The Senate advances a Russia sanctions package renamed for Lindsey Graham, days after his sudden death
The Senate moved this week to advance a sweeping package of sanctions on Russia, renamed for Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican died unexpectedly this month. The procedural vote fell on the day of his Washington funeral, 86 to 12, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watching from the chamber.[2] The bill would let the president impose steep tariffs on countries that keep buying Russian oil and gas, and its drafters scaled back an earlier, blunter version to win broader support.[4] Final passage is expected in the Senate within days, though the House will not take it up until September.[2]
01 A vote held in mourning
Graham died on July 11 of an aortic dissection at 71, ending more than two decades in the Senate after his election in 2002. His funeral drew President Trump, who called him an American original, along with Vice President JD Vance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Zelenskyy, with services at Washington National Cathedral and the Capitol before a final ceremony in Columbia, South Carolina. His sister, Darline Graham Nordone, was appointed to serve out his term. [1] The chamber voted 86 to 12 to move the bill forward on the day of the Washington service, with only Republican Rand Paul and a group of Democrats opposed. [2]
02 What the bill would do
The legislation, formally the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, would authorize tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and natural gas, a group that includes China and India, and on the top five countries that help Russia evade energy sanctions. [3] An earlier version had floated a blanket 500% tariff on any country importing Russian energy, but negotiators pared it back to the 100% cap, added a re-evaluation of the target list every 180 days, and built in an exemption for nations that buy little Russian gas and are cutting further. [4] The bill also imposes mandatory sanctions on Vladimir Putin and senior officials, on major state banks and energy projects, and on the aging tanker fleet Moscow uses to skirt existing restrictions, and it extends sanctions on Iran that were set to lapse. [4]
03 A fight over who holds the tariff power
The bill's tariff mechanism is also its main point of friction. By granting the president broad authority to tax the trade of third countries, it hands the White House a lever that some lawmakers fear will outlast the war it was written for. [3] Trump, initially cool to the measure, signaled support after negotiators added the Iran provisions he had requested, and the White House says the final text meets his demands. [3] With the House in recess until the end of August, the earliest the president could sign it is September. [2]
- In a day of tributes, Lindsey Graham is remembered as a tireless Washington mainstay — NPR
- 86 senators vote to move forward with Graham Russia sanctions bill — Axios
- Senate advances Russia sanctions bill spearheaded by the late Sen. Graham — NOTUS
- Updated US Russia sanctions bill eases tariffs on Russian oil, gas buyers — The Kyiv Independent
The government sets new limits on the riskiest virus research, ending a fight that predates the pandemic
The federal government has drawn a new line around laboratory work that can make a virus more dangerous. In a policy issued July 28, the Trump administration cut off federal funding for the riskiest pathogen-enhancing experiments, whether they take place in the United States or abroad.[1] It replaces a decade of piecemeal oversight with a single risk-based standard and a new board to review the most hazardous proposals.[2] Officials cast the move as insurance against a laboratory-caused pandemic, even as some microbiologists warned the rules are broad enough to chill legitimate science.[2]
01 A single standard for the riskiest work
The Department of Health and Human Services released the framework, titled the United States Government Policy for Stopping High-Risk Life Sciences Research, and described it as a government-wide ban on federal money for dangerous gain-of-function research. [1] The term refers to experiments that could enhance a pathogen's transmissibility or lethality, and rather than screen projects against a fixed list of named pathogens, the policy judges each one by the consequences an accident could bring. [2] Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the government has a duty to protect Americans and not to fund research that could put them at risk, while NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said the highest-risk work would now face the highest level of scrutiny. [1] The rules take full effect in mid-November. [2]
02 New scrutiny for research abroad
The policy reaches well beyond American laboratories. It creates a category the government calls international research of concern, covering high-risk work carried out with foreign partners or in countries flagged as security risks, and it directs officials to consult the State Department before funding such collaborations. [2] Principal investigators must disclose their non-US collaborators and keep assessing whether their work has crossed into the restricted zone. The emphasis on foreign labs echoes years of unresolved argument over the origins of COVID-19 and the safety of overseas research the United States has helped pay for. [2]
| Element | Prior approach | New policy |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | Short list of named pandemic pathogens | Risk based, judged by potential consequences |
| Reach | Mainly domestic, federally funded work | Work at home and abroad |
| Foreign labs | Limited disclosure | Mandatory disclosure and State Dept. review |
| Review | Agency-level panels | Government-wide board |
03 A fight that predates the pandemic
The policy caps a fight that began well before its release. An executive order in May 2025 froze federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research and ordered the government to write durable rules, drawing warnings from some scientists that its broad wording could sweep in low-risk work as well. [4] That worry has not gone away. The American Society for Microbiology said the new policy defines several categories of research so broadly that shutting them down would weaken the country's ability to confront infectious-disease threats, and the group's Allen Segal argued the United States should invest in safer facilities and training rather than prohibit the work outright. [2] Administration officials counter that ordinary vaccine, drug and diagnostic research will continue under stronger safeguards. [3]
- Trump Administration Releases New Government-Wide Policy to End Dangerous High-Risk Research — HHS.gov
- Feds shut down 'dangerous' gain-of-function research, tighten oversight of foreign collaboration — CIDRAP
- Administration to Restrict Funding for Certain 'Dangerous' Research — The Well News
- Trump freezes 'gain of function' pathogen research — Nature
New York takes five chemical giants to court over the 'forever chemicals' in everyday goods
The compounds do not break down.[1] They settle into drinking water, into the soil beneath upstate farms, and into the blood of people who have never lived near a plant.[2] New York now wants the companies that made them to pay for the reckoning. In a complaint filed in Albany, the state accuses 3M, DuPont and three related firms of selling ordinary products laced with the chemicals while burying what their own scientists had found.[2]
01 The case the state is making
Attorney General Letitia James filed the suit on July 9 in Albany County Supreme Court, naming 3M, DuPont de Nemours, the Chemours Company, Corteva and EIDP.[2] The chemicals at issue are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the family of “forever chemicals” long used to make fabric treatments, water-repellent clothing, food packaging, nonstick cookware and cosmetics.[1] The complaint contends the firms sold those goods as safe while deceiving customers about the risks, conduct the state casts as a violation of New York consumer-protection law.[1]
02 A record the companies kept to themselves
Much of the case rests on what the manufacturers are said to have known, and when.[1] The state points to 3M researchers who, in the 1970s, found the chemicals in the blood of employees and of the wider public, and to a 1983 internal conclusion that the compounds could reach water supplies through wastewater.[1] It also cites a 1981 DuPont study of pregnant workers, after which, the complaint alleges, the company set troubling findings aside rather than disclose them.[1]
03 What New York wants, and what came before
The state is asking a judge to hold the companies liable and to make them fund cleanup across New York, on top of damages, restitution and the disgorgement of profits.[1] It also seeks an order barring the sale of these products without adequate warnings.[1] The suit arrives after large national deals that resolved related pollution claims, among them a 2023 agreement in which 3M committed up to $10.3 billion and a separate settlement worth roughly $1.1 billion involving Chemours, DuPont and Corteva.[3] Those earlier deals settled contamination claims broadly; New York’s complaint presses its own consumer-protection and environmental theories under state law.[2]
- Attorney General James Sues Some of Nation's Largest Chemical Companies Over Toxic Pollution from Consumer Products — NY Attorney General
- New York Sues 3M, DuPont Over 'Forever Chemicals' in Drinking Water — Courthouse News Service
- AG James Sues Nation's Largest Chemical Companies Over Toxic Pollution — The State AG Report
A spring of Thruway sweeps nets 214 cars and a warning to toll dodgers
By the last of four sweeps this spring, troopers had towed 214 cars off the New York State Thruway and written more than a thousand tickets.[2] The details went after the plates toll cameras cannot read, the tags that are missing, altered or deliberately covered.[1] Most of the drivers had simply been dodging tolls, the state says, and some were hiding a good deal more.[1]
01 Four sweeps, one pattern
The details ran on the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge over the Hudson, on Interstate 190 in Buffalo and on Interstate 87 near Albany.[1] Together they yielded 214 seizures and 1,155 tickets, 515 of them for license-plate violations alone.[2] The bridge accounted for the largest share of the impounded cars.[1]
| Date | Location | Vehicles | Tickets |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 17 | Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge | 80 | 293 |
| May 5 | Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge | 69 | 290 |
| May 5 | I-190, Buffalo | 15 | 262 |
| June 11 | I-87, Albany | 50 | 310 |
02 The plates that hide the driver
Enforcement centered on so-called ghost plates, the missing, defaced or covered tags that let a car slip past the cameras that bill tolls by mail.[1] State Police Superintendent Steven G. James said the plates do more than cheat the system, because a tag that cannot be read can also frustrate the investigation of a crash.[1] Troopers also cited drivers for suspended registrations, some suspended precisely for unpaid tolls or a lapse in insurance.[2]
03 The money, and the message
Among the impounded vehicles, 38 drivers owed roughly $103,000 in unpaid tolls and fees, and the Thruway Authority says it has since recovered more than $70,000 of that sum.[1] The agency notes that drivers who use E-ZPass pay up to 75 percent less than those billed by mail, and that an unpaid bill climbs quickly once late fees attach.[1] Governor Kathy Hochul framed the crackdown as a matter of fairness, saying the operations are about protecting public safety, holding toll evaders responsible and safeguarding toll dollars.[1]