Newsom’s Billionaire Tax, Iran War Escalates & Israel Acknowledges Genocide | PBD Podcast #825

Ep 624 - Big Boy (feat. Nate Marshall) · Jul 16, 2026 News

Fitness influencer Connor Murphy died at 32 in Thailand after repeatedly dosing ayahuasca alone every two hours, painting himself, fleeing police, and drowning in a lake. His final video — hair wild, playing with his tongue — is genuinely disturbing. Expand

Ep 624 - Big Boy (feat. Nate Marshall) · Jul 16, 2026 News

Over 100 people collapsed from heat exhaustion and 30 were hospitalized while standing outside waiting for the historic Big Boy steam locomotive to roll through Pennsylvania. There were no deaths, just a field of passed-out train nerds. Expand

Ep 624 - Big Boy (feat. Nate Marshall) · Jul 16, 2026 News

One of the Big Boy's stops was Nate Marshall's hometown of Reading, PA — literally the Reading Railroad from Monopoly. The line hasn't run through there in his lifetime, making the event a genuine civic moment that happened to kill nobody but hospitalize dozens. Expand

NPR News: 07-15-2026 7AM EDT · Jul 15, 2026 News

Iran struck at least seven commercial ships in a single week, leaving nearly a dozen crew members killed, wounded, or missing. The US has reinstated a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with Trump demanding full control — a goal that military analysts say would require eliminating Iran's drone and missile capabilities. Expand

NPR News: 07-15-2026 6AM EDT · Jul 15, 2026 News

The US has now launched four rounds of strikes on Iranian military sites, and Iran is threatening to block the Bab El Mandeb Strait — a chokepoint that could halt Middle East oil exports entirely. Trump also walked back a proposed 20% fee on Hormuz shipping after Gulf allies pushed back. Expand

NPR News: 07-15-2026 6AM EDT · Jul 15, 2026 News

After an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian national in Maine — the second such deadly shooting in barely a week — the Trump administration ordered ICE to halt most vehicle stops. DHS policy bars use of deadly force solely to prevent flight unless the person poses a significant threat, but a former ICE chief counsel notes the threshold is always judged from the officer's perspective. Expand

Blanche Confirmation Hearing, US and Strait of Hormuz, ICE … · Jul 15, 2026 News

Full US control of the Strait of Hormuz would require eliminating Iran's ability to fire drones and missiles at commercial ships. Analysts say that means tripling or quadrupling current US strike rates for weeks — and even then, ship owners and insurers would have to decide if the risk was low enough. Expand

Blanche Confirmation Hearing, US and Strait of Hormuz, ICE … · Jul 15, 2026 News

Iran is not just targeting commercial ships — it's also striking US bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. Those countries say their defenses have knocked out the missiles so far, but the scale of the confrontation is far wider than a simple maritime blockade. Expand

Blanche Confirmation Hearing, US and Strait of Hormuz, ICE … · Jul 15, 2026 News

The US is currently steering ships along a safer southern path near Oman, but Iran is targeting that route too, demanding ships use its own approved corridor near the Iranian shoreline. Analysts say the US may ultimately have to physically escort commercial ships, just as it did during the Iran-Iraq tanker war of the 1980s. Expand