Global health officials say they can’t pinpoint the exact origins of COVID-19, largely due to a lack of cooperation from China.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz, who has been at the forefront of reporting on the pandemic’s origins, dives into the latest study from the World Health Organization’s Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, a panel of 27 experts charged with investigating how the outbreak, which has killed millions, began.

Despite multiple visits from WHO officials to China, Beijing refused requests for key data.

You can read the full report here, but here are the big takeaways: Regarding the origins, WHO said that “all hypotheses must remain on the table.” And, according to the health organization, Beijing specifically refused to share “genetic sequences from individuals with COVID-19 early in the pandemic, more detailed information about the animals sold at markets in Wuhan, and information on work done and biosafety conditions at laboratories in Wuhan.”

It was hardly a surprise, but the administration’s move to lift most sanctions on Syria is a remarkable turnaround from just eight months ago. At that time, the government of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad was a key regional ally of both Iran and Russia, and the chaos and civil war that defined his reign over the past decade created the conditions for both terrorists and Iran-backed militias to wreak havoc in the region.

Now, under the leadership of new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Mr. Trump believes the country is poised to head in a new direction. The president signed an executive order Monday that said the U.S. is “committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbors.” And to that end, the U.S. terminated the lion’s share of economic sanctions on the country, some of which have stood for more than a decade.

The full list of lifted sanctions, which applied to wealthy Syrians, the nation’s armed forces, import-export businesses, oil companies and other entities, is available here.

Ukraine again demonstrated the capability and the reach of its drones, hitting an industrial plant 800 miles inside Russia. The attack targeted a facility in Izhevsk that reportedly makes air defense systems and drones for the Russian military. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the operation was part of his country’s “countermeasures” to limit Russia’s ability to launch its own drone strikes on Ukrainian territory.

Russian state-controlled media acknowledged the incident and said that “several people” were killed.

The latest strike comes just a month after a stunning Ukrainian operation that struck four military bases across Russia with drones smuggled into the country in trucks. 

How did China make such rapid — and frightening — advances in hypersonic weapons? Mark Lewis, CEO of the Purdue Applied Research Institute, offers one key answer: They stole from the U.S.

On the latest edition of the Threat Status weekly podcast, Mr. Lewis explains how American “hubris” failed to seriously consider the possibility of communist China leapfrogging the U.S. in the development and production of the world’s most advanced maneuvering hypersonic weapons.

Beyond its theft of intellectual property and the benefits of its students learning at American universities, China has enjoyed other advantages in the high-stakes hypersonics race. China is also helped by its economic structure, where defense efforts like hypersonics are elevated to statewide development projects, Mr. Lewis said.

“It’s a national-level effort,” he said.

South Korea is one of America’s most crucial allies in the Pacific. But could that 75-year alliance be in peril?

Morse Tan, who served as ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice during Mr. Trump’s first term, writes in a new op-ed for The Washington Times that the victory of Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea in the country’s presidential election last month could lead to a weakening of that alliance.

Specifically, Mr. Tan points to allegations of interference by the Chinese Communist Party in that election and its efforts to influence South Korean politics as part of a plan to undermine the Washington-Seoul partnership.

“South Korea won its freedom at tremendous cost and with the strong support of the United States. What the CCP was not able to achieve by bullets during the Korean War, it should not be able to seize today by fraudulent ballots or other forms of election interference,” he writes.

• July 7 — The Power Behind Israel’s Economic Strength in War, The Heritage Foundation

• July 11 — The Han Kuang Exercise and the Taiwanese Military’s Road to Readiness, Hudson Institute

• July 13-17 — GenAI Summit, GenAI Week

• July 15-18 — Aspen Security Forum, Aspen Institute

• July 16 — Global Swing States and the New Great Power Competition, Center for a New American Security