READ. SCROLL. LISTEN.

Original briefings. Zero spin.

Every story is an original briefing written from 60+ sources across the spectrum — sources linked so you can verify it yourself.

us defense 7 9m ago 4 min read

Trump Orders Navy to Rip Out Electromagnetic Catapults, Go Back to Steam on Newest Carrier

Trump signed a memo Thursday ordering the Navy to strip the electromagnetic launch system off the future USS Doris Miller and replace it with steam catapults and hydraulic elevators. The carrier is already about halfway built with the new system installed, and General Atomics says the switch will cost billions and add years of delay. This is a nine-year grudge turning into policy, and the bill is coming due.

L
R Slight Right
8 sources
us health 7 15m ago 4 min read

22.6% of U.S. Students Chronically Absent in 2025, Down From Pandemic Peak but Still Far Above Pre-Covid Levels

Nearly a quarter of American students missed at least 10% of the school year in 2025, according to the American Enterprise Institute. That's better than the 2022 peak of 28.3%, but the improvement is slowing, and researchers say the districts hit hardest are the same ones struggling most academically. This is a five-year failure to get kids back in classrooms, and nobody in charge has fixed it.

L
R Slight Right
2 sources
us tech 6 42m ago 4 min read

Apple Warns iPhone Users in 110 Countries They May Be Targeted by Government Spyware

Apple sent a fresh round of mercenary spyware threat notifications on Thursday, August 13, hitting users in 110 countries and pushing its total reach past 150 countries since the alerts began in 2021. This time the warning lands as a Lock Screen push notification instead of an easy-to-miss email, and if you get one, act on it immediately.

L
R Center
6 sources
in economy 5 49m ago 3 min read

Uber and Rapido Held Merger Talks in May, Deal Collapsed Over Who Would Run India Operations

Uber and Rapido explored merging their India ride-hailing businesses in May, but the talks fell apart when neither side would give up control, according to the Economic Times. Uber wanted Rapido's team to run the combined company while keeping its India presence; Rapido wanted to effectively buy Uber's India business outright.

L
R Center
1 source
us politics 5 1h ago 3 min read

Farage Wins Clacton By-Election He Called on Himself, Skips the Count Over Disputed Police Warning

Nigel Farage won back his own seat in a by-election he triggered to deflect scrutiny over an undeclared 5 million pound donation. He got barely 1,000 more votes than in 2024, beat a man dressed as a bin, then skipped the count over a police threat Essex Police says it never issued. The finance investigation resumes regardless.

L
R Leans Right
6 sources
us finance 4 1h ago 4 min read

T. Rowe Price Bled $8.2 Billion More in July as AUM Slips From June Peak

T. Rowe Price closed July with $1.87 trillion under management, down from $1.893 trillion in June, after posting another $8.2 billion in client outflows. It's the latest sign that even a firm with genuinely strong long-term performance numbers can't stop the bleeding when investors keep choosing index funds and lower-fee alternatives over active management.

L
R Center
3 sources
us tech 6 1h ago 4 min read

OpenAI and Google Both Roll Out Ultrafast AI Models the Same Day, as OpenAI's Revenue Run Rate Hits $40 Billion

OpenAI launched a preview mode called Ultrafast that runs GPT-5.6 Sol at 14x normal speed using Cerebras chips, the same day Google shipped Gemini 3.7 Flash to general availability. The timing lands right as Bloomberg reports OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate has doubled to $40 billion ahead of a planned IPO. Speed is now a selling point on par with raw capability, and both companies are racing to prove it before Wall Street starts asking hard questions about the cash burn behind it.

L
R Slight Left
5 sources
us sports 4 1h ago 3 min read

Seahawks Sign Terrion Arnold to One-Year Deal While He Faces Eight Felony Charges

The reigning Super Bowl champion Seahawks are working on a contract with cornerback Terrion Arnold days after his arraignment on kidnapping and armed robbery charges tied to a February attack in Tampa. Arnold denies wrongdoing, but he'll still face the NFL's Commissioner's Exempt List and a case that carries a potential life sentence.

L
R Center
7 sources
us defense 8 2h ago 2 min read

Pentagon Has Lost 45 MQ-9 Reaper Drones Since Iran War Began, Officials Confirm

The U.S. has lost roughly a quarter of its Reaper drone fleet since Operation Epic Fury started against Iran, according to three officials who spoke to the Washington Post. The tab could top $1.3 billion, and it's the latest sign the war is burning through munitions and hardware faster than U.S. industry can rebuild them.

L
R Slight Left
6 sources
us finance 5 2h ago 4 min read

Reddit Shares Jump 12% After S&P 500 Inclusion Announced, Stock Still Down 31% This Year

Reddit will join the S&P 500 on August 18, replacing AvalonBay Communities, and the stock popped as much as 12.6% in after-hours trading. Index funds have to buy shares to match the change, but the company's underlying problem, its dependence on Google search traffic, hasn't gone anywhere.

L
R Center
8 sources
us politics 4 2h ago 2 min read

Trump's Immigration Crackdown Runs on Executive Orders, Not Congress. That's the Real Story.

A New Jersey outlet compared former President Trump's immigration policies to the 1920s quota era, but the more important fact is how these changes are happening: through executive action rather than legislation passed by Congress.

L
R Slight Right
1 source
cn defense 5 3h ago 4 min read

China's Science Foundation Announces Rare Earth Research Program With Iran

China's National Natural Science Foundation is funding joint workshops with Iran on rare earth exploration, about $4,200 per session, according to reporting from the South China Morning Post. The scope is tiny, but the timing is not: Beijing is doing this weeks before Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet Trump over trade, and while Iran remains under heavy U.S. sanctions.

L
R Center
1 source
us finance 4 3h ago 3 min read

Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund Discloses $82 Million Stake in Ethereum Hoarder BitMine

Norges Bank's Government Pension Fund Global disclosed a $81.87 million stake in BitMine Immersion Technologies, a company that holds nearly 5% of all Ethereum in circulation. The fund hasn't explained why, and it likely doesn't have to, since this is one small slice of a portfolio worth $1.7 trillion.

L
R Center
1 source
us defense 7 3h ago 4 min read

CIA Doubted Israeli Warning Behind Trump's Secret Turkey Plane Switch

Reuters and the Washington Post have reported that CIA analysts viewed an Israeli-sourced warning of an Iranian assassination plot against Trump as low-confidence and uncorroborated. The Secret Service moved Trump to an alternate aircraft in Ankara anyway, and Turkish intelligence says it found no evidence backing the threat either.

L
R Slight Right
6 sources
us health 6 4h ago 4 min read

CDC Study Finds Lyme Disease Ticks Have Spread Deep Into North Carolina

A CDC-backed study found nearly 40% of adult blacklegged ticks in a North Carolina mountain town carry Lyme disease bacteria, a rate matching the Northeast. Doctors in the South, trained to treat Lyme as a rare import, aren't ready for it.

L
R Center
2 sources
us economy 7 4h ago 3 min read

Brazil Opens Formal Process to Retaliate Against U.S. Tariffs

Brazil's government notified Washington on Thursday, August 13, that it's beginning a reciprocity review over the 25% and 12.5% U.S. tariffs hitting Brazilian goods. It's a procedural first step, not a retaliation yet, but Lula's government is teeing up options that go well past tariffs, including patent suspensions on American drugs.

L
R Slight Right
6 sources
us health 8 4h ago 4 min read

HHS Refers Over 200 Hospitals and Clinics to DOJ Over Pediatric Gender Care Billing Codes

HHS released a report Thursday claiming hospitals used insurance codes for conditions like precocious puberty and endocrine disorders to bill for pediatric gender treatments, and referred more than 200 institutions to the DOJ and HHS Inspector General. No charges have been filed and no investigation findings exist yet, but the billing questions raised deserve real scrutiny.

L
R Leans Right
4 sources
us politics 6 5h ago 4 min read

State Department Task Force Has Revoked Over 600 Visas in Birth Tourism Crackdown

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says a new Birth Tourism Prevention Task Force pulled more than 600 visas in one month, targeting networks that coach foreigners to game the U.S. visa system for citizenship. The move runs alongside Trump's broader immigration enforcement push, which Democrats and immigrant-advocacy groups say is causing real harm to families, while a Supreme Court ruling already blocked his bigger birthright citizenship order.

L
R Slight Left
4 sources
us energy 6 5h ago 4 min read

DOE Kills Three Biden-Era Transmission Corridors, Including One Through Nebraska Reservations

Energy Secretary Chris Wright scrapped three National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors first designated in December 2024, calling the process a vehicle for a climate agenda that ignored local communities. Environmental groups call it a retreat from badly needed grid upgrades, while critics on both sides say the whole federal designation system is broken regardless of who runs it.

L
R Slight Right
6 sources
us health 8 5h ago 3 min read

Colombia Joins U.S.-Led Counter-Cartel Coalition, Opening Door to Joint Military Strikes

Colombia formally signed onto the Shield of the Americas coalition this week, a coalition now covering 19 countries against drug cartels and designated terrorist groups. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the deal opens the door to joint U.S.-Colombia strikes on groups like FARC dissidents and the ELN, a major shift for a country that has resisted U.S. military involvement on its soil for years.

L
R Slight Right
1 source