1. Don’t sync anything to icloud you wouldn’t want the government being able to get it or generally want to keep private.
2. Go through privacy settings, especially location settings and check what you’re allowing including system services, adjust as you feel comfortable while still meeting your needs.
3. Pay attention to what apps you’re installing. Most profiling data is not sold by say Google directly off your phone but based off ad-networks incorporated in third party apps you install. The app store has a scorecard on all apps showing you how much if at all they profile and spy on you, make use of it, make wise choices, don’t install bad apps.
4. Install a privacy respecting adblocker to help limit tracking while using the web browser
5. Limit permissions for apps. If you must use an app that has location tracking consider only allowing it while you’re using the app, this may have implications for some extended functionality like updating while in the background or via Apple’s little info tiles.
6. Disable siri or limit it, turn off “hey siri” mode in settings.
7. Enable lock-down mode (this is an extreme step and will result in some loss of functionality, Apple details the implications themselves so take a look at their page on it before doing so)
8. Disable radios such as bluetooth and wifi while outside your house to prevent any possibility of their use in tracking you. You can actually make a “Shortcut” using app of the same name from Apple to automate this anytime you leave home and I believe there are existing ones you can find if you search around.

Apple phones are fairly private as long as you don’t use icloud for anything sensitive, apply common sense privacy settings, and pay attention to what apps you install and what permissions you give. Also don’t send them crash or debugging data as that can contain personal info potentially so uncheck that option.

Maybe, but they’re also aware of that now.

It would cost the CIA couch change to bet 300-400k every weekend that Trump is going to attack just to get the Iranians in a panicked frenzy only for it to not happen. If it prevents even a single US fighter from being shot down by wearing them down with false alarms it would be worth it to place and lose bets like that every weekend for a year on end.

So maybe, but also the US could rig that for nothing, they wouldn’t notice it or need to pass a bill to afford it.

That would mean likely the US nuking Iran in a fit of rage while the TV propaganda plays images of the sinking ship and wails and gnashes its teeth and demands action then applauds or falls solemnly silent when it happens. The media will simply say “well maybe it wasn’t right BUT they did sink our carrier, they shouldn’t have done that and we wouldn’t have done this, you know how we are”. And that will be that.

Russia is as someone else noted tied up in Ukraine and doesn’t want to escalate with the guy (Trump) who can force Ukraine to sign a treaty or agreement with them. Getting into a hot war with the US would be a nightmarish strain on their military and bring them and US very close to nuclear war. Russia will resent losing its Iranian partners to the US but it won’t end the world or Russia in order to attempt to stop it. China is uninterested in getting drawn into a war at all, much less that far from its shores where they don’t have the advantage in logistics compared to the US and would be at an awful disadvantage. China’s navy is not a deep blue water fleet like the US, their navy is structured around coastal defense in the South China Sea and it and their air force lack the range to engage in anything protracted with the US.

This is a problematic framing. While Trump personally may want to distract from the Epstein files, the media itself is doing a great job burying them without him by frothing at the mouth about that news anchor lady’s mother getting kidnapped and doing wall to wall breathless coverage on that while talking zero about the Epstein files.

Also Lindsey Graham and other neo-cons including John Bolton have wanted to regime change Iran since at least the beginning of the George W. Bush administration and constantly inveighed for it. Rubio is very much of that faction and the US interests are broadly served by seizing control of global oil supply. They already took out the head of Venezuela and subordinated control of their oil to the US. They need only take out Iran and having already gotten Europe to not use Russian oil they’ll control oil flows globally in a way that lets them inflict pain on China (even with Russia stepping in to supply China some oil it’s not enough for its needs).

This is part of a grand geo-political strategy of maintaining hegemony that has little to do with Trump. Nancy Pelosi, has applauded applying pain to the Iranian people to try and get them to overthrow their government. It is in the interests of the US and the zionist entity known as “israel” to destroy Iran’s current government even without the oil due to their presence as a regional power not on the US/“israel” side (the oil just makes it more appealing and serves even more objectives).