Behind the scenes, several people who worked closely with former Vice President Kamala Harris remain skeptical that she will launch another bid for the White House in 2028.

Although early polls show Harris leading the Democratic field for the nomination, a number of her former aides, advisers, surrogates, and donors do not expect her to run again, according to Axios.

The outlet spoke with eight former Harris aides and advisers, including several who held senior positions, about her prospects for another presidential campaign. Only one said she would probably run. Two viewed the decision as a toss-up, and five said she was unlikely to enter the race.

The former aides cited several factors, including Harris keeping a low profile and doing “the bare minimum” to stay relevant in the presidential sweepstakes. Potential presidential contenders have traditionally spent the pre-primary period building support in early-voting states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina and campaigning for their party’s candidates in midterm elections. Since her stinging election loss, Harris has gone on a book tour and is expected to campaign with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed for Michigan’s contentious U.S. Senate race.

One former aide told Axios that Harris knows the political challenges she would face in another campaign. The 2028 Democratic primary is expected to be crowded, and Harris would have to convince Democratic voters she could win a general election after losing all seven key battleground states plus the national popular vote to President Donald Trump.

The Harris allies also pointed to fundraising concerns. Some major Democratic donors remain reluctant to support another Harris campaign, while others may be lining up behind other contenders such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. At a Politico panel earlier this month, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman threw cold water on another Harris campaign.

“I think it would be a very challenging path for her, and it’s going to be a very noisy field,” Hoffman said.

His negative assessment came days after Newsom said he’d defer to Harris, insisting he would not run if she threw her hat into the ring.

“I wouldn’t run if she ran,” Newsom told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a viral interview recorded while the two were fly-fishing in Montana.

Tapper later wrote that he was “stunned” by Newsom’s answer.

“Why would I?” Newsom continued. “I won’t waste everyone’s time.”

Newsom argued that a primary contest between the two California Democrats would benefit Republicans and force their overlapping political allies to choose sides.

“First of all, electorally, it’s a gift from God for everybody else,” Newsom said. “They’d enjoy the hell out of it. Mutually assured destruction. It serves no greater good.”

Jacob Wheeler, The Daily Wire

Medicare Part D sponsors made $587.7 million in ineligible payments to pharmacies for five drugs carrying obsolete prescription-only labeling more than a year after the corresponding brand-name drugs switched to over-the-counter status, a federal watchdog found.

The money won’t be recovered, because the payments complied with Medicare guidance in place at the time, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, which made the finding in an audit covering calendar years 2021 through 2023.

Medicare Part D, the federal prescription drug benefit, is delivered through private “sponsors,” including Medicare Advantage organizations and standalone prescription drug plans, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The program covers 56 million older adults and people with long-term disabilities, according to a June 11, 2026, analysis by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, based on CMS enrollment data. Spread across the entire program, the $587.7 million works out to roughly $10.50 per enrollee. By law, Part D does not cover drugs that can be purchased without a prescription.

Over the same three years, Medicare Part D paid about $360 billion in benefits, according to CMS trustees reports, meaning the ineligible payments amounted to about 0.16% of Part D benefit payments.

The bulk of the ineligible payments, $562.1 million, was tied to generic versions of Voltaren, a topical drug used to treat arthritis pain, spanning 12 drug codes and nearly 16 million prescription drug events, the claims records Medicare uses to track prescriptions filled. The other four drugs, Pataday and Lastacaft (both eye drops for itchy eyes caused by allergens), Astepro (a nasal spray for hay fever symptoms), and Sklice (a lotion that treats head lice), accounted for the remaining $25.6 million.

The payments continued because CMS relied on FDA data to identify drugs that had switched from prescription-only to over-the-counter status, while FDA had not set a specific timeframe for generic manufacturers to update their labeling after a related brand-name switch.

“FDA did not set a timeframe until it issued the 6-month policy effective on December 8, 2025,” Melissa Rumley, a spokesperson for the inspector general’s office, told The Center Square. “As a result, some generic drug manufacturers continued producing and selling OTC drugs as Rx-only inventories under NDCs associated with obsolete Rx-only labeling.”

CMS also had not set a deadline for Part D sponsors to stop paying for drugs under obsolete prescription-only codes.

The audit followed a 2022 case in which a drug manufacturer, Akorn, agreed to pay $7.9 million to resolve allegations it caused false claims to be submitted to Medicare by continuing to sell three generic drugs under obsolete prescription-only labeling after the related brand-name drugs switched to over-the-counter status.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a policy effective Dec. 8, 2025, directing generic drug manufacturers to update their labeling at the earliest possible time and within six months of a brand-name switch.

The inspector general found the payments specifically complied with CMS’s Formulary Reference File and guidance in place at the time, Rumley told The Center Square.

CMS concurred with the inspector general’s recommendation to issue guidance setting a timeframe for Part D sponsors to reject payments for outdated prescription-only labeling, Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote in a July 20 letter responding to the audit. The recommendation remains open, with the inspector general’s tracker listing an update expected by Feb. 27, 2027.

CMS did not respond to a request for comment. Rumley, the HHS inspector general spokesperson, responded to questions by email. The audit was issued Aug. 31, 2026, and posted publicly Sept. 2, 2026.

An unnamed sixth drug that switched from prescription-only to over-the-counter status during the audit period had no improper payments, the inspector general found. The policy gap will remain until CMS issues its promised guidance on when Part D sponsors must reject payments for OTC drugs carrying obsolete prescription-only labeling.

Brett Rowland | The Center Square

You can take the Somali out of Somalia, but can you take the Somalia out of the Somali?

Such eternal questions leap forefront to mind after the umpteenth investigation into suspected fraud and taxpayer abuse raises disturbing issues.

This time, the story comes via the Post Millennial’s Katie Daviscourt, and we’re no longer talking about Minnesota, but Seattle.

Some Seattle-area home daycares are facing questions over millions of dollars in taxpayer funding after an investigation found apparently empty facilities, uncooperative operators and one neighbor who flat-out called a nearby daycare a “scam.”

And when a reporter started asking questions at one location, a man fired back with an accusation of his own. Are you “Trump people”?

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: TPM’s @KatieDaviscourt investigated Somali home daycares in Seattle. Could there be millions of dollars of potential misuse of taxpayer funds?

When she knocked on doors, often no one answered and if they did they were hostile and defensive. Neighbors say they… pic.twitter.com/ixY5J4aFOU— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 21, 2026

You can’t fault him for the assumption, since the Democrat Party obviously doesn’t care about stopping fraud.

Daviscourt visited more than 20 daycare locations in two Seattle neighborhoods while investigating providers that she reported had collectively received more than $5 million in public funding. Her investigation focused on Somali-run home daycare businesses and whether the services being provided matched the substantial taxpayer payments associated with them.

One of the most striking stops was Daisy Family Childcare. According to Daviscourt’s review of public records, the daycare has received nearly $2 million in taxpayer money and was recently collecting approximately $70,000 per month.

But when Daviscourt visited during the middle of the day, she reported seeing no children at the property, which appeared on video to be a large, modern home.

Then there was Aboo Family Daycare, which Daviscourt reported was receiving roughly $40,000 per month in taxpayer funding.

A neighbor interviewed in the video didn’t mince words when asked about it, claiming he had known for years that the daycare was a “scam.”

It was hardly the only unusual encounter Daviscourt recorded during her tour.

At Hormuud Home Family Daycare in South Seattle, two women outside the property became frustrated when Daviscourt asked whether she could enroll a child.

The neighborhood itself was notable. A map displayed by Daviscourt showed more than a dozen daycare businesses clustered throughout the surrounding area.

At another location, Star Family Home Daycare, Daviscourt attempted to confirm whether the address was actually operating as a daycare.

“I don’t care, I’m not going to answer,” a woman at the property responded, according to the video.

Daviscourt reported that Star was receiving approximately $30,000 per month in taxpayer funding.

But perhaps the strangest exchange came at another registered daycare when a man emerged from the building and confronted Daviscourt and her cameraman.

His first concern apparently wasn’t whether they wanted to enroll a child. He wanted to know whether they were “Trump people.” The man then called the pair “haters” and ordered them to leave. “Get out of here,” he said.

Daviscourt’s report comes as Washington’s childcare subsidy system is receiving increased scrutiny over how public money is being handed out to immigrants.

Washington’s Working Connections Child Care program uses state and federal dollars to subsidize childcare for eligible families. The state pays participating providers the subsidized portion of the cost directly.

Seattle also operates its own Child Care Assistance Program for qualifying families who work, attend school or participate in job training. Participating CCAP providers submit monthly attendance logs, which the city reviews before sending payments.

Daviscourt’s investigation raises serious questions about whether the claimed enrollment and alleged services underlying the payments at the locations she visited can be verified.

Washington has also tightened some of its subsidy rules. Legislation passed this year changes Working Connections payments toward an attendance-based system, with payments tied more directly to the number of days children actually attend. For licensed family-home providers, those attendance-based rules are scheduled to take effect in July 2027.

Daviscourt reported more than $5 million in taxpayer funding connected to the providers she examined across just two neighborhoods.

When taxpayers are sending $30,000, $40,000 or even $70,000 a month to empty home daycares and reporters are met with hostility, there is one question that comes to mind: Where are the kids?

It’s time that Americans ‘lear’ their lesson: Stop the fraud.

Kyle Becker, Red State

The governor of Massachusetts is promoting a new initiative that would have nurses visit new mothers at home in the days after giving birth.

“Everybody in the state, when you have a baby, you’re going to have a home visit within days, weeks, and that will be an opportunity for a healthcare provider to make an assessment to see if you need some additional support and resources,” Gov. Maura Healey (D) told Boston Public Radio during an interview last week.

The initiative is part of the state’s plans to expand its Welcome Family program. Healey further proposed an additional $250,000 to the existing Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms, which provides mental health support to providers caring for pregnant and postpartum patients, Fox News reported.

The postpartum visits would include screenings for depression and other mental health concerns, which is meant to help identify families who are struggling and may need extra support.

“To every mom who has struggled with her mental health before, during or after pregnancy, I want you to know we see you — I see you,” Healey said during a visit to Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, per Fox KTVU.

While some commenters supported the idea, others called it “creepy” and an example of “massive government overreach.”

“Doctors and pediatricians are more than capable to conduct appropriate screenings for their patients. Say no to home visits,” one response said.

“That lunatic can’t even tell you what a woman is. And she’s gonna send assessors into your home,” another person chimed in.

The program is voluntary, as many users have noted, but that doesn’t mean it always will be. The initiative has added more fuel to the debate over mental health services following the dramatic Lindsay Clancy case that dominated headlines for months.

In January 2023, Clancy brought her three young children to the basement of their Duxbury, Massachusetts, home and strangled them one by one with exercise bands. She admitted to killing her children, but defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis and suffered a mental break while her husband, Patrick, was out running errands for the family of five.

She leaned on an insanity defense to try to avoid criminal responsibility for the crimes. More than three years later, Judge William Sullivan declared a mistrial on September 4 after the jury became deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict.

Amanda Harding, The Daily Wire

By Ryan King

WASHINGTON — Democrats are so desperate to see President Trump out of office that a majority would be happy to see him overthrown in a military coup or die in his sleep, a jaw-dropping new poll has found.

Nearly six in 10 (59%) of Democratic respondents said they would feel “very positive” or “somewhat positive” if they learned a junta had removed Trump and seized control of the American government, while 55% said they would feel the same if the president passed away peacefully, according to the survey from the Center for Strategic Politics.

An even higher percentage said they would be happy if Trump were impeached and removed from office (87%) or ousted by his cabinet via the 25th Amendment (84%).

The results were released ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, in which Democrats are heavily favored to regain control of the House of Representatives after four years in the minority.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has kept open the possibility of impeaching Trump for a third time.

“No, we haven’t ruled anything in and we haven’t ruled anything out in terms of impeachment,” Jeffries told ABC News’ “This Week” Sept. 13. “We’ve got to follow the facts.”

But the poll illustrates the intense pressure Jeffries and other Democratic leaders are feeling from their base to go scorched earth against Trump.

The survey also showed that nearly one-third of Democrats (32%) said they would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” if the president were assassinated at a rally, while 43% said they would feel “very” or “somewhat negative” about the news. 

Exactly one quarter of respondents said they would have a neutral reaction to news of Trump’s murder.

Beyond removing Trump from office, respondents also overwhelmingly favored having the next Democratic administration prosecute members of his administration involved with immigration enforcement efforts (77%), the war in Iran (66%), and boat strikes against suspected drug traffickers (72%).

More than half of Democrats (57%) also backed criminal prosecutions of both Trump and Biden administration officials over the Israel-Hamas war as well as ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster (52%), while more than two-thirds favored expanding the Supreme Court (69%).

Former Vice President Kamala Harris was the pick of potential 2028 contenders among the respondents, with 25% deeming her their first choice, followed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (15%), former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (13%), Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia (10%), Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona (9%), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York (8%).

The Center for Strategic Politics poll sampled 683 Democratic voters beginning Sept. 3 and continuing Sept. 8-10, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.75 percentage points.

Ryan King, New York Post

We don’t just tolerate the wicked (meaning the irrational, the wrong, the barbaric, the dishonest). We subsidize them, applaud them, cheer them on, tiptoe on eggshells around them, ostracize and intimidate dissenters and then wonder why the world is going to hell and ludicrous caricatures start to dominate government, business, media and academia.

Speaking of the devil …

“We want more immigrants to come into your countries and then they’re gonna f*ck your sisters and then your daughters… We’re here to destroy the white race, b*tch.”

The quote is from Hasan Piker, the new darling of the Democratic Party left.

He speaks for the Democratic Party. Democratic voters applaud him, or don’t mind what he says. Democrat voters appear to prefer this sociopathy over lowering taxes, cutting regulations, keeping Iran from going nuclear, or having free markets. They much prefer this.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

“We are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody.”

— Ayn Rand

Matt VespaFollow @mVespa1

September 21, 2026 3:00 PM

Patrick Clancy opened up to CBS News’ Ross Douthat about how he’s moving forward with his life after his ex-wife, Lindsay Clancy, murdered their three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, and how he’s working to rebuild his life and ensure his children are not forgotten. It was an emotionally charged interview, with Douthat asking pointed questions about the night of the killings, what he did when his youngest, Callan, who was only eight months old, spent his last days in the NICU, and what transpired during the trial, which ended with a hung jury. 

Lindsay Clancy could still face three murder charges. She strangled the three children in January 2023 and later slashed her wrists and jumped out a window, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. The interview also discussed the horde of leftist clowns and so-called internet sleuths — almost all white women and TikTok users — who have set back women’s rights decades with their insanity about the case, including accusing Patrick of murder. It’s a deplorable and nasty side of social media, but Mr. Clancy was calm and collected, saying that these white wine-guzzling whack jobs only do a disservice to perinatal mental health and do damage to the legacy for his children. 

He explained that he had to leave Duxbury, Massachusetts, for reasons that don’t need explanation, and moved to New York City, where he had space to grieve. He emptied his former house, keeping mementos of his dead children. A park is even named after them, with specific obstacles designed to honor the memories of the three kids. 

Patrick also said that Lindsay never asked for his forgiveness, but he gave it to her anyway. He also said that calling his ex-wife a child killer and a murderer is grossly inaccurate. 

“I believe that it was her mental illness that caused that. So I shared those words. And I think when it comes to forgiveness, I also felt that if I didn’t get there, I would be eaten up inside forever,” he said.

The part where he described finding his kids, Callan specifically, was heartbreaking. Cora and Dawson were dead, but there was hope that maybe Callan could survive (via CBS News):

It was New Year’s Eve when Lindsay checked herself into McLean Psychiatric Hospital. She was treated for depression, and days later she was released. The family celebrated Cora’s birthday on January 7th. 

Ross Douthat: She told you she wanted to come home.

Patrick Clancy: She did.

Seventeen days later, the unthinkable. After taking Cora to a doctor’s appointment earlier in the day, Lindsay asked Patrick to run an errand and pick up dinner – and when he returned home, he said he found her lying in the backyard, her throat and wrists cut, paralyzed after jumping from an upstairs window. In the basement he said he found his children strangled. Cora and Dawson were dead. Callan somehow survived and was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital.

Patrick Clancy: So, I didn’t have all the details of Callan’s condition. I just knew that they got a heartbeat back. So I remember– (SIGH) that night, I– I– I really thought there was a chance that Callan would live. And I– I remember just thinking, “Just gimme one. Just gimme one kid, and I would raise him as best I could, and I would give him the best life I possibly could. I’d tell him about his brother and sister.” And I was holdin’ out hope for that. And then when I got to the hospital, I saw the doctor. I saw the look on her face, and– and I knew that it– it wasn’t gonna be– a good prognosis.

Callan’s heart kept beating for four days. 

Patrick Clancy: I’m so grateful for those four days that I had with him. And I’m so grateful he hung on.

Ross Douthat: Did you talk to him in those four days?

Patrick Clancy: Yeah. 

Ross Douthat: Can you tell me anything you said?

Patrick Clancy: I said, “I’m so sorry.” And I got to– I got to hold him. I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms.

During those hours with Callan, Clancy sat and wrote tributes to each of his three children, typing with one hand while he held his baby’s hand with the other. He said he was afraid if he didn’t write about them they would be forgotten.

Ross Douthat: But it wasn’t just about your kids. It also had something that I think a lot of people found at that moment incomprehensible, which was something about Lindsay, where you forgave her.

Patrick did ask his ex-wife whether she remembered the killings.

“She said it was like a dream. And– she remembered it much in the way you would remember a dream after waking up,” he said.

In January 2024, Patrick met Dr. Rachel Danis, a fertility doctor, at a run club outing. This led to a coffee meeting, which then led to Patrick marrying Dennis in New York last April. Patrick added that Danis has helped him carry his grief. 

“I always– try to take some of the sh– weight from Pat. I always wanna strive to do that. I know I can’t fix– I can’t bring his kids back. But if I can honor them and allow Pat to grieve but also just continue to honor them in the present, it– I guess that’s all I can do,” said Danis.

The couple is also in the process of starting a family. There will be another hearing at the end of September to determine whether Lindsay Clancy will be tried again for murder. Both Patrick and Lindsay have filed medical malpractice lawsuits against providers they claim failed her. 

Matt Vespa, Townhall

Kevin McCullough

Sep 20, 2026

Pro-Palestinian protesters descended on Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia over the weekend, waving flags and chanting “Free Palestine” outside Ed Sheeran’s concert, one week after Macklemore got pulled from Sheeran’s Loop Tour entirely. The rapper had used his opening slot at MetLife Stadium to push the same slogan from the stage, and according to Macklemore, Sheeran told him that Patriots owner Robert Kraft rallied other stadium owners behind an ultimatum: keep Macklemore on the bill, lose the venue. Sheeran, for his part, says the call wasn’t his, calls the whole conflict “a human tragedy” on both sides, and has mostly tried to stay out of the blast radius.

I want to set the tour drama aside for a moment, because underneath the chanting and the flags is a premise nobody in that crowd seems to have actually examined: free Palestine from what, exactly, to become what, exactly?

There has never been a sovereign Palestinian state. Not once, not ever, not under any government, any constitution, any flag flying over internationally recognized borders. The land in question passed from the Ottoman Empire to the British Mandate to a 1947 partition plan the surrounding Arab nations rejected outright, choosing war instead. From 1948 to 1967, the West Bank sat under Jordanian control and Gaza under Egyptian control — not under Palestinian self-governance, and neither Jordan nor Egypt showed the slightest interest in creating one during those nineteen years when they held the exact territory activists now insist must be “freed.” Today’s Palestinian Authority holds observer status at the United Nations, not full member-state recognition, because full statehood has never actually existed to lose.

Contrast that with the land’s other history, the one “Free Palestine” chants tend to skip past entirely. The United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, David, and Solomon. The divided Kingdom of Israel in the north and Kingdom of Judah in the south after that. The Hasmonean Kingdom, won back through actual armed revolt against a Greek empire trying to stamp out Jewish worship by force. And now the modern State of Israel, re-established in 1948 and internationally recognized within about 11 minutes of declaring independence. Four distinct eras of Jewish sovereignty stretching back 3,000 years, plus the modern state — five separate governments, on the same land, predating any Arab national claim to it by millennia. That’s not propaganda. That’s archaeology, ancient text, and a documentary record longer than most nations on earth can produce for their own founding.

So when Macklemore takes a stage and tells an arena full of young fans to “free Palestine,” what is he actually asking for? Not the restoration of some erased nation, because that nation never existed in the first place. What he’s really promoting, whether he understands it or not, is a relatively modern political identity, assembled largely out of a mixed Arab population that migrated into the region under Ottoman rule and during the economic growth of the British Mandate period — a real community, with real grievances worth discussing honestly, but not a “return” to anything. You cannot free a nation from captivity that it never held sovereign title to.

I understand the instinct in that crowd. Gaza’s suffering is real, the civilian toll of this war is real, and nobody with a conscience should look at dead children on either side of that border and shrug. But it’s worth being honest about who else is standing under that same banner. This isn’t a slogan confined to people demanding statehood and nothing more. The NYU Law chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine drew national condemnation for a statement holding “the Israeli state” “wholly responsible” for October 7th, issued before Israel had even begun to respond.

SJP chapters at multiple universities circulated organizing materials describing the attack itself — the murders, the rapes, the kidnapped infants and grandparents — in the language of legitimate “resistance.” Some of the loudest voices marching under the “Free Palestine” banner aren’t asking for a state. They’re excusing, or outright celebrating, the deliberate murder of Israeli civilians in their homes. That’s not a fringe detail. It’s a fact that belongs in the same conversation as the flags and the chanting, because a movement doesn’t get to claim the moral high ground while some of its most visible members refuse to say October 7th was simply, plainly wrong.

But chanting a three-word slogan lifted from a T-shirt is not the same thing as understanding the history you’re invoking, and an arena full of 20-somethings screaming “Free Palestine” at a British pop singer who had nothing to do with any of it isn’t advancing peace. It’s performing solidarity with a fiction, at the expense of an artist who, by every account, tried to stay neutral and still got dragged into a controversy that arguably isn’t even his to resolve.

Macklemore is entitled to his opinions, and he’s entitled to a stage, on his own tour, with his own name on the marquee. What he isn’t entitled to is rewriting history for an audience that mostly doesn’t know any better, then acting shocked when the venues and the artist actually bearing his name on the tour decide his politics have become the show. Robert Kraft understood something worth understanding: some causes are worth defending loudly, and some slogans deserve a harder look before you let them anywhere near your stage.

There’s a real, complicated, human conflict happening in the Middle East, and it deserves serious people taking it seriously. “Free Palestine” isn’t that. It’s a bumper sticker standing in for a history lesson nobody in that crowd outside Lincoln Financial Field seems to have actually read.

Kevin McCollough, Townhall

Investing.com — Saudi Aramco has informed at least two oil refining customers in Europe that they will receive no crude oil next month following an attack on the kingdom’s main pipeline to the Red Sea, according to a report from Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter.

European customers typically receive Saudi Arabian crude through term contracts that provide steady monthly supply. These deliveries will not occur next month, the people said. The decision affects all European buyers, they added

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.

Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline last week after a drone attack. The line is expected to partially restart within days and return to full operation within six weeks, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The scale of the disruption is staggering. The 1,200-km East-West Pipeline had been carrying 4 million to 5 million barrels per day to the Red Sea port of Yanbu — equivalent to 4%–5% of global oil supply, having become the kingdom’s critical export lifeline after war in the Gulf effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported on September 17, citing satellite imagery and industry sources, that three pumping stations were damaged in the September 11 drone attack, one more than initially assessed, with repair estimates ranging from a partial resumption within days to a full recovery in five to six weeks.

European OECD countries had been importing 577,000 barrels per day from Saudi Arabia as of June, according to the International Energy Agency. Those volumes, delivered via Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir through a Red Sea pipeline link, now face a complete halt for October.

Louis Juricic, Yahoo Finance