Friday☕️🌎

Trending:

President Trump has officially removed Syria from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that had been in place for decades due to the country’s support for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

This move eases certain sanctions and export restrictions on Syria, signals a shift in US policy toward potential reconstruction and engagement with the new Syrian leadership, and could open avenues for normalized diplomatic and economic relations while still allowing targeted measures against remaining threats.

Geopolitics & Military Activity:

Iran expanded retaliation by launching missiles toward Jordan, where forces intercepted eight projectiles targeting the US-operated Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, with no reported casualties, following strikes on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.

US strikes on Iranian targets, including near the Bushehr nuclear plant perimeter (with no damage to the reactor or radiation rise), have killed 14 and injured 78 according to Iran, amid ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz where shipping remains subdued but functional.

Science & Technology:

OpenAI has begun rolling out its GPT-5.6 family of models—Sol, Terra, and Luna—across ChatGPT, Codex, and the API.

The release marks the next major advancement in the company’s frontier AI capabilities following earlier government review processes.

Statistic:

Largest employee counts by company:

🇺🇸 Walmart: 2,100,000
🇺🇸 Amazon: 1,546,000
🇨🇳 BYD: 968,900
🇨🇳 JD.com: 900,000
🇹🇼 Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry): 826,608
🇮🇪 Accenture: 791,000
🇩🇪 Volkswagen: 656,134
🇮🇳 Tata Consultancy Services: 607,979
🇩🇪 DHL Group (Deutsche Post): 594,879
🇬🇧 Compass Group: 580,000
🇨🇳 JD Logistics: 498,709
🇺🇸 United Parcel Service (UPS): 490,000
🇺🇸 Home Depot: 470,000
🇷🇺 Gazprom: 468,000
🇨🇳 China Mobile: 455,405
🇨🇳 Agricultural Bank of China: 454,716
🇺🇸 Concentrix: 450,000
🇫🇷 Teleperformance: 446,052
🇺🇸 Target: 440,000
🇨🇳 ICBC: 419,252
🇺🇸 Marriott International: 418,000
🇺🇸 Kroger: 410,000
🇺🇸 UnitedHealth: 400,000
🇨🇳 PetroChina: 398,440
🇺🇸 Berkshire Hathaway: 392,400

History:

The United States Secret Service (USSS) was established on July 5, 1865, not to protect the President, but to combat one of the nation’s biggest economic threats: counterfeit currency. At the end of the Civil War, it was estimated that one-third to one-half of all U.S. paper money in circulation was counterfeit, undermining the national economy. The Secret Service was created within the Department of the Treasury, where it spent decades investigating counterfeiters, financial fraud, bank theft, and forgery. The agency’s mission expanded dramatically after a series of presidential assassinations. Following the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), and William McKinley (1901), Congress officially assigned the Secret Service permanent responsibility for protecting the President in 1901. Over time, its protective mission expanded to include the Vice President (1951), the President-elect, Vice President-elect, former presidents, visiting foreign heads of state, major presidential candidates, the White House Complex, and National Special Security Events (NSSEs) such as presidential inaugurations, Super Bowls, political conventions, state funerals, and the United Nations General Assembly. In 2003, following the September 11 attacks, the Secret Service was transferred from the Treasury Department to the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while retaining both its protective and investigative responsibilities.
The Secret Service operates through two equally important missions: protection and financial investigations. Its protection mission is built around extensive intelligence gathering, advance planning, and layered security rather than simply surrounding protectees with agents. Before every presidential trip, advance teams survey routes, buildings, hospitals, communications infrastructure, rooftops, evacuation plans, sniper positions, airspace, and local law enforcement capabilities. Protection involves coordination with the FBI, CIA, DHS, local police, military units, air traffic control, emergency medical services, bomb squads, and intelligence agencies. Specialized components include the Counter Assault Team (CAT), heavily armed tactical operators trained to engage attackers; the Counter Sniper Team, responsible for long-range overwatch; the Emergency Response Team (ERT) protecting the White House; the Technical Security Division, which detects surveillance devices and communications threats; the Special Operations Division, which coordinates protective intelligence; and intelligence analysts who monitor threats made online or through other channels. The Secret Service also operates one of the world’s largest protective intelligence systems, investigating thousands of threats against protected officials every year before they can develop into attacks. On the investigative side, the agency has evolved from fighting counterfeit currency to combating credit card fraud, identity theft, cybercrime, financial fraud, cryptocurrency crimes, ransomware, electronic payment fraud, ATM attacks, and transnational financial crime, often working alongside the FBI and international law enforcement.
By 2026, the Secret Service employs approximately 8,000 personnel, including around 3,500 Special Agents, 1,300 Uniformed Division officers, and thousands of technical specialists, intelligence analysts, cyber investigators, and administrative staff. The Uniformed Division, established in 1922, provides security for the White House, Vice President’s residence, Treasury Department, and foreign diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. The agency protects the President using a highly coordinated system that includes armored vehicles such as “The Beast”, secure communications, military air support, counter-drone technologies, encrypted command networks, medical teams, intelligence fusion centers, and rapid-reaction tactical units. Every movement is supported by extensive advance planning, real-time intelligence, and contingency plans that are rarely visible to the public. Today, the Secret Service is regarded as one of the world’s premier executive protection organizations, combining physical security, intelligence collection, cyber investigations, financial crime enforcement, and interagency coordination. What began in 1865 as a small anti-counterfeiting bureau has evolved into an organization responsible for protecting the continuity of the U.S. government while simultaneously defending the nation’s financial system against increasingly sophisticated criminal and cyber threats.