U.S. Seeks to Counter Iran: Orders Additional Warships, Marines Deployed to Middle East: The U.S. signaled it is bolstering its military presence in the Middle East on Thursday by ordering additional warships and marines to the area to counter Iran’s growing threats to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, along with their personnel and equipment, will be deployed to U.S. Central Command’s Area of Responsibility. Once on station they will join the USS Thomas Hudner and F-35 and F-16 fighter jets that were deployed earlier this week, UPI reports. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the immediate deployment. “Through these actions, the United States is demonstrating commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation and deterring Iranian destabilization activities in the region,” the Pentagon said in a statement. The boost in assets follows recent destabilizing activities committed by Iran in the Gulf that have required intervention by the U.S. and ally militaries, the UPI report details. According to U.S. Central Command, in the last two years, Iran has either attacked, seized or attempted to seize nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels within its area of operations. About a fifth of the world’s crude oil and oil products passes through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow choke point between Iran and Oman. Now gangs are having shootouts on the freeways and families are afraid to use these roads after children have been shot in cars. ‘Completely Irrational:’ Analysts Say Elon Musk Risks Killing Billions in Brand Value by Turning Twitter into ‘X’: Analysts believe that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is risking killing billions of dollars in brand value by turning Twitter into “X,” given that Twitter is one of the rare brands that has become so popular it turned into a verb as it is intertwined with everyday conversation. One marketing expert calls the rebrand “completely irrational from a business and brand point of view.” On Saturday, Musk announced that Twitter and the famous bird logo would soon be scrapped, along with all associated words, including “tweet,” which has become so popular over the years that it turned into its own verb — a rare feat that only a few internet brands in the world have accomplished. . . . Twitter’s name changed to “X” —a move that analysts and brand agencies believe could wipe out somewhere between $4 billion and $20 billion in value, according to a report by TIME. Death of Family: Half of Children Not Living With Both Parents by 14: A study from the Marriage Foundation suggested that nearly half of children in Britain are no longer living with both of their biological parents by the time they reach 14 years of age. Drawing on a dataset of 4,476 first-born children in the UK conducted by the Millennium Cohort Study and weighing the sample to represent the national population, the Marriage Foundation revealed on Monday that 46 percent of children in the country are not living with both their natural parents by the age of 14. The Marriage Foundation found that the majority of such cases (70 percent) were a result of breakups from non-married couples, while 30 percent were from families of married couples. For children whose biological parents were still together by the age of 14, 84 percent had married parents, compared to just 16 percent who were unmarried. Mr. Benson said per The Times: “Marriage provides relationship clarity, and encourages good things like sacrifice and forgiveness. “This is why couples who have tied the knot tend to be more stable and more likely to weather the challenges that life throws at them… why marriage accounts for lower levels of family breakdown than other less stable forms of relationship. The founder of the think tank, Sir Paul Coleridge said: “Every experienced parent knows that if adolescents are to successfully navigate the scary teenage years they need a secure and stable family environment. The Marriage Foundation report called on the government to do more to support marriage. This may be a big ask, however, given that the supposedly Conservative government has in its decade-plus in power demonstrated open hostility towards the traditional family. For example, stay-at-home mothers were enraged in 2020 when then-Home Secretary Priti Patel demanded that the government do more to incentivize the 8.5 million “economically inactive” people — nearly two million of whom were women who decided to stay home to raise their children — into employment. WOW – Story Changes: Barack and Michelle Obama WERE on Martha’s Vineyard When Their Private Chef Mysteriously Drowned: Some would call this an interesting coincidence while others may suspect something more. It turns out that Barack and Michelle Obama were on Martha’s Vineyard at the same time their personal chef drowned under mysterious circumstances. Obama’s office previously claimed that the former president and his wife were not present at the residence when Tafari drowned. Now they are altering the story to say they were indeed on the property. The Gateway Pundit reported Monday night that the body of a 45-year-old paddle boarder was found in a pond on Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard mansion. The person was later identified as Obama’s personal chef Tafari Campbell, who is from Dumfries, Virginia. A 911 call came from Obama’s residence late Sunday night. It is not known at this time who dialed the police. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/wow-barack-michelle-obama-were-marthas-vineyard-when/ 