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Timeline › 2026 › July › 11

July 11, 2026

5 entries on this date.

Trump ordered a fourth round of Iran strikes after a Hormuz vessel attack, again defying the bicameral war-powers resolution

On July 11, 2026, U.S. Central Command struck roughly 140 targets in Iran — missile and drone launch sites, ammunition depots, and communications facilities near Bandar Abbas and Sirik — after Iran attacked a Cyprus-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. This is the fourth distinct round of U.S. strikes on Iran since Congress passed the first-ever bicameral War Powers Resolution in June 2026 directing the president to end hostilities absent a declaration of war or specific congressional authorization.

ICE arrested Philadelphia woman mid-status-adjustment at airport checkpoint, part of a wider airport-arrest pattern

On July 11, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Iliana Noeli Lick, a 30-year-old Argentine nanny who was in the process of legally adjusting her immigration status, at a security checkpoint inside Philadelphia International Airport as she attempted to board a flight. Advocates say Lick is one of at least seven people ICE has arrested at the airport since mid-July 2026, part of a broader pattern of ICE using Transportation Security Administration checkpoint screening to detain travelers nationwide. DHS confirmed the shift, stating it reversed a prior policy that had allowed such travel.

ICE officers invoked Kansas's new Halo Act to block a bystander from recording their Olathe detention operation

On July 11, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded Lenexa, Kansas resident Shana Leacox as she recorded ICE activity from her car in Olathe, blocking her vehicle in while an officer repeatedly shouted "25 feet, 25 feet" and ordered her to move back under Kansas's new Halo Act. Leacox was not arrested, but the video-recorded encounter shows the facially neutral proximity law -- passed to shield officers from disorderly crowds -- being invoked against a bystander documenting ICE conduct rather than the unrest its sponsors described.

Justice Department subpoenaed four New York Times reporters over their Air Force One security reporting

In July 2026, the Justice Department subpoenaed four New York Times reporters — Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt — over their reporting on security concerns about the Qatari-donated aircraft being prepared as Air Force One. After federal judges froze phone-record enforcement and challenged the DOJ's legal reasoning at a July 24, 2026, court hearing, the government withdrew all grand-jury and phone-record subpoenas. Judge Arun Subramanian called the legal work "slipshod" and threatened sanctions; the Times called the full withdrawal "an important affirmation of our country's commitment to a free press."

LAPD inspector general audit found officers wrongly stopped 161 innocent people flagged by faulty license-plate-reader hot list

A Los Angeles Police Department Office of the Inspector General audit, released July 11, 2026, found that during a two-month review period officers acknowledged 161 automated license-plate-reader "hot list" alerts as accurate stolen-vehicle matches that were in fact wrong, generally because outdated data was never cleared after a vehicle was recovered. Although LAPD policy requires officers to verify an alert's accuracy before stopping a vehicle, the audit found this frequently did not happen, and the false hits routinely triggered "high-risk" stops against people who had done nothing wrong. The findings led LAPD to let its data-sharing contract with Flock Safety expire.