The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said on Saturday that it retaliated forUnited States attackson three Iranian oil tankers by targeting three tankers using what Tehran considers an "unauthorized route" through the Strait of Hormuz.
IRGC Navy Commander Ali Ozamai said Iranian forces also targeted three vessels affiliated with the US elsewhere.
He warned vessels in the Persian Gulf and near the Strait of Hormuz to avoid "suspicious movements" through unauthorized waterways, saying they would be targeted.
A massive water leak in El Reno, Oklahoma has brought new scrutiny to a Bitcoin mining operation that city officials say had been operating without required approvals and in violation of multiple building and safety codes, according toKFOR 4. Three million gallons of water were leaked, according toKOCO ABC.
The facility, operated by Athlon BT LLC, had largely escaped public attention until the leak was discovered. City officials say the company had also installed a fire hydrant without their knowledge, while questions remain about how water was being used at the site.
Athlon originally applied for building permits in 2022. By 2023, however, El Reno had issued a stop-work order after the permits expired and officials identified multiple fire and life-safety code violations. The company was given until December 2023 to address the problems, according to the city.
Instead, officials say Athlon continued construction and eventually began operating the facility despite lacking the inspections and final certificate of occupancy required by the city. Officials have cited problems involving electrical systems, drainage and other areas of the property.
“They really weren’t in compliance at all,” city spokesperson Lyndsay Bayne said.
The discovery came as a surprise not only to residents but also to local officials, who said the Bitcoin mining operation had attracted little attention before the leak, according to KFOR 4.
Athlon had previously described the structures on its website as “mobile data centers.” The operation, however, differs considerably from the large hyperscale data centers proposed in communities such as Yukon and Piedmont, which have generated debate over their potential demands on local infrastructure and water supplies.
The KFOR 4 report says that El Reno officials say Athlon told the city its equipment was air-cooled and therefore should not have required water for cooling. According to the city, the water line involved in the leak was supposed to serve only a fire hydrant.
That hydrant itself has raised additional questions. Officials say Athlon installed it behind the property without notifying the city, and it did not appear on municipal records. The hydrant was also reportedly concealed beneath a large pile of brush.
KFOR later observed above-ground piping that appeared to connect the mobile data center units and extend toward the hydrant. Athlon’s website, before becoming unavailable, also referenced what the company called “hydro-cooling technology.” Those details have prompted questions about whether the water line may have served a purpose beyond fire protection.
KFOR reported that its attempts to obtain an explanation from Athlon have gone unanswered. Calls and emails to the company received no response, and its website subsequently displayed a maintenance notice.
After the water leak was discovered, El Reno condemned the property.
The episode is unfolding amid a broader debate over data center development in Oklahoma, although city officials have stressed that Athlon’s Bitcoin mining operation should not be confused with the much larger data center projects being proposed elsewhere.
“El Reno doesn’t have any large data centers or any plans to have any large data centers,” Bayne said. “This was completely under the radar.”
The city has since strengthened its rules governing future data center developments. A recently adopted ordinance requires proposed data centers and large artificial intelligence facilities to undergo greater scrutiny and provide an opportunity for public comment before they can move forward.
For residents concerned about the strain such facilities could place on local resources, the Athlon controversy has added urgency to calls for stronger oversight. The unresolved questions surrounding the company’s permits, infrastructure and water use are also likely to keep the Bitcoin mining operation under scrutiny as city officials determine how the facility was able to operate for so long without full compliance.
Bad news: Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s just-releasedRacial Equity Planis promising to address “disparities” in racial outcomes based on a dangerously flawed understanding their causes — and seemingly with a distinctly anti-American solution: racial favoritism.
Good news: There’s little sign, based on the plan and on his record, he’ll actually deliver on his promises.
Start with the fact that America was founded on the principle of equal opportunity, not outcomes. Only minds twisted by the fantasy of a socialist utopia would expect outcomes to be the same for everyone, despite pivotal differences between them — most notably, the effort they put in.
And would then resort to blatantly unfair, unlawful and wholly ineffective means in supposed pursuit of that equality.
Remember, the nation’s successful civil rights movement was premised on securing equal rights, not outcomes, for blacks and other racial minorities, and later, women.
Equal opportunity was, is and always should be the ideal.
The Mamdani plan’s main mistake is that it assumes racial disparities are chiefly the result of “historical harm” — never mind that slavery ended 160 years and the civil-rights reforms rolled back most official racist policies more than 60 years ago.
Indeed, the plan sees “systemic racism” sewn into the fabric of the city’s history, governance and policies.
And then hints of addressing disparities by giving minorities an edge, in one form or another.
Fortunately, except in a few places, the report offers little meat on the bones for achieving that. It largely calls for studies, recommendations, data, etc. — as opposed to actual, immediate, concrete changes.
Unfortunately, where thereismeat, it’s rancid. When it comes to “racial equity” goals set by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, for example,Naomi Schaefer Rileyfumes that “reducing racial inequity trumps reducing abuse and neglect” of kids “every time.”
ACS’s emphasis on race-based approaches “will only put more children, of all races, in grave danger.”
The plan also aims to expand race-based contracting, which is unconstitutional and undermines fair, unbiased competitive bidding. The government shouldn’t combat “racial disparities” by discriminating in favor supposedly “harmed” racial groups.
Thank goodness Mamdani is generally more interested in symbols than results, as is clear from his promises for government-run grocery stores, free buses, universal child care and more.
Equity hustlers like him, who traffic in the fiction of equal outcomes, are mainly looking to profit politically from the resentments their false claims and hollow promises stoke.
Let’s hope that’s the worst of the damage his plan causes.
Fake electrician and Democratic Socialists of America honcho Gustavo Gordillohas been facing calls to resign over his blue-collar cosplay, rank lies and tony Brooklyn rowhouse.
Yet those are the precise reasons Gordillo must stay in office: He represents the true face of today’s nepo-baby socialism.
Whether extreme left movements have ever represented the interests of the working class has long been debatable, but in Gotham, at least, the argument’s over.
The NYC-DSA is for rich kids: “Lulu Lenins,” in the memorable phrase of Sen. John Kennedy (R-La).
If Gordillo were some isolated anomaly, the story might be different. But he’s just one of a whole slew of spoiled-brat Bolsheviksin the vanguard of revolution.
Yes, his case is especially ridiculous: He’s pretended to be a union electrician and told what sure seem like lies about his parents growing up in povertywhile that very same mommy and daddy paid his rent and bought him a $1.5 million dollar three-story rowhouse.
Even that wasn’t fancy enough forSoft-Hands Gustavo: His parents coughed up nearly as much for renovations.
But in all that absurdity he’s no different from Grace Ryan, the Midwestern commie heiressto a chocolate fortune whocited noblesse oblige in her crusade to give away other people’s stuff (the phrase actually refers to redistributing your own wealth, not Ken Griffin’s).
As for her personal contributions to the welfare of the downtrodden, they seem to consist primarily of working on NYC Comptroller Brad Lander’s congressional campaign.
The cherry on top? Her summer social-media pics, which show her chilling on a boat at her parents’ lakeside estate while smoking a cigar.
It’s like a Soviet parody of capitalist parasitism.
And don’t forget Tracy Rosenthal, the child of a famed studio owner, now an anti-rent activist — a political crusade that began because she saw a bug in her overpriced Bed-Stuy apartment.
Or Gracie Mansion’s own Zohran Mamdani: his mother a mega-successful movie director, his father an Ivy League professor.
Lil’ Zozo was cushioned as a boy with elite private schooling and a massive vacation compound in Uganda.
Now? He fronts as a scrappy street kid who made it big and promises — with his signature grin — to fight for the rights of the very same poor people his parents spent top dollar segregating him from.
DSA apparatchiks have a standard response when people point out their hypocrisy: I am fighting so that people can have the same advantages I had.
They’re not: History has proven market capitalism is the best pathway to improving material life for all classes.
But they don’t care; their party exists solely for the benefit of already-privileged kids resentful that anyone else has a nickel to their name and eager to pry it out of their hands.
So let Gordillo stay. Make Ryan the face of the party. Elect Tracy Rosenthal treasurer.
That’s the class the DSA serves.
After all, New Yorkers should know who they’re really dealing with — and why they shouldn’t listen to a word the DSA says.
The United States military destroyed threeIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corps crude oil tankers in the Persian Gulf Saturday – after Iran launched ballistic missiles at two US Navy vessels.
Footage shows large tankers blown up in flames, as a thick plume of black smoke rise off the sea.
A US military aircraft crew can be heard over radio warning an oil tanker near Kharg Island, before unleashing a barrage of missiles that lit the vessel in flames.
US forces destroyed three Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf after the IRGC launched ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships.US Central Command (CENTCOM)/AFP via Getty Images
“I’m preparing to fire. …You have three minutes to clear the crew,” the US is heard in a video filmed aboard a nearby vessel, obtained byIran International.
Crew members can be heard speaking in Persian and Urdu, and asking whether the ship’s captain was at his post — before realizing he was still asleep.
“This was your final warning,” the US crew says before firing at the tanker, which was first sanctioned by Washington in 2018. “Get into your lifeboats and abandon the ship immediately.”
Two of the struck ships were in the Gulf of Oman, and the third was anchored off Kharg Island — Iran’s key export hub through which 90% of its crude exports flowed before the war.
“You have three minutes to clear the crew,” the US is heard warning in a video obtained by Iran International.
US Central Command said the strikes were in retaliation for the IRGC launching ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships patrolling regional waters.
“The three Iranian crude oil tankers are part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies,” said CENTCOM.
“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost —taking out three of yours,” added Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander.
US Central Command said the strikes were in retaliation for the IRGC launching ballistic missiles at two US Navy warships patrolling regional waters.US Central Command (CENTCOM)/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s simple: if Iran shoots at US ships, we will destroy (and sink) their oil tankers,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote on X. “All they have to do is not shoot at US Navy.”
The strikes come amid an escalation in fighting over the past week that threaten to deepen the conflict — and the attacks near Kharg Island are especially significant given repeated threats to target the strategic oil hub.
President Trump posted on Truth Social last week that Kharg Island was being “blown to smithereens,” along with an AI-generated image showing oil storage tanks and refineries erupting in flames, and Iran has vowed a strong response if Tehran’s critical islanld infrastructure was attacked.
The first US strike on Kharg Island in March — which hit roughly 90 Iranian military targets while deliberately sparing the oil infrastructure itself — was a major escalation in the United States and Israel’s joint military operation against the Iranian regime.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Saturday that several merchant vessels were reportedly hit by a "disabling fire" in the northern Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman amid ongoing military activity in the region.
UKMTO said it was unable to confirm whether there were any casualties or environmental impact from the incidents.
Authorities are aware of the reports, and investigations are underway, while mariners have been advised to consider the latest maritime security information. The advisory comes after United States Central Command CENTCOM said US forces struck three Iranian crude oil tankers, disabling two and destroying another in the Gulf of Oman.
Leonardo's Kyiv subsidiary, publicly unveiled last month, is scouting partnerships, investments and acquisitions across Ukraine's fast-growing defense-tech scene. The unit will support Michelangelo air defense, with a first Ukraine test planned by year end; the counter-drone component is already in trials in Italy. CEO Lorenzo Mariani says approvals for Bromo, a space venture with Airbus and Thales, are progressing and he anticipates the venture will be up and running in 2028.
Kyiv unit and the hunt for wartime innovation
Leonardo wants a front-row seat to Ukraine's defense-tech boom, and it now has one. The company's Kyiv arm will source partnership, investment or acquisition opportunities on the ground. CEO Lorenzo Mariani, speaking at the Ambrosetti Forum near Como, Italy, praised Ukraine's network of small and midsize firms and startups for producing "particularly innovative, particularly tested solutions," adding, "Collecting them directly on the ground is the right way to move forward." Michelangelo's first steps and early customers
For Michelangelo, Leonardo's layered air-defense system, the first test in Ukraine is planned before the end of the year, starting with an artillery-based layer, while Italy hosts trials of the counter-drone piece. Leonardo is already pitching Michelangelo to export buyers that need protection against drones and ballistic threats. The initial focus is on customers that already use Leonardo sensors, since the integration case is clearer to them. As Mariani put it: "We are doing it starting from those export customers that we know have a requirement." He added, "If we approach a customer that already knows our sensors, it will be easier to explain that these sensors, once inserted into an architecture as complex but particularly effective as Michelangelo, are more productive, more useful and more effective." Europe's consolidation playbook
Mariani, appointed earlier this year and formerly an MBDA executive, is leaning on partnerships and industrial tie ups to build European defense capacity at a moment when the trans Atlantic alliance looks weaker. He argues Europe can rival US systems when countries pool resources and harmonize procurement. His example: the latest SAMP/T from Eurosam, a joint venture of MBDA and Thales, which he called "no less effective than the US Patriot." Illustrating that approach, Leonardo is teaming with Germany's Rheinmetall AG on ground systems and also collaborating with Turkey's Baykar on unmanned aircraft. According to Mariani, the company remains willing to form additional partnerships when they can accelerate spending or rebuild capabilities Europe previously lacked. Bromo in space, and what it means for your wallet
Mariani also detailed the schedule for Bromo, a space initiative being set up alongside Airbus SE and Thales SA. "If we manage to have a streamlined procedural process, by the middle of next year we could already start work, with the objective of making the structure fully operational as of Jan. 1, 2028," he said. The project, under European regulatory review, is meant to build cross border scale in space and narrow Europe's satellite communications gap with the US as SpaceX's dominance grows.
Why it matters: Leonardo is wiring itself into Ukraine's innovation pipeline, moving a new air-defense system toward field use, and pushing a European champion in space. If you keep an eye on defense and satellite suppliers, the next wave of contracts and partnerships might not land where they used to.
