🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡- U.S. embassies across the Middle East have issued new security alerts today urging Americans to exercise heightened caution and urged citizens to depart the region.

The alerts were issued in the following countries: Oman, Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

🇪🇹⚡- Loud explosions heard in the northwest Tigray region of Ethiopia, along Eritrea's border.

🇪🇹⚡- BREAKING: TPLF-70 and TPLF-13 have launched an offensive on the town of Sheraro, along Eritrea's border. The Ethiopian air force is responding to the attacks.

Note, TPLF-70 is based in Sudan, while TPLF-13 is based along the Debre Damo Highlands. Both belong to the TPLF-D led separatist branch of the TPLF, the Tigray Defense Forces.

🇪🇹🇸🇩 - Unconfirmed reports: TPLF's Army 70 and Army 13 launched the offensive in response to an alleged Ethiopian military incursion into the al-Fashaga region of Sudan.

If the reports are true, it would represent a major escalation in the civil war, as it would be the first time Ethiopia's military crossed the international border into Sudan.

🇪🇹🇸🇩🇪🇷 - Sheraro, in the northwest of the Tigray region, Ethiopia.

Both Ethiopian and Sudanese media have confirmed TPLF-70 are leading the military operation in Sheraro, alongside TPLF's Army 13.

Army 70 is based in Sudan and has fought alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces in the Sennar region.

Thus, how did TPLF-70 get from the Sennar - al-Qadarif area of eastern Sudan to Sheraro in the Tigray? Eritrea?

🇪🇹⚡- Ethiopian drone strikes against convoys of the TPLF's Army 70 in the Sheraro countryside, northwest Tigray.

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡- Russian missile attacks on Ukraine last night left nine civilians dead, and 30+ injured, the BBC reports.

🇳🇵⚡️- Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja has been confirmed dead after an avalanche swept him and his crew away on Broad Peak.

🇪🇸🇲🇦⚡️- The death toll among Moroccan immigrants in Ceuta has risen to 67.

🇮🇷⚡️- Several Iranian government buildings in Hormozgan Province, southern Iran, have been evacuated and are reportedly being filled with ammunition and weaponry, according to local Iranian reports.

🇱🇧🇮🇱⚡️- Initial reports of Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon.

🇱🇧🇮🇱⚡️- Correction: Explosions were reported in the town of Kounine in southern Lebanon, and not due to airstrikes. Instead, they were due to Israeli demolition squadrons within the security zone.

🇷🇺⚡️- At least 3 dead and 21 injured after an improvised bomb exploded in an upscale Moscow restaurant.

A woman tried to enter the Balzi Rossi restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square when a guard stopped her, and the bomb exploded, killing her, the guard, and a customer at the restaurant.

The motive or the identity of the woman is currently unknown.

🇮🇷🇮🇶⚡- Iranian drone attack against Iraq's Kurdistan region ongoing for the past few hours.

🇮🇷⚡- Heavy Iranian military deployment continues to areas of western Iran.

This follows the deployment previously reported to Abadan and Tabriz.

🇮🇷🇮🇶⚡- "There is information confirming that [Iranian-Kurdish] separatist groups are preparing to carry out operations against Iran, launching them from Iraqi territory," - al-Mayadeen.

🇺🇸🇸🇦🇮🇷⚡️- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with President Trump and expressed concern over reported plans to conduct large-scale strikes on Iran, urging the president not to follow through, according to Axios, citing two U.S. officials.

🇺🇸⚡- "GOP staffers say they have a Groyper problem.

The grownups are worried. In group chats and at happy hours, some GOP veterans fret about the rising generation of young staffers in their party.

Of specific concern are those labeled groypers — technically, followers of the self-described 'White Identitarian' Gen Z streamer Nick Fuentes.

Prominent conservative commentators have alleged that groyperism is spreading among younger members of the GOP, including in government — a view seemingly backed by examples like the young Trump administration lawyer who admitted to a 'Nazi streak' in text messages revealed by POLITICO.

There are widely varying, and bitterly disputed, estimates of the true scale of groyperism in the GOP’s young D.C. professional class, from ubiquitous to negligible. One anonymous conservative, described only as 'an older insider,' told the Free Press’s Rod Dreher that the term applies to 30 to 40 percent of 'Gen Z congressional and administration staffers,'" - POLITICO.

🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡️- BREAKING: President Trump announces that he has halted the planned attack on Iran following a request from Tehran and other mediating countries.