My morning train WFH reads:

• The Coming Loop: I don’t prompt Claude anymore. I have loops running that prompt Claude and figuring out what to do. My job is to write loops. The Flask creator on agentic AI and the feedback loops we’re about to build into everything. Thoughtful, from someone who actually ships code. (Armin Ronacher)

• Europeans Are Terrified of Spending Money, and It’s Hurting the Economy: Recent inflation has taken a larger psychological toll on the continent than in the U.S. Precautionary saving as a drag on the Continent. The flip side of the American consumer who never met a credit limit. (Wall Street Journal) see also US manufacturing jobs fall at fastest rate since the pandemic: The FT on a factory-floor contraction not seen since 2020. Awkward data for anyone promising a manufacturing renaissance. (Financial Times)

• Biopharma Market Update: Stifel’s investment-banking deck on the state of biopharma deals and valuations. Industry plumbing, for those who like their sector reads in chart form. (Stifel)

• How Apple’s Anticompetitive Walled Garden Cost It the AI Race: Apple walled itself off from the competitive forces that punish bad products and allow innovation to flourish organically. The contrarian case that the very moat protecting Apple left it flat-footed on AI. Whether you buy it or not, a sharp argument. (The Sling)

• YouTube Lays Claim to Another Crown: The World’s Largest Media Company: The influential financial research firm MoffettNathanson suggests that the Google-owned video platform passed Disney’s media business in 2025. It quietly passed Disney. The piece everyone in legacy media should read and few will enjoy. (The Hollywood Reporter)

• Copycats: How big a problem is plagiarism? “I’m still surprised by who has engaged in this practice. Yes, this group includes plenty of hacks and students. But they are also joined by the highest elected officials of several countries, as well as Nobel and Pulitzer Prize recipients, bestselling authors and artists, and distinguished faculty at elite universities.” The book’s epigraph is “Plagiarism: it’s not just for mediocrities anymore.” (Commentary)

• On the Difference Between Rest and Idleness: A small, well-made case that doing nothing and recovering are not the same thing — and that we’re bad at both. Worth reading slowly. Why the wellness industry loves rest, fears idleness, and has spent a great deal of money to keep you from noticing the difference. (The Idle Gazette)

• The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement: Vox on the conservative-media stars who built the audience and are now alarmed by what it’s becoming. The base often outpaces its leaders. The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves. (Vox)

• War and Consequences: The damage will not be undone when the Trump administration is gone. (The Atlantic)

• The AI-powered World Cup runs on thousands of data workers: Behind every slick AI highlight reel sits an army of underpaid annotators. Rest of World keeps doing the unglamorous reporting on who actually powers the magic. Human annotators in Brazil, Cambodia, and the Philippines are tracking every movement in the football tournament for teams, broadcasters, and the betting industry. (Rest Of World)

Video of the day: Can you really reach anyone in 6 steps?

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.”

 

The US now imports more from Taiwan than from China. Astounding change from just a few years ago.
Source: Joey Politano

 

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

Chinese Humanoids Take On Penalty Challenge As Messi, Ronaldo Light Up FIFA World Cup

Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering,

As the World Cup fever grows around stars like Messi and Ronaldo, Shanghai hosts a unique penalty shootout featuring humanoid robots.

Humanoid robots are stepping up for a penalty shootout.Boston Dynamics/YouTube

At MWC Shanghai 2026, humanoid robots are stepping up to the spot in the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge, testing the limits of robotics, AI, machine vision, and real-time motion control.

According to Chinese media outlets, the event showcases how embodied AI performs under pressure, highlighting next-generation autonomous technology through football-inspired challenges.

Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Hyundai Motor recently launched a football-themed campaign featuring Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid robot.

Humanoid football test

On its opening day at MWC Shanghai 2026 on June 24, the spotlight quickly shifted from keynote speeches to a live demonstration of embodied AI in action: the Humanoid Robot Football Penalties Challenge.

Held within the Mobile AI Innovation Frontiers Zone at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, the event is designed as a controlled stress test for real-time autonomous decision-making, where humanoid robots must read the goal, judge angles, and execute penalty kicks without pre-programmed sequences, external control, or resets, reported CGTN.

While official details of the participating humanoid robots remain limited, videos circulating online suggest models from Booster Robotics and Unitree Robotics taking part in the challenge.

In the penalties challenge itself, participating humanoids are evaluated on perception accuracy, balance control, motion planning, and adaptive response under game-like pressure. Each robot must independently interpret ball position and goalkeeper movement before committing to a strike, making split-second corrections based on sensor feedback.

The format escalates through semi-finals and a final scheduled for June 25, intensifying constraints to simulate high-pressure competitive conditions. By turning a universally understood sports moment - the penalty kick - into a robotics benchmark, the showcase highlights how far embodied AI has progressed toward coordinated, human-like physical intelligence in unpredictable environments.

Atlas soccer showcase

In a recent football demonstration by Boston Dynamics, an Atlas robot is shown standing before a large display screen, closely tracking player movements, body positioning, and in-game reactions across football footage. After each clip ends, Atlas moves into a practice zone where it immediately attempts to reproduce the actions it has just observed, effectively linking visual perception with physical execution in real time.

The footage highlights a series of football-inspired motions. In one sequence, the robot shifts its weight, swings a leg forward, and smoothly guides a ball across the floor with controlled contact. It then progresses through rapid training drills focused on balance, coordination, and timing. As the session continues, Atlas's movements appear increasingly fluid, suggesting the system is being evaluated not only for strength but also for agility, reflex response, and adaptive motor control.

Some of the most notable moments show Atlas imitating human emotional reactions. After completing a drill, it raises its arms in celebration, mirroring a footballer's goal celebration. In another instance, it drops to one knee and pauses, recreating an injury response seen in match footage it had just observed.

Hyundai Motor Company, parent of Boston Dynamics, described the demonstration as Atlas's first exposure to football under its "School of Football" initiative. The company has also indicated potential plans to showcase Atlas and the quadruped robot Spot at the FIFA World Cup, though their exact roles remain undisclosed.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 06:30

European Rearmament Efforts Snuffed By Chinese Control Of Critical Materials

Yesterday we reported that, in a tit-for-tat move, China announced it is targeting US rare earths firms in response to a Pentagon list of Chinese firms: this, as Rabobank noted, is largely a symbolic move, but it still underlines the tensions in this area. So does the Nikkei reporting that ‘China minerals control threatens EU rearmament, as bloc seeks new sources’: because, as Rabo's Michael Every notes, even if you can afford a dagger, you can’t make it without rare earths, and Europe still hasn’t secured enough supply. 

Taking a closer look at the report, Nikkei writes that the European Union's aggressive plans to boost defense capabilities are hampered by China's export controls and sales restrictions on critical raw materials, with the bloc's leaders now calling on countries to accelerate the diversification of their supply chains.

The European Commission last week said that it will propose a new law that will require companies in the bloc to expand their suppliers to address economic imbalances, although it did not name China.

Russia's war in Ukraine and growing uncertainty over Washington's security guarantees have pushed governments in Europe to increase military spending and production. But for 17 of the 34 materials classified as critical by the EU, China accounts for at least 70% of global mining or refining, a report published by Teer in May shows. Eight of those 34 materials are subject to Chinese export controls.

"China is in the process of pulling the rug out from under Europe's rearmament efforts," said Joris Teer, a policy analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), the bloc's agency for foreign, security and defense policy analysis.

"By just deploying this weapon, China has already increased its leverage, signaling both its capacity and willingness to squeeze supply at any moment of its choosing," Teer wrote.

Escalating geopolitical developments and intensifying global competition for critical raw materials underline the growing need to strengthen Europe's supply chains, said the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe. The organization represents over 4,000 companies including the U.K.'s BAE Systems, France's Thales and Germany's Rheinmetall.

European defense manufacturers are pursuing several strategies including vertical integration, recycling, diversification and stockpiling. Rheinmetall told Nikkei Asia it had "no dependencies" and was "well prepared with regard to critical minerals."

"Rheinmetall has stored key raw materials, enough to last for several years," a spokesperson said. "We have implemented IT systems that enable us to centrally monitor and control raw material consumption across the group with precision."

Rheinmetall's FV-014 loitering munition drone on exhibition at a recent aerospace trade show in Berlin. The German multinational company is repurposing two plants that make automotive parts into weapons manufacturers

But analysts warn that stockpiling alone will not be enough.

"Stockpiling is an important buffer against immediate disruptions, but on its own it is unlikely to reduce structural damage over the long term," said Maria Shagina, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She said it would take years for alternative sources to replace either the volumes or the range of critical minerals that Beijing controls.

In 2024, the EU introduced the European Critical Raw Materials Act, aimed at rebuilding domestic supply chains for such minerals. It sets 2030 targets for domestic extraction, processing and recycling, while capping reliance on any single third-country supplier at 65%. A 3 billion-euro ($3.5 billion) fund was launched last year to accelerate strategic projects.

But the European Court of Auditors notes that the 2030 targets are nonbinding and that the bloc remains far from achieving them. Industry groups say policy inconsistencies could slow progress further.

The Cobalt Institute, representing an industry vital to jet engines, advanced batteries and defense alloys, said proposed EU rules involving chemicals risk hollowing out the sector.

"Europe is one foot in, one foot out," said Michael Blakeney, head of government and public affairs at the London-based institute. "It is saying all the right things, but what it is doing is incoherent."

Europe's efforts coincide with an aggressive approach by the U.S. to secure critical mineral supply chains.

"The U.S. is deploying more capital, taking larger financial risks and in some cases acquiring equity stakes to secure and build capacity," Shagina said. "By contrast, Europe has generally been more cautious ... leaving [it] at a relative disadvantage in competing for critical minerals."

In April, the EU signed an agreement with the U.S. to coordinate critical mineral supplies. Following initial resistance over fears it could dilute the bloc's strategic autonomy, member states authorized the commission earlier in June to sign up to the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative, which coordinates investment and export-control policies.

Teer urged the European bloc to use ongoing U.S.-EU-Japan negotiations as the "nucleus" of a wider coalition to make non-Chinese critical mineral production financially viable, backed by state support, price floors and procurement rules.

"Particularly important are raw material producers, or deposit holders, like Malaysia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil and Indonesia, as well as countries with vast skilled-workforce potential like India," he wrote in the paper.

To deter further Chinese restrictions, he said the EU also should activate its anti-coercion instrument, which allows it to impose tariffs and restrictions as a response to economic coercion by countries outside of the bloc.

A European Commission spokesperson said the bloc had "long recognized the risks linked to the EU's dependencies on critical raw materials."

"The objective is clear: Anticipate disruptions early and reduce the EU's vulnerabilities as we scale up our industrial and defense capacities," the spokesperson said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 05:45

EU Commissioner Claims That Ukraine Is Gaining The Upper Hand On The Battlefield, In the Air, And At Sea

Via Remix News,

Ukraine is gaining the upper hand on the battlefield, in the air and at sea, while Ukrainian drones have stopped Russia’s ground advance and are causing serious disruptions to Russian logistics, EU Commissioner for Defense and Space Policy Andrius Kubilius said on Tuesday in Brussels.

In his speech launching the European defense and security summit, the commissioner pointed out that Ukrainian drones can paralyze the supply of the Russian army up to 300 kilometers from the front lines.

According to the EU commissioner, Ukraine is no longer just a beneficiary of international subsidies, but also contributes to the protection of other countries.

Kubilius said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is reacting to Ukrainian successes with increasingly desperate attacks. He cited last week’s attack on the Kyiv monastery as an example, which he called an attack on culture, religion and civilization.

According to the commissioner, Russia continues to pose a threat to Europe’s security, and Moscow may be able to test NATO’s Article 5, which establishes collective defense. At the same time, he emphasized that Ukraine’s successes do not mean the end of the war, nor do they mean that Russia is weak.

As he said, Russia is still able to produce weapons and drones in large quantities, so Europe must prepare to strengthen its own defense capabilities.

According to Kubilius, the United States is increasingly encouraging Europe to take greater responsibility for its own security. He emphasized: “Europe must be prepared for the fact that some capabilities of the American forces may be regrouped in other regions, so European defense capacities must be urgently strengthened.”

Kubilius warned that without replenishing American strategic capabilities, Europe’s defenses and deterrent power could be weakened.

“If European countries do not fill these gaps in ability, it could be an open invitation for Russia to test the West’s resolve,” he said.

He added that the necessary resources for this can be available primarily at the national level. He reminded that based on their commitments to NATO, the member states can spend a total of around €7 trillion for defense purposes over the next ten years.

At the same time, the Commissioner stressed the need for these resources to be utilized in a coordinated manner and within a European framework.

He also emphasized that the EU should integrate Ukraine within the framework of a future defense union.

“It would be difficult to understand if we Europeans did not see it as a vital interest to integrate Ukraine’s military power into the European defence system,” he said.

He also noted that the European Commission is expected to present the first proposals for the further integration of the European defense market as early as next week, which include a detailed analysis and ideas for further steps.

Kubilius added that even this year they will propose amendments to defense procurement rules and other market regulations.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 05:00

India's Imports Of Russian Oil Set For New Record High

India is set to import a record-high volume of Russian crude in June as the Hormuz crisis and the U.S. waivers on Russia’s barrels have pushed the world’s third-largest crude importer to gorge on Moscow’s oil again, OilPrice reported.

India has imported 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude oil so far in June, according to preliminary vessel-tracking data from commodity analytics firm Kpler cited by Indian media.

So far this month, Russian crude has accounted for as much as 53.5% of all Indian oil imports, per the data.   

Russian crude now makes up HALF of India’s oil imports in June!
India is importing 2.66 million barrels per day of Russian oil — which is nearly 40% higher than May.
This has strengthened Russia’s position as India’s largest oil supplier.
Key Points:
• Russian oil share has… pic.twitter.com/A5zWie3U4B

— Dr. Rakesh Bansal (@iamrakeshbansal) June 22, 2026

India’s full-month imports of Russian crude are set for a record-high of 2.35 million bpd in June for any month ever, Kpler has estimated. This would exceed the previous record of 2.2 million bpd from May 2023. 

Going forward, Russian crude will remain a key source of supply for India even if the U.S. does not extend the waiver for Russian crude already loaded on tankers, analysts say. Which is odd because when viewed from the other side, the picture is a mirror image: as shown in the chart below, Russian crude oil exports to India have reportedly plunged to just 555kb/d in the last week, the lowest volume in 4 years.

In other words, there is a disconnect in the data. 

In any case, last week, as it announced the memorandum of understanding with Iran, the U.S. quietly let the waiver on Russian oil sales expire without renewing it.

“India’s imports remained strong through June, supported by continued discounts and steady refinery demand,” Sumit Ritolia, manager, modelling and refining at Kpler, told Financial Express.

“Regardless of whether the US waiver is extended, we expect India’s imports of Russian crude to remain robust, even if not at record-high levels.”

India turned en masse to Russian oil in 2022, when the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow due to the invasion of Ukraine. Four years later, India is a major buyer of Russia’s crude, and Russia is India’s single-largest oil supplier.

As supply from the Middle East crashes, India is also buying growing volumes of crude from West African producers Nigeria and Angola, as well as from South American producers Brazil and Venezuela.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 04:15

US Escalates Crackdown On Overseas Scam Network Targeting Americans

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

The United States has taken coordinated action against a Southeast Asia-based scam and money-laundering network that officials say used forced-labor compounds and online investment fraud to steal billions of dollars from Americans.

Scam center workers and victims from China arrive at the border checkpoint with Thailand, in Myawaddy, Burma, on Feb. 20, 2025. Hundreds of Chinese workers were heading home after being freed from online scam centers. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The Treasury Department on June 23 sanctioned 35 individuals and entities linked to the Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization, a Cambodia-based network that U.S. authorities say operated scam compounds and laundered illicit proceeds through shell companies and financial channels.

Huione Group is a Cambodia-based conglomerate that U.S. authorities say provided laundering services for scam proceeds, including through Huione Guarantee, also known as Haowang Guarantee.

The Justice Department separately announced the seizure of a cloud-computing account it says helped run Huione-linked laundering services used by scam operations.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, also proposed extending a section 311 anti-money-laundering measure against Huione Group to H-Pay Service PLC and successor entities.

Together, the actions target three parts of a scam-and-laundering ecosystem: the Prince Group network, accused of running scam compounds; Huione-linked services, accused of moving illicit proceeds; and online infrastructure, allegedly used to support laundering services.

Treasury said U.S. authorities estimate that Americans lost at least $10 billion in 2024 to Southeast Asia-based scam operations, a 66 percent increase from the prior year.

"Scam centers in Southeast Asia steal billions of dollars from American victims each year," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the announcement. "Treasury will continue using its tools to disrupt the networks behind this egregious fraud and protect Americans."

Prince Group Network

Prince Group is a Cambodia-based conglomerate led by Chen Zhi, also known as Vincent, whom U.S. authorities have accused of directing forced-labor scam compounds across Cambodia.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against Chen in October 2025, charging him with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that people held against their will in Prince Group-linked compounds were forced to carry out cryptocurrency investment scams. Chen remains at large, according to the DOJ.

Concurrently with the DOJ indictment, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, FinCEN, and the UK Foreign Office imposed coordinated sanctions on 146 targets tied to the Prince Group network. It alleged at the time that Prince Group operated online investment scams targeting Americans and others worldwide and used a web of businesses and shell companies to launder illicit proceeds.

The June 23 action expands that pressure. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned nine individuals and 26 entities linked to Prince Group, including people it described as leaders, scam-compound investors, and front companies.

The Treasury said the new targets include Hu Xiaowei, whom it described as Prince Group TCO's "second-in-command," as well as several people it said were involved in investment, management, payment-gateway, or company-director roles tied to the network.

The Epoch Times could not contact Prince Group for comment.

DOJ Seizes Cloud Account

In a concurrent action, the DOJ said it seized a cloud computing account used by Huione Group's subsidiaries that allegedly facilitated the movement of proceeds from cryptocurrency investment fraud, cyber scams, and other criminal activity across blockchains and into the banking system.

Huione Guarantee allegedly operated Telegram channels that included discussions about stolen credit card and identity information, malware-enabled theft proceeds, the procurement of individuals for human trafficking schemes, and the laundering of proceeds from romance and investment scams.

The department said the seizure is part of Operation Riptide, an FBI campaign targeting the actors, infrastructure, and financial networks behind cybercrime, cyber-enabled crime, and fraud against Americans.

"The FBI is committed to disrupting the infrastructure and services that cybercriminals rely on to profit from their illegal activity," said Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, according to the DOJ's June 23 press release. "Today's action targets a key enabler of cyber-enabled fraud and money laundering schemes."

DOJ said the FBI's San Francisco Field Office and IRS Criminal Investigation are investigating the seizure case.

FinCEN Moves Against H-Pay

FinCEN's notice of proposed rulemaking says Huione Group remains a foreign financial institution of primary money-laundering concern and that the existing section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act targeting Huione Group remains in effect.

The proposed amendment would add H-Pay Service PLC and any successor entity to the Huione Group definition.

FinCEN said the proposal is intended to address what it described as Huione Group's effort to circumvent the earlier measure by continuing to operate under a different name. The agency said H-Pay has effectively assumed Huione Pay PLC's business role within Huione Group.

The proposal is not final. Written comments on the H-Pay proposal must be submitted within 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register.

Scam Operations Target Americans

The Treasury said one common scheme involves digital-asset investment fraud. Citing FinCEN's 2023 alert, Treasury said perpetrators often contact targets by text message, build trust through claims of friendship or romance, and steer victims into purported digital-asset investments on websites controlled by scammers.

Southeast Asia-based criminal organizations often recruit workers under false pretenses, including fake technology or customer-service jobs tied to casinos, resorts, and front companies. Once workers arrive at the compounds, operators confiscate passports and use debt bondage, physical violence, threats of forced prostitution, and other methods to coerce them into scamming people online, the Treasury said.

The Justice Department said reports of cyber-enabled fraud involving cryptocurrency continue to rise, with complainants reporting more than $7.2 billion in losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2025 from cryptocurrency investment fraud alone.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 22:50

Tennessee Considers Up To 26 GW Of Gas-Fired Generation

By Diana DiGangi of UtilityDive

The Tennessee Valley Authority released its preliminary 2026 integrated resource plan on Monday, saying load growth in its footprint is already outpacing the reference case forecast in its draft IRP, and that it has incremental capacity needs for between 7 GW and 26 GW of natural gas between now and 2040.

“TVA’s actual and forecasted electricity demand has increased relative to the draft IRP’s Reference scenario and is approaching the Higher Growth Economy scenario primarily due to data center growth (e.g., artificial intelligence, hyperscaler, etc.),” the IRP said. The higher growth scenario “evaluates a higher gas price environment driven by substantial economic growth.”

The federally-owned utility also plans to add up to 5 GW of nuclear, 1-5 GW of storage, 2-5 GW of renewables (1-8 GW nameplate) and 2-3 GW of energy efficiency and demand response additions.

“New capacity is needed in all scenarios to support load growth or replace expiring and end of life capacity,” the IRP said.

TVA said that gas expansion is necessary to provide “firm, dispatchable capacity,” while new nuclear technologies “support load growth and reduce fuel volatility and regulatory risks” and solar expansion can play a “complementary role, meeting customer needs and providing economic energy.”

“Storage expansion continues, driven by both battery storage and the potential for additional pumped storage,” TVA said. “Energy efficiency deployment reduces energy needs, particularly between now and 2040, and demand response programs grow with the system and the use of smart technologies.”

TVA will take public comment on the preliminary final IRP until July 22, and will hold a public webinar on July 2 to discuss the plan. Final recommendations will be shared at the TVA Board meeting in August.

The IRP noted that the region has “recently experienced extreme winter temperatures in each of the last few years,” with a new winter peak record of 35,319 MW being set in January 2025, and for the 2026 IRP the utility used a 26% planning reserve margin target for winter, compared to its 18% planning reserve margin target for summer.

TVA established three potential strategies in the IRP: Strategy A, which sticks with TVA’s baseline and relies heavily on natural gas generation; Strategy B, which embraces technological innovation and nuclear expansion in particular; and Strategy C, which focuses on distributed energy and would increase renewables and storage.

Strategy A’s higher reliance on natural gas means it has a “higher financial risk exposure than alternative strategies,” while Strategy B is the most expensive overall, and Strategy C “increases the risk of unserved energy or energy curtailment,” TVA said.

The IRP recommends the utility “pursue solar to reduce total system costs or meet customer needs,” but “suspend wind additions given cost and portfolio fit challenges.” It also recommends investment in TVA’s hydro and nuclear fleets and pursuing “nuclear license extensions to maintain low-cost generation.”

In the IRP’s high growth forecast, the scenario which the region is edging closer to, nuclear capacity growth is the highest due in part to increases in the natural gas price forecast.

TVA noted changes in U.S. energy policy since its 2025 IRP, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s curtailment of the investment tax credits available to renewable projects, and the Trump administration’s focus on coal and gas generation.

President Donald Trump has pushed for TVA to turn back toward coal, and fired three Biden appointees from the TVA board in July after the board authorized the retirement of coal units at TVA’s Cumberland and Kingston power plants so natural gas could be developed there. After Trump appointed three replacements to the board, the board voted to operate Cumberland and Kingston’s coal plants past their retirement dates.

In the IRP, TVA’s forecast for coal involves the “continuing operation of [its] coal fleet, subject to regulatory requirements, as an immediate, cost-effective option to reduce total system cost and system reliability risk.” Through 2040, TVA will “evaluate [the] existing fleet, as needed, considering material condition, system reliability, system cost, regulatory requirements, and replacement generation.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 22:00

Medvedev Calls For International Law Mechanism Banning Western Military Bases Abroad

In a hard-hitting Wednesday address at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF), Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, didn't mince words regarding the sprawling global footprint of Western military power.

The former Russian president called for the immediate creation of aggressive "legal mechanisms" to counter and dismantle Western military bases stationed on foreign soil, framing them as a direct threat to global stability. Russia has long accused both Washington and NATO of being hegemonic powers - whose policies sparked the Ukraine conflict.

Image source: United Russia

According to Medvedev, the unchecked deployment of these foreign outposts has evolved into a primary driver destroying what remains of the collective security system, while simultaneously eroding the sovereignty of independent nations.

"They are, frankly, provoking international and regional tensions," Medvedev warned.

The Kremlin top official signaled that Moscow is looking to weaponize international law to push back against Western geopolitical encirclement, arguing that the current status quo is unsustainable and manufactured by Washington and its allies.

"This is why it is necessary to develop specific legal mechanisms aimed at dismantling the existing system of foreign military presence that the West is imposing on other countries," Medvedev concluded.

The timing is important, and no doubt related to Ukraine's stepped-up drone attacks especially on the Moscow region, which has put key oil refineries out of commission for several months.

Russia has accused Western intelligence agencies of providing targeting data for Ukrainian forces in a 'hand and glove' kind of way.

As the proxy conflict between NATO and Russia continues to heat up, Medvedev’s remarks signal a new diplomatic and legal push by the Kremlin to also rally the Global South against Western military hegemony.

Common estimate say the United States operates approximately 750 to 800 military base sites across roughly 80 foreign countries and territories...

Source: Kelly Martin Designs

However, the so-called international community is not likely enforce such "dismantling" given global institutions are dominated by Western - and specifically - Washington interests.

Russia has long advocated for a multi-polar order, and this has remained a key theme of Putin speeches, but this theme has fallen on deaf ears especially among European and American hawkish officials.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 21:40

Judge Strikes Down Trump-Era Courthouse Arrest Policy

Via American Greatness,

A federal judge has vacated Trump administration policies that allowed immigration agents to arrest noncitizens at immigration courthouses nationwide.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts ruled Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents may no longer conduct arrests at immigration courts under policies implemented by the administration last year.

Pitts, a Biden appointee, concluded that the Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to provide adequate justification for the changes and described the policies as “arbitrary and capricious.”

The administration had expanded courthouse arrests through executive action, contributing to a sharp increase in detentions at immigration courts, where individuals facing removal proceedings often appear while pursuing legal status.

In his ruling, Pitts said federal officials failed to properly evaluate the consequences of allowing arrests at immigration courthouses.

"It is now clear that the lack of connection between ICE's stated rationales for the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies and the expansion of arrests at immigration courthouses results not from merely unreasoned decisionmaking but a complete lack of decisionmaking," Pitts wrote.

The decision follows an earlier order in which Pitts temporarily blocked courthouse arrests in the Northern District of California, including the San Francisco area.

The Justice Department had urged the court to limit any ruling to Northern California, arguing that a nationwide order would interfere with federal immigration enforcement operations.

Pitts rejected that argument.

"It is far from obvious that vacating the courthouse-arrest policies will significantly hinder ICE's operations," he wrote.

The ruling invalidates one of the administration's enforcement tools at a time when federal officials have sought to accelerate deportations and increase immigration arrests.

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticized the decision and defended the administration's approach.

"When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen," Percival said in a statement.

"A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda," he added.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 21:20

Anthropic Accuses Alibaba Of Running Major "Adversarial Distillation" Campaign To Extract Claude Capabilities

Anthropic has accused Alibaba Group of orchestrating one of the largest known efforts by a Chinese company to extract capabilities from a leading U.S. artificial intelligence model, according to a letter the AI company sent to several U.S. senators and White House officials.

The letter claims that operators linked to Alibaba’s Qwen AI lab used nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to conduct 28.8 million exchanges with Anthropic’s Claude model between April and June. The activity focused on the model’s most advanced functions, including software engineering and agentic reasoning, in what Anthropic described as an attempt to replicate those capabilities at far lower cost through a process known as adversarial distillation, Bloomberg reports.

Anthropic said the campaign represented the most significant effort yet by a Chinese firm to leverage outputs from top U.S. models to accelerate its own development. The company warned that such distillation attacks are being carried out at industrial scale and that the resulting systems often lack the safety measures built into frontier U.S. models.

"These distillation attacks are carried out illicitly, systematically, and at industrial scale to harvest US Al capabilities across frontier labs and repackage them as their own without incurring the training and R&D costs required to train US frontier models," Anthropic wrote in its letter.

Alibaba declined to comment. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to discuss specifics of the letter but stressed the need for coordinated action between government and industry to address the issue.

The practice has alarmed US developers to the point that Anthropic, OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have joined forces to share information about distillation attempts that violate their terms of service. Anthropic and OpenAI have each warned that Chinese AI startups, including DeepSeek and Minimax, have employed distillation to develop their own models. -Bloomberg

The letter arrives as U.S. policymakers consider new measures to restrict Chinese access to American AI capabilities. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-TN., and Sen. Andy Kim, D-NJ, are preparing an amendment to defense legislation that would blacklist or sanction Chinese firms found to improperly use U.S. model outputs for training competing systems. A related bipartisan bill in the House, sponsored by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-MI, and Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-CA, is also under consideration for inclusion in the annual defense measure.

Anthropic’s letter noted that the Alibaba-linked activity continued after a White House memo in April directed agencies to crack down on large-scale exploitation of U.S. AI models through proxy accounts. The company urged the administration to take stronger steps to halt the practice, including clarifying antitrust rules to allow greater information sharing among U.S. firms and imposing penalties on entities engaged in systematic distillation.

The accusations add to existing pressure on Alibaba. Earlier this month, the Defense Department added the company to its list of Chinese firms designated as supporting the People’s Liberation Army. Alibaba has denied any military affiliation and filed a lawsuit this week seeking to overturn the designation.

The letter also comes at a moment of friction between Anthropic and the Trump administration. Less than two weeks ago, the Commerce Department imposed export controls on two of Anthropic’s newest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security concerns. Anthropic disabled access to those models for all users while it works to comply with the restrictions.

Anthropic said the Alibaba campaign fits a pattern seen in earlier efforts by other Chinese developers that the company flagged publicly earlier this year. The firm has joined OpenAI and Google in sharing information about suspected distillation attempts that violate their terms of service. Those companies have argued that the practice allows Chinese labs to acquire advanced capabilities without incurring the full research and development costs or implementing comparable safety controls.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 21:00

China's Refiners Slash Runs To Lowest Since 2017, As Asia Refiners Slow Purchases Of Mid-East Oil

A little over a month ago, we explained that energy traders are "Traders Puzzled As Physical Oil Prices Tumble Amid Surging Chinese Crude Sales, Plunging Imports", and highlighted how already razor-thin independent refiner (teapot) margins had plunged to record negative as a result of the war in Iran and government policies meant to keep prices from rising.

Fast forward to today when the previously discussed dynamics have gotten progressively worse, and this morning Bloomnberg writes that China’s independent oil refiners have slashed operating rates to a nine-year lo.

Run rates at so-called teapots fell to 50.5% in the week to June 21, dropping below pandemic-era lows to the weakest since 2017, according to consultant JLC. High feedstock costs, weak domestic fuel demand, and curbs on product exports have squeezed processors’ margins, prompting them to scale back.

As we noted previously, China - the world’s largest oil importer - sharply reduced crude imports after the conflict erupted in late February as prices initially spiked, sending oil imports to a 9 year low, a key reason why oil prices did not spike even higher in the past few months.

As Bloomberg notes, the nation’s sustained slowdown in flows has brought into focus a nationwide shift away from fossil fuels that’s been driven by greater electrification.

The teapots’ downturn in run rates comes as Iran is now seeking to revive crude exports under a temporary US sanctions waiver. Still, the weak refining economics could limit any near-term rebound in their purchases.

“Teapots are not short of feedstocks, with private-sector commercial inventories in Shandong still above 2025 highs,” said Emma Li, lead China market analyst at Vortexa Ltd., referring to the coastal province where many teapots are located.

Teapot run rates slid further in the second half of June, which means July “could represent a trough before utilization begins to recover,” she said.

In a separate report, Bloomberg also notes that Asian refiners have slowed purchases of Middle Eastern crude after a buying spree over the past three weeks, with oil majors and traders stepping in to take some of the surplus barrels.

Purchases from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) eased after three rounds of tenders, with a fourth that closes this week set to show a similar pattern, Bloomberg reported citing traders familiar with the matter. More barrels were snapped up by majors and trading houses including Shell and Mercuria.

Adnoc sold around 60 million barrels that will load over June to August across its first three tenders, most of which will flow to Asia. The offers are for grades that are loaded within the Persian Gulf, although buyers will be able to take cargoes via a ship-to-ship transfer outside of the Strait of Hormuz.

Some of the barrels being sold in the latest Adnoc tender are expected to flow toward Europe, said energy traders. That would follow a recent trend, which saw a wave of Middle Eastern oil heading in that direction as China stepped back.

Most refiners have already completed their orders for this month and next, and available crude would need to be significantly discounted to prompt any more buying, traders said. Adnoc has also asked customers with long-term contracts to immediately resume loading supplies, crimping spot demand.

Iraq and Kuwait have also been ramping up output as producers position for a reopening of Hormuz, with talks over a lasting agreement to end the Iran war showing some progress. That’s led to prices for Middle Eastern oil tumbling, with the forward curve of two of the region’s main benchmark grades — Dubai and Murban — now in a bearish contango structure.

A temporary US waiver allowing purchases of Iranian oil has added to swelling supply options, although complications surrounding the financing and insurance of cargoes remain and could be too risky for some refiners. Still, as we reported earlier this week, "Iran Oil Exports Through Hormuz Hit Wartime High,"

Some in the market are assessing whether storing crude could be an option for the impending wave of supply. Traders said freight costs remain too expensive for floating storage to be effective...

... but countries with sites on land should be able to easily accommodate surplus barrels.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 20:40

"Heavy Casualties" After Massive Twin Quakes Rock Venezuela, Topple Buildings; "International Response May Be Needed"

Twin earthquakes rocked Venezuela on Wednesday evening, collapsing entire apartment buildings across Caracas and leaving behind scenes of widespread devastation.

The USGS said the first quake registered a magnitude of 7.1, with an epicenter near Morón, about 104 miles west of Caracas, at a depth of 8 miles. One minute later, a similarly massive magnitude 7.5 quake struck nearby, roughly 10 miles southwest of Morón, at a depth of 6 miles. Remarkably, the dual quake was followed almost immediately across the world by a 6.9 magnitude temblor in northern Japan, which rattled buildings in Tokyo.

USGS issued a red-alert mass-casualty warning due to the combination of shallow depth, heavy population exposure, vulnerable buildings, and estimated losses large enough to require an international response.

"Red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread. Past red alerts have required a national or international response," USGS said, adding, "Estimated economic losses are 2-20% GDP of Venezuela."

In the Palos Grandes neighborhood in eastern Caracas, residents tried frantically to rescue people trapped under the debris of collapsed buildings, Bloomberg reports. Terrified families remained in the streets as the capital was hit by aftershocks. Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and elsewhere sought to reach relatives, but cellphone coverage was down in swathes of the country.

The early footage emerging from the devastation is dramatic:

Devastating scenes emerge from La Guaira, Venezuela, following a powerful earthquake that struck the region. pic.twitter.com/fBMIDWuabP

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 24, 2026

Fishermen in the sea off the coast of La Guaira record the moments after the earthquake with dust covering large parts of the coast as a result of building collapses#Venezuela pic.twitter.com/D8KNwLkLDf

— CNW (@ConflictsW) June 25, 2026

Local news showed significant damage to the capital's airport, with parts of the roof collapsing and throwing up thick clouds of gray dust. 

Passengers panic and run for cover at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Venezuela, as the terminal shakes and power flickers, resulting from a massive 7.5 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Caracas. pic.twitter.com/uWN4ZqFjOZ

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 24, 2026

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said in a national address that some houses and buildings have collapsed. He warned residents to stay outside due to the risk from aftershocks. Cabello said that states including Trujillo, Yaracuy, Carabobo, Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira were also affected.

Immense damage seen to buildings across Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, following what now appears to have been a “double-event” 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquake back-to-back near the coast in Northern Venezuela, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). pic.twitter.com/XoG2jSJMf2

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 24, 2026

Authorities haven't yet published estimates of the number of dead or injured. There were no immediate reports of damage to the nation's oil infrastructure. Some older residents said the event brought back memories of the massive 1967 earthquake which left hundreds dead.  

Pretty rare earthquake activity tonight on Earth.

Both of these things happening within 2 hours of each other:

1 in 1,000 to 1,200 years

• A “doublet” earthquake in Venezuela (two quakes of similar magnitude in the exact same spot)
• A totally separate 6.9+ quake…

— Noah Bergren (@NbergWX) June 25, 2026

The closest historical comparison to the twin quakes this evening likely dates back to the March 26, 1812, Caracas earthquake sequence, which was described as twin destructive shocks within 30 minutes. That quake led to an estimated death toll of 15,000 to 20,000, while a USGS historical summary says it may have claimed about 30,000 lives.

BREAKING: Multiple structures have reportedly collapsed in Caracas, Venezuela, following a powerful earthquake that struck the region. pic.twitter.com/9KSN4srhwB

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 24, 2026

Quake activity elsewhere...

That is not good. pic.twitter.com/3u8MsW2blB

— SpaceWeatherNews (@SunWeatherMan) June 24, 2026

And Japan. 

Second big quake today pic.twitter.com/wWKsq0Ioqx

— SpaceWeatherNews (@SunWeatherMan) June 24, 2026

There were no immediate reports of damage to Venezuela's oil facilities, according to people familiar with the situation. The country's refining hub in Paraguaná, 225 kilometers (140 miles) west of the epicenter, continued operations as usual. Work at the port of Jose complex and at the Puerto La Cruz refinery was unaffected.

The disaster will further strain the nation's crisis-hit economy. The country is reeling from one of the world's fastest inflation rates and rolling power outages. As such, the quake could open a window for President Trump to offer emergency aid and logistical support, potentially creating the first step toward a broader US-backed reconstruction effort in Venezuela.

*Developing...

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 20:24

Maryland Protests Data Center Costs

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

A group of 80 Maryland state lawmakers are backing a complaint at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the PJM Interconnection’s cost allocation for transmission lines that support data centers.

Driven by the way PJM spreads transmission costs, Maryland ratepayers will pay $1.6 billion over the next decade for transmission projects that were approved in the grid operator’s last three regional transmission expansion plans that are designed to mainly serve out-of-state data centers, Maryland’s ratepayer advocate — the Office of People’s Counsel — said in its May 7 complaint.

“While PJM’s rules are unfair for many PJM states, they impact Maryland disproportionately simply because Maryland sits next to Data Center Alley in Virginia,” the Maryland lawmakers said in a Wednesday filing at FERC. “Given the projections of massive data center growth — more than 80,000 megawatts over the next 20 years — PJM is likely to bill Maryland customers billions more for future data center-driven transmission costs.”

The complaint at FERC comes amid an intense focus across the United States on how data centers can affect the electric bills of existing ratepayers through increased generation and transmission costs. The complaint centers on the transmission side of the equation. It contends that FERC is barred from approving transmission cost allocation methodologies that assign costs to ratepayers that won’t gain “roughly commensurate” benefits.

PJM’s cost allocation methodology assigns half of certain regional transmission projects based on a load-ratio share across its footprint, which assumes that all transmission built will benefit the entire grid, according to the ratepayer advocate’s complaint. The other half of transmission costs are assigned via a “solution-based distribution factor analysis,” which fails to capture certain reliability issues caused by data centers, the ratepayer advocate said.

Spreading data center-driven transmission costs across PJM’s footprint could lead to overbuilding, according to the complaint.

“By socializing data center-driven transmission costs to all ratepayers, it insulates states and utilities that attract speculative load growth from overbuilding and stranded asset risk while shifting those risks to neighboring states’ ratepayers,” the ratepayer advocate said.

Further, state-level large-load tariffs fail to address, and may make worse, the misallocation of transmission costs caused by PJM’s transmission cost allocation methodology, according to the complaint. 

Also, recent FERC-approved utility “transmission security agreements” between utilities and data centers are “often confidential, highly variable, and fail to protect existing customers,” the ratepayer advocate said.

The agreements leave ratepayers exposed to transmission costs caused by data centers, according to the ratepayer advocate. “Moreover, they carry potential legal consequences that may prove difficult to unravel,” the ratepayer advocate said. The ratepayer advocate said FERC should order PJM to revise its cost allocation methodology so that data centers pay for the transmission projects that they cause.

As a start, PJM should be required to assign the costs of transmission projects that are designed to serve data centers and other large loads to the grid operator’s zones where the data centers are located, according to the complaint. That would allow state-level large load tariffs to address those transmission costs, the ratepayer advocate said.

“The upstream leakage of a substantial portion of data center driven costs at the regional level to other zones through the current operation of the PJM tariff creates an unjust subsidy for that data center load,” the ratepayer advocate said.

The complaint calls on FERC to order PJM to re-study the baseline reliability projects approved in its last three regional transmission expansion plans to determine the costs caused by forecast load growth from data centers. 

FERC has extended the comment deadline on the complaint to July 27.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 20:20

Bessent Insists US Treasury Will Oversee Unfrozen Iranian Funds: Food & Medicine Only

There remains a major divergence in how Iran and the United States are interpreting the results of the MoU signing in the wake of the historic Switzerland peace talks, as lower-level teams remain in place to hammer out the technical details of the agreement.

The divergence/contradiction continues to be seen in not only the latest statements from President Trump himself, but also from the US Treasury:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has insisted that a large portion of unfrozen Iranian assets would go towards purchasing US food and medicine, despite claims from Iranian officials that they have made no such commitment.

“Any money that the Iranians get is going to be used, first, for the benefit of the Iranian people,” Bessent told CNBC.

It must be remembered that the "Iranian people" that Washington claims to look out for were subject to many weeks of heavy US-Israeli bombing raids, in which men, women, schoolgirls, and children were killed in mass casualty events.

Image via Forbes & Caspian post

Likely the funds will be distributed through Qatar - and Bessent also emphasized in the CNBC remarks that "A very large percentage of it will go to buy US foodstuffs and medicine."

He said further, "So we will be recycling the money back into US products."

On Monday, President Trump said that "If the sanctions go out, money is going to be put into this country,” Trump said. “All that money is coming back in the form of purchases of food, which they desperately need… The money that we lift is going to go to our farmers, largely to our farmers."

But once again this is a situation where Iran's public-facing rhetoric obviously doesn't match up. Nothing regarding the Iranian position has changed:

But the Iranians deny that's part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.

“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.

Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.

As a reminder, in total a whopping $50 billion could eventually be released under the MoU framework - something which will drive Republican hawks mad. Al Jazeera reported Tuesday, citing the Iranian side: 

A spokesperson said the agreement would allow Iran access to previously frozen assets, although the US says restrictions would remain in place under the arrangement.

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, two separate tranches of $6bn were originally agreed in Doha, with the final signing ceremony intended to take place in Switzerland. The Iranian spokesperson now says that process has been completed.

Under the reported framework, an initial $12bn in Iranian funds would be released. During the 60-day negotiation period, a further $12bn could be unlocked. If the parties ultimately reach a final agreement, the value of sanctions relief and released funds could reportedly rise to as much as $50bn.

Another point of disagreement remains the entry of IAEA nuclear inspectors into the Islamic Republic. Vance had hailed Tehran already agreed to this, while Iran's leaders are in effect saying not so fast.

It's but one of several major contradictions in public rhetoric coming from either side in the wake of the top-level round one meeting in Switzerland.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 20:00

Antifa Leader Sentenced To 100 Years In Prison For Attack On ICE Facility

The Antifa attack on the Texas ICE facility in Alvarado was a highly coordinated plan, using fireworks and a fake vandalism call to lure out ICE agents and police so that they could be shot in a hail of gunfire.  Responding Alvarado Police Department Lieutenant Thomas Gross was shot in the shoulder and the rifle round exited his neck during the crossfire, but he managed to survive.  

Members of the group tried to escape the scene, pretending to be harmless pedestrians, but were apprehended anyway.  The common excuse among those detained:  "We're just peaceful protesters..."

Eight of the activists who were found guilty by a federal jury of terrorism-related charges earlier this year learned the details of their punishments this week.  The group's leader, Benjamin Song, was sentenced to a century in prison. 

Song was hit with the longest prison sentence: 100 years behind bars. Maricela Rueda was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Autumn Hill was sentenced to 50 years, along with Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Meagan Morris, and Elizabeth Soto. Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison.  Critics of the conviction and sentencing claim the decision is purely "political"; designed to make examples out of leftist protesters who committed "minor crimes".

NEW: Families of the 8 convicted protestors at the Texas immigration center shooting that wounded a police officer speak out after they are sentenced to decades in prison.

Benjamin Song was convicted to 100 years in federal prison for attempted murder after opening fire and… pic.twitter.com/aC90IttcXo

— E X X ➠A L E R T S (@ExxAlerts) June 23, 2026

The obvious counter-argument is yes, they are being made into an example, and that's a good thing.

Over 600 conservatives present at the January 6th protests were sentenced to prison for far less - Merely breaking a window or walking peacefully into the Capitol Building earned them a conviction and years of incarceration.  This action was a true case of targeted government prosecution for the sake of making a political example.  Meanwhile, Antifa and BLM protesters were given special protection.

Billions in property damage and numerous deaths later, BLM and Antifa members who were arrested used NGO funded legal resources to get out of jail quickly.  Democrat run cities never pursued charges against the majority of them.  This set a dangerous precedent; Antifa is now emboldened under the assumption that they can do anything they want and the consequences will be slim to none. 

The recent federal court decision changes all that.  At least when if come to federal facilities, they can no longer count on a two-tiered justice system to keep them safe.  

The primary enablers of far left violence (which has grown exponentially over the past decade) are global NGOs and their spinoff organizations, Democrat politicians, the progressive media and a lack of prominent symbols of punishment.  When you're dealing with mentally unhinged zealots, the only way to make them stop is to make them afraid. 

Until recently, Antifa has had little reason to be afraid.  The system they claim to be fighting against has actually been supporting them and their insurgency from behind the curtain.  The Trump Administration is set on changing this dynamic and the Alvarado, TX group is the first in line to face a reckoning.    

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 19:40

Hormuz Exodus Begins: Ships Finally Sailing As UN-Led Evacuation Corridor Opens

Several vessels have already navigated the Strait of Hormuz utilizing a fresh evacuation framework established by the United Nations' shipping agency, an official confirmed on Wednesday. More via newswires:

US Energy Secretary Wright says roughly 72 ships have exited Strait of Hormuz in last 24 hours.

"Ships have already begun to pass under the plan," stated a spokesperson for the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO), though they opted not to disclose specific details regarding the transiting vessels.

According to the latest LSEG ship-tracking data Wednesday, at least two dry bulk carriers and one cargo vessel successfully crossed the strait under the new program within a 12-hour window.

An additional analysis of ship movements by Reuters, utilizing data from LSEG and MarineTraffic, indicated that at least 35 other commercial vessels - primarily dry bulk, cargo, and container ships - are gearing up to make the passage.

via UN News

On Tuesday, the IMO noted that the framework is designed to clear the way for hundreds of vessels and roughly 11,000 seafarers who have been stranded in the Gulf to finally sail through Hormuz.

"This large-scale operation will be carried out in close cooperation with Iran, Oman, all other coastal States in the region, the United States and the maritime industry," IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez stated Tuesday.

"We have secured the necessary safety guarantees and have thoroughly verified the conditions for safe navigation to support these operations," he described

Notably, by and large captains and crew members have all along not abandoned their tens of millions or hundreds of millions in precious commodities/cargo - especially after already enduring the blockade for this long.

Meanwhile...

Oil tanker rates have soared since the U.S. and Iran announced the memorandum of understanding as oil importers scramble to charter vessels to pick up Persian Gulf cargoes in the hope these can transit the tentatively reopening Strait of Hormuz. 

One tanker has been provisionally booked to ship crude from the Persian Gulf to India at a rate that’s nine times the benchmark for the route, shipbrokers told Bloomberg on Wednesday.  

South Korea’s Sinokor shipping group, which before the war went on a buying and chartering spree to control about 120 very large crude carriers (VLCCs), will provide one of these supertankers for the shipment of a cargo of up to 2 million barrels from the Persian Gulf to India. The rate at which the tanker has been provisionally booked is 897% of the MEG-India benchmark route, or nine times higher than the normal freight cost, shipbrokers told Bloomberg.

The IMO ​additionally said in a note on the scheme issued Wednesday, "Vessels should wait for instructions before proceeding,"

"Crowding the waiting area will only result in the need to pause further notifications for the safety of navigation," it said.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 19:20

DOJ Announces 455 Defendants Charged in $6.5 Billion Health Care Fraud Crackdown

Via American Greatness,

The Justice Department (DOJ) announced Tuesday that federal authorities have charged 455 defendants in a nationwide health care fraud operation involving an estimated $6.5 billion in false claims against government-funded health care programs.

The cases are part of the department's annual National Health Care Fraud Takedown, which targeted alleged schemes involving Medicare, Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded health care programs.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a news conference at Justice Department headquarters that the operation uncovered the second-largest dollar amount ever charged in a single health care fraud enforcement action.

Federal officials alleged that defendants participated in a range of schemes, including fraudulent billing practices, kickback arrangements and the provision of unnecessary medical services in an effort to improperly obtain government health care funds.

The operation involved cooperation among multiple federal agencies, U.S. territories and 45 states.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the administration intends to aggressively pursue individuals accused of abusing public health care programs.

"If you exploit patients for profit, if you steal Medicaid or Medicare dollars, if you treat taxpayer dollars as your personal bank account, we will investigate you. We will build the case, and we will bring you to justice," Kennedy said.

Kennedy also noted that participating jurisdictions included 18 states led by Democratic governors.

Among the cases highlighted by federal officials was an alleged fraudulent EKG testing scheme connected to the death of University of Mobile basketball player Kaiden Francis.

According to officials, Francis' EKG was allegedly reviewed incorrectly. Authorities said the test was examined in 11 seconds despite indications that his heart was significantly enlarged.

Francis later collapsed during a team workout in 2024.

His mother, speaking at the event, condemned the physician involved in the case.

"The doctor is as bad as any greedy criminal who is killing people in the streets. I hope he rots in jail so no one else is hurt, but my son will never come back to me. That's the real human cost that we were speaking of on the stage," she said.

A spokesperson for the University of Mobile said Francis had undergone multiple medical evaluations, including heart and lung screenings, before his death, and that "none of these tests indicated health concerns."

Federal officials described the takedown as one of the largest coordinated anti-fraud operations in the nation, emphasizing what they said is the administration's commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars and rooting out abuse within government-funded health care programs.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 19:00

Google Loses Another Two High Profile AI Researchers To Anthropic

A duo of leading artificial intelligence researchers at Alphabet’s Google are planning to leave for rival Anthropic, adding to a series of high-profile departures that risk undercutting the search giant’s position in AI. 

Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel, both viewed internally as key contributors to Google’s Gemini AI model, are set to move to the Claude maker, Bloomberg first reported citing unnamed sources. Adler worked on the company’s AI coding effort and Pritzel was involved in the process of training artificial intelligence systems. 

The two are only the latest to take part in what is becoming a brain drain out of the search giant: the company had already lost two prominent staffers, with Nobel laureate John Jumper heading to Anthropic and star researcher Noam Shazeer going to OpenAI. Their moves rattled investors and cast new doubt on Google’s ability to compete in the fierce race to build better models.

Another researcher, Arthur Conmy, wrote on X Wednesday that he was set to join Anthropic to work on AI safety. During his time at DeepMind, Conmy was a senior research engineer who contributed to the Gemini 2.5 model as well as AI coding, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Bloomberg reported that two more Google AI employees are leaving Google for Anthropic, Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel.

Not to mention these two individuals who recently left as well.

Typically this is always a sign when a company is about to release a sub-par model. This… pic.twitter.com/Gj3fHeiRYP

— Chris (@ChrissGPT) June 24, 2026

Google, an early AI pioneer, spent much of the current AI boom playing catch-up with the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic before hitting its stride late last year with more capable models and chips. However, the latest defections suggest that there is internal pushback against the company's upcoming models.

The exits highlight the rising pressure Google faces from two startups that are on the cusp of going public, offering even tenured employees at Big Tech firms the chance at a rare payday by signing on before an IPO. In at least one case, a Google departure also appeared to be preceded by shifting priorities over how to allocate precious computing resources, an issue that has prompted other employees to leave the company entirely.

Shortly before Shazeer announced his plans to join OpenAI, computing power dedicated to one of his projects was reassigned to a London-based team at Google DeepMind, Bloomberg reported. The move was made in an attempt to boost collaboration across teams and streamline Google’s work on pre-training, the initial phase of AI development in which models learn from massive datasets.

A spokesperson for Google told Bloomberg the company remains confident in its position in the market for AI talent and pointed to Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis’s remarks earlier this week.

“There’s a lot of talent movement between all the leading labs and we win our fair share of the top talent. We have by far the biggest and broadest research bench of any of the labs out there,” Hassabis said at an event in Cannes. “It’s a ferociously competitive market right now, the most ferociously competitive it’s ever been in the tech industry.”

Shares of Alphabet closed down slightly after falling as much as 1.2% during the trading day Wednesday following the news.

According to the Bloomberg report, Shazeer’s career trajectory is emblematic of the intense talent wars that have defined the AI landscape. After co-authoring a seminal paper that helped catalyze the AI boom, he left Google in 2021 to found Character.AI, a chatbot startup, only to rejoin the firm in 2024 as part of an unusual licensing deal that valued his company at $2.5 billion.

Once back at Google, Shazeer co-led development of the company’s flagship Gemini AI model. Prior to his departure, he had also been working on a new AI architecture, two people said. The architecture was still based on the transformer, a technique that Shazeer and his colleagues introduced in 2017 that has become a staple of AI development in the years since, but it had been achieving promising results. Shazeer was both an admired and divisive figure within Google: his comments within Google about transgender identity and the Gaza conflict stirred controversy among some employees, bloomberg sources said.

Jumper, meanwhile, had emerged as a face of Google’s most ambitious AI efforts after winning the Nobel Prize for landmark research using AI to predict protein folding. Adler and Pritzel, both of whom are set to join Jumper at Anthropic, worked with him on that research.

Key members of Jumper’s team on the protein-folding research have exited Google DeepMind in recent months. Some have shifted to Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet spinout company working on AI-designed drugs. 

Anthropic, which both partners with Google and also competes with it, has aggressively siphoned talent from the tech giant. DeepMind engineers are nearly 11 times more likely to leave for Anthropic than the reverse, according to a 2025 industry analysis from the venture capital firm SignalFire. That appears to no longer be the case. 

Like Google, the Claude maker is exploring life sciences and healthcare applications in a bid to broaden the uses of its technology. Anthropic recently raised a new round of funding at a $965 billion valuation, overtaking OpenAI, and is considering going public as soon as this fall.

AI researchers in the UK, where DeepMind’s leadership is based, are often subject to lengthy non-compete agreements, which are enforceable under British law. Jumper would likely not begin work at Anthropic until next year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 18:40

Transcript Shows Bill Gates Claim Epstein Issued 'Veiled' Threats Over Affairs

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Bill Gates told lawmakers in a recent interview that Jeffrey Epstein threatened him subtly over his affairs but did not overtly blackmail him, according to a transcript released on June 23.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (C) in Washington, on June 10, 2026. Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images

Epstein in 2013 "made some veiled references that made me wonder whether he had become aware" of one of the affairs, Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee on June 10.

Epstein later sent a reimbursement request to Gates, according to Gates. The request was for expenses that Epstein said he paid for one of the women with whom Gates had an affair.

"I viewed it as a tactic to reengage with me," Gates said. "I'd never asked him to do anything with respect to the person we're discussing, so I was rather surprised. That was the first time I knew explicitly that he'd become aware of that affair."

Gates said he directed staff members not to pay Epstein.

Still, Gates maintained that Epstein did not blackmail him.

"He never blackmailed me, but looking at these emails, it raises a serious probability that he contemplated blackmailing me," Gates said, referring to documents released by the Department of Justice in January.

Gates also said: "He never sent me anything that I would call blackmail. As I've said, he made veiled references to things like we should all want to be friends.

"Now that I see the January release of documents, it appears that in many cases he, at least in emails to himself, was sort of rehearsing how either he or he coaching someone else might choose to blackmail me, but none of those messages were ever sent to me."

Gates had said through a spokesperson in 2023 that Epstein tried to "leverage a past relationship" to threaten him, without providing details.

Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors.

Gates has said he met with Epstein multiple times from 2011 through 2014, and that he ended the relationship in 2014 after concluding that Epstein could not deliver on claims that he could raise billions for global health efforts.

Gates said in his opening statement that he should have never met with Epstein in the first place but that he never witnessed any indication Epstein was involved in criminal conduct.

He told lawmakers that it was a mistake to engage with Epstein in part because of his prior conviction, according to the newly released transcript.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, during the June 10 interview noted that Epstein's employees were among his victims.

"Yeah, that's a very good point," Gates said.

"I never spent time with any women who I was aware were victims, and so that's why I've enumerated very carefully when I ever saw any of those admin assistants, because, tragically, as you say, it appears in the press now that some of those women were indeed victims.

"So, to that degree, for the photos, for sitting on the plane or standing there during the magic trick, I may have been in the presence of victims."

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 18:20

All Banks Pass Fed's Stress Test, Unleashing Latest Wave Of Dividends And Buybacks

In all the excitement over Micron's blowout earnings, we almost forgot that today was another Fed stress test day - which every bank passed with flying colors as usual - which in turn allowed bank to unleash a fresh flood of dividends and buybacks.

The biggest US banks boosted their dividends after passing this year’s Federal Reserve stress tests, a hurdle that even Bloomberg admits has "softened" in recent years as regulators hash out new requirements.

The results of the Federal Reserve Board's annual bank stress test confirmed that large banks are well positioned to weather a severe recession and able to continue to lend to households and businesses. Despite absorbing more than $708 billion in total loan losses under this year's hypothetical scenario, capital declined only 1.6 percentage points in aggregate, staying above minimum capital requirements.

"Today's results underscore the strength of the banking system," Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman said. "As we work to increase the transparency and accountability of the stress test, public feedback will help us continue to improve and instill greater confidence in the stress test and its results.

The Fed’s exam (the results can be found here), an offshoot of the 2008 financial crisis, showed that all of the banks examined would maintain enough capital to withstand a hypothetical economic downturn. All 32 banks tested remained above their minimum common equity tier 1 capital requirements during this year's hypothetical recession scenario, which was similar in severity to the prior test. The hypothetical scenario this year included a severe global recession with a 39 percent decline in commercial real estate prices and a 30 percent decline in house prices. The unemployment rate also increased to a peak of 10 percent, and economic output declined commensurately.

The review tends to set the tone for how aggressive banks are in returning capital to shareholders through dividends and repurchasing shares. It requires banks to consider hypothetical crisis scenarios and estimate the losses they might face based on their books of business. Yet as most banks have consistently passed the test, even those who suffered in the aftermath of the March 2023 bank crisis, the "test" has become more of a greenlight from the Fed to banks to release capital. 

Sure enough, immediately after the results, banks proceeded to announce their shareholder friendly acts: JPMorgan increased its quarterly payout to $1.65 a share from $1.50, while Goldman Sachs raised its dividend to $5 from $4.50 after the results of the Fed’s annual review were announced. JPMorgan also authorized a new $50BN share-repurchase program effective July 1. Wells Fargo raised its payout to 50 cents from 45 cents and Morgan Stanley increased its dividend to $1.15 from $1.

The nation’s six biggest banks paid out more than $140 billion in dividends and buybacks last year, surpassing a record set in 2019. The firms collectively posted their largest annual profit since 2021 on the back of record trading revenue.

Unlike other years, the 2026 results won’t impact capital requirements as the Fed continues revising the tests to make them more bank-friendly. As a result of that decision “there is no expectation that the firms delay until a particular time the public disclosure of their planned capital actions through the third quarter of 2027,” the Fed said in a statement Wednesday. 

Additionally, Bloomberg notes that this year’s test has limited impact because the Fed voted in February to freeze the current stress capital buffer requirements until 2027 as it continues to overhaul the annual exam. Last year, those requirements fell for many banks as the test was less stringent than in past years. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/24/2026 - 18:00