Read Online  |  July 15, 2025  |  E-Paper  | 🎧 Listen

☀️ Good morning! It’s Tuesday. Thank you for reading the Morning Brief, an exclusive newsletter for Epoch Times subscribers.

👋 New to Morning Brief? Subscribe.

🎧 Prefer to listen? Get the podcast.

I’d like to hear from you - ivanmb@epochtimes.nyc. 

The Department of Education in Washington on April 28, 2025. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

The Supreme Court on July 14 allowed President Donald Trump to move forward with dismantling the Department of Education by firing almost 1,400 employees.

The ruling in McMahon v. New York took the form of an unsigned order. The court did not explain its decision.

Three justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented from the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun of Massachusetts issued an order on May 22 directing the government to rehire the laid-off employees and reverse other actions aimed at downsizing the department.

The department oversees the federal student loan system, performs research for states and schools, distributes federal funds, and enforces compliance with various federal laws.

Joun said it’s clear that the Trump administration’s “true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department” without first obtaining the required congressional approval.

On June 4, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit declined to stay Joun’s order.

In an emergency application filed with the Supreme Court on June 6, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said laying off 1,378 department employees streamlines the agency and eliminates “discretionary functions that, in the Administration’s view, are better left to the States.”

Sauer acknowledged that only Congress can abolish the department. He added that the government needs to “retain sufficient staff to continue fulfilling statutorily mandated functions and [that it] has kept the personnel that ... are necessary for those tasks.”

Trump campaigned on shuttering the department. (More)

President Donald Trump delivers remarks alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on July 14, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has warned that he will impose strict new economic consequences against Russia if Moscow does not accept a peace deal with Ukraine within the next 50 days.

“I’m disappointed in [Russian President Vladimir Putin], because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn’t seem to get there,” Trump said as he hosted NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House on July 14.

“So, based on that, we’re going to be doing secondary tariffs. If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they'll be at 100 percent, and that’s the way it is.”

Trump presented his warning as being separate from new legislation that members of Congress are preparing, which would allow for tariffs of as much as 500 percent on goods from countries that purchase their energy from Russia.

“We can do secondary tariffs without the Senate, without the House, but what they’re crafting also could be very good,” Trump said.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said the new economic actions targeting Russia could come in the form of either direct sanctions or the “secondary tariffs” Trump described.

Secondary tariffs are a newer form of economic action that entail a duty imposed on goods coming from third-party countries that trade with countries sanctioned by the United States.

In March, Trump signed an executive order authorizing a tariff of 25 percent on any goods coming from a country that imports Venezuelan oil either directly or through an intermediary. (More)

More Politics:

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is calling for an independent investigation into the federal government’s handling of a wildfire that destroyed the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and upward of 80 structures on the park’s North Rim.

Hobbs, a Democrat, criticized federal officials for initially managing the lightning-sparked blaze as a controlled burn rather than immediately suppressing it.

“An incident of this magnitude demands intense oversight and scrutiny into the federal government’s emergency response,” Hobbs wrote on X. “They must first take aggressive action to end the wildfire and prevent further damage. But Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park.”

The fire, known as the Dragon Bravo Fire, began on July 4 and was initially managed under a “confine and contain” strategy, according to fire officials. The National Park Service, which oversees Grand Canyon National Park, later shifted to a full suppression approach as conditions worsened.

The National Park Service said on July 13 the fire intensified at about 10:30 p.m. on July 12, driven by sustained 20 mph winds and gusts up to 40 mph.

Fire crews worked overnight to slow its spread near the Grand Canyon Lodge and Transept Canyon using aerial bucket drops. However, they were unable to use fire retardant in critical areas because of a chlorine gas leak at a damaged water treatment facility, which forced the evacuation of firefighting personnel. (More)

More U.S. News:

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has condemned China’s communist regime for continuing to defy a 2016 international arbitration ruling that rejected its sweeping claims in the South China Sea, as well as its increasingly hostile actions against its neighbors.

In a statement on the ninth anniversary of the landmark ruling issued by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Rubio called on the Chinese regime to “abide by the 2016 arbitral ruling and to cease its dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”

Rubio said that the ruling, which was a unanimous decision delivered by a five-member panel of the court, is “legally binding on both the Philippines and China” and a “useful basis for peacefully resolving disputes between parties in the South China Sea.”

The 2016 ruling rejected the Chinese regime’s “nine-dash line” claim to about 85 percent of the South China Sea’s 2.2 million square miles, saying that Beijing’s assertion was inconsistent with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“Since the 2016 ruling, China has ignored the decision, continuing to assert unlawful and expansive maritime claims and taking increasingly aggressive actions against its neighbors,” Rubio said.

“Beijing’s expansive claims directly infringe on the sovereign rights and jurisdictions of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia, and undermine peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” (More)

More World News:

A mute swan is brought ashore to be ringed, measured, and weighed during the annual swan census on the River Thames in London, England, on July 14, 2025. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

📸 Day in Photos: Heavy Rains in Pakistan, Bastille Day Military Parade, and Counting Swans on the Thames (Look)

🎙️ Podcast: The Evolving Trade War—A New Battlefield Opens Between US and China (Listen)

✍️ Opinion

🎵 Music: J.F.Fasch - Suite in B-flat (Listen)

📫 Forward this email to a friend and tell them to subscribe. (Here)

☕ Love coffee, mugs, stickers, and clothes?  Check out our shop.

💬 Feedback? Reply to this email or write to ivanmb@epochtimes.nyc

“The Expulsion From the Garden of Eden,” 17th century, by Lambert de Hondt the Elder. 

Ancient mythical tales appear distant, archaic, and irrelevant to modern cultural and political debates. And yet, the truth is that myths have never been more relevant. 

Why? Because, unlike modern theories that claim truth is entirely relative or culturally conditioned, myths propose that some truths are universal—eternal, even—and recur in every age, including our own.

Let’s start with a non-Western classic. “Tao Te Ching” affirms that “if one does not recognize the Eternal, one falls into confusion and sin.” That word—eternal—is key. It refers to truths that do not alter depending on the times or the trends. 

Greek myths, and many others across cultures, capture such truths in the form of a story, image, or symbol. They speak to the nature of reality, human limitation, justice, and the consequences of pride. That’s why they endure.

Unfortunately, our modern culture increasingly confuses myth with falsehood. The dictionary defines myth as “a fictitious narrative” or “a widely held but false belief.” But this is a deeply impoverished understanding.

Myth is not untruth, but a different mode of truth: symbolic, psychological, and metaphysical. As Karen Armstrong, author of “A Short History of Myth,” wisely notes, “A myth was an event which, in some sense, had happened once, but which also happened all the time.” 

That is what gives myth its power. History records what happened once; myth explains what keeps happening.

Consider the biblical myth of the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Whether or not one believes in a literal Adam and Eve, the myth is deeply and observably true: Humanity, again and again, reaches for the wrong tree. We choose the Tree of Knowledge—facts, certainty, control—over the Tree of Life—imagination, trust, and faith. We do it still. And, in doing so, we fall. (More)

Spot the Difference is our readers’ favorite. Play it here.

Play more games at Epoch Fun ➞

Thanks for reading.

Have a wonderful day.

—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.

Copyright © 2025 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved. 

Our mailing address is: The Epoch Times. 229 W. 28 St. Fl. 7 New York, NY 10001 | Contact Us

Our Morning Brief newsletter is one of the best ways to receive the most up-to-date information. Manage your email preferences here or unsubscribe from Morning Brief here.