Mario Nawfal

🇸🇦🇮🇱🇾🇪 Israel wants to be Saudi Arabia's bodyguard against the Houthis and can't even find the Houthi leadership Bernard Haykel, a Princeton professor and Middle East specialist, says the Israeli offer of Iron Dome and air cover is real and the Saudis aren't buying it, partly over Gaza and partly because Israel has bombed the Houthis before without denting them. Israel spent decades penetrating Hezbollah before it could peel the leadership apart, and nothing like that exists for Yemen, where nobody knows where the Houthi leaders are: "The idea that the Israelis can come in and make a radical difference in the outcome of this war is a bunch of baloney." Greece has already sent interceptors and Ukrainian anti-drone kit is guarding Saudi tankers, so Riyadh is building its shield from a dozen suppliers, and an Israeli flag over that effort would hand the Houthis their best recruiting poster yet. @WetheBrandon

🚨🇺🇲 A border patrol agent whose MURDER was linked to a “TRANSTIFA” group has been memorialized. A section of Vermont highway is now known as the David Chris Maland Memorial Highway. Maland was allegedly shot during a traffic stop by Teresa Youngblut, a member of the Zizians. The Zizians are a fringe, cultlike group linked to 6 deaths across 3 states. It’s associated with Jack “Ziz” LaSota, a transgender woman known for supporting radical ideas involving rationalism, veganism, gender identity, and AI. Youngblut faces the death penalty and has pleaded not guilty. Source: AP, PBS, WCAX3 / Writer: Marie

🇺🇸 Trump listed the Alaska energy and infrastructure projects he's LAUNCHING March brought a record oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve that drew about $164M in high bids. This month the Energy Department put up to $150M toward a second Railbelt power line. He also approved the Ambler Road for mining access that the prior administration blocked, and the King Cove Road is moving ahead. Writer: Lucas t.co/RNCSaHLh1W

🚨🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iranian officials are ramping up tanker attacks to keep oil high through the midterms: "This is a game of chess" Two senior Iranian officials say the new strategy started about 10 days ago, was approved at the very top, and changes both the kind of attacks and how often they come, with strikes now reaching the Gulf of Oman and the waters off Qatar and the UAE. One of them put the goal plainly: "Just when they think they are getting close to the point where prices will fall, we will push them away from it." The data backs it up, with at least 5 ships hit around Hormuz in the past 48 hours, the highest pace since the war began. A US official says Iran lost its radars and now uses unarmed spotters on dhows, one of which the Navy sank last week, and that it can't stop the export ramp-up without risking its last fast boats. So Iran's weapon is pace and reach, and the Americans' is the blockade and escorts, with both leaders counting to Nov. 3. Trump promised no strike before then, which hands Tehran three weeks to run up the price with no risk, and the officials say "complete closure" is next. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniel

🇸🇦 Saudi Border Guard stopped a local man carrying 18 kg of banned khat leaves in southern Jazan. Patrols near Yemen caught him in Al-Ardah with the plant chewed for a mild buzz. Authorities completed the initial paperwork and handed him and the seized load over for further action. Saudi bans the substance, and larger seizures continue along the border. At 18 kg, this haul is small compared with others, but it adds to the steady flow officers handle in the area. Writer: Lucas t.co/Sg516T2ZHS

🇺🇸🇹🇼 Trump said Taiwan agreed to buy 30% of the gas from the new Alaska pipeline FOR 20 YEARS "It's one of the biggest commitments in history for anything." Taiwan’s state energy company has signed letters of intent for roughly 6M tons a year, matching about 30% of the planned export volume, as part of broader talks to raise its U.S. gas share. Writer: Lucas t.co/4oORhcEjEv

🇺🇸 I’m not sure if it’s a scam… but Ranked Choice Voting is dumb and confusing as fuck! Why make it so complicated? Writer: Jamie t.co/l3Q8wwLGYx

🚨🔥🇸🇦 BREAKING: Saudi Aramco’s Shedgum Gas Plant struck by rockets. Ansarullah is believed to be responsible for attacking the plant, located in Al-Ahsa, eastern Saudi Arabia. Writer: Jamie t.co/B1TnDZIujr

🇺🇸 If you’re looking for the aliens among us… it’s the ULTRAMARATHONERS! There is no way these people are human! Writer: Jamie t.co/BrncjXlOTZ

🚨🇺🇸 TRUMP gets heckled for the SECOND DAY in a row: “Sounds like we have a spoiled child!” Or some disgruntled constituents? Writer: Jamie t.co/QmlGeuXhRx

🔥🚔🇺🇸 Meet Honorary FBI Special Agent SHAQ! At this point, I think he's is a commissioned law enforcement officer or marshal in at least 5 states! Shaq don’t like criminals! Don't make Shaq put you in shackles! Writer: Jamie t.co/fs7iMk145C

🔥🇺🇸 @SpaceX isn’t making history… that would be an UNDERSTATEMENT! They are rewriting history with all the advances they have made in such a short time. 🚀 Ship 40 is the first Starship to make it back to the launch site… even if it was in the most bizarre way possible. Soon, a fleet of ships will leave and return home every day from across the world. In a way, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, from places we’ve not yet been. What a time to be alive! Writer: Jamie t.co/wywFc2sn66

🇺🇲 The helicopter took off and so did her fake eyelashes 👀 Writer: Marie t.co/4PAM7V78mx

🇺🇸 Treasury hit Bank of America with MORE THAN $1.21B in penalties for failing to stop money laundering FinCEN, the main anti-money-laundering unit, assessed $1.2B, the OCC added a record $750M credited toward the total, and OFAC settled for $11.6M over sanctions violations involving Iran, Russia, and others. The bank admitted it willfully broke anti-money-laundering rules and failed to report more than $5B in suspicious transactions on time, including over $1B linked to Chinese money-laundering networks. The penalty lands 1 day before the bank’s earnings report and follows a 2024 order to fix the same problems. The size of the miss is what stands out. Source: Treasury Dept. / Writer: Lucas

🇺🇲 SIX FLAGS IS TAKING A BEATING ON WALL STREET. Six Flags shares fell as much as 16% today, 1 day after a deadly accident at one of the company’s theme parks in Georgia. The company was already in rough financial shape after losing about HALF its value in the past year. Among its major investors is a group that includes NFL's TRAVIS KELCE, whose investors hold about 9% of the company. Six Flags also tapped Kelce as a BRAND AMBASSADOR earlier this year. But even his star power can’t save the swift decline of Six Flags’s value. Source: Yahoo Finance / Writer: Marie

🇺🇸 TBH, I had no idea Wasilla even had that many people! Those are just the Republicans! Granted, it’s about a 75% GOP voter town. Writer: Jamie t.co/RMDGSs0STS

🇺🇸 Damn, if Diddy hadn’t gone sour on Ciroc… he’d still be making bank behind bars! Who are we kidding… the dude is still getting paid. He’ll never truly pay for what he’s done. Writer: Jamie t.co/C31xVDvjWy

🇵🇰🇹🇷🇸🇦 Pakistan and Turkey activated the Mecca pact to defend Saudi, but both are STAYING OUT of the Yemeni battlefield. Pakistani forces are already in Saudi under the trilateral defense agreement, with officials pledging to defend the kingdom and its holy sites. Yet Islamabad says its troops will NOT enter Yemen to fight the Houthis and denies reports of Pakistani airstrikes. Turkey has offered mainly technical and defensive support, while parliamentary approval for troop deployments remains incomplete. The pact treats an attack on 1 member as an attack on all, following Houthi strikes on Saudi airports and energy sites. Pakistan refused combat deployments in 2015, and both countries are again drawing a line between defending Saudi territory and fighting inside Yemen. Source: Jerusalem Post, Arab News / Writer: Lucas

🇮🇱🇱🇧 The IDF said a BALLOON may have been the MYSTERY OBJECT that floated across the border from southern Lebanon. The sighting put northern Israel on HIGH ALERT. Take a look at surveillance camera footage of the “balloon.” Still, the object’s origin and purpose remain unknown... Source: Jerusalem Post / Writer: Marie t.co/1voWAfJSLH

🇮🇳 Vigilante justice is BRUTAL when you’re a phone thief in India! 😳 Writer: Marie t.co/CXlHnPPSyf

🇺🇸 The judge, while sentencing Keffe D to 40 years to life in prison: “You don't get to take a man from his family. You don't get to take his very life, his whole future, from him and just walk away from it... especially when that man is Tupac Shakur.” Okay, I take exception to that! What happened to justice being blind? “Especially when that man is Tupac Shakur?!” Tell that to all of the other innocent people who have been murdered, whose families still haven’t seen, and probably never will see justice! Tupac was a man whose job was in entertainment. His life wasn’t more valuable just because he was famous. Writer: Jamie t.co/5agJwZWH1Q

🚨🇾🇪 Houthis PUSH the siege on Yemen’s Taiz, grabbing the central prison and key heights while the city stays cut off The fighters have encircled Taiz after taking southern towns and pushing toward the gates and mountains that overlook it. Reports confirm they seized the central prison and are fighting on the southern ridges. Saudi-backed forces still hold the city proper and are striking back, but supplies are choked and tens of thousands have fled. Whoever controls those peaks sees everything coming in or out. Taiz has been under partial siege for most of this war, and another push on the heights just makes the next weeks inside the city tighter. Source: Yemen Press Agency / Writer: Lucas

🚨🇺🇸 Trump just landed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. He’ll soon be heading to a campaign stop in the booming metropolis of Wasilla. I wonder if he’ll stop by former Governor Palin’s house? He’ll be able to see Russia from her front porch! 🤣🇷🇺 Writer: Jamie t.co/ceL5OeLr3l

🇮🇱 ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was interviewed in Israel and said he is pushing top AI companies to COMBAT ANSTISEMITISM. "We've been working with the Frontier Labs: OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta, who runs Muse, and others, X, who run Grok… We've run the tests and seen where anti-Semitism shows up and helped them develop strategies to tackle it right in the source code." Greenblatt said the collaboration with Silicon Valley has been “excellent.” Fighting hate is good, but why should the ADL get to define it? Source: Jerusalem Post / Writer: Marie t.co/WLD799uaBu

🇷🇺🇯🇵 RUSSIA DETAINS JAPANESE JOURNALIST ON SUSPICION OF ESPIONAGE Russia’s FSB is accusing a Hokkaido Shimbun reporter of collecting intelligence on the country’s defense capabilities while working on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East. Russian authorities also claim he gathered information on residents of the Kuril Islands who were mobilized or volunteering to fight in Ukraine. Proof or not, in Putin’s Russia that’s a one-way ticket to the gulags. Source: AP, TASS / Writer: Marie t.co/xJqlGWh9JH

🚨🇺🇸 Trump administration is pumping the brakes on the execution broadcast. It seems that cooler heads prevailed, and now officials are walking back the idea of live-streaming the execution of ex-Army major Nidal Hasan by firing squad. A lot of people are split… some think it’s good to show people the price for being a treasonous terrorist. Some think it’s wildly inappropriate. Would it be good, bad, or have any effects at all? All we know for sure is that the date is set for December 3! Source: CBS News / Writer: Jamie

🇺🇲 JUSTICE FOR TUPAC!! Watch as a judge THROWS THE HAMMER at Duane “Keffe D” Davis for orchestrating the 1996 Las Vegas drive-by murder of rap legend Tupac Shakur. The former Compton Crips leader got 40 YEARS to LIFE in a Nevada slammer. No more CALIFORNIA LOVE for Keffe D. Source: Reuters / Writer: Marie t.co/YvK0tkFjP5

🔥🇺🇸 This is the PERFECT TIME to remind everyone that Kimberly Guilfoyle was once married to GAVIN NEWSOM! Here she is getting groped by him on Ann Getty’s rug! She’s the one on the right… in case you don’t recognize her now that she has the Mar-a-Lago face. What a dumpster fire of a marriage that must have been! Writer: Jamie t.co/9UBdBhFmb9

🇮🇶🇸🇾🇮🇱 Israeli jets are SURGING over Syria and Iraq as Netanyahu and Trump reportedly discuss another Iran strike. Local reports and Iraqi officials have noted unusual Israeli Air Force flights, while Israeli media describe the activity as readiness drills rather than imminent strikes on Lebanon. Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu raised a joint attack on Iran with Trump ahead of Israel’s October 27th election and the U.S. midterms on November 3rd. The White House denied discussing a renewed war, and Trump said he wouldn’t strike Iran before the election. Iran has been running its own missile and air-defense drills, including recent ballistic launches, while Western assessments say it still has the factories to rebuild stocks. Both sides are moving aircraft and testing systems in the same window, the same pattern that showed up before the last round. Source: Channel 12, JFeed / Writer: Lucas

🇺🇸 🇮🇷 US bombers could be hitting Iran’s nuclear and missile sites once the midterms are over... Ian Bremmer says the blockade choking Iran's oil exports is why Tehran keeps hitting ships in the strait, and he sees a few days of US bomber strikes after the midterms as more likely now. The worry is Iran's answer: "Might they engage in strikes again against broader Gulf infrastructure, which is the biggest danger?" Is a few days of bombing worth giving Tehran a reason to go after Gulf energy again? @ianbremmer