• "Love Island USA" is a reality TV series where contestants aim to build connections and find love.
• Last night, the islanders got to see what America thinks of them.
• Amaya Espinal, 25, was a clear fan favorite, highlighted for her trustworthiness and authenticity.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard or seen someone talking about season seven of "Love Island USA."

You know, the show where a bunch of 20-somethings occupy a villa in Fiji without contact with the outside world for weeks on end in the hopes of finding love. Oh, and winning the $100,000 cash prize.

Unlike seasons past, where the prize has seemed to be an afterthought for contestants, this year's islanders seem to be "hyper-aware of their role as entertainers and competitors," Business Insider's Callie Ahlgrim assessed, adding that they're "much too preoccupied with how they're being perceived by an invisible audience to be truly honest and vulnerable with each other."

But just because they're aware America is watching doesn't necessarily mean they're truly self-aware, or have a grasp on how the audience will feel about them — at least until some of the viewer votes start rolling in and actually affect their experience.

That was made especially clear in last night's episode as the audience rallied around fan-favorite Amaya Espinal, fondly known as "Amaya Papaya."

Amaya has received criticism from her fellow islanders

Amaya has been critiqued by her fellow islanders throughout her "Love Island" experience for being "too emotional and affectionate," but her peers finally got to see just how much America's been rooting for her in a challenge called "Hate to Burst Your Bubble."

In the game, contestants were asked to assess fellow islanders based on categories like "Most Trustworthy" and "Most Genuine" and rank each other from most to least. Then, they'd see how America answered the same questions.

When asked to rank the women from most to least trustworthy, the men ranked Amaya third to last. America, however, ranked her first, as the most trustworthy, prompting a raised eyebrow from her former connection, Ace Greene, who commented, "That wasn't in my parlay."

Although Ace and Amaya were previously coupled up, their pairing was a contentious one, filled with miscommunications and tension. A particularly notable exchange that's reverberated throughout the season centered around Ace telling Amaya he wasn't comfortable being called "babe" so quickly. When she tried to explain that she "calls everyone babe," she slipped up and called him the pet name in the process.

Her subsequent connections, Austin Shepard and Zak Srakaew, also expressed similar sentiments in the recent "Stand on Business" challenge.

For the next category, the men ranked Amaya as the second-most genuine, and America voted her first again.

This challenge showed the cast what the viewers see

Finally seeming to catch on to Amaya's popularity with viewers, the islanders collectively ranked her and her connection, Zak, as the couple the audience would most like to go on vacation with, and, unsurprisingly, they were right.

As a viewer who voted for Amaya as one of my favorite islanders, I hope this challenge served as a seemingly much-needed confidence boost for her to continue being her authentic self in her search for love, and a reminder to the other islanders that authenticity — not strategy — is the strength of "Love Island."

• The Ukrainian military said it carried out a drone attack on a Russian weapons-making facility.
• The attack on Friday hit a site that produces warheads for Russia's notorious Shahed drones.
• It marks Ukraine's latest deep-strike operation targeting Russia's war machine.

The Ukrainian military said on Friday that it carried out a long-range attack on a Russian factory producing warheads for Moscow's deadly Shahed drones, marking Kyiv's latest deep-strike operation targeting the Kremlin's war machine.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said it targeted the JSC FNPC Research Institute of Applied Chemistry in Sergiev Posad, a city just northeast of Moscow, more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away from Ukraine's border.

The attack was carried out by units of the Unmanned Systems Forces and other elements of the military. The USF, a first-of-its-kind branch of the armed forces that was established last year and focuses solely on drone combat, said soldiers of the 14th separate drone regiment were involved in the operation.

The USF said at least one drone struck the facility, causing a fire and heavy smoke, and that an electric substation that provided power to the site was damaged. It shared footage purporting to show the moment of the attack and the aftermath.

Business Insider could not independently verify all the details of the operation. Russia's defense ministry did not acknowledge the attack, although it did report shooting down Ukrainian drones over Russian territory on Friday.

Ukraine said the JSC FNPC Research Institute of Applied Chemistry, part of Russia's state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, is under international sanctions because of its involvement in the war. The facility develops and manufactures parts for missile and artillery systems, as well as thermobaric warheads for Shahed drones.

The notorious Shahed-136 is an Iranian-designed drone that Russia now produces at home. Historically, these one-way attack munitions could fly at speeds of over 115 mph with a nearly 90-pound explosive warhead, although the team leader for a Ukrainian mobile air defense unit recently told BI that Moscow had modified the Shaheds to make them faster and deadlier.

Shahed drones are traditionally slower and less lethal than cruise or ballistic missiles, although they are much cheaper, allowing Russia to launch hundreds of them in large-scale attacks. On Thursday night, for instance, Moscow launched at least 330 of them into Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

That attack marked one of the largest Russian bombardments of the war. Ukraine said that Moscow launched 550 munitions, including Shaheds, decoy drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles, mainly targeting the capital city, Kyiv. A majority of the threats were intercepted, although at least 23 people were injured.

The attack came as the Trump administration reportedly halted shipments of crucial weapons, including air defense ammunition, to Ukraine. The move could affect Kyiv's ability to protect itself from the Russian bombardments, which have intensified in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump remains entangled in efforts to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, and discussed peace talks in a call with his counterpart, Vladimir Putin, shortly before the huge attack on Thursday.

"Notably, the first air raid alerts in our cities and regions yesterday began to blare almost simultaneously with media reports discussing a phone call between President Trump and Putin," Zelenskyy said.

• EU leaders are pushing for mass drone production in the face of growing threats.
• Europe's slow military mobilization leaves it vulnerable to future conflicts.
• Ukraine's drone success highlights the need for EU collaboration and innovation.

As the prospect of a renewed Russian threat looms over Europe's eastern flank, EU leaders are accepting that the continent is ill-prepared when it comes to the risk of future conflict.

Last week, Andrius Kubilius, the European commissioner for defence and space, called for a sweeping ramp-up of drone production, urging EU nations to produce millions of drones a year by 2030.

Ukraine delivered over 1.3 million drones to its military in 2024, highlighting the gap in Europe's preparedness.

"The fact that European nations need to urgently rearm, and to do so in a way that is relevant to the threat from Russia, is not a new discovery," Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, told Business Insider.

"What's alarming is that it's being presented as news," he said, adding that this suggests the realization that rearmament is vital "still hasn't sunk in evenly across Europe."

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the transformative nature of drones in modern combat.

From cheap first-person view drones to advanced loitering munitions and AI-guided strike systems, the war has pioneered new forms of drone warfare, with Ukraine often outmatching Russian capabilities in speed and creativity.

Katja Bego, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, said that "Ukraine's remarkable success with drones has shown it is possible to rapidly ramp up production if the urgency is there. Europe is now learning these lessons."

Currently, however, the EU is still far behind. Both Russia and Ukraine reportedly outproduce the entire EU bloc "by orders of magnitude," Bego warned.

But it's clear that there is increasing interest from EU states to work with and import Ukrainian expertise and systems.

"If European countries are serious about acquiring drones at the pace and scale that is being described, they must do so in and with Ukraine," Giles said.

The latest push for mass drone manufacturing in Europe isn't just about meeting current threats. It's about leapfrogging into the technologies that will define future conflict.

"Europe sees an opportunity to leapfrog," Bego said. "Smaller drones are much cheaper than a lot of traditional weapons and can be produced much more quickly."

However, making the most of this moment requires more than just factories.

"Getting to the scale of relevance for deterrence and defense is more than an issue of defense production," Skip Davis, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Business Insider.

"It's about the ability to field prototypes, train operators, revise operational concepts, and integrate drones into logistics and manoeuvre formations," he said. "All of that requires a new mindset."

That would involve deeper collaboration between militaries and agile, often non-traditional tech firms.

Davis said that in the current environment, "many of the companies leading innovation are small startups or commercial companies not used to working with militaries."

For Europe to succeed, he said it must grow more comfortable with experimentation and iteration.

Compounding the urgency is the decreasing estimate of when Russia could be ready to attack a NATO country.

The estimate of five years was what we were hearing this time last year, Giles said. "Since then, the timescale has continued to shrink — and the reduction in US support to Ukraine brings the time closer."

This shortening horizon makes the EU's slow progress all the more dangerous.

"Crash rearmament is feasible, if there is sufficient political will," Giles added.

At the same time, experts warn that ramping up drone output is not a silver bullet.

"Policymakers are at risk of seeing small agile drones as a panacea which will solve both their financial and manpower woes," Bego said. But "there is still a need for large platforms like jet fighters, too," she added.

Meanwhile, Europe's vision of "strategic autonomy" in defense risks being undermined by its reliance on foreign tech.

"A lot of critical components in drone manufacturing are still produced in China," Bego said. "Europe must diversify these supply chains or reproduce them within its own borders."

With the clock ticking and Russian production accelerating, the EU's ambitious drone target looks ever more necessary, and could mark a pivotal moment in European defense.

Elon Musk on Friday floated an electoral strategy for his hypothetical political party, via a post on X.

Why it matters: Musk is the world's richest man and his dollars could make a difference in tight races next November.

Catch up quick: Musk helped bankroll President Trump's reelection, but the pair since have fallen out.

• Most recently, Musk has been an outspoken critic of Trump's signature legislation, which the Tesla CEO believes is fiscally irresponsible and hurts America's global competitiveness.

What he's saying: Musk first asked X followers if they "want independence from the two party (some would say uniparty) system," and thus would support the creation of "the America Party."

He then added:

The bottom line: Musk didn't identify any specific races, so for now this is just a trial balloon.

• The Bulwark, a news website that's fiercely critical of President Donald Trump, has grown rapidly.
• Since the 2024 election, The Bulwark has roughly doubled its paid subscriber base.
• Top editor Jonathan V. Last told Business Insider how they've grown, and what's ahead.

If President Donald Trump didn't exist, the staunchly anti-Trump news website The Bulwark might not either.

But the president isn't solely responsible for The Bulwark's success. Instead, its top editor credits email newsletters, podcasts, and YouTube for its impressive growth in recent years.

"We grew consistently, all the way through the Biden administration," Jonathan V. Last, editor of The Bulwark, said in an interview with Business Insider. "That's something I didn't expect."

To be sure, Trump's resurgence has added fuel to the fire that Last and his colleagues were kindling. The Bulwark surpassed 100,000 paid subscribers on Substack in early July, which the company told BI is more than double its total in late October — just before the 2024 election.

The Bulwark also now has 830,000 total subscribers, most of whom get its emails for free. The company said its total count has tripled in the last year and surpassed 500,000 a day after Trump retook office.

YouTube is another key part of The Bulwark's growth. It crossed 1 million subscribers on the platform in mid-February, and that count rose 34% between then and early July, thanks to a healthy mix of short-form snippets and long-form videos.

The news site uses YouTube Shorts, the platform's buzzy, TikTok-esque clips, as a foot in the door for newcomers. But long-form content of all kinds is crushing on YouTube, especially on TVs. The Bulwark's producers have taken note by making most of their videos at least 10 minutes long, and some run well over an hour.

"We no longer think of podcast and video as separate," Last said. "We just think of it all as broadcast."

The Bulwark was perfectly positioned for one of the wildest decades for news in the last century, complete with a pandemic, wars, and Trump's rise, fall, and rebound.

"It's been a crazy eight years," Last said. "People have been forced to pay attention to the news in ways which are reasonably unique, at least in our lifetimes."

Not just 'Never Trump'

The Bulwark has gained much of its notoriety for its sharp criticism of Trump. But when asked who he's writing for, Last said he's not necessarily targeting a certain political group.

"The target audience is people who take ideas seriously and aren't looking for confirmation bias and who think that the moment is important," Last said. He added: "I think of, honestly, our target audience as being indistinguishable from The Atlantic's."

While Last said many Bulwark readers are largely on the center left to the center right, he added that the main common thread among his reader base is a distaste for authoritarianism. To Last, that's synonymous with an unease, or outright disgust, with Trump and many of his policies.

"We're on a team, and the team is democracy," Last said.

However, Last said The Bulwark doesn't have a vendetta against Trump. If the president enacts policies that Last and his colleagues like — such as Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated COVID-19 vaccine development during the pandemic — he said they'll gladly tout them.

"We are not reflexively negative," Last said. "It's not like if Trump comes out and says that 'ice cream is good,' we have to say, 'ice cream is bad.'"

Still, Last's readers know that he sees Trump as a serious threat to American democracy.

"If I had described the events of 2020 to somebody in 2016, they would've said, 'You're crazy — that's "Trump Derangement Syndrome,"'" Last said.

Critics may shrug off The Bulwark's warnings as alarmist, but Last insists he's not crying wolf.

"The fact that people aren't freaked out by just the actual real things that have happened in front of our eyes is mostly a function of the pot being turned up while the frogs are in it," Last said.

Straightforward and direct

Authenticity sells in 2025, both in politics and media. Just look at the most popular podcasters, including Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper of "Call Her Daddy" fame.

Audiences also crave honesty, Last said. That honesty and authenticity, combined with strongly held convictions, have become cornerstones of The Bulwark's popularity.

"A lot of times, we'll sit around arguing with each other, and the argument will end with one of us going, 'Yeah, you guys are right. I got that wrong,'" Last said.

Unlike traditional media organizations, The Bulwark is built on Substack. The newsletter hub has been a huge part of the news site's rapid growth, Last said, since readers of other writers can discover The Bulwark and subscribe in a single click.

"Anything you can do to lower the friction just pays enormous dividends," Last said.

By building its business around newsletters, The Bulwark reaches readers directly, without intermediaries like search engines or social media.

Newsletters and podcasts can also build emotional connections. The Bulwark's publisher, Sarah Longwell, told Vanity Fair in May that "people feel like they are friends with us" since they hear their voices and can even reach their inboxes by replying to emails. This access makes The Bulwark feel fresher than newspapers or cable news channels, Last said.

"That's the sort of thing that you often get from independent media operators, if you're a one-man band on Substack," Last said. "But it's, I think, not as common to see that at an institutional level."

Putting MSNBC and CNN on notice

Although The Bulwark has roughly doubled its paid reader base since the election, Last sees much more room to grow.

The news site recently hired reporters to cover policy, immigration, and Congress, Last said. This can help The Bulwark add value through reporting, instead of just its opinions.

But the biggest potential for growth is YouTube, Last said, given that its subscriber base can scale far faster on the world's biggest video platform than on Substack.

The Bulwark could take its video strategy to the next level by producing shows in the style of traditional TV, Last said. He said his site is open to partnering with a streaming service, similar to The Daily Beast's deal with Netflix that was reported by Semafor.

MSNBC and CNN have been a go-to spot for the anti-Trump TV news audience for years. Last suggested that The Bulwark is willing to encroach on their territory and beat them at their own game.

"Cable news is dying," Last said. "All of the minutes of attention, which gets sucked up by CNN or Fox or whoever, those minutes are going to flow elsewhere. And I think that we should be a place where that attention goes."

Legacy networks like MSNBC may be able to coexist with new media outfits like The Bulwark, especially since its writers regularly go on the left-leaning cable network.

But regardless of who's pushing back against Trump, Last's hope is that American democracy is healthy. He doesn't want chaos, even if it can help his business, but he knows that's mostly out of his control.

"Given the choice between having half of our audience, but living in a normal time, I would absolutely take that," Last said.