Wednesday night completed the second Democratic debate of the 2020 election, with Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and former vice president Joe Biden as the feature candidates. None of them turned in a resounding performance. Below are some winners and losers.
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Winners

The Trump administration is expected to extend another round of temporary waivers on Thursday to permit countries part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to conduct civil nuclear projects with the regime, despite pressure from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Iran hawks on Capitol Hill.
The Washington Post and Politico first reported the expected announcement.
According to the Post, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin convinced Trump that if the sanctions weren’t waived, the United States would be required to sanction European, Chinese and Russian companies involved in Iran’s nuclear projects.

Two California professors created seesaws at the United States-Mexico border wall to allow children in both countries to play with each other.
Ronald Rael, an architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Virginia San Fratello, an assistant professor at San José State University in California, came up with the idea for a “Teetertotter Wall” in 2009.
In one video posted to Rael’s Instagram page, several children are seen happily bouncing up and down on the bright pink seesaws. Another video shows people waving to children in Ciudad Juárez. Watch the full video above.

An Israeli company announced on Wednesday that it had developed a highly-effective vaccine against radiation poisoning.
The Israeli news site Mako reported that the Haifa-based company Pluristem Therapeutics made the announcement together with the US Department of Defense.
The company said that the vaccine showed extremely-improved survival rates among animals subjected to high levels of radiation.
Use of the vaccine increased survival rates by 74 percent, the company stated, compared to only four percent in the control group.
The vaccine, called PLX-R18, involves the injection of placental cells into the subjects 24 hours before radiation exposure and 72 hours after.

A senior commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Abu Alfazl Sarabian, was killed in Iraq in an attack by “Israel and the United States” on July 19, 2019, according to Iran’s Young Journalists Club news agency. A funeral service was held in Tehran before Sarabian’s body was returned for burial in his hometown of Kermanshah.
The July 19 attack targeted the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Force (Hashd al-Shaab) in Armeli in the Salah a-Din governorate of Iraq, north of Baghdad. Iraqi sources said Sarabian was killed as a result of an explosion in a storage area for solid fuel for missiles.
The announcement by Iran of the death of an IRGC officer in an “Israeli-American” attack on an Iraqi army base may raise regional tensions.

Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met in Cairo just days before the arrival of an U.S. team in the region to discuss the Trump administration’s proposed Mideast peace plan.
According to former head of the Jordanian Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee Bassam al-Manaseer as quoted by Ynet, the meeting was an effort to establish a united stance against the “deal of the century” plan.
“[Amman] is under huge pressure by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the [United Arab Emirates] to accept the American project,” al-Manaseer said. “Basically [King Abdullah] is trying to [coordinate his] position with [that of] another Arab [nation] that refuses the accord.”

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said on its website.
The Treasury Department said it was imposing sanctions on Zarif for acting on behalf of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Javad Zarif implements the reckless agenda of Iran’s Supreme Leader, and is the regime’s primary spokesperson around the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Tensions have risen between the United States and Iran following US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal last year from a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran.

A group of Billionaires’ Row residents are taking their battle with Mayor Bill de Blasio over a homeless shelter planned for their block someplace where the presidential wannabe might actually notice: Iowa.
“Hey, Bill de Blasio! It’s New York … Remember Us?” asks the first of 10 eventual billboards going up Thursday in the key battleground state — where the mayor has seemingly spent more time this year than his own city.
“He’s the mayor of our city. He should devote his time to listening to the people of New York City,” said Michael Fisher, a member of the West 58th Street Coalition who says that the group has been trying for years to score face time with de Blasio over the controversial plan to convert the block’s old Park Savoy Hotel to a homeless shelter.

Former President Ronald Reagan called an African delegation “monkeys” in a newly released tape from The National Archives.
During a discussion of a 1971 vote to admit the People’s Republic of China into the United Nations, Reagan, at the time the governor of California, commented on diplomats of the United Republic of Tanzania to then-President Richard Nixon.
“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,” Reagan said.
“Yeah,” Nixon agreed.
“To see those, those monkeys from those African countries, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan said, prompting laughter from Nixon.