Geopolitics
The U.S. struck five Iranian oil tankers—the M/T Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1, and Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, plus the M/T Derya near Kharg Island—after CENTCOM accused the IRGC of two attempted ballistic missile strikes on a U.S. warship. Iran responded with missile barrages against the Al Azraq base in Jordan and stated that it had hit the destroyers DDG-119 and DDG-53, along with additional tankers. Iran’s foreign ministry called the tanker strikes a war crime. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that every Iranian attempt on a U.S. ship would cost Tehran another tanker.
Regarding the strikes on Jordan, footage circulating online shows U.S. air defenses firing more than 60 Patriot interceptors against a salvo of over 30 Iranian ballistic missiles launched from Isfahan and Yazd. Jordan’s Armed Forces stated that they engaged 20 missiles and intercepted 18, with two landing in unpopulated areas and no casualties reported. The engagement occurred as Patriot interceptors cannot be replenished quickly, and each mass salvo reduces a finite U.S. reserve.
Separately, the IRGC captured an intact Anduril Dive-LD autonomous undersea vehicle near the Strait of Hormuz. A Tasnim News columnist reported that the drone is being transferred to the IRGC Aerospace Force for reverse-engineering, with Tehran planning to share the sensors, autonomy, communications, and payload technology with Russia and China. The U.S. began procuring Dive-LD systems under the Replicator initiative in 2024, and UUVRON-1 received its first unit in 2025. The U.S. military stated that the drone malfunctioned and carried no classified sonar or radar equipment.
In an unrelated development, Johns Hopkins APL researchers presented FAST CAR2, a field-assisted sintering method that reduces production time for carbon–carbon composites from months to days. The material is used in rocket nozzles, missile nose cones, aircraft brakes, and hypersonic thermal protection systems, and served as the heat shield on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. The method places carbon-bearing material directly into the fiber preform and rapidly heats and presses it with electrical current. The team is developing larger presses to increase scale.
Energy
Art Berman stated that the Iran conflict represents a phase shift rather than a temporary disruption. Global oil supply fell roughly 10 mmb/d year-over-year in May 2026, a 13% loss comparable to the 14% drop during the 1980 Iran-Iraq War. World production did not regain its late-1979 level until 1996, and real prices averaged 40% of the 1980 peak from 1986 through 2002. Berman assigns no more than a 25% probability to the EIA’s forecast of full supply recovery by early 2027.
Meanwhile, Russia’s ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, told Asian News International that Moscow will remain a key crude supplier to New Delhi regardless of U.S. tariff threats. He criticized the pending Graham-sponsored bill authorizing 100% tariffs on major buyers of Russian oil and gas, which passed the Senate 86-11 but remains in the House. Analysts view passage before November midterms as unlikely. India’s August imports from Russia eased from July’s record high amid Ukrainian strikes on Russian export infrastructure and Chinese competition.
Privacy & Surveillance
Researchers who spent 500 hours and $70,000 investigating LG televisions reported that the sets log plain-text transcripts of conversations even in standby mode, map every device in the home, and route the data to LG’s advertising arm. The company has denied that its TVs record ambient conversations. When the network cable is unplugged, the TV stores the transcripts locally and transmits them once connectivity is restored. Roughly 216 million of the affected units are in use worldwide.
Microsoft has published developer documentation for a new Windows 11 API that returns a user’s age bracket (under 10, 10-12, 13-15, 16-17, and 18-plus) along with a verification status from an unnamed identity provider. The feature is not yet active but is expected later this year. Microsoft described it as a privacy-preserving mechanism for regulatory compliance. The company stated in January 2024 that no reliable technical solution to age assurance yet existed. California’s AB 1043, effective in 2027, will require covered operating systems to supply age-range data to developers.
Health
An analysis of the FDA’s review of Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine reported that the agency used pooled data from multiple trials to address a statistically significant safety signal in the pivotal Phase 3 trial (P304). That trial, with 40,000 adults aged 50 and older, showed 449 serious adverse events in the mRNA arm versus 389 in the conventional group. However, the FDA applied pivotal-trial data for efficacy claims but switched to pooled data for safety. Pooled mortality signals across trials were not highlighted. Supporters of the approval, including coverage in STAT News and The New York Times, described it as an important milestone for mRNA technology in seasonal influenza prevention.
Clayton Morris questioned the U.K.’s recruitment of healthy 55-to-80-year-olds with elevated risk of Alzheimer’s for a four-to-six-year trial of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug. Trontinemab can cause infusion reactions, inflammation, and swelling or bleeding in the brain. Despite this, the experimental drug may or may not work, and the trial participants may or may not even get Alzheimer’s in the first place.
Artificial Intelligence
Jacob Coxon, a three-year pretraining researcher at OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned and stated that neither firm is acting responsibly and both are racing toward self-improving superintelligence. He claimed that builders privately believe the technology could kill everyone by the end of the decade but do not say so publicly. Coxon’s resignation follows many others. Anthropic’s head of safety, Mrinank Sharma, resigned in February 2026, OpenAI’s Jan Leike and Ilya Sutskever left in 2024, DeepMind’s Alex Turner departed after failing to stop Google’s Pentagon AI contract, and Chief Scientist Jeff Dean left Google in August 2026. Commentator Richard Hanania has argued that security issues are typically identified and fixed in subsequent models, with no significant real-world harm from misaligned AI observed to date.
US Politics
A new Gallup poll found that 89% of American adults believe corruption is widespread throughout government—the highest reading in the survey’s 20-year history and a 10-point increase in one year. The figure includes 91% of Democrats, 90% of independents, and 83% of Republicans. Democratic concern rose 34 points after the White House changed hands. The U.S. leads all 38 OECD nations on this measure, whose median was 59% in 2025.
The question thus becomes: Is it too late to rescue our country? Be sure to check out Chris’s new series, Is It Too Late, as he seeks to answer this question.
Sources
Iran’s Capture of U.S. Dive-LD Sets Stage for Tech Transfers to Russia, China
Iran is reportedly laying the groundwork to study the system’s sensors, autonomy, communications and payload — potentially turning a captured U.S. system into a technology transfer pipeline to Moscow and Beijing.
Iran War: The Phase Shift That Ends the Old Energy-Growth Regime
This is a structural turning point. Its economic, political and energetic consequences will persist long after the military conflict ends—even if a diplomatic settlement is reached in 2026.
Source | Submitted by Rodster
LG TVs Log Your Chats in Plain Text—Even Offline—Despite Denials
Unplug the internet and it saves the files until you plug back in.
Source | Submitted by IrishPrince
89% of Americans Now See Government as Corrupt
A new Gallup poll found that 89% of American adults believe corruption is widespread throughout the government, the highest reading in the 20-year history of the survey.
Source | Submitted by Rodster
FAST CAR2: New Sintering Method Slashes Hypersonic Material Production Time
Similar materials that take months to produce can be created in just days.
Russia Keeps Oil Flowing to India, U.S. Tariffs Be Damned
Russia remains and will remain a key oil supplier to India
FDA Pools Data to Bury mRNA Flu Vaccine Safety Signal
A statistically significant safety signal from the pivotal trial was systematically diluted until it disappeared from the official story.
Microsoft’s Windows Age API: Privacy Tool or Digital ID Trojan Horse?
But, as we’ve seen from bills that call for this type of technology to be installed in operating system, this is all about normalizing age checks (and therefore ID checks) at all stages of digital life.
Would You Risk Brain Bleeds for an Unproven Alzheimer’s Shot?
No thanks.
US Hits Five Iranian Tankers as Gulf Tensions Boil Over
The United States has attacked five Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg Island after accusing Tehran of launching ballistic missiles at a US warship twice in two days.
AI Safety Exodus: Labs Race to Superintelligence as Experts Flee
Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.
US Burns 60+ Patriots in Jordan as Iran Fires 30+ Missiles
That is a brutal amount of expensive air defense burned in a single attack.
In addition to sources submitted by community members, the following were also used in the creation of this report: STAT News, The New York Times, and Richard Hanania.
by mike-from-jersey