Mario Nawfal

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran’s convinced Trump is coming back for round 2 after the midterms, so it’s fortifying its nuclear sites and getting the whole country ready to fight. Satellite images show dirt mounds piled up around the Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites to make any ground raid a headache, while airports, seaports and power plants are stocking up on shelters and emergency supplies. Billboards in Tehran are now pitching civilians on training with shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and sniper rifles, and the Revolutionary Guard just rolled out its first female commando units. Tehran’s also been warning regional officials it could go after the UAE, Saudi oil facilities, data centers and undersea internet cables if the fighting picks back up. It’s even floated sinking U.S. warships and killing their crews. Washington isn’t exactly sitting on its hands either, with a 3rd carrier strike group and another Marine expeditionary unit on the way. Trump’s sworn off attacking Iran before the Nov. 3 midterms, but he’s openly toyed with the idea of hitting Pickaxe Mountain. Meanwhile, Revolutionary Guard troops are visiting kindergartens to read kids war stories and show off a Tomahawk missile they claim to have "neutralized." Goldilocks never stood a chance. Source: WSJ / Writer: Julie

🇬🇧 This 92-year-old man went back to the streets he grew up on in Tottenham, London, for the first time in 56 years, and was HAUNTED by what he saw. When he was a boy, the place was 99% English, and now barely anyone there looks anything like him. One local admitted the sense of community is "completely gone" in what is now an epicenter of crime and drugs. Writer: Mhedi t.co/4gOgrAx4EN

Africa just got its first Starlink airline. Royal Air Maroc is bringing Starlink to 41 aircraft from 2027, with free access planned for Safar Flyer members. That’s fast, low-latency internet on Royal Air Maroc flights across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. A video call over the Sahara suddenly sounds pretty normal. Once passengers get used to proper internet at 35,000 feet, everyone else has to catch up. @Starlink @SpaceX / Writer: Annette, Designer: Janné

🇺🇸 Leonardo DiCaprio just hit the beach shirtless, and the paparazzi made sure the ENTIRE INTERNET got a front-row seat. The Hollywood star was spotted splashing around in the Pacific Ocean with girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti and a celebrity crew including Tobey Maguire, Courteney Cox, and Kate Hudson. And judging by these pictures, Leo has been taking his role in “The Wolf of Wall Street” a little too seriously when it comes to enjoying the good life. Bro survived the TITANIC, won an Oscar, and apparently decided abs were no longer part of the contract 🤣 Source: @DailyMail / Writer: Sol

🇺🇸 Only in America can you go to a college football game and have the U.S. ARMY literally DROP IN FROM THE SKY. Members of the Army Parachute Team parachuted straight into Louisville's football stadium in Kentucky before the Cardinals faced Florida State. The footage shows an absolutely INSANE aerial view as the soldiers descend toward the field, with thousands of fans watching from the stands. Americans really know how to turn a football game into a Hollywood production Source: MediaMagikGroup (YT) / Writer: Sol

With sky-high gas prices, another forever war in the Middle East, and 30-year fixed mortgage rates at 7.4%, people are heading into the midterms with one question: How is this America First? Writer: Ian

OUCH, THAT HAD TO HURT LIKE HELL! WWE star Tiffany Stratton launched herself FORWARD off a ladder, attempting to rotate through the air, but the ladder shifted beneath her as she jumped, throwing off her move. She completely missed the landing and crashed BACK-FIRST onto the floor. That was an absolutely BRUTAL impact. Writer: Sol t.co/iWTXExCCzo

🇮🇹 STRAIGHT OUT OF AN ACTION MOVIE! Italy BLEW UP a massive section of a highway bridge, and the whole thing collapsed in SECONDS. Engineers planted explosives inside the Tevere Viaduct near Viterbo, bringing down 13 of its 33 spans in a spectacular controlled demolition. The bridge stretches nearly 1.4 KILOMETERS, and the explosives were carefully positioned to make the roadway fall STRAIGHT DOWN without destroying the neighboring structures. The operation is part of a €41.5 MILLION project to rebuild and reinforce the viaduct. Writer: Sol t.co/3fG2dk0PZF

🇫🇷 Someone went MISSING in the PARIS CATACOMBS in 1993… Watch as an explorer takes a 3-day trek through the underground system’s UNMAPPED TUNNELS to search for him. Known for holding the bones of over 6 MILLION PEOPLE, the famous passageways under Paris also may conceal underground dwellers and other spooky sh*t. Total nightmare fuel for anyone who doesn't like small spaces and skeletons. Writer: Marie t.co/0E4gsQRKWl

🇸🇦 🇾🇪 Riyadh is running out of armies to borrow: Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Syria have reportedly all said no to troops for Yemen Abdullah Alaoudh says MBS went to each of them with cash in hand and still came away empty, putting the odds of foreign ground troops at 5% at best: "Turkey and Pakistan both said there is no way we are sending ground troops to Yemen." A deal with the Houthis is now the only real way out, and the hard part for MBS will be selling it at home as a win. @aalodah

🇰🇷🇺🇸 South Korea's stock market just shed nearly 9% in four trading days as Samsung and SK Hynix led an AI chip selloff Monday's 3.65% drop in Seoul came on the first session back from a three-day holiday, and it capped a four-day slide that took the KOSPI from above 7,000 to 6,384. The damage came straight from the AI trade, with Samsung down 4.4%, SK Hynix down 4.5%, and foreign investors dumping nearly 2 trillion won in Korean stocks, mostly chips. Korea builds the memory chips that go inside AI servers, so when Seoul starts doubting whether AI will actually pay off, that worry rarely stays in Seoul. Ten AI giants already make up 42% of the US stock market, and with oil above $105 stoking inflation fears, a Korean chip slide like this is the kind of tremor that tends to reach American portfolios next. Source: CNBC, Digital Today, @WatcherGuru / Writer: Daniel

🇸🇦 MBS stripped away every other center of power in Saudi Arabia, and now the whole system hangs on one man Abdullah Alaoudh says the royal family despises MBS as much as any dissident does, and the army was hollowed out years ago to stop a coup, leaving it barely able to defend the country: "It's an absolutely actual threat." Gut your own army to stay safe from a coup, and you end up with nobody to fight your wars... which is why Riyadh keeps asking other countries for troops. @aalodah

🇪🇺🇺🇸 Europe is getting nervous about how much control AMERICAN companies have over its money. Nearly two-thirds of EU card payments are processed by foreign firms, mainly Visa and Mastercard. Now European officials are worried that a serious fight with Washington could leave them vulnerable to U.S. sanctions and payment restrictions. The fear isn't entirely hypothetical. Some individuals targeted by U.S. sanctions, including people connected to the International Criminal Court, have already faced disruptions to American financial services. Now Europe is building its own payment networks to reduce that dependence. A new alliance of European services already reaches more than 130 MILLION users, with plans to expand cross-border payments. Washington just imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court itself, further demonstrating how powerful access to the U.S. financial system can be. Europe has spent decades relying on American payment infrastructure. Now it's scrambling to make sure a political dispute can't leave Europeans unable to pay. Writer: Sol t.co/01CJPisXb2

🇸🇦 Fake travel routes, food tasters and secret bunkers: MBS is reportedly hiding underground more than ever Abdullah Alaoudh, the Saudi dissident whose father has been in a Saudi prison since 2017, says the bunkers were built long ago, which shows how MBS saw his own future from the start: "He anticipated his own catastrophes. Like he knew that he's that incompetent to attract these kind of problems." If the crown prince is this worried about who's around him, how stable is the kingdom he runs? @aalodah

🇮🇷 🇺🇸 Iran can trade a $100,000 missile for a $150 million tanker that takes three years to replace. Philip Pilkington says that kind of trade is impossible to spin, because in a war of attrition the side with cheaper ammunition holds out longest: "In a war of attrition of magazines, of Iranian missile and drone magazines versus tanker magazines, I think we pretty much know who will win and pretty much know who will win pretty quick." Shipyards can't build tankers anywhere near as fast as Iran can build missiles, and no press release changes that. @mercoglianos @philippilk

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 Lockheed unveils its most capable Patriot missile ever... built to hunt hypersonic and maneuvering warheads The PAC-3 Edge gets a new seeker, extra steering thrusters and a Northrop Grumman motor that fires in three bursts, saving energy for the final chase. That’s the threat Patriots are losing to now. US officials say Iran is firing faster missiles that swerve on the way down, and its Fattah warhead carries its own small rocket motor to jink in the last seconds, which is how Houthi missiles of the same breed slipped through to hit Riyadh’s airport. But Edge won’t test until 2027 or deploy until 2031, so the $58 billion push to triple today’s Patriot production is what keeps troops and cities covered until it shows up. Source: The War Zone, Lockheed Martin / Writer: Daniel

🇺🇲Is there anything MORE AMERICAN than FRAT BROS fighting over a FOOTBALL GAME? Open to suggestions. Writer: Marie t.co/fk21Gw2WB4

🇵🇦 Megalophobia: An intense, irrational fear of large objects. Ever Ace: One of the world's largest container ships and someone’s worst nightmare. Writer: Marie t.co/9QJ1QJuLwP

🇺🇲MAN FLEES POLICE ON HORSEBACK The low-speed chase ended with the cowboy galloping into the night. Who needs a GETAWAY CAR with that kind of HORSEPOWER 🤠 Source: Raps & Hustles (YT) / Writer: Marie t.co/aQ2KVqpkC8

🚨🇺🇸 Trump wants steam catapults back on Navy carriers because of one sailor the Navy can’t find... On a 2017 tour of the USS Gerald R. Ford, a sailor reportedly told Trump that electric catapults need MIT geniuses to fix while steam needs a hammer and a blowtorch. The Navy was ordered in August to price steam for its next carrier, and that sailor has never turned up. Steam has a real case, since it worked for 70 years and crews can fix it at sea with basic tools, while the Ford’s electric system kept breaking and blew the budget. Electric’s case is stronger. It launches jets more gently so they last longer, handles everything from light drones to heavy fighters, and beat steam in a February stress test, while nobody has built steam catapults in decades. So should a ship due in 2034 be designed around one conversation from 2017? The smarter play is forcing contractors to make the electric catapults bulletproof, because ripping them out could cost billions and leave America’s newest carrier running on technology its biggest rival has already left behind. Source: The Wall Street Journal, TWZ / Writer: Daniel

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 NOBODY really controls the Strait of Hormuz, and the shipping math shows it... Maritime historian Sal Mercogliano runs the numbers: a state-owned fleet losing 5% of its tankers per trip is wiped out in about 20 voyages, and private owners now charge $1.4 MILLION a day to make the run. "We're seeing the ground war that the US fought in Iraq and Afghanistan being waged now on the sea in the Strait of Hormuz through this kind of asymmetric warfare." Every tanker lost makes the next voyage pricier, and that bill hits American gas pumps long before the fleet runs dry. @mercoglianos @philippilk

🇪🇸 A HIGH-SPEED TRAIN in Spain burst into FLAMES, sending a massive column of BLACK SMOKE into the sky The Renfe train was traveling from Madrid to Figueres when a fire broke out in its rear locomotive near Zaragoza. All 283 PASSENGERS had to be evacuated as firefighters battled the blaze, which shut down the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed rail line in BOTH directions for more than FOUR HOURS. Nearly 20,000 travelers were affected by the disruption. Writer: Sol t.co/vvgv7xqaxF

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 The official numbers on Hormuz aren't lining up with what's actually happening on the water Economist Philip Pilkington says when official figures and the hard reality of tankers and oil stockpiles point different ways, he trusts what he can verify, and maritime historian Sal Mercogliano's independent tracking puts that to the test: "If I can't rely on data, what do I rely on? I rely on what I actually know." If the official count is right, stockpiles will show it soon... and if they don't, markets will notice before anyone admits it. @mercoglianos @philippilk

🇺🇲 SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster has NAILED its 20th flight with another SUCCESSFUL LANDING. B1088 touched down on SpaceX’s drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You" after deploying 27 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. Falcon 9 is the Energizer Bunny of boosters. 🚀 Writer: Marie t.co/u9XWLtDueE

🇺🇲 America’s gas price map is a MESS CALIFORNIA drivers are paying $6.31/GALLON for regular but across the country, GEORGIA is sitting at $3.81/GALLON. The NATIONAL AVERAGE is $4.36, about ~$1.30 more than a year ago. People used to cross state lines for BOOZE… But these days it’s for FUEL⛽ Source: @OilandEnergy AAA / Writer: Marie

🇲🇽🇺🇲 Mexican CARTELS want CADILLACS…if it’s an Escalade. Same goes for other fancy SUVs and some rugged rides like pickups and Wranglers. It’s part of a scheme to smuggle U.S. vehicles over the Southern border. The operation recruits people online to rent cars with valid IDs and theft coverage, then leave them at rental lots so cartel drivers can move them before the vehicles are flagged. The capos get the Caddys and Beemers; trucks and the like are for the foot soldiers. It’s a good hustle…the cartel fleet manager is absolutely CRUSHING IT this quarter.   Source: LATimes / Writer: Marie t.co/DXMM4H8On4

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 Trump DOWNPLAYS the idea that China and Russia are helping Iran... despite reports they've fed Tehran intelligence on U.S. forces "If they are, it's at a very low level, but I don't believe they are at all. They have too much to lose, and we would know about it, and know about it very fast!" Part of that holds, since neither country has openly joined the war and both have plenty to lose with Washington. The reporting does get murkier around the edges though... People briefed on U.S. intel claim Iran has used satellite imagery from Chinese companies to better target American bases, Chinese firms have paid Iran fees to move ships through Hormuz, and Russia has armed Iran for YEARS and is now carrying its peace terms to the White House. And that’s just a SMALL slice of the reporting since the conflict started... we won’t even get into the drones. Calling out Moscow now would torch the diesel deal and the Iran back channel in one shot, so expect a bit of tact from Washington until the evidence gets too big to bury. Source: NYT, Reuters, WSJ / Writers: Marie, Daniel

🇮🇷🇹🇭 The Strait of Hormuz closure is starving the world’s farms of fertilizer, and the FAMINE warnings are getting louder Shut the strait and the natural gas and urea that become nitrogen fertilizer stop moving too, and most of the world’s crops run on that nitrogen. War correspondent Michael Yon has tracked it for years, from Germany’s BASF plant to Thailand, which he says imports over 90% of the nitrogen its rice fields swallow, and he warns a shortage in one breadbasket won’t stay put: “Famines are like wars, like pandemics. They spread.” The war’s real bill won’t stop at the gas pump, because crops planted without fertilizer come up short at the next harvest, and every grocery aisle feels it. @Michael_Yon @WeTheBrandon

🇦🇷 Holy hell, Iguazú Falls in South America has turned into an absolute MONSTER. Authorities in Argentina were forced to SHUT DOWN tourist access after torrential rains sent the Iguazú River surging to more than 12,000 CUBIC METERS of water per second. That's nearly NINE TIMES its normal flow, crashing through one of the world's most spectacular waterfall systems on the border of Argentina and Brazil 🤯 Mother Nature is going absolutely INSANE Writer: Sol t.co/oZM3yUQ8I0

🇺🇸 AI is learning to HACK systems, deceive its own evaluators, and figure out when it's being watched. And the people building it may have NO IDEA how to stop it. Fmr Google employee Tristan Harris gave Tucker a pretty terrifying warning about where AI is heading. He claims AI systems are already displaying behaviors straight out of science fiction, while companies race to release increasingly powerful models and cut corners on safety. His most disturbing point? He says the people developing this technology DON'T HAVE A PLAN to prevent things from going catastrophically wrong. And when Tucker asked why they're still doing it, Harris pointed to the AI arms race with China. Source: @TCNetwork / Writer: Sol