Greetings! Happy National Meatball Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

🇮🇷 Trump calls Iran war “short,” then sharpens the threat anyway. President Donald Trump said the Iran war could be short-lived, and framed it as a “short-term excursion”. He delivered the line at a golf club near Miami. Trump posted on his platform TruthSocial that if Iran disrupts oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz, American strikes would hit “twenty times harder”. Iran, meanwhile, elevated Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, a succession move investors read as stubbornness, not surrender. A spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ali Mohammad Naini, said Iran will decide when the war ends. Trump also spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin floated ideas for a quick political settlement after talks with Gulf leaders and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

🌍 Oil and gas chokepoints look fragile, and prices react fast. QatarEnergy shut the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas terminal after a drone strike, jolting gas markets because Qatar supplies about 20% of global liquefied natural gas (LNG). Ras Laffan is described as the largest LNG export facility in the world, and Europe can feel it as bidding wars spread. Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura port and refinery was temporarily shut after a drone impact caused a fire. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline offers a bypass around the Strait of Hormuz, and it suddenly looks like the difference between commerce and chaos. The Fujairah oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates is a key alternative route, and analysts said it has been disrupted as fighting targets rerouting options. Iraq suspended about 1.5M barrels per day at Rumaila and West Qurna as storage thinned, and its Al Basra Oil Terminal is a single point of failure for exports tied to roughly 80% of national gross domestic product (GDP). Iran’s Kharg Island terminal, which handled most of its roughly 1.6M barrels per day of prewar crude exports, has an unclear operational status, which is how rumor becomes a premium at the pump.

🧬 Hims and Novo drop the gloves and start selling together. Hims & Hers Health ($HIMS) and Novo Nordisk ($NVO) ended their legal fight and announced a collaboration. The deal centers on Wegovy and Ozempic, and it aims to turn a courtroom feud into a checkout funnel. Novo Nordisk said it is dismissing its lawsuit without prejudice, meaning it can refile later. Hims said it will stop selling compounded semaglutide now that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shortage exception has changed. Hims plans to offer Wegovy on its platform later in March. Novo said the partnership gives patients access to branded medication paired with Hims’ digital support tools. The companies framed it as patient access, but it also reads like brand control over gray-market demand. Hims shares jumped after the announcement, and Novo shares moved modestly higher. The settlement is a truce, not a trust fall. In weight-loss medicine, peace tends to last only until the next shortage.

🚕 Uber makes women-only matching available nationwide. Uber Technologies ($UBER) expanded its women-only rider option across the United States after testing and incremental rollouts. The feature lets women riders request women drivers, and women drivers can choose to accept women-only trips. Uber said the option began in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and now exists in about 40 countries. In the United States, Uber piloted it in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Detroit, then expanded to 26 cities in November before going nationwide. The company said about one-fifth of its American drivers are women, which sets a natural ceiling on instant availability. Uber acknowledged it cannot currently include nonbinary riders and drivers because driver’s licenses typically reflect only binary gender markers. Uber is also juggling safety scrutiny as it faces a class action from women in California over past assault claims. Lyft ($LYFT) offers a comparable feature, turning “safety” into product differentiation. Uber’s pitch is simple, and the demand for it is older than rideshare itself. The market for peace of mind is not niche, it is just been underbuilt.

⚖️ Alexander brothers are convicted in a sex trafficking case. A Manhattan federal jury convicted Israeli-American brothers Tal Alexander, Oren Alexander, and Alon Alexander after a closely watched trial. Prosecutors said the brothers lured women and girls into elite party settings, then drugged and raped them. Reuters reported the indictment and trial focused on seven victims, and 11 women testified over six weeks. Tal Alexander faced seven charges, while twin brothers Oren and Alon each faced six, Reuters said. Oren and Tal co-founded the luxury brokerage Official, while Alon worked as an executive at a private security company. Defense lawyers argued the encounters were consensual and called the brothers’ conduct crass, not criminal. Manhattan American attorney Jay Clayton said the verdict sends a message about ending sex trafficking across communities. The brothers’ lawyers said they plan to appeal. In luxury real estate, reputation is currency, and the jury just froze the account.

🚨 Gunfire erupts near Rihanna’s home and police arrest a suspect. Los Angeles police said a woman fired gunshots outside Rihanna’s gated home and was taken into custody. Officers said no one was injured, and it was unclear whether Rihanna was home. Police said they received the call midday in the Beverly Hills area. Authorities identified the suspect as a 35-year-old woman, booked on suspicion of attempted murder and held on $10M bail. Investigators recovered a weapon, though the district attorney had not yet announced charges. Audio obtained included a dispatcher reporting gunshots fired from a vehicle. Police said the shots came from across the street, and did not know whether the woman had any connection to Rihanna.

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That’s all for today!

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See you tomorrow!