Twenty-four years ago today, the world changed. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the deadliest terrorist attack in history. Two planes struck the Twin Towers, another hit the Pentagon, and one crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back. The images and aftermath shaped an entire generation and reshaped global politics. It’s a day to pause, remember, and honor.

With that perspective in mind, let’s turn to the headlines shaping our present.

NATO’s First Shot

Yesterday marked a dangerous new chapter in the Russia-Ukraine war. For the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russian drones violated Polish airspace and were shot down by NATO forces. Overnight, more than a dozen drones crossed into Poland as Russia launched one of its largest single attacks of the war, over 400 Shahed-type drones targeting Ukraine. Poland scrambled fighter jets, engaged the intruders, and confirmed the destruction of multiple aircraft. While Russian missiles and drones have occasionally strayed into neighboring countries before, this was unprecedented in scale and in NATO’s direct response.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the incident an “absolutely reckless provocation” and invoked Article 4 of the NATO charter, which requires consultations when a member’s territorial integrity is threatened. It stops short of triggering Article 5, the mutual defense clause, but the legal line is thinner than ever. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed this wasn’t a mistake, noting that at least eight of the drones were clearly “aimed toward Poland.” Russia’s defense ministry denied any hostile intent, claiming its drones couldn’t travel far enough to strike Polish targets, a statement hard to reconcile with the fact that nearly 20 drones actually crossed into Polish territory.

The implications are enormous. This is the first time a NATO member has directly engaged Russian military assets over its own territory, something both sides had carefully avoided for over three years. NATO leaders condemned the move as “reckless” and “dangerous,” warning it ratchets tensions to a level unseen since the war began. The alliance now faces a delicate balancing act: respond firmly enough to deter further Russian provocations without stumbling into a direct NATO-Russia war that would redraw the conflict overnight.

Rapid Fire

🇺🇸 Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder, was shot and killed Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University. A single bullet fired from a rooftop 200 yards away hit him in the neck. Chaos followed. Bodyguards hauled him into an SUV, students bolted across campus fountains, and by the afternoon the White House ordered flags to half-mast.

Authorities are calling it a political assassination. The FBI says the shooter is still on the run, with multiple crime scenes under investigation. Kirk wasn’t just another name on the speaking circuit. He was a central figure in mobilizing young Republicans and a close Trump ally. 

💰 Larry Ellison just leapfrogged Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person, thanks to Oracle’s monster earnings report. His fortune hit $393 billion on Wednesday morning, edging past Musk’s $385 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. The kicker: Ellison’s net worth jumped by $101 billion in a single day, the largest one-day wealth increase the index has ever recorded. Oracle’s stock surged more than 40% as investors piled into the company’s AI-driven growth story, with soaring demand for its data centers putting Oracle squarely in the middle of the artificial intelligence infrastructure boom.

Most of Ellison’s fortune comes from his 41% stake in Oracle, which means every rally in the stock translates into an outsized personal payday. The shift isn’t just about bragging rights among billionaires, it signals where investors think the future lies. Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla and SpaceX, while Ellison’s rests on Oracle’s growing role as the plumbing for AI. The volatility at these levels is wild, trillions in market cap and billions in personal net worth now swing on a quarterly earnings report. And at 80, Ellison isn’t just the richest man alive, he’s also the oldest to ever hold that title.

🕒 Spain’s big plan to trim the workweek just got shot down. Lawmakers voted 178–170 against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s proposal to cut hours from 40 to 37.5 without cutting pay. It would have covered about 12.5 million workers and was one of the Socialist-led government’s headline promises. Business groups lobbied hard against it, warning shorter weeks would crush small companies. Conservatives and a few supposed allies joined in to block the bill. The idea had been pushed through Spain’s Council of Ministers earlier this year after a deal with the country’s two biggest trade unions.

For Sánchez, this is more than just losing a labor reform. His fragile minority coalition is barely holding together, weighed down by corruption scandals, military spending fights, and partners who keep peeling away. The workweek cut was supposed to be a win for workers and proof the government could still deliver. Instead, it’s another reminder that Sánchez is governing on borrowed time.

World Watch

Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei just pulled a move no one expected: he brought back the Interior Ministry. The same office he axed in his “chainsaw” crusade against big government is now resurrected, a not-so-subtle signal he needs friends in politics after his party got clobbered in Buenos Aires province. Milei’s La Libertad Avanza took only 34% of the vote, while the Peronists cruised to 47%. Markets immediately panicked. The peso, bonds, and stocks all tumbled, raising fresh doubts about whether Milei has the political backing to keep pushing his shock-therapy economics. The provincial loss stings because Buenos Aires is Argentina’s political and economic heavyweight, where national fortunes are usually decided.

For a guy who built his brand on torching the establishment, this is a sharp pivot. Milei’s austerity drive did tame inflation and even delivered a rare budget surplus, but it’s also fueled protests, deepened poverty, and made Argentina one of Latin America’s priciest places to live. Now, with midterms looming in October and his support slipping, Milei is reopening the very doors he once slammed shut, this time hoping governors and old rivals will help keep his reform agenda alive.

Today in What the Hell

El Salvador’s navy just hauled in 1.4 tons of cocaine worth $35 million after spotting packages bobbing in the Pacific, nearly 1,000 miles off its own coastline. The image itself is almost surreal: bundles of drugs drifting alone in open water until Salvadoran forces swooped in. But it also reveals the strange reality of the drug trade, where traffickers sometimes dump cargo mid-route to avoid capture or lighten loads in rough seas.

President Nayib Bukele called it a strike “against international drug trafficking,” adding to the country’s record of nearly 40 tons seized since 2024. The U.S., which estimates 90% of cocaine entering its borders passes through Central America, praised the operation. Beyond the numbers, though, the bust underscores how far-reaching and unpredictable the smuggling networks are, where multimillion-dollar shipments can end up floating in the middle of nowhere, waiting for whoever finds them first.

That’s all folks

That’s all for today. A lot of headlines right now feel like history being written in real time, whether it’s NATO’s first direct clash with Russia, billionaires leapfrogging each other, or governments scrambling to keep their coalitions intact. The through-line? Things change fast. Some days it’s chaos, some days it’s progress, and most of the time it’s a bit of both.

See you back here tomorrow. Same coffee, new stories.