Mario Nawfal

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Early voting is underway in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, ahead of Russia’s parliamentary elections. Armed personnel are accompanying mobile election teams as they visit residents’ homes. Footage from occupied Donetsk shows residents casting ballots near Russian servicemen and police. Moscow says the security presence is necessary because the territories remain under martial law, while Ukraine considers the elections ILLEGAL and rejects Russia’s authority to hold them in the first place. An armed escort certainly raises questions about what “free and fair” means under occupation... Writer: Lynn t.co/72utlmpyLj

🇷🇺 Putin is urging Russians to turn out for the upcoming elections, directly linking voting at home with the country’s war effort. “Victory is forged by our heroes on the battlefield,” Putin said, adding that casting a ballot is also a “responsibility and a contribution to strengthening the country.” He framed the vote as a demonstration of national unity behind Russian troops and insisted that attempts to “split and intimidate” Russia or undermine its political system will fail. For Putin, the ballot box and the battlefield are being presented as two fronts of the same national struggle. Writer: Lynn t.co/Omx6XltX2n

🇸🇬🇯🇵🇬🇧 It took 4 navies shooting at civilian ships, 1,500 uninsured tankers and talk of charging vessels to use Hormuz to make the world's shipping powers speak publicly for the first time since the 1960s. 18 countries, Greece, Japan, and Singapore among them, moving a fifth of everything traded on earth. Their warning? Shipping lanes have been turned into weapons used to squeeze one another, and if ships stop moving the world runs out... of everything. One rule has held the sea together since 1609: Mare liberum, free seas. The ocean belongs to nobody and a cargo ship is nobody's enemy. This survived two world wars, and this year Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and Iran all shot straight through it. With that rule gone, the rule breakers moved in. Over 1,500 tankers now sail with no real insurance and no flag state that answers the phone. One was hit by an explosion off Oman this summer carrying 800,000 barrels, and Oman may end up paying for a spill from a ship it never let in. That's the opening nobody has moved on yet. Iran is close to a deal with Oman over Hormuz traffic, and the moment a fee is attached, every country sitting on a chokepoint learns the sea can be rented out. 80% of everything you own came by sea, and the countries that make it happen are telling you the system is running on nothing at all... Source: Financial Times / Writer: Daniyal

🇺🇸🇨🇳 Capitol Hill is turning the A.I. debate into one about China, with Xi coming to town next week... Where things stand: •⁠ ⁠The FBI says Beijing accounts for as much as 80% of U.S. intellectual property theft, including A.I. •⁠ ⁠Sec. Bessent told Congress the labs already have a reason to make the tech work •⁠ ⁠Trump is swatting away a tighter rulebook •⁠ ⁠Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer say that is the wrong bet... Writer: Samuel t.co/gm7NkfLXMQ

🇺🇸 JD Vance, speaking to voters on the All-In Podcast: "Give us another chance, or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past 2 years." Whaddya say, America? 🤔 Writer: Michael t.co/Ara8Ehd4yp

🇺🇸 Washington’s Kennedy Center is going DARK and the story has become about much more than a crumbling building... Its main complex is closing amid concerns over its physical condition, while a $257 million renovation is now tangled up in a SEPARATE legal fight over whether Trump’s name can be added to the landmark. Trump says construction should wait for the courts to settle the naming dispute... Democrats, meanwhile, blame the admin’s handling of the institution for helping bring it to this point. For now, the curtains are coming down while Washington fights over who gets their name on the marquee. Writer: Lynn t.co/vWIR1b9Ny7

🚨🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israeli Defense Minister Katz says the IDF is prepared to resume a MAJOR Gaza offensive if ordered, with the goal of eliminating Hamas... Then, he says, implementing Israel’s proposed Palestinian “migration plan.” The plan has been described by Katz as "voluntary," while several Arab and Muslim-majority governments have condemned it as displacement. Israel’s FM has separately said Palestinians would NOT be forcibly expelled... Guess we'll see as soon as someone tells them 'No.' Source: Times of Israel / Writer: Lynn

🇷🇺 Putin, ahead of Russia's elections later this week: "The vote of every single voter matters." Whatever you say, Vlad. Whatever you say... 😂 Writer: Michael t.co/NzgvV2YH2K

🇺🇸 Zuckerberg just told the industry it DOES NOT need a group hug to slow AI down... After Anthropic's Dario Amodei called for a shared "speed limit," and Sam Altman nodded along, Zuck said each lab ALREADY has the incentive to hit the brakes: Users will not trust a rogue agent, and lawyers will feast on any company that ships one. He wants more independent testers, not a pause, and he also wants compute spent on products, rather than a race to machines that improve themselves. Source: Business Standard / Writer: Samuel

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 Iran threw 4 drones and a missile at a U.S.-contracted ship near the Strait of Hormuz, and one of them got through. Americans were on board. The injuries came out as smoke inhalation and the wounded are being treated in a Gulf country, which is about the softest outcome available from a hit like that. 2 sources told Fox News about it days after it happened. The escort operation has worked well enough to get traffic moving again, which is exactly why Iran wants a hit on the board. Source: Fox News / Writer: Daniyal

🇺🇸 Hayden Panettiere’s team just told the press to stop writing the cause of death before the coroner does. A representative called reports she died from a single fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill “unverified hearsay.” The family is asking for patience while the DEA works a text trail and a search of her Los Angeles home. What happened to Hayden? 💔 Source: Page Six / Writer: Samuel

🇵🇸🇮🇱 Blockade the diesel and you don't even need to bomb the hospital... 70% of Gaza's hospital generators have already stopped working, according to the health ministry, and the rest are running on what little fuel is left. When a generator dies, the losses come in order: incubators, ventilators, dialysis, then the oxygen supply. A premature baby has minutes. A dialysis patient has days. The shortage stops the buses too; hundreds of medical staff never made it to their shifts today... Israel says it's letting medical supplies through. The ministry says what arrives doesn't cover the minimum needed to keep the lights on. Everything now runs on the litres left in those tanks, and nobody is saying when the next delivery comes. Source: TRT World / Writer: Daniyal

This is what an artificial breast nipple can look like, and the level of realism is remarkable. These prosthetics can be used after breast surgery, including a mastectomy, when the natural nipple has been removed, offering a non-surgical option for restoring its appearance. It’s one of those pieces of medical technology you probably never knew existed until you saw it. Writer: Lynn t.co/zZvfwQ7ir3

🇺🇸🇮🇷 U.S. Energy Sec. Chris Wright was asked to put a timeline on when Americans could expect energy prices to come down. His answer: “I certainly can’t predict Iranian behavior.” Unfortunately for his administration, Americans aren't voting on "Iranian behavior" in 6 weeks, they're voting on their own politicians'. Doubt that excuse is going to fly... Writer: Lynn t.co/SKcMYWaENT

🇷🇺 This machine recreates the pain of being in labor... It simulates contractions through electrodes attached to the abdomen, allowing men to experience just a taste of "the miracle of life." Would you try it? 🫃 Writer: Samuel t.co/lW730Ue6C0

🚨🇹🇷 Turkey’s stock market just fell so fast the exchange had to hit the brakes... The BIST 100 dropped about 6% and tripped a market-wide circuit breaker after an asset manager, Pusula Portföy, could not meet 55 billion lira in redemptions sitting on illiquid names... TURKEY SEEMS F*CKED Source: Trading View / Writer: Samuel

🚨🇾🇪🇸🇦 Yemen’s Houthis just dropped footage they say shows a Saudi F-15 getting hit over Marib... The video shows what they claim is one of their homemade missiles striking the jet, followed by wreckage on the ground. One tail piece appears to show the Saudi flag, with Houthi fighters standing around the crash site. They released it today after claiming Saudi jets carried out more than 450 strikes this week. And just yesterday, Saudi Arabia said it shot down a Houthi drone south of Mecca. Riyadh has NOT confirmed losing an F-15. Writer: Daniyal t.co/msdl4XNpuY

🇪🇺🇭🇺🏳️‍⚧️ Brussels just got from Hungary’s new government what it NEVER could from Orbán's... The Tisza cabinet has proposed rewriting the 2021 Child Protection Act, so schools and media can AGAIN promote and portray homosexuality, gender transition, and identities other than birth sex to minors. The European Commission spent years attacking the old laws. The EU court called those limits incompatible with “European values” last April. What are "European values" anyway? 🤔 Source: @AxiomaHungary / Writer: Samuel

🇮🇱✝️ Netanyahu: "We are not only protecting Christians. Christians are defending us!" What Christians? How many Christians are there around the world?? The IDF destroys Christian symbols in Lebanon; some Israeli citizens spit on Christian symbols or even on people wearing Christian symbols... What are you talking about??? Writer: Samuel t.co/hBiMGWpSU7

🇪🇺🇨🇦 Trump spent a year calling Canada the 51st state, and Europe just offered to take it instead. Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament she wants Canada as the bloc's first "associate member," a category that doesn't exist and has NEVER been offered to anyone. Carney was sitting in the room when she said it. She never mentioned Trump once. She called it a partnership "not against anyone else," which is the most European way possible to say it's entirely against someone. Then she went further and proposed a European Security Council with the UK, Canada and Ukraine inside it, carrying a mechanism to "flank" NATO's Article 4. Brussels swears that complements the alliance, though nobody builds a second emergency button unless they've stopped trusting the first. The catch is Europe moves slowly. 10 of the 27 member states still haven't ratified the Canada trade deal from a decade ago, so the door she's opening may take years to actually swing. Source: BBC / Writer: Daniyal

🇮🇱 Netanyahu: "The State of Israel is like an island of progress, an island of tolerance, an island of security." An island of progress and tolerance??? 🤣🤣🤣 Writer: Samuel t.co/aQf4q4mv6x

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇨🇦 An Indiana congressman just said his state will buy MORE from Israel, because Trump picked a trade fight with Canada. Rep. Stutzman floated it as compensation: if Ottawa is frozen out, Jerusalem can fill the gap. Canada is able to send lumber, cars, and energy across a land border, Israel is... not. But good luck with that! Writer: Samuel t.co/YvuyvbXzud

🚨🇺🇸 Straight-up WWE chaos in an Ohio courtroom... A 20-year-old who had just been sentenced in Columbiana County, Ohio, SNAPS the front handcuffs, throat-punches the deputy walking him out, body-slams the next one, and takes off down the stairs. They tase him right before he reaches the door. Both deputies ended up with broken bones. He already had assault, menacing, and failure to comply charges. Now he’s looking at extra time for escape and assaulting officers. Wild. Writer: Daniyal t.co/MfvPVQbaQN

When earthquakes strike, most people grab their kids... This guy grabbed the PC first and let the rest of the household fend for themselves 🤣 Writer: Samuel t.co/khiWEb8k6E

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Sen. Ted Cruz on Iran: "Is Trump going to put hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground and try to turn Iran into Switzerland? No. That’s not the job of the military. It is the job of the military to stop lunatics from murdering us." And the best way to get a lunatic not to murder you is to try (and fail) to murder them, first? Writers: Samuel t.co/CzyLKwcFMk

🇨🇳 China’s factories are humming on the A.I. boom while the rest of the country is NOT spending... In August: •⁠ ⁠Industrial output jumped 5.2% led by batteries, robots, and high-tech gear •⁠ ⁠Retail sales fell to 0.4% •⁠ ⁠Fixed-asset investment is down 7.2%, the WORST slide since the pandemic, Spring of 2020 •⁠ ⁠Property investment has collapsed almost 20% Source: Reuters / Writer: Samuel

🇷🇺🇺🇸 Russia wants a treaty banning weapons in space, 5 years after shooting its own satellite out of the sky. The demand came from Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister who runs Moscow's arms control file, a day after the U.S. Space Force confirmed its people "operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the Joint Force against space-enabled attacks." Ryabkov complained that Washington never notified Russia, then said in the same breath that none of it was news: "we are monitoring all of this, recording it all." Nobody broke any rules here, which is the actual problem. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty only bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit, so everything else has been open season for 60 years. That 2021 test scattered debris across low orbit and Washington says Moscow is working on a nuclear anti-satellite weapon, so the country asking for limits is the one that keeps testing what happens without them. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 U.S. Energy Sec. Chris Wright was asked on Fox: "Is this where we are in America with the price of gasoline for the foreseeable future?" His response/deflection: "Look, President Trump is simply not going to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons." Guess we have our answer, then... 📈 Writer: Michael t.co/VyTfQ5Hdnq

🇨🇳 A Chinese company demonstrated its new solar panel-cleaning drone by washing a doggo... I'm sure he didn't mind 🐶 Writer: Samuel t.co/PBkOz3Kvct

🇺🇸 A wire-fraud convict walked into Tucson Federal Prison at 278 pounds and walked out 85 pounds lighter. Filippo Cardone said he treated the sentence like a training camp: commissary tuna and beef, a tight eating window, and yard work that started before dawn with a fellow inmate as his trainer. He went in with blood pressure that was already giving doctors pause... He came out talking about opening performance clubs, incredible! Source: NY Post / Writer: Samuel