TALK BIG AND CARRY A SMALL STICK: The US launched another round of strikes against Iran today as the conflict approaches a return to full-scale war. Iran responded by hitting US military targets in the region.

  President Trump yesterday threatened on Fox News to begin next week bombing Iran’s bridges and power plants, which would be a war crime under international law. Trump has made a lot of threats he has not carried out, including in April when he said he would bomb Iran “back to the stone ages.”

  Trump said the US would be hitting Iran hard all week before going after the civilian infrastructure. He also said he’s not ruling out sending in ground troops.

  Yesterday’s threat came on the same day Trump backed off his threat to impose a 20 percent fee on goods passing through the Strait of Hormuz just a day after he made it. Senior members of the President’s administration including the defense secretary and secretary of state have said that also would violate international law.  

  Trump said in a Truth Social post said that he would give up the passage fees for  investment deals from Persian Gulf countries. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump wrote. He told Fox News that the Gulf countries actually asked him for those investment deals.

  The US military continues to strike targets in Iran despite the President and the Pentagon claiming many times that they have destroyed Iranian military capability while being unable to get Iran to surrender. But Trump posted, “America is WINNING again, winning like never before. The days of Iran killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 52,000 protestors, are OVER and, most importantly, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”

INFINITE SCROLL:

— President Trump plans to deliver a prime time speech tomorrow night about election security and voting machines in what may be a continuation of his campaign to convince Americans that their elections cannot be trusted. Trump claimed he would share  “really, really big news” and that “It doesn’t get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”

— Draining the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool failed to reveal the gash President Trump claimed had been cut through the new bottom coating by vandals. The President claimed that “slashes were 300 yards long, and the floor of the pool was cut and then pulled upward, with great force, by these thugs.”

  What was revealed were the tire tracks left by Trump’s motorcade when it drove down the empty pool after its renovation.

— President Trump yesterday posted a photo of himself in an Oval Office meeting with a map of the US and Canada behind him, both covered with the American flag pattern.

— Writer E. Jean Carroll, now 82, finally received the $5 million awarded to her for her successful sexual assault and defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. Plus interest, it comes to $5,625,005.48. Trump’s lawyers are still fighting the case.

LA MIGRA: The father of Joan Sebastian Guerrero, the man shot dead by a federal immigration agent Monday in Maine, said his son had been working two jobs to support his wife and daughter and had legal status to work.

  The 25-year-old Guerrero lived in Biddeford, a small city south of Portland, where he worked as a DoorDash driver and a late-night cleaner at a veterinary clinic. Early reporting says agents may have mistaken Guerrero for another man.

  Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been ordered to desist from most vehicle stops after the fatal shootings of Guerrero and another man in the past week involving such stops.  

THE OBIT PAGE: Antonio Rattín, the Argentine soccer star whose ejection for mouthing off to a referee during a match against England in the 1966 World Cup led to the creation of the sport’s system of yellow and red penalty cards, died on July 11 in Vicente López, a suburb of Buenos Aires. He was 89.

  Rattín vehemently objected when the refs failed to call fouls on the English team. Although Rattín and the German referee did not speak the same language, the ref ejected Rattín for “violence of the tongue.”

  Missing a player, Argentina lost 1-0.

  The controversy around Rattín’s expulsion inspired the match’s head referee, Ken Aston, to create the system of yellow warning and red expulsion cards now used at every level of the game.

MIND YOUR WORDS: Teachers in a southeastern Michigan school district this fall will be limited to 32 preapproved phrases for decorating classroom walls in a district effort to “keep non-curricular ideologies and partisan politics out of the classroom,” officials said.

  The Romeo County School Board issued the list of such phrases as “You matter,” “Be yourself,” and, “Choose kindness every time.” Anything else would have to be approved. 

  Some teachers in the conservative school district say the list is an attempt to limit discussion or even a hint about diversity, sexuality, and gender.

ON THE PITCH: Spain beat France 2-0 last night to win a spot in the World Cup final. Spain has allowed only one goal in the entire tournament.

  England and Argentina play a grudge match today to determine the final pairing.

THE SPIN RACK: — Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testified before Congress yesterday asking for millions of dollars’ worth of additional security for the court and its members. Kagan told members of a House committee that “threats have come very close” to the justices in recent years. Barrett has been the target of at least one “swatting” incident at her home.

BELOW THE FOLD: In the cultural controversy of the week The NY Post asks whether pop star Jennifer Lopez was wrong to wear a giant hat while watching the sun baked men’s singles finals at Wimbledon, violating the rule against big hats. In other news, Kylie Jenner has a new line of bikinis.

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