Iran loses key economic lifeline in Middle East that Trump’s sanctions couldn’t reach as deadlock persists
The United Arab Emirates suspended all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran after accusing Tehran of firing ballistic missiles toward maritime traffic. The UAE’s move severs one of Tehran’s most important commercial links, cutting off Iran’s imports valued at roughly $21B

Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools
A Futurism review found large numbers of videos recorded at middle and high schools using smart glasses — almost always Meta’s AI Glasses, designed in partnership with the eyewear titan Ray-Ban — and shared to social media platforms TikTok and Instagram. Recordings take place in school hallways, cafeterias, and classrooms, and feature interactions with other students as well as with staff and faculty.

UAE Cuts Ties As Iran Warns Gulf States Against Helping Washington; Kpler Says US Navy Gaining Ground In Hormuz
And in another significant escalation that effectively torpedoes any remaining illusions of hoped-for cross-Gulf detente, the United Arab Emirates has announced Wednesday a complete and immediate severance of all economic ties with Tehran. The move comes on the heels of what UAE officials claim was a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles targeted directly at Emirati territory.

Why Is This Medieval Disease Striking LA County
Flea-borne typhus hit 220 cases in Los Angeles County in 2025, a record, and nearly 9 in 10 patients needed hospitalization as rats and encampments spread. “It’s largely an issue of … people living in just horrible conditions in close proximity to rats,” Winslow said, describing rats as the primary hosts involved in the infection. Those conditions are particularly relevant as LA continues to struggle with homelessness. However, the problem extends beyond encampments.

Kamala Is Back – and More Radical Than Ever
Despite losing the popular vote, Electoral College, and every swing state, national polling shows that former Vice President Kamala Harris remains the clear presidential frontrunner for Democrats in 2028. But the version of Harris Americans will likely see on the campaign trail appears far more radical than even what they saw two years ago.

Arizona Democrat vows renewed assault on Seal of Confession despite repeated failures
An Arizona Democrat has pledged to continue to assault the Catholic Seal of Confession despite a state supreme court ruling and previous failed attempts. For years, Democrat Stacey Travers has been obsessively focused on violating the rights of Catholics, including confessors and penitents, to have the Seal of Confession protected.

Texas Hits New Peak Demand Record, Faces 80% Supply Shortfall By 2030
ERCOT’s large-load queue has grown by more than 200 GW since 2024, driven largely by data centers, manufacturing, cryptocurrency and industrial oil and gas development, but uncertainty remains over how much load can be safely interconnected. Even though that appetite is enormous, if it can’t get met, it’s not coming online,” Brent Nelson, senior managing director of market intelligence at Ascend, told Utility Dive in an interview. “The ability of the grid to add new generation is much, much smaller than the demand of queued large-load facilities,” Robert LaFaso, Ascend’s director of market intelligence, told Utility Dive. Both executives identified generation availability as the primary constraint.

Americans Stop Paying the World’s Pharmacy Tab as Prices Fall Hardest Since 1963
President Donald Trump’s Most Favored Nation policies and TrumpRx platform have produced the largest annual drop in U.S. prescription drug prices in over 60 years, the steepest since 1963, according to the administration. The update follows years of price increases across much of the sector, with Americans footing the bill for other nations’ use. “Without even twisting an arm, without trying to pass a new bill, he [Trump] brought all these players together with TrumpRX to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and he continues to do that because this guy understands leverage.

Prosecutors In Charlie Kirk Slaying Case Say Evidence Supports Death Penalty
Prosecutors on Aug. 18 urged a Utah judge to uphold all charges, including one carrying a potential death sentence, in the case against Charlie Kirk’s accused killer. prosecutors said evidence clearly shows that others besides Kirk were at great risk of being killed—an “aggravating” circumstance that supports a death-penalty-level charge, they argued.

Jeffrey Tucker Reveals The Insidious Reason For The Lockdowns
Jeffrey Tucker – founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, says top FDA and NIH officials told him that the purpose of the COVID-19 lockdowns were “to delay the onset of natural immunity… until after the shots were online.” Dr. Jessica Rose, where he says that ‘multiple sources’ who were involved in the response confirmed the bombshell revelation “without a shadow of a doubt.” The lockdowns that wiped out small businesses. The school closures that sent children’s reading scores back to 1971. The plexiglass, the masking, the stay-at-home orders. None of it was about keeping us safe. “It was exactly the opposite,” It sounds like a “wild conspiracy theory.” But it’s the truth.

With no MoU extension in sight, Iran threatens attacks on US sites in Europe 
Iran is weighing an attack on U.S. military facilities in Europe if President Donald Trump orders an escalation in military operations, the Financial Times reported. Citing two regime insiders, the Times report identified Bulgaria and Cyprus as possible targets of such attacks. One of the regime insiders referred to the previous drone attack on a British air base in Cyprus as proof of Tehran’s ability to carry out such attacks.

Turkish president’s party set up Washington HQ, met with US influencers critical of Trump, Israel 
A recent investigation into U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) records is raising questions over Turkish lobbying efforts involving several media personalities, including former CIA officer John Kiriakou and the CEO of the Tucker Carlson Network. The investigation by journalist and open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher Eitan Fischberger, based on FARA records, draws attention to meetings between these media personalities and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The AKP spent millions of dollars in 2024 to acquire the former French Embassy, turning it into a headquarters for its U.S. influence operations in Washington, D.C.

Israel confirms striking Syrian airport to prevent Turkish entrenchment; Damascus claims right to keep nuclear material 
After months of relative quiet, the Syrian front came back into focus in Israel in recent days, as Jerusalem confirmed having struck an airport in northern Syria on Tuesday to prevent Turkey’s military from establishing itself there, rejecting criticism from the United States.

Where is the Ark of the Covenant today? A Torah scholar weighs in on the leading theories
Talmudic scholar and Torah educator Efraim Palvanov worked through the question methodically, moving from the original construction of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) through a largely unknown history of multiple ancient Jewish temples,

Jewish Men Pray From Prayer Books on the Temple Mount: The Quiet Revolution Bringing the Third Temple
Jewish worshipers were allowed to carry and read from full siddurim (prayer books) on the Temple Mount on Sunday, the latest and most significant challenge to a decades-old policy barring non-Muslim prayer at Judaism’s holiest site. Right-wing journalist Arnon Segal posted a photograph Sunday showing men praying at the site with siddurim in hand, towels laid on the ground before them signaling that the men had also prostrated themselves in prayer. “Still no blanket permit, but an initial experiment aimed at ensuring the Middle East doesn’t lose its mind over this,” Segal wrote, calling the moment “history.”

Netanyahu says that IDF ‘made sure’ Syria ‘understood’ that Turkey unwelcome in region
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the IDF struck a Syrian military base after Jerusalem had given Damascus several warnings about Turkey’s military presence in the country. In his first comments since Israel struck Syria on Tuesday, Netanyahu wrote in a Wednesday post on X/Twitter that Israel “made the message clear: Don’t.”

Katz: IDF to continue eliminating terrorists from within Gaza security zone
Israel’s policy for Gaza is to “remove threats, eliminate terrorists, and exact retribution from anyone who took part in the [Oct. 7, 2023,] massacre,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday.The Israel Defense Forces eliminated Hamas terrorists in Gaza earlier in the day and will “continue to act with force to protect our soldiers and ensure the peace for the southern communities—from within the security zone,” Katz added in Hebrew.

SYRIA SHOWDOWN: Mossad Chief Spoke With Syrian FM Days Before Israeli Strike as Netanyahu Warns Türkiye
New details emerging from the dramatic Israeli strike in northern Syria reveal that Israel had repeatedly warned Damascus against allowing Türkiye to establish a significant military foothold in the country — including through a rare high-level contact between Mossad chief Roman Gofman and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani just days before the attack.

Russia’s fuel crisis returns as Ukrainian drones target oil facilities
Russia’s fuel crisis enters a second wave as Ukrainian drone strikes hit oil facilities; Gas stations in Moscow impose new limits, while nine people are killed in Russia and Ukraine and 206 prisoners return home in an exchange

Lightning strike triggers fire in three natural gasoline tanks at Explorer Pipeline facility in Glenpool, Oklahoma
A suspected lightning strike triggered a fire involving three natural gasoline storage tanks at the Explorer Pipeline facility in Glenpool, Oklahoma, on August 17, prompting evacuations and shelter measures around the site. No injuries were reported. Officials said the fire was no longer actively burning on August 18, and the response transitioned to cleanup and recovery.

Comcast is rolling out identification of who is in your home using your internet router
Comcast offers Wi-Fi Shield to Xfinity Internet users at no extra cost. It includes Wi-Fi Motion, which uses Xfinity Gateway intelligence to provide “an added layer of awareness without recording video, capturing images or identifying individuals.” It turns routers into potential methods of surveillance without people’s knowledge or consent.

Christian MP blocked from entering UK for the second time because of her Biblical views
Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen, convicted over citing a Bible passage on homosexuality, has been blocked from entering the United Kingdom, leaving her unable to attend a Northern Ireland conference where she was due to speak about freedom of speech.

U.S. Faces “Historic” Cattle Shortage as Size of U.S. Herd Shrinks to Smallest Since 1951
A multi-year cattle shortage has pushed beef prices into painful territory. In some places, ground beef prices now exceed federal minimum wage, the first time it has happened. At the start of 2026, there were 86.2 million cattle & calves in the US, the smallest since 1951. In 1951, there were 154 million people in the US; there are 342 million today.

Shocking Survey Finds Only 35% of Women Under 25 Have Positive View of Men, and “Heteroflexible” Is Fastest Growing Sexual Orientation In America
Our culture is being transformed at a pace difficult to comprehend. We’ve been through so many societal pivot points in recent decades, and it’s probably inevitable there will be more. But without a doubt there have been some very clear long-term cultural shifts that have radically changed how we relate to one another and to the world around us.

Israel confirms striking Syrian airport to prevent Turkish entrenchment; Damascus claims right to keep nuclear material
After months of relative quiet, the Syrian front came back into focus in Israel in recent days, as Jerusalem confirmed having struck an airport in northern Syria on Tuesday to prevent Turkey’s military from establishing itself there, rejecting criticism from the United States.

Ballot-Box Jihad — How Islamic Networks Are Weaponizing Elections to Conquer America from Within
“A planned war is underway to Islamize America – with ballots. Islamic leaders who once called voting haram now call it jihad. Mosques serve as polling stations. A coordinated web of nonprofits, PACs, & groups like The Moral Vote mobilizes every Muslim voter, distributes templates & installs candidates who push Islam & socialism.

Trump threatens ‘unprecedented’ economic consequences for any nation aiding Iran
Trump said he was announcing the most crushing economic operation ever against any country that will be economic warfare & isolation on an unprecedented scale; also that any country allowing its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or gov’t entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences.

Iranian Envoy Joins Ceremony in Mexico to Honor Communist Mass Murderer Castro
The Iranian terror state’s ambassador to Mexico attended an event to mark the would-be 100th birthday of dead communist mass murderer Fidel Castro in that country, using it as an opportunity to promote Iran’s war against the United States and demand diplomatic and economic support.