Trump Weighs Another Attack on Iran to “Finish the Job”! Is He for Real?

By Mars Strangelove Jr. on Duty, Curated by Yiannis Damellos

October 24, 2026 / Source: Al Jazeera News

President Donald Trump said the United States was considering an attack on Iran as soon as Sunday, October 25, while leaving open the possibility of reaching a deal with Tehran. Trump suggested Washington might have to “finish the job.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian blamed the United States for the breakdown of interim agreement talks, calling American officials “cowards” who had “messed everything up,” while maintaining that Iran should continue pursuing an agreement.

Someone Ran a Chemical Analysis of Bodega Retatrutide and Dear Lord

"It does not look anything like a peptide."

By Joe Wilkins

Published Oct 24, 2026 11:55 AM EDT

Like gas station kratom, research-grade peptides have become widely available for consumers at convenience stores across the United States. Yet as one investigation into peptides sourced from a New York City bodega found, ease of access comes with a high price: your health.

The Beatles Belong to the Left

By Alex Niven

Don’t let the baby boomers moderate the Beatles’ politics. They were undeniably men of the Left.

Oct 24

As we enter the late 2020s, the legacy of the Beatles — history’s biggest band, by any measure — is facing a final reckoning. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the group’s last surviving members, are now eighty-four and eighty-six, respectively. This should remind us that what might be called the “Beatles generation” is reaching the end of its natural lifespan, its icons departing the stage to become musty archival heritage. All things, as the late George Harrison once acknowledged, must pass.

Lessons from Ukraine: Never Trust National Security in Private Hands

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

October 24, 2026

Illustration: Gemini

Photo: REUTERS

The lesson for every Western government is clear: When a billionaire controls technology essential to national defence, a nation's sovereignty becomes conditional not only on corporate decisions, but also on the personal choices of one powerful individual.

Ukraine has just received a lesson that Western governments should have learned long ago. Never allow a private company to become an indispensable part of your national defence without guarantees that the company cannot unilaterally undermine it. For more than a week, restrictions on SpaceX's Starlink satellite communications system and its military counterpart, Starshield, disrupted Ukrainian military operations. Kyiv reported difficulties intercepting Russian attack drones, interruptions to frontline communications and the cancellation of some operations. On October 24, Ukraine said the systems had returned to the operating speeds it needed. The immediate disruption may be over, but the fundamental problem remains.

BioWare’s Developers Should Get Federal Help to Buy the Studio, Says NDP Leader, but His Party Holds Just 5 Seats

CANADA

GAMING

Alessio Palumbo 

Oct 23, 2026 at 09:30 AM EDT

Avi Lewis, leader of the Canadian NDP, publicly floated the idea that the federal government should help BioWare buy its way to independence. However, his party only holds 5 seats in the parliament.

Avram 'Avi' Lewis, the Canadian politician who became the leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in March 2026, publicly addressed the closure of BioWare, the historic RPG developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. Lewis, a self-professed socialist, attacked the private equity buyers of Electronic Arts, which has owned BioWare since 2007. A consortium led by Saudi Arabia's PIF recently completed a $55 billion leveraged buyout of the game publisher, leaving EA saddled with $18 billion in debt.

Anthropic's Study Shows Claude Turning Unskilled Hackers Into Advanced Threats

Anthropic mapped 832 banned malicious accounts onto MITRE ATT&CK and found AI is reshaping who counts as a dangerous attacker.

Anthropic· Jun 03 2026 Author: AlphaSignal  Newsroom Read5 min Type News Topic Security · 

Benchmarks Subtopic Red Teaming · Prompt Injection · Jailbreaks

China's Communist Party names new provincial chiefs ahead of fifth plenum

Reuters

By Eduardo Baptista
October 24, 20263:28 AM GMT-8

Updated 4 hours ago

BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party announced key personnel changes in six provinces on Saturday, including two new provincial party chiefs and ​six officials positioned to become governors, before it holds a closed-door conclave in Beijing ‌from October 26 to 29. The official focus of the secretive meeting, also known as a plenum, in the Chinese capital is expected to be party governance and discipline, though personnel issues could also feature.

Trump Said the System Was Rigged. Now He Sits at the Top of It.

Deconstructing the Mule

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr. on Duty

October 24, 2026

“The system is rigged.” Donald Trump spent the 2016 campaign telling Americans that the powerful manipulated the rules, escaped accountability, and used their connections to protect their fortunes. He promised to change that system and "drain the swamp". A decade later, a Forbes investigation raises a question with extraordinary implications: what happens when the president seeking protection from tax scrutiny is also the man sitting at the top of the government responsible for enforcing the tax laws?

Forbes reporter Dan Alexander explains how Trump could turn charitable deductions on golf courses he still owns into hundreds of millions of dollars in tax savings — while using a lawsuit against the IRS to secure protection from scrutiny.

Around 1,200 Palestinians are displaced in Hebron as Israel begins military operation

Reuters
October 24, 2026
4:22 AM GMT-8 Updated 51 mins ago

Summary

• Parliamentary elections on Tuesday could lead Netanyahu to lose his majority, polls show
• Palestinian Authority criticises operation as 'collective punishment'
• Non-governmental organisation says Israel has made 70 arrests of Palestinians

Musk’s SpaceX is still restricting Starlink in Ukraine and the toll is rising

Published Fri, Oct 23 20261:04 PM EDT 

Updated Fri, Oct 23 20263:50 PM EDT

Annie Palmer@in/annierpalmer/

Key Points

• Ukrainian officials continued to report issues with SpaceX’s Starlink internet system on Friday.
• National security expert Dmitri Alperovitch said that Ukraine is losing drones and that restrictions are limiting strikes on Russian logistics.
• Trump, who said Thursday that Elon Musk had “put it back,” said Friday that he hadn’t spoken with the SpaceX CEO about Ukraine’s Starlink service.

Kushner’s Hacked Phone, Alleged Secret Accounts and the $2 Billion Question

October 24, 2026

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

Illustrations by Gemini - Concept: Yiannis Damellos 

A report published by Vanity Fair has raised explosive questions about Jared Kushner’s financial relationships with Middle Eastern power brokers during Donald Trump’s first presidency. 

According to an excerpt from investigative journalist Matthew Cole’s forthcoming book, Dutch intelligence officers discovered that Russian military intelligence had obtained screenshots from Kushner’s iPhone, allegedly exposing his access to bank accounts linked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Israel. The accounts reportedly involved at least $2 billion. Kushner has categorically denied the allegations, calling them fabricated. CBS News reports that it has not independently verified the book’s claims. 

Carney Condemns Terror Attack on Greek Orthodox Church in Jordan

October 24, 2026

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

A “despicable act of terror.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned a deadly attack on mourners attending a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, southern Jordan, describing it as a “despicable act of terror.” The October 23 attack killed at least seven people and wounded dozens more, according to reports from the Associated Press. The assailants opened fire as people gathered to mourn a loved one, turning a moment of grief into a scene of violence.

“This attack violated the sanctity of a place of worship and struck families at a moment of profound sorrow,” Carney said, extending his condolences to the families of those killed, the injured, the Greek Orthodox community and everyone grieving the loss. Canada condemned the violence in the strongest possible terms.

This Is Abuse of Power: Trump Is Weaponizing the DOJ to Block an Unfavorable Election Result

October 23, 2026

Editorial

By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr.

For Donald Trump, an election is a contest to be won—and a matter of political survival. For those of us who believe in democracy, it is a process whose legitimacy depends on accepting the voters’ decision, obeying the law, and allowing institutions to operate independently of a political leader’s personal interests. In the past, that standard distinguished the United States from authoritarian states, where those in power manipulate elections to preserve their rule and turn the machinery of government into an instrument of abuse. Not anymore.

Crypto shareholder sues Trump, family-backed crypto venture

The lawsuit focuses on two business deals linked to World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm Trump 

launched with his sons.

By Erica Orden

10/22/2026

A shareholder of a crypto company on Thursday sued President Donald Trump and the crypto venture co-founded by his family in federal court, alleging Trump violated the Constitution by profiting off his office through a pair of deals linked to the United Arab Emirates.

Netanyahu Prepares Another Asymmetrical Response in the West Bank After Two Israeli Soldiers Are Killed in Shooting Attack

By Mars Strangelove Jr. and Yiannis Damellos

October 23, 2026

Hebron lockdown, threatened mass evacuations and home demolitions raise fears of another cycle of collective punishment just days before Israel’s election.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and three others lightly wounded Friday when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at an Israeli military checkpoint near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said both attackers were shot dead. The attack was serious, and the loss of life is real. Still, it does not match the scale of what occurred in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during 2025 and 26, when the UN humanitarian office recorded 286 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers, as well as repeated settler attacks, displacement, and restrictions on Palestinian communities. The question now is what follows—and whether an attack by two gunmen will become the justification for a much broader campaign against Palestinian communities. 

The Human Fingerprint on Earth’s Water Cycle

October 20, 2026
Human activities have become intertwined with how water is distributed across the continents. A new study brings their effects into sharper focus.
NASA Earth Observatory

Measurements from NASA’s GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On) missions reveal trends in terrestrial water storage from April 2002 to November 2025. Areas outlined in black indicate where trends showed strong associations with human activities. Trends are depicted in terms of average annual change in equivalent water depth.

Maybe There Was an Egg Cartel After All

For years, economists dismissed collusion as crankery and blamed bird flu for high prices. Then the feds found evidence that could prove the cranks right, and almost nobody noticed

Illustration by Claudine Hellmuth/POLITICO (iStock)

By Marcia Brown and Steve Volk10/18/2026 07:00 AM EDT

Marcia Brown is a food and agriculture reporter for POLITICO.

Steve Volk has written for Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and more.

When you see the cost of an everyday item — the kind you’re going to buy regardless of price — more than double in a year, do you get suspicious?

Manufacturing Certainty Where the Evidence Doesn't Support It Is The Definition of Political Deceit

Commentary By Yiannis Damellos and Mars Strangelove Jr. 

October 22, 2026 I Sources

  

A political advertisement can mislead voters without having to fabricate every word it contains. It can use a real person, a genuine statement, and an authentic family conflict to construct an impression that the evidence does not justify.

That is the ethical question at the heart of Vivek Ramaswamy's advertisement against Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton. The ad features Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, calling her daughter a liar. But a mother's accusation is not proof of a daughter's dishonesty, and the circumstances of a decades-long estrangement have an immediate impact when voters are asked to judge the credibility of either person.