Cointelegraph:

“Decentralized finance platform Abracadabra said Wednesday that it launched emergency measures after its crypto-collateralized stablecoin, Magic Internet Money (MIM), fell 50% below its $1 peg.”

I have spent a lot of time vacillating between being Blockchain-Curious and Crypto-Skeptical. As an exercise, let’s consider the pros- and cons- of Stablecoins, and whether there is reason for speculators to be concerned as to the rest of the sector.

Let’s begin by pointing out that if coins were US equities, I would be an aggressive buyer down 50%. Historically, quality companies from stable regions, on sale at half off, have presented a fabulous entry point. But coins — stable or otherwise — are not equities. They trade like a mash-up of currency, commodities, and tech startups. I have no clue whether down 50% is about to bounce hard or continue to free-fall. I don’t even have a framework for contextualizing this.

Rather than speculate, let’s use this example to examine the Stable Coin value proposition (my caveats here 1).

1) This looks like a bank run: I don’t know how else to describe this other than to point out that the massive withdrawals of the underlying securities’ anchor raise questions. On-demand redemption at par should not be a problem; this looks like the kind of run that traditional (fractional lending) banks suffer from — the kind the crypto community has long criticized. The fact that Magic Internet Money was cut in half suggests genuine maturity or liquidity mismatch, but with no deposit insurance and no lender of last resort to come in and save the day.

How can a “fully” reserved coin get depegged? We have seen this movie before:

-Terra/UST vaporized $40B in May 2022 via a reflexive death spiral. Asd I understand it, that peg depended upon an arbitrage with a sister token; and THAT depended on yet another peg.

-USDC broke its peg due to an external event: It fell to $0.88 in March 2023 as $3.3B of its reserves at Silicon Valley Bank were frozen. But for the FDIC backstop, USDC likely would have gone poof also.

Compare that with money markets that broke the buck in 2008-09; they fell to 98 cents, before being rescued. That is a huge safety difference for depositors.

The takeaway? These designs are structurally unsound, and problems tend to show up when either A) there is an issue elsewhere in the financial system, or 2) other coins find themselves in a substantial downtrend. Both of these smell like the stablecoin’s architecture has inherent structural issues.

~~~

I am less of a believer in the claim that stablecoins are needed for legitimate cross-border payments and similar remittances. The traditional banking system is slower, but that is a feature, not a bug, which helps thwart fraud and criminality (KYC, etc.). For most consumers, apps like Remittly and World Remit are fast, cheap, and safe.

State Street and other money center banks have embraced a variety of use cases, such as B2B payments and merchant settlements. Just please stop using the phrase “DeFi” now that giant US money centers have embraced the entire sector.

I understand the value proposition for payments or regional dollar access; but this is hardly the grandiose “future of all money” claims of just a few years ago. If you are in Argentina, Turkey, Nigeria, Lebanon, etc., dollar-stablecoins give you purchasing power, especially when their local currencies are in high- or hyperinflation mode. That utility is real; I believe it must be measured, however, against the speculative negatives and potential criminality. But that’s before we get to the well-known criticisms made by folks like Zeke Faux.2

It will be interesting to see how this plays out…

 

 

 

Previously:
Whatever Happened to NFTs? (December 9, 2025)

Lessons of “Number Go Up” (December 13, 2023)

Cancelling Michael Lewis (October 5, 2023)

Sturgeon’s Corollary (December 4, 2025)

 

Source:
Abracadabra takes emergency action as MIM stablecoin depeg worsens
by Martin Young
Cointelegraph, June 24, 2026

See also:
Stablecoins Are Private Money. That’s Why They’re a Risk to the Economy. (Wall Street Journal)

GENIUS Act explained: What it means for crypto and digital assets (State Street)

What Are Stablecoins Used for Today? (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

The Hidden Plumbing of Stablecoins: (MIT Media Lab)

How a Cryptocurrency Helps Criminals Launder Money and Evade Sanctions (New York Times)

 

__________

1. I do not pretend to be a crypto expert, but I am a student of market history. In many ways, Crypto resembles the slow adoption of an innovative, complex technology; in other ways, it resembles a classic speculative bubble.

Interestingly, these are not mutually exclusive…

2. “They’ve become the settlement layer for illicit finance.” Permissionless, instant, dollar-denominated, and globally liquid is a great payment product and also a great sanctions-evasion and scam-settlement product. The bulk of on-chain criminal value transfer now moves in stablecoins rather than bitcoin, and African and other regulators are specifically focused on operationalizing FATF-aligned AML/CFT requirements like Travel Rule implementation for cross-border stablecoin corridors. The dominant fiat-backed issuers can and do freeze addresses — which defeats the censorship-resistance pitch while still leaving enormous gray-market flow. (Via Chainalysis)

 

 

 

AI DISCLOSURE: I wrote this myself, used Claude for research and Grammarly for spelling grammar corrections

The post Stablecoin Crash? appeared first on The Big Picture.

UAE Retracts Warning About "Potential Missile Threat"

Update: it appears the earlier warning by the UAE was a false alarm:

• UAE SENDS ALERT SAYING 'PLEASE DISREGARD THE PREVIOUS WARNING'
• UAE ASKS PEOPLE TO IGNORE PREVIOUS WARNING

* * * 

Earlier

Is the ceasefire over (again)?

Moments ago stocks hit session lows and oil jumped from post-war lows after the UAE issued a phone alert warning of potential missile strikes.

Iran's Tasnim promptly followed up, saying that according to news sources, there were explosions heard in Dubai.

And while the initial report sent futures to session lows...

... , and oil bounced...

... a subsequent report from UAE indicated that the situation is "currently safe" after a potential threat alert.

• *UAE SAYS SITUATION CURRENTLY SAFE AFTER POTENTIAL THREAT ALERT

While it is unclear what may have prompted the escalation, especially since the UAE and Iran are now aggressively backchanneling, moments earlier the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said that Iran's military capabilities guarantee its right to self-defense. And now we wait to see if more fireworks are coming. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 09:27

The post The Fast-Food Spending Index is Falling Fast appeared first on CEPR.

Vance: Iran Agreed To Establish A Direct Line Between IRGC & US Military

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Vice President JD Vance has said that during talks in Switzerland, Iranian officials agreed to establish a direct line of communication between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the US military.

Vance told Sohrab Ahmari, the US editor for UnHerd, that one of the things the US wanted to "come out" of the talks with was a "channel on the Iranian side" for reducing conflict.

Reuters/Pool

"Which we did. They were like, 'OK, fine, we’ll send somebody from the IRGC to go hang out in Doha with somebody from CENTCOM,' and that’s how we’re going to settle a lot of these disputes," the US vice president said during an interview conducted aboard Air Force Two on the flight home from Switzerland.

Flare-ups between the US and Iran remain possible, as the US hasn't reduced its forces in the region and there appear to be differences between the two sides’ views on the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

A direct communication channel between the two militaries, if implemented, could help de-escalate tensions after any flare-up to prevent the region from plunging back into full-scale war.

Vance also told Ahmari that Arab states like the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding "because of the conversations they’re having with the Iranians."

"The Emiratis — by far the most hawkish, by far the most pro-Israel country in the [Gulf Cooperation Council] — they’re having conversations with the Iranians that have never happened before, including with the IRGC, about various types of economic incentives — ‘Here’s what we’d need to see to make your country investable’ — and the Iranians come back and say, ‘Okay, yeah, we’re willing to do all those things,'" Vance said.

The UAE had taken a much more offensive role in the US-Israeli war against Iran than the other Gulf Arab states, and as a result, it was pounded by Iranian missiles and drones.

VP signals there is now an IRGC-CENTCOM channel as part of US-Iran talks https://t.co/3X3MTN1hlV

— Alex Ward (@alexbward) June 25, 2026

While more hawkish than other regional countries, Abu Dhabi, like the other Gulf countries, would likely prefer a diplomatic solution to a return to full-scale war since it would likely involve an escalation of Iranian attacks on oil infrastructure in the region.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 09:20

Mamdani's Rent-Freeze Approved By NYC Guidelines Board

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board voted 7–1 to freeze rents on about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments for up to two years, giving tenants a win on a central campaign promise from Mayor Zohran Mamdani while revealing tensions over the board’s independence.

The board set the annual increase at zero percent for both one-year and two-year leases starting in October. The affected apartments house roughly 2.5 million residents. The board’s 2025 study found the average monthly rent in regulated units was $1,599 last year, far below the $3,950 that listings agency StreetEasy said was the median for new market-rate leases citywide.

As Kimberley Hayek reports for The Epoch Times, the decision comes after the board’s usual review of wages, inflation, maintenance costs, taxes, and landlord incomes. Tenants at public hearings called for a freeze or outright reduction, citing stagnant pay and higher living costs. Landlord representatives argued that a zero percent increase would hurt building upkeep and mortgage payments. Some owners have offset losses by raising rents on unregulated apartments, the board was told.

Mamdani, who took office in January, appointed six of the nine board members. Hours ahead of the vote, landlord representative Christina Smyth, appointed by the prior mayor, resigned. She said the panel had been rebuilt to produce this outcome.

“This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze,” Smyth said. “Everything since has been theater.”

Board Chair Chantella Mitchell, a Mamdani appointee, maintained that the board and its staff served with full independence and integrity. The other landlord representative, Maksim Wynn, also a Mamdani appointee, drew boos from tenant advocates at the Manhattan proceedings but voted for the freeze. The crowd erupted with cheers and whistles when the outcome was announced.

Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York, called the vote a farce.

“Defunding rent-stabilized housing when the [Rent Guidelines Board’s] own data showed a 5.3 percent increase in operational costs and expenses is setting up already financially distressed small owners for failure, which plays into Mamdani’s sinister plan to illegally take private property and convert it into socialized housing,” she told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

Mamdani called the vote a breakthrough.

“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants,” he said in a statement. “This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”

The action marks the first major delivery on Mamdani’s housing agenda. The democratic socialist mayor campaigned explicitly on freezing rents for regulated apartments and holds sole authority to appoint the Rent Guidelines Board’s members. In May, Mamdani unveiled a broader “Block by Block” housing plan that calls for building 200,000 new units over 10 years while preserving another 200,000 through subsidies or other measures, including potential property interventions.

Previous rent freezes under former Mayor Bill de Blasio covered only one-year leases. Thursday’s vote applies to both lease terms and follows weeks of hearings and a rally outside El Museo Del Barrio that drew hundreds of tenants.

The board’s action applies only to rent-stabilized units, primarily in pre-1974 buildings or those that received certain tax benefits. Market-rate apartments remain unaffected.

Mamdani, whose campaign promised to pursue affordability, moved into the mayor’s official residence after his election. Before that, he lived in a rent-regulated one-bedroom apartment in Queens.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 09:00

OpenAI Plans Delaying IPO Until 2027, Blames SpaceX

One month ago, during the height of the tokenmaxxing craze - when companies were spending ridiculous amounts of money, in many cases without knowing they were even doing so, just to test out the latest agentic craze - first OpenAI and then Anthropic rushed to announce they will follow in the footsteps of the SpaceX IPO, and were planning (or rather hoping) to go public in the next quarter or two. To validate its euphoric IPO dreams, Anthropic even trotted out a lafughable ARR of $47 billion, a number which besides being laughably incoherent and a non-GAAP mish-mash of adjustments and double counting, also took advantage of said tokenmaxxing frenzy.

Then following a furious blowback against said tokenmaxxing which has seen a collapse in agentic spending and an aggressive shift to much cheaper Chinese models, we said two weeks ago that we are eagerly awaiting Anthropic's new ARR, one which reflects the revulsion to Claude's stratospheric token costs.

Meanwhile, Anthropic quietly annualized the one-time bumper revenue from Feb-May on the agentic splurge when nobody had any idea what they were paying, to come up with the ludicrous $47BN ARR.

Let's see what ARR is next month after clients finally checked their token bills.

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

And while we wait, Anthropic's biggest competitor, OpenAI - which unlike its peer has been far less vocal about its latest annualized revenue numbers - appears to have realized that going public at a time when agentic spending is suddenly in freefall (Goldman's best "efforts" to predict 120 quadrillion monthly tokens by 2030 notwithstanding) may not be the best idea, and according to the NYT is now leaning toward punting its IPO until next year in hopes that the AI bubble will be even bigger next year.

OpenIA's odds of a 2026 IPO promptly tumbled on Polymarket, and were last below 30% from over 50% before the report.

So what is going on, and how did OpenAI - which earlier this month said it had filed confidential paperwork with securities regulators to kick off the process for going public, but it did not commit publicly to any time window - frame the delay so it doesn't sounds like it rushed out its plans to IPO on a one-time bumper revenue burst, only to reverse them as the overpaid agentic euphoria has fizzled? 

Why blame Elon of course.

The NYT reports that when the ChatGPT maker hired bankers and lawyers with an eye toward IPOing as soon as the third or fourth quarter of this year, Sam Altman pushed those advisers to find a way for the start-up to be valued at $1 trillion, up from the company’s last private valuation of $730 billion. 

OpenAI’s advisers presented company executives with the option of waiting until 2027 to go public with a $1 trillion valuation, or lower the targeted valuation for a quicker IPO, which would be a disaster as the IPO would effectively admit that OpenAI can't keep up with the growth rate of Anthropic which a month ago raised $65 billion in a $965 billion private funding round. Altman responded that any change to the trillion-dollar valuation was a nonstarter.

But, the report goes on, "a cascade of recent developments has caused OpenAI’s executives to shift away from their most aggressive aspirations" and the primary scapegoat is Elon Musk’s, and specifically the performance of SpaceX after its I.P.O. this month. "It was the largest ever, raising more than $85 billion and reaching a valuation of $1.77 trillion on its debut. Since then, SpaceX’s stock has been on a downward slide, as shares slumped to $153 at the end of the trading day on Thursday after reaching a high of $202 last week."

Realizing it would look very stupid if it just blamed the very same company that prompted it to rush its IPO in the first place, the NYT also blamed global markets which "have also been choppy in recent weeks, with tech stocks dragging down indexes as investors question whether AI companies will live up to their sky-high promises."

Nowhere in this above is there a mention of the only thing that actually does matter to investors: the financials, and one can only imagine what is going on there after the early Q2 "tokenmaxxing" agentic burst which has now fizzled. OpenAI said this year that it was generating $2 billion in revenue each month but we are patiently waiting for an update now that the latest series of open Chinese models offer 95% of the US frontier performance for 10% of the price (as discussed in "Answering The "Trillion Dollar Question": Are China's AI Models A Better Value Than US Models"). 

It's not just China: OpenAI faces acute pressures at home too. Anthropic, which offers a Claude Code tool for creating sophisticated software code, has been far more successful in selling its service to enterprises (at least until the tokenmaxxing fiasco). At the same time, Google’s Gemini, the tech giant’s flagship consumer AI product, has become popular with users.

The NYT however is correct that OpenAI’s postponing its IPO plans - for whatever reason - will disappoint Wall Street and Silicon Valley, especially not if but when its main rival Anthropic, which has been in very hot water with the Trump admin for months, does the same. 

There's more.

Besides creating SpaceX strawmen, OpenAI is also grappling with other issues. Late last year, CFO Sarah Friar said it was not pursuing an I.P.O. at the time and was focusing on shoring up its finances. However, since then the company has done just the opposite as it has continued to pour money into data centers and computing power, with no indications of slowing down. 

Some OpenAI executives appeared to have changed their minds about an IPO just a few months after Friar said the company was not looking to go public. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company planned to go public by the end of 2026. That surprised some employees because they thought the company was not on a strong enough financial footing.

The company has also been spending like a drunken sailor on marketing and recruiting high-profile engineering talent from companies like Meta and Google. Realizing that it is losing market share to both Anthropic and Chinese open-sourced models, ChatGPT is also searching for other lines of revenue, including dabbling with placing ads inside ChatGPT and striking e-commerce deals with companies like Shopify and Stripe that would allow people to buy things from online stores directly inside ChatGPT.

The biggest problem facing OpenAI, however, is that growth has plateaued: after years of surging downloads of ChatGPT’s consumer app, those numbers have slowed and continue to hover around 900 million users, surprising investors who believed the company would easily hit one billion.

And the wildcard is now that the US government is actively throttling the latest frontier models over concerns they may hack sensitive government agencies, today the Information reported that OpenAI is releasing its latest GPT-5.6 model only as a limited preview to a small group of partners. The reason, according to Sam Altman: the U.S. government asked it to. Altman reportedly told staff that the government will be "approving access customer by customer" during the preview period, with a broader release potentially following a couple of weeks later. This comes after Anthropic took a similar path with Mythos, and after the White House forced Anthropic to withdraw Fable and Mythos over national security concerns. 

And now that the "uncorruptible" Trump admin is actively involved in picking winners and losers in the frontier model race, both OpenAI and Anthropic will watch their ARR collapse as most enterprise clients realize they will have better productivity gains by going with the latest Chinese models which, paradoxcially, are now easier to access in the US than domestic made versions. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 07:25

Boiling Frog Nation

Authored by Kevin Finn via AmericanThinker.com,

I almost feel sorry for leftists. Almost. But I don’t. The reason is simple: so much of what they say and do runs counter to the core principles on which this country was founded.

Over the years, I’ve challenged dozens of left-leaning friends and acquaintances to name the top ten things the political left has done in the last quarter-century to make America safer, stronger, more prosperous, or more united. I have yet to receive a substantive answer. One person offered a list that included ObamaCare and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). A quick review shows that, like many Democrat initiatives, these created more problems than they solved.

What makes me almost pity the left is that most leftists I know personally are decent, pleasant people -- so long as the conversation stays light: weather, movies, or sports. Venture into politics or culture, however, and the discussion turns surreal, like chatting with the Mad Hatter.

These individuals consider themselves well-informed.

They read the daily papers, watch network news, and never miss 60 Minutes. They speak of Rachel Maddow as if she were a close friend and dismiss Fox News out of hand. Yet they’ve never heard of journalists like John Solomon nor outlets like the Epoch Times. It rarely occurs to them to seek out differing perspectives. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as the old saying goes.

Søren Kierkegaard observed that there are two ways to err: to believe what is not true, and to refuse to believe what is true. Leftists frequently demonstrate both. They linger on stories long after those stories have been debunked, while major developments that threaten our country and culture receive little or no attention.

Consider a recent example. Legacy media devoted intense coverage to algae growing in the reflecting pool on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

One might think it was a national emergency. The reporting largely blamed the new blue liner and warm, shallow water. What it downplayed were the reports of vandalism that damaged the recently restored pool in the first place.

Meanwhile, far more consequential stories are ignored.

Tulsi Gabbard’s declassification of documents credibly alleging that Anthony Fauci’s agency helped fund the Wuhan lab, misled Congress about COVID-19’s origins, and overstated the effectiveness of vaccines, masks, lockdowns, and social distancing drew almost no mainstream coverage.

Conservatives have repeatedly labeled certain events “the scandal of our time,” only to watch legacy media minimize, distort, or bury them. The list is long: Benghazi, the Skolkovo technology transfer, Hillary Clinton’s emails, ObamaCare’s structural failures, the Russia collusion narrative, the surge of illegal immigration under Biden-Harris-Mayorkas policies, the murders of American citizens by illegal immigrants, the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of children, the rise of Islamism and socialism in American institutions, routine urban violence, questionable election irregularities, politically motivated prosecutions, and repeated calls for violence that have contributed to an emerging assassination culture.

These stories surface in conservative outlets, receive brief attention, then fade as the next crisis erupts. The public’s attention is constantly reset.

The kettle is simmering. The frog is growing restless.

In much of Western Europe and the United Kingdom, citizens have watched their cultural foundations erode with little effective resistance. America still has time to choose a different path.

True justice demands accountability. When the guilty face no consequences and the innocent continue to suffer, trust in institutions collapses. A nation cannot endure indefinitely if a large portion of its citizens -- perhaps a third to half -- work actively against its founding ideals.

The solution is not despair, but renewed commitment: to demand transparency, support independent journalism, engage in civil debate, and vote for leaders who uphold the Constitution and the rule of law.

Only by insisting on truth over narrative can we repair what has been damaged and secure a stronger future for the next generation.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 07:20

My end-of-week morning train WFH reads:

• Hollywood and Big Tech Are Preparing for War: The studios and the platforms circle each other as AI scrambles the economics of content. The fight that will define the next decade of entertainment. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Bitcoin hits 20-month low as market sentiment sours: Price of world’s most actively traded digital asset falls below $60,000 amid shift by retail investors to AI-related stock bets. The risk-off mood reaches crypto. Another reminder that bitcoin trades like the speculative asset it is, not the haven its boosters promised. (Financial Times) see also Gold has erased all its 2026 gains: Gold just took a round trip: Prices dropped below $4,000 a troy ounce Wednesday back to where they were in early November last year. Investors are losing their taste for the precious metal. The safe haven wobbles as risk appetite and Fed expectations shift. A neat snapshot of a jittery week in markets. (Axios)

• SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic: The S&P 500 Inclusion Question and Investment Consequences! Damodaran on the index-construction puzzle posed by the new wave of $1T-class privates. Pure index-mechanics nerdery, in the best way. (Musings On Markets)

• Heckling from app-wielding bettors is wrecking golf: Wyndham Clark won the US Open despite phone-toting gamblers heckling him over their live bets. The harassment at the U.S. Open was the ugliest thing yet. The sports-betting era’s ugliest side effect, on full display. (Washington Post)

• Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife To A Renewable Energy Future: Complex systems can engender the opposite outcome of intentions. A contrarian argument that Mideast conflict accelerates the energy transition. Whether or not you buy it, Noema does big-think provocations well. (Noema) see also Iran Estimates $40 Billion Windfall From Reopening Hormuz With Gulf States: Deal to unblock global energy funnel gives Iran say in its future management, and route to riches. Tehran reportedly sees a toll-booth opportunity in the world’s most important chokepoint. Geopolitics as a fee business. (Wall Street Journal)

• America’s Most Talented Nepo Baby Has Two Michelin Stars to Prove It: When E.J. Lagasse, son of Emeril, took over his father’s famed restaurant, it seemed like the ultimate privilege. Two Michelin stars later, E.J., just 23, has shocked New Orleans, the food world, and all of nepo-dom by being the unlikeliest of things: deliciously legit. (GQ)

• How Did M.C. Escher Develop His Mind-Bending, Paradoxical World? A new exhibition at London’s Somerset House explores the Dutch artist’s penchant for the visual illusion. On the obsessive geometry behind the impossible staircases, pegged to a London show. A nice detour into how the trick was actually done. Note: I saw this shopw in Montreal, and it was fantastic! (Artnet)

• Sagrada Família Is a Miracle of Structural Engineering: Still underway in Barcelona after more than 140 years, Antoni Gaudí’s vision for an otherworldly church was only made possible by modern construction methods. Bloomberg on the math behind Gaudí’s basilica finally nearing completion. The building is the rare modern monument that improves your faith in long-horizon projects. (CityLab)

• Why older people are happier and what we can learn from them. Around the world, happiness tends to peak later in life. It has more to do with balancing priorities than elderly wisdom. The U-shaped happiness curve, revisited: contentment tends to climb after midlife. The lesson isn’t to wait it out, but to borrow the perspective early. (Psyche) see also A Diehard Drinker Accidentally Quits: The cultural discourse around avoiding alcohol never convinced me—and why sober up when the world is burning? Then life intervened. A wry weekend essay on losing a habit you weren’t trying to lose. The kind of personal piece The New Yorker still does best. (New Yorker)

• It Was Her First-Ever Audition Tape. She Landed a Lead on ‘The White Lotus’ Marissa Long, a 26-year-old first-time actress from Tulsa, has a major role on HBO’s obsessively guarded prestige series. She just can’t tell you who she’s playing, what happens or if she survives it. The lottery-ticket version of a Hollywood break. A fun behind-the-scenes on getting discovered the hard-and-then-suddenly-easy way. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Video of the day: The Samurai Who Became A Roman Citizen

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Carl Richards, a financial advisor who is also the creator of the Sketch Guy column, which ran weekly in New York Times for a decade. He hosts Behavior Gap Radio (1,300+ episodes) He co-hosts “Kitces & Carl — Real Talk for Real Financial Advisors” with Michael Kitces.” Richards latest book is Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches.”

 

Mistaking a Hiring Freeze for a Robot

Source: Apollo

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

The post 10 Friday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

What's The Likelihood Of A NATO-Russian Clash Around 2030?

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

If Russia continues fighting this “war of attrition” for years to come instead of decisively ending it soon, then it’ll be more vulnerable than ever to the “cordon sanitaire’s” invasion threats around 2030, thus compelling it to either capitulate or resort to nuclear weapons in self-defense.

RT drew attention to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko’s recent assessment that “we proceed from the premise that [NATO is] really preparing for a military clash with Russia somewhere around 2030.” This followed the National Defense Strategy declaring that “European NATO dwarfs Russia in economic scale, population, and, thus, latent military power”, but these resources must be properly managed in order to unleash their full potential. The US seeks to fulfill this management role for the EU.

Accordingly, it was concluded that “The EU Poses A Much More Credible Threat To Russia Than The Inverse”, which preceded former President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev warning about the 1941-like threat posed by Germany’s remilitarization. Earlier this month, former top Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov raised awareness of the “new war” that he believes that Russia is in and which might last decades, one primary goal thereof being to neutralize its nuclear capabilities.

Grushko’s assessment coincided with the start of Trump 2.0’s “war of attrition” against Russia, so taken in sequence, it’s arguably the case that the US hopes to atrophy Russia through Ukraine prior to the EU becoming powerful enough to threaten a then-weakened Russia with invasion. The “cordon sanitaire” that formed around Russia over the past year largely due to Trump 2.0’s Neo-Reagan Doctrine could also lead to Turkiye and/or Japan threatening the same in order to obtain maximum concessions from Russia

This US-organized geostrategic construct was built in the Arctic-Baltic through UK-led efforts, Central Europe through Polish-led efforts, along Russia’s entire southern periphery through Turkish-led efforts, and in Northeast Asia through Japanese-led efforts. If Russia’s nuclear capabilities are neutralized or severely degraded by that time, then it might be coerced into selling controlling stakes in its state natural resource companies to the West for pennies on the dollar, which is Trump 2.0’s grand strategic goal.

Given this goal and the modus operandi of first trying to achieve it through the incipient “war of attrition” against Russia before threatening the use of force by around 2030 if that fails, Russia’s urgent interests are as follows. It must swiftly end the Ukrainian Conflict on as many of its terms as possible in order to then focus on preparing for potentially impending clashes with the US-led “cordon sanitaire”. Remaining embroiled in the “war of attrition” will sap its strength and make it relatively weaker by then.

Between now and then, Russia must also employ creative means for breaking this “cordon sanitaire” or at the very least preventing it from extending to Kazakhstan, which could potentially involve prioritized intelligence operations against shadow NATO member Azerbaijan or even another special operation. In parallel, it might also leverage its influence with North Korea to embolden Kim Jong Un to carry out more missile and possibly nuclear tests, hoping to abruptly shift the US’ focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific.

If Russia continues fighting this “war of attrition” for years to come instead of decisively ending it soon, then it’ll be more vulnerable to the “cordon sanitaire’s” invasion threats around 2030, thus compelling it to either capitulate or resort to nuclear weapons in self-defense. Neither scenario is favorable, but both would be due to Russia failing to restore deterrence by then. It’s therefore imperative to immediately restore deterrence, swiftly win the Ukrainian Conflict, and then break this new “cordon sanitaire”.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 06:30

US Forces Kill Senior ISIS Leader In Syria, After Large-Scale Troop Withdrawal

The US military is still conducting attacks inside Syria, at a moment its close regional ally Israel is gobbling up territory in the south, and Golan region, with IDF ground forces holding territory within dozens of miles of Damascus.

"A senior Islamic State leader was killed by an airstrike last week, Central Command announced on Wednesday, as the region grapples with a fraught security landscape amid U.S. base closures in Syria and the escape of ISIS personnel from detainment," Defense News writes based on a fresh Wednesday Pentagon statement.

via Reuters

Hussein Al-Alawi has been identified as the target killed in northwestern Syria in the special forces operation.

"The attack is part of our continued efforts to disrupt terrorist activities and to target those who seek to plan attacks on the United States of America and its interests both domestically and internationally," CENTCOM stressed in its statement.

"The continued collaboration with the regional partners in the fight against the group," added the statement.

"CENTCOM and its partners remain committed to defeating the last remnants of ISIS and to guaranteeing its demise," stated Admiral Brad Cooper, US Central Command commander.

The over decade-long proxy war to oust Assad, which heavily involved the CIA and Gulf states, as well as Israel, has long been discussed as part of the 'pipeline wars' theme, and has for years been an open secret.

President Trump, who helped put new Syrian self-declared President Sharaa in power, and vouched for him when they first met in Saudi Arabia, is expected to attend the G7 summit.

But despite Damascus under Sharaa now being a willing puppet of Washington, economic relief for the war-ravaged Syrian population has remained illusory, as one Middle East outlet previously underscored:

Because Syria had been under crushing sanctions since the start of the 14-year war that began in 2011, many expected the economic situation to improve after Sharaa toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government and western nations began easing sanctions.

However, “attracting foreign investment and restoring normal banking ties ⁠have ​proven slower and more difficult than ​many officials had hoped,” Reuters noted. More than 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line and have suffered from major increases in the price of fuel, electricity, and food in recent months.

All the while, looming large in the background is the fact that the Syrian government is now full of Sunni extremists, who have repeatedly targeted Alawites, Druze, and Christians for being "unbelievers". 

Thousands have died at the hands of ISIS-style Syrian government-linked military members, who have sought to cleanse the country of its ancient Christian and Alawite communities. 

Israeli officials have of late lumped Turkey and Syria into an 'axis' which threatens Israel and its interests in the region. Also, Washington has been putting pressure on Damascus to move against Hezbollah, and yet the reality remains that Syria's defenses have been largely obliterated - ironically enough through Israeli strikes in the wake of Assad's exit.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 05:45

Police Took 8 Minutes To Locate Henry Nowak's Fatal Stab Wound... Then Performed CPR Directly Over It

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

The case of 18-year-old white British student Henry Nowak has delivered yet another layer of disturbing detail.

Officers from Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary arrived at the Southampton scene roughly five to ten minutes after he was stabbed five times with a ceremonial knife. Henry remained conscious and spoke loudly at first. He told them he had been stabbed and could not breathe. They chose instead to believe the man who had just knifed him.

New evidence released this week shows it took those officers a full eight minutes to discover the fatal wound. During that time they lifted Henry, striking his head against a wall, and later began CPR. A female officer started compressions. According to the transcript and reports, officers performed chest compressions over his clothing and directly onto the area of the stab wound.

? BREAKING: Newly released evidence shows how police officers took eight minutes to discover the stab wound that killed Henry Nowak.

The attending officers also hit Henry's head on a wall as he was lifted, before a female officer begins CPR.https://t.co/C5Wb1IQZ93

— The Mercian (@TheMercianNews) June 24, 2026

It took police officers 8 minutes to check Henry Nowak for stab wounds. When they realised he wasn't breathing they did chest compressions over his clothes ONTO A STAB WOUND, somehow managing to make the situation even worse.

— Patrick Christys (@PatrickChristys) June 24, 2026

Bodycam footage shows officers dragging Henry across gravel, turning him, and forcefully pulling his arms behind his back to apply handcuffs. He lost consciousness within about three minutes of that restraint and was pronounced dead at 00:37 on 4 December 2025 after 51 minutes of resuscitation efforts.

A paediatric critical care specialist with battlefield medicine experience, Dr Krzysztof Magier, reviewed the footage and post-mortem report. He concluded there is a high probability that the police actions contributed to Henry's death.

The main source of bleeding was damage to the subclavian vein. Venous bleeding under low pressure often forms a natural clot that can slow or stop on its own. Forcefully twisting the arms behind the back and handcuffing likely stretched the vein, tore the forming clot, and triggered sudden massive internal haemorrhage.

Dr Magier stated: "I am convinced that if Henry had arrived there alive, the doctors would not have let him die." He added that paramedics arriving first could have given Henry a roughly 50% chance of survival through fluids, tranexamic acid to stabilise the clot, and other interventions. Southampton University Hospital, a major trauma centre, was only two to three minutes away by ambulance.

Serving and former Hampshire officers have now admitted that mandatory "Inclusion Matters" DEI training played a direct role in how they processed the incident. They described sessions that drummed in "white privilege" and "unconscious bias."

One officer said: "we had it drummed into us about our white privilege and unconscious bias." The outsourced trainer was described as "deeply hateful of white people and our culture." Officers feared career damage if they pushed back.

This ideological environment framed the white teenager as the likely aggressor and gave credence to the attacker's fabricated claim of racial abuse.

Vickrum Digwa, from a Sikh background, lied to police and his family reinforced the narrative on the 999 call, downplaying any knife involvement. Officers initially accepted the story. One was heard telling Henry: "Don't think you have mate."

An ex-police officer appearing on BBC Newsnight called the response "unfathomable." Basic procedure requires immediate medical assessment and priority for anyone reporting a stab wound and breathing difficulty - not restraint and dismissal. The BBC presenter appeared visibly surprised at the unsparing assessment.

Judge William Mousley KC noted the attending officer's "genuine shock" upon realising CPR was being given over a serious chest wound and suggested it showed officers "doing his best in a very difficult situation." The judge also observed that "sometimes, someone arrested and handcuffed will feign injury."

Dr Magier directly challenged that leniency: "I fear that the Judge and pathologist were too lenient towards the police."

A full jury inquest opens at Winchester Coroner's Court on 20 September 2027. It will examine whether any act or omission by police caused or contributed to the death.

The release of bodycam footage earlier this month triggered protests and disorder in Southampton. Henry's father, Mark Nowak, stated: "My son was dragged across gravel, handcuffed and called racist as he lay dying. Being read his rights was the last thing he heard."

Vickrum Digwa was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years. His sentence has been referred to the Court of Appeal as potentially unduly lenient. Prior warnings about Digwa - including 2022 reports of him firing an illegal air pistol in his garden - were reportedly not acted upon effectively by police.

The pattern fits a broader picture of institutional capture. Training that elevates identity politics over impartial procedure produces exactly this outcome: a dying white teenager treated as a threat while his attacker's narrative receives deference.

Critics from across the spectrum have highlighted the double standard compared with other high-profile custody deaths that triggered institutional upheaval and global campaigns.

He wasn't breathing ? you start chest compressions immediately.

That's basic first aid protocol.

Taking 8 minutes to check for stab wounds, handcuffing him while he's saying he can't breathe, and then compressing over clothes directly onto the wound is a complete failure of...

— WasAcop (@WasAcop) June 24, 2026

I read that they also banged his head when they moved him after realising that he'd been stabbed. Honestly, when you think this case can't get any worse, it does. ?

— Leanne (@LeanneSpurs) June 24, 2026

They were told he had blood coming out of his mouth when they arrived, and he repeatedly said he'd been stabbed.

Totally unacceptable dereliction of duty.

— PixelatedBoot (stamping on a human face – forever) (@PixelatedBoot) June 24, 2026

It would help if the police were taught life saving rather than DEI protocol.

— Pat Herbert (@PatHerbert2) June 24, 2026

Henry's family has asked that his death not be used to sow further division. The facts, however, speak for themselves. When police training and culture elevate racial grievance narratives above the immediate duty to preserve life, the result is not justice - it is preventable tragedy.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 03:30

Rome Rebukes Rutte: Italy Rejects Claim US Flew Iran War Missions From Its Bases

It's no longer just a Trump-Meloni spat on the level of public rhetoric, but Italy is newly making clear that it is imposing real policy and limitations on the US, now clarifying that it had formally denied US use of its bases to strike Iran for past and future potential missions.

This has been a long time in coming, as Italy already clearly restricted at least some US use of its bases within the past months related to the Iran war, but now it is official.

On Thursday Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani reportedly told his Iranian counterpart by phone he firmly rejects NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte's recent claims that US forces used Italian military bases in operations against Iran.

Tajani has insisted that Italian bases were never used for any kind of offensive strikes on the Islamic Republic. According to US military publication Stripes, "The Iranian foreign minister thanked Italy for the clarification and said a clear, formal denial was necessary."

via US Navy

Italy of course remains a member of NATO, and so the fact that Rome was responding to recent remark's of the organization's leader is glaring, and reveals a serious inter-NATO rift.

The NATO chief had been interviewed on Fox earlier this week, wherein he claimed that some 500 American military flights had taken off from bases in Italy in support of Operation Epic Fury. Italy's foreign ministry is firmly rejecting the claim.

In addition, the Italian Defense Ministry came out and said that Rutte "has nothing to do with Operation Epic Fury" - which might explain whey he's making "completely misleading" remarks.

"Italy only authorizes flights that are provided for by the treaties and totally exclude kinetic activities," said that Italian defense ministry statement.

It seems Italy is trying to appease both the Iranian and US sides at once, by trying to shroud its role in ambiguity and abstract definitions of terms: 

In a post analyzing how Italy’s bases were used to support the war, the site ItaMilRadar said this week that Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones from Sigonella “conducted extensive intelligence and reconnaissance missions over the Persian Gulf area” before the Triton operations appeared to shift to Jordan in April. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft operated from the base before and during the war, and several deployed to Djibouti to support U.S. naval forces in the Indian Ocean, according to the site.

Back in late March, as US-Israeli bombs were still being unleashed on Iran, a statement from PM Meloni’s office had also alluded to matters of procedure, stating that Italy is "acting in full compliance with existing international agreements"  - while underscoring that each request must be "carefully examined on a case-by-case basis, as has always been the case in the past."

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto had also at the time confirmed that "some US bombers" were denied landing at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy. The complaint is that the US didn't follow required permission protocol, and requested landing only while in the air and already en route to Sicily.

But the truth also is that American hegemonic action in the Middle East, and the Iran conflict in particular, remains deeply unpopular among the Italian population, which has long had a strongly anti-war bent especially among the youth.

In a display of obedience to the US, the NATO Secretary General bragged about NATO's participation in the war of aggression against Iran:
- “If you take Italy for example, 500 U.S. planes took off from U.S. bases in Italy to support Operation Epic Fury." pic.twitter.com/cuJWD6Uy7N

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) June 25, 2026

The Guardian previously wrote, "The unpopularity of Trump in Italy has also started to erode the popularity of Meloni, who is ideologically in tune with the US president and has established good working relations with him." However, she's lately sought to distance her government from the war, having told parliament earlier this month there's a growing dangerous trend of interventions "outside the scope of international law."

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 02:45

Majority Of Poles Are Against Ukraine Joining The EU

Via Remix News,

Poles are divided in their assessment of Ukraine’s possible accession to the European Union.

However, according to the latest IBRiS poll conducted for Radio ZET, the voices of those opposed to accession dominate.

A total of 35.3 percent of those surveyed voted in favor of Ukraine’s admission to the European Union. Strong support for such a solution was expressed by 8.4 percent of respondents, while 26.9 percent replied “rather yes.”

There are definitely more opponents of Ukraine’s membership in the EU. A total of 59.7 percent of those questioned took a negative position. The answer “probably not” was given by 27.4 percent of respondents, and “definitely not” by as many as 32.3 percent.

Another 5 percent remain undecided — respondents who chose the answer “I don’t know” or “hard to say.”

Among supporters of the ruling coalition, 64 percent support Ukraine’s accession to the EU, while 73 percent of opposition voters say Ukraine should not join.

The study was conducted by the IBRiS Institute for Market and Social Research using computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) on June 12–13, 2026. The survey was conducted on a representative sample of 1,068 adult Poles.

Zelensky canceled his visit to Poland

The two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC), co-organized by Poland and Ukraine, will begin in Gdańsk on Thursday.

One of the highlights of the event will be a joint meeting of the Polish and Ukrainian parliaments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will not come to Gdańsk; the Ukrainian delegation will instead be headed by Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko

. It is also known that the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, will not come to Poland.

The Gdańsk conference is being organized in the shadow of sharp tensions between Poland and Ukraine — all due to Zelensky’s decision to name one of the Ukrainian army units after “UPA heroes.”

In response, Polish President Karol Nawrocki decided to strip Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/26/2026 - 02:00

A Bridge To The Future: America's 250th Celebration Time Capsule

Authored by Walker Larson via The Epoch Times,

On July 4, 2026, the United States of America has a date with the future.

America250, the national, nonpartisan group tasked with organizing the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, will establish a bridge with the year 2276 by burying a time capsule at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on July 4 of this year. For 250 years, the capsule will lie there silently waiting, as the ship of the nation surges forward through the uncharted seas of the future. Then in 2276, the capsule will be reopened, providing future Americans with a glimpse into their past—our present.

The capsule contains contributions from all three branches of government, all 50 states, District of Columbia, and five territories, and America250 programs. According to the America250 website, “the Time Capsule reflects a national responsibility to preserve a representative record of the United States at 250 years.” The three-foot-tall, 900-pound capsule has been officially sealed and now awaits burial.

“This moment is as much about the future as it is the past,” Rosie Rios, chair of America250, proclaimed. “When it is opened in 2276, future generations will see the care, pride, and optimism with which Americans marked our 250th anniversary.”

The capsule contains some remarkable items, including a whale bone from Maine, an AI prophecy from California, and a diamond from Arkansas. The Library of Congress has included a molecular data storage device, about the length of a pencil eraser, that contains synthetic DNA in which is encoded digital copies of key Library collection items, such as Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and an 1898 audio recording of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Maine's contribution to the America250 time capsule is this bone from the North Atlantic right whale found off the coast of the Gulf of Maine. Courtesy of America250

America250 has explained that the artifacts, letters, records, and objects—most of which have been placed in six-by-four-by-two-inch archival boxes—have been selected to tell the story of the United States, as it exists on this semiquincentennial. Each state and territory established its own commissions to select representative items from that area to be submitted for inclusion in the capsule.

Rios observed, “When it is opened in 2276, we want future generations to have a clear, authentic window into who we were at 250—what we valued, what we built, and how we saw ourselves as a nation.”

The more-than-200 artifacts span a wide range of types, including civic records, scientific items, cultural artifacts, sports memorabilia, and items that express what everyday life in America is like in 2026.

Notable objects include student submissions from America250’s America’s Field Trip contest that respond to the question, “What does America mean to you?” There’s also a Coca-Cola glass bottle, an iPhone 17 Pro Max, a coin from the 2026 NFL playoffs, a map of Alaska when it was sold to the United States by Russia in 1867, a photograph of the military eagle “Old Abe,” and a poem celebrating America by contemporary South Dakota poet Joseph Bottum. Experts from the Library of Congress scrupulously analyzed each item to ensure that it was an appropriate material that wouldn’t decay or compromise the vessel’s integrity.

Also included in the time capsule: As part of America250’s America’s Soundtrack initiative, Coca-Cola donated a “message in a bottle” with a lyrics sheet for their song, “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” inside an iconic Coke bottle. Courtesy of America250

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) along with preservation experts at the Library of Congress developed the capsule itself, and it was constructed at NIST’s technology fabrication shop. Its smooth, cylindrical hull is made of stainless steel and a water- and air-proof compression seal of indium. Finally, a 1,100-pound steel bell jar will be placed over the capsule when it is buried, forming an air pocket that will keep the cylinder’s dry for its 250-year sleep.

The duty of burying the capsule falls to the National Park Service in conjunction with the Independence Historical Trust, the philanthropic partner to Independence National Historical Park. The time capsule will become an heirloom and responsibility inherited by successive generations of park officials as they pass on the information about the time capsule from decade to decade, century to century, until the year 2276. The National Park Service has information about the capsule in its succession plans, as well as a capstone with information on the capsule, to be placed over its burial site.

A historic national event such as this inspires reflection about the passage of time and the meaning of legacy. Michael Berilla, director of the fabrication technology office at the NIST, who led the team that built the capsule, wrote a rather poignant message to whoever uncovers the cylinder:

“Greetings from the living, breathing hearts and hands of 2026. We will have long since returned to dust, but our devotion, pride, and unwavering hope for what our world could become are alive right here inside this steel. We built this for you.”

As Berilla’s words suggest, the capsule opens a kind of portal between us and our descendants, an opportunity to gaze through the haze of time and, for a moment at least, catch the eyes and hearts of people who do not yet walk the earth, people to whom we will be only a shadowy memory. For a brief window, though, when those future hands unearth this vessel of relics, the shadows of time will flee, and they will be bound to us across that chasm of years in a common surge of hope, gratitude, and patriotism.

Let us hope and pray that the world in which our descendants bring the capsule to light will be more luminous than the one in which we bury it. If it is so, then our efforts as individuals, families, and as a nation will not have been in vain.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 23:25

Trump's War Economy Accelerates As Lockheed Wins $35 Billion Deal To Quadruple Missile-Interceptor Output

President Trump's war economy continues to gain steam as weapons production is kicked into high gear and stockpiling becomes a top priority for the Department of War.

The latest evidence: Lockheed Martin has won a DoW contract worth up to $35 billion to quadruple production of THAAD missile-defense interceptors, according to Bloomberg.

The seven-year agreement follows a January framework deal between Lockheed and DoW to boost interceptor output over the next few years. It also comes as the White House moves to mobilize the defense industrial base, with Trump invoking the Defense Production Act to reduce manufacturing bottlenecks.

On Wednesday afternoon, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters after a meeting with Trump that the goal of increasing munitions production “is important because we have to replenish our stockpiles and make sure we are totally ready for whatever might emerge."

The urgency behind the upcoming replenishment cycle comes after four years of war in Ukraine and the recent U.S.-Iran war drained key weapons stockpiles.

Trump also met with defense-industry executives on Wednesday as the administration seeks to accelerate production of other key air-defense weapons.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told lawmakers in mid-May that because of Trump's "smart business deals” have sent an unmistakable demand signal to defense-industrial partners: build more, build faster, and prepare for sustained procurement.

.@SECWAR "Over the past year, through historic, multi-year procurement agreements – smart business deals – we have sent a permanent, unambiguous demand signal to our industry partners to BUILD MORE AND BUILD FASTER.

The result has been a surge – a revitalization – of our great… pic.twitter.com/wrqI5e5HQR

— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) April 29, 2026

Hegseth's recent comments about America's industrial base roaring back to life should come as no surprise to readers, as we've outlined:

• War Economy Returns: From Trucks To Tanks, Pentagon Looks To Automakers To Rebuild America's Arsenal

• Race To Refill U.S. Weapons Stockpiles Will Supercharge War Economy

• "Answering The Call": Ford Motor Eyes WWII-Style Production Push For Trump's War Economy

DoW recently published a map of America's expanding defense industrial base, centered mostly in the South and Rust Belt.

Last week, Nancy Lazar, Piper Sandler's chief global economist and head of the firm's economics research team, told clients she was bullish on goods-producing jobs, including construction workers building out the next wave of data centers.

We would add that surging production of missiles, interceptors, drones, tanks, planes, and bombs could further accelerate that shift, moving the labor market away from two decades of low-productivity service-sector jobs and back toward higher-paying industrial work tied to national security, reshoring, and Trump's war economy.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 23:00

Exxon Wins Big As Supreme Court Revives Cuba Seizure Case

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Exxon Mobil can move forward with its lawsuit against Cuban state-owned oil companies over assets seized after Fidel Castro came to power, reopening a dispute tied to Cuba’s 1960 nationalizations, according to CNN.

The 6-3 decision comes as President Donald Trump has taken a more aggressive stance toward Havana.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, with the Court’s liberal justices dissenting.

CNN writes that the ruling is part of a broader wave of legal and political pressure on Cuba. In May, the Trump administration indicted former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over his alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft that killed four people, including three Americans. Trump has also floated military action, saying in March he might have the “honor of taking Cuba.”

Exxon’s case centers on property seized in 1960 and a 1996 law that allows US nationals to sue over confiscated Cuban assets in American courts. Before the revolution, Standard Oil—later Exxon Mobil—operated a refinery, product terminals and 117 service stations in Cuba, all of which were nationalized by Castro’s government.

A US commission in 1969 valued Standard Oil’s losses at nearly $72 million. With interest and Exxon’s request for treble damages, the total exposure could reach into the hundreds of millions.

The legal fight turned on whether the 1996 Cuba law overrides another federal statute that generally shields foreign governments from lawsuits in US courts. Exxon argued Congress created a clear exception for claims involving seized Cuban property, while the Cuban companies said sovereign immunity should still apply.

The Trump administration backed Exxon, telling the Court that “The United States has compelling foreign-policy interests in ensuring that US nationals whose assets were illegally expropriated by Fidel Castro’s communist regime receive recompense and in preventing the Cuban government from further benefiting from its wrongdoing.”

Lower courts were divided, and the DC Circuit had previously ruled against Exxon. The Supreme Court’s decision now clears the way for the lawsuit to proceed.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 22:10

Is Trump 2.0's 'Escalation' Strategy Against Russia Starting To Take Shape?

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

The US is preparing to radically intensify the Ukrainian Conflict over the coming year...

Trump’s decision to sign the “G7 leaders’ joint statement on geopolitical issues” calling for more arms to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia signaled that he’ll now “escalate to de-escalate” (E2DE) through a “war of attrition” waged by Ukraine. The EU will back this campaign to the hilt and Trump 2.0 will seek to obtain control over Russia’s natural resources companies as its top goal via the coercive selling of shares under pain of continued NATO-backed Ukrainian strikes against associated infrastructure if Putin refuses.

The contours of his administration’s E2DE strategy are now starting to take shape. Nearly two weeks before he signed the abovementioned joint statement, the House passed a bill that would “provid[e] more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.” On the sidelines of the G7 Summit, Trump then said that he’ll soon reimpose oil sanctions against Russia, which would disrupt Putin’s Sino-Indo balancing act.

Around the same time, “A group of US senators has introduced legislation that would amend existing law to allow Ukraine to use assets confiscated from the Central Bank of Russia and other Russian sovereign assets to purchase military equipment.” All of this coincided with reports that the Senate also introduced language into the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calling for continued intelligence support to Ukraine across all of next year to aid its quest to reconquer its lost land (and possibly more).

To top it all off, Zelensky then expressed confidence shortly thereafter that Trump will follow through on his explicitly conveyed interest in allowing US companies to manufacture air defense missiles (and likely also other arms) in Ukraine, thus tremendously raising the stakes if Russia strikes these facilities. Of course, it’ll take time for the US to replenish its own missile stockpile after the Third Gulf War, but the writing is on the wall and it reads that Trump 2.0 is preparing to radically intensify the Ukrainian Conflict.

Specifically, its E2DE strategy is expected to closely follow what the Wall Street Journal outlined last fall and which was analyzed here at the time, namely helping Ukraine surpass Russia’s drone capabilities, more secondary sanctions, and provoking unrest inside of Russia. To that end, the House and Senate initiatives will bolster Ukraine’s strike capabilities (including long-range missile ones), while Trump’s sanctions threat will deal with the second part. This combination might lead to unrest inside of Russia.

To be clear, that final phase is unlikely to materialize since the diverse Russian people remain united due to keenly understanding the existential stakes of this conflict as regards its grand strategic goal of “Balkanizing” their civilization-state, plus they’re not prone to protest much either. Nevertheless, the US is still preparing to try anyhow, hoping to at least generate enough disapproval of the status quo that the ruling United Russia party is forced to enter into a coalition after September’s next Duma elections.

Looking forward, the groundwork is rapidly being established for Trump 2.0 to make next year all about Russia, and the Democrats’ possible recapture of Congress or at least one of its chambers after November’s midterms could facilitate this. If Russia doesn’t achieve its goals before that happens or cut a reasonably fair deal by that time, then there’ll be no realistic chance of any such deal till 2029 at the earliest, thus meaning that only victory or defeat would be possible before that date. The clock is ticking.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 21:45

China’s Crackdown Threatens Hong Kong’s IPO Boom And Offshore Wealth

China’s latest push to choke off capital flight is starting to hit Hong Kong right where it hurts, according to a new feature from Bloomberg.

For years, the city has served as the main offshore escape valve for mainland wealth — the place where Chinese founders, executives and wealthy families parked money, opened private bank accounts, bought property and set up family offices. Now Beijing is tightening that channel, raising questions about whether Hong Kong can remain Asia’s go-to offshore wealth hub.

Bloomberg writes that the latest measures include roughly $330 million in penalties against three brokerages widely used by Chinese investors to access offshore markets, along with tighter scrutiny of banks, trust structures and wealthy individuals moving money abroad. Advisers in Hong Kong say clients quickly began asking whether their accounts could be affected and whether more restrictions are coming. As one lawyer put it, Beijing isn’t slamming the door shut all at once — “they are installing a doorframe.”

That matters because Hong Kong has become deeply dependent on mainland money. Chinese households and companies moved a record $807 billion out of the country last year, and a large share of it landed in Hong Kong, helping the city overtake Switzerland as the world’s biggest offshore wealth hub. That money has supported luxury spending, real estate, stock trading and Hong Kong’s IPO rebound.

Now the mechanics of moving that money are getting harder. Bankers say mainland clients are facing tougher onboarding standards, including declarations that their wealth was sourced outside China. Private banks are fielding more questions from nervous clients, and some ultra-wealthy Chinese are already looking beyond Hong Kong to Europe, Switzerland and the US. The goal doesn’t seem to be stopping every dollar from leaving China, but making sure Beijing has more visibility and leverage over where it goes.

Beijing is also targeting the offshore structures Chinese founders have long used to turn mainland business success into foreign wealth. For years, the playbook was simple: build a company in China, wrap it in an offshore structure, list it abroad or in Hong Kong, collect dividends, then move that money into overseas property, trusts or family offices. China is now squeezing that route too, restricting red-chip IPO structures and tightening rules around whether Hong Kong listing proceeds can remain offshore.

The result is pressure on one of Hong Kong’s most lucrative ecosystems all at once: wealth management, offshore structuring, IPO underwriting and luxury spending tied to mainland fortunes. If rich Chinese can’t move money into the city as easily, Hong Kong doesn’t just lose deposits — it loses deal flow, brokerage activity, family office growth and some of the conspicuous consumption that has powered its rebound. As one Hong Kong lawyer put it, “The family office figures are looking great, but the doors are shutting.”

What’s driving this is straightforward: China needs control, and it needs revenue. The property downturn has hammered local finances, land-sale income has dried up, and Beijing has become more aggressive about tracking taxable wealth that has slipped offshore. It may not want to end offshore investing altogether, but it clearly wants tighter oversight, tighter rules and a bigger claim on the money once it leaves.

For Hong Kong, that creates a real tension. The city still wants to market itself as the natural offshore home for Chinese capital and the financial bridge between China and the rest of the world. But the more Beijing clamps down, the harder it becomes for Hong Kong to play that role with the same freedom it once did — making it look less like a safe haven and more like an extension of the same system wealthy Chinese were trying to hedge against in the first place.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 21:20

Supreme Court Strikes Down Hawaii's Gun Restrictions In Major Second Amendment Case

Authored by Stacy Robinson & Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 on June 25 to strike down a Hawaii gun law that banned residents from carrying concealed weapons in privately owned public places, such as gas stations and shopping malls, without permission from the owners.

The Supreme Court in Washington on June 23, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The majority opinion in Wolford v. Lopez was authored by Justice Samuel Alito.

Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the case, which was closely watched by gun rights advocates.

Alito said the Second Amendment "has the same meaning in all parts of the United States."

"It cannot give way to 'the spirit of Aloha' in Hawaii - any more than it can yield to the spirit of the Big Apple - or the Windy City," he said.

"It applies in the same way to our 50th State (where about 8% of adults possess guns) and our 49th State (where the figure is roughly 59%).

"Merely local attitudes can neither shrink nor inflate the meaning of fundamental Bill of Rights guarantees that apply to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment."

Over the years, the court has invoked the so-called doctrine of incorporation to apply the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights - the first 10 amendments to the Constitution - to the states. Initially, the Bill of Rights was understood to apply only to the federal government.

Hawaii's Act 52 banned handguns on private property unless the permit holder had received "express authorization to carry a firearm on the property by the owner, lessee, operator, or manager of the property."

It also banned firearms in bars, beaches, parks, and "sensitive places" such as hospitals, schools, and government buildings.

The law placed the onus on private property owners who wish to allow concealed carry on their property to communicate their policy to the public.

The state calls the rule requiring express authorization to carry the "default rule," but critics call it the "vampire rule," naming it after the mythical creatures that need permission to enter a property, Second Amendment expert Cam Edwards previously told The Epoch Times.

When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviewed the Hawaii law, it said the restrictions fell "well within the historical tradition," a reference to the legal test the Supreme Court adopted in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense.

The appeals court had upheld the state law, pointing to a New Jersey anti-poaching law from 1771 and a Louisiana law from 1865 that it said were "dead ringers" for Hawaii's restrictions.

Earlier in the litigation, a federal district judge blocked the law, but the Ninth Circuit largely reversed that decision. In a 2-1 vote, the appeals court allowed Hawaii to enforce much of the law because, in its view, Act 52 was consistent with Bruen, which recognized a "sensitive places" exception to the right to bear arms in public.

At the oral argument on Jan. 20, Hawaii argued that the state statute protects private property rights and the public, while those challenging the law contended it violates their constitutionally protected right to carry guns in public to defend themselves.

The case was brought by three Hawaii gun permit holders and the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a gun rights organization, alleging that the state violated the right to bear arms.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 20:55

YouTube Settles With Florida Teen Alleging Social Media Addiction Harms Ahead Of California Trial

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

Google's YouTube has settled a lawsuit brought by a 16-year-old Florida boy who says the platform's features played a role in his social media addiction and harmed his mental health.

A 12-year-old boy watches YouTube on his smartphone on March 27, 2026. Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

The settlement was reached ahead of a second California state court trial set to start on July 27. That trial will review similar allegations against Meta Platforms' Instagram, Snap Inc.'s Snapchat, and ByteDance's TikTok.

California state court filings portray the plaintiff, identified only as R.K.C., as first using social media at about age 8. He says he became addicted, lost sleep, and developed depression and anxiety.

Terms of the agreement between YouTube and the teenager were not disclosed.

"YouTube's decision to resolve this case before having to face a jury speaks for itself," the plaintiff's attorneys, John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott, said. "We will continue fighting on behalf of all those affected by social media addiction to bring these companies to justice and compel them to prioritize the safety of their young users over their bottom lines."

Meanwhile, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda noted the company's continuing work on safety tools.

"Our focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls that deliver on that promise," he said in a statement.

The settlement follows a March verdict in a separate California case, in which a jury determined that Meta and Google were negligent after a young woman alleged that attention-grabbing design features on YouTube and Instagram played a role in her addiction.

Meta was instructed to pay $4.2 million in damages, and Google $1.8 million. A judge dismissed the companies' request to set aside the verdict earlier this month.

More than 3,300 lawsuits regarding addiction claims against social media companies are pending in California state court. Another 2,600 cases brought by individuals, school districts, municipalities, and states are pending in federal court in California.

States Pursue Claims

In May, a Kentucky school district settled with Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube before trial. The companies paid the district $27 million in total.

A jury in New Mexico ordered Meta in March to pay $375 million after finding that the company misrepresented the safety of its platforms for young users.

Nearly every state has filed lawsuits in local courts alleging that the companies misrepresented platform safety for young users and created services to addict children.

The July trial in California is the second in state court to test claims that social media platforms are intentionally engineered to be addictive and that this design has played a role in a youth mental health crisis.

Plaintiffs argue that attention-grabbing design features and other elements ensure that young users are engaged to an excessive degree, contributing to mental health problems.

Defense arguments in previous proceedings have pointed to other potential causes for the difficulties experienced by young people, including family circumstances and individual factors.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 20:05