On Friday in the Cuban capital Havana, the three US Marines who removed the American flag at the closure of the US Embassy in 1961, will raise it again 54 years later.

Nahal Toosi writes at Politico that the “cold war lingers.”

As John Kerry raises the U.S. flag above America’s newly re-established embassy … many hope his historic visit — the first by a secretary of state since 1945 — will help lead to a post-Cold War mentality on the island.

But despite major changes in the relationship, the U.S. still won’t have unfettered access to the communist-led country and its people, and it will have to balance its ties to the Cuban government with those to dissidents seeking faster change.

(VOA News)

Meanwhile, Thursday was Fidel Castro’s birthday.

And ahead of Friday’s big day, he has a good idea what he wants as a gift.

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WORLD

Chinese authorities are investigating the cause of yesterday’s explosions in the port city of Tianjin, but are also trying as best they can to keep a lid on anyone else’s investigations. 

In Baghdad, more than 70 people were killed and 200 injured in a massive suicide bomb attack in a market.

With this weekend marking the anniversary of Japan’s surrender to end World War Two, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will on Friday release an official statement which will be closely scrutinized for their degree of remorse. The Economist writes:

Mr Abe does not think imperial Japan did much wrong that other warring nations did not do, and he believes that a gruel of Japanese guilt and apologies has been a poor diet for Japanese now lacking a sense of pride and patriotism.

And so a lot of people, from Chinese and South Korean leaders to Western academics, have been worried sick about what he might say. Yet as one of his people puts it, rather condescendingly, Mr Abe has recently grown up as a politician—that is, his political head has overridden his heart.

There are now five weeks until the deadline for a congressional vote on the Iran nuclear deal, and the White House got a boost on Thursday when Minnesota Sen Al Franken and Montana Sen John Tester threw their support behind the agreement.

Franken wrote in an op-ed at CNN:

Diplomacy requires cooperation and compromise. You don’t negotiate with your friends; you negotiate with your enemies. Indeed, no one who’s for this deal has any delusions about the nature of the Iranian regime, any more than American presidents who made nuclear arms agreements with the Soviet Union had delusions about the nature of the communist regime there.

For a long time, it has looked like our only options when it came to Iran would be allowing it to have a nuclear bomb or having to bomb the country ourselves. This agreement represents a chance to break out of that no-win scenario.

But the issue remains divisive and continues to mobilize powerful advocates on both sides.

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POLITICS

NBC News reported that Vice-President Joe Biden is understood to be getting increasingly serious about entering the Democratic primary race.

On the GOP side, candidates flocked to the Iowa State Fair to eat food on sticks and pay homage to the iconic Butter Cow.

http://twitter.com/TheFix/status/632015495764541440

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MEDIA

Major League Baseball authorized the establishment of a new media entity, with, interestingly the NHL as an investor.

Ben Popper writes at The Verge on how baseball’s tech team “built the future of television.” 

The idea of spinning BAM [Baseball Advanced Media] out to create a new company has been floated for years, but in the last few months it has hardened into a certainty. Today’s announcement that the NHL will invest in this new venture makes it a fact. Lawyers and bankers are finalizing the details, and [CEO Bob] Bowman is in active discussions with other potential investors, poised to run a new company with a valuation north of $5 billion.

“As everyone thinks about going over the top, about building out a global business, we are looking for a partner to help us double or triple this business,” says Bowman. “Things have been going fine, but to not move on this now, we lose the opportunity to get really, really big.”

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CULTURE 

The Edinburgh Festival is under way.

Stephen Lewis, who played one of British TV comedy’s most recognizable characters, Blakey from On The Buses, died aged 88.

And talking of iconic British TV comedy, the first trailer emerged for the Dad’s Army movie. The Guardian thinks it “might not be completely terrible.”

(Universal Pictures)