Mario Nawfal

🇾🇪🇸🇦 The Houthis are bombing Saudi Arabia's capital, threatening its oil giant, and now questioning who should control MECCA. Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi says Saudi Arabia's ties to the U.S. and Israel make it unfit to guard Islam's holiest city, and that Yemenis should be the ones guarding it. But his immediate demands are a lot more practical: oil and gas money, war compensation, salaries in Houthi-held territory, and free run of ports and airports. And the Houthis are making sure Riyadh gets the message. Their strikes on Riyadh's airport reportedly killed 18 people and shut it down for days, while another attack this week targeted Saudi Aramco's headquarters. International events are being cancelled or postponed. Chatham House's Farea al-Muslimi thinks their ambitions go much further: "Long term, I think they want to rule the entire Arabian Peninsula. But for now, inside Yemen." Some analysts think the Houthis are just turning up the heat before talks. Others reckon they're winning too much to bother talking at all. Either way, MBS wanted Saudi Arabia to be the Middle East's next global business hotspot. The Houthis seem determined to make it a war zone instead. Source: Financial Times / Writer: Julie

🇺🇸 Trump keeps a mental list of history's greatest conquerors, and that's what actually keeps people up at night. Political analyst Tim Miller is worried that Trump is the kind of guy who'd want a legacy like that of Attila the Hun. "He gets in his brain that for him to be remembered as one of these great figures of history, like you have to do something crazy, like take over a new country or nuke somebody." When legacy hunger meets fading power, the math could get ugly. @Timodc

I wonder what the insurance rates on this will be 😲 Writer: Ian t.co/7vbJwXwemG

🇺🇸 Moderate Trump voters have largely turned away from him, and Republicans will bear a massive cost for that in Texas. Political analyst Tim Miller breaks down exactly who's walking away and why. "All of the people that he added to the coalition were people who have some sensibilities similar to yours. There were a lot of young men who did not like the wars, who wanted the Epstein files to be released, who wanted prices to be cheaper. That was the bill of goods he sold them. They are the angriest. The last people in are the first ones out." If Democrats win Texas for the first time since 1994, the political outlook for 2026 and beyond gets very ugly, very fast. @Timodc

🇰🇷 South Korean runner Yoo Ji-won, 25, COLLAPSED 500 meters from the finish and later died She was running the Seoul Race half-marathon on Sunday when she went down at the 20.6 km mark. The cause of death is still unconfirmed. So sad... Source: Chosun Biz / Writer: Lucas t.co/ySvIzs4k8E

🇨🇳🇮🇱 China’s FM Wang Yi told Israeli President Herzog to OPEN Gaza routes and STOP West Bank SETTLEMENTS. Wang called the Palestinian issue the century’s greatest historical injustice. Source: Jerusalem Post / Lucas t.co/oTytPCI8QJ

🇺🇸 A reaction from tonight's Tesla Roadster event in Texas that tells you ALL you need to know Elon knows how to build GREAT THINGS and bring real enthusiasm. Peak 2026 online moment 🔥 Writer: Lucas t.co/l8mHHm54Wt

It's CONFIRMED! Elon said the Tesla Roadster starts production in 2028 Reservations are open again at $50,000. The thruster version replaces the back seats with the cold-gas tank. Writer: Lucas t.co/J2fXNTGcZ5

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The USS George Washington crew is LOADING MUNITIONS and PREPPING JETS for possible new strikes on Iran. The carrier is in the Arabian Sea, testing catapults and performing maintenance while enforcing the blockade. The USS George H.W. Bush is also in the region, with the Theodore Roosevelt on the way. Trump said he wouldn’t order strikes before the midterms, but military options remain ready if that changes. The possibility of escalation is growing. Source: WSJ YT / Lucas

🇾🇪 New footage from Yemen’s Army shows PRECISION STRIKES on Houthi positions in Taiz. The clips show artillery and drones targeting Ansar Allah positions, equipment, and gatherings. Government forces continue striking Houthi targets as fighting intensifies around Taiz, where the Houthis have been pressuring the city and cutting access roads. Still, beyond the crossfire, the lines around the city have not moved much. Writer: Lucas t.co/sr5Dnsr7sC

🚨🇺🇸 The GOP’s Groyper problem was built by its own broken promises... and it’s only going to grow before 2028 Leaked Republican group chats full of slurs and Hitler praise keep surfacing, a Georgia Senate race is now fighting over it, and Ted Cruz admits half the applicants for one job in his office rejected his support for Israel: “The Groyper problem is real.” So how did a fringe online following end up inside GOP offices? Years of promises to young voters on immigration, foreign wars and the cost of living, followed by more of the same, sent them looking for someone who sounded like he meant it. The left grew its radical wing the same way and now has to keep it happy. The right is headed down that exact road... and by 2028, Republicans will be courting this crowd whether they like it or not. Source: WSJ @NickJFuentes / Writer: Daniel t.co/pLWjhNwYCF

🇮🇷 🇺🇸 The US military buildup around Iran looks exactly like the one before the last two rounds of American strikes. Matt Tardio says Tehran has already watched this pattern play out twice and won’t be caught off guard again: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now they’re moving into fool me three times mode.” Iran now has to decide whether to take the next round of talks at face value, and two rounds of strikes make that a very hard sell. @Barnes_law @angertab

A 900,000-pound machine just arrived to make a 0.8-mile journey a whole lot easier. Prufrock-5 is getting ready to dig a tunnel beneath Morgan's Inclusion Campus, connecting its theme park, hotel, and care facilities with weatherproof Tesla transport. For families visiting the campus, especially those with disabilities or complex care needs, moving comfortably between locations can make a real difference to their day. Serious tunneling technology being put to work for a very human reason. Quite a thoughtful job for such a monster of a machine. @boringcompany @Tesla / Writer: Annette, Designer: Janné

This is INSIDE THE TESLA ROADSTER, and you can see the THRUSTER TANK from that screen It's a tri-motor setup. The big cold-gas tank from SpaceX is right there in the cabin where the back seats used to be. There's a steering wheel and a screen up front. The looks are amazing! Writer: Lucas t.co/V7lcdHeamn

🇮🇷 🇺🇸 The US military buildup around Iran looks exactly like the one before the last two rounds of American strikes. Robert Barnes says Tehran has already watched this pattern play out twice and won’t be caught off guard again: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now they’re moving into fool me three times mode.” Iran now has to decide whether to take the next round of talks at face value, and two rounds of strikes make that a very hard sell. @Barnes_law @angertab

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 The Army's top general warned in DECEMBER that Patriot and THAAD stocks would stay critically low until 2030... we went to war with Iran anyway and fired the general who said it... His warning sat inside the Pentagon’s own global force plan, the document that decides where American weapons go each year, two months before the first bomb fell on Iran. Then the war did exactly what he feared: CSIS estimates the US went in with about 2,300 Patriots and fired up to 1,430, as much as 61% of the stockpile, while THAAD was worse, roughly 355 interceptors going in and up to 290 fired, 82% gone. Fewer than 500 replacement Patriots and zero THAADs were due this year, a new THAAD order takes four and a half years to deliver, and one official told CBS that even if nothing else is fired anywhere, the stockpile doesn’t get back to December’s already-low level until 2030. Here’s what this adds up to. The commander in chief and his defense secretary were handed an honest assessment from the man who runs the Army, in writing, BEFORE the war. They went in anyway, fought for seven months without a plan to replace what they were firing, and the officer who told them the truth was shown the door while his numbers came true. Whether or not the warning is why he was fired, the signal to every other general was received. This isn’t a munitions problem anymore, it’s a leadership discipline failure: an administration that treated bad news as disloyalty and bombed its way into an exposed position the country can’t shoot its way out of until 2030. It’s hard to find a precedent for a war started with the magazine already flagged empty by the people who count the bullets. Source: CBS News / Writer: Daniel

🇾🇪🇸🇦 Houthi missiles hit Yemen's presidential palace with the prime minister and cabinet inside, killing 5, the first strike on the government's seat this war The Al-Maashiq palace in Aden took missiles and drones Thursday while the Saudi-backed cabinet was at work. The ministers walked out alive; five guards and civilian employees didn't, and 16 more are wounded. The Houthis say they were bombing a "Saudi military operations headquarters" staffed by Saudi officers with weapons depots inside, a claim Reuters couldn't verify. The coalition says the Houthis launched 20 attacks on Riyadh's airport this month alone, killing 17 and wounding 333, plus three dead at Abha, and that the group now has ballistic missiles, drones and explosive fast boats from "regional actors." Within the hour the Houthis renewed their warning that every Saudi airport is unsafe, except the airspace over Mecca and Medina. The Houthis want to break the Saudi economy, airports, oil, the government in Aden, while staying clear of the one thing that would unite the Muslim world against them. The palace strike says Riyadh's proxy government is now the softest target on the list, and the Turkish and Pakistani troops promised under the Mecca pact are what stand between Aden and the Houthis taking it a second time. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniel

🇮🇷 🇺🇸 Overthrow the regime or nothing: the case that Tehran can never be held to a deal. Matt Tardio argues the Iranian regime runs on a radical religious ideology that lets it lie and do whatever it takes to reach its goals, so no signed agreement will ever bind it: “You’re either going to decapitate and overthrow the Iranian regime, because what you’re looking at is a radical religious ideology. They are not beholden to agreements.” Then comes the question the regime change side still has to answer... who actually runs Iran the morning after? @Barnes_law @Angertab

🇮🇱 The IDF DIDN'T SAY A WORD about 254 cases it said it was investigating over alleged killings or injuries BBC Verify reviewed 60,000+ reports and identified 300 cases under investigation. Only 28 have published outcomes. Of the 254 still open, 158 involve Gaza, 48 the West Bank and 32 Lebanon. More than 200 reportedly involved at least one death, with some cases dating back to 2023. We're not talking about a government particularly known for accountability... Source: Arab News, BBC / Lucas

🇨🇦 Bro in Toronto was so used to bike lanes that he ditched basic survival reflexes 😭 Writer: Lucas t.co/89GzYwlbmU

🇺🇸 🇷🇺 🇮🇷 America is now buying diesel from Russia... while Russian intelligence allegedly helps Iran hit US troops. Matt Tardio puts that contradiction right on the table: “That intelligence and that capability that Russia has provided to Iran undoubtedly has killed U.S. service members in the Middle East.” Robert Barnes fires back that America created this enemy itself, and the two go at it over who’s really to blame. Watch them fight over whether America can treat Russia as a gas station and an enemy at the same time. @Barnes_law @angertab

🇺🇦🇺🇸 Asked if his fight with Trump is worse than the Oval Office blowup, Zelensky offered the most careful six words of his week: "Maybe not everything is ideal there" Pressed on whether this crisis tops last year's, when Trump and Vance dressed him down on live TV, Zelensky stayed in the middle of the road: "I think that we had good communication. We had several meetings which have been positive. And we try to make some plans how to end the war. Maybe not everything is ideal there, yes, in this, but it's dialogue." That's a president with empty Patriot launchers and a Russian diesel deal on his desk choosing every word not to lose the last channel he has. Source: WFWitness on TG / Writer: Daniel

🇸🇦 🇾🇪 A Yemen war Riyadh expected to win fast became a decade long disaster... and now cheap Houthi drones hit Saudi infrastructure almost at will. Khalid Aljabri traces the mess back to oversimplified assumptions at the very start, when short term goals were supposed to wrap things up quickly. All the expensive firepower in the world still can't shield oil sites and airports from drones that cost next to nothing, and his fix is to separate defending the border from Riyadh's political meddling inside Yemen. Until Riyadh draws that line, the war keeps draining money and the drones keep finding targets. @JabriMD

🇾🇪🇸🇦 Houthis claim they shot down a Saudi Wing Loong II armed reconnaissance drone over Yemen’s Marib governorate Marib is an oil rich province that has long been one of the most contested areas of the war. The Houthis hold most of north Yemen, and government held Marib city has been the target of their ground offensive. In a statement, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the drone was carrying out “hostile activities” in the governorate’s airspace and was brought down with a “suitable weapon,” without giving further details. Source: Al Jazeera / Writer: Bri

🇸🇦 🇨🇦 Saudi Arabia locked up two children of its exiled former intelligence chief for years to pressure him into coming home. Khalid Aljabri says Saudi authorities took his brother Omar and sister Sarah and made them disappear as leverage against their father Saad, who lives in exile in Canada. Human Rights Watch says the two were arrested at their Riyadh home in March 2020, held with no contact for about 10 months, then sentenced to nine and six and a half years. Every dissident living abroad now has to wonder what happens to the family they left behind. @JabriMD

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Ukraine's Patriot launchers are EMPTY, Russian ballistic missiles are hitting Kyiv's power plants unopposed, and Washington is threatening to cut off the resupply A source claims that "almost all the ballistic missiles from the last strike were not intercepted" because Kyiv had nothing left to fire. That strike hit three Kyiv power plants Wednesday, killed four people and wounded 25, and the four intercepts the Air Force reported were likely the last Patriots in the country. Zelensky has been saying this for months, told CNN in August he had a tenth of what he needs, and this week told the Financial Times he'd stop hitting Russian refineries for more interceptors "at a minimum." Instead, the State Department and Pentagon warned over the weekend that US intelligence sharing and European weapons purchases through the US pipeline could be suspended if the refinery strikes continue. Trump insists intelligence sharing hasn't stopped. The relationship was never really repaired after the Oval Office showdown in February 2025, when Trump and Vance dressed Zelensky down on camera and sent him home without lunch. Earlier today Trump made his feelings clear saying “I’m not a big fan of Zelensky” and even quoted an unnamed Ukrainian woman saying Zelensky “destroyed our country.” Source: CNN / Writer: Daniel

"Can't find a parking lot quickly" is not an excuse anymore 😉 @Tesla / Writer: Lucas t.co/bmwjZNyclS

🇸🇦 🇾🇪 Saudi Arabia's crown prince has been skipping major public events as Houthi strikes put the kingdom's leaders in the crosshairs. Khalid Aljabri says any leader hunkers down in fortified locations during a war, and that part is routine. Skipping public appearances altogether is a real change, and it tracks with Houthi strikes on civilian sites that have gotten accurate enough to make the danger personal for the men at the top. How long can Riyadh sell the kingdom as open for business when its own crown prince can't safely show his face? @JabriMD

🚨🇺🇸 This is the Bryson Fire area northwest of LA, NOW at 101.5 acres The map shows the fire just inland from the coast near Malibu, with evacuation orders and warnings still active under Red Flag conditions. A couple of smaller fires are also marked nearby. Stay safe if you're there! Source: NBC LA / Writer: Lucas

🇺🇸 The Tesla Roadster is straight out of 2050 🔥 Flying cars, speeds quicker than you can blink and a whole lot of UNBELIEVABLE innovations! Elon wins again! The future is coming...and FAST! Writer: Bri t.co/mVdRm8nAzt