Monday's Daily 10 covers the day's most consequential developments across world affairs, artificial intelligence, faith, consumer protection, science and business.
1. Current Affairs: Iran Strikes Jordan and UAE After US Hits Sea Mine Launchers in the Strait of Hormuz
On Sunday, U.S. forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz that Washington said were being used to deploy sea mines. Iran said the strikes killed military personnel and civilians. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it retaliated overnight into Monday with missile and drone strikes on Jordan's King Hussein and Al Azraq air bases, claiming heavy damage. Jordan's armed forces disputed that account, saying they intercepted eight ballistic missiles before any harm occurred. The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted a drone that entered its airspace from Iran and denied Iranian claims that Al Minhad Air Base had been hit. The exchange marks the first direct clash between the United States and Iran in roughly a month, unsettling energy markets and reviving concern about a wider regional escalation. Source: NPR.
2. AI: Study Finds AI Chatbots Debunk Foreign Disinformation Better Than Search Engines
NPR, working with fact checking group NewsGuard, tested six major AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok and Claude, against roughly 30 false narratives pushed by Russia, China and Iran between December 2025 and July 2026. The chatbots correctly identified and debunked the falsehoods a large majority of the time, outperforming results from Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yandex. AI generated summaries that appear atop search results performed worst of the systems tested, presenting a less reliable picture. Researchers found that prompting a chatbot to reconsider its answer, for example by asking it to look at the evidence, materially improved responses. The findings arrive as foreign influence operations increasingly target ordinary web searches and as more people turn to conversational AI tools as a first stop for news and fact checking. Source: KPBS/NPR.
3. Gaming: Elden Ring's Tarnished Pack DLC Review Bombed Over New Cosmetic Skins
FromSoftware's paid Tarnished Pack downloadable content for Elden Ring has drawn more than 800 negative user reviews within days of release, dragging the title's Steam rating down to Mixed. The backlash centers on cosmetic additions in the five dollar pack, particularly new skins for the player's spectral steed Torrent, which many fans argue undercut the game's atmosphere and signal a shift toward monetizing cosmetics in a series not previously built around them. The uproar echoes an earlier review bombing campaign against the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, when players objected to its difficulty rather than its content. Publisher Bandai Namco has not issued a formal response to the latest complaints. Series director Hidetaka Miyazaki has previously defended FromSoftware's creative decisions as central to preserving what makes the studio's games distinct, even when they draw a vocal backlash from parts of the community. Source: Game Rant.
4. Faith: Vatican Ordains Third Bishop in China in Two Months
Pope Leo XIV's appointee, Paolo Liu Honggang, was consecrated Bishop of Datong in China's Shanxi province on Monday, becoming the third episcopal ordination in China in just two months and the sixth since Leo's papacy began. Born in 1970 near Taiyuan, Liu trained at the Fenyang Seminary and Beijing's National Seminary before his 1996 ordination as a priest. His appointment and consecration proceeded under the framework of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and Beijing governing the naming of Chinese bishops, an arrangement that has drawn both praise for enabling dialogue and criticism from those who argue it cedes too much influence over Catholic Church leadership to the Chinese government. Vatican observers say the steady pace of consecrations this year signals Leo's intent to continue the diplomatic opening his predecessor, Pope Francis, began with Beijing. Source: Vatican News.
5. Scam Alert: Fake Supreme Court Letters Threaten Social Security Recipients
The Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General is warning the public about a mail based scam using forged Supreme Court letterhead and fabricated signatures attributed to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The letters, personally addressed to recipients, falsely claim the person is a primary suspect in a criminal case and assert that the Supreme Court has ordered their bank accounts frozen, capping balances at a few thousand dollars. Some versions reference real Social Security Administration officials or a state attorney general to appear more credible, and scammers often follow up with phone calls or texts to increase pressure. The Supreme Court does not send letters demanding money or threatening account seizures, and officials note that government agencies never request banking information through unsolicited mail. Recipients are urged to destroy the letter and report it rather than contact any number it provides. Source: Yahoo Finance.
6. Tech Tip: Update to Android 17 to Hide Your Browsing From Your Internet Provider
Google has begun rolling out Android 17 with platform wide support for Encrypted Client Hello, a privacy standard that closes a long standing gap in HTTPS connections. Previously, even on encrypted websites, internet providers and networks could see which domains a device visited by reading an unencrypted portion of the connection setup known as the Server Name Indication. Encrypted Client Hello scrambles that information when paired with private DNS, preventing networks from building a profile of the sites a person visits for advertising or, in more troubling cases, phishing and surveillance. To benefit, users should update eligible devices to Android 17 and confirm private DNS is enabled, typically found under Settings, Network and Internet. Android 17 also introduces automatic blocking of outdated 2G connections and requires apps to request permission before scanning local networks, two more targeted security upgrades in the same release. Source: BleepingComputer.
7. Science: Bumblebees May Self-Medicate When Their Colony Faces a Fungal Threat
A study published in Royal Society Open Science found that bumblebee colonies exposed to a fungal brood disease shifted their foraging toward nectar spiked with quercetin, a flavonol compound with antimicrobial properties, using robotic flowers to track feeding choices. Colonies challenged with chalkbrood disease increased both their visits to and time spent at the medicated flowers as the experiment progressed, while healthy colonies and those exposed to a bacterial pathogen showed no such preference. The findings suggest bumblebees can respond to a fungal specific threat by actively seeking out compounds that help fight it, adding to a small but growing body of evidence for self-medicating behavior in social insects, previously documented mainly in honeybees, which increase antifungal plant resin collection during similar outbreaks. Researchers say a better understanding of these behaviors could help support pollinator health as colonies face mounting pressure from disease and habitat loss. Source: Phys.org.
8. Space: NASA Reopens Artemis III Lunar Lander Contract as SpaceX Falls Behind Schedule
NASA has reopened competition for the lunar lander that will carry astronauts to the moon's surface under the Artemis III mission, after SpaceX's Starship program fell behind the timeline needed to meet the agency's target landing date. Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said the move is intended to preserve a path to a crewed lunar landing by 2028, giving Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon Mark 2 lander is already under contract for the later Artemis V mission, an opening to compete for an earlier flight. Starship still must demonstrate an uncrewed orbital propellant transfer, a milestone NASA requires before certifying the vehicle for a crewed landing, and the company recently completed an eleventh suborbital test flight from its Starbase site in Texas. The decision underscores growing pressure on both companies as the United States works to return astronauts to the lunar surface ahead of China's own crewed lunar program. Source: Yahoo News.
9. Business and Finance: OpenAI's Advertising Business Hits 1 Billion Dollar Run Rate in 200 Days
OpenAI said Monday that ChatGPT Ads, its advertising product, has reached a 1 billion dollar annualized revenue run rate just 200 days after launch, with the company opening its self-serve ad platform to marketers in India, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The pilot program had crossed 100 million dollars in annualized revenue within six weeks of its April debut. OpenAI is targeting 2.5 billion dollars in advertising revenue for the year and says the broader business is tracking toward more than 40 billion dollars in overall annualized revenue, roughly double where the company stood at the end of 2025. Executives are presenting the ad business as validation of OpenAI's strategy to diversify beyond subscription revenue ahead of a widely anticipated public offering. The announcement came the same day broader markets slipped after the weekend exchange of strikes between the United States and Iran unsettled investor sentiment. Source: CNBC.
10. Consumer Tech: Apple Confirms September 9 Event, Foldable iPhone Ultra Expected
Apple has confirmed its next product event, titled "Surprise and Shine," for September 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific time, with the keynote to stream on YouTube, Apple's event page and the Apple TV app. The company is widely expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, along with what would be Apple's first foldable phone, reportedly to be marketed as the iPhone Ultra. Analysts expect the standard iPhone 18, a lower cost iPhone 18e and a second generation iPhone Air to be held back for a separate announcement around March 2027, a departure from Apple's traditional single September launch for its full lineup. The event arrives amid industry wide pressure from rising memory chip costs, which Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has described as a "100-year flood," fueling speculation over whether the new Pro models will carry higher prices than their predecessors. Source: AppleInsider.
Written by Lonnon Jensen. Read more about the author.