NukeDeal: President Obama spent more than an hour speaking to reporters yesterday, often speaking off the cuff, explaining and selling the Iran nuclear deal. In his prepared remarks he said, “With this deal, if Iran violates its commitments, there will be real consequences.  Nuclear-related sanctions that have helped to cripple the Iranian economy will snap back into place.”

Giving lengthy answers to reporters’ questions, and even answering questions they never got to ask, the President said, “I can say with confidence but, more importantly, nuclear experts can say with confidence that Iran will not be in a position to develop a nuclear bomb.  We will have met our number-one priority.”

One of the big criticisms by the President’s political opponents is that Iran is still holding Americans prisoner and supporting terrorism in the Middle East. Obama said about four American prisoners that linking their freedom to the nuclear deal would have given Iran more leverage. “My hope is that building on this deal we can continue to have conversations with Iran that incentivize them to behave differently in the region, to be less aggressive, less hostile, more cooperative, to operate the way we expect nations in the international community to behave.”

The Greece Update: Stocks are up around the world after the Greek parliament voted to accept the stern terms of a European Union bailout.

Pluto: The most detailed photos ever taken of Pluto have been sent back to earth by the New Horizon spacecraft, revealing a surface of giant craggy ice mountains and smooth plains. NASA observers are mystified that in a Universe of violent collisions there appear to be no craters on Pluto’s surface. Much of Pluto is relatively smooth, revealing that it is young by Universe standards, just about 100 million years old. But at that age, scientists would expect it to have some pockmarks.

Nation: Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce, was given the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the ESPN Espy Awards last night in Los Angeles. The Olympic decathlon winner, now 65, said “I trained hard, I competed hard, and for that people respected me. But this transition has been harder on me than anything I could imagine, and that’s the case for so many others, besides me. For that reason alone, trans people deserve something vital, they deserve your respect.”

>Former President George HW Bush, 91, is in stable condition after falling and breaking a bone in his neck at his Kennebunkport home. He’ll have to wear a neck brace. Number 41 has Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair. 

The Obit Page: Marlene Sanders, one of the first women to rise in the male world of network television news during the 1960s and 70s, has died at age 84 in Manhattan. She was the mother of Jeffrey Toobin, a writer for the New Yorker and a familiar legal analyst on CNN.

Sanders was a failed actress who got into the ground floor of television and later was hired after an open audition to be a correspondent for ABC News. She covered the major stories of the day including the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the violent 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, and the Vietnam war. After 14 years she moved to CBS, but returned to ABC to become vice president in charge of documentaries.

Trump Check: Republican candidate Donald Trump has the fact checkers at PolitiFact working overtime. The site has found none of Trump’s factual claims to be true. Here’s one: “The $5 billion website for Obamacare … never worked. Still doesn’t work.” False on both counts.

PolitiFact found 12 percent of Trump’s pronouncements have been half true; 48 percent false; and 24 percent rated “pants on fire.” The site is struggling to keep up with candidates other than Donald Trump. PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan told the Washington Post, “I don’t want to turn the whole site into the Donald Trump channel.”

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