Happy Friday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,205 words…4.5 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Hegseth’s Jungle Games, Belgian Teen Uncovers Treasure, RFK Jr.'s Cooking Show, Midwest Floods, Trash Can Bomb Kills Crimea Defector, Apple Brings Mac Mini Home To TX...& more!
📨 Share this post with family and friends via the social links above or forward this newsletter via email.
👠 Were high heels originally for men? Scroll down to find out!
🥳 If you’re enjoying NewzHawk, consider asking your friends to subscribe. It would really help spread the word about our work. Join Newzhawk
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
Pete Hegseth with the Marines and the Press in Panama’s jungle
🌴 Panama’s Jungles Are Back In Business
War Secretary Pete Hegseth stood in a Panamanian jungle compound surrounded by machetes, mud, and Marines — and turned a press briefing on survival training into a warning shot at America’s adversaries.
The setting: The revived Jungle Operations Training Course at Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the same site the U.S. abandoned in 1999, now restarted under a 2025 security pact with Panama.
💪 Eighteen days of U.S. and allied forces pushing through punishing jungle-survival and combat training — essentially Call of Duty: Darién Gap edition. But the real test? Sending a message.
Message #1: China's Canal courtship ends here. Hegseth called the waterway a "key piece of terrain" built with American blood—vowing no foreign power will "hold it at issue." Rotational forces are back. Permanent? Not yet. But the signal is loud.
Message #2: Cuba's on notice. Asked about Trump saying Havana is "next," Hegseth replied: "All options on the table, including military ones." That's not diplomacy—that's escalation theater.
Message #3: Cartels get the "kill chain." Hegseth compared traffickers to ISIS, promising U.S. troops will "close with and destroy" these networks.
We do bad things to bad people.
🇨🇴 Meanwhile, Colombia has joined the U.S.-led Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition as its 19th member, while Washington is openly discussing potential joint operations against designated terrorist groups such as the ELN and FARC remnants.
💡 Why it matters: This isn't just jungle training. Washington is rebuilding a hemispheric security architecture — with Cuba, cartels, China and the Panama Canal increasingly treated as pieces of the same geopolitical board.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Left: Belgian teen Kobe who discovered the treasure; Right: Gold bars and coins uncovered
💣 Crimea's Most Famous Defector Gets a Bomb in a Trash Can
A trash-can bomb in Sevastopol killed Captain Robert Shageev—a Crimea native who surrendered Ukraine's only submarine in 2014 and defected to Russia.
Shageev later went on to command Black Sea Fleet subs involved in Kalibr missile strikes on Ukraine.
The suspect: 32 yr old Ukrainian escort Margarita Reut, allegedly acting on Ukrainian orders. She was arrested by Russia’s FSB and reportedly showed no remorse.
The kicker: Kyiv hasn't claimed responsibility. But Ukraine's infamous Myrotvorets kill list had already marked Shageev "liquidated"—for helping crew Kalibr strikes against his homeland.
💡 The real message: You can run; but you can’t hide.
🏭 Spain Waves In a Chinese EV Plant... Next Door to Its Navy
Spain's own intelligence agency warned this was a bad idea. Spain built it anyway.
Spain is backing a $230 million Chinese EV factory just 5 km from a major naval base and warship shipyard — despite intelligence warnings about potential espionage.
SAIC Motor, the Chinese state-owned company behind MG, plans to build up to 120,000 vehicles annually in Ferrol, creating roughly 1,000 direct jobs.
Spain says security concerns can be managed, while the plant could help SAIC dodge EU tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.
💡 Why it matters: Madrid is betting the economic upside beats the security risk. NATO allies may see the equation differently.
🍺 Belgian Brewery Renovation Hits €9M Jackpot
An 18-year-old on a summer job thought he'd found spare €1 coins in a Belgian wall. He'd found gold.
Workers bricking a Dendermonde cellar uncovered 40+ gold bars (stamped 1957-61) and thousands of coins hidden inside the wall — worth an estimated €9 million ($10M).
The hoard was quickly handed to police and secured in a federal vault.
The mystery: Historians suspect it belonged to the brewery's Van Assche family. Nobody's confirmed it yet.
💡 Bottom line: Belgian law gives the real owner 5 years to show up — after that, the teenager gets a cut of a fortune.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
⛈ Midwest Drowns, Hawaii Braces
Indiana and Illinois are battling a sixth straight day of torrential rain, with record river levels, rescues, evacuations and millions under flood alerts.
Indiana declared a statewide disaster emergency and activated the National Guard - as the White River at Anderson hit its highest level in over a century—nearly 25 feet.
Illinois: Flash flooding, road closures, saturated soils—and more rain coming.
Also: Hawaii's bracing for Tropical Storm Lala, expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Saturday, with 20+ inches possible on the Big Island.
💡 Bottom line: Three states, one warning — get out of the water's way.
🍳 RFK Jr. Has Entered His Cooking-Show Era
RFK Jr. is now cooking for America. The HHS secretary launched The Real Food Show, a government-produced series promoting “Make America Healthy Again” through $5/serving, minimally processed meals.
The premiere features chef Andrew Gruel making salmon cakes with a white-bean-and-greens salad, with future episodes planned alongside celebrity chefs.
The critics: Bloomberg and Vanity Fair called it political theater, dredging up his past roadkill comments.
💡 Kennedy’s pitch: Whole foods, kid-friendly meals, fermented sides — he calls home cooking a "sacred ritual" and a cure for loneliness.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
🍎 Apple Brings Mac Mini Home... on Cook's Way Out
Tim Cook's practically waving goodbye from a Houston factory floor.
The move: Apple's making Mac minis in Texas for the first time — a Foxconn line inside the same Houston campus already churning out AI servers, part of Apple's $600B U.S. pledge.
The timing: This is one of Cook's last big appearances before he steps down September 1 — and the White House is calling it a tariff win.
The catch: iPhones stay in Asia. This is the low-volume product.
⚡Symbolic reshoring, real handoff — Cook exits stage left on a Made-in-USA note.
🏦 JPMorgan Dumps Polymarket... Then Wants Back In
JPMorgan quietly cut Polymarket loose as a banking client in October 2025 over regulatory jitters. Now it wants a piece of the IPO.
JPMorgan invited Polymarket's CEO to a private client event in February, and reportedly wants to underwrite its future IPO.
The math: $20B valuation. $1B funding round in talks. Banks don't really walk away from that kind of money.
⚡ Banks debank the risk, then bid for the upside.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
Portrait of King Louis XIV
👠Men Wore Heels First
High-heeled footwear became fashionable among European aristocratic men in the 17th century.
King Louis XIV of France famously wore heels, sometimes decorated with elaborate red soles. Over time, heels became increasingly associated with women's fashion.