https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/2077720011100062016/video/1

https://twitter.com/Eng_china5/status/2078025417349570750/video/1

https://twitter.com/Eng_china5/status/2078025417349570750/video/1

Declan Ganley

@declanganley

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1h

Brilliant speech by

@SecRubio

one I expect will have historic significance. Well worth your time and it has ramifications for (at minimum) all the democracies. Via

@mirandadevine

https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/2077769288266461660/video/1

https://twitter.com/TRUMP_ARMY_/status/1971935595468575119/video/1

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An AI Synopsis:

AI Overview

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Donald Trump’s mental health policy centers on expanding civil commitment laws and aggressively institutionalizing unhoused individuals and those with severe mental illness. These actions have rolled back decades of disability rights, though his administration also faced significant bipartisan pushback and legal challenges regarding planned funding cuts to frontline health services. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Executive Action on Homelessness and Mental Illness

A core component of Trump’s mental health platform is addressing homelessness by framing it as a public safety and public health crisis. His administration signed an executive order directing federal agencies, including the Attorney General and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to encourage the forced institutionalization of individuals living on the streets who pose a risk to themselves or are unable to care for themselves. The order calls for the reversal of legal precedents and termination of consent decrees that historically impede civil commitments. [1, 3]

Funding Battles and Service Cuts

The administration’s approach to mental healthcare has led to intense conflict with states, advocacy groups, and local healthcare providers. Initial plans to cut roughly $2 billion in federal funding for mental health and addiction programs were met with widespread bipartisan outrage. While the administration walked back some of these cuts following pressure from lawmakers and health departments, advocates continue to criticize policies that prioritize forced commitments over funding voluntary, community-based care and housing-first programs. [1, 2, 3]

For a closer look at the logistical challenges and controversy surrounding the administration’s push for forced psychiatric care amidst resource shortages, see this news report:

23s

Trump pushes forced mental health care

CBS19

YouTube · 1 Oct 2025

Civil Rights and Disability Oversight

The pivot toward institutionalization has faced heavy scrutiny from disability rights organizations, such as the American Bar Association (ABA), which argue the expanded criteria for involuntary commitment undermine decades of hard-won civil rights protections. The administration has also explored shifting the oversight of special education from the Department of Education to HHS, a move critics warn could “remedicalize” education for students with disabilities and reduce their integration into mainstream community settings. [1]

To understand more about the legal and institutional shifts under the administration, including the concerns voiced by disability and elderly care advocates, watch the following video:

@steve_hanke

·

59m

Reuters reports that Iran told Yemen’s Houthis to be ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the US strikes Iranian power infrastructure. Annually, ~10-12% of global trade flows through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. US & ISRAEL + IRAN = CLIMBING A DANGEROUS ESCALATION LADDER.

07/15/2026July 15, 2026

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, only one-third of people in Britain believe that leaving the EU was the right decision. Among young people in particular, support for rejoining the European Union is strong.

https://p.dw.com/p/5GXo2

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, a growing number of people in Britain are questioning the UK‘s  departure from the EU. The activist Ceira Casey Sergeant is marching from London to Brussels to campaign for rejoining the European Union. Critics of Brexit cite weaker economic growth and pressure on the National Health Service. Some people who supported Brexit now say key promises made by “Leave” campaigners were never made good on. As public opinion shifts, over 80% of people younger than under-25s are said to support a return to the European Union,  fueling a renewed debate about Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

Innovation Robotics

He sold his last company to Palantir. Now he’s betting $32 million that robots can fix construction’s labor crisis

By 

Lily Mae Lazarus

Reporter, News

July 15, 2026, 8:00 AM ET

Monumental builds fleets of compact, electric, self-driving bricklaying robots that show up on construction sites and lay walls.Courtesy of Monumental

Salar al Khafaji sold his last company, Silk, to Palantir in 2016. A week after he left, he knew he was going to build again. Al Khafaji landed on construction—an industry many in tech saw as a graveyard. “Most people told me it’s a really, really bad idea,” he told Fortune.

Recommended Video

His Amsterdam-based construction robotics company, Monumental raised a $32 million Series B led by Khosla Ventures, Fortune learned exclusively. The round follows a $25 million round in February 2024 co-led by Plural and Hummingbird. The new capital will fund a U.S. launch this year, scale its European robot fleet, and expand the range of tasks its machines can handle.

Al Khafaji’s nay-sayers weren’t wrong to be skeptical about the construction space. Construction technology has burned through substantial venture capital in the past seven years and investment activity in the space has ultimately declined 33% year-on-year. Katerra—a SoftBank-backed startup that tried to overhaul the entire construction supply chain under one roof—raised over $1 billion and went bankrupt in 2021. Australia’s FBR built a truck-mounted bricklaying robot arm that can lay up to 360 blocks per hour, but at nearly $6 million per machine it requires contractors to make a massive upfront bet on unproven technology. The pattern repeats: bold technology, wrong business model, contractor walks away.

Monumental builds fleets of compact, electric, self-driving bricklaying robots that show up on construction sites and lay walls. The company works like a specialist subcontractor—the kind a general contractor hires to handle one specific job, like plumbing or electrical—except the crew is robots. Contractors get a quote in familiar terms (per brick, per square meter), and Monumental handles everything else. “We’re selling them a wall,” al Khafaji explained. 

The company uses whatever bricks and mortar a contractor already specifies, meaning regulators see nothing new to approve. Al Khafaji explained this as a deliberate workaround to the building-code fragmentation that killed many of its predecessors. The company currently has more than 150 robots on live European job sites.

Monumental’s latest round coincides with a greater shortage of construction labor. Global construction accounts for 13% of world GDP but has seen virtually no productivity gains in 50 years. In the U.S., the industry needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026 alone, and the housing shortfall sits at 3 to 4 million units. Al Khafaji is blunt about the scale: “You could have 10,000 robots a day and we would literally have just touched a few percentage points of the shortage.” That framing—filling a hole, not displacing workers—is also Monumental’s political cover entering a union-heavy market where tightening immigration enforcement is already shrinking the informal labor pool that much of American construction quietly depends on.

The company isn’t the only bet on the sector. Last November, Zurich-based Gravis Robotics raised $23 million to outfit existing heavy machinery—excavators, loaders—with cameras and AI so they can operate autonomously or be guided remotely via tablet. 

And equipment giants like Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Volvo are all circling the autonomous construction equipment market, valued at $10 billion in 2025 and growing at 7.9% annually. Where Gravis retrofits machines already on site, Monumental deploys its own fleet from scratch. 

Monumental’s entry is targeted at Texas, Florida, Virginia, and Arizona, where building activity and labor shortages are most acute. Al Khafaji’s 18-month benchmark is a permanently deployed fleet in the high double to low triple digits across at least two states. The longer roadmap stretches from bricklaying to full facades. Someday, he mused “you’ll drive around and find them on an average construction site.”

The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what’s next for the American economy, Nov. 16-17 in Detroit. Apply here.

About the Author

By Lily Mae LazarusReporter, News

Lily Mae Lazarus is a news reporter at Fortune.