Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

China just broke ground on a revolutionary new hybridized energy production and storage facility. The power plant will store excess energy in the form of molten salt, and then produce electricity during peak demand times through a supercritical carbon dioxide system. The goal of the project is to limit energy waste while also stabilizing the local power grid. The project could also inform future next-gen energy and energy storage systems, including for application in the nuclear power sector and even on the moon.

Construction of the Ruitan demonstration project began last week in Shandong province in eastern China. The facility is expected to be up and running by next year, at which point it will be the first of its kind to operate on the planet. The first phase of the project will involve a supercritical unit with a capacity of 50 megawatts, and a molten salt energy storage system with a 100 megawatt capacity.

The facility is being built on the site of an existing coal-fired plant, the Bajiao power station in Yantai. The new system will capture surplus energy from the coal plant when demand is low and store it in the form of thermal energy within a molten salt reactor. Then, at peak demand hours, that thermal energy will be used to power a supercritical unit that uses carbon dioxide to spin a turbine to create electricity, instead of using steam like a traditional power plant. The carbon dioxide is held under very specific temperature and pressure ranges, at which point the molecules behave like both a liquid and a gas and can power a closed-loop system.

Supercritical carbon dioxide units offer several critical advantages. “These plants are smaller than traditional units, do not require water, have higher power generation efficiency and produce fewer carbon emissions,” reports the South China Morning Post. Moreover, they are highly adjustable and more agile than traditional power plants.

The experimental site is just one of a huge number of cutting edge and next-gen clean energy technologies being developed and deployed across China. The country is currently home to the biggest and fastest-growing clean energy tech sector on the planet, with research and development of new methods on the rise at an astonishing pace. In 2000, Chinese companies filed approximately 5 percent of the world’s clean energy patent applications. By 2022, that figure was 75 percent.

“Accused for years of copying the technologies of other countries, China now dominates the renewable energy landscape not just in terms of patent filings and research papers, but in what analysts say are major contributions that will help to move the world away from fossil fuels,” the New York Times wrote in an August 2025 report.

This assertive approach has helped China to rapidly establish itself as the world’s first electrostate. Between the years 2019 and 2025, China outspent the rest of the world combined on energy energy investing, contributing more than half of the $1.1 trillion invested globally. By comparison, the United States, the world’s largest economy, saw a relatively paltry $236 billion in clean energy investing. This has given China unprecedented reach and leverage in global clean energy markets. Thanks to the extreme concentration of clean energy manufacturing and development in China, the rest of the world is reliant on Chinese technologies to enable their own clean energy buildout.

And when it comes to energy storage, the United States is moving backward. In an attempt to wean U.S. markets off of Chinese clean energy supply chains, the Trump administration recently ordered a ban on using Chinese-made batteries in utility-scale energy storage systems. However, the vague wording of the executive order has left developers in limbo, while barring U.S. companies from buying affordable Chinese-made batteries may kneecap capacity additions in the short term.

While the technology being developed at Ruitan cannot directly compete with battery storage and will likely never make up a huge segment of the energy storage system, it is one piece of an all-of-the-above approach to energy tech that has allowed Beijing to establish what will likely be lasting energy dominance on a global scale.

The Ansar Allah movement, commonly called the Houthis, have remained the most recognizable name and force in Yemen of late, but lesser known among many headline consumers is the country’s internationally recognized government, which is directly backed by the Saudis and recognized by the United Nations.

Rashid Al-Alimi, ​president of the ‘legitimate’ government based out of Sanaa, ‌on Friday called ​on ‌all Yemenis to ⁠mobilize and join the armed ⁠forces against the Houthi rebels’ onslaught.

The general call to arms, coupled with a declaration of ​future ‌general ‌amnesty to any Houthi fighters who decide to lay down their weapons and defect – suggests that the Saudi-backed coalition seeks desperate measures.

“I call upon the sons of our great people to engage in general mobilization and national mobilization, to rally around their armed and security forces,” Al-Alimi, who is also Supreme Commander of the Yemeni Armed Forces, said in a speech.

Things quickly went from bad to worse for Riyadh on the Yemen front this month, especially after Houthi rapid gains along the Red Sea coast.

After some direct drone or missile hits on the East-West pipeline earlier in September (which may have been Iraqi Shia militias, per US officials), Saudi Aramco told European refineries that it would cancel crude shipments in October. But Reuters has since reported that the pipeline has restarted.

The Saudis are currently trying to rally support from Mecca Defense Pact allies Pakistan and Turkey, though its anything but clear how much support these will actually commit.

In the midst of all this, somewhat unexpectedly, French President Emmanuel Macron declared he would send “military means” to help shield the vital Yanbu oil terminal from Houthi attacks – though it’s unclear what precise difference a handful of ground units might make.

More Houthi ballistic missiles were launched on Saudi Arabia this week:

🇫🇷🇸🇦🇾🇪 L’Arabie saoudite a dit avoir intercepté une attaque de missiles tirés du #Yémen voisin par les Houthis pro-iraniens. Les défenses aériennes ont abattu six missiles visant les régions de Taïf et de Yanbu.

👉 Emmanuel #Macron a déclaré y envoyer des “moyens militaires”… pic.twitter.com/P76NzF7RIy

— FRANCE 24 Français (@France24_fr) September 25, 2026

“We are going to send military resources, that is to say, soldiers, radar systems and defense systems, to protect this site,” but “not to get us involved in any conflicts,” Macron informed French media.

But instead they could just find themselves in the direct line of fire for Houthi projectiles.

Authored by News Desk via The Cradle,

China has sent Iran around 1,300 shipments of missile and drone parts this year through the end of June, as the Islamic Republic faced a brutal US-Israeli campaign against it, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 23 September.

One of the shipments arrived the same day the April ceasefire was announced, according to Iranian customs data cited by the outlet.

It carried a shipment for the Iranian Defense Ministry that included electronic components used to make parts for drones and missile guidance systems.

Another Chinese shipment two days later carried drone parts for Iran, worth more than $6 million, according to WSJ.

WSJ writes that there has been a surge in Chinese cargo flights to Iran over the past year, coinciding with several new Iranian warnings.

Tehran’s military recently said it received intelligence of upcoming US attacks.

After the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, Hebrew media began expressing concern over Chinese military support for Iran.

The concern lay with Chinese-Iranian cooperation on the manufacture of surface-to-surface missiles, Yedioth Ahronoth said in August last year.

Since the start of the latest illegal war by Washington and Tel Aviv, Iran has inflicted unprecedented damage on US military installations across the region.

Israel, which uses heavy military censorship to cover up losses, was also heavily targeted.

The Islamic Republic recently warned that new weapons will be used in the event of a renewed escalation by the US or Israel.

“Iran is prepared for a prolonged war,” said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi this week.

He added that “If a new aggression takes place, there will definitely be significant changes in our defense and our counteroffensive.”

“We will definitely bring new weapons with new capabilities into the battlefield, and the world will be surprised,” Mohebbi went on to say. “We will definitely change the geography of the war.”

An SR-71 Blackbird parked for years on an outdoor display at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is no longer visible in commercial satellite imagery, and the agency has offered no public explanation of where it went.

The spy aircraft, the NASA 844, has been absent from its pad since at least May 17, according to Aviation Week.

Sources told the publication that the plane was moved into a hangar earlier this year for an inspection, though NASA has not described what that inspection involves, why it is taking place, or how long it will last.

The Serial 61-7980 was the last SR-71 built and the last to fly, completing its final flight in 1999 after the Air Force had already retired the type and NASA had retained a few surviving airframes for high-speed research.

Lockheed Martin produced 32 of the reconnaissance aircraft, 12 of which were lost in accidents and none to enemy action.

Questions about the disappearance of the SR-71 come a week after NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman discussed plans for a new high-altitude, high-speed X-plane and displayed images of silhouette that closely resembled a Blackbird at annual the All-In Summit in Los Angeles. 

“In the service of the first A [aeronautics] in NASA, we are rebuilding our X-plane fleet. The X-59 is researching quiet supersonic flight, but it’s just the beginning,” the NASA head told attendees.

“As NASA recommits to flight test and works alongside industry to push the boundaries of airframe and propulsion design, it will not be long before NASA once again is flying as high and as fast as we had in decades past, and then even more.”

Asked whether the image was an SR-71, Isaacman quiped, “You sure that’s a Blackbird?” and declined to elaborate. 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge in Oklahoma on Sept. 24 blocked the state from using religion as an automatic bar to a charter application, allowing a proposed Jewish virtual school to keep seeking approval after officials rejected it because of its faith.

U.S. District Judge David Russell granted a preliminary injunction to the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, after the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, citing state law and the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s 2024 Drummond decision, denied the application because the school would be religious. The order does not approve the school or allow it to open. It only stops the board from treating religious character as a disqualifier while the case proceeds.

The ruling in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond involved a different school. In June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the board to cancel its contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The state court held that the Catholic school was effectively a governmental entity and that the contract violated the Oklahoma Constitution’s ban on “using public money for the benefit or support of any religious institution.”

Because it treated the charter school as a state actor, the court also said denying it charter status did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s free exercise clause.

The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked 4–4 in the Drummond case last year. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. The tie left the state decision in place but did not establish a national precedent. How the individual justices voted was not disclosed.

The new ruling is the first federal court order to treat Oklahoma’s nonsectarian charter rule as a free exercise violation after that deadlock.

Ben Gamla is a separate applicant. It never received a contract. The foundation applied for a virtual Jewish charter; the board rejected the application. Board attorneys from First Liberty Institute said the board wanted to follow the First Amendment but believed Oklahoma law and the Drummond state court ruling forbade approval. The board did not oppose the injunction and argued in favor of it. Two groups of intervening taxpayers and charter school families did oppose it.

Russell held that once Oklahoma opens a generally available charter program, it cannot exclude applicants because they are religious.

The nonsectarian requirement in the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act “expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character and in doing so, violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” the judge said.

Russell held that Carson v. Makin (2022) governs the dispute.

In both that case and this one, “the state created a generally available benefit: the opportunity to apply for and contract with a sponsor to establish a charter school. But the state categorically excludes religious institutions from participating. As Carson plainly stated, ‘[t]hat is discrimination against religion.’”

The injunction is temporary. Ben Gamla still needs the board to approve a charter on the remaining statutory criteria. Intervenors have said they will keep fighting the claim that a public charter may be religious.

Counsel at First Liberty, Holly Randall, hailed the new court ruling.

“We’re grateful the court answered this important question of the law and agreed that enforcing a religious prohibition is a violation of the United States Constitution,” Randall said in a statement.

Daniel Chen, an attorney for Ben Gamla at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said the ruling makes sure his client “now gets what it should have had from the start: a fair shot to serve Oklahoma families.”

“The Constitution doesn’t permit the state to welcome every kind of charter school except a religious one,” he said.

Attorneys for the intervenors at groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union expressed disappointment over the ruling, saying it marked “a dangerous sea change for our democracy.”

“We will continue ⁠to fight for all Oklahomans, who deserve public schools that are secular and open to all students,” they said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Authored by Felix Ng via Cointelegraph,

The estimated computational cost to prepare a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has fallen below $67 after a week of optimization, down from the roughly $320 spent on the first such mainnet transaction in August, according to StarkWare.

The results came after participants in the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge found ways to push down the GPU computation needed to build a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction.

The reduction could make the experimental defense (which doesn’t require changes to the network’s consensus rules) against future quantum attacks more practical for Bitcoin holders. However, the latest optimizations have only been demonstrated in benchmark tests.

“A construction that costs a few hundred dollars per transaction is a demo. One that costs $67 is closer to something a holder with a large unexposed balance might reach for in an emergency,” StarkWare wrote in its Sept. 23 update. The dashboard now shows the estimated cost has dropped to $66.

Quantum-Safe Bitcoin an “emergency” solution

StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy published the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) design in April, outlining a way to add hash-based protection against quantum attacks without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules. At the time, he described it as a “last resort measure” due to costs, complexity and limited applicability, while continuing to advocate for protocol-level changes.

According to StarkWare, the first QSB transaction was mined and confirmed on Aug. 26, with engineering work from Tomer Giladi and direct submission through MARA’s Slipstream service. Preparing it required approximately 3,100 GPU-hours across roughly 100 GPUs, at a compute cost of about $320, excluding Bitcoin network fees.

To find ways to bring that cost down, StarkWare, Yukon Research and Eigen Labs launched the QSB challenge on Sept. 16, inviting developers, researchers and AI agents to make the transaction-building software faster and more efficient.

In its latest update, StarkWare said the challenge produced 62 accepted improvements across two computational tasks needed to prepare a QSB transaction. According to StarkWare, this ended up cutting the estimated computing cost by about 79%, based on benchmark tests.

The development comes amid increasing concern that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could break the elliptic-curve digital signatures used by Bitcoin, potentially allowing attackers to steal coins whose public keys are exposed.

Researchers are developing quantum-resistant protections, including QSB. However, StarkWare said it still favors a soft fork – a change to Bitcoin’s consensus rules – as a better “long-term answer” for broad quantum protection on Bitcoin.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Supreme Court on Sept. 25 said the Trump administration can use an updated immigration database to verify the citizenship of voters.

A majority of justices agreed to stay pending the outcome of an appeal of a June order from a federal judge that barred the use of a revamped database called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.

U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan had found that federal officials were violating the privacy rights of American citizens by disclosing the citizenship status and Social Security numbers, among other data, in the restructured database. She vacated the 2025 update, which connected Social Security information to the system.

A federal appeals court later upheld the decision.

Trump administration officials then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing in a Sept. 8 brief that the order “threatens the integrity of upcoming elections by vacating the federal government’s authority to internally use Social Security data when fulfilling its duty to respond to requests by states to verify the citizenship of individuals for voting and other purposes.”

Six justices sided with the administration. In a per curiam opinion, they said that claims from the organizations that sued over the updated database “likely lack merit,” including the allegation that federal officials are violating federal laws, because Congress authorized the Department of Homeland Security to request and receive citizenship information and immigration status from other agencies, including the Social Security Administration, in a 1996 statute called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

The majority also said that keeping in place the prohibition “inhibits the Federal Government’s efforts to assist state and local agencies.”

States regularly use the system. Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden recently said the state in the fall of 2025 ran the names of its 18 million registered voters through the database and identified 2,724 people who may be noncitizens.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

They said that connecting the database to the Social Security Administration’s data did not fit under the “strict limits” imposed by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and that the law did not override other statutes such as the Privacy Act that organizations say the administration violated.

“The harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the nonexistent harm that the Government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take,” Jackson wrote.

“This imbalance, along with the Government’s improbable merits arguments, should have compelled the Court to deny the stay.”

The White House and a lawyer representing the organizations did not immediately return requests for comment.

Summary

• Tehran denes reports of ‘technical talks’ after it proposed 7-day roadmap to end the war and (eventually) restart nuclear talks.

• Hormuz reopening discussed in exchange for US concessions in NY, including lifting the blockade. 

• Tehran seeks sanctions relief, declares will hold to conditions, including restored oil exports and access to frozen funds.

• US-Iran talks reportedly show progress, with Qatar helping bridge differences.

• Escalation risk remains: Iran threatens a broader response – to ‘spread war to Indian Ocean’ if attacked again.

The Friday Afternoon Denial

Via state media Fars:

Axios and Al Jazeera’s claim about Iran-US talks denied, reports Fars; News regarding another round of talks is false, and claims technical experts from Iran were sent to NY to join the talks, is untrue

This was either the result of more premature or false Axios reporting, or else there’s a possible in strategy divergence between IRGC vs. presidential delegation in New York.

‘Technical Talks’

Are we back to headline ping-pong pushing down oil prices?

Latest: Iran-US negotiations in New York have moved beyond initial diplomatic contacts into a more detailed technical phase, with sources in Tehran describing the atmosphere as increasingly positive, CBS reports, citing Al Jazeera.

And an official Iranian caution, or possibly even brush off, in reaction… Tehran signaling it intends to stick by its original conditions:

Senior Iranian official says Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, no nuclear talks with US until Iran’s conditions are met, Reuters reports, citing sources; Iran will make no concessions on its nuclear program

AJ: A US official told Al Jazeera says Washington is in a strong position and controls the Strait of Hormuz, therefore we are not in a hurry to reach an agreement with Iran

For a rehash of what’s played out over the last 24 hours on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting:

• Iran’s proposed seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the US drops its blockade is being discussed as an accelerated version of a previously discussed 60-day process, and would include urgent measures to get both countries back into direct negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.
• The key Iranian demands under discussion include sanctions relief, the lifting of restrictions on oil exports and access to frozen Iranian funds.
• The two sides also continue to discuss arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz, including whether Iran and Oman could return to a form of joint management under an agreed framework involving regional countries and the United States, as well as arrangements governing the passage of US vessels.
• Despite the outstanding issues, sources in Tehran characterised the negotiations as making some progress, with talks continuing and Qatar working to bridge differences between the two sides.

Also, President Trump has just said he discussed the Iran conflict with China’s Xi.

And crude tumbles…

BUT…

Independent Iranian Journliast Ghaderi reiterates that the narrative presented by some US media is incomplete

A few key points about the latest status of negotiations between #Iran and #America, that show the window for diplomacy is closing. I reiterate that the narrative presented by some US media is incomplete.👇 pic.twitter.com/zWriFfoorf

— Mohammad Ghaderi | محمد قادری (@ghaderi62) September 25, 2026

7-Day Roadmap Proposed

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi has newly proposed to the US side a seven-day roadmap aimed at ending the war, while the top Iranian delegation is still in New York City engaged in deep diplomacy on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Aragchi is said to be planning to stay through the weekend while waiting on a US response to the plan. So far it seems Tehran hasn’t backed down from its core conditions, and its roadmap proposal is said to closely parallel the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by President Trump back in June, but which has since completely collapsed. The plan is new but is still being largely seen as just repackaged.

Q: Will you give up the 60% enriched uranium?

Pezeshkian: Yes, within the framework of international law, based on the Nonproliferation Treaty. Whatever we are supposed to adhere to, we will. pic.twitter.com/6v9WqG9AMP

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 24, 2026

“Araghchi stressed that Iran was ready to begin putting the plan into effect as soon as Washington agreed to it,” Al Jazeera reports.

Interestingly, also last night Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told journalists, “We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections.” He added: “We wish Americans to return to the MoU before the midterms.” Here’s where things stand in terms of Iran’s position being represented in New York:

• Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz can reopen if certain conditions are met by the US and that it would be better to implement before the Midterms, according to a Sky reporter.
• IRGC spokesperson warned in the event of another attack, Iran’s method of defence will change including geography of the confrontation, the type of equipment and weapons used, and targets in defensive operations in line with new conditions.

This contradicted Trump’s words given to the UN General Assembly during his speech. He said “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly had in follow-up to Trump’s address said, “The President is courageously ensuring that such an evil country never possesses a nuclear weapon, which will make the entire world safer and more stable.”

Iran has said it will not be ‘bullied’ – but Pezeshkian appears to be offering something on the nuclear front alongside this seven-day roadmap overture, or at least according to a future timeline assuming a ceasefire is agreed to.

He explained in a Fox interview that in accord the framework of international law, Iran could give eventually up highly enriched uranium. But he was also fundamentally using the moment to highlight who is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – Israel.

Packaging is new but what’s inside is basically the offer that’s been on the table for weeks: It’s a return to the MOU, just on a compressed timetable

But the message from both Washington and diplomats in the region has been that Trump isn’t interested in returning to the MOU…

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) September 25, 2026

Pezeshkian further said it was up to the United States to choose when the war would end. “It’s America that must choose whether it wants to end this or not,“ Pezeshkian said in response to a question by Fox’s Bret Baier.

Tehran has meanwhile said it is ready to escalate, and even spread the war beyond the Persian Gulf region, into the Indian Ocean for example (where the UK-US have the Diego Garcia base).

Further UNGA Highlights

Recap of some of the highlights from the UN this week, via Middle East Eye:

• The US-Israeli war on Iran and the Israel-Palestine conflict continued to occupy prime positions on the fourth day of the UN General Assembly. Somali President Mohamed Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said his country was “suffering” as a result of the US-Israeli war, which has driven up the price of energy and food. Meanwhile, European Union Council president said the EU supports efforts to “find a solution to the conflict”. He added that “freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz must be preserved without conditions and without hindrance”.

• Crown Prince of Kuwait Sabah Al Khaled condemned the “illegal Iranian aggression” in his address to the UN Security Council on Thursday. Kuwait was one of the Gulf states hardest hit by Iran in retaliation for the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic. Kuwait is home to tens of thousands of US troops and military bases. US facilities in Kuwait were attacked along with civilian sites like Kuwait airport and energy infrastructure.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a pugnacious speech at the United Nations General Assembly, attacking everyone from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the leaders of Western Europe, as he tried to counter Israel’s growing international isolation. 

• Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters took up positions around the UN headquarters before Netanyahu’s arrival and continued protesting while he spoke inside. Support for Palestinian statehood and disappointment over the ongoing attacks on Gaza were repeatedly brought up during the event.

• Vice President of Yemen Abdullah Abdulkader al-Alimi-Bawzer condemned the Houthis in his address to the UN General Assembly and tried to rally the global community to help fight the group. He said the government of Yemen had supported a peace initiative backed by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Oman, while the Houthis rejected it and “instead escalated their actions in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb to serve an Iranian agenda”.

Overnight Developments Recap

via Newsquawk

• Iran Foreign Minister Araghchi said Iran presented a proposal to US through mediators this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart negotiations towards a final deal, while it called for US to meet certain conditions within 7 days, according to CNN.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said in Fox News interview that Iran does not want a nuclear bomb. They reached an agreement with the US President that was signed, and are still ready to move forward based on the same principles, adds it wasn’t Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and it was open. They didn’t seek war and that it was imposed on them, while they don’t seek war but will defend themselves. They didn’t start the war but will respond decisively.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said Iran is ready for an agreement with the US and makes demands only within the framework of international law and could give up highly enriched uranium if it reaches an agreement with the US, according to TASS.
• Iran’s President Pezeshkian said Tehran wants to revive its ceasefire memorandum of understanding with the US before the November midterm elections, saying Iran does not want talks delayed until after the vote. said:. Iran is open to inspections of its nuclear facilities and denies that Tehran is seeking to assassinate President Trump or his family.
• Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz can reopen if certain conditions are met by the US and that it would be better to implement before the Midterms, according to a Sky reporter.
• IRGC spokesperson warned in the event of another attack, Iran’s method of defence will change including geography of the confrontation, the type of equipment and weapons used, and targets in defensive operations in line with new conditions.
• Iranian Brigadier General Sheikh said “we seek to expand our capabilities and reconsider our tactics and technologies”, via Al Mayadeen.
• Sources say a return to the June 18 memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US is no longer sought by either side, with both seeking amendments to some clauses, further complicating negotiations, Al-Akhbar reported.
• Pakistan’s Defence Minister said intensive efforts are underway to establish a mechanism for ending the conflict as quickly as possible and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to Tasnim.

* * *

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The nation’s cybersecurity agency released its election infrastructure security plan on Thursday, ahead of the November midterms set for Nov. 3.

The 13-page document outlines potential threats to voting systems and lists no-cost services that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) offers state and local officials.

“In July of this year, Secretary Mullin tasked CISA with developing the Election Infrastructure Security Plan, which had been developed to help partners defend against cyber and physical threats to election infrastructure,” it reads.

“Election security is not a partisan issue. Election security is national security.”

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had initially said the plan would be published by mid-August.

CISA, created in 2018 under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has warned states about foreign threats.

The new plan warns of software flaws, voter registration database hacks, insider threats, and physical risks like bomb threats that hit some polling places in 2024.

“Many longstanding election practices such as handling ballots in bipartisan teams of two, allowing observers to be present during ballot counting, and maintaining chain-of-custody procedures—were specifically designed to reduce the likelihood and impact of insider threats,” the plan reads.

It says longstanding practices can handle most of those problems.

“Use paper ballots that can be easily reviewed to ensure transparency, auditability, and resilience against software failures or manipulation,” the report reads.

The goal, the document states, is “to ensure the American people can trust voting systems and know that physical safety measures will be in place when they go to their assigned polling locations to cast their votes.”

It also says DHS has “consistently supported CISA’s delivery of cybersecurity and physical security services to election officials.”

The plan names no specific 2026 threats from Russia, Iran, or China.

China-Made Voting Parts

However, Mullin did say in a letter released on Aug. 27 that parts of many voting machines used in the United States are made in China.

“Voting machines with components manufactured by foreign adversaries introduce significant security risks,” Mullin said. “These vulnerabilities mean that malicious actors could potentially compromise election infrastructure at any stage of the supply chain, even before the machines are assembled or deployed. If a component is tampered with during manufacturing, it could serve as a point-of-entry for hackers, allowing for the possibility of synchronized attacks across multiple machines and jurisdictions.”

In July, the heads of four U.S. intelligence and national security agencies backed key aspects of President Donald Trump’s claim that China engaged in election interference by targeting American voter registration data.

A fact sheet released at the time by the White House Government Transparency Task Force states that China and its proxies bought, stole, or hacked voter data belonging to as many as 220 million Americans, including some information that was not publicly available.

The fact sheet notes that, for a foreign country’s actions to amount to “election interference,” they do not have to change the actual results.

“That definition includes a foreign power’s targeting of voter registration infrastructure or data,” the task force states, citing declassified documents produced by the U.S. intelligence community.

The mass conservative boycott against woke companies and far-left content has been wildly successful.  While the political left has repeatedly attempted such boycotts and “cancellations” over the years, not one has ever been as effective as the “Chud” revolution against woke media.  

It took a few years (along with a slowdown in outside funding from ESG programs and venture capital), but some of the biggest corporations in the world have been forced to acknowledge that ideological content just isn’t working.  The much vaunted “modern audience” that progressive stalwarts bragged about failed to materialize.  It was always a myth.  It never existed. 

These businesses killed their own bottom line and alienated long-time customers in the name of a bizarre cult religion representing a small portion of the global population.  And even more embarrassing for companies like Bungie, those weirdos don’t spend much money on video games anyway. 

The Bungie game studio achieved widespread acclaim with early installments of the Halo series, a direct competitor to Call Of Duty.  But, around 2014-2016, something changed.  The company started listening to the Twitter mob (a leftist echo chamber) and began hiring clucking broods of woke developers. 

Bungie integrated LGBT, DEI and feminist propaganda into their games.  Their senior narrative designer publicly defended the notorious Sweet Baby Inc., a woke consultation group known for “terrorizing” gaming companies into injecting woke content into their products.  Though, there is no direct evidence that Sweet Baby Inc. ever consulted for Bungie. 

To summarize the attitude of these people: They insist that they be able to “see themselves” in every media product, to the detriment of everyone else.  

The homosexual fantasies and trans delusions of developers were forced into character stories and designs.  The women got uglier and more masculine.  The men were more feminine and fruity.  Characters that were never gay were retconned and turned gay.  The minority pie chart was on full display and white straight men were quickly phased out. 

Bungie’s Destiny 2 ultimately collapsed and Marathon was a disaster for the studio leading to mass player walkouts.  Sony took a $765M impairment on Bungie in FY2025, tied to Destiny 2’s slide and Marathon’s launch quarter (That is the company admitting the portfolio is worth a lot less than they paid).   

Finally, this week, the truth came out – Bungie is facing disaster, so much so that they posted a video “apologizing” to their gamer customers. 

However, veiled in a flurry of corporate-speak is a refusal to admit what the real problem is; the real reason why they failed.  At no point does Bungie admit that their company was destroyed by woke ideology.  At no point do they admit “Get Woke, Go Broke” was right all along. 

Instead, they pretend to offer an olive branch while barrelling ahead with games like Marathon that are already catastrophic failures.  Games that no one wants to play and will never want to play.  They say they want to listen to their customers, but not really.  Their customers are telling them to cleanse the company of wokeness, but they won’t even acknowledge that wokeness is the original source of the problem. 

We have seen this time and time again with desperate media companies seeking a reprieve from the boycotts; they beg the audience to come back, they might even fire a bunch of their activist employees, but they never admit that progressive cultism poisoned their relationship with their customers.  

Until these companies are willing to do this, there is really no reason to give them another chance.  Until they face the truth and renounce the woke cult, it is perhaps better if they are allowed to die so they can be replaced by someone better.