Mario Nawfal

🇺🇸 Trump is slamming America’s old habit of bombing countries and walking away. “We used to go in, bomb people, and then leave. What the hell? We destroyed lives, it cost us a fortune, and we left.” He’s right that it cost a fortune. The Iran war alone has run the Pentagon $45 billion so far. Writer: Daniyal t.co/seLj9j2QuH

🇺🇸Trump says he keeps a much closer eye on gas prices than the guys before him. “Unlike Biden and Obama and these guys, they don’t look at gas pumps, but I do. And I’m looking at the price.” If just looking worked, gas would be free by now. Writer: Daniyal t.co/HaFodUq2dJ

🇺🇸🇸🇻 Trump seems rather pleased with the reputation of El Salvador's notorious mega-prison. He says criminals facing deportation to the country are practically begging not to be sent there. “No, El Salvador! No, no, we don't want to go to El Salvador! That country is doing a tremendous job.” El Salvador's CECOT prison has become one of the most controversial symbols of President Nayib Bukele's war on gangs, with its brutal conditions drawing international criticism. That's exactly the kind of deterrent Trump wants. Writer: Oliver t.co/ZRpiLpj2xV

🇧🇬🇷🇴🇷🇺 Drones are hitting ships in the Black Sea, and Bulgaria wants NATO to step in. A commercial ship was sunk off Bulgaria on Tuesday. Then 2 more ships were hit near Romania, both catching fire. That's 3 ships attacked in just days, right on NATO's doorstep. Bulgaria suspects Russia was behind the attacks, but has no proof yet. Bulgaria has now formally asked NATO to send fighter jets and anti-drone systems, along with extra forces to help protect its territory. It's also planning talks with Romania and Turkey to figure out what to do next. NATO's 32 members will discuss the request next week, while Bulgaria also hopes to join the alliance's anti-drone program by the end of October. The Russia-Ukraine war is already spilling into commercial shipping routes. Now the question is how far NATO is willing to go to protect them. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The PENTAGON PIZZA Index is acting up again Both Papa Johns locations near the Pentagon are reporting unusually high traffic at the same time. And with tensions involving Iran already running high, people are watching Washington's pizza deliveries like they're classified intelligence briefings. The theory is simple: when Pentagon staff work late during a crisis, nearby pizza orders surge. We've reached the point where Americans are checking pizza ovens for signs of World War III. Writer: Oliver

🇺🇸🇮🇷 The next war with Iran could become something much bigger than Trump intends I spoke with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson about the growing American military buildup around Iran, and he made a comparison I found particularly disturbing. Europe in 1914. Back then, governments believed they could enter a war, achieve their objectives and return home within months. Instead, they unleashed a conflict that destroyed empires. Wilkerson sees a similar danger developing today, particularly as France reportedly deploys troops to Saudi Arabia and more countries become involved in the Middle East. We discussed Trump's apparent interest in using the MOAB against Iranian targets. Wilkerson argues that these enormous bombs would accomplish very little against Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities. He also doubts the U.S. has enough conventional military capability remaining to force a decisive outcome. That leaves a troubling question. What happens if Trump launches another attack, Iran refuses to concede, and Washington finds itself facing an even worse strategic position? Wilkerson worries that the pressure to escalate could eventually bring nuclear weapons into the equation. And his concern extends beyond Iran. We also discussed Ukraine, where he believes Putin has become increasingly committed to achieving his objectives, making a compromise more difficult as the human and political costs accumulate. What struck me was his broader argument about how wars develop. Leaders enter conflicts believing they can control the outcome. Then the casualties mount, the objectives expand, and accepting anything short of victory becomes politically impossible. Wilkerson fears we're approaching precisely that kind of situation, with nuclear weapons now part of the equation. The danger isn't that anyone necessarily wants a world war. It's that several governments could make decisions that eventually leave them unable to avoid one.

🇺🇸 Trump just said, "President Xi was here last week," but actually, he left nearly a month ago For him, an entire month is basically last week. Things couldn't be going any faster.. I know that feeling 😂 Writer: Lucas t.co/kE91ImykxD

🇨🇦 Vancouver's HOUSING crisis is entering a VERY DANGEROUS phase Court-ordered property listings have climbed toward a 20-year high, with 946 recorded across Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley through September. But here's the alarming part. Only 38% have sold, compared with a typical annual rate of around 60%. David Lin points to properties losing enormous amounts of value, including examples of homes falling from roughly $2 million to $1 million in just two years. And behind the pressure is Canada's mortgage renewal system. Homeowners who locked in cheap financing during the pandemic are now confronting higher borrowing costs, sometimes on properties worth considerably less than they paid. That's when a housing correction becomes something far more serious: people who can no longer afford to hold their homes, entering a market where buyers are increasingly hard to find. Source: NYT / Writer: Oliver

🇺🇸 THE S&P 500 IS SLIDING And there’s more behind it than one ugly day on Wall Street. Inflation is back at 3.7%, which immediately brings the Fed problem back into the conversation. If prices keep running hot, rate cuts become harder to justify and another hike becomes harder to rule out. Then there’s AI. Investors are starting to look much harder at the enormous amount of money being borrowed and spent to build out the boom. CoreWeave is getting particular attention, while chip stocks are being hammered. Micron and Intel are both down more than 5%. And oil is making everything worse. Brent is getting close to $110 as supply disruptions push prices higher again. So Wall Street suddenly has several problems feeding into each other: expensive energy, inflation refusing to disappear, rates that may have to stay high, and an AI trade that investors are no longer willing to believe in quite so blindly. That’s a nasty combination. Writer: Oliver

Oil flows through Hormuz have largely recovered. Oil prices haven’t. David Lin’s explanation is that the real bottleneck now may be the cost of moving it. Shipping and transit costs remain extremely high, tanker attacks are still happening, and those costs eventually get baked into the price of the oil itself. At the same time, the futures curve still suggests the market does not expect a clean return to cheap oil anytime soon. Brent for next year is still around $80 to $90. So Hormuz reopening is only part of the story. If the route is technically open but still expensive and dangerous to use, the energy shock isn’t really over. @davidlin_TV

🇺🇸 The U.S. budget deficit has hit its highest level in 5 years. Washington spent a record $7.4 trillion over the past year but brought in only $5.4 trillion. That's a nearly $2 trillion hole, $217 billion bigger than last year. And here's the crazy part. Just paying interest on the national debt now costs $1.36 trillion a year. Not paying off the debt, just paying for what it already owes. Trump's tariffs didn't help either. After the Supreme Court struck down a big chunk of them, the government refunded $145 billion, cutting into its tariff revenue. Defense spending also climbed to $917 billion, though officials aren't sure how much of that increase came from the Iran war. The national debt has already crossed $40 trillion. And somehow, Washington keeps finding new ways to spend money it doesn't have. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal

🇨🇦 Vancouver’s housing market is starting to look genuinely ugly. Court-ordered home listings are near multi-decade highs, while far fewer of them are actually selling. And the discounts are no longer small. David Lin points to properties selling dramatically below previous values, including units that went from roughly $2 million to $1 million in just two years. The pressure is coming from the mortgage reset. Canadian borrowers often have to refinance after three or five years, and many are now rolling into much higher rates. That means the housing correction is no longer just about falling prices. It is becoming a forced-selling problem. @davidlin_TV

Brent is back above $100. What worries me more though is that some analysts still think it should eventually fall toward $55. That gap matters. If the fundamentals are supposed to be bearish, yet oil is still trading near wartime levels while we are technically in a quieter phase, then the market may be pricing in something much uglier ahead. The black swan is obvious: A wider U.S.-Iran escalation that pushes Tehran to attack Gulf refineries, ports and other energy infrastructure. Iran still appears to retain substantial missile capability, and that is what makes any ground operation far more dangerous than simply “opening” Hormuz. Oil above $100 may not be the warning. It may be the market telling us the warning has already started. @davidlin_TV

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, AFRICA HAS MORE CATHOLICS THAN EUROPE How remarkable is this? For centuries, Europe sent missionaries across Africa to spread Catholicism. Now the continent that once received those missionaries is becoming one of the Church's most important centers. The Vatican's latest figures put Africa at 288.3 million Catholics, just ahead of Europe's 287.2 million. But the growth is where it gets really interesting. Africa added 7.6 million Catholics in a single year. Europe added fewer than a million. And Africa is now the only continent where both the number of seminarians preparing for the priesthood and religious sisters are increasing. There's something quite extraordinary about that, historically. The Catholic Church spent centuries expanding outward from Europe. Now its future is increasingly being shaped in Africa. Source: Vatican News / Writer: Oliver

🇭🇹 Erik Prince is DEPLOYING Blackwater in an operation against HAITI’S GANGS, and says it's CHEAPER than the UN sending units The operation uses drones, air support, and contractors alongside Haiti’s government, claiming over 2,000 drone strikes in a year. Gangs still control much of Port-au-Prince, though the UN says their expansion has halted. Prince says the operation costs less than a UN force, with his company earning a cut of customs revenue if smuggling drops. If the gangs remain strong enough, he still has work. Writer: Lucas t.co/VUPRuevrfT

🇺🇸 DIESEL FUTURES ARE SURGING And the supply crisis behind them could be even more troubling than $110 oil. New York Harbor diesel futures have jumped above $4.72 a gallon. But this isn't simply crude oil getting more expensive. The world is running short of refined diesel. Ukrainian strikes have damaged Russian refineries, disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz have restricted shipments, and limited refining capacity is making it harder to replace lost supplies. American inventories are also shrinking. The latest EIA figures show U.S. distillate stocks falling by 2.5 million barrels in a single week, leaving supplies 12% below last year's levels. East Coast inventories are down more than 22%. And winter is approaching, when diesel must also compete with heating oil for supply. That's why this matters far beyond energy markets. Oil makes headlines. But a diesel shortage can push costs through the entire economy, even if crude prices stop rising. Writer: Oliver

🇺🇸 FIRST PHOTO emerges of the 16-YEAR-OLD suspect behind the DEADLY OREGON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SHOOTING John J. Griffin II has been identified by law enforcement sources as the gunman who killed three children, aged 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend. The teenager reportedly used a shotgun purchased by his mother to force his way through locked school doors. Two others were critically injured. Griffin was ultimately shot and killed by an armed civilian who intervened during the attack. Investigators are still trying to establish his motive. Source: NY Post / Writer: Oliver

🇨🇳 China is moving to RESTRICT exports of its biggest AI models and chip designs. The draft covers 23 AI technologies, including large language models, agents, chip designs, and computing clusters. It would restrict model weights and source code above certain thresholds, including models with at least 2 trillion parameters trained on important data. Public open-source tech and API access would be exempt. Beijing says the move is about safety and control. As Chinese labs rapidly close the AI gap, the rules could make exporting the biggest models much harder. Source: Bloomberg / Writer: Lucas

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Trump may want one final strike on Iran, but Israel could have very different plans. Brandon Weichert believes Israel is preparing a much broader campaign against Iranian infrastructure, potentially including energy and water facilities. That could make a limited American operation impossible to contain. Iran would have its own response, meaning a short U.S. strike could become the opening move of a much larger war regardless of what Trump originally intended. There is also a serious question about America’s remaining military capabilities. A CSIS analysis discussed by Weichert suggests the Pentagon may have very few of its most powerful bunker-busting bombs left. That matters because Trump is reportedly considering the MOAB, a massive conventional bomb that is not designed to destroy facilities buried deep beneath mountains. Brandon suspects Washington may be choosing weapons based on what remains available rather than what would actually accomplish its objectives. There are also unconfirmed reports of possible Houthi preparations for ground operations against Saudi Arabia. The bigger problem is the number of actors who could shape what happens next. Trump may want to strike Iran and leave. Israel may want to continue. Iran may decide retaliation is necessary. And the Houthis could open another front. The danger isn’t simply that Trump starts another war, but that he starts one he no longer controls. @WeTheBrandon

🇬🇧 A pipe bomb EXPLODED through the letterbox of a Belfast home in Northern Ireland, but a mother and her children escaped unharmed. Police say the device was pushed through the door early this morning in the Stanhope Street area and caused damage to the entrance and hallway. Neighbors were evacuated as bomb experts examined the scene. The mother says she has no idea why her house was hit and believes the attackers got the wrong address. Thank GOD she and her baby made it on time. Source: RTE Media / Writer: Lucas

The entire Trump admin right now: t.co/kKfGmCpBi9

🇺🇸 Trump says he's in NO RUSH to find a new White House press secretary.... Laura Loomer has apparently decided to make the search a little more interesting. After Katie Zacharia's five-day stint, imagine Trump putting Loomer behind the White House podium. The press briefings might need their own pay-per-view subscription. And something tells me the reporters wouldn't survive the first week. 😂 Writer: Oliver

🇺🇸 Trump has apparently decided the White House can survive without a press secretary. After Karoline Leavitt's departure and Katie Zacharia's spectacularly short five-day tenure, Peter Doocy reports that Trump is in “NO RUSH” to find another replacement. There isn't even a shortlist. And apparently, the president thinks things have been running perfectly well without someone behind the briefing room podium. Which is pretty funny when you think about it. Trump already answers half the world's questions himself, usually before anyone has even asked them. Maybe he's starting to wonder why he needs a press secretary at all. Writer: Oliver t.co/f9dg1VDgUo

🇬🇧🇦🇪 BRITAIN SAYS IT'S PROTECTING PRESS FREEDOM. IMI HITS BACK: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE OF EDITORIAL INTERFERENCE? The Telegraph reports that Ofcom found the UAE-backed takeover posed a serious threat to British press freedom, warning that Abu Dhabi had both the power and incentive to influence editorial coverage. But International Media Investments (IMI) is pushing back hard. The company says Ofcom made no finding of actual editorial interference, ignored its track record and dismissed legally binding safeguards designed to protect the newspaper's independence. IMI argues that the regulator judged the bid on its connections to the UAE rather than its conduct. And there's a much bigger issue here. If a regulator can reject a media acquisition based on the perceived risk of potential future political influence, how much weight should it give to enforceable protections and the investor's actual record? The Telegraph calls the findings damning. IMI says the entire assessment was fundamentally flawed. A strong rebuttal from IMI, worth reading in full. Source: IMI, Ofcom and CMA reports, The Telegraph / Writer: Oliver

🇬🇧 A former UK cheerleader who admitted to KILLING her newborn child will only face 10 YEARS IN PRISON Laken Snelling, 22, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter after her roommates found the baby wrapped in a towel inside a trash bag in her closet. She told the court she was under emotional stress, the birth came unexpectedly, and instead of helping him, she ended his life by choking him. "Stress" is not a defense for choking and putting a baby in a trash bag. WHO SAYS THAT? Writer: Lucas t.co/9S3KgB4flH

Peter Kuznick: the most dangerous shift in nuclear strategy is that some planners no longer see nuclear war as something that must never happen. They think it can be won. Kuznick points to a school of U.S. strategists who believe advances in AI, sonar and surveillance could make a successful preemptive strike against Russian and Chinese nuclear forces possible. And he says similar escalation pressures now exist across several theaters, from Ukraine to Taiwan. The problem is what happens after the first “limited” nuclear strike. According to Kuznick, Pentagon war games repeatedly fail to contain it. “They never can stop it.” The scenario starts tactical. It ends with full-scale nuclear war.

🇵🇸🇮🇱 How could someone STAND FOR something like this?! Israeli soldiers STOPPED Palestinians who were trying to harvest and bring THEIR OWN FOOD back home. This is from Tuqu', southeast of Bethlehem. Farmers go out to pick the crop that feeds their families, and soldiers and settlers are right there blocking the groves, grabbing the bags, and detaining people on the way back. They’re not letting them get their OWN FOOD. Writer: Lucas t.co/3HdtCO2u0A

Peter Kuznick’s biggest fear isn’t just that nuclear arsenals are growing again. But how much power rests with individual leaders. In the U.S. system, there is effectively no formal political veto between a president and an order to launch nuclear weapons. That’s what he finds terrifying. At the same time, all nine nuclear powers are modernizing their arsenals, after decades in which the global stockpile had been shrinking. So the danger is moving in two directions at once: More capable weapons. And enormous decision-making power concentrated in very few hands. For Kuznick, that combination is the real nightmare.

🇺🇸 Wall Street's AI stocks are taking another hit, and investors are getting nervous. Nvidia-backed CoreWeave fell 7.6%, with investors concerned about how much debt it has taken on. Some of its bonds are now yielding over 15%. And it's not just CoreWeave. Other AI cloud companies, Nebius and Iren, dropped more than 5%, while chipmakers Micron and AMD also fell. The big question is whether companies are borrowing and spending too much money on AI. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq was down 0.7%, but the S&P 500 barely moved because bank stocks were doing much better. So it's not like investors are pulling out of everything. They're just getting a lot more careful about where they put their money, especially when it comes to AI. Source: Reuters / Writer: Daniyal

🇮🇷 Peter Kuznick thinks the nuclear danger with Iran has changed dramatically from where it stood under the 2015 deal. Under the JCPOA, Iran shipped out most of its enriched uranium, sharply limited enrichment and accepted extensive IAEA inspections. Today, Iran has enriched uranium to 60%. And Kuznick’s point is that once you are at 60%, the jump toward weapons-grade material becomes much easier. “It’s easy to get from 60% to 90%.” He still says there is no clear evidence Iran has actually decided to build a bomb. But after repeated attacks, he thinks the political logic inside Iran may be changing fast. The disturbing question is no longer just whether Iran can build one. It’s whether war is convincing more Iranians that they eventually should.