Zero Hedge

Judge Halts Construction Of ICE Detention Center In Maryland

Judge Halts Construction Of ICE Detention Center In Maryland

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

Federal authorities must stop construction of an immigration detention center in Maryland, a judge said on March 11.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, left, speaks as Gov. Wes Moore listens during a news conference in Baltimore, MD., on Sept. 24, 2024. Stephanie Scarbrough/AP Photo

U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson imposed a temporary restraining order halting construction of the center near Williamsport in Washington County.

Maryland officials recently sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over the facility, alleging authorities did not perform required steps under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), such as an environmental review.

“The State has shown that Defendants likely failed to comply with their obligations under NEPA,” Hurson said. “Defendants do not appear to have taken a ‘hard look’ at the potential environmental consequences of their plans for the Williamsport Warehouse.”

Hurson said that there is no evidence that authorities completed an environmental impact statement or environmental assessment, as is generally required under federal law. He said that the “slight inconvenience of a delay in construction” was outweighed by “ongoing and possible future irreparable harms” that the state faced absent a restraining order.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

The temporary restraining order is in place for two weeks.

Such orders can be rescinded by judges, allowed to expire, or upgraded to preliminary injunctions or blocks that remain in place as litigation proceeds.

DHS purchased a 54-acre warehouse in Williamsport for $102 million in January and was set to begin converting it into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on March 6 as the government ramps up efforts on immigration enforcement, including deportations.

Planned work included installing perimeter fencing, installing exterior lighting, and modifying the sanitation system, according to a government notice.

The conversion was described in a complaint from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown as likely to harm Maryland’s natural resources and environment, including local waterways and endangered species.

He also said that authorities did not conduct an environmental review before carrying out construction and had provided little information about their plans to the state.

DHS has not yet filed any documents in the case.

“Today a federal court handed Maryland a critical victory, stopping construction that threatened our waterways, endangered species, and communities before irreversible harm could be done,” Brown said in a March 11 statement.

“Though temporary, this ruling stops the construction of this massive immigration detention center while our lawsuit continues to play out in court. We will not let DHS and ICE rush through the proper legal process in their haste to ramp up deportations. We will keep fighting to make sure the law is followed and Marylanders are protected.”

Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 15:20

Musk Whips Out 'Macrohard' In Disruptive Tesla-xAI Bid To Shaft Software Companies

Musk Whips Out 'Macrohard' In Disruptive Tesla-xAI Bid To Shaft Software Companies

Elon Musk on Wednesday announced a joint project between Tesla and his AI startup xAI, which he dubbed "Macrohard" or "Digital Optimus" that can 'basically automate entire companies' by observing and intelligently simulating their functions. 

The way it works, per a Wednesday post on X: 

"Grok is the master conductor/navigator with deep understanding of the world to direct digital Optimus, which is processing and actioning the past 5 secs of real-time computer screen video and keyboard/mouse actions. Grok is like a much more advanced and sophisticated version of turn-by-turn navigation software."

So Digital Optimus is the 'instinct' while Grok is the 'thinking part of the mind' according to Musk. 

The setup will run "very competitively on the super low cost Tesla AI4 ($650) paired with relatively frugal use of the much more expensive xAI Nvidia hardware," and "will be the only real-time smart AI system." 

"In principle, it is capable of emulating the function of entire companies. That is why the program is called MACROHARD, a funny reference to Microsoft." -Elon Musk

It gets even more wild; Musk says it works "in all AI4-equipped cars, so your car can do office work for you when not driving," and he will deploy millions of dedicated Digital Optimus units at Supercharger stations.

Grok itself suggested 10 use cases;

1. Auto data entry from invoices/docs. 
2. Real-time code fix from error messages. 
3. Deal hunting while shopping online. 
4. Contextual email response generation. 
5. Seamless enterprise software ops. 
6. Auto video edits from timeline. 
7. Live stock trade execution. 
8. Tutorial step automation. 
9. Instant security threat spotting. 
10. Entire company workflow emulation. 

According to Musk, Digital Optimus will be ready to rock in 6 months. 

xAI was acquired by SpaceX last month in an all-stock deal that valued the rocket maker at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, which comes ahead of a potential SpaceX IPO later this year. 

h/t Capital.news

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 15:00

US Knows Location Of Most Iranian Sleeper Cells Inside America, Trump Says

US Knows Location Of Most Iranian Sleeper Cells Inside America, Trump Says

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump said on March 11 that his administration knows the location of most Iranian sleeper cells in the United States.

President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on March 11, 2026. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Joint U.S.–Israeli strikes killed many top leaders in Iran, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and denigrated the country’s military, prompting concerns that Iranian undercover terrorist cells, or sleeper cells, may act inside the United States.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz have both publicly warned of a heightened risk of terrorism in recent days.

When asked about reports of an internal government bulletin warning of an Iranian cell in California and a question regarding how many sleeper cells are in the United States at the moment, Trump said, “We know where most of them are; we’ve got our eye on all of them,” adding that “a lot of people came in” through the border policies of the previous administration.

Earlier this month, Abbott warned of potential sleeper cells in Texas after a Senegalese man fatally shot three people and injured more than a dozen people at a bar in Austin, Texas. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the man, Ndiaga Diagne, was wearing clothing featuring an Iranian flag and the words, “Property of Allah.”

Earlier this week, Cruz told a reporter that the “risk of terrorism right now is quite high” as he made note of the Austin shooting and another alleged terrorist attack in New York City over the past weekend.

In the New York incident, two people were arrested following the attack in which improvised explosive devices were thrown.

On March 12, Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued his first statement on the conflict in the Middle East, saying that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz should be used as leverage, and that attacks on Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors will continue. Mojtaba Khamenei, who is the son of Ali Khamenei, has not yet made a public appearance.

The statement from Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV, said that the “will of the people is to continue effective defense, and their presence on the scene must be maintained.” He added that the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil and natural gas transport, “must remain closed.”

A banner depicting the Iranian regime's new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, on March 11, 2026. Khoshiran/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Khamenei said he will “will not abandon the pursuit of justice for the blood of our martyrs,” according to PressTV. “The revenge we seek is not limited to the martyrdom of the great leader of the revolution but extends to every member of the nation who is killed by the enemy,” he added.

Earlier on March 11, Trump said the war with Iran is “not finished yet.” He said that Tehran’s air force and navy have been destroyed, adding there will be “more of the same” coming to the country.

“Right now, they’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost their air force. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all,” he said. “They have no radar. Their leaders are gone, and we could do a lot worse.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 14:40

Apparent Vehicle-Ramming Attack And Active Shooter Situation Unfolds At Michigan Synagogue

Apparent Vehicle-Ramming Attack And Active Shooter Situation Unfolds At Michigan Synagogue

FBI Director Kash Patel says agents are at the scene of what appears to be a vehicle-ramming attack and an active shooter situation at Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan.

Local media outlet WXYZ reports that the incident at Temple Israel Synagogue occurred around 12:30 p.m. local time. The synagogue is located off Walnut Lake Road near Drake Road in West Bloomfield.

The Jewish Federation of Detroit said it is aware of a "security incident" at Temple Israel.

Here's the statement:

"We are aware of a security incident at Temple Israel. We are advising all Jewish organizations to go into lockout protocol - nobody in or out of your building. More information to follow."

Statement from Michigan State Police:

"We are asking community members to stay away from the area to allow for a police response. Troopers are also increasing patrols at other places of worship in the district."

The attack comes as U.S. terrorism fears run high amid 12 days of U.S.-Israeli bombing in Iran.

*Developing...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 14:00

Social Security Payment Adjustment Predicted To Be 2.8 Percent In 2027, Group Says

Social Security Payment Adjustment Predicted To Be 2.8 Percent In 2027, Group Says

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A seniors group said it is forecasting the cost-of-living adjustment for next year’s Social Security payments to remain steady at 2.8 percent as U.S. officials released the latest consumer inflation data on Wednesday.

Blank Social Security checks are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia, Pa., on Feb. 11, 2005. William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

The Senior Citizens League on Wednesday released its forecast adjustment for 2027’s Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments.

“That would be the exact same as last year’s COLA of 2.8 percent, a far cry from the 8.7 percent COLA issued in 2023 to help benefits keep pace with pandemic-related inflation, which seniors continue to see as a top issue,” the group said, according to a news release.

Government inflation data for the months of July, August, and September compiled by the Social Security Administration (SSA) is used by the agency to produce the COLA for the next year’s payments. The SSA usually announces the COLA in October following the release of September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) data.

Last month, the group also predicted a 2.8 percent COLA for next year’s payments, which would be the same as the COLA that went into effect for 2026.  

The seniors league said that with “lagging COLAs and Social Security’s funding creeping into dangerous territory,” it has found that many seniors have “lost faith in Congress” to act on the program. It also said it found that three in four seniors don’t believe Congress will be able to act on reports saying that Social Security will go insolvent by the early 2030s.

“Even before potential benefit cuts, most seniors think their benefits are falling behind inflation,” the league said Wednesday, citing its own research. Some 58 percent of seniors think inflation will increase their spending and deplete their retirement savings early.

Previously, the group has called for the SSA to stop relying on the Consumer Price Index for Americans who are aged 62 and older, known as the CPI-E. The SSA uses the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, to calculate the payment adjustment.

“Years of lackluster COLAs and a looming Social Security insolvency crisis, with its 24 percent automatic benefits cuts, puts a double squeeze on seniors,“ said Senior Citizens League Executive Director Shannon Benton in a statement Wednesday. ”Older Americans already feel like their benefits don’t keep up with inflation, so this risks putting them further and further behind, pushing many into poverty.”

Earlier in the day, the CPI report from the Labor Department rose 0.3 percent last month after gaining 0.2 percent in January. In the 12 months through February, the index advanced 2.4 percent, matching January’s increase, and reflecting last ​year’s high readings dropping out of the calculation. The increase in the CPI was in line with economists’ expectations.

The inflation data released Wednesday covered a period before the United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran, prompting the country to fire missiles and drones at its oil-producing neighbors and threatening to cut off the crucial Strait of Hormuz. The attacks, which were launched on Feb. 28, have boosted oil and gas prices.

Data from AAA show that the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline increased to $3.58 on Wednesday, or an increase of around 4 cents from Tuesday. The price is up around 35 cents from a week ago and more than 60 cents from a month ago.

*  *  * FLASH SALE ON BRAIN RESCUE! Save up to 40%.  Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 13:40

Solid 30Y Auction Stops Through Despite Drop In Foreign Demand

Solid 30Y Auction Stops Through Despite Drop In Foreign Demand

After two mixed coupon auctions this week, including a subpar 3Y and a strong 10Y, moments ago the Treasury concluded the week's coupon issuance when it sold $22BN in 30Y bonds in another solid auction. 

The paper priced at a high yield of 4.871%, above the 4.750% in February and the highest since last July's 4.889%. It also stopped through the When Issued 4.878% by 0.7bps, the 4th consecutive stop through in a row.

The bid to cover was 2.452, down from 2.662 but above the recent average of 2.452.

The internals were a tad weaker, with Indirects buying 63.4% of the auction, down from 69.9% in February and below the six-auction average of 66.6%. Directs took down 27.2%, higher than the average 23.0%, and Dealers were left with 9.36%, up from last month's record low 5.88% but below the recent average 10.4%.

Overall, this was a solid if not stellar 30Y auction, which considering the mauling the long-end has been subjected to - note the 10Y is now trading at 4.24%, up sharply from 3.97% two weeks ago - it was a very respectable result.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 13:21

Bitcoin Has A Golden Opportunity With AI Agents, It's Time To Build

Bitcoin Has A Golden Opportunity With AI Agents, It's Time To Build

Authored by Matt Carallo via BitcoinMagazine.com,

For all of bitcoin’s life, it has been fighting an uphill battle against fiat currencies that mostly do the job of being money. Obviously, fiat has plenty of issues, but when it comes to impacts immediately visible to everyday people in much of the world, bitcoin isn’t 10x better. Some may even conclude that they would prefer a system based on neutral money to government-rigged ones, but entrenched fiat systems work well enough that few want to deal with the hassle of constant conversion. With the rapid growth in agents’ capabilities, a huge gap has opened that bitcoin has a shot at filling. Instead of competing with entrenched interests as you would with fiat, in the agentic payments field, everyone is starting from zero.

In a recent post on Spiral’s Substack, I pointed out that all of the payment standards being developed for AI agents haven’t yet gotten off the ground. Credit cards won’t work in a world where automated tooling is making purchases. The web is filled with captchas and heavy investments in blocking bots, rather than enabling their use for commerce. Even if they offered payment methods that agents could use, few merchants today have websites that agents can reasonably navigate. No matter what payment method agents ultimately use, it will require every merchant to adapt to a new world.

With no one company owning both the agent and merchant sides of the marketplace, this leaves a wide-open opportunity where it’s still anyone’s game. Better yet, with the popularity of open-source agents today, no company owns much of the purchasing side at all! If the bitcoin community plays its cards right, there’s a good shot at a large part of the future of commerce flowing over open rails not controlled by any single company.

There’s still a lot to build, however, and nearly every payments industry player is trying to position itself to take the crown. Visa is working on an “Intelligent Commerce” product, OpenAI and Stripe announced the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), Google announced AP2 and Coinbase announced an extension of it for crypto – x402. The bitcoin community’s lack of central planning makes responding with their own options more chaotic and harder to follow, but that’s also its strength: lots of people trying lots of different approaches to achieve the same goal are more likely to succeed than a single, focused approach that might be wrong.

With Lightning surpassing a billion dollars in monthly transactions and Square enabling Lightning for its in-person merchants, it seems the technology is finally here that will let bitcoin cross the chasm and become everyday money. Some ideological merchants have been accepting bitcoin for years, and as we continue to integrate bitcoin wallets into agents, we’ll create yet more reasons for every merchant that wants to sell things to join in. But for that to work, bitcoiners have to step up and use the tools at their disposal. If people aren’t trying to buy things with bitcoin, merchants won’t care.

Luckily, these days, you don’t need code to build tools that find merchants accepting bitcoin payments. You don’t even have to sell your stack to buy things with bitcoin. Install an agent, give it a wallet, give it some bitcoin, and tell it to go buy your monthly beef tallow subscription. Tell it to email merchants it wants to buy from and ask them to support bitcoin. Point it to the Bitcoin Merchant Community and have it explain to any merchant it comes across that it wants to pay them without Visa taking a cut but wasn’t able to.

Thanks to extensive existing work, bitcoin is already one of the best ways to enable automated online commerce. Instead of merchants having to fill their sites with captchas to prevent bots from using stolen credit cards and dealing with chargebacks, many bitcoin payment processors can provide merchants with local currency within a day. Instead of being exposed to the risk that an operator’s single private key could seize their stablecoins, merchants can choose from many payment processors, whether foreign or domestic. This competition drives down fees and means we’re not building new payment rails on a platform that will inevitably seek higher rents once its dominance is cemented.

These issues aren’t top of mind for most, but we must get the new rails right. Stablecoins look great at first glance, but moving to a world where one company (Coinbase) owns both the platform (Base) and earns all the interest on the currency’s float (USDC) where payments are made is not a recipe for long-term success. Once everyone is locked into using one payment method, switching away as the operator increases fees won’t be practical. It doesn’t matter whether the protocol agents use to communicate with merchants is based on some “open standard.” If the vast majority of agents have funds on only one platform and the vast majority of merchants accept funds on only one platform, switching will be impossible.

While bitcoin has come a long way on its journey to becoming a reserve asset, it is only beginning its path towards everyday money. Bitcoin reaching escape velocity on the first does not imply that the second is guaranteed; in fact, far from it. With so much competition from every payments industry player, not to mention stablecoins, there’s a lot of outreach and work to be done to build payment momentum. Still, we can’t let this opportunity pass us by. If you believe commerce should happen on neutral money rather than corporate gatekeepers, it’s time to get to work.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 13:00

Foreign Hacker Cracked Into FBI's Epstein Files In 2023, Was 'Disgusted' At Child Sexual Abuse

Foreign Hacker Cracked Into FBI's Epstein Files In 2023, Was 'Disgusted' At Child Sexual Abuse

A foreign hacker broke into a server at the FBI's New York Field Office and 'compromised files relating to the FBI's investigation of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein' in 2023, Reuters reports. 

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffery Epstein in 2019. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

According to the FBI, the intrusion was an "isolated" cyber incident - though not to be confused with a different cybersecurity oncident involving a sensitive internal network used to manage wiretaps and FISA warrants. 

"The FBI restricted access to the malicious actor and rectified the network. The investigation remains ongoing, so we do not have further comments to provide at this time," the agency said in a statement. 

Reuters' source claimed that the intrusion 'appeared' to be carried out by an individual cybercriminal as opposed to a foreign government (source: trust us bro, we're here to help). 

The New Hack

The official story: The hack occurred after a server at the Child Exploitation Forensic Lab in the FBI's NY Field Office was inadvertently left vulnerable by Special Agent Aaron Spivack - who was attempting to figure out how to handle digital evidence within the bureau's system. 

A timeline written by Spivack and included in the large cache of Epstein documents released earlier this year said the break-in happened ​on February 12, 2023. It was discovered the following day when Spivack turned on his computer and discovered a text file warning him that his network had been compromised, according to that document.

Further investigation turned up traces ‌of unusual activity ⁠on the server, the document said, adding that the activity "included combing through certain files pertaining to the Epstein investigation.” -Reuters

The report does not say which specific files were accessed, whether the hacker actually downloaded anything, or who the hacker was, nor could Reuters determine what overlap, if any, the affected files had with the recent DOJ Epstein file drops.

The hacker expressed 'disgust at the presence of child abuse images on the device and left a message threatening to turn its owner over to the FBI,' not realizing that they had accessed the actual FBI. They eventually convinced the hacker, who joined a video chat where they flashed their law enforcement credentials in front of a web camera. 

Spivak says he's being made "a scapegoat for the intrusion," and that conflicting FBI policies and poor guidance around informational technology were to blame.  

Interestingly, Spivak was mentioned in an Epstein files email from after the financier's death, which was sent to multiple recipients. In, someone says:

Hi team,

Aaron Spivak from the FBI (cc'd) has a new file for the Maxwell case that he needs to send to us. Would one of you please coordinate with him to get it via USAfx, then let me know when we have it?

Thanks so much,

EFTA00154980

The FBI breach was first reported by CNN and Reuters on February 17, however the Epstein connection was made by the French magazine Marianne. 

Epstein, who was recording his many 'guests' according to photos and testimony, pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from an underage girl, and was later found dead in his jail cell in 2019 after his prison guard googled him shortly before he was found, after depositing so much cash in her bank account that the bank filed suspicious activity reports. Then there was that mysterious 4chan post 38 minutes before Epstein's death had been officially announced - not only announcing the death, but suggesting that Epstein was 'switched out.' 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 12:40

Deutsche Bank Dumps After Flagging $30 Billion Exposure To Private Credit

Deutsche Bank Dumps After Flagging $30 Billion Exposure To Private Credit

Yet another canary in the ever growing coalmine that is private credit appeared this morning as Deustche Bank's annual report flagged a significant €26 billion ($30 billion) exposure to private credit, an asset class that’s grappling with fund redemptions, scrutiny of underwriting standards and the impact of AI on some borrowers such as software makers.

As the slow-motion train-wreck gathers steam (most recently with Morgan Stanley, Cliffwater, and BlackRock gating investors in their private credit funds), investors are searching various financial entities balance sheets for exposures with the giant German lender itself warning:

"Failures of a select number of sub-prime lenders in the U.S. increased investor focus on risks associated with private credit and raised wider concerns around underwriting standards and fraud risk."

The report showed the private credit portfolio increased to €25.9 billion of loans at amortized cost, from €24.5 billion in 2024. Its loan exposure to the technology sector, including software, accounts for €15.8 billion at amortized cost, up from €11.7 billion.

Bloomberg reports that the lender said it is not exposed to "significant risks" related to non-bank financial institutions, but that it could face potential indirect risks through interconnected portfolios and counterparties. While identifying private credit as a "key risk", the report did not mention any losses or provisions tied to the private credit exposure, which represents about 5% of its loan book. 

Bloomberg reports that, according to people familiar with the matter, the German firm is part of a group of lenders who, since last month, have been unable to sell about $1.2 billion of loans backing the acquisition of a software provider in a rare hung deal.

Deutsche Bank shares are down 8% on the day (the biggest drop since Liberation Day , last April) to their lowest since July 2025...

Finally, to really comprehend the scale of this crisis - which, for now, is being forced off the proverbial front-pages of market coverage by the impact of Trump's Iran War - everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask is here... and remember, we've seen this pattern before...

Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 12:00

Why Constant Talk Of TACO Is Likely Wrong, With Both Sides Escalating

Why Constant Talk Of TACO Is Likely Wrong, With Both Sides Escalating

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The only way out of this crisis is through

We warned 2026 would tell 2025, which revolved around tariffs, ‘Hold my beer’: yesterday, the US launched two new Section 301 trade investigations, and it hardly registered in the headlines even if it could lead to higher, court-immune US tariffs this summer vs China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Switzerland, and Norway.

The focus is instead on Iran and Hormuz, as Brent oil tests towards $100 a barrel this morning. As also warned, things are going to escalate before any de-escalation on those fronts. Ignore that “There's "practically nothing left" to target in Iran”; balance news that US intelligence says Iran’s government is not at risk of collapse with reports suggesting potential cracks forming in it; and above all heed our underlying geopolitical logic, echoed in the Wall Street Journal, that ‘Ending Iran War Quickly Carries Big Risks for the US and Allies’ because “Leaving the regime undefeated could motivate Tehran to develop nuclear weapons and leave it in control of much of the world’s energy flows.” That’s why constant talk of TACO is likely wrong, and both sides are escalating.

The Iranians hit three ships in Hormuz yesterday, as Tehran warned the world to get ready for $200 oil while boasting of new underwater anti-ship weapons. It also struck two oil tankers at port in Iraq, which has seen those key facilities taken out of action. That means another immediate drop in global oil supply while expanding the field of danger for oil flows far wider than Hormuz: could the Saudi Red Sea pipeline to Yanbu be targeted too, making everything exponentially worse? Meanwhile, Iran is able to get its oil out of Hormuz. Tehran also expanded the war into the cybersphere in hacking a US company, and the FBI warned Iranian drones could even hit California’s coast(!)

The US bombed harder and warned Iranian ports are targets if the military uses them. Impotently, the UN Security Council demanded Iran halt attacks on Gulf states; somewhat less so, perhaps, G7 leaders agreed to examine the option of escorting ships to navigate freely through Hormuz - yet that would drag all of them into a shooting war with Iran. (It also comes just after von der Leyen was forced to walk back suggestions that the EU should sometimes look to its own self-interest, rather than just following the letter of international law, if it wants to be a geopolitical actor.) Elsewhere, after Hezbollah and Iran attacked Israel jointly, the IDF pounded Beirut, warned parts of it will ‘look like Gaza’ if such strikes don’t stop, and ordered reinforcements north for a potential broader invasion of Lebanon.

Against this, the IEA oversaw a record release of oil reserves. However, that flow vs the lack of physical supply in Asia already looked like a plaster on a shotgun wound, to quote our energy analyst Joe DeLaura before Iraqi oil ports were taken offline, which is another cartridge fired into the same injury. Indeed, Bloomberg reports some refineries are turning down available oil because they are forced to pay a huge premium over ‘market’ rates; Australia’s top fuel sellers are halting spot sales on tight supply and are only dealing with regular customers; freight rates are sky-rocketing, e.g., a South Indian firm has seen quoted air-freight costs double, while containers via ship have jumped 630% and for refrigeration by 900%, with real fears of no bunker fuel ahead. South Korea is warning that without helium supplies, it won’t be able to keep making semiconductors – the same is true for all global producers outside the US. 

Moreover, Chris Cook, a former regulator and director of the International Petroleum Exchange, is deeply sceptical about the huge plunge in oil prices on Monday that reversed the earlier record spike. He posts: “This episode is a macro-market ‘goose’/manipulation --an inverse April 2020-- facilitated by the smartest guys in the room and financed (Fed liquidity) & funded (China Treasury collateral) by the same state actors. Ends middlemen era & begins #EnergyDominance paradigm.”

As Joe (on oil) and Florence Schmit (on LNG) note in their latest note on the Iran crisis: “We suspect that the $120 mark will be retested again if the SPR barrel releases are debated over for some time and not implemented immediately while the conflict drags on with no outlet for energy supplies. Our current base case going forward is as follows: we expect that the Strait will remain fully closed through the end of March. We believe that April, May, and June will see the slow return of tankers to the world market via the US insurance guarantees plus US naval escorts of some kind.” And perhaps with G7 help – though that remains to be seen.

In short, the only way out of this crisis is through. Through Hormuz. Through Iranian resistance. Through violence. Anything that happens in the financial, not the physical, space is ultimately irrelevant vs. that dynamic.   

Meanwhile, the Japanese press underlines that China’s Xi is torn between his long ties with the Khameneis and US relations. Indeed, we are approaching a critical tipping point. Will China, looking to the upcoming Xi-Trump meeting, help the US to resolve this crisis via pressure on Iran, even if it means that it loses Tehran as a regional ally – and for what geopolitical quid pro quo? Or will it back the regime, along with Moscow, and escalate across different dimensions and geographies?

On that note, amongst a multiplicity of factors, consider that while China has stocks of key goods and Iranian oil can still flow to China for now, helium, sulphur, and fertiliser can’t, and China can’t keep exporting to the rest of the world (excluding the US) if it’s all sucked into an economic crisis. Beijing also prizes stability. Yet to say there’s a lot riding on the US-China angle, which most commentators have belatedly explained this Iran war is all about, is an understatement.

Yet there are other things worth noting today – really:

Ukraine has reached a milestone: making ‘China-free’ drones. It’s now supplying anti-drone tech and know-how to the Gulf. That shows how supply chains can shift if one wants, and how an understanding of how to use, and resist, applied violence is key to success in the current world order. Indeed, Zelenskyy just told Trump, via Politico, to put more pressure on Putin, ‘not on me’.

In France, the far-right presidential candidate Bardella’s main rival, former PM Édouard Philippe, risks crashing out of 2027 race if he loses an upcoming local election to a Communist challenger, which, following local election results in Germany, says a lot about political polarisation and rules-based orders even before we get any fat tail inflation risks from the current Iran crisis.

And traditionally free-market Hong Kong now has its first 5-year plan… to develop its role as a global financial hub.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 11:45

In From The Cold Already: Putin Envoy Met With US Team On Energy Markets Crisis

In From The Cold Already: Putin Envoy Met With US Team On Energy Markets Crisis

With the globe's attention focused on the now almost two week long ongoing Iran war, Moscow is busy in the sidelines making strides to improve bilateral relations with the United States, while demonstrating how vital Russia is to global energy markets.

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's directly appointed special envoy, held a meeting in the US "with the heads of the working group on economic cooperation between Russia and the United States," according to his Telegram statement and fresh reporting in Bloomberg.

Dmitriev and US officials discussed "promising projects that could contribute to the restoration of Russian-American relations, as well as the current crisis in global energy markets" - according to the top Kremlin official's statement.

The US-Russia meeting comes on the heels of Washington having declared a temporary ease in targeted energy sanctions earlier in the Iran conflict, allowing India to buy Russian oil currently stranded at sea.

The US Treasury Department Secretary described the one-month waiver as a "deliberate short-term measure" to allow oil to keep flowing in the global market, in an effort to free up millions of barrels of oil and gas stuck in transit near the Strait of Hormuz. 

The ongoing blockage of the strait impacts nearly half of all Indian oil and gas imports. Meanwhile, overnight Reuters has reported that "Iran has laid about a dozen mines in Strait of Hormuz, sources say."

Amid the energy market mayhem and deep uncertainly, Dmitriev is offering Russia as a key partner in stabilizing the energy crisis:

"Many countries, especially the United States, are beginning to better understand the key, systemically important role of Russian oil and gas in ensuring global economic stability, as well as the ineffectiveness and destructive nature of sanctions against Russia," Dmitriev stated.

With the Iran war and energy in the foreground, the over four-year long Russia-Ukraine war has largely receded into the background, in terms of global media coverage.

Moscow likely sees this as a great advantage - no longer facing the same avalanche of pressure and daily Washington condemnation. Now, it's more likely to be that the Trump administration needs Russia if it hopes to manage oil prices and the fallout from Trump's Iran gambit. 

Dmitriev has also recently stated that everything happening with oil prices demonstrates that "sanctions do not work and are counterproductive."

*  *  * FLASH SALE ON BRAIN RESCUE! Up to 40% off today only. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 11:30

Trump Set To Suspend Jones Act To Help Tame Oil Prices

Trump Set To Suspend Jones Act To Help Tame Oil Prices

One day after the Trump administration flip-flopped on using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) - eventually deciding to release 172 million barrels to try and counter the rising price of oil, they're now planning to issue temporary waivers for a century-old maritime law, the Jones Act, that requires American-built ships to be used to transport goods between US ports, in yet another attempt to control crude. 

Under the plan, 30-day waivers would be issued that would allow foreign tankers to help supply refiners on the East Coast with fuel from the Gulf Coast and elsewhere, according to Bloomberg.

The US government can temporarily waive the Jones Act, but it cannot permanently lift it without Congress. The law requires that goods transported between US ports be carried on ships that are US-built, US-flagged, and US-crewed. However, under the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 framework, the administration can grant temporary waivers if it determines they are necessary for national defense or in response to emergencies, typically through coordination between the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Defense.

Such waivers have been issued several times, for example after major hurricanes to allow foreign tankers to move fuel between US ports. Combining a release from the SPR with a temporary waiver of the Jones Act would make the policy more effective. Without a waiver, limited US-flagged tanker capacity could constrain how fast SPR barrels reach key refining centers or deficit regions.

The US last issued a waiver for the Jones Act in October 2022 for a tanker heading to Puerto Rico to deliver supplies following Hurricane Fiona. The Biden administration temporarily eased the law in 2021 for refiner Valero Energy Corp. following a cyberattack on a major East Coast fuel pipeline in 2021.

This builds directly on earlier reporting that the administration was actively reviewing options to combat the oil price spike, including lifting Jones Act requirements to ease domestic shipping bottlenecks and get Gulf Coast supply to high-demand coastal areas faster. In related comments, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated that the administration was not considering imposing restrictions on exports of U.S. energy as a way to control prices, aligning with President Trump's approach to prioritize increasing domestic supply flows and international coordination over export curbs that could disrupt global markets.

Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 11:00

Nearly 20% Of House Hunters Looking To Relocate: Report

Nearly 20% Of House Hunters Looking To Relocate: Report

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In the fourth quarter of 2025, 18.8 percent of house hunters across the United States were looking to relocate to a different part of the country.

A house for sale in Washington on May 19, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

This was up from 17.9 percent a year back and 15.9 percent five years ago during the COVID pandemic period, real estate brokerage Redfin said in a March 10 statement.

During the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the average weekly mortgage rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage mostly hovered around 2.5–3.5 percent, according to Freddie Mac. Pandemic-fueled remote work was also common. These factors drove many people to relocate, the brokerage said.

Mortgage rates began to climb in the following years, hitting a peak of 7.79 percent in October 2023. In January 2025, rates hit 7.04 percent and have been declining since. For the week ending March 4, the rate was 6 percent.

“Migration from one part of the country to another ticked up in 2025 as mortgage rates eased and more homes came on the market. While home sales were still slow, more buyers and renters were able to relocate,” Redfin said.

“Remote work also remains more common than it was before the pandemic, allowing more Americans to relocate for affordability or lifestyle reasons without changing jobs.”

Sacramento, California, was the most popular metro destination for relocation. This was followed by Las Vegas, Nevada, and Florida’s Cape Coral-Fort Myers, North Port-Sarasota, and Miami.

Los Angeles topped the list of metros with the most homebuyers leaving. This was followed by New York, San Jose-San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago.

State-wise, Florida was the top destination, with South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, and Tennessee listed as other popular destinations for homebuyers in the fourth quarter, according to Redfin.

Meanwhile, housing sales and affordability are showing signs of improvement. According to a March 10 report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), existing home sales rose by 1.7 percent month-over-month in February.

Moreover, NAR’s Housing Affordability Index improved for the eighth consecutive month in February. The index hit a value of 117.6, the highest level since March 2022.

In a March 10 post on X, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner highlighted the improvement in housing affordability, crediting President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.

In January, the president signed an executive order restricting Wall Street companies from buying single-family homes nationwide. The same month, he ordered the purchase of $200 billion in mortgage bonds, a move expected to lower mortgage rates and reduce monthly payments.

The Trump administration is also considering introducing 50-year mortgage terms to lower monthly payments, issuing a national housing emergency declaration to speed up development, and opening up federal lands for construction.

While housing affordability is improving and “consumers are responding,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said the nation still has a long way to go to return to pre-pandemic levels of housing transaction activity.

There are over 6 million more jobs than in 2019, yet home sales per annum are down by 1 million units, Yun said.

The economist also raised concerns about inventory growing at a sluggish pace. “If demand picks up notably in the coming months and outpaces supply growth, home prices will inevitably rise,” he said. “That is why increasing supply is so important to help limit home price growth, improve housing affordability, and boost transactions.”

In a March 4 report, real estate platform Zillow suggested that the housing market was starting to “regain confidence.”

Home values rose for the first time in seven months in February, together with existing home sales improving on an annual basis, Zillow said. Lower mortgage rates have aided in boosting the purchasing power of buyers by roughly $30,000 over the past year for a median-income household.

“Zillow expects 2026 to be the first year of meaningful sales growth since 2021. A sustained dip for mortgage rates below 6 percent could provide a psychological boost that prompts more buyers and sellers to return to the market,” the report said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:40

"The Situation Is Dire": Half Of Available Global LNG Tankers Are Trapped In The Persian Gulf

"The Situation Is Dire": Half Of Available Global LNG Tankers Are Trapped In The Persian Gulf

There are thousands of ships in the global oil tanker fleet, by some estimates nearly as many as 9000 (and that excludes sanctions vessels). Just a fraction of these are either waiting to enter the blockaded straits of hormuz, or to leave it. 

By contrast, the global LNG fleet is a tiny fraction, and now most of it is stuck inside the Persian Gulf. 

According to the WSJ, at least 20 LNG carriers a bout half the available global fleet – are trapped in the Persian Gulf, with daily freight costs soaring as demand from Asia surges, according to ship brokers. Bloomberg lists the known LNG tankers which are currently transmitting their positions as follows:

  1. Al Rayyan
  2. Al Kharaitiyat
  3. Umm Al Amad
  4. Lebrethah
  5. Gaslog Skagen
  6. Sohar Lng
  7. Disha
  8. Al Daayen
  9. Mubaraz
  10. Al Sahla
  11. Rasheeda
  12. Patris
  13. Seapeak Bahrain
  14. Fuwairit
  15. Mihzem
  16. Mraikh
  17. Al Ghashamiya

Most are located just off the UAE coastline:

“The situation is dire and will have a lasting impact on the market, regardless of how quickly the conflict ends,” Kostas Karathanos, the chief operating officer of Athens-based Gaslog, which operates 34 gas carriers, told The Wall Street Journal.

Some 20% of global LNG exports come from Gulf countries. At the moment, however, only a handful of ships can get through the Strait of Hormuz, and production facilities like those operated by QatarEnergy have been attacked and have stopped production.

Ship brokers said the 20 ships trapped in the Persian Gulf make up nearly half of all LNG ships currently available for charter, with daily rates rising to more than $200,000 from less than $98,000 before the start of the Iran hostilities.

Energy traders expect LNG prices to rise by early next week, adding to this week’s 40% rise in Asia and Europe. “The effect on LNG shipping will outlast the conflict for a few months,” Karathanos said.

Amid the scramble to procure LNG, more shipments bound for Europe are diverting to Asia. At least nine cargoes initially headed to Europe have changed course to Asia since the start of the fighting, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, with the trend accelerating in recent days. A buffer of spare supply is quickly drying up, threatening more competition and higher prices for both regions.

Adding to the turmoil, LNG suppliers, including Shell Plc, are declaring force majeure for customers across Asia due to halted flows from the Middle East, according to people with knowledge of the matter. This illustrates a growing ripple effect throughout the global gas market.

With virtually no available tankers to transport cargoes, Asian buyers of LNG are preparing for the war in the Middle East to disrupt deliveries for months, Bloomberg reports. 

Companies in Thailand are looking to buy LNG cargoes for delivery through May, according to traders with knowledge of the matter.  Bangladesh bought shipments for April, and is considering procuring fuel for May onward as well, the traders said. Major buyers in Taiwan and South Korea are also preparing to purchase more supply for those two months.

The moves demonstrate that Asia’s importers aren’t relying on a swift resolution to the US-Israeli war against Iran, and that the outage in Qatar, which supplies 20% of the world’s LNG. is expected to be prolonged. The longer the plant is shuttered, the worse the supply shock as there’s no alternative route to export the fuel, nor spare capacity elsewhere to cover the lost output.

Companies need to make contingency plans to prepare for a 2 to 4 months disruption, Dai Jiaquan, chief economist at CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute, said at a BloombergNEF Summit in Beijing on Thursday.

Qatar shut the Ras Laffan export facility last week after an Iranian drone strike, upending the market and sending the price of gas in Europe and Asia soaring. A number of companies, including Shell Plc, have declared force majeure on their shipments of Qatari LNG to customers in Asia.

At least nine LNG shipments bound for Europe have rerouted to Asia since the fighting began, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, after Asian buyers offered higher rates than their rivals in Europe.

Meanwhile, Taiwan - which desperately needs LNG for conversion into helium, a critical component to to make Taiwan Semi's chips - has started securing alternative LNG for May, cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee said at a briefing in Taipei on Thursday. The island has fully secured supply for March and April, Lee added.

India, which sources about half its LNG from Qatar, has been scrambling to procure alternative shipments for immediate delivery, traders said. Gail India Ltd. was able to book an LNG cargo for March on Tuesday after a few failed attempts, while others are still looking, they said.

*  *  *

Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:20

"Please, Please, Please": Denmark's Energy Minister Begs Citizens To Stop Driving As Global Energy Shock Spreads

"Please, Please, Please": Denmark's Energy Minister Begs Citizens To Stop Driving As Global Energy Shock Spreads

Iran launched another round of overnight strikes on tankers and Gulf energy infrastructure, sending Brent crude back above $101/bbl and sparking fears that chaos in the Middle East has triggered what the IEA warned could be the largest-ever supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

"The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market," the IEA said on Wednesday.

With the record release of SPRs by IEA members announced on Wednesday, failing to halt Brent from re-entering triple-digit territory, Denmark's energy minister issued a dire warning to citizens across the Scandinavian country, urging them to immediately conserve fuel and electricity.

"What the Danes should please, please, please do is, if there is any energy consumption that you can do without—if it is not strictly necessary to drive the car—then don't do it," Lars Aagaard, Denmark's minister for climate, energy, and utilities, told local broadcaster DR in an interview earlier today, quoted by CNBC. 

Aagaard said energy shock has driven the country to rely on its oil reserves amid "towering oil prices," with no end to the conflict in sight.

We detailed the overnight chaos across the Gulf region in our geopolitical wrap titled, "Sixth Ship Struck: Oil Tops $100 As Tanker Attacks Escalate Hours After Trump's 'We Won.'"

"Firstly, it can be felt in the private wallet, and secondly, it can help stretch our reserves so that they last longer," Aagaard said.

Related:

Energy conservation warnings have also emerged in the U.K., Vietnam, and the Philippines as governments and industry groups try to curb fuel demand and protect domestic reserves to weather the energy crisis.

*  *  * Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:00

Eat The Rich: Sanders And Khanna Introduce Federal Billionaires Tax

Eat The Rich: Sanders And Khanna Introduce Federal Billionaires Tax

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“Enough is enough.” With those words, Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt) launched a push to impose a 5% annual wealth tax on America’s billionaires. With Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Cal.), the legislation, “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” echoes the growing “eat-the-rich” mantra on the left — seeking to replicate a disastrous push in California that has led to an exodus from that state and an estimated loss of $2 trillion in taxable assets.

It is also flagrantly unconstitutional.

Under the plan, Congress would target 938 billionaires to tap them for $4.4 trillion. That money would then be redistributed as a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman, and child in a household making $150,000 or less – $12,000 for a family of four.

The timing of the move is telling. Not only is it calculated before the midterm elections, in which the Democrats hope to retake power, but it follows the push by California Democrats and unions to impose a similar wealth tax in that state.

Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, has supported the state law, which includes a ruinous provision for startup entrepreneurs. The law would not only be retroactive to try to trap wealthy taxpayers who have fled the state, but also base wealth calculations on the voting shares of corporate executives. Often, with start-ups, entrepreneurs hold greater voting shares than actual ownership. However, just in case they need more incentive to leave the state, they will be taxed as if their voting shares represented actual wealth.

The practical problem is that the wealthy, like their wealth, are mobile. As a result, many are fleeing California. So now Khanna is joining with the nation’s leading Democratic Socialists to ensure there is nowhere to hide in the United States.  For billionaires in California, they could be double-tapped for ten percent of their wealth.

It has long been the dream of the far left. Years ago, Sen. Elizabeth Warren delighted Democratic voters in her run for the presidency by telling the rich she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” In one debate, she dramatically rubbed her hands together after saying she would take some of the wealth of fellow candidate John Delaney, a self-made millionaire.

In my book, “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I discuss the growing threat of “economic factionalism” as politicians fuel rage against the wealthy based on the false premise that they are not “paying their fair share.” While there are good-faith arguments for adjusting tax burdens to address budget demands, the top 1 percent pays more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined.

There is little reason to believe that a wealth tax targeting billionaires will not, if upheld, be later extended to lower tax brackets, starting with multimillionaires. That is the signature of economic factionalism, which feeds an insatiable appetite for greater wealth seizure.

The Sanders-Khanna plan is notable in its express commitment to direct wealth redistribution. It also explains why the left has made the packing of the Supreme Court a priority. As Harvard professor Michael Klarman explained years ago, the radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election” requires control of the Supreme Court to uphold such measures.

The problem is that the Constitution bars the implementation of such a federal wealth tax. When the 16th Amendment was ratified, it allowed for federal income taxes, and only income taxes: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

The effort to expand federal taxation beyond income taxes will require either a constitutional amendment or an enabling, packed Court.

Nevertheless, these politicians will continue to dangle wealth distribution before voters. They will demonize figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk for their wealth while ignoring that these same figures are wealth and job creators, driving our economic growth. Instead, Sanders declared that “Billionaires cannot have it all.”

The irony of Rep. Khanna (who has been floating a run for President in 2028) turning on his own constituents in Silicon Valley underscores the appeal of wealth-redistribution campaigns. He is turning the very heart of his state’s economic growth as state deficits and out-of-state migration increase.

For Sanders, the legislation is a key moment to advance his long-standing socialist agenda. He declared the beginning of the end of “unprecedented income and wealth inequality” in the United States through such redistribution. The stated objective of erasing wealth inequality highlights how this is just the start and the end of wealth taxation.

As discussed in Rage and the Republic, none of this is new. Countries like France previously targeted the wealthy, triggering an exodus of taxpayers and their businesses from the country. It had to reverse its policy as the economy collapsed.

Of course, many young people have no memory of such failures in the 20th Century. Instead, they are drawn to the very same soundbites used in France and Great Britain before disastrous experiments with socialism. With no experience with socialist economies, figures like socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani can entice voters to “the warmth of collectivism.”

There are legitimate concerns over the glaring and growing wealth gap in the United States. However, a wealth tax is neither a constitutional nor a practical way of addressing the problem.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 09:40

Tehran Denies Mining Hormuz, But Says War Isn't Ending Soon

Tehran Denies Mining Hormuz, But Says War Isn't Ending Soon

Summary:

  • Iran's top security official to Trump: 'we will not relent until you are sorry'

  • Oil pares gains after report that Iran lets some ships cross strait, denies mining Hormuz

  • Bloomberg: Trump admin set to temporarily suspend Jones Act shipping rules to help cool rising oil prices.

  • Ayatollah Mojtaba in first public message says the closure of the Strait of Hormuz should be continued as a tool to pressure the enemy

  • Mojtaba vows to keep attacking US bases, and signals 'new fronts' could soon open

  • President Trump simultaneously says the US is stopping Iran "from having Nuclear weapons" and "destroying" the Middle East and "the World".

  • Shipping turmoil escalates as multiple vessels (at least six) struck overnight

  • Brent crude oil prices top $100 amid "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market," the IEA reports.

  • Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the US Navy is not yet ready to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as military assets remain focused on degrading Iran’s offensive capabilities.

  • Dubai suffers significant drone attacks

  • Northern Israel hammered by Hezbollah, "largest wave" of missiles since war began

  • IDF says it struck key Iranian nuclear development site

  • US Intel assesses Iranian regime remains intact

  • Oman port operations halted

  • Trump proclaims "we won"

*  *  *

Update(1205ET): Some fresh development impacting closely watched oil prices:

OIL PARES GAINS AFTER REPORT IRAN LETS SOME SHIPS CROSS STRAIT

IRAN ALLOWED SOME SHIPS TO CROSS STRAIT, DEPUTY FM SAYS: AFP

IRAN DEPUTY FM SAYS NOT LAYING MINES IN HORMUZ STRAIT: AFP

IRAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER TAKHT-RAVANCHI SPEAKS TO AFP

Reuters reports say at least a dozen explosive mines have been put in shipping lanes. As for Iran's denial, this doesn't mean the war shows signs of immediately stoppage, instead per the AFP:

Iran wants to ensure that a war will not be imposed again on it in the future, deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told AFP, as the conflict raged with the United States and Israel. "We want to see that war is not going to be imposed again on Iran," said Takht-Ravanchi in an interview in Tehran.

"When the war started last June, after 12 days there was so called cessation of hostilities... but after eight or nine months, they regrouped and they did it again."

*  *  *

Update(0940ET): Coming near in time to each other Thursday morning, President Trump and Iran's Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued public statements. This marks the first public statement by supreme leader Mojtaba since replacing his slain father. The statement has been posted to Iranian state TV sources, and below are the most crucial remarks.

Mojtaba says the closure of the Strait of Hormuz should be continued as a tool to pressure the enemy. He additionally states that "all US bases should immediately be closed in the region and those bases should be attacked." Indeed these attacks have been ongoing this week, as the cross Gulf drone and missile strikes continue, also reportedly most recently in northern Iraq, and around Erbil. On the question of base attacks, he claimed that Iran "only" targets military bases and sites, and says this will continue. However, he did try to assure angry Gulf neighbors, who have been pummeled by Iranian missiles and drones for close to two weeks now, that Iran believes in "friendship with our neighbors". The message further praises 'martyrs' of the Islamic Republic and is one that emphasizes Iran is not backing down, despite the immense daily US-Israeli bombings. He also 'thanked' regional militias for their 'support' - at a moment Shia Iraq militant groups are said to be launching strikes on US targets inside neighboring Iraq. Ominously, the new Ayatollah is warning of opening "other fronts".

Click, add to cart, get it done...

As for President Trump, he's still seeking to try and calm global oil prices, posting "The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money. BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stopping an evil Empire, Iran." This once again echoes lines from the Bush era war in Iraq. He also said he's stopping Iran "from having Nuclear weapons" and "destroying" the Middle East and "the World".

WTI Crude as the rival messages went out almost simultaneously:

An earlier Thursday threat from Iranian leadership:

*  *  *

Brent crude futures in Asian trading jumped above $101/bbl overnight, despite news of a planned record emergency SPR release by the International Energy Agency's 32 member countries, in an effort aimed at capping triple-digit oil prices.

Today's focus is on reports that IRGC forces struck two foreign oil tankers in the Gulf area, bringing the total to six vessels hit over the past 24 hours. Iranian kamikaze drones also struck an energy export hub in Oman, while IRGC naval mine threats in the Strait of Hormuz soared by midweek.

The Wall Street Journal reported that two oil tankers were struck in Iraqi waters. The U.K. maritime security agency UKMTO also said a containership was hit off the coast of Dubai, adding to earlier reports that three cargo vessels were struck around the Strait of Hormuz area. Also worth recalling is the dramatic video from yesterday showing an IRGC drone slamming into a critical tank farm in Oman.

The market reaction to the overnight hostilities, as Operation Epic Fury rages on this week and IRGC forces lob missiles and bombs at Gulf states, was a surge in Brent crude futures to the $101 handle.

The insane videos of tanker attacks just keep coming...

Goldman's Rich Privorotsky on the overnight energy market moves: 

A series of attacks across the Gulf has sent oil up nearly another 10% (fading to up 5%), with Brent back briefly through the $100 level. The move in products looks even more acute, with distillates leading. Quite telling yesterday that, after yet another Whitehouse jawbone and the IEA’s record reserve release announcement, oil still failed to come in meaningfully. Overnight  Reuters reported, “Iran has laid about a dozen mines in Strait of Hormuz, sources say” … if that is confirmed it's not quickly reversible.

 Goldman expects longer disruptions on the Hormuz chokepoint:

Here's where things get even more complicated: Six commercial vessels and oil infrastructure in the Gulf area were hit in IRGC strikes, and attention is now shifting to another critical maritime chokepoint.

Overnight, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency warned that the Houthis in Yemen and other Iran-backed groups could move to shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

The overnight chaos sent Brent crude back over $101/bbl, but it has since fallen to $96/bbl by 0630 ET. This comes after the IEA's 32 member countries agreed on a "record" 400 million barrel release to cap energy prices. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that the U.S. will contribute 172 million barrels. As we explained to readers on Wednesday, this SPR dump is likely to have only a minimal impact.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump told supporters in Kentucky last night that Operation Epic Fury was effectively over almost as soon as it began. "It's just a question of when—when do we stop?" he said.

"Let me say we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won, in the first hour it was over, but we won," Trump said.

He added, "We don't want to leave early, do we? We've got to finish the job."

It is clear that U.S.-Israeli operations have dealt a major blow to the IRGC's conventional military capabilities, but the lingering threat will be asymmetric warfare, including drone attacks, naval mines, the potential sabotage of undersea cables, and a wide range of other low-cost, high-disruption weapons.

What's important from the overnight (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Energy Market

  • The Iran war is causing the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, hitting 7.5% of global supply and an even bigger share of exports

  • Oil prices surged above $100 a barrel as Iran escalated attacks on Dubai and shipping assets

  • IEA members agreed to release an unprecedented 400 million barrels from emergency reserves to calm the market

IRGC Military Actions

  • Iran escalated attacks on parts of Dubai with missile alerts and a drone that fell on a building in Creek Harbour on Wednesday night

  • Iran says it maintains control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz and claims it carried out strikes on Israeli military and intelligence facilities

  • Iran's military announced the policy of reciprocal strikes has ended, stating, 'from now on, our policy will be strike after strike'

  • More than 2,100 Shahed-136 weapons have been fired so far, damaging oil infrastructure, shutting airports and destroying military hardware

US Security Warnings

  • The US State Department warned that Iran and affiliated groups could be planning attacks on oil infrastructure owned by the United States in Iraq

  • US Central Command warned that Iran is using civilian ports along the Strait of Hormuz for military operations, making them legitimate targets

  • California Governor Newsom said he's aware of potential drone strikes in California after FBI warnings that Iran has allegedly considered launching offensive drones against the West Coast

 Economic Impact

  • Goldman Sachs and Citigroup told staffers in Dubai to stay away from their offices amid Iran threats

  • On the Beach suspended its full-year guidance due to a 'significant slowdown' in demand following the Middle East conflict, with shares dropping as much as 15%

  • Chinese oil refiners have begun canceling agreed refined fuel export cargoes as Beijing tightens curbs to cope with the war's impact

Diplomatic Developments

  • Iran has told regional intermediaries that for a ceasefire, the US must guarantee that neither it nor Israel will strike the country in the future

  • A former IRGC chief said Iran would agree to no ceasefire until the country reaches a 'definite outcome'

  • The UN Security Council approved a resolution condemning Iran's attacks on its Gulf neighbors including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan

Related energy market reads:

Is it too early for Trump to be calling a "win" when asymmetric warfare is still a very big threat and will be lingering for many weeks, if not months? As one pundit has pointed out: "Endurance regimes do not need clean victory to change the game. They only need to survive the shock while making the old equilibrium too costly for their adversaries to restore."

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 09:40

Fresh US Intel Assessment Says Iran Regime Not Close To Collapse After 2 Weeks At War

Fresh US Intel Assessment Says Iran Regime Not Close To Collapse After 2 Weeks At War

A fresh report in Reuters says what should already be quite obvious to all: US intelligence has assessed that Iran's leadership and government are largely in tact and the system does not risk collapse, after two weeks of heavy sustained US-Israeli bombardment and 'decapitation' strikes which have killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and over forty top military leaders.

One of the intel sources was cited as saying that "multitude" of intelligence reports provide "consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger" of collapsing and "retains control of the Iranian public".

West Asia News Agency via Reuters

The source in the Wednesday-issued Reuters report indicated the most recent US intelligence was only completed within a few days prior. This week President Trump has also been busy declaring that the war could end "soon" and that "we won".

And yet, the intelligence assessments indicates Iran's clerical leadership has remained cohesive, now rallying around the late supreme leader's successor - his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who is said to be more hardline. Other sources suggest that it is the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) effectively running the country and executing the war. Indeed Israel and Gulf states continue to get pummeled in retaliatory missile and drone waves. Of course, Tehran itself is enduring heavy destruction, also as the US-Israeli strikes go after civic infrastructure.

*  *  * Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

Reuters adds: "Israeli officials in closed discussions also ​have acknowledged there is no certainty the war will lead to the clerical government's collapse" - based also on the perspective of a senior Israeli official.

We might point out that any serious analyst would have assessed this before the strikes had even started, and indeed there's some evidence that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sstaff tried to warn just this before Trump ordered the operation.

As one pundit has pointed out: "Endurance regimes do not need clean victory to change the game. They only need to survive the shock while making the old equilibrium too costly for their adversaries to restore." So 'winning' for Iran looks much different, compared to US objectives.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill, who starting over two decades ago covered the lead-up to the Iraq war from on the ground in Baghdad, has reiterated that "In asymmetric warfare, the less powerful side does not need to militarily defeat an adversary, but rather force it to a point where it determines the costs of continuing the war is too high."

Concerning Trump's Operation Epic Fury, there does appear to be a concerted effort to collapse the system, though pretty much all war analysts are in agreement that doing this in a purely air campaign is next to impossible.

Striking directly at the banking system could be part of these efforts, as a Wednesday regional report indicates:

The data center of Iran's state-run Bank Sepah was hit by a strike in Tehran on Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post learned.

The disruption at the bank, which is largely responsible for paying the salaries of Iran's military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is expected to prevent it from paying salaries for a period, forcing it to find alternative solutions.

Reports suggest that a vital data center crucial in carrying out payments to some up to 190,000 IRGC members was impacted, though we might also presume there's redundancy to the data and other systems capable of carrying this out. But the thinking might be that if the troops can't get paid, and their families can't survive, this would immediately weaken the country's ability to defend itself.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 09:20

Epstein Guard Called To Testify As Oversight Committee Explores Potential Murder

Epstein Guard Called To Testify As Oversight Committee Explores Potential Murder

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

House Oversight Chairman James Comer is ramping up the heat on the botched handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s custody, announcing a subpoena for prison guard Tova Noel amid bombshell revelations of suspicious cash deposits and online searches just before the disgraced elitist’s alleged suicide.

With fresh DOJ documents unearthing red flags that scream cover-up, Comer’s move signals a long-overdue push for transparency against the bureaucratic stonewalling that has shielded powerful figures tied to Epstein’s web of abuse.

Comer dropped the news during a Fox News interview, pointing to media reports and overlooked Justice Department records that cast doubt on the official narrative of Epstein’s 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“Well, the recent media reports, what you just said, are very concerning — especially the suspicious activity report on a $5,000 mysterious deposit that she had,” Comer told host Jesse Watters. “The reason that stands out to me, Jesse, is because very seldom are suspicious activity reports even reported for sums less than $10,000.”

“That’s a mystery there, and that’s something that, according to the DOJ documents, they never looked into — never asked her about,” he continued.

Comer emphasized broader questions lingering over Epstein’s case: “Because of this, because of the media reports, and because of the fact that, honestly, most people on the committee aren’t confident 100% that Epstein’s death was a suicide, we’re going to ask Ms. Noel to come in for a transcribed interview.”

*  *  * Please consider supporting ZeroHedge with the purchase of a hat, t-shirt, or multitool. Thank you. 

“Again, no one’s accusing her of any wrongdoing, but we have a lot of questions about Epstein — questions about who else was involved in abusing girls,” Comer added. “Why did the government not do a better job of investigating and prosecuting Epstein when they had a chance years before they finally convicted him? Was Epstein a spy? Was our government involved in any way, shape, or form in trying to destroy evidence or hide evidence from any of those four properties?”

“Now, was Epstein’s death a suicide, as the government has reported, or was there something else?” he questioned. “Again, no one’s accusing this prison guard of any wrongdoing, but I will announce tonight on your show that we are going to ask her to come in and sit for an interview because we have a lot of questions.”

The subpoena targets Noel, who was on duty the night Epstein died. DOJ records show she googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 a.m. and 5:52 a.m., just 40 minutes before her colleague discovered the body at 6:30 a.m.

Instead of conducting required checks, Noel admitted to napping and online shopping, while falsifying logs—a lapse that earned her a deferred prosecution deal from an Obama-era judge in 2021.

FBI forensics flagged her search as the only notable one in a 66-page review of the guards’ computers. Noel denied remembering the searches, calling records “inaccurate.”

Chase Bank flagged suspicious deposits into Noel’s account, including $5,000 on July 30, 2019—ten days before Epstein’s death. From December 2018, seven deposits totaled $11,880, coinciding with her assignment to Epstein’s unit. Yet DOJ investigators never questioned her about it.

An FBI briefing identified Noel as an “orange flash” on camera approaching Epstein’s cell at 10:40 p.m. the night before, carrying linens or clothing—the last approach to the tier. She denied it.

Noel now faces a lawsuit for alleged assault at her new job as a medical assistant.

The guard’s actions fueled a heated exchange between journalist Michael Shellenberger and Joe Rogan during his latest podcast episode.

This development echoes ongoing scrutiny of Epstein’s death. DOJ documents labeled his death a “MURDER” in one instance, showed it documented a day early, and highlighted the wrong noose being DNA-tested.

As one X user noted in response to those revelations: “Epstein is alive. He was extracted, likely by our own government.”

Another pointed to a bipartisan cover-up: “The evidence points to a cover-up: Trump’s first AG Bill Barr oversaw the initial Epstein “suicide” ruling amid massive irregularities, Biden’s DOJ continued the stonewalling, and now Trump’s team is doing the same. Epstein was likely a protected CIA/elite asset—too many powerful world leaders, billionaires & influencers were involved in his crimes. The government decided to bury it all to avoid total exposure & chaos.”

A third captured public frustration: “The richest people in the world did horrible things to thousands of kids, Epstein was clearly and obviously either removed or murdered, Your government refuses to do anything about it while bragging about how awesome they are every day. That’s where we’re at.”

There is also a record of Epstein claiming his cellmate tried to murder him weeks before his suspicious death. Prison notes revealed: “Denies suicidal. Does not know what happened. Woke up with marks on neck. Cellmate tried to kill him. Cellmate is cop who killed 4 people. Tried to extort him. Threatened him.”

A prison psychologist recorded: “I have spoken with him. He denies suicidality. He says he doesn’t know what happened. He thinks maybe someone tried to kill him.”

Epstein claimed his cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, said “he would beat him up” if unpaid. Tartaglione, a ex-cop accused of four murders, was cleared internally.

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

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 09:00

US Housing Starts Highest In Over A Year As Mortgage Rates Tumbled In January

US Housing Starts Highest In Over A Year As Mortgage Rates Tumbled In January

With mortgage rates tumbling (before the war started) and a top-down push for affordability, Housing Starts printed better than expected for January while the more forward-looking Building Permits disappointed, falling more than expected.

Starts rose 7.2k in preliminary January data (far greater than the 4.5% MoM decline expected while Permits plunged 5.4% MoM (worse than the 3.1% decline expected)...

Source: Bloomberg

This pushed the SAAR totals for Starts to their highest since Dec 2024, but Building Permits fell to their lowest since Aug 2025...

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, Multi-Family Permits plunged 13.5% MoM (biggest drop since June 2023) while Multi-Family Starts soared 29.1% MoM...

Source: Bloomberg

The lowest mortgage rate since Aug 2022 likely helped spark homebuilder appetite to start building...

A mixed bag overall, and tough to project given the impact of surging Treasury yields on the mortgage rates currently.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/12/2026 - 08:48

Pages