Aggregator

"They are not the feeling this. There is no way they want to continue to be involved in this mess," said a source briefed on the collapsed deal.

Saudi Arabia Planning Major Escalation In Yemen, Possible Ground Op: Reports

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, said Thursday that there were indications Saudi Arabia was planning a major escalation in Yemen, as the war between the two sides has been reignited following the July 13 Saudi strikes on the Sanaa International Airport.

"We will work to establish the equation of siege with siege, especially since indicators reveal that the Saudis are heading toward comprehensive escalation, and we will seek God’s help against him and confront his comprehensive escalation with comprehensive escalation," al-Houthi said, according to Yemen’s SABA news agency.

The Guardian also reported on Thursday, citing Yemeni sources, that Saudi Arabia was preparing for a major escalation against Ansar Allah by sea and possibly by launching a ground offensive in central Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is looking to launch a new Red Sea coalition to keep the Bab el-Mandeb Strait open, and the Saudi Defense Ministry announced that 14 countries backed the effort. The full coalition hasn’t been released, but according to Saudi officials, it includes—

• Kuwait
• Qatar
• Bahrain
• Pakistan
• Turkey
• Egypt
• Jordan

Ansar Allah imposed a blockade on Saudi ports following the Saudi strikes on the Sanaa airport, which were meant to prevent the landing of a plane that took off from Iran and was carrying members of a Yemeni delegation that attended the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Yemeni forces have also targeted oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi military has launched additional strikes on Yemen of late.

Escalations against Ansar Allah are unlikely to achieve success since the group faced a brutal US-backed Saudi-UAE war from 2015 to 2022 and multiple US and Israeli bombing campaigns since then that failed to achieve their goals. President Trump has suggested that the US could restart bombing Yemen.

It seems that Saudi Arabia has forgotten how its army was defeated in Yemen. pic.twitter.com/jKEPPywSn9

— ابراهيم ناجي Ibrahim Naji (@Ibrahym22Nagi) July 31, 2026

Al-Houthi said in his comments on Thursday that the Yemeni people “are among the most suffering and targeted peoples by the Saudi regime within the framework of the American scheme, and in service of the Israeli enemy.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:40

Fans may think so. Analysts may think so. Opposing players may even think so. But Jeff Hafley doesn’t think 2026 is going to be a rebuilding year for the Dolphins. 

Mom's new go-to sandal.

After being selected sixth overall in last year’s NFL draft, expectations for Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty were sky-high. And why not?

The Packers tight end has been sidelined since tearing his ACL in November, but shared a positive injury update on Friday.

Trump's Jones Act Waiver Helped Avert Fuel Shortages Across These Key US Regions

The Department of Homeland Security has issued the broadest Jones Act waiver since at least the 1950s, just weeks after the US-Iran conflict erupted. The measure has allowed foreign-flagged vessels to transport fuel, crude oil, fertilizer, and other essential goods between US ports, bypassing domestic shipping restrictions to mitigate supply chain disruptions across various U.S. regions.

The Jones Act, a century-old law requiring goods transported between U.S. ports to be carried aboard U.S.-Built, US-owned, and US-crewed vessels, was immediately waived in the early days of the U.S.-Iran conflict by the Trump administration.

As of Friday, the waiver has entered its 135th day, suggesting that the administration is continuing to protect domestic supply chains and curb energy prices by temporarily easing maritime protectionist restrictions.

A recent Reuters report stated that the Trump administration was considering another extension of the waiver.

The Cato Institute's Jones Act Waiver Tracker shows that nearly 50 million barrels have been moved since the waiver took effect on March 17.

The tracker indicates that the waiver sharply expanded domestic fuel movements, allowing foreign-flagged vessels to supply regions where limited U.S. shipping capacity, high transportation costs, and vessel shortages had constrained trade.

After 135 days, waiver shipments to the West Coast totaled 13.9 million barrels, equivalent to 108% of the region’s projected full-year baseline. Puerto Rico received 5.02 million barrels, equal to 134% of its normal annual pace, while New England’s 1.25 million barrels represented an increase of 215%. Gulf Coast shipments were 426% above the projected baseline, albeit from a much smaller historical base.

The data suggest the waiver is unlocking trade routes that were previously uneconomical or unavailable under Jones Act restrictions.

The largest effects are being seen in isolated or import-dependent markets, particularly the West Coast, Puerto Rico and New England, while the impact on the well-supplied Lower Atlantic remains marginal. Cargoes have included gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, renewable diesel, propane and ammonia.

Without the waiver, import-dependent markets such as those in California would likely have faced severe fuel shortages, with gasoline prices potentially surging well above $10 per gallon. The quick action by the Trump administration and the Energy Department appears to have mitigated supply disruptions in those regions where fuel shipments expanded the most.

Recall that suspending the Jones Act was one of six policy options identified by JPMorgan’s head of commodity research, Natasha Kaneva, for how the Trump administration could contain energy costs at the pump. The latest shipment data suggest that this option has played a material role in stabilizing vulnerable regional markets.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:20

The Fourth Turning Is Here: The Old Order Is Breaking Down

Authored by Chris MacIntosh via InternationalMan.com,

In 1997, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published “The Fourth Turning,” a cyclical theory of Anglo-American history built around generational archetypes and recurring saecular rhythms of approximately 80 to 100 years — roughly the length of a long human life.

Their framework identified four “turnings,” each lasting roughly 20 to 25 years, that repeat in sequence.

The First Turning, the High, is an era of institutional confidence and community solidarity following a great crisis. The rules work, people trust them, conformity is rewarded — think the post-WWII boom, or the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

The Second Turning, the Awakening, is a spiritual and cultural awakening that challenges the institutional consensus of the High. Individualism resurges; the establishment is questioned — the consciousness revolution of the 1960s-70s, the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s-30s.

The Third Turning, the Unraveling, sees institutions weaken, individualism reach its apex, and civic order decay. Trust collapses — in government, media, corporations, each other — as it did through the Culture Wars era of the 1980s-90s, or the Gilded Age of the 1870s-90s.

The Fourth Turning, the Crisis, is a decisive era of institutional destruction and reconstruction, typically catalysed by an existential threat — war, economic collapse, or civilisational rupture. The old order is swept away; a new one is forged. The Great Depression and WWII. The Civil War. The American Revolution.

"History is seasonal, and winter is coming."

— William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997

The Current Position

By Strauss and Howe’s reckoning, the current Fourth Turning began around 2008 — the Global Financial Crisis being its catalytic spark — and will likely reach its resolution sometime in the 2025-2030 window. We are, in other words, in the heart of it. The battles being fought now — over monetary systems, institutional legitimacy, national sovereignty, and the nature of truth itself — are the defining conflicts of the crisis era.

What Fourth Turnings produce is not predictable in detail but consistent in structure: the old institutions are exposed as either corrupt or incompetent, a battle ensues between competing visions of the replacement order, and the outcome is determined by which faction can mobilise sufficient force — social, political, economic, or military — to impose its vision. The process is neither clean nor just. Fourth Turnings historically produce enormous suffering alongside the reconstruction.

The GFC was Act One: the revelation that the financial system was not a wealth-generation machine but a debt-recycling mechanism sustained by regulatory capture and central bank intervention. The quantitative easing programmes that followed — printing roughly $20 trillion across major central banks between 2008 and 2022 — bought time at the cost of massively inflating asset prices, concentrating wealth, and making the eventual reckoning worse.

Covid was Act Two: a simultaneous crisis of public health, institutional credibility, and civil liberties, weaponised by an apparatus of state control that had been building for decades and found in the pandemic a perfect justification for deployment at scale. More on this shortly.

Act Three is visible on the horizon: the currency crisis that follows years of money creation, the geopolitical realignment driven by a rising China and a fragmenting Western alliance, and the social rupture of populations that have been systematically lied to discovering the magnitude of the deception. Fourth Turnings do not end until the crisis is resolved. We have not arrived there yet.

*  *  *

If we are deep into a Fourth Turning, the years ahead could bring far greater economic, political, and social disruption than most people expect. Understanding the forces driving this shift may be essential to protecting both your wealth and your personal freedom. Our free special report, Clash of the Systems: Thoughts on Investing at a Unique Point in Time, reveals the trends now reshaping the world, the risks they create, and how a contrarian investor could position to stay one step ahead. Get instant access to Clash of the Systems.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:00

From Nazi Tats To Kissing Cousins: Maine Democrats Go Full Jerry Springer

In the span of a few weeks, Maine Democrats replaced their U.S. Senate nominee amid a cascade of personal controversies, with a guy who's been banging his 2nd cousin for years. 

Platner's Collapse

Graham Platner, a Marine Corps veteran and oyster farmer, had emerged as a progressive populist challenger to five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins. He secured the Democratic nomination in June 2026 despite a string of earlier controversies that included inflammatory Reddit posts, reports of sexually explicit texts sent to women while married, and a chest tattoo resembling the Totenkopf (a skull-and-crossbones emblem associated with Nazi SS units and concentration camp guards).

Platner said he got the tattoo in 2007 while drinking on leave in Croatia with fellow Marines and claimed he did not know its Nazi associations until the campaign. Multiple former romantic partners disputed that account, saying he had referred to it as "my Totenkopf" years earlier. Exes also described patterns of rough physical behavior, crude comments about women, and fantasies involving dominance through rape.

The decisive blow came in early July 2026, when a former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, alleged that Platner had sexually assaulted her in late 2021 while intoxicated. Platner denied the claim, calling it false. Facing pressure from party leaders and the withdrawal of key support, he suspended his campaign and formally withdrew, clearing the way for a replacement under Maine party rules.

Enter Troy Jackson

Maine Democrats moved quickly. On July 25, 2026, they selected Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from the remote Allagash area in the St. John Valley, former state Senate president, and progressive with strong union ties. Jackson had previously run for governor with support from Sen. Bernie Sanders and positioned himself as a working-class alternative. He won the special nominating process decisively and now faces Collins in a race that could influence Senate control.

Within days of Jackson's formal selection, independent reporting from The Maine Wire (followed by national coverage in the New York Post and Daily Wire) revealed that his longtime partner, Lana Pelletier - his high school sweetheart and the mother of his two adult sons, Chace and Camden - is his second cousin by blood.

Genealogical records and local knowledge show they share great-grandparents Thomas Pelletier and Edith Thibodeau:

• Jackson's maternal grandmother (Albertine Pelletier O'Leary) and Pelletier's paternal grandfather (Louis A. Pelletier Sr.) were siblings.
• This makes Jackson's mother (Colleen McBreairty) and Pelletier's father (Louis "Louie" Pelletier Jr.) first cousins.
• Therefore, Troy Jackson and Lana Pelletier are second cousins.

Via @SteveRob

 Oh... 

When your debate partner says he wants to introduce you to his wife and cousin but there’s only one person with him…. pic.twitter.com/9bqUuovFbs

— Magills (@magills_) July 31, 2026

The pair has been together for decades, raised two sons (who are simultaneously third cousins), and never obtained a marriage license. Jackson has sometimes referred to Pelletier as his wife in older materials but more often as his partner; she works as a clinical care specialist for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. The relationship has been an open secret in the small, isolated Allagash community for years.

Second-cousin relationships and marriage are legal under Maine law with no special restrictions (unlike first-cousin unions, which face additional requirements). Genetic experts generally view the increased risk of inherited disorders as negligible compared with the general population. Such pairings are not unheard of in sparsely populated rural areas with limited dating pools and deep family interconnections.

Political Optics

The sequence was immediate and unsubtle. Critics and online commentators framed it as Democrats trading one set of personal liabilities - allegations of abusive behavior toward women and a Nazi-linked tattoo - for a nominee whose domestic life involves a blood relative of the second-cousin variety.

Just caught up with Troy Jackson in DC — asked him for some dating advice since he apparently knew the right places to take his cousin

📷 @townhallcom’s @storm_paglia pic.twitter.com/PbmdKOaR6B

— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) July 31, 2026

Defenders noted that nothing illegal occurred, that the relationship predates Jackson's political career by decades, and that focusing on it distracts from policy differences with Collins.

Jackson has built his brand on authentic North Woods working-class roots. The revelation does not change the formal legality of his long-term partnership, nor does it involve any allegation of non-consent or criminality. It does, however, underscore how personal histories - whether tattoos, relationship conduct, or family trees - can rapidly dominate a high-stakes Senate race once they surface.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 16:40

Lindsay Clancy sobbed in court as an emergency room doctor described trying to save her 8-month-old son -- testimony that came after the jury visited the murder scene Friday.

Fall forward with these affordable, autumn-ready Amazon outfits.

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Despite an NFC North title and a trip to the playoffs last year, Johnson is not resting on his laurels, especially after a slight dig from Jaguars coach Liam Coen about the attention that Caleb Williams receives.

Spain announced it will deploy military units to reinforce police in the North African enclave of Ceuta after a surge of migrants crossed from Morocco by sea and breached border barriers on July 30. Video showed migrants arriving on flotation devices and pushing past overwhelmed police officers. Authorities said additional soldiers and specialized police units...

The son of storied fallen hero NYPD Det. Steven McDonald was promoted to a high-ranking role in the department's public information branch Friday — capping a “bittersweet” month, he said.

An Iran war that was supposed to be brief, and then was supposed to be over, is imposing an increasing price on Donald Trump’s presidency. 

DeAndre Hopkins is headed back to college.

On Sunday night, Giants outfielder Harrison Bader crashed his scooter into a fire truck, which subsequently ran over his injured foot. Following news that the injury will cost him the rest of his season, baseball fans have been relentless towards San Francisco Giants outfielder on social media. Giants manager Tony Vitello confirmed on Thursday night...

Long Beach is building up a giant wall of sand to defend against rising ocean tides as massive waves continue to pound the California coast. Video footage captured crews using heavy equipment to build up protective sand berms along the shoreline as powerful surf generated by Hurricane Genevieve rolled toward Southern California. City crews use...

Deja Coleman, 29, of Lawrenceville, locked the 1-year-old in her car in the parking lot of Northside Hospital Gwinnett Wednesday, until another employee spotted the toddler's lifeless body slumped in the seat, the Lawrenceville Police Department said at a press conference Thursday, which was relayed by WJCL.