Happy Monday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,110 words…4.2 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: The Wedding, the Iran Plot and the Ivanka Blueprints, Kyiv Gets Blitzed, Gaza Activist's Miraculous Recovery, Memorial Day, Enhanced Games Ferrari Chatbot … & much more!
🇺🇸 Do you know how Memorial Day began? Scroll down to find out.
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
Left: Ivanka Trump & family; Right: Would-be assassin Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi
⏱ The Wedding, the Iran Plot and the Ivanka Blueprints
President Trump skipped his eldest son's wedding this Memorial Day weekend and headed back to the White House. Why? Iran… literally.
💒 The wedding: Don Jr. and Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson tied the knot in a small private ceremony, reportedly in the Bahamas, while Dad held court at the White House reviewing military options.
🥷The Ivanka Assassination Plot: The timing got darker fast. Reports surfaced that Ivanka Trump was allegedly the target of an Iran-linked assassination plot tied to a man connected to Kata’ib Hezbollah and the IRGC.
The suspect — Iranian-linked Iraqi national — Mohammad Baqer Al-Saadi.
Al-Saadi allegedly wanted revenge for the 2020 killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani
He discussed targeting Ivanka and Jared Kushner’s Florida mansion — blueprints and everything.
🚨The Iran deal: Trump says an Iran nuclear agreement is largely negotiated but instructed diplomats not to rush — saying he’ll only make a deal if it is good and that the U.S. blockade of Hormuz is very much still in place.
A social media firestorm erupted as members of Congress, Trump allies and commentators sounded the alarm on a potential deal that would give Iran a win.
JD Vance and senior NSC officials huddled at the White House all weekend as active military options stayed on the table.
💡 Bottom line: Trump just made a presidency-defining Iran gamble in real time, with his family literally in the crosshairs. But his framing tells you everything about how fragile this moment actually is.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
Nesrin Zeaiter before and after
💣 Russia Just Unleashed One of the Biggest Air Attacks of the Entire War
Russia hammered Kyiv with roughly 600 drones and 90 missiles in a massive overnight assault that Ukrainian officials called one of the heaviest bombardments since 2022.
The attack reportedly included the rare Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile — a weapon capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
At least 4 were killed and around 100 injured as strikes hit apartments, schools, a metro station, shopping centers, and even Kyiv’s main post office near Maidan.
Ukrainian defenses intercepted most incoming weapons, but sheer volume overwhelmed parts of the system.
💡Bottom line: Moscow says it was retaliation for a Ukrainian strike in occupied Luhansk. Europe is calling it reckless escalation and Poland is scrambling its jets to protect its airspace. Situation is still fluid.
📿 Miraculous Recovery of Palestinian Activist
A German activist Nesrin Zeaiter from the Gaza-bound “Global Sumud” flotilla went mega-viral after appearing in Turkey on a stretcher wearing a dramatic neck brace while alleging abuse by Israeli forces.
Problem: She arrived hours later in Germany walking normally, smiling, hugging supporters, and posing for cameras with zero visible injuries.
The side-by-side clips detonated across X, with critics accusing activists of theatrical PR and outright lying.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry congratulated her on her miracle as well.
💡The internet’s verdict? Call the Vatican. Another miracle just dropped.
🤝 Trump Makes the Abraham Accords...Mandatory
Fresh off a conference call with 8 Muslim-majority heads of state, Trump declared it should be "mandatory" for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others to sign the Abraham Accords — and floated the idea that Iran itself could eventually join.
The demand: Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the main targets. UAE and Bahrain are already in. Pakistan and Turkey — two countries that have never exactly warmed to Israel — are now on the list.
The audacious bit: Trump suggested Iran normalizing with Israel could be "an honor" as part of a broader peace coalition. Tehran currently calls Israel an illegitimate state and seeks its destruction.
No country on the call has publicly said yes — but none has said no either.
💡 Bottom line: Trump is trying to bundle a nuclear deal and regional peace framework into one historic weekend — which is either visionary statecraft or a negotiating fever dream. Time will tell us which.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
🎖 The President’s Memorial Day Message From Arlington
President Trump marked Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier alongside VP JD Vance and War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The observance included military honors, a 21-gun salute, and “Taps” before Trump delivered remarks honoring fallen servicemembers and America’s military legacy.
The moment: Trump recognized Sgt. Harry Miller — one of the last surviving members of the WWII 740th Tank Battalion — in attendance. He received a standing ovation.
⚡America 250 commemorations added extra weight to an already solemn day.
💉 The Steroid Olympics Finally Happened
The controversial Enhanced Games debuted in Las Vegas this weekend — basically the Olympics if everyone openly used performance-enhancing drugs.
Athletes competed in swimming, sprinting, and weightlifting with medically supervised PED use allowed.
Only one “world record”: Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev broke the 50m freestyle mark and won $1.25 million.
Meanwhile, some non-enhanced athletes still beat PED users in several events.
⚡ Turns out doping is a lot less magic than everyone assumed.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
🏎 Ferrari Is Turning F1 Fans Into AI-Powered Superfans
Ferrari partnered with IBM to rebuild the Scuderia Ferrari app using AI tools from watsonx — including a chatbot that answers questions about races, strategy, and drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
The app now includes AI race summaries, prediction games, live telemetry breakdowns, and personalized fan experiences.
Ferrari says engagement jumped 62% on race weekends since the relaunch.
⚡Translation: Formula 1 just became Duolingo for motorsport addicts.
🎫 Sam Altman Just Tried to Buy the Future With API Credits
At a closed-door Y Combinator event, Sam Altman offered every startup in YC’s current batch $2 million in OpenAI API tokens in exchange for equity via an uncapped SAFE deal.
Translation: Founders get massive AI compute power instead of cash — while OpenAI quietly buys stakes in the next generation of AI startups.
⚡ Critics warn about lock-in and dilution; supporters call it founder cheat codes.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
Origins of Memorial Day
Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day.”
May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC. — just weeks after the Civil War, formerly enslaved Black residents, Union soldiers, and 3,000 schoolchildren transformed a former Confederate racetrack into a Union burial ground. They held a massive procession with singing, prayers, and flowers.
Gen. John Logan made it a national day in 1868, and it became the federal “Memorial Day” holiday in 1971.