas rupture scenario, warns the disaster would be far more than a brief jolt — her models show it would unleash widespread, devastating impacts across California. Simulations suggest the quake would unleash nearly two minutes of violent, nonstop shaking, causing deadly gridlock and crippling critical infrastructure, including water systems that cross the fault line.

Korea logged a daily high of more than 180 heat-related illness cases on Monday as a nationwide heat wave intensified, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday. The cumulative number of suspected heat-related deaths in the same period stands at 19. A total of 186 people visited around 500 emergency rooms nationwide due to heat-related illnesses on Monday, according to the agency’s emergency room surveillance system. It surpassed this year’s daily peak of 118, which was recorded on July 11.

The autonomous arms race between the West and its adversaries is already here — the drone battlefields of Ukraine and Iran offer a live preview. […] U.S. adversaries like China and Russia are pursuing military humanoids and other similar concepts, such as four-legged robot ‘dogs’ with weapons mounted on their backs, so America needs the ability to match them.

A digital identity mobile application LAeID that is linked to a centralized population database has been available in the past weeks for use in Laos as the government speeds up its efforts to do away with paper-based identity systems. The platform, launched by the country’s Census Management and Grassroots Development Department last month, will serve as a centralized digital wallet making it possible for citizens to store their identity credentials, The Laotian Times reports.