Mario Nawfal

🇻🇪 One of Maduro’s longtime allies just pleaded guilty in the U.S. and agreed to pay $195 million while cooperating with investigators. Alex Saab admitted that starting in 2015, he worked with senior Venezuelan officials in a bribery and money-laundering scheme tied to CLAP, the government program meant to provide basic food to low-income Venezuelans. Prosecutors say fake companies, false invoices and fraudulent shipping records were used to skim huge sums and move money abroad, including into the U.S. And the case may get bigger. Saab has agreed to provide truthful information that could implicate other Venezuelan officials, while investigators are also looking at money tied to PDVSA oil operations. Yes, you read that right: money was skimmed from a food program in a country that was already falling apart, and now one of Maduro’s key operators is talking. Source: AP News, Infobae / Writer: Sol

🇾🇪 A cell in Houthi territory used AI to design guided weapons and got as far as test-firing a rocket Anthropic's report says the group in northern Yemen hid the purpose of the guidance systems it was building from the system helping build them, tried for a multistage ballistic missile with 1,200 miles of range and a hypersonic glide vehicle, and had already assembled an offline simulation toolkit that didn't need the AI at all. No operational weapon was fielded. The Times puts it inside a bigger picture: missile chassis now fabricated in Yemen, one-way drones built locally, components arriving by dhow and ship-to-ship transfer off Somalia in what one analyst calls a giant game of three card monte. Timothy Lenderking, the former U.S. envoy, calls them the most lethal nonstate actor in the Middle East. Here is the trap Washington is in. Bombing Iran no longer starves the Houthis, because the factory moved. The Hormuz blockade stops tankers, not the guidance fins in a fishing boat's hold. The 2025 air campaign ended because Caine saw no exit. And the one thing that ever stopped them, Saudi money in 2022, is exactly what gave them four years to become this. Riyadh will pay again, because it has nothing else. The Houthis will build again, because that's what the last truce taught them. Source: The New York Times / Writer: Daniel

🇾🇪🇮🇷 Iran's biggest win of the war came without firing a shot Bab al-Mandab carries 8.7% of global seaborne trade, a fifth of the world's cars and containers, 13% of its crude. It is 18 miles wide, and the Houthis now hold both banks and the island in the middle. A Yemeni official told the Post that Friday was the first day Iran really started winning the war. A former head of Mossad analysis says Tehran timed the whole sequence, the coast, the pipeline strike from Iraq, for the window before November 3. Trump's response was that the Houthis phoned, prefer America stay out, and are letting most ships through. The Navy has 20 ships tied to Hormuz and six borrowed from the Pacific. There is no second fleet for a second strait, and the last Houthi campaign ended in May 2025 because Caine saw no exit. Washington will accept a Houthi-managed Red Sea as long as American hulls aren't the target. So the squeeze lands on Riyadh, and the realistic next move is Saudi Arabia paying the Houthis to stop, the way it bought the 2022 truce. Iran then holds both chokepoints as leverage and can move oil prices at will. The economic siege Washington built to break Tehran now cuts the other way, and every month of blockade costs the West more than it costs Iran. Source: The Washington Post / Writer: Daniel

🇲🇹 You pray for rain... But not THIS. First downpour in months hits Malta, and one parked car gets swallowed by the exact street that turned into a river. Writer: Val t.co/JeS8hP1hn4

🇺🇲Hegseth is sticking to his plan to rid the U.S. military of FAT GENERALS and dudes with facial hair. Servicemembers attending Pete’s “State of the Force” on Sept. 30 must meet waist-to-height requirements and have “impeccable” grooming and uniform standards. This comes a year after Hegseth told top military brass there should be “no more beardos” or “fat generals.” Welcome to dress code boot camp, soldiers! Source: WSJ / Writer: Marie

🇸🇦🇾🇪 The aftermath at Saudi Aramco’s Abha plant looks brutal New footage shows the scale of the damage left behind at the facility in southwestern Saudi Arabia following reported Houthi strikes. The video offers a striking look at what was hit... and how hard. Writer: Val t.co/RkT0dKU69v

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran's boats are hunting American drones in the strait now, and the Houthis have turned Red Sea islands into aircraft carriers that never sail home Axios reports US forces fired on Iranian boats trying to seize a second Navy drone in the Strait of Hormuz. The first one is already in Iranian hands, and Bobby Jones, who spent 26 years in that Navy, expects it to be reverse-engineered the way Iran has done before. His larger point is about what a shallow, hot sea does to expensive machines. The Gulf makes them easy to find. Meanwhile the simple weapons keep working, a boarding party with rifles, a mine on a hull, a mobile launcher that moves before the strike package is updated. The islands the Houthis took are, in his words, permanent aircraft carriers, and the country most likely to answer is Egypt, whose canal is now worthless. Riyadh, for its part, faces a two-front trap: attack Yemen, and Iran hits the desalination plants from the other side. @WeTheBrandon

You've gotta love Grok in Teslas Writer: Ian t.co/jUDkHYfr7D

🇲🇽 Mexico City’s Metro turned into Back to the Future for a few seconds 😂 A piece of metal hit the live rail, triggering a burst of flashes and smoke that shut down service for about an hour. Writer: Sol t.co/s2YNBRav5x

Katy Perry has jokes about Ed Sheeran that are as funny as her singing on the Blue Origin. Which is to say… they’re actually pretty damn funny. Writer: Marie t.co/CHkXrSJrdA

🚨🇺🇸 The FBI arrested a Pennsylvania man with an ISIS persona hours after he bought a rifle and 190 rounds for what he called his "mission" Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, took an Uber to a Walmart in Gibsonia on Saturday and came out with a semiautomatic rifle, then bought a burner phone, paid cash for a hotel room, and visited a gun store. Agents moved when he returned to the room with three 30-round magazines and five boxes of ammunition. Online as "Hamza Al Rashid," he had pledged allegiance to ISIS, offered to share explosive manuals, and allegedly discussed targeting schools, nightclubs, theaters, apartment buildings and synagogues. The FBI already knew him. In 2023 he was charged as a minor in a mass-casualty plot. A tip in March flagged mysterious packages and contact with old associates. The bureau watched him for six months and caught him the day he armed up. The part that should bother everyone is the Walmart. A person charged at 18 or younger with planning a massacre walked into a big-box store three years later and legally bought a rifle, because juvenile records don't follow you to a background check. The FBI closed the gap this time by staying on him. The next one won't have a file. Source: WTAE / Writer: Daniel

🇺🇸 "This had the feel and the look of a child fight club" That's the attorney describing a Fort Worth Montessori where video allegedly shows a teacher grabbing a 4-year-old, shaking him, then dragging him toward another kid and encouraging that child to hit him. Other caregivers watched and did nothing. The state found more than a dozen deficiencies at this place. TWELVE. Before anyone thought to shut the doors. That poor boy is four years old and in therapy already. Parents drop their kids off trusting these people... this is the nightmare every one of them has! Writer: Daniel t.co/xp6X0PNUH9

🇺🇲 Weekend at Mitch’s 😅 Writer: Marie t.co/pGwxxNwpgk

🇺🇸 Nuclear weapons can end a city, but Bernie Sanders thinks AI could outdo that: “The potential danger of AI is probably greater than nuclear weapons.” So is he sounding the alarm… or losing the plot? Writer: Val t.co/nDPURj7pYN

There is no faster way to ruin a perfect beach day than watching BUD/S trainees do surf torture while you're on your fourth beer arguing with strangers online😂 Source: Lifeatthedel on IG / Writer: Daniel t.co/6Ys8YjRlGm

🇺🇲🇷🇺 A pair of House Democrats crossed the aisle to advance Trump’s RUSSIA SANCTIONS bill. The measure passed the procedural vote 214-211.  One independent also voted in favor. The legislation would give Trump authority to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries buying Russian energy. The bill already passed the Senate and now needs final approval from the House before Trump can sign it into law. A little bipartisan love can go a long way. Source: The Hill, House Foreign Affairs Committee / Writer: Marie

ANYONE WHO CONFLATES JUDAISM WITH ISRAEL IS A FKN IDIOT

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken thinks Trump has a clear off-ramp with Iran, but taking it could look like a loss. He says Trump has plenty of reasons to want that off-ramp, including pressure from markets, tight munitions supplies and the midterms. But taking it would mean a diplomatic deal that gives Iran something too, and Blinken thinks that’s where Trump is hesitating. Writer: Daniyal t.co/kYqNDrH0Za

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Vance says the Iran war enters "a much different phase in a couple of months"... which happens to be right after Election Day. "I think the president is right to say that this thing will enter a much different phase in a couple of months. He's also the commander in chief, so he's the person who determines when conflicts start and when they stop." The different phase can only be one of two things. Escalation runs into the interceptor shelf he personally inventoried by phoning the commanders. That leaves a deal, and Vance is the man who will likely have to answer for it in 2028. Source: New York Post / Writer: Daniel

🇪🇸🇲🇦 Cameras caught Vinicius Jr. in the tunnel showing Mbappé how to wear LaLiga’s Ceuta solidarity shirt so the slogan would not show. “Todos somos caballas,” in support of Ceuta. The rest of Real Madrid walked out with the message showing. Those two practiced how to hide it... Writer: Sol t.co/P8cMHVwWc1

🇺🇸 Al Green forced another Trump impeachment vote, and the House killed it 232-147. Not even his own party would go all-in. Eighteen Democrats voted with Republicans to table it. Democratic leaders, including Hakeem Jeffries, voted “present.” If this was the slam dunk they keep promising, they wouldn’t be ducking their own vote. Source: Fox News, @Acyn / Writer: Val

🇮🇱🇵🇸 Footage shows Israeli forces rappelling from a helicopter during an operation in Yatta, south of Hebron in Palestine. Another operation is seemingly taking place. Writer: Val t.co/b0LHFIwjQ3

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱 Trump approved 40,000 one-ton bombs for Israel as Israeli jets reportedly rehearsed strikes over Iran The $2.8 billion package pairs 20,000 MK-84s with 20,000 BLU-117s, both 2,000-pounders, plus 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads built to punch through rock and concrete before detonating. It follows February's 35,000-bomb sale. Rubio can push it past Congress with emergency powers, and blocking it would take two-thirds of both chambers. Twenty thousand bunker-busters is not a Gaza order. It is the loadout for missile bases, tunnel mouths and buried launchers. Netanyahu is 42 days from an election he is losing and speaks at the UN next week. The forward question is who sets the strike calendar now. Trump wants quiet until November 3. Netanyahu needs something before October 27. Washington just handed the ally with the shorter clock enough bombs to decide for both of them. Source: The New York Times / Writer: Daniel

🇺🇲 Ed Sheeran’s backing band and ALL of his remaining supporting artists have DROPPED OUT of his tour in solidarity with Macklemore. It started after the rapper made pro-Palestinian statements while opening for Sheeran. Macklemore says Patriots owner and AIPAC donor Robert Kraft pressured Sheeran and other stadium owners to drop him from the shows.  Kraft confirmed he didn't want the rapper performing at the Gillette Stadium stop. Sheeran says the promoter and venues made the decision.  But Sheeran publicly supported Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022. So why the silence now? Writer: Marie t.co/N7ETCpJtgA

🚨🇮🇷 BREAKING: Explosions reported on Qeshm Island in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz IRNA cites local sources hearing several blasts, with the sound coming from the sea. No official Iranian comment on the cause, nothing from CENTCOM. Qeshm sits directly in the shipping lane. Source: Al Jazeera / Writer: Daniel

🇺🇲🇿🇦 Rubio says RACIAL GRIEVANCE is driving South Africa’s poor treatment of Afrikaners. He's responding with new visa restrictions to help right the situation. The policy targets foreign nationals who enact or enable race-based discrimination, incite violence, or support land confiscation without compensation. “As POTUS has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority. … Those responsible for these injustices have no place in the United States.” South Africa’s racial politics have crossed the U.S. border. Writer: Marie

🚨🇺🇸 🇮🇷 BREAKING: Troops leaked photos of their wrecked bases to CBS, saying they're "standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face" Active service members sent the images anonymously. One soldier's words: "We're not defending these bases. We're just watching them get destroyed." What the photos reportedly show: -Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia: an E-3 Sentry with its tail severed from a charred fuselage -Prince Sultan Air Base: hollowed-out buildings and barracks standing beside untouched concrete T-walls, fortifications built for mortars and grenades in a war fought from 300 miles up -Camp Buehring, Kuwait: rows of trailers destroyed at the main staging area for Army ground troops and armor -Camp Buehring: vehicles burned out in the open -Camp Arifjan, Kuwait: structural damage to a building at the largest American logistics hub in the region -The IG counted nearly 60 aircraft lost and $3.7 billion in equipment across eight countries. Hegseth called the missiles that killed six at Shuaiba "squirters," a word for the odd one that slips past a working defense. These photos say the defense isn't working, and the people inside the wire know it. Source: CBS News / Writer: Daniel

There's a reason most of us don't climb on top of cars. This guy just learned a PAINFUL lesson... 🤕 Writer: Samuel t.co/UUdAqH5LUl

🇾🇪🇸🇦 The Houthis have named their price for stopping, and it's cheaper than anything Saudi Arabia is about to try instead Ansar Allah's spokesman said it in an interview today. No more territory, no more offensives, if Riyadh lifts the ten-year blockade, stops arming the mercenaries and stops bombing. Dimitri Lascaris calls that a set of obligations Saudi Arabia already has under international law, offered as a truce. What they hold now matters more than land. Mocha, the island of Perim in the middle of the passage, and reportedly the Hanish Islands: "they control the Bab al-Mandib Strait six ways from Sunday" The smart move is consolidating that rather than bleeding for Aden. Saudi Arabia, with the world's seventh-largest defense budget, just watched its proxies collapse on camera, and MBS is in Cairo asking for troops. Lascaris goes further: Somaliland's leader begged for Israeli forces the day after Mocha fell, and the Houthis would welcome the chance to hit Israelis somewhere they can reach. @dimitrilascaris @WeTheBrandon

🇺🇸 NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang walked into Salesforce’s own conference and told the room to calm down. He said AI makes the tools you already use better. Mass job death? Nonsense. No apocalypse. Writer: Sol t.co/Z0uRNff1j8