Zero Hedge

If You're Freaking Out About A Future Jobless AI Dystopia...

If You're Freaking Out About A Future Jobless AI Dystopia...

Amid an armada of dystopian futurists, projecting linear thoughts into a future of 'AI uber alles', Marc Andreessen stands as a beacon of potential utopian light, seeing a future that looks very different and very positive for young and old alike.

In a brief few minutes, the co-founder of Netscape and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) believes instead that we are living through a unique (and most incredible) time in history with the rise of AI coming right as human civilization needs it...

"we're going to have AI and robots precisely when we actually need them [with populations shrinking] to keep the economy from actually shrinking."

Simply put, Andreessen says that fears of AI-driven mass job loss are overly simplistic.

After decades of unusually slow technological change and low job churn, AI could restore historical productivity levels (exemplified by the period from 1870-1930), sparking opportunity, innovation, and net job growth rather than displacement. 

Declining populations and reduced immigration will make human labor increasingly valuable. AI's timing is "miraculous", Andreessen exclaims, preventing economic shrinkage from depopulation.

In even radical scenarios, explosive productivity leads to output gluts, collapsing prices, and massive real-wealth gains - equivalent to "giant raises" for everyone - while making safety-nets more affordable. 

Whether incremental or transformative, Andreessen sees the outcome as fundamentally positive economic news.

"...there's all this concern among young people that their jobs are not going to be there for them. AI is replacing them..."

Andreessen replies (emphasis ours): 

So the job-substitution/job-loss thing is very reductive. I think it's an overly simplistic model. And again it goes back to what I said at the very beginning which is we've actually been in a regime for 50 years of very slow technological change in the economy... like at half the rate of the previous era and a third the rate of like 100 years ago.

And so we're coming out of this kind of phase where we've had like almost no technological progress in the economy. We've had remarkably little job churn as a result of that relative to any historical period. And so even if AI triples productivity growth in the economy, which would like be a massively big deal, it would take us back to the same level of job churn that was happening between 1870 and 1930.

And if you go back and you read accounts of 1870 to 1930, people just thought the world was awash with opportunity. Right? At that rate of technological transformation, kids were able to develop new careers into new areas of the economy, building new kinds of products and services. A huge part of everything in our modern world today was kind of invented and proliferated during that period.

And so even if AI triples the pace of economic change in the economy, it's going to translate to a much higher rate of economic growth; it's going to translate to a much higher rate of job growth. And there will be some level of like task level and job level substitution that will take place but that will be swamped by the macro effects of economic growth and innovation that will happen and that then corresponding to that there will be hiring blooms quite honestly I think all over the place

And then again go back to the fact that this is all happening in the face of declining population growth and increasingly population shrinkage. So human workers in many, many, many countries over the next you know 10, 20, 30 years are going to be at more and more of a premium, literally because you're going to have shrinking population levels.

[While] we don't really want to get into you know politics particularly but it does feel like the world broadly is going to reverse course on the rates of immigration that we've had for the last 50 years. it seems to be kind of a broad-based thing happening - rise in nationalism, concerns about the rate of immigration - and immigration historically in countries like the US ha ebbed and flowed over time based on how the national mood shifts.

And so in a country like the US (or any country in Europe), if you combine declining population with less immigration, the remaining human workers are going to be at a premium not at a discount. And so I think that the combination of faster productivity growth, faster economic growth, and then slower population growth and less immigration - actually means there's going to be much less of this kind of dystopian/no-jobs thing. I just think it's probably totally off-base. 

"That is extremely interesting. So, what I'm hearing is you're not super worried about job loss. Is the key here that the timing kind of just works out, this population decrease, you know, like all these kind of have to line up for there not to be this massive job loss with AI?"

Andreessen replies (emphasis ours): 

Yeah.

Well, look, if we didn't have AI, we'd be in a panic right now about what's going to happen to the economy. Right? Because what we what we'd be staring at is a future of depopulation and depopulation without new technology would just mean that the economy shrinks. Right? 

So it would mean that the economy kind of itself kind of shrinks over time, the opportunity diminishes, and there are no new jobs, there are no new fields. There's no new source of consumer demand for spending on things. And so you would be very worried about going into period of severe decline or stagnation.

Essentially you'd be looking at these very dystopian scenarios of like an economy self-euthanizing over time. 

So you'd be very worried about the opposite of what everybody thinks that they're worried about. The only reason we're not worried about that is because we now know that we have the technology that can substitute for the lack of population growth and also for the for the lack of immigration that's likely.

And so, I would say the timing has worked out miraculously well in the sense that we're going to have AI and robots precisely when we actually need them, to keep the economy from actually shrinking. 

And that's just like a fundamentally good news story.

To get to the mass-job-loss thing that people are worried about, you'd have to look at like far, far, far higher rates of productivity growth. You'd have to look at rates of productivity growth that are 10, 20, 30, 50% a year - something like that - which are orders of magnitude higher than we've ever had in any economy in the history of the planet.

It's possible that we get that. I mean, look, I have my utopian temptation along with everybody else.

If AI radically transforms everything overnight, then maybe... let's play out the kind of utopian scenario. 

You get to a much higher level of productivity growth.

You get to a much higher level of technological change.

Corresponding to that you'll have a massive economic boom. 

You'll have massive growth in the economy and then corresponding with that you'll have a collapse in prices. 

And so the price of goods and services that are affected by (or commoditized by) AI will collapse.

There'll be price deflation and then as a consequence of price deflation everything that people are buying today gets a lot cheaper and that's the equivalent of a gigantic increase in wealth right across the society.

This is actually worth talking about because people I think people get kind of sideways on this issue.

So if AI is going to transform the economy as much as the utopians or dystopians (or whatever kind) think that it will, the necessary economic calculation of what happens is massive productivity growth. 

The consequence of massive productivity growth literally means mechanically more output requiring less input, right? 

So you get more economic output for less input, right? So you're substituting in AI for human workers.

And as a consequence, you get like this massive boom in output with much lower input costs. 

The result of that is you get lots of goods and services in all those affected sectors. The result of those gluts is you get collapsing prices, right? 

The collapsing prices mean that the thing today that cost you $100 now cost you $10 and now cost you $1.

That's the equivalent of giving everybody a giant raise, right? 

Because now they have all this additional spending power. 

That additional spending power then translates to economic growth, right? 

The development of new fields. Everybody's materially much better off very quickly. And then by the way, to the extent that you do have unemployment coming out the other side of that, it's now much cheaper to provide the kind of social safety net to prevent people from being immiserated, right? 

Because the prices of all the goods and services that a welfare program has to pay from, they're all collapsing, right? And so the price of healthcare collapses, the price of housing collapses, the price of education collapses, the price of everything else collapses because of the incredible impact that AI is having. 

And so in this kind of utopian/dystopian scenario that people have, there's no scenario in which everybody's just poor. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Everybody gets a lot richer because prices collapse and then it's actually much easier to pay for the social safety net for the people who, for some reason, can't find a job.

And so, maybe we end up in that scenario. 

I mean, the optimistic part of me says, yeah, maybe AI is that powerful and maybe the rest of the economy can actually change to accommodate that and maybe that'll happen.

But the result of that is going to be a much better news story than people think it's going to be. 

Everything I've just described, by the way, is just a very straightforward extrapolation on very basic economics. I'm not making any like bold predictions in what I just said. This is just a straightforward mechanical process that plays itself out if you have higher rates of productivity growth, which are necessarily the results of higher rates of technological growth.

And so, to be clear, I think we're looking at a world that's not like radically transformed the way that maybe the utopians think that it will be or the dystopians think it will be. 

I think it'll be more incremental.

But I think that incremental shift is overwhelmingly going to be a good news process. And then even if it's much faster, it's also going to be a good news process. It'll just be a good news process in the other way that I described.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 20:20

Iran Says US-Israeli Attack Hit Elementary School, Killing 85+ Girls

Iran Says US-Israeli Attack Hit Elementary School, Killing 85+ Girls

Via Middle East Eye

At least 85 people, almost all of them young girls, have been killed in an air strike on a primary school in southern Iran, the Iranian judiciary said. The attack on Saturday morning hit Shajareh Tayyebeh schoolin the city of Minab, in Hormozgan province, as the United States and Israel began launching strikes on targets across Iran.

The victims were between seven and 12 years old, according to Iran's Tasnim and Fars news agencies. A staff member at the Minab school, who asked not to be named, told Middle East Eye she remains in shock at the intensity of the attack. Iran's foreign minister also featured the attack on social media.

Video posted on pro-government Telegram accounts shows Iranians searching through a destroyed school in Minab, via Telegram

Through tears, she said she used to watch the young girls playing at school every day. After today’s strikes, however, she saw their bodies lying on classroom benches and in different corners of the school.

She said she had stepped out of the school to take care of something when she suddenly heard a horrifying sound. Within seconds, a missile - or something like it - hit the school building. After hearing the blast, she ran back towards the school and was faced with a scene she says she would never forget. 

“I felt like I had gone mute. I couldn’t speak,” the staff member told MEE. “You could hear the sound of children crying and screaming.” When rescue teams arrived, she said, they began to understand the scale of the disaster.

“We still don’t know how many are under the rubble. Some are even saying more than 100. Some of these small children are severely injured. Their parents have come to the school, and this place has turned into a house of mourning.”

The air strike on the school left many inside the building trapped beneath the rubble. There were 170 female students at the school at the time of the attack. So far, at least 45 people have also been reported wounded.

Footage posted by Telegram accounts affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared to show people digging through the rubble.

Smoke could be seen rising from surrounding buildings, while a wrecked car lay in the street. People were heard screaming and wailing; others appeared to be in shock. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denounced the attack on X and said the deaths of the children would "not go unanswered".

"The destroyed building is a primary school for girls in the south of Iran. It was bombed in broad daylight, when packed with young pupils," he wrote. "Dozens of innocent children have been murdered at this site alone."

Country-wide attacks

US and Israeli strikes on Iran have also heavily targeted Tehran. Explosions echoed across the capital as Iranians set out for work on the first day of the week, before quickly spreading across the country.

Attacks were reported in a range of cities, including the holy city of Qom, as well as Karaj, Isfahan and Kermanshah. An overall death toll has not yet been released, but Reuters reported that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been moved to a “safe location”.

US President Donald Trump said the joint attacks were aimed at "eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime".

"Short time ago, US military began major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime," he said. Trump also made a number of other statements and predictions without offering any concrete evidence, such as Washington's refusal to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

"We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region’s ‘terrorist’ proxies can no longer destabilise the region or the world. "We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It is a very simple message." 

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 17:00

DOE Announces $171 Million For Geothermal Expansion

DOE Announces $171 Million For Geothermal Expansion

The DOE released a Notice of Funding Opportunity offering up to $171.5 million for next-generation geothermal field tests and resource exploration. 

The program targets field-scale demonstrations of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) for electricity generation, along with drilling to characterize and confirm hydrothermal and next-gen prospects nationwide.

The funding splits into two initial open topics: up to $100 million for EGS field tests and $71.5 million for exploratory drilling. Letters of intent are due March 27, with full applications due April 30. The move directly supports President Trump’s Executive Order “Unleashing American Energy,” according to the agency.

Geothermal currently supplies roughly 4 GW of U.S. capacity, but represents only about 0.3% of total power generation. DOE estimates the resource base could support 300 GW or more by 2050 with technology improvements, delivering firm, 24/7 baseload power that complements intermittent renewables and meets rising demand from data centers and AI infrastructure.

Recent studies show that some of the best locations in the United States for new geothermal sites are in the western part of the country and some of the southern states. 

Assistant Secretary Kyle Haustveit of the Office of Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy stated the initiative will “directly support our commitments to advance energy addition, reduce energy costs for American families and businesses, and unleash American energy dominance and innovation.”

One of the only pure-play publicly traded geothermal companies is Ormat Technologies (ORA), which develops, owns, and operates geothermal power plants primarily in the U.S. and internationally. The company has recently expanded via long-term power purchase agreements with data-center operators (Google), underscoring commercial interest in reliable geothermal supply.

Some Democratic appropriators are pitching a fit, noting the $146.5 million tranche exceeds the $118 million Congress appropriated for geothermal in FY2025 and requesting further review. Proponents counter that successful pilots could unlock far larger private investment and help diversify the grid beyond wind, solar, and gas.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 16:20

"Expect Moderate Disruptions": Oil Tankers Avoid Strait Of Hormuz As Operation Fury Hits Iran

"Expect Moderate Disruptions": Oil Tankers Avoid Strait Of Hormuz As Operation Fury Hits Iran

Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel-tracking data indicate that multiple tankers abruptly reversed course near the entrance to the critical maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz early Saturday, following the U.S.-Israeli operation (Operation Epic Fury) targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control infrastructure in multiple Iranian cities.

Bloomberg reporter Stephen Stapczynski pulled data from the Terminal that shows shipowners of crude oil, crude products, and LNG tankers are avoiding the strait, even though the waterway remains open and traffic has not stopped entirely.

"A number of oil and LNG tankers are avoiding sailing through the Strait of Hormuz NYK has advised its ships to avoid the waterway," Stapczynski wrote on X.

Stapczynski noted. 

Less than a day before Operation Epic Fury began, Bloomberg macro strategist Michael Ball warned, "US military action on Iran would result in sudden-yet-tradeable risk aversion. The negative markets impulse only sustains if there's material disruption to regional oil production and shipping flows around the Strait of Hormuz."

Map: Strait of Hormuz

Sources told CNN earlier this morning that Operation Epic Fury was the result of "months of joint planning" and will involve several days of attacks. The key question is whether the operation against Iran will spill over into next week. If it does, that would suggest potential disruptions at the critical maritime chokepoint, which handles one-fifth of global seaborne oil and LNG flows.

Rapidan Energy Group analyst Fernando Ferreira commented on the situation, indicating:

Iran understands that threatening traffic through Hormuz is its most credible asymmetric lever. Even limited interference can raise oil prices and impose immediate economic costs on the US and its partners, increasing pressure on Washington to de-escalate.

We expect at least moderate disruptions to Gulf oil flows in the coming days, with the risk tilted toward something more severe if tensions escalate further. 

And here it is:

  • FT: INSURERS TO CANCEL POLICIES FOR SHIPS IN GULF, HORMUZ STRAIT

Goldman analyst Adam Crook provided clients, shortly after the operation began, with an overview of how oil and gold were positioned heading into the weekend:

Tallulah Adams (Commods Sales): “We have seen significant engagement from the franchise in Oil and European Gas upside over previous weeks, being the most directly impacted Commodities in an escalation scenario (20% each of Global Oil and LNG flows transit through the Strait of Hormuz).

Oil remains the most direct and liquid expression as a geopolitical hedge – while a full closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains a tail scenario, even a disruption of flows through the Strait via other means (targeting of ships, insurance issues) poses an upside scenario closer to $100/bbl. Additionally, whilst not our base case, an attack on Iranian Oil infrastructure puts 2mb/d of Iran Crude exports at risk.

Despite a Middle East escalation remaining top of mind, positioning ironically feels cleaner (vs mid-Feb) with franchise flows skewed toward profit taking over the past week. This has kept a lid on call vols despite increasingly hawkish news flow + flat price moving higher in a high spot-vol correlation regime. Front month Brent implied volatility was at 60v on Friday, compared to a high of 90v in June last year. Meanwhile, 1 month 15 delta call skew was at 14 vols, compared to a 27 vol high last June. Net managed money (Brent + WTI combined) is sitting in the 59th percentile vs the previous 3 years. To play for a reprice in front vols and skew, we like owning front wingy outright calls.

Additionally, we have seen a re-engagement in Gold upside as prices have consolidated above $5000/oz and 5 day realised vols have compressed to 27v vs a 100v high. Gold upside flow has migrated from VKO’s/Continuous KO’s to a mix of vanillas/EKO’s/Digis. While ETF holdings have continued to build, the market feels under positioned from the fast-money community - net managed money on Comex is sitting only in the 17th percentile vs the last 3 years and SHFE positioning is on multi-year lows.

A synthetic weekend market via IG has crude oil prices up as much as 8%. 

IG has gold up nearly 3%. 

Related:

Operation Epic Fury coverage:

The key question is whether this operation remains confined to the weekend or spills into next week. If a spillover does occur, it would be unequivocally bullish for Brent crude and gold futures on Sunday evening.

Professional subscribers can read more Iran ​​​​​research on our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 12:15

We Didn't Just Get Expensive Electricity. We Built A System That Makes It Inevitable.

We Didn't Just Get Expensive Electricity. We Built A System That Makes It Inevitable.

Authored by William Murray via RealClearEnergy,

Most Americans don’t think about electricity until the monthly bill arrives.

It comes once a month, often quietly, but lately it’s landed like a thud. Heating your home now costs hundreds more a month than it did just a few years ago. You use the same appliances. You flip the same switches. Nothing in your daily life has changed – except the price.

Why?

When one looks inside the electricity system, the experience is less like analyzing an immense machine than being fed into one, resembling the immortal scene in “Modern Times” where Charlie Chaplin’s factory worker is swallowed by the equipment he’s working on.

The American electricity market is not guided by an “invisible hand” of supply and demand, but an accumulation of misaligned rules laid down over decades. Layer upon layer of regulation, subsidy, mandate, and accounting rules to a point where the system became fixed in an upward, inflationary tilt, impervious to efforts to change.

There are at least a half-dozen federal environmental regulations that have more to do with rising electricity prices than tariffs or the data-center buildout, and a good example to start with is called Construction Work in Progress (CWIP).

As a new issue brief makes clear, it helped change who pays for America’s infrastructure.

Chief among these contrivances was the quiet transfer of financial risk from investors to the public. Before the 1970s, utilities had to finish building a power plant before they could charge customers for it. If a company wanted to build something, it had to take the risk. Investors would put up the money. If the project succeeded, they earned a return. If it failed, they paid the price.

But during the inflation crisis of the 1970s, power plants — especially nuclear plants —became vastly more expensive to build. Utilities argued they couldn’t afford to wait years to recover their costs. During a moment of civic weakness, state regulators started allowing utilities to charge customers while the plants were still under construction.

CWIP permanently shifted investment risk away from investors and onto ordinary people. Today, you can open your electric bill and pay for projects that don’t exist yet and may be cancelled in the future.

No banker in his right mind would accept such terms voluntarily. Yet millions of Americans are compelled to do so every month if they’re served by an investor-owned electric company.

This system could have operated below the waterline indefinitely, had it not collided with the renewable energy revolution of the last 15 years. Wind and solar generation increased fourfold between 2011 and 2020, reaching record output by 2024.

These sources have advantages. But they also have a basic limitation: they don’t produce power all the time.

So utilities must build backup systems. Extra transmission lines. Extra capacity.

None of this redundancy is free. Every mile of wire, every idle backup turbine, every overpriced and underutilized battery storage unit will eventually, without fail, appear on a customer’s bill.

And thanks to rules like CWIP, they can charge you while you wait.

Many of these policies came from a sincere place. Beginning in the 1970s and accelerating in the decades that followed, a network of public-interest law firms and environmental advocacy groups gained enormous influence over how infrastructure gets approved.

Their goal was to protect the public.

But over time, something else happened.

They built a system where stopping projects became easier than building them. Where delay became a strategy. Where lawsuits became routine.

Each delay added to costs. Each cost increase justifies charging customers sooner. Each increase made the next one easier to accept.

Even writers like the New York Times’ Ezra Klein — hardly a critic of environmental goals — have begun to acknowledge the problem. He has argued that well-intentioned rules have made it far too hard to build the infrastructure society needs.

People think this is an important admission by Klein and his ilk, but it is not.

These ‘well-intentioned rules’ were simply created by an earlier generation of Ezra Klein “Abundance” types who set up the public interest lawfare firms and NGO indulgences system in the first place.

Klein’s autopsy revealed only that the Left promotes things that make themselves feel better while making the world worse, yet their slobbering idealism protects them from feeling the shame of failed responsibility. There is a Kafkaesque process at work, filled with Orwellian word games that stymie everything. It’s a dirty, soiled, can’t-do spirit masquerading as something more noble and dignified.

Because the issue isn’t whether the goals were noble. Noble intentions don’t matter.

It’s that the results are what matter, and the results are failures.

There is, however, a remedy — not a technological breakthrough, but something far better (albeit rarer) in Washington: legislative clarity.

One promising approach is legislation such as Representative Troy Balderson’s “Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act.” The bill seeks to establish clearer definitions of key terms like “affordable,” “reliable,” and “clean,” ensuring that investment risks are limited to cost-effective infrastructure projects only.

By recognizing the role of dispatchable resources such as natural gas and nuclear power, the legislation would also help ensure the grid maintains the reliability necessary to support modern life, all while meeting the standards of the Clean Air Act.

These reforms would not eliminate electricity price increases overnight. But they would begin to address one of the root causes: a system in which incentives increasingly misalign diverge from the interests of customers.

Electricity is not a luxury. It is a necessity that underpins economic growth, public safety, and household stability. Ensuring its affordability requires more than promises. It requires policies that encourage efficient investment, allocate risk appropriately, and maintain reliability.

Most of all, it comes from remembering a basic principle that once guided American growth:

You should pay for things when they work.

Not before.

Until that principle returns, electricity bills will continue their quiet climb upward, and Americans will continue to wonder why modern life feels harder to afford than it used to.

William Murray is a former speechwriter for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the past editor of RealClearEnergy from 2015-2017, and currently the chief speechwriter for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 11:40

France's Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest, Names Successor

France's Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest, Names Successor

Via Remix News,

In March 2025,  Le Pen was convicted on charges dating back years ago, in a move that was widely contested and seen as a highly political attempt to keep her from running in next year’s presidential election.

Now, she says she has no intention of running if her ban from running is lifted, if it means she must wear an electronic tag, i.e., ankle monitor.

She is also ready to place full trust in Jordan Bardella, current leader of the National Rally (RN).

Le Pen’s comments came during an interview with French television station BFMTV, her first since French prosecutors asked a court to uphold her five-year ban. A ruling on her case is expected on July 7.

“You cannot campaign under these conditions. Can you campaign without going out in the evenings to meet your constituents at rallies?” she asked, referring to the idea of having to campaign while wearing a monitor and under house arrest.

Prosecutors had asked for Le Pen to be sentenced to four years in prison (three of which were suspended) and a fine of €100,000.

In France, shorter prison sentences are often commuted, meaning that if the court follows the prosecutor’s request, Le Pen could spend anywhere from a few months to a year under house arrest, wearing an anklet.

However, Le Pen has said she would not campaign under such circumstances.

Le Pen says she will be present in court on July 7 to hear the Court of Appeal’s decision.

“Of course I will go, as I went every day to the trial in the first instance and on appeal because I respect justice,” she told BFMTV.

Regarding the 2027 election, Le Pen said regarding RN leader Jordan Bardella:

“The best-case scenario is that I am elected president of the Republic and he is my prime minister.”

However, if she cannot run, then “Jordan will find himself a prime minister,” and she will take whatever “role he wants me to have.”

Emphasizing that Bardella will be free to make his own choices, Le Pen told listeners, “If I cannot be a candidate, he will determine at what level he needs my presence, my advice and my experience.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 08:10

92% Of Illegal Arrivals At Spain's Canary Islands Are Men, And Half Of 'Unaccompanied Minors' Are Adults

92% Of Illegal Arrivals At Spain's Canary Islands Are Men, And Half Of 'Unaccompanied Minors' Are Adults

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

A European Parliament fact-finding mission to the Canary Islands has revealed that around half of migrants who claimed to be unaccompanied minors upon arrival were ultimately determined to be adults.

The Committee on Petitions conducted the visit in September 2025 to assess the impact of illegal immigration on the Spanish archipelago. According to a draft report from earlier this month, prosecutors informed MEPs that “among approximately 1,500 unaccompanied minors whose age was not clear and who were subjected to age-assessment procedures at their arrival to the adult reception centers, around half of them were ultimately determined to be adults.”

The report also acknowledged systemic weaknesses in the initial screening process, stating that “initial assessments by police are often inaccurate, leading to some being misplaced in the wrong center before their age is confirmed.”

The scale of arrivals remains significant.

By Aug. 31, 2025, 201 boats had reached the Canary Islands in that year carrying 12,249 migrants, including 9,955 men, 782 women, 192 minors traveling with parents, and 1,320 unaccompanied minors.

Authorities recorded 629 individuals whose age was in doubt, and officials noted that 92 percent of arrivals were male.

This aligns with the findings from across Europe.

In 2023, Frontex data indicated that exactly 92 percent of illegal migrants were males, with that number being remarkably stable over the years.

Crime and public safety were repeatedly raised during the mission. MEP Sebastian Kruis questioned why migrants appear statistically overrepresented in prison figures, asking “the reasons why, in proportionate terms, an immigrant has a 1.5 times higher chance of being in prison,” as in the Canary Islands, migrants represent 31 percent of inmates but they only account for 22 percent of the total population.

“There has been an increase in criminality following the arrival of unaccompanied minors, with offenses committed mainly against them,” the report states.

However, it continues to explain that these offenses are predominantly “fights, insults, and sexual assaults, occurring mainly within reception centers,” meaning that while offenses may be committed against migrants, they are also being committed by them.

Neighborhood representatives in La Isleta, near the Canarias 50 reception center in Las Palmas, told MEPs they had experienced a growing “feeling of insecurity.”

The report also detailed the difficulty of prosecuting smuggling networks. In 2024, 282 preliminary investigations were opened in relation to boat arrivals, yet 97 percent were provisionally suspended due to a lack of identified perpetrators.

On returns, authorities said expulsions to Morocco are limited because many arrivals lack documentation, and Morocco does not process papers for undocumented nationals. It was noted that 92 percent of repatriation requests by Spain are rejected by Rabat.

Maritime Rescue representatives stated they “did not carry out interceptions of vessels” and were limited to search-and-rescue operations within Spain’s area of responsibility, which often results in migrants being brought ashore in Spain even when their point of departure is known.

In the report, Dutch MEP Sebastian Kruis of the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group argued that he had experienced a “big difference between the presentations given by official representatives and NGOs and what the people from the districts close to the reception centers and the news are saying about incidents concerning migrants.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/28/2026 - 07:00

China's Biological Weapons Labs In America

China's Biological Weapons Labs In America

Authored by Gordon Change via The Gatestone Institute,

China has been maintaining at least two facilities — one in California and the other in Nevada — that are part of a biological weapons program.

A Declaration of Arrest Report, issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in connection with the detention of Ori Solomon on January 31, states that there is a "deeper conspiracy" between an illegal biological lab in Reedley, California and a residence containing apparently dangerous substances in Nevada.

On January 31, Las Vegas SWAT and federal agents raided a home on the eastern outskirts of the city and seized over a thousand vials of an unknown substance or substances. Those vials have been sent to an FBI lab in Maryland for analysis.

A housecleaner tipped off authorities after she and others temporarily residing at the home got "deathly ill."

Solomon was the property manager of the location.

Jiabei Zhu, a Chinese national also known as Jesse Zhu, Qiang He and David He, is the listed agent of a company, David Destiny Discovery LLC, that is the registered owner of the Las Vegas house along with Zhaoyan Wang, his business partner and the mother of his child.

Zhu will go to trial in April on federal charges for the operation of the lab in Reedley, near Fresno in the Central Valley.

Fortunately, in California, Code Enforcement Officer Jesalyn Harper in December 2022 noticed a garden hose connected to a supposedly abandoned building.

She entered the structure and discovered what appears to have been a secret biological weapons laboratory. Inside, Harper found Chinese nationals working in white coats.

The lab stored nearly a thousand transgenic mice — 773 live and more than 175 dead — "genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus."

Authorities also found medical waste and chemical, viral, and biological agents. There were on-site at least 20 potentially infectious pathogens, including those causing coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis, and herpes.

The lab contained a freezer labeled "Ebola." The freezer held unlabeled sealed bags used to store high-risk biological materials. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are studying Ebola, which has a natural fatality rate of 50%, undoubtedly to weaponize it.

The Reedley facility was run by Chinese fronting for parties in China. Among the fronts is Zhu.

In 2024, Brandon Weichert, author of Biohacked: China's Race to Control Life, in comments to Gatestone, called the Reedley facility a "kamikaze lab," which was "unsecured, poorly contained, makeshift, containing a couple dozen pathogens near a population center."

There are reasons to be alarmed.

First, as Weichert noted at the time, the Reedley facility could not be a "one-off." Now, we know that he was right. There is — at least — a second location, the "deeper conspiracy" as the Las Vegas police termed it.

Moreover, the Chinese regime is behind that conspiracy. Wang fled to China sometime in 2023. While there, she kept tabs on the Las Vegas home by, for instance, monitoring cameras at the location.

Zhu was also a top official at one of China's state-controlled companies that had links to the People's Liberation Army. According to recent reporting, he has maintained business relations with parties connected to the Chinese regime.

All this demonstrates that China's Communist Party, which could have ordered Zhu and Wang to shut down the effort after the discovery of the Reedley lab, allowed it to continue. Among other things, the continuation of the effort suggests there is a broader effort to spread disease in the United States.

Second, Zhu operated the Reedley and Las Vegas facilities with malign intent.

Zhu, according to Canadian court statements, told a co-conspirator in an earlier theft of U.S. intellectual property that these efforts would help "defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!" "The law is strong," he added at the time, "but the outlaws are ten times stronger."

These statements were included in the Las Vegas Declaration of Arrest Report. As a recent analysis states, "the declaration reveals, for the first time, the full scope of what U.S. investigators believe they are dealing with: not merely a rogue lab operator, but a PRC-trained biologist with state-linked corporate ties, a proven history of stealing American technology for Beijing's benefit, and language that investigators now treat as evidence of ideological motivation."

As Weichert said of the Reedley lab two years ago, "It is, I believe, a part of a large Chinese military operation to spread disease throughout the American population."

He is undoubtedly correct. A quarter century ago, General Chi Haotian, China's defense minister and vice chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission, reportedly gave a secret speech advocating the extermination of Americans. "It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans," he said. "But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the Communist Party leads the world."

Chi's plan was to use disease for this purpose.

The FBI now appears to be concerned about the extent of the Chinese effort. It executed a search warrant on the Reedley facility on February 8th.

Have U.S. authorities now discovered everything? "We need to know if there is a third biological weapons location and maybe a fourth," Blaine Holt, a retired U.S. Air Force general who now specializes in civil preparedness measures, told Gatestone this month. "We are on notice that the Chinese regime is preparing to spread disease in America. We have been very slow off the mark and have absolutely no time to lose. The Chinese regime could give the go-signal at any moment."

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 23:25

Will China Come To Iran's Rescue?

Will China Come To Iran's Rescue?

Via Middle East Eye

As tensions between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance approach a critical juncture, a question echoes through global capitals, newsrooms and policy circles: will China come to Iran’s rescue? And if so, what would that assistance look like?

The answer defies the binary expectations of traditional military alliances. China is unlikely to dispatch troops or engage directly in any conflict, but to interpret this as passivity would be to misread the nature of 21st-century great power competition. China's support for Iran is real, multifaceted, and in some ways more sustainable than military intervention; it just operates on a different strategic wavelength.

At the UN Security Council, China has consistently deployed its most potent weapon: the veto-wielding power of principle. In an emergency meeting last month, Chinese Ambassador Sun Lei delivered a stark message to Washington: "The use of force can never solve problems. It will only make them more complex and intractable. Any military adventurism would only push the region toward an unpredictable abyss."

This is not empty rhetoric. China’s official position explicitly supports "safeguarding Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity”, while opposing “the threat or use of force in international relations”. 

By anchoring its stance in the UN Charter and international law, China provides Tehran with something invaluable: legitimacy on the world stage, and a powerful counter-narrative to western pressure.

Strategic alignment

The diplomatic calculus shifted fundamentally when Iran was formally approved in 2021 as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), joining China, Russia and Central Asian nations. This was followed by Tehran’s inclusion in the Brics bloc. 

These are not military pacts, but they create something perhaps more enduring: a framework for permanent consultation and strategic alignment.

Last year, Chinese, Russian and Iranian diplomats met in Beijing and agreed to “strengthen coordination” within international organizations such as Brics and the SCO. This institutional embrace means that any aggression against Iran is now implicitly an issue for the world's most powerful counterweights to US hegemony. 

While China avoids direct confrontation, it has not shied away from visible military cooperation. Earlier this month, Russia, China and Iran deployed naval vessels for joint security exercises in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. A Russian presidential aide framed these drills in the context of building a “multipolar world order in the oceans” to counter western hegemony.

More tangibly, news has emerged of significant defense cooperation. Middle East Eye reported last year that Iran had received Chinese-made surface-to-air missile batteries to rebuild its air defense capabilities, part of an oil-for-weapons deal that allowed Tehran to bypass US sanctions. 

Some reports have also suggested that Iran may receive advanced J-20 fifth-generation fighter jets, J-10C aircraft, and HQ-9 air defense systems, although there has been no official confirmation.

The symbolism is as striking as the substance. During Iran’s Air Force Day celebrations this month, a Chinese military attache presented a model of the J-20 stealth fighter to an Iranian air force commander - a gesture widely interpreted as signalling a new chapter in defence engagement between the two nations.

Multipolar age

Perhaps China’s most consequential support remains invisible on the battlefield, but visible in Iran's national accounts. Despite US sanctions and pressure, China remains Iran’s top energy partner, with approximately 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports now directed to Chinese buyers.

The US has taken notice. The Treasury Department last year imposed sanctions on a Chinese refinery in Shandong province accused of purchasing more than $1bn worth of Iranian oil, with the Trump administration vowing “to drive Iran’s illicit oil exports, including to China, to zero”. China’s embassy in Washington responded by condemning sanctions that “undermine international trade order and rules” and “infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”.

While the China-Iran economic relationship has faced strains - Chinese state refiners have occasionally suspended purchases to avoid US financial risks - the overall trajectory is clear: China provides the economic oxygen that sustains Iran’s resistance to external pressure. 

So if China is already providing diplomatic cover, institutional support, military cooperation and an economic lifeline, why doesn’t it go further? Why not send warships or explicitly threaten intervention?

The answer lies in strategic prioritization. As is widely understood, Beijing's most pressing strategic goal is to achieve national reunification and, before this goal is realized, any actions that might unnecessarily and prematurely escalate comprehensive confrontation with the United States must be approached with extreme caution.

Moreover, China believes that while significant US military action in Iran could inflict losses, regime change would be difficult to achieve. Under such circumstances, Beijing can adopt a model similar to its approach to the Ukraine conflict: refraining from direct participation while maintaining normal state-to-state relations with the party under attack, providing political and diplomatic support at the UN, and continuing economic engagement that doesn’t violate international law.

What we are witnessing is not traditional alliance politics, but something new: a form of strategic partnership designed for a multipolar age. China offers Iran diplomatic protection, institutional integration, visible military cooperation and an economic boost - all without crossing the line into a direct confrontation that would trigger a wider war.

For those asking whether China will "rescue" Iran, the answer depends on definition. If rescue means troops and battleships, the answer is no. If rescue means ensuring that Iran can survive, resist, and eventually negotiate from strength, the answer is quietly, persistently and strategically yes.

This approach has already proven effective and difficult for adversaries to counter. In the shadow of potential conflict, China has constructed a new kind of shield for its partner: one forged not from steel, but from strategic patience, economic interdependence, and the architecture of a rising multipolar world.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 21:45

Israel Launches Wave Of Strikes On Lebanon In Precursor To Potential Iran War

Israel Launches Wave Of Strikes On Lebanon In Precursor To Potential Iran War

Some analysts fear Israel is testing out a precursor for another multi-front war as the US appears poised to attack Iran. Technically a ceasefire has been in effect in southern Lebanon, but the IDF military has been testing - or more like blowing straight past - these truce barriers.

The Israeli Army carried out at least eight airstrikes in eastern Lebanon on Thursday, focusing on the Baalbek area. Multiple buildings were hit, with casualty figures not initially confirmed.

Lebanese media

Lebanon's Health Ministry at one point specified that a "16-year-old Syrian boy was killed," according to the National News Agency. There were reports of dozens more wounded and injured.

The deceased was identified as Hussein Mohsen al-Khalaf, who died in a strike on Kfar Dan near Baalbek, L'Orient also reported.

The IDF claimed the targets belonged to Hezbollah's "elite Radwan Force" and were used for weapons storage and training. But as has been the pattern with these types of sporadic brief attacks, it provided no evidence for the claim.

Israel further said the sites violated the "ceasefire understandings" and posed a threat to Israel, after widespread allegations the fresh attacks constitute a severe breach the ceasefire in force between the two countries.

However, Middle East media reports have cited more than 1,000 strikes inside Lebanon by Israeli forces, killing hundreds, since the ceasefire took effect.

Israel has intensified attacks in recent weeks, citing the prospect of a US-Iran war. Israeli officials have warned Lebanon that civilian sites will be targeted if Hezbollah joins such a conflict. Hezbollah has long been a main proxy arm of Tehran's, but also acts in its own interests as a guarantor of Lebanon's Shia population.

So these deadly new assaults do appear to represent a kind of pre-Iran war anti-Hezbollah action. Israel has already over the past two years decimated Hezbollah's top leadership, and could now be looking for an excuse to finish the job.

All eyes on Iran: Pentagon build-up is the biggest in the region since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq...

There's been no evidence that Hezbollah has fired a single rocket at Israel since the ceasefire began in November 2024, however. The group is very well-armed, but has been on a back foot, also after the West-Gulf axis successfully accomplished regime change in Syria.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 21:20

A Montreal Narco Network Busted For Allegedly Smuggling Super Fentanyl Into America

A Montreal Narco Network Busted For Allegedly Smuggling Super Fentanyl Into America

Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper,

An elite Montreal-based narco network allegedly exported carfentanil and next-generation synthetic opioids 100 times deadlier than fentanyl to American consumers via the dark web, leading to the arrest of four yesterday, after 13 months of joint surveillance by U.S. federal agencies and Quebec police, and a seizure of more than 600,000 tablets of synthetic drugs in December.

The four suspects charged are reportedly connected, through their alleged street gang affiliate, to the Wolfpack Alliance — a network tied by DEA sources to a British Columbia fentanyl superlab, and by Canadian law enforcement and expert sources to Canadian outlaw motorcycle gangs, Iranian organized crime, and the Sinaloa Cartel.

On Wednesday, Quebec’s ENRCO — the unit mandated specifically to target organized crime leadership — arrested four residents of Montreal’s South Shore suburbs on charges connected to a network that had been, for more than a year, allegedly manufacturing and exporting carfentanil and industrial quantities of substances newer and deadlier than fentanyl to consumers in the United States. The investigation was conducted jointly with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The four suspects are: Darren McAlpine, of Delson; Geneva Fournier, of Châteauguay; and Wanya Nathan Ellis and Cheyanne Buchanan-Dennis, both of Sainte-Catherine. All four municipalities sit in the region directly south of the Montreal Island. They appeared by videoconference before a judge at the Longueuil courthouse and face charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking, drug trafficking, and possession of a prohibited weapon.

The arrests followed searches executed on December 17, 2025, at addresses in Châteauguay and Sainte-Catherine. No U.S. federal charges have been publicly announced.

The December searches produced a seizure that reads like an inventory of the post-fentanyl synthetic opioid market.

Quebec police pointed to more than 600,000 tablets — comprising 288,000 metonitazene tablets, 128,000 methamphetamine tablets, 180,000 benzodiazepine tablets, and 10,000 MDMA tablets — alongside 81 litres of protonitazene in liquid form, cannabis, cocaine, dark web trafficking equipment, a loaded 9mm firearm, and 9mm ammunition.

The 81 litres of liquid protonitazene is an industrial-scale volume of a still-emerging synthetic opioid. The DEA permanently placed protonitazene in Schedule I in 2024; on February 11, 2026, it separately finalized Schedule I status for variants of metonitazene and protonitazene.

“Metonitazene and Protonitazene are substances not widely known to the public at present, but they are considered more potent than fentanyl,” Quebec police said yesterday.

In a previous interview, retired acting DEA chief Derek Maltz told The Bureau that chemicals like nitazenes are amplifying the existing threat from Chinese-supplied fentanyl — which he and many U.S. experts view as an intentional, war-like attack from Chinese state-linked networks aligned with Latin cartels.

“We’re getting crushed with carfentanil, xylazine, etizolam, isotonitazene — all those different new psychoactive substances which are coming out of China. So it’s just another phase of the attack,” Maltz said.

Six weeks before the Quebec arrests, on February 10, 2026, Montreal’s regional public health directorate had already issued a public warning about protonitazene’s effects — suggesting that product from this network, or a network supplying the same substances, was already circulating in Montreal’s drug supply while the police operation was still running.

Carfentanil was developed to tranquilize elephants.

According to the DEA, it is 100 times more potent than fentanyl — which itself is lethal at the 2-milligram range — and 10,000 times more potent than morphine. Russian special forces deployed an aerosolized version against Chechen hostage-takers in a Moscow theatre in 2002. More than 120 hostages died. The DEA reported in 2025 that it had tested more than 100 kilograms of carfentanil mixed with other drugs in 2024 alone — more than the previous three years combined — and that the substance is now predominantly appearing in pill form, pressed to resemble prescription medications.

The network now charged in Montreal was allegedly supplying fentanyl southbound into the United States — a politically sensitive finding given that the Trump administration has partly justified tariffs against Canada on the allegation that Chinese Communist Party and Mexican cartel networks have increasingly leveraged Canada for fentanyl production, particularly via Vancouver, and shipment to the U.S. This new case adds Montreal as a major alleged node, one already associated with Mexican cartel human trafficking networks moving South American nationals from Montreal into New York State.

Evidence from the Canada Border Services Agency has identified China and Hong Kong as import sources for earlier nitazene variants. The seizure in this case — 288,000 metonitazene tablets and 81 litres of liquid protonitazene — represents the largest documented seizure of these substances in Canada on the public record.

Radio-Canada reported that the network is connected to Zone 43 — a Montreal street gang originating in the Montréal-Nord neighbourhood, Crips-affiliated, and engaged in a violent conflict with a rival Blood-affiliated group called the Profit Boys.

Vancouver Police arrested five Zone 43 members in June 2024 and seized more than 24 kilograms of drugs following a 14-month investigation into the gang’s expansion into British Columbia. VPD Organized Crime Section head Inspector Phil Heard described Zone 43 as posing “a very significant risk to the public,” noting the gang had been operating in Vancouver for several years and was actively seeking to take over drug lines and territory.

In B.C., Zone 43 reportedly operates in affiliation with the Wolfpack Alliance.

The Wolfpack is where the Mexican transnational architecture emerges and intersects with Ryan Wedding’s Sinaloa Cartel networks, a U.S. government source told The Bureau.

The source linked the Wolfpack and Wedding associates to what investigators have called the Falkland superlab, a large-scale drug production operation in British Columbia’s interior. Canadian law enforcement and expert sources have separately identified connections between the Wolfpack network and Canadian outlaw motorcycle gangs, Iranian organized crime, and the Sinaloa Cartel.

As reported previously by The Bureau, starting in the fall of 2022, pressure at the U.S. southern border began pushing Mexican nationals — and, by inference, cartel operatives — northward into the Canadian pipeline. From January to mid-October 2022, 7,698 Mexican asylum seekers took direct flights from Mexico City to Montreal, according to The Canadian Press. Nonprofit refugee assistance officials said most flew to Canada because they had learned of the Trudeau government’s visa-free policy and the availability of financial assistance while refugee claims were processed.

In their 2021 book The Wolfpack: The Millennial Mobsters Who Brought Chaos and the Cartels to the Canadian Underworld, journalists Peter Edwards and Luis Nájera established that the Sinaloa Cartel had developed solid control of cocaine shipments in and out of Canada, that the Arellano Félix organization held a foothold in western Canada — particularly Vancouver and Alberta — and that the Zetas were present in Canada through networks involving temporary migrant workers.

Asked in 2023 whether Canada’s importance to Mexican organized crime had increased in recent years, Nájera was direct: “I would say it has increased since criminal cells moved up north to settle and expand operations here. It is also strategic to have groups operating north of the U.S. border, close to key places such as Chicago and New York, and without the scrutiny of the DEA and rival groups.”

Don Im, a former senior agent in the DEA’s Special Operations Division, told The Bureau the Montreal seizure fits a pattern his unit began tracking at the end of 2019, when small clusters of nitazene overdose deaths began appearing in northern U.S. states — likely, he said, sourced from Canada but manufactured with Chinese precursor chemicals. The pattern intensified through the COVID years before a gradual decline, which Im attributes to cheaper Mexican-produced fentanyl flooding the market and displacing the Canadian supply.

That displacement, Im argues, may now be reversing.

With Mexican cartels disrupted by a wave of extraditions and leadership deaths, the fentanyl supply from the south is under pressure — and demand in the United States hasn’t gone anywhere. “Non-Mexican drug trafficking organizations in Canada are very likely picking up the slack and fulfilling the demand in the U.S. as addicts and local distributors in the U.S. are looking online,” Im said.

On the Chinese supply chain behind the nitazenes, Im was precise: Chinese companies have been designing and manufacturing synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals for at least 25 years, directed by the Chinese Communist Party to reduce dependency on Western pharmaceutical companies and incentivized by provincial governments to innovate and export. The result, in his assessment, was a perfect storm — Chinese synthetic precursors, Mexican cartel distribution networks, dark web and social media sales channels, and decades of indifferent Western drug policy — that produced what he called “the most deadly form of slow-motion weapon of mass destruction.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 20:05

Lululemon Founder Blasts Board Again Amid Stock Collapse

Lululemon Founder Blasts Board Again Amid Stock Collapse

Lululemon Athletica founder Chip Wilson blasted the board in a fiery message to shareholders earlier and ramped up calls for activism as the athletic apparel retailer is set for a lost year, lagging behind competitors, losing market share, and entangled in multiple see-through-leggings quality-control controversies with customers.

The nearly 70% collapse in Lululemon's market capitalization from its late-2023 peak of $511 per share to the current $186 level, compounded by 1.5 months of quality-control issues involving see-through leggings making headlines, has compelled Wilson to publish yet another update for shareholders, urging much-needed change at the board level.

"In support of all shareholders, I am pursuing a campaign to catalyze a quantum of change that is sorely needed at Lululemon. To effect that change, I have pursued private, constructive dialogues with the Lululemon Board of Directors (the "Board") for the past few months. My attempts toward a sensible solution have not been reciprocated," Chip wrote in a message to shareholders on Friday.

Chip's core issue with the board is the lack of brand, creative, and marketing expertise, creating a disconnect between the yoga-maker's product and brand strengths and the board's ability to translate those into durable margins and long-term shareholder value.

He noted that the board ignored a reform framework in December that included three independent director candidates, adding that when the board finally responded more than 70 days later, the "response was weak and insufficient."

Chip continued, "While we have proposed changing three directors, our strong feeling is that more than three directors should be replaced."

In the third week of January, Chip blasted the board in a social media post over its "operational failure" involving the "Get Low" line, which was pulled from the e-commerce website for several days due to see-through quality issues before being brought back online. He said at the time that this came months after the failed launch of the "Breezethrough" leggings.

At the start of the year, UBS analysts led by Jay Sole warned that 2026 was shaping up to be a lost year for Lululemon.

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 19:40

Soaring Electricity Demand Meets Gas Turbine Shortage

Soaring Electricity Demand Meets Gas Turbine Shortage

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

  • AI-driven power demand is surging far faster than expected, but a shortage of heavy-duty gas turbines is creating a bottleneck.

  • Turbine makers like Siemens, GE Vernova, and Mitsubishi are ramping up production, but expansion projects could take up to 5 years.

  • Without enough gas capacity, AI growth could slow or grids may turn back to coal, potentially delaying coal plant retirements.

The surge in electricity demand in the world’s AI hotspots has prompted a comparable surge in the demand for reliable supply. That surge was not expected. There are not enough gas turbines to secure that supply. This means the AI revolution would either have to slow down, or the grid would have to increase its reliance on coal.

Natural gas has in recent years been marketed as a so-called bridge fuel between coal and oil, on the one hand, and wind and solar, on the other. When it became clear that “bridge” is in fact its own country of low-emission baseload generation, natural gas became the object of vilification from activists, to the point that some claimed it was even more harmful for the atmosphere than coal. Then came the AI race.

As Big Tech majors rush to expand their artificial intelligence capabilities and applications, demand for electricity is going through the roof. That jump, however, comes after decades of modest to no growth, reflected in gas turbine makers’ flat production.

Now, they are having to boost this really fast, really high. In the meantime, those with the insatiable electricity demand are having to make do with alternatives—including repurposed jet fuel engines.

Siemens Energy, one of the world’s top three gas turbine makers, earlier this month reported that its gas services business had seen a record quarter in orders, with a total of 102 new turbines in the backlog.

As much as 40% of these new orders came from the United States, and another 35% came from Europe. The report came after Siemens announced plans to invest $1 billion in grid equipment production.

GE Vernova, another turbine major, will be spending $600 million on turbine manufacturing capacity expansion, with an annual target of up to 80 heavy-duty turbines, equal to some 20 GW in generation capacity.

The company announced those plans a year ago, saying, “These strategic investments and the jobs they create aim to both help our customers meet the doubling of demand and accelerate American innovation and technology development to boost the country’s energy security and global competitiveness.”

Mitsubishi, the third Big Turbine manufacturer, said last year it would double its turbine production capacity in response to soaring demand.

The company’s chief executive noted that “We were working towards boosting production capacity by 30%, but that’s not enough to meet growing demand. Fulfilling those orders is our top priority.”

Yet all these plans take time to materialize, and industrial electricity consumers need it now, so they are converting jet engines to gas turbines. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the conversion of jet engine turbines to power generation turbines was a growing business enjoying a lot of investor interest. One such converting company, FTAI Aviation, had seen its shares gain 42% since it announced this new business, which takes just 30-45 days to convert a Boeing 737 jet engine into a power generation gas turbine.

Time is of the essence for the AI racers. The waiting lists for the big turbine makers are years long. But they need the electricity now because if momentum lets up, investors will flock out, or such appears to be the general perception in the AI space. Still, the turbine supply constraints may affect that momentum, according to some analysts.

“In the five-year period to 2030 that will supposedly be critical for the development of advanced AI, gas-fired plants will make a significant contribution to meeting increased US power demand,” Wood Mackenzie’s Vice Chair for the Americas, Ed Crooks, wrote in a recent opinion piece.

“But the availability of equipment, particularly heavy-duty gas turbines, is likely to remain a constraint on electricity supply growth, despite the new capacity being added by manufacturers,” Crooks also said.

He noted that the current wait time for new gas turbines was five years. This is definitely not fast enough for AI data center operators. Aircraft jet engines converted into gas turbines cannot be a complete substitute due to their much smaller capacity. And this means that either Big Tech loses momentum in AI, or it gets electricity right now, from somewhere else.

That ‘somewhere else” could be solar, for instance, at least according to pro-transition analysts. Yet even those analysts admit that this choice would also involve major investment in batteries—and backup generation capacity. To cut out the middle man, so to speak, tech companies may simply opt for the most readily available baseload capacity besides natural gas: coal. And this means that plans for the retirement of coal power plants are likely to be revised, according to Wood Mac.

Even with all that baseload generation, the AI racers may have to revise their own growth plans because there will not be enough electricity to go around, simply because of the physical laws of the world we all inhabit. And this, in turn, means that the race’s momentum will inevitably slow at some point.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 19:15

Vance Says 'No Chance' Strikes On Iran Would Become A Prolonged War

Vance Says 'No Chance' Strikes On Iran Would Become A Prolonged War

Just to underscore how close we are to witnessing an American military attack on Iran, this is the current scene at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport...

On Thursday Vice President JD Vance issued some curious and eyebrow-raising comments to The Washington Post regarding the looming prospect of unprovoked attack on Iran.

Vance asserted that there's "no chance" military strikes on Iran would result in the United States becoming involved in a prolonged war.

Speaking with The Washington Post on Air Force Two, he explained Trump is weighing military and diplomatic options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon - but Vance also sought to defend repeat promises previously given on the campaign trail which decried America's prior addiction to regime change wars and foreign quagmires.

"The idea that we're going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight - there is no chance that will happen," Vance said.

But if there's one thing the American public has learned after 20+ years of the so-called Global War on Terror, it's not to trust a politician when he says "trust me" concerning a 'limited' attack not becoming a disastrous entanglement.

Political leaders might say one thing, but Americans by and large hear another...

Vance is a Marine Corp combat veteran who has himself admitted he was "lied to" over the Iraq war, the architects of which were the Bush Neocons. Vance has at times even described himself as a "skeptic of foreign military interventions."

The VP further told the Post that "I think we all prefer the diplomatic option" - however, "it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say," he explained.

And yet there's no controlling Iran's response should the US send missiles on Tehran or its nuclear sites. The Iranians have vowed to retaliate hard and with no limits should attacks be unleashed. It has warned no US base in the region will be safe. So once it's bombs away, there's no putting the genie back in the bottle.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 18:50

Bad Bets: Massive EV Subsidies Not Paying Off

Bad Bets: Massive EV Subsidies Not Paying Off

Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,

The future was supposed to have arrived this year in a cluster of counties just east of Atlanta in the form of a state-of-the-art factory that would churn out 400,000 electric vehicles a year. But when JoEllen Artz looks about her lifetime neighborhood, all she sees are holes.

“Those shovel holes they made in the ground? That’s it,” she said of the planned site of a Rivian manufacturing plant. “It’s awful, awful.”

The problem is not a lack of funds. On the promise of thousands of jobs, elected officials in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta have pledged some $8 billion to the project, including a $6.5 billion loan the Biden administration green-lit in its final hours. 

Those loans are just two of the huge public bets, or investments, that state capitals and Washington, D.C., have made on EVs. While no one has calculated exactly how many federal and state dollars both Republican and Democratic elected officials have sent to that green sector, experts RealClearInvestigations consulted fixed the total north of $100 billion.

Overhanging that massive spending, however, is the issue of demand for EVs, or more precisely, the lack of it. In 2025, Rivian said it sold 25,000 EVs in the U.S., far below estimates of 40,000 to 51,000 vehicles. The company’s revenues were flat in 2024 and 2025, coming in around $5 billion. The Georgia plant was supposed to open this year, but the ribbon-cutting is now slated for 2028, according to the company. 

When it comes to electric vehicles, the U.S. consumer has spoken, as Ford CEO Jim Farley said earlier this month. Tesla is one of the few profitable manufacturers, and even its numbers are falling. But while people may not be opening their private wallets for EVs, the public purse for them is bulging. An RCI analysis has identified tens of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local subsidies to support EVs in recent years. Now, in light of market headwinds that show tepid consumer interest in the product and looming competition from China, the likelihood that the taxpayer loans will be repaid is diminishing. Experts say this may result in multiple, costly debacles of public “investments” in green energy projects like the Solyndra loan debacle during the Obama administration, which drew headlines at $500 million.

“This has been a colossal mistake,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research. “This has been one of the worst examples of the government trying to impose its will on carmakers and the public.”

Federal Commitments

Public spending on green energy projects, including EVs, began in earnest in May 2009 when President Obama, flanked in the Rose Garden by Detroit and United Auto Workers executives, unveiled his National Fuel Efficiency Policy. It was, the crowd insisted, “good for consumers, good for the economy, and good for the country.” 

There has been bipartisan support for many EV initiatives, and the sector got a huge boost during the Biden administration when funding linked to a NetZero future spread throughout the federal government. The bill goes well beyond the billions of dollars in tax credits the federal government provided to EV buyers until that program was ended last September, and includes school buses, postal delivery vehicles, charging stations, and the big manufacturing loans.

The Energy Department, for example, has spent more than $30 billion. That chunk comes from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing division. Prior to 2019, the ATVM, as it is known, had issued around $8 billion in loans to five different companies. Of those, Nissan repaid its $1.4 billion loan, while Tesla repaid its $465 million loan years ahead of schedule. A $5 billion loan to Ford remains active, but taxpayers lost nearly $210 million on loans to Fisker Automotive and Vehicle Production Group, both of which defaulted, according to the department. 

Since 2019, however, and especially after the new loan authority contained in the Inflation Reduction Act Biden and congressional Democrats pushed through via reconciliation in 2022, more than $21 billion has been approved for EV-related projects, records show. The $6.6 billion to Rivian was not the largest loan in that portfolio. Instead, a $9.6 billion loan to Blue Oval SK, a joint venture with Ford, for EV batteries and the EV supply chain production topped the bill.

At the Environmental Protection Agency, EV-related spending has topped $6.7 billion, with the lion’s share of that, $5 billion, in grants from its Clean School Bus Program to school districts to buy EV buses. 

The EPA has paid between $225,000 and $375,000 per EV school bus, which is roughly three times more expensive than a traditional internal combustion engine bus, and at those prices, it would cost more than $200 billion to replace the nation’s fleet. Such taxpayer largesse has been a boon to the bottom line of school bus manufacturer Blue Bird, but the EPA’s expensive program has suffered myriad setbacks, such as delayed deliveries, bus fires, route distances, and heating the buses in cold weather.

The U.S. Postal Service has spent an estimated $3 billion for EV vehicles in its fleet. A spokesperson said the Postal Service is in the midst of a $9.6 billion “investment” launched in 2022, but they declined to say how much of the remaining $6.6 billion has or would go to buying EVs. At the end of 2025, however, the Postal Service’s proposed EV fleet was running far behind schedule, with Republican Sen. Jodi Ernst ripping the plan as a “boondoggle.”

States Jump In

Some states have labored to force EVs into the market. More than a dozen of them have followed California’s lead, requiring at least 35% of cars offered for sale there annually be “ZEVs,” or “zero emission vehicles,” with all cars being ZEVs by 2035. This complicated, opaque system has made all cars more expensive, according to economists. Congress voted last year to kill California’s plan, but President Trump has not acted on that, and state officials have vowed to sue if he signs it.

On top of the costs of those market manipulations, which can be difficult to compute, are billions in direct state spending on EVs and EV-related projects. Both Republican and Democratic elected officials supporting these moves have done so on the grounds that it would provide an economic boost and be good for the environment.

Rivian, whose corporate communications did not respond to RCI’s request for comment, hasn’t only benefited from the Biden administration’s last-minute loan. In 2022, the state’s Republican leadership in Atlanta pledged up to another $1.5 billion – one of the largest incentive packages in Georgia history – including tax incentives, abatements, support programs, and more than $175 million for land acquisition and improvements. There has been an estimated $25 million in local incentives provided, too.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and House Speaker Jon Burns, both Republicans, attended the groundbreaking ceremony there last September.

“Today is another milestone in bringing quality, good-paying jobs to Georgians in this part of the state,” Kemp said.

The plan has seen repeated delays, however. Currently, Rivian builds its EVs at an Illinois plant, but the company has been losing roughly $39,000 per EV it sells.

Oversight of the sputtering EV project, which was announced in 2021 and is now slated to come online in 2028, has been given to the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton, and Walton counties, which did not respond to a request for comment. Opponents said that the maneuver protected the 2,000-acre site from local zoning restrictions.

The delayed timetable of factory construction, along with Rivian’s flat revenue and struggling sales, has led a group of six residents, including Artz, to step up their opposition to the project. They argue the massive construction could damage their water table, but their lawsuit against the plant lost in 2024, although they successfully battled Georgia’s attempt to make them pay legal fees.

“We’re frustrated as taxpayers,” Artz told RCI. “They’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this plant that doesn’t exist.”

In December, Tennessee lawmakers said they might renegotiate a $500 million payment they had offered the Blue Oval SK battery factory in Haywood County after Ford scaled back its EV venture. The joint venture’s new plans will likely involve 1,000 fewer jobs than initially announced in 2021.

In addition, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation noted another $8.5 million spent on EV buses and charging stations, although some of that money may have come from federal grants.

At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga EV factory, a labor dispute erupted with union workers last year after shifts were cut due to low sales numbers, although a tentative agreement on that was announced by the company this month.

The Wrong Incentives

EV supporters insist the vehicles are the future, and that American businesses and citizens need robust incentives to embrace technologies that will stave off the apocalyptic consequences of climate change. As with many other aspects of climate policy, backers have not only argued for the environmental benefits of EVs but have cast them as an economic boon that will create jobs and save consumers money. 

“The key is designing incentives that convert new buyers, not subsidizing people who were going to buy an EV anyway,” said Mike Murphy, CEO of EVs for All America, a nonprofit public-education group working to ensure the benefits of electric vehicles reach every community. “A first-time ‘conquest credit’ is simply a smarter use of taxpayer dollars because once somebody switches to electric, data shows 80% stay with EVs. That’s the win for preparing the US auto makers to be competitive in the future car business, which will be dominated by EVs."

Ingrid Malmgren, senior policy director of Plug In America, said the move away from EVs will have dangerous long-term consequences as it “favors a return to fossil fuels over the growth of a clean energy economy.” Malmgren said, “This essentially will shift taxpayer liabilities from funding clean energy and manufacturing jobs to funding fossil fuel subsidies.”

Critics of Biden’s policies counter that the promised benefits of such policies – in a world where China is now by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases – are dubious. What is clear is that tabulating all the ways the federal government props up the EV industry is a “herculean task,” the American Energy Institute concluded in a report last year, saying “the federal government is running roughshod over sound public policies.”

Institute CEO Jason Isaac said an accounting of the spending is long overdue.

“Taxpayers have spent tens of billions of dollars subsidizing electric vehicles through direct tax credits, manufacturing incentives, charging infrastructure grants, and a web of regulatory mandates that shift additional costs onto consumers,” he told RCI. The dense web of regulations and credits has made spending opaque and “allowed regulators to game the standards in ways that masked the true costs.”

Huge Losses

Outside of government work, the market for EV makers is grim. On Feb. 6, Stellantis announced a $26 billion loss on its EV business. Ford has never been able to entice buyers to an electric version of its F-150 pickup, which for many years has been the best-selling car in America, and two months ago announced it will absorb losses of $19 billion on its EV ventures through 2027. In an earnings call this month, Honda revealed big 2025 EV losses, which have now cost the company close to $5 billion.

In between those staggering hits came General Motors, whose Chief Executive Mary Barra has been an outspoken booster of EVs. Last month, General Motors announced a $6 billion write-off, which, added to previous losses, brings GM’s EV hit to $7.6 billion. The German carmaker Volkswagen has seen declining sales of its EV cars in the U.S. – they fell off a cliff in the last quarter of 2025 after federal payments for buyers ended. VW executives said last year the company remained committed to spending $180 billion on its EV ventures, a slight reduction from initial estimates, but its flagship model, the ID4, is the slowest-selling car in the United States.

The Trump administration would seem to be opposed to massive spending on EVs, as it has said repeatedly that it wants energy policy focused on resilient, reliable, and less expensive energy sources than the renewables that comprise NetZero plans. On Feb. 12, Trump announced he was revoking the Obama-era decree that classified greenhouse gases as a public health issue that should be regulated. That finding has been the main regulatory arch supporting the green energy policies that followed.

Yet it is still not clear what action, if any, the Trump administration will take regarding EVs.

At the Department of Energy, which the Biden administration repurposed as a spearhead in the NetZero drive, a spokesperson suggested little has changed as yet. As always, it can be difficult to pluck specific threads from a quilt of federal spending, but when it comes to EVs and EV-related projects, 

Trump energy officials did not identify any specific changes they have made to the Advanced Transportation and Vehicle Manufacturing program, although they indicated some could be in the offing. 

 “(The Office of Energy Dominance Financing) has completed the thorough review of each project in its portfolio, ensuring that every taxpayer dollar is used to advance the interests of the United States. The review is complete – the actions of de-obligating or revising loans and conditional commitments are still ongoing,” a spokeswoman told RCI. EPA officials said they were “actively reviewing and revamping the Clean School Bus Program.”

Although Biden’s Transportation Department had received wide criticism when news broke last year that it had constructed only eight charging stations as part of its $7.5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) plan, the Trump administration seems intent on spending that money.  

“In just five months since issuing revised NEVI guidance, Secretary (Sean) Duffy was able to obligate 39% more NEVI funds than the Biden Administration obligated in three years,” a spokesman said.

The most recent NEVI stats show some three dozen stations and 148 ports across 12 states, according to tracking by North Carolina State University.

The experts RCI spoke with said a tally of just what taxpayers have provided the EV industry should be made, but agreed that no one has successfully done so.

Similarly, just how much of this spending could be wasted in an industry that has enjoyed government support remains to be seen. But if some of the projects fail, the $500 million lost on Solyndra, which created a scandal at the time, will seem like small beer.

“There have been massive, mounting losses that are going to have to be made up somewhere,” Pyle said. “Washington bludgeoned carmakers into a timetable of efficiency standards and the carmakers went along with it. People should be vehemently opposed to anything mandatory, which in effect is what the government is doing.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 18:25

Democrats Slam Democrats For 'Rigging' Democrat Primaries

Democrats Slam Democrats For 'Rigging' Democrat Primaries

The party that won't stop lecturing America about democracy is once again rigging its own primary by endorsing - thereby biasing voters - towards certain candidates over others. On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) endorsed 12 candidates through its “Red to Blue” program to help Democrats win back the majority in the House of Representatives.

“Today, the DCCC announced the first slate of 12 top-tier candidates added to its highly competitive ‘Red to Blue’ program for the 2026 cycle,” the committee said in a statement. “This initial group of candidates will receive strategic guidance, staff resources, training, and fundraising support to ensure they are in the best possible position to win in November.”

The committee describes the “Red to Blue” program as a “highly competitive and battle-tested DCCC program that arms top-tier candidates with organizational and fundraising support to help them continue to develop strong campaigns.” 

Candidates earn spots in the program by hitting aggressive benchmarks for grassroots engagement, local support, and fundraising. 

Now, 17 Democratic congressional candidates are accusing the party's own campaign arm of torching the integrity of the 2026 primary process by interfering with the primary.

According to a joint statement from the snubbed candidates, this early backing by the DCCC “carries significant influence in the primary process —often shaping fundraising pipelines, access, and perceived viability before voters have had the opportunity to evaluate the full field.”

The statement highlighted mounting frustration among Democratic candidates nationwide, who are concerned about the increasingly aggressive pattern of early primary intervention by the DCCC, “a trend they say risks weakening voter trust and diminishing the role of voters in selecting their own nominees.”

 "Primaries are not an inconvenience, they are the foundation of democratic legitimacy," the candidates said. 

In multiple states and districts, party leadership has signaled preferred candidates well before voters have had the opportunity to evaluate the full field. Through early infrastructure support, fundraising advantages, and institutional backing, these actions show that outcomes are being shaped before ballots are cast.

[…] 

Candidates emphasize that their concern is not opposition to party infrastructure or general election strategy. Rather, they argue that legitimacy in the primary depends on fairness and openness in the months prior. 

“You cannot argue that democracy is on the ballot in November while narrowing democracy in the primaries from now through August,” the candidates who were passed over argue. “If a candidate is strong, they should be able to earn support in open competition. Protecting them from competition is not confidence.”

DCCC Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene defended the committee's picks with an answer that probably made the dissidents even angrier. "These are all strong candidates, they're the ones who are going to be the general election candidate and they're the ones that we think can win the general election," she said. 

"We are just six months away from the primary,” Knapp pointed out. “And it's incredibly frustrating.”

He added. “This is precisely what we've been voicing concerns about as Democrats for years, and it appears we are repeating the same mistakes." 

Democrats have faced accusations of rigging elections for years. Last year, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) blasted his own party, accusing Democratic leaders of rigging elections and shutting down any semblance of a fair primary process. He even agreed with the assessment that the party has become “a threat to democracy.”

Sanders showed real grassroots momentum in his 2016 and 2020 presidential bids, but party effectively blocked his path to victory both times. The perception that entrenched establishment figures moved to stop him from upending the status quo has never really gone away — and Sanders himself all but confirmed it. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 18:00

Border, Ballots, Birthrights: Top Supreme Court Cases To Watch

Border, Ballots, Birthrights: Top Supreme Court Cases To Watch

Authored by Joseph Lord, Stacy Robinson, Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court is poised to hear arguments on major constitutional and legal issues over the next several months.

The Supreme Court in Washington on Feb. 21, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times Birthright Citizenship

One of the term’s most consequential cases arises from a class-action lawsuit alleging that the president violated the 14th Amendment by withholding citizenship for children of illegal immigrants. The case, Trump v. Barbara, is set for oral argument on April 1.

The clause of the 14th Amendment at issue guarantees citizenship to people “born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Trump, on his first day back in office, issued an executive order that calls for officials to deny citizenship documents to children if their mothers were unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States, and their fathers were not citizens or lawful permanent residents.

In 2025, multiple lower courts issued rulings blocking implementation of the executive order, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The courts said that it violated the amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

In the 1898 case, the Supreme Court said the amendment guaranteed citizenship for a Chinese man whose parents were permanently domiciled in the United States but were not U.S. citizens.

Lower courts have said that the decision’s reasoning lent itself to guaranteeing citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. The administration disagreed, arguing that the decision and the 14th Amendment indicated parents should have some kind of allegiance to the United States.

Attorneys also told the Supreme Court that even if Trump’s order complied with the 14th Amendment, it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law uses the amendment’s language to guarantee citizenship for people “born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

The attorneys said that law was understood in the 20th century to include the children of illegal immigrants. The Justice Department said instead that the law’s meaning “depends on what the Citizenship Clause actually means, not what Congress thought it meant.”

The entrance to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services location where a New York City Council data analyst and Venezuelan national was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while making an immigration appointment, in the Long Island town of Bethpage, N.Y., on Jan. 14, 2026. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters Mail-In Ballots

In Watson v. Republican National Committee (RNC), the Supreme Court will consider whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

This case has its origins in 2020, when Mississippi amended its state law to authorize counting mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked by that day. In 2024, the RNC and others alleged Mississippi violated a federal law that defines “Election Day” as “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.”

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, meanwhile, argued that the Elections Clause of the Constitution—which broadly allows states to choose the “manner” of their elections—protected the law.

After the RNC’s initial suit in 2024, a district court ruled in favor of Mississippi. Later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned that ruling, prohibiting Mississippi from accepting late-received ballots.

The Supreme Court accepted Mississippi’s appeal and scheduled oral arguments for March 23.

Election workers receive drop boxes for hand delivered mail-in ballots for processing at the Clark County Election Department after polls closed in North Las Vegas on Nov. 5, 2024. David Becker/Getty Images Gun Rights for Drug Users

Ali Danial Hemani was charged in 2023 with violating a federal law that prohibited firearm possession by individuals who unlawfully use controlled substances.

Hemani, who admitted to smoking marijuana approximately every other day, challenged his indictment, arguing that the wording of the statute was too vague and violated the Second Amendment.

In the case U.S. v. Hemani, the Supreme Court is set to reexamine its 2022 precedent in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. There, the court said laws restricting the right to bear arms are constitutional only when they are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The government has argued that the law at issue in Hemani’s case is “analogous to founding-era laws restricting the rights of drunkards.” Hemani’s attorneys disputed that comparison, arguing that “habitual drunkard” laws targeted people who regularly abused alcohol, not people who regularly drugs or alcohol, such as Hemani.

Oral arguments for the case are scheduled for March 2.

A visitor inspects a gun at the National Rifle Association Annual Meeting & Exhibits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas on May 17, 2024. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Asylum at US–Mexico Border

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument on March 24 over the Obama administration’s policy of turning away asylum-seekers before they cross the southern border.

Although the Biden administration rescinded that policy, the Supreme Court is reviewing the results of prior litigation with consequences for future border enforcement. The main question in the case, Noem v. Al Otro Lado, is whether migrants have officially arrived in the United States if they stop on the Mexican side of the border.

A group of 13 asylum-seekers and an immigrants’ rights organization sued in 2017. They  alleged the policy violated federal laws allowing migrants to apply for asylum and to be inspected by an immigration officer if they arrive in the country.

One of the laws states that “any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum regardless of his or her legal status.

The Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the plain meaning of arrival meant physical presence. It is asking the justices to reverse a 2024 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In a 2–1 decision, it ruled that noncitizens are considered to have arrived if they encounter a border official. The court said, among other things, that one of the relevant laws distinguished between physical presence and arrival, suggesting that some arrivals might not be physically present.

U.S. Border Patrol agents process illegal immigrants from Central America near Roma, Texas, on Aug. 17, 2016. John Moore/Getty Images FCC Penalties

The Supreme Court will hear two cases on April 21 involving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposing fines on wireless carriers for sharing customer location data without consent.

In 2024, the FCC imposed nearly $200 million in fines on major telco firms, including $57 million on AT&T and nearly $47 million on Verizon.

The companies argued that the fines, which were investigated, decided, and ordered in-house at the FCC, violate their right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment.

Their cases—FCC v. AT&T and Verizon Communications v. FCC—are building off of a landmark decision from 2024. In that case, the Supreme Court said the Securities and Exchange Commission had to provide a jury trial if it wanted to impose civil penalties.

For the FCC, federal law allows the agency to issue a forfeiture order with a penalty. In response, the company can either pay the penalty and seek review in an appeals court, or it may refuse to pay, prompting the agency to potentially refer the issue for prosecution in a jury trial.

Because Verizon chose the first option, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said its rights weren’t violated. Rather, it passed on its opportunity for exercising those rights. AT&T similarly paid the penalty, but the Fifth Circuit said the prospect of a future trial wasn’t enough.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 17:40

Iran Reportedly Agrees To Give Up Nuclear Material In Breakthrough: 'Peace Deal Within Reach'

Iran Reportedly Agrees To Give Up Nuclear Material In Breakthrough: 'Peace Deal Within Reach'

Update(1737ET): Absolutely huge late Friday developing news, if it's confirmed and assuming it sticks, via CBS: "Iran has agreed to give up its stockpile of enriched material - zero accumulation - and allow for full verification by the IAEA of its nuclear program according to US-Iran talks mediator, Oman's foreign minister Badr al Busaidi."

The Iranian side also seems to be confirming its willingness to make this significant concession, also to stave off a massive US attack, given the immense build-up of Pentagon assets in the region. According to more breaking details via CBS:

Negotiators from the U.S. and Iran have made "substantial progress" toward a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi told CBS News on Friday, as President Trump considers strikes on Iran.

Albusaidi — who has mediated several rounds of U.S.-Iran talks over the last month — told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan that a "peace deal is within our reach." 

He said Iran has agreed that it will "never, ever have … nuclear material that will create a bomb," which he called a "big achievement." The country's existing stockpiles of enriched uranium would be "blended to the lowest level possible" and "converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible," according to Albusaidi.

President Trump had just before the headline hit struck a cautious and ambiguous tone, describing that Iran "does not want to go quite far enough" and for now it's "too bad" as the White House is not yet "happy with Iran negotiations".

It's still very premature at this point to point to any kind of 'done deal' - but this at least signals US strikes are unlikely to come this weekend, also as Rubio is still expected in Israel early next week.

But the pressure campaign is continuing, and with this new, strange designation - which no one will really notice:

* * *

After the third round of indirect US-Iran talks held in Geneva on Thursday, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi - who was the chief mediator - cited "significant progress" - which echoed the generally positive assessment of the Iranian side.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi initially declared, "We reached agreement on some issues, and there are differences regarding some other issues. It was decided that the next round of negotiations will take place soon, in less than a week."

He acknowledged that it was the most "intense" round yet, but still a "mutual understanding" was reached to "continue to engage in a more detailed manner on matters that are essential to any deal – including sanctions termination and nuclear-related steps." But there has been no deal, and Washington's attack plans are still in preparation phase.

via AFP

It must be recalled that President Trump said a week ago Tehran had two weeks to agree to Washington's terms, and so the clock is ticking as the huge American military build-up in the region continues.

The latest statement by FM Araghchi issued Friday lays out that the Trump administration must drop its "excessive demands" for a nuclear agreement to take place.

"Success in this path requires seriousness and realism from the other side and avoidance of any miscalculation and excessive demands," Araghchi reportedly said in a call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.

There are reports that Washington may have actually dropped the ballistic missile reduction demand (or is at least not pressing it), but is still demanding zero enrichment, and that all remaining enriched uranium in Iran's stockpile be transferred to US custody. In the process, the US wants to see Iran further dismantle the damaged nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

The Wall Street Journal reported soon after Thursday's talks wrapped up that no deal was reached, and that Tehran negotiators balked at the nuclear demands.

"Iran rejected the idea of transferring uranium stockpiles abroad. It also has objected to ending enrichment, dismantling its nuclear facilities and permanent restrictions on its program, Iranian state media and people familiar with the talks said," WSJ wrote.

Are the negotiations just a smokescreen to put all military assets in place before the big (unprovoked) attack?

With the next round (the fourth) of talks set to be held in Vienna this coming Wednesday, there remains the possibility that Trump could order some kind of strikes between now and then. Such an operation could be 'limited' - but there's no guarantee that Iran's response will also be limited in terms of the inevitable retaliation.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 17:39

SpaceX Readies IPO Paperwork For March, Targeting $1.75 Trillion Valuation

SpaceX Readies IPO Paperwork For March, Targeting $1.75 Trillion Valuation

SpaceX is preparing to confidentially file for an initial public offering as early as next month, people familiar with the matter said, advancing plans for what could become the largest listing ever, according to Bloomberg.

The Starbase, Texas-based rocket and satellite company is expected to submit draft IPO paperwork to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in March, potentially positioning it for a June debut. That timing would make it the first in a possible wave of mega-offerings, with OpenAI and Anthropic PBC possibly following.

Deliberations are ongoing and plans could shift, the people cautioned, noting the filing could still be postponed.

Bloomberg writes that some of the people said SpaceX may pursue a valuation above $1.75 trillion, speaking anonymously because discussions are private. The company recently acquired xAI, Elon Musk’s AI venture, in a February deal valuing the combined business at $1.25 trillion, Bloomberg News reported. A confidential filing would allow SpaceX to receive regulatory feedback and revise disclosures before they are made public. A representative for the company did not immediately comment.

The IPO could raise as much as $50 billion, which would exceed Saudi Aramco’s record $29 billion offering in 2019. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, SpaceX would rank behind only five members of the S&P 500 Index — Nvidia Corp., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. — and would surpass Meta Platforms Inc. as well as Musk’s Tesla Inc. by market value.

In a memo, SpaceX said it is preparing for a possible 2026 IPO to finance an “insane flight rate” for its developing Starship rocket, space-based artificial intelligence data centers and a lunar base. The company has tapped Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley for senior underwriting roles and is weighing a dual-class share structure that could grant insiders, including Musk, enhanced voting control, Bloomberg News has reported.

The most prolific rocket launcher globally, SpaceX leads the industry with its Falcon 9 vehicle, transporting satellites and astronauts into orbit. It is also building toward a lunar foothold before ultimately pursuing Musk’s long-stated goal of sending humans to Mars.

Through Starlink — a vast network of low-Earth orbit satellites — the company has become the dominant provider of space-based internet, serving millions worldwide.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 17:20

'Sense-Making Seems Impossible...'

'Sense-Making Seems Impossible...'

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

The Man Who Might Wreck the Country

“That a government’s primary responsibility is to its citizens should not be a controversial proposition.”

- Coddled Affluent Professional on X

The zeitgeist is a rough beast, hard to ride as it slouches into the unknown.

Our country is trying to hang on while a party of goblins vexes and needles the beast from behind, and you cannot make them stop.

Sense-making gets to seem impossible.

We don’t have an explanation from Senate Majority Leader John Thune as to why he will not do what is within his power to do: pass election reform, known as the SAVE Act, by changing the filibuster procedure. At midweek Sen. Thune said Republicans were “not unified on pursuing a talking filibuster.” Understand that bringing back a real filibuster, with continuous speech in the well of the Senate, only requires the Majority Leader’s say-so, meaning Mr. Thune is prevaricating, concealing the truth.

Senator Mitch McConnell shadows Majority Leader John Thune

Which might be that he does not want to pass election reform. It appears he wants to set up the midterm elections with the now-familiar kit of unverifiable mail-in ballots, millions of non-citizen motor-votes, and dragged-out vote-counting so that Democrats will seize control of the House (if not the Senate) in order to crank-up the impeachment machine again and finally get rid of President Trump. It does not look like anything else, certainly not any kind of cunning game.

What might change that would be an FBI analysis of the 2020 election year ballots, voter rolls, and vote tabulation tapes recently extracted from the Fulton County, Georgia, Elections Hub, leading to indictments. They’ve had this mass of material for a month. There was already plenty of preliminary evidence of fraud from earlier investigations — which is how come U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia found probable cause to approve a search warrant for the FBI.

They must have an idea by now of what the evidence shows. It’s not that complicated.

There’s no fixed statutory timeline for a referral. The FBI can pass along the matter to the DOJ for prosecution whenever they determine the evidence is sufficient. Referrals are customarily secret, as they occur during ongoing investigations and involve sensitive, non-public information. DOJ policies emphasize confidentiality in pre-charging stages to protect investigations, potential witnesses, sources, and the integrity of any future prosecution. In general, the public learns of an FBI referral only indirectly — through later developments like indictments, or news media reporting via “sources.”

Criminal referrals on the Fulton County case might have already been made, and indictments might be forthcoming. That would have to prompt some kind of attitude adjustment for Senate Majority Leader Thune on behalf of election reform. It could happen at any time. It would at least put Senator Thune between a rock and a hard place. It’s well-understood that at least 80-percent of people polled want the SAVE Act passed.

There is no debating position that reasonably argues against it. You might have noticed that Mayor Mamdani of New York City called for volunteers to shovel snow in the latest blizzard, and that anyone who stepped-up was required to show two types of photo ID to work the job. Yet, Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), aligns with the party’s longstanding opposition to voter ID laws, including the SAVE Act. No need to go figure on that. It’s just arrant dishonesty.

The president emphasized clearly why the Democrats are against election reform in this week’s State of the Union speech: because the party can only win elections by cheating, by employing massive systematic fraud. He said it so that everybody tuned-in could hear it, and the Democrats just sat stone-faced on their side of the chamber — and that was only minutes after they refused to stand for the proposition that the government’s main job was to act in the interest of American citizens.

It’s unlikely that the president can alter election procedure himself, through executive order or by declaring some kind of national emergency. Any attempt would be instantly litigated and shut down by the judiciary. The Constitution assigns primary authority over the “times, places and manner” of elections to the states (with only Congress able to alter them by law).

Either Senator Thune will do his duty or not. He must have some self-awareness that he risks going down as the greatest villain in our history, the man who wrecked the country. Does anything like personal honor still exist in this land?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Fri, 02/27/2026 - 17:00

Pages