Kitchen Briefs

Kitchen Briefs - August 27, 2026 PM

• In 2024, UNRWA employed 32,000 people with 13,000 being in Gaza. A USAID report has come out that said it found 100 current or former UNRWA employees participated in the October 7th attacks
• At least 370 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons
• Trump said he felt Russia behaved quite well with the Strait of Hormuz and claimed Iran isn’t paying their troops
• Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick warned today that chunks of the building of the Kennedy Center could simply fall off and hurt someone
• The Stars and Stripes employees who were fired are suing the Pentagon
• Meta is going to ban likes display and block usage after midnight on teen accounts
• Nvidia is launching an employee funded US Political Action committee
• Trump signed another executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America and directed the Interior Department to update US geographic records within 30 days
• Callaway has broken ties with Good Good golf. Good Good is also no longer the title sponsor of the PGA tour
• The Tate Brothers both took the stand today in court trying to defend themselves and said their online personas are not their true personalities
• The Cyclospora outbreak has now reached 20 states
• Tropical Storm Dolly has formed in the Atlantic Ocean
• Alabama Shakes is coming out with a new album for the first time in 11 years after they reunited to play the Druid City Brewing Company in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to help raise money for the brewery and a local food pantry

Kitchen Briefs - August 27, 2026 AM

• The Israeli army says it has intercepted a Hezbollah drone in southern Lebanon
• A 13 year old girl and 38 year old woman are in stable condition after Israeli forces shot them both in the head in the occupied West Bank
• Iran and Qatar are to discuss a joint project to clear mines from the Strait of Hormuz
• Israel is seeking to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
• The US Naval Institute says the USS Theodore Roosevelt is preparing for deployment in the Middle East that will last for more than 7 months
• More than 350 people have been killed and 1300 remain missing in Nepal and the rising lake is bringing fears of more flooding
• ICE officer Christian Castro who shot a man through his front door and lied about it in Minnesota was just released from a Texas jail
• The Tate brothers are back in court today seeking a release on bond
• The sailor who jumped overboard of the USS Abraham Lincoln and tried to take his life is now facing disciplinary action from the Navy and a potential dock in pay
• The administration is considering a new round of tariffs on semiconductors
• CIA Director John Ratcliffe who just had a secretive trip to Russia supposedly warned Russia not to attack NATO
• RFK Jr lied under oath when he said a trip he took to Samoa in 2019 had nothing to do with vaccines
• The OpenAI hacking of Hugging Face is now called an unprecedented cyber incident with the highest level of autonomy. CA Rep Ted Lieu and Texas Rep Nathaniel Moran have introduced a bill called the AI Kill Switch Act
• Speaking of Hugging Face, NvIdia has announced they will be buying them for $12.9B
• Data centers are bringing people together. Some Republicans are moving to the Dem side because them
• In Florida the DeSantis administration took $10 million in taxpayer money that was for health insurance for kids, and used it to defeat the 2024 marijuana legalization ballot measure

Kitchen Briefs - August 26, 2026 PM

• Actor Tim Curry has passed away at the age of 80
• Two drones have been launched with one being downed in northern Iraq
• Israeli forces are firing artillery in Syria
• Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi rebels are firing ballistic missiles targeted the Port of Mocha in Yemen on the Red Sea
• A federal judge has refused to order Texas to extradite ICE officer Christian Castro to Minnesota
• Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said ICE agents were arresting parents at a school bus stop today
• The United States Justice Department announced that federal law enforcement disrupted a widespread Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage operation targeting the DOJ, NASA, the federal reserve and the senate
• Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced Tuesday that the province will impose a 50 per cent reciprocal fee on American alcohol products starting Sept. 8, responding to escalating trade tensions
• Maryland court rules Democratic-backed redistricting amendment cannot go on November ballot because it missed a July 1st public comment deadline
• General Mills announced it has removed artificial colors from all its U.S. cereals, including Lucky Charms and Trix, shifting to fruit- and vegetable-based dyes like turmeric and paprika
• The U.S. Army announced plans to install nuclear microreactors at five military bases spanning New York to Texas, including Fort Drum, to ensure energy independence from the commercial electric grid
• An American Airlines plane blew 2 tires before takeoff at Chicago O’Hare airport
• A lawsuit over the sexual assault of a female civilian engineer aboard a Navy transport ship by Captain Yamil Sanchez Padilla was dismissed and said it’s a workers comp issue
• 30K lbs of beef has been recalled that was imported by the administration from Argentina in Florida and Texas
• Trump shared posts about how much the GOP is f’ing up, construction photo updates, AI images of the guy in the white house, a photo of him at 18 vs President Obama at 18, him with his parents and more
• The White House is super busy posting AI images of a bald eagle crushing a Canadian Goose into ice

Kitchen Briefs - August 26, 2026 AM

• Israel continues to carry out attacks in Lebanon and now occupies one-fifth of the country.
• At least one more person has been killed and a pregnant woman has been wounded in Gaza
• Israeli forces have arrested dozens of Palestineans in the West Bank including 3 children
• Netanyahu has promised to continue establishing settlements in the occupied territories. He said there have been 104 communities established and 160 farms with more to come
• The IRGC says Iran and Oman have reached an agreement on their shares of the Strait of Hormuz and revenue
• At least 31 people have been killed and hundreds are missing along with 291 foreign tourists after a deadly flash flood hit the border crossing of Nepal and Tibet
• Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline won the GOP primary and will be going against Dr Annie Andrews for South Carolina Senate
• This week public outrage helped action be taken by Target with a children’s Halloween costume with minstrel show features along with Callaway and Good Good Golf for their ad that portrayed domestic abuse
• Meta has reached a settlement agreement and will pay $16.68B
• Microsoft founder Bill Gates is alarmed by AI and released a memo urging urgent policy action on AI proposing a robot tax on companies using automation to replace human labor
• Yesterday the State Department announced a global pause on visa appointments at all embassies and consulates worldwide
• 42 of the Senate’s 47 Democrats signed a letter urging Netanyahu to rein in a surge of West Bank settler violence and mass arrests of Palestinians by Israeli security forces

Kitchen Briefs - August 25, 2026 PM

• Today we lost one of the truly greatest human beings. Dolly Parton has passed away at the age of 80
• The US claims they have removed all mines from the Strait of Hormuz
• An Israeli drone attack on a refugee camp has killed 3 more people in Gaza
• The CIA Director, John Ratcliffe has arrived in Moscow for unannounced talks
• The Legal Accountability Center filed bar complaints against Attorney Jeanine Pirro alleging the former Fox News host violated ethical duties by seeking "meritless" indictments against six Democratic lawmakers
• The Hawk Fire in Reno, Nevada is currently at over 15K acres and 27% contained. The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and 63K people are under evacuation orders
• The Ross Fire west of Fort Worth, TX has expanded to over 78 square miles forcing school closures
• Luis Manuel Aviles, the man who was arrested by ICE earlier this week, whose son has been serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln has not only been released but the judge dismissed his case
• The Kennedy Center is projecting a $23M deficit after adding Trump's name
• The FDA is appointing two new deputy commissioners for drugs and another focusing on technology and the intersection of health and AI
• SpaceX is building a new rocket complex in Louisiana
• A big thank you to Kim on Facebook for inspiring this. For the last brief of every day, we will have the countdown until he’s no longer in office. 878 days left

Kitchen Briefs - August 25, 2026 AM

• The White House says there are no talks planned or under way with Iran
• Another 7 people have been killed and 40 wounded by Israeli attacks throughout Gaza
• Trump is considering new tariffs on China for flooding the market with cheap goods
• Canada has imposed 50% tariffs on metals, foods, and motorcycles effective September 8th
• The Secret Service says they are aware of an Iranian state media video threatening Barron Trump's life along with a $10M bounty
• ICE has announced more than 1300 arrests in the last two weeks in Virginia and Maryland during Operation Safe Community and nearly 400 of them have been charged or convicted
• Two people in Pennsylvania have died from the measles
• Trump is posting on Truth Social an image renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America
• A federal judge rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to have her conviction overturned
• The EPA has proposed a new rule that would kill the requirement for datacenters to publicly disclose the air pollution they release
• Power is still out in Gary, Indiana. The power is also out for 25,000 residents in Memphis, TN following storms from this past weekend
• Yesterday I spent time with California Congressman Sam Liccardo and we discussed AI data centers and ICE detention centers as both are news topics today. You can find the full episode on Beyond the Campaign on all podcast platforms

Kitchen Briefs - August 24, 2026 PM

• The US has announced new sanctions on Iran to sever every economic lifeline that sustains Iran
• Netanyahu congratulated Trump on the sanctions
• Iran says the US sanctions will fail and that the US must correct its tone
• The US also says it’s prepared to use military force against in Iran in the Strait and elsewhere
• Trump is now also threatening to escalate things with Canada and threatened to impose a tariff hike on autos
• Transportation Secretary Duffy went on Fox News Sunday and falsely claimed that Canada “doesn’t have a military” and cited “record-high euthanasia rates”
• The Supreme Court has backed the order from Trump to curb mail in ballots
• MAGA Inc has spent $827k to back Darline Graham on the final day of the South Carolina GOP Senate runoff
• The administration has also revived its want for $100k for H1B visas
• Over a dozen major US companies, including Airbnb, DoorDash, Target, and Zillow, that signed a 2021 letter urging Congress to strengthen the Voting Rights Act are now donating to 527 political groups like the Republican Attorneys General Association that are actively working to undermine it
• Speaker Mike Johnson claims that staffers call him co-president because he’s always on the phone with Trump

Kitchen Briefs - August 24, 2026 AM

• The Gaza death toll has increased by another 8 people including two children and Israel is launching more strikes across southern Lebanon
• Iran’s currency has dropped to a record low as the US is about to announce more sanctions
• Trump is posting on Truth Social claiming the radical left democrats are going crazy with fake polls to try to demoralize Republicans and get them not to vote
• Ontario Premier Ford threatens to cut off electricity and critical minerals to U.S. as trade woes worsen
• An 8 year old girl has died from a rare brain eating amoeba likely contracted from swimming in a Louisiana Lake
• A human caused fire near Reno, Nevada called the Hawk Fire is forcing over 90,000 people to evacuate and school closures in and around Reno
• Border Patrol arrested Luis Manuel Aviles in Key West, Florida despite having a permit to work in the US and being here for 19 years
• California has canceled talks that were set to happen today with Paramount over the Warner Brothers merger
• The US executed a lethal strike on an alleged drug boat in the Eastern Pacific killing 2 so-called narco-terrorists
• Last week, Florida based startup Powerus, which is backed by Donnie Jr and Eric signed a $22.3M contract to supply Guardian drone interceptors protecting oil and gas infrastructure across the Middle East
• On Friday, U.S. Postal Service published a final 95-page rule tightening mail-in voting requirements ahead of November’s midterms
• Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says we should be tracking our elementary students to towards trade occupations such as plumbing and electrical work
• 49ers owner Jed York was arrested yesterday morning at a mobile home community in East Palestine, Ohio

Kitchen Briefs - August 23, 2026

• Israeli forces and settlers continue to attack the occupied West Bank with drones and raids. Two more Palestinians have been killed, a 14 year old was shot and killed, and 7 more have been wounded. Dozens of settlers backed by Israeli forces are also breaking into mosque compounds to perform Jewish prayer rituals
• Iran has announced a major gas discovery worth tens of billions of dollars
• Trump is claiming to make freedom roar today with his IndyCar race that will have cars approaching speeds of 200mph around the National Mall
• We know that AI is here and it’s rapidly affecting our children. In Charleston, South Carolina, a group of educators are encouraging classroom experimentation in order to promote AI literacy and show students how to identify the pitfalls and know when not to use it
• Yesterday the Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians voted unanimously to authorize their first ever strike
• Jared Kushner met privately with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in New York City to discuss immigration and the high cost of living

Kitchen Briefs - August 22, 2026

• Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary says that the recklessness of the guy in the white house has only increased the desire of people around the world to acquire nuclear weapons
• Israel continues to attack Lebanon with drones, warplanes and tear gas
• The Israeli military claims it has killed a Hamas commander during an air strike on a home
• Canada has said no to the US and will be matching tariffs dollar for dollar
• A federal judge has vacated the administration’s policy of suspending the processing of visas from 75 countries based on the claim that those nationals would need public assistance
• California governor Newsom praised Trump accounts
• Trump is posting on Truth Social
• Karoline Leavitt confirmed she’s leaving the White House to go back to MAGA Inc
• Trump is making a ton of investment moves but the White House says we don’t need to worry about any conflicts of interest because the one in charge of making those decisions is his son, Eric