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An Iranian strike kills two US troops in Jordan as the war widens into an eighth night

The first US combat deaths since March anchor the day, and the loudest claims around them are still only one government's word.

5 min read2026-07-19
world

An Iranian strike kills two US troops in Jordan as the war widens into an eighth night1

The first American combat deaths of the reignited Iran war since March came on 17 July, when an Iranian ballistic-missile and drone attack on a US base in Jordan killed two service members and left one missing, with four others evacuated and since discharged.1 Central Command, which owns the casualty count, is withholding the names until 24 hours after next of kin are notified, and the missing member's fate is unresolved.1 The US answered by escalating: Central Command reported an eighth consecutive night of strikes late on 18 July, hitting Iranian air-defense sites, missile and drone storage, and the Revolutionary Guard units it blamed for the attack.2 NPR traces the deaths to a truce that broke on 7-8 July after Iran struck ships and the fighting spread to power stations, bridges and a Kuwaiti desalination plant. Iran calls control of the Strait of Hormuz an unbreakable red line.3 Almost everything Tehran says about the cost is its own word: NPR records Iran's claim of at least 46 killed since fighting resumed, and its Health Ministry's count of about 50 dead and 500-plus wounded, none of it independently confirmed.3 The Revolutionary Guard told Tasnim it downed at least two US jets in the attack, which NBC News says it has not verified and Central Command's release does not mention.4 Reporting attributed a warning of "unforgettable lessons" to a Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, cast as Ali Khamenei's successor after February's strikes, though that succession is inferred from ceremony imagery and unconfirmed.5 The economic shock is already priced in: Brent crude settled 4.6% higher at $88.10 on 17 July, up more than 14% on the week.6

policy & law

Rubio convenes 66 governments against "far-left terrorism" and adds a visa restriction7

Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened a Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism on 16 July, drawing roughly 66 governments, and the State Department followed it with a new visa restriction.7 The restriction denies visas to members of named "far-left terrorist networks" who fund, recruit for, or supply them.78 Its fact sheet frames the threat as surging: far-left actors, it says, drove 63% of US anti-government attacks and plots in 2025 and three of four anti-government fatalities, with such violence up more than 40% in Germany and behind 80% of radical violence in Greece.9 CNN reported Rubio and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calling the threat "mortal."10 The Hill recorded Democratic objections that the effort politicizes counterterrorism.11 The State figures are the government's own, and an independent series runs the other way: NPR cites a Center for Strategic and International Studies count in which 2016-to-2024 US anti-government attacks averaged four a year on the left against 22.7 on the right, and notes that 2025's left-wing uptick starts from a very low base while far-right attacks fall.8

health & science

The FDA approves Merck's enlicitide, the first cholesterol pill in the PCSK9 class12

A PCSK9 inhibitor has until now meant an injection. On 16 July the FDA approved Merck's enlicitide, sold as Lipfendra, the first in the class to come as a once-daily 20 mg tablet.12 In Merck's trials the pill lowered LDL cholesterol by 56% against placebo at 24 weeks, and by 59% in patients with an inherited high-cholesterol disorder.12 BioSpace put the launch price at $315 a month, a discount to the $500 to $600 injectables, and cited an RBC projection of roughly $5 billion in peak sales by 2034, Merck beating AstraZeneca's oral rival to market.13 CNN framed the advance as the shift from a clinic injection to a daily pill,14 and C&EN described enlicitide as a macrocyclic peptide, the structural trick that lets a molecule this size survive being swallowed.15 The approval rests on LDL, a surrogate marker, not on hard outcomes: Merck states plainly it is "not yet known" whether the drug prevents heart attacks or deaths, and a trial of more than 14,500 patients must report before that is answered.12

wildcard

Treasury puts a living president on a $1 coin, and scholars say it breaks the law16

On 15 July Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled a $1 coin bearing a forward-facing portrait of the sitting president for the nation's 250th anniversary, with the Mint beginning production.16 A statute from 1866 may make it illegal. The Thayer Amendment says only a deceased individual's portrait may appear on US currency, and the 2005 Presidential $1 Coin Act requires a president to have been dead at least two years; Treasury's answer, NPR reports, is a 2020 statute authorizing Semiquincentennial dollar coins during 2026, which it reads as an exception.17 Legal scholars are unconvinced: Jeremy Paul of Northeastern and Richard Painter, a former Bush ethics lawyer who called the practice one "associated with monarchies," both told NPR the coin breaks the 1866 bar, though a suit may never resolve it, since an earlier challenge was dismissed for lack of standing.17 PBS notes the president would be only the second living president on a US coin, after Coolidge in 1926.18 Time corroborated Bessent's role in the announcement.19 The framing misleads on one point: the government calls it a gold coin, but it is a base-metal alloy with a gold-colored finish, on sale in the fall.1718

Sources

  1. U.S. Central Command · Statement on Recently Fallen, Missing Service Members
  2. U.S. Central Command · U.S. Completes 8th Consecutive Night of Strikes Against Iran
  3. NPR · The U.S. and Iran lurch back toward all-out war
  4. NBC News · Two US service members killed in Jordan, another missing after Iranian strikes
  5. The Times of Israel · Live blog, 18 July 2026
  6. CNBC · Oil rises as U.S.-Iran hostilities threaten Strait of Hormuz supplies
  7. U.S. Department of State · Remarks opening the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism
  8. NPR · Rubio convenes countries on left-wing political violence
  9. U.S. Department of State · Fact sheet: The Resurgence of Political Terrorism
  10. CNN · Rubio and Miller warn of "far-left terror" to 67 countries
  11. The Hill · Rubio convenes global summit on far-left political violence
  12. Merck · LIPFENDRA (enlicitide), first oral PCSK9 inhibitor approved by the FDA
  13. BioSpace · Merck's first FDA approval for an oral PCSK9 inhibitor
  14. CNN · Merck's cholesterol pill gets US FDA approval
  15. C&EN (American Chemical Society) · FDA approves first oral PCSK9 inhibitor for managing cholesterol
  16. U.S. Mint · Announcement of the Semiquincentennial $1 coin design
  17. NPR · The new $1 Trump coin, experts say, also breaks laws
  18. PBS NewsHour · U.S. Mint produces a $1 coin bearing Trump's face
  19. Time · U.S. Mint to Start Producing $1 Coin Featuring Trump's Face