Florentines say July has been unusually hot this year. Outside, temperatures climb to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It is not much cooler indoors. Tommaso, the son of the woman who owns the apartment where we are staying, says summers seem to be getting hotter every year. The heat is impossible to ignore. Inside the Uffizi Gallery, the air feels heavy and the temperature is high. Because of the oppressive heat, the museum is closing for two days to visitors without advance reservations. Standing among some of the world’s greatest masterpieces, I find myself wondering how the collection is protected under such conditions. Can extreme heat really have no effect on paintings that have survived for centuries?

The unchecked expansion of multinational technology conglomerates across artificial intelligence, digital privacy, and cryptocurrency represents a critical threat to public sovereignty, labor rights, and ecological stability. These interconnected domains function as a new frontier of extractive capitalism, demanding urgent international democratic governance to rein in tech monopolies that treat personal data as raw material and planetary resources as expendable. This systemic crisis stems from a deliberate business model designed to outpace legislative oversight, concentrating unprecedented wealth and structural power into the hands of a few unaccountable corporate executives and speculative investors.

Palantir Technologies Inc. is an American software company that builds large-scale data integration and analytics platforms for government agencies, military branches, and commercial businesses. Palantir’s technology lies at the heart of the government systems that enable mass surveillance and militarization at home and abroad, and is now moving into healthcare.  The profits go to founder Peter Thiel and CEO Alex Karp, tech oligarchs who spend millions to promote a political agenda that favors free-market policies and increasingly supports Republican candidates and Trump-aligned PACs.  Protests and public acrimony are growing.

Foreign policy is a collection of goals, strategies, and actions that a government uses to guide its relationships with other countries and international organizations. Such goals include national security, economic prosperity, global stability, and values promotion. China’s foreign policy seeks to advance all of these goals using the tools of diplomacy, economic measures, military power and soft power (sharing a nation’s culture, values, and media to build good will and influence opinions).

A private American mercenary company is now running a large share of Haiti’s fight against its own gangs, operating drone strikes, raids, and intelligence gathering under a contract the government has never made public.

The US war on Iran has now passed the six-month mark, negotiations have been abandoned and last week saw renewed fighting with Tehran attacking American bases across the Middle East. This came after a US strike was alleged to have hit a home hosting a wedding event, killing five people and wounding dozens. Washington  also launched a new aggressive economic pressure campaign and blockade to coerce Iran into submission. Tehran on its part is now threatening military escalation and a wider war.  The head of Iran’s National Security Council said recently that Tehran is planning to announce a maritime “exclusion zone” outside the Strait of Hormuz where it intends to stop vessels attempting to transit the waterway without Iranian permission.  The conflict currently appears to have no likely end  in sight.

The ongoing war in Ukraine seems to have slipped into the back of collective consciousness. If the war enters the news cycle it’s usually new footage of the sides trading missile and drone attacks on energy infrastructure, weapon factories, or apartment buildings.

As Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people draw international condemnation, its support among US voters is shrinking, and with it the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the wealthy and powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization.  AIPAC’s backing, once crucial to candidates, is no longer a sure path to election and in some progressive districts is becoming a liability.