🇺🇸🇮🇷 Something genuinely different is happening between Washington and Tehran. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are discussing a phased agreement that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for Washington lifting its economic blockade and potentially releasing frozen Iranian assets. Iran is even reportedly considering setting aside its demand for transit fees through Hormuz while retaining administrative control. After months of escalation, absolutely everybody wants the diplomacy to work. But the contradiction is hard to miss. Iran is still attacking shipping. Tehran is warning that another U.S. attack could expand the war into the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb. And U.S. aerial refueling tankers remain positioned at Al Udeid in Qatar. Then there's also the variable nobody in Washington fully controls: Israel. The two sides suddenly have powerful reasons to stop. They also still have all the machinery required to start again. For the first time in months, diplomacy looks real. And so does the war. @WeTheBrandon

Scientists have picked up radio signals coming straight from a planet outside our solar system for the first time ever. The planet is Beta Pictoris b, a gas giant about 10 times Jupiter's mass, roughly 63 light-years away. Before anyone gets excited, it's not aliens. The bursts are natural, caused by charged particles hitting the planet's magnetic field, which turns out to be at least 2,500 times stronger than Earth's. The planet can't host life, but the same technique could help find ones that can, since a strong magnetic field is what protects a planet's atmosphere and water. We finally got a call from another planet, and it's just static 😒 Sources: Insider Paper, ScienceAlert / Writer: Julie

The UK really looked at this path and said national speed limit, no further questions. Lol, 60mph game of chicken is it then… Writer: Bri

🇺🇸 A Pennsylvania doctor was stabbed to death overnight by a man who claimed he was God... Dr. Idris Evans, a pediatric critical care doctor at UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, was asleep at home with his wife, when a near-naked intruder broke in. 32 year-old Elijah Hemingway stabbed Evans and his wife multiple times, in a "very violent scene." Evans' critically injured wife rushed to save their children, ages 8 and 12, as their father lay dying. During the attack, Evans called out the intruder by name "Elijah," as if he knew who he was... The assailant also made multiple references to God or "being God" during the attack, reportedly. The crime is still being investigated. The kids are (physically) OK, while their mother remains hospitalized. Source: NY Post / Writer: Michael

Grok Bot in your Tesla can handle admin and get real work done now. Connectors let it reach into your inbox, calendar, files and tasks, so you can talk through the stuff you normally save for the laptop. Check the reservation. Move the meeting. Update the trip. Deal with the inbox. All without reaching for your phone. That’s a pretty productive way to spend time in traffic. @Tesla @Grok @SpaceXAI / Writer: Annette, Grok Imagine Designer: Janné

Kookaburras are essentially the Australian equivalent of seagulls stealing your fish and chips right out of your hand. Unbothered, cheeky with total iconic energy. Writer: Bri

🇦🇹🇮🇱🇵🇸 Austrian FM Beate Meinl-Reisinger warned Netanyahu that more bombs dropped on Palestinians will NOT equal more PEACE for Israel: "After years of bloodshed and suffering, it is obvious no one can bomb their way to peace. We want a prosperous and safe Israel. But the same applies to the Palestinians and to Israel’s neighbors. Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live side by side in peace and security with a credible path to a two-state solution. Any unilateral actions, including continued settlement expansions in the West Bank, only perpetuate the conflict and must be rejected." Writer: Mhedi

🇺🇦 Ukraine just made a former comedy show host its Deputy Defense Minister for digitalization. He'll run the ministry's digital side, from how the military manages and shares data to the apps soldiers use and cutting the paperwork that slows down decisions. Before the war, 35-year-old Oleksii Reva co-wrote and hosted the comedy show "Mamakohatala" with his twin brother Ihor, who now happens to hold the exact same digital job at the infrastructure ministry. First a comedian president, now comedians in the ministries. The stage seems to be Kyiv's favorite talent pool. Source: Ukrainian News Agency / Writer: Julie

🚨🇻🇦🇫🇷 Pope Leo XIV begins France’s first papal state visit in 18 years, following Benedict XVI in 2008. Key stops: •⁠ ⁠Meeting Macron •⁠ ⁠UNESCO speech •⁠ ⁠Notre-Dame vespers •⁠ ⁠Youth vigil at Stade de France, open-air Mass at Place de la Concorde, Lourdes grotto •⁠ ⁠Speech on Europe/peace in Metz Writer: Samuel

Tesla is teasing the Roadster for next week after sitting on it for years. Tesla has already pointed at October 1st. Elon is putting the whole catalog in the window at once. Next week is the encore. That is a company that wants the next decade to look fast. Writer: Lucas

🇸🇪🇫🇮🇷🇺 In a first-time joint operation yesterday, Swedish and Finnish fighter jets intercepted and identified Russian military aircraft over the Gulf of Finland. The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace, but the operation comes as the Baltic region remains on heightened alert following drone sightings, airspace violations, and infrastructure incidents. Just a day prior, Danish intelligence warned that Russia is expected to intensify its hybrid warfare against NATO and the West in the coming months, predicting more frequent attacks with potentially greater consequences. Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson: “The Baltic Sea has never been as vulnerable as it is now, but it has also never been better protected than it is right now.” Source: Reuters / Writer: Mhedi

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Oil prices are falling as markets react to U.S.-Iran truce talks that could ultimately reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with Brent dropping 1.4% from yesterday's close to around $105 a barrel. U.S. and Iranian negotiators in New York are exploring a phased deal under which Iran would reopen the critical oil chokepoint while the U.S. lifts its economic blockade, offering a potential path out of the conflict. But escalating Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia are keeping supply concerns alive, leaving oil markets caught between hopes of de-escalation with Iran and fears of another major disruption elsewhere in the region. Source: Al Jazeera / Writer: Mhedi

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran handed Washington a seven-day clock to reopen Hormuz, sanctions relief and frozen assets for the strait, and Tehran wants something finalized BEFORE November Araghchi's terms rest on the Islamabad memorandum, and NBC added that Pezeshkian is open to IAEA inspectors if the blockade eases. On paper it is the closest the two sides have been since June. Charles Finfrock ran sources against this government for a career and his answer to the offer was a cartoon: America is Charlie Brown, Iran is Lucy, and the football has been pulled for 47 years. The deeper problem is who's holding the pen. The president and foreign minister making the offer don't command the Guard, and the Guard has every reason to fear what a real deal does to the men who ran the crackdown. Then there's the Yemen front, where six Houthi missiles flew at Taif and Yanbu on the same day the proposal landed. Charles reads that as the Guard's other hand, a proxy turned up beside the offer to split the Saudis from Washington or pull American attention south, and he believes the Houthis are far more integrated with the Quds Force than Washington wants to admit. He frames the war as two-dollar diesel with a nuclear Iran or six-fifty without. Trouble is, diesel is already six-fifty and the enrichment allegedly never stopped. @finfrockcharles @WeTheBrandon

🇦🇷A 13 year old accused of robbing a delivery driver BOLTS into the highway and gets hit by oncoming traffic This happened in Mendoza, Argentina. Delivery workers had pulled him off a bus after accusing him of the robbery. In the chaos he broke away and ran straight into a road, flying into the air as a car hit him. Everything is still under investigation. The minor is in intensive care but stable. Writer: Bri

🇺🇸 Obama all but said women are superior to men: "Even when I was president, I sometimes fantasized. If you put women in charge of every government for two years, things would be better. I'm confident about that." He wasn't all that confident about putting Kamala in charge though, was he 🤣 Writers: Mhedi, Ian

🇬🇧 It looks just like any other cool pic of the $1 million Aston Martin Valhalla. Until you notice the reflection of the doors on the windshield ☠️ Writer: Julie

🇫🇷 French police: “Just form an orderly queue and the next boat will be here for pick up in 10 minutes.” 781 illegal migrants entered the UK yesterday, while it forcibly deports an average of about 26 people per day. The border is basically a one-way system. WTF!! Writer: Bri

🇹🇷🇸🇦 Turkish FM Hakan Fidan dismissed doubts around the legitimacy of the Mecca Alliance by highlighting that NATO itself has only had its Article 5 invoked once: “Nobody criticizes NATO as a paper tiger. But when it comes to a newborn defense alliance, they point to a 10-year crisis in Yemen and say, ‘Look, this is not working.’ We have only just started.” Writer: Mhedi

Looks like an odd place to park your motorbike Then you realise why Writer: Ian

🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran gave Washington seven days to take the Islamabad deal, and the Air Force can bomb for about 48 hours before it has to stop and ask what's next That is the read from Karen Kwiatkowski, who spent a career inside the Air Force and the Pentagon. The planes still fly and the missiles still exist, but every strike since spring has run the same pattern, a weekend of bombs and then a pause, because nobody has handed the military an objective it can actually achieve. Blockade, escort, sweep mines without getting shot, hit the Houthis, stand down. Little tasks, nothing folding together, no way to win. The public readiness figures agree with her. B-52s at 54 percent mission capable, B-1s around 43, and only 19 B-2s in the whole fleet. So her advice on the seven-day offer is simple. Take it, pull the Navy off, let the oil move, and call it a win, because Iran and Oman already have the strait procedures ready and a week of real tankers sailing beats another 18-hour raid. @karen4the6th @WeTheBrandon