President Trump privately met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backstage at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, after Altman requested the meeting. Their discussion focused mainly on AI and its growing capabilities.

Days later, Altman, Elon Musk and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei all called for slowing frontier AI development over safety concerns.

Trump rejected new guardrails, arguing that regulation would hurt U.S. innovation and saying AI only needs “a strong and smart president.”

Source: MS NOW

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian:

Thank God our Supreme Leader is alive, and he’s doing his job within the same framework.

Since they cannot locate his exact place, they are spreading speculation regarding our Supreme Leader.

The U.S. imposed Iran-related sanctions on Russia’s VTB Bank, accusing it of helping Tehran evade sanctions.

VTB, Russia’s second-largest lender, has already been under U.S. sanctions since 2022.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel:

Germany once had the most modern nuclear power plants. We were world leaders, and these nuclear power plants produced CO₂-neutral electricity.

They deliberately shut them down; they destroyed them. I call this deliberate technological and machine-smashing.

Mao would have been proud of this federal government.

Turkish President Erdogan on the Mecca Alliance:

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye came together and took a step.

With this step, God willing, we want to send a signal to the Islamic world from here.

There are positive developments.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel on Russia:

We have to obtain fossil fuels from wherever natural gas and oil are cheapest — namely, from Russia.

It is in our own security interests as well as our economic interests to have good relations with Russia.

CENTCOM:

The Panama-flagged oil tanker El Gaia was struck by an Iranian missile last month and rendered inoperable. This weekend, Iran struck the tanker again with a drone while the ship sat in waters of the coast of Oman.

The tanker is currently being towed by a regional partner. The IRGC's false claim is yet another example of their lies and intimidation attempts while they try to impede commercial vessels in the strait.

Gavin Newsom tells CNN’s Jake Tapper he won’t run for president in 2028 if Kamala Harris enters the race.

Trump:

The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by “Climate Change.”

That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they’re on to the next one. These people are Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause.

Soon you’ll find out they’re working for people that do not have the best interests of the United States in mind!

Two fishing boats were struck by U.S. drones near Bandar Kargan in Iran’s Hormozgan province on Monday evening, according to a provincial official.

Several fishermen are missing, and search-and-rescue operations are underway.

Source: Tasnim

Trump:

I am the Hoax Buster, and I’m right now breaking another Hoax — That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World, and that Robots will be marching into our Cities, and getting rid of us all!

This is even wilder than the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX, or the Global Warming Scam. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang put Trump on speakerphone during the All-In Summit, where Trump dismissed concerns about AI development as a “hoax” and declared that “the robots will not be taking over.”

Iran's Security Council Secretary Rezaei:

Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals—from “no negotiations” to “we’re ready to talk.”

The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming.

No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!

NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that violated Lithuania’s airspace over Kaunas County, prompting an air alert and temporary flight restrictions at Vilnius Airport.

The alert and restrictions were lifted after the drone was destroyed.

Lithuanian authorities said its type and origin remain unknown.

Sen. Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate after more than three months away following a June fall that left him briefly unconscious.

The U.S. has deployed its first publicly acknowledged space-based weapon, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said, marking the first time Washington has confirmed an offensive capability in orbit.

Meink said the weapon is already “on orbit” and is intended for “space control” and to defend U.S. forces against “hostile adversary action.”

A U.S. official said the capability could potentially be used to disable or destroy an enemy satellite targeting U.S. troops or satellites.

Source: WaPo

BIG: US just confirmed it has weapons in orbit for the first time ever.

Air Force Secretary Meink:

The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.

Refused to say what kind, how many, or when they were launched.

Space Force says they can be used for "disruption, degradation and even destruction" offensively or defensively.

Experts think space-based jammers or electronic warfare is most likely — kinetic weapons create debris problems.

This ends decades of official ambiguity.

The first Space Force painting literally depicts a spaceplane killing a hostile satellite.

Iran's IRGC says it intercepted and destroyed a fourth MQ-1 drone in four days east of the Strait of Hormuz using a new air defense system.

Putin moved Russia’s annual Valdai foreign policy conference from Sochi to the Moscow area over security concerns about Ukrainian drone strikes, according to people familiar with the decision.

The change was reportedly made at the insistence of Putin’s security service after Ukraine intensified long-range attacks on targets around the Black Sea.

Putin has not visited Sochi since October 2025 and has increasingly avoided Russian cities within range of Ukrainian drones.

Source: FT

U.S. oil executives warn that the global fuel crisis has arrived as inventories fall, strategic reserves run low and attacks disrupt Middle Eastern energy infrastructure.

Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said the buffers that had protected the market “have largely now played out,” adding: “I wish I could tell you that I saw some reason why things would ease, but it’s difficult right now to see that happen.”

U.S. crude has jumped 19% in three weeks to around $101 a barrel, while diesel hit a record $6.23 a gallon and gasoline rose to $4.32.

The Trump administration insists the disruption is temporary.

Source: WSJ

A Pentagon inspector general report says the Iran war has caused U.S. ammunition shortages and exposed “industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.”

Operation Epic Fury cost an estimated $33.4 billion between February 28 and June 30, including $22.3 billion in expended munitions. The report says the spending has resulted in “strategic inventory shortfalls.”

It also lists four F-15s destroyed, one F-35 damaged, seven KC-135 tankers damaged and up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones destroyed.

The findings contrast with Trump’s claim that the U.S. has “virtually unlimited” ammunition.