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Anthropic Rushes Staff To D.C. After A National-Security Order Yanked Fable In Three Days

2026-06-14T15:19:25.141-07:00

Anthropic Rushes Staff To D.C. After A National-Security Order Yanked Fable In Three Days

Senior Anthropic technical staff have been dispatched to Washington DC, after a Friday night government demand to implement sweeping export controls resulted in the company yanking its two most capable models Friday night after only a few days of public release - Mythos and Fable (Fable being Mythos with guardrails) - over the alleged ability to 'jailbreak' the latter. As of Sunday the models are still down, no restoration date has been set, but sources on both sides told Axios they are eager to resolve it. That said, the two parties best positioned to explain what happened are telling different stories as to how this happened.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei

The order is narrow on paper and sweeping in effect. It prohibits access by "any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees." Anthropic has no reliable way to verify a user's citizenship at the moment they send an API request or open a chat window, and its own staff, customers, and cloud partners are spread across dozens of countries. The company concluded it could not selectively block foreign nationals, so it blocked everyone. Anthropic's other models, including Opus 4.8, Sonnet, and Haiku, are untouched and still running.

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.

The net effect of…
— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) June 13, 2026

What The Order Does, And Why It Went Global

The directive came from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's office, and a U.S. official confirmed to Bloomberg that the department sent the letter. Curiously, the letter did not spell out the specific national-security concern behind it. The legal mechanism appears to be the "deemed export" rule, the decades-old principle that releasing controlled technology or source code to a foreign person counts as an export to that person's home country. Applying it to a deployed commercial frontier model is, by NBC's account, the first time a leading AI company has pulled a publicly deployed model offline because of federal intervention.

What we do know about Lutnick's letter; it requires a license for the export, re-export, or domestic transfer of the two models and reaches any foreign person on U.S. soil. It does not, on its face, bar U.S. citizens or the U.S. government, and the cutoff for American users is a consequence of Anthropic's inability to filter rather than the order's intent. Government access is murkier still: CyberScoop reports the National Security Agency had been given Mythos 5 to conduct offensive cyber operations through Project Glasswing, and it remains unclear how the directive affects that program. Foreign vetted partners were clearly swept in, with the Korea Times reporting that Korean Glasswing members including the Korea Internet & Security Agency, SK Telecom, and Samsung lost their access. In other words, the order disconnected allied security partners abroad while a U.S. agency's separate channel to the more powerful sibling model appears, on the order's logic, to sit outside its reach.

Confirmed cut offs:

Private/commercial users. Fable's public, API, and enterprise users, plus the private-sector Glasswing partners (the vetted cyber firms) who had Mythos.
Foreign government and intergovernmental partners. The Korea Times reports Korean Glasswing members (the Korea Internet & Security Agency, SK Telecom, Samsung) lost access, and Security Affairs reports European Glasswing partners including NATO and ENISA (the EU's cybersecurity agency) were cut off with no notice. Those are foreign nationals under the order, so the order reaches them directly.

The reach inside the United States is the most unusual part, and it produced an awkward result for Anthropic; their own employees can't use Mythos or Fable now. Any non-citizen querying Fable from, say, an apartment in San Francisco is barred exactly as if they were in Shanghai - and that population includes a meaningful share of Anthropic's own workforce, since frontier labs run heavily on foreign-born engineers. The company effectively had to lock some of its own staff out of the model it had just shipped. Dean Ball, an AI policy expert who briefly served in the current administration and has been sharply critical of its moves against the company, called the action "cartoonish" on X, pointing to the incoherence of an administration that wants to export advanced AI chips to China while moving to bar allied users, from Britain on down, from the best American models.

Tinfoil, anyone?

The national security order might be a godsend for Anthropic - which priced Fable at ten dollars per million input tokens and fifty per million output, double its Opus 4.8 flagship and, by its own description, less than half the price of Mythos Preview - the most expensive model it sells and a token-hungry one on long tasks. It was free on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans only from June 9 through June 22, with metered credits taking over after, and Anthropic was candid the staged rollout was about capacity, expecting demand "very high, and difficult to predict."

So this shutdown, triggered by Amazon (read below), and landing three days into a two-week giveaway conveniently capped an expensive subsidy that after we're guessing most users switched to the thirsty model.

How Three Days Unspooled

Fable 5 launched on June 9 as the first broadly available "Mythos-class" model, the public-facing version of a system Anthropic had previously kept behind a vetted-access wall because of its cyber and biological capabilities. Mythos 5, the same underlying model with some safeguards removed, stayed reserved for cleared cybersecurity partners. Fable 5 was the middle path: Mythos-grade capability, Anthropic said, with guardrails strong enough for general release. The company put it on the API, made it generally available on Amazon Bedrock and GitHub Copilot, and folded it into Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans at no extra charge through June 22.

The imminent “Anthropic - White House” ceasefire is the new imminent “Iran-US” ceasefire https://t.co/byCO9mLo2h
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 14, 2026

The launch was rocky before Washington entered. Researchers complained the safeguards were overbroad and that ordinary technical work was being downgraded. A sharper backlash hit over what users called a "silent fallback," a mechanism that quietly rerouted certain high-risk queries to the older Opus 4.8 without telling the user. Anthropic reversed it, apologized, and said flagged requests would be made visible. Then, on June 10, a well-known jailbreaker who posts as Pliny the Liberator published what he claimed was a working bypass of Fable's safety systems, complete with lurid outputs spanning cyber exploits and chemical synthesis. It gave the controversy a public face, though it is worth noting it was not the finding the government ultimately cited. Anthropic has never confirmed which jailbreak triggered the order, the viral Pliny post or the private report described below.

🚨 JAILBREAK ALERT 🚨

ANTHROPIC: PWNED 🫡
FABLE-5: LIBERATED 🦋

let's start with the 🐘...

the consensus seems to be that this has been one of the most disappointing model drops of all time, effectively preventing legitimate researchers from contributing their talents to our… pic.twitter.com/Z0vdPIt4vY
— Pliny the Liberator 🐉󠅫󠄼󠄿󠅆󠄵󠄐󠅀󠄼󠄹󠄾󠅉󠅭 (@elder_plinius) June 10, 2026

Anthropic says it received a Friday evening call giving it roughly ninety minutes to take the models down over a national-security threat, with no specifics attached. The Lutnick letter followed that afternoon. By late evening, users had lost access, and Anthropic posted its statement calling the situation a misunderstanding. The next day, David Sacks and Pete Hegseth offered the administration's version in public. As of this writing, the models are still offline.

The Trigger Was Amazon

The finding that set this off appears to have come not from an anonymous internet jailbreak but from Amazon, which is to say from Anthropic's single largest investor.

According to the Wall Street Journal, corroborated by The Information and Reuters, Amazon researchers found a way to prompt Fable 5 into surfacing information useful for cyberattacks, and Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy raised the concern directly with senior officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The company's report reportedly showed Fable surfacing security bugs in at least four software programs when fed a specific set of queries, and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and Lutnick were both in the conversations. Sacks, in his thread, described the source only as a "highly credible trusted partner." Amazon has declined to detail the research, telling reporters it is "not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel" on security risks and that it does not discuss the substance of those talks. AWS, which hosted Fable 5 through Bedrock, later confirmed Anthropic had asked it to revoke access for all users in all regions. Amazon was not alone in raising flags, either: at least five other companies submitted warnings in the same window.

What's interesting is that Amazon is Anthropic's largest backer - with a cumulative stake of roughly $13 billion and a $100 billion AWS spending commitment running the other way, plus a board seat, the cloud that serves the models, and a Trainium chip relationship. One of the companies most thoroughly entangled with Anthropic's business helped prompt a government action that knocked Anthropic's flagship launch offline eleven days after the company filed confidentially for an IPO. There may be an entirely straightforward explanation, that Amazon spotted a real risk and escalated it through the proper channel.

Was Amazon concerned about being legally responsible for jailbroken Fable hackings?

By Anthropic's account, the government supplied only verbal evidence of a narrow, non-universal bypass that amounted to asking the model to read a codebase and flag software bugs - with the same result obtainable from other public models including OpenAI's GPT-5.5. The company argues a narrow jailbreak cannot justify "recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people," and that applying that standard industry-wide would "halt all new model deployments." It is a first-party account from a company that wants its product back online, but it is the more detailed of the two, and Anthropic notes that thousands of hours of pre-launch red-teaming by the U.S. government, the U.K. AI Security Institute, and outside groups found no universal jailbreak.

It is also corroborated by the only named expert who has read the underlying report. Katie Moussouris, the Luta Security chief executive who built Microsoft's bug-bounty program and helped design the Pentagon's first, reviewed the Amazon findings at Anthropic's request and told the Journal and Fortune it was "not a jailbreak" but "Defense Oriented Prompting (DOP), capabilities defenders need," adding that if national defense was the goal the response "just scored an own goal against us." Chris McGuire of the Council on Foreign Relations, no reflexive critic, called the across-the-board restriction "highly questionable."

The administration's case runs the other way, and it runs on Anthropic's own rhetoric. Sacks, who co-chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and previously served as the White House AI and crypto czar, says a trusted partner found a working jailbreak and that the administration asked CEO Dario Amodei to fix it or pull the model. "Dario allegedly refused."

Sacks points out that Anthropic spent months calling Mythos-class models a more dangerous category needing oversight; Fable is Mythos with guardrails - so a bypass exposes "operability of a cyber weapon" to people who should not have it. His bottom line: "the ball is in Anthropic's court."

I’ve had a number of conversations with folks inside and outside government about the current situation with Anthropic, and here is what I believe to be true:

— As we know, Anthropic publicly released its Mythos class models earlier this week under the commercial name Fable.…
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) June 13, 2026

Meanwhile, a more alarming claim, that the trigger involved access from China, rests on a single Semafor source and is disputed by Anthropic, which says the issue was never raised and that it blocks access from inside China. Treasury, Commerce, and the Bureau of Industry and Security have not put a technical case on the record. Anthropic wants its model live and its safety brand intact; the White House wants to look alert rather than asleep as AI starts touching cyber operations. Nobody has shown the proof.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted a "Told ya so" - writing "Three months ago, @DeptofWar kicked @AnthropicAI out of our building—forever ... Every passing day proves why that was the right move."

Three months ago, @DeptofWar kicked @AnthropicAI out of our building—forever.

Every passing day proves why that was the right move. 🇺🇸
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) June 13, 2026

Sacks has explicitly denied the Fable action is retaliation, and there is no public evidence that it is. But the prior friction is real, and the administration's own messaging keeps blurring the line between a technical enforcement action and a broader fight over who sets the terms for AI in national security.

Precedent-Setting

For the rest of the industry, the precedent is the point: a frontier model can be launched, praised, and pulled from global availability inside a week, by emergency directive, for reasons its provider cannot fully see. Reporting suggests the administration is treating this as Anthropic-specific for now, but even a one-company action pushes every lab toward pre-clearing high-capability releases. That direction is not hypothetical; Trump signed an executive order this month directing agencies to establish a voluntary mechanism for the government to get early access to powerful models before deployment. The Fable order is what the involuntary version looks like.

Enterprises are reading it as a resilience warning, with analysts urging multi-provider routing, local fallback, and a harder look at open-weight models - exactly the immunity Chinese open-source labs are now marketing. For U.S. allies the lesson is sharper, because the order cut off allied users too, sweeping European, Canadian, and Indian customers into the same blackout. The European Commission said emergency measures should not discriminate against partners; French officials reached for the language of technological sovereignty. The subtext, that AI infrastructure controlled in Washington can be switched off in Washington, is now being said aloud.

Then there's the paradox Anthropic helped build - long arguing that governments should be able to block unsafe deployments, distinguishing itself from rivals who oppose binding rules. This is what that looks like when the process is not the "transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts" one it envisioned but an emergency directive with no public record. Its objection is not that no model should ever be stopped, but that this is the wrong way to stop one - a harder argument for a company that spent years naming the danger and marketing the restraint.

The imminent “Anthropic - White House” ceasefire is the new imminent “Iran-US” ceasefire https://t.co/byCO9mLo2h
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 14, 2026

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/14/2026 - 16:55
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Ethereum Can Quantum-Proof Accounts For Just 7 Cents, Says Foundation's Kohaku Project Lead

2026-06-14T14:19:17.145-07:00

Ethereum Can Quantum-Proof Accounts For Just 7 Cents, Says Foundation's Kohaku Project Lead

Authored by Zoltan Verdai via CoinTelegraph.com,

Ethereum could begin adding post-quantum protections to accounts for as little as $0.07, without waiting for a hard fork, according to the Ethereum Foundation's Kohaku project lead Nicolas Consigny.

In a Saturday X post, Consigny shared a paper proposing a cheaper way for Ethereum users to protect their accounts against future quantum-computing threats. The approach adapts SPHINCS+, a post-quantum signature standard developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, to work more efficiently on Ethereum.

Dubbed “SPHINCS-,” the proposal aims to reduce onchain verification costs without requiring a protocol change or precompile. Consigny described SPHINCS- as a bridge toward a future post-quantum signature system dubbed “leanSPHINCS,” which aims to further reduce verification costs through aggregation.

The proposal seeks to address the long-term risk of a quantum threat to Ethereum's Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm with a cost-efficient solution that may be deployed before a dedicated hard fork is developed.

Signature scheme SPHINCs variant security degradation and onchain verification costs. Source: Ethresearch.ch

Future quantum computing threats stirs crypto community

In April, post-quantum startup Project Eleven awarded a prize to researcher Giancarlo Lelli for using a quantum computer to break a 15-bit elliptic-curve key.

Bitcoin’s keys are 256 bits long, significantly larger than the 15-bit key Lelli managed to crack. He derived the private key from a public key paired to it, using a variant of Shor’s algorithm, a quantum computing technique that theoretically poses a threat to the type of cryptography used by Bitcoin.

According to Glassnode, about 1.92 million Bitcoin, representing nearly 10% of the total supply, are considered “structurally unsafe” in a future quantum attack scenario. Another 4.12 million BTC, or 20.6% of the supply, are classified as “operationally unsafe” due to key or address management practices.

Source: Glassnode

The analytics company estimates that the remaining 69.8% of the supply, or 13.99 million Bitcoin, remains unexposed to a quantum computing threat, broadly in line with Ark Invest’s March estimate that 65% of the supply was safe.

Tyler Durden Sun, 06/14/2026 - 15:10
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Bitcoin & The Clash Of Two Inexorable Realities

2026-06-13T16:19:28.981-07:00

Bitcoin & The Clash Of Two Inexorable Realities

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Two inexorable realities have come into sharpened focus over the last month or so.

Both are themes we have been exploring and monitoring – one, since practically the very beginning of this service, the other, over the last year or so.

The first is the unsustainable nature of the global monetary system: we are not unique in calling that out – it’s practically a trope and has been for a long time.
The other is the existential necessity to win the new arms race – which is less about kinetic weapons now and more about computation, information and 5GW.

In the past, when the Soviet Union put as astronaut into space before NASA, it was a humiliation and a psychological defeat – but the USA arguably still held strategic advantage where it counted at the time, which was here on earth, with more nuclear missiles, tanks and military bases than the USSR.

The US space program kicked into overdrive, and NASA was able to slingshot past the Russians, and over time and across more dimensions, the Soviets never caught back up or retook the lead – in anything.

To this day, Russia’s resurgence onto the world stage – articulated through concepts such as Neo-Eurasionism or “Third Rome” (basically their version of “Manifest Destiny”) – is more than anything, an aspirational framework for “getting up to speed”, while rationalizing their inability to do so in traditionalist, volk-ish trappings.

Their high priest of this quixotic mix, is “Fourth Political Theory” author, university professor and philosopher, Alexander Dugin – whose other titles include “Last War of the World-Island” and – perhaps most tellingly, although least known of his works here in the West – “Katechon and Revolution”.

The word “Katechon” (from the Greek: ὁ κατέχων / τὸ κατέχον which translates loosely as “the Restrainer”) is important in the Russian collective psyche because it contains a massive “tell”.On its surface, it’s supposed to encompass Russia’s “state messianism” and symbolize its opposition to The West – their “Antikeimenos”.

The day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dugin posted on Facebook “Now we are in a war of the spirits. Katechon vs. Antekeimenos”.

Antikeimenos (from the Greek: ὁ ἀντικείμενος) is the term St. Paul uses in Thessalonians 2:4 for the figure of the Antichrist. It appears exactly once in the Greek New Testament, in that single verse. The literal sense is “the one who opposes” or “the one set against”.

And therein lays “the tell” – what the Russian collective psyche is admitting to, and trying to come to grips with, and it is this:

If we reframe the Cold War as the first technological contest between Great Powers, Russia has to confront the fact that they lost – and they’ve never been able to recover from it.

In the contemporary pantheon of international relations and political economy, absolutely nobody today thinks of Russia as a “great power”. When you peel back the ideations of “The Fifth Empire” or “The Soviet Union 2.0”, you get to that underlying underdog mentality – trying to recapture super-power status.

They lost the space race. Then the Cold War, and now they can’t even beat the Ukraine.

That was supposed to be an overwhelming military victory, but the Ukrainians, mainly through wholesale adoption of drone warfare, have managed to give the invaders a rough time of it, even penetrating deep into Russian territory using high-altitude balloons to deliver suicide drones.

Make no mistake, all that financial support from the West aside, the Ukrainians have been able to stave off complete defeat through technological means and because cheap, sophisticated weaponry (drones) completely upended the conventional battlefield.Such are the travails of an erstwhile great power that has lost a technological competition. You can bet today’s incumbents – namely the USA and China – understand these stakes, and neither of them has any intention of losing:

AI
Energy
High Performance Computing (which leads us into)
The Space Race 2.0
Quantum Computing

This is why the “catastrophic climate change” narrative has been rather suddenly sunsetted in The West (at least, the non-Euro west): we need more energy, including nuclear – lots, and lots of nuclear.

It’s why White House Asset Management (WHAM) is pumping money into quantum computing companies (including, from our wish list: D-Wave, which we hadn’t yet pulled the trigger on).

It’s also why China has moved further out on the interventionist side of the state capitalism spectrum, with mandated “Capital Reallocation” programs where the government has issued structural directives forcing state-owned pensions, insurance funds, and enterprise pools to funnel trillions of yuan directly into equities, while the state-backed “National Team” continues steady, strategic purchases of domestic ETFs to put a floor under major indices.

The Chinese debt overhang on bad real estate loans is even larger than what we had here in the run up to the GFC, so regulators there are pulling out all the stops to keep the balloon duct-taped together:In early 2026, Beijing quietly abolished enforcement of its strict “three red lines” policy. Developers are no longer required to report monthly data regarding debt-to-equity, cash, and asset metrics, freeing up fresh credit channels.

They’ve backstopped an additional 7 trillion yuan under a new “property project whitelist” mechanism, which extends developer loan maturities by up to five additional years to stave off defaults.

Commercial and state banks are aggressively financed to help local governments buy up unsold, completed housing inventory directly from developers to convert them into subsidized public housing (this is a nominally communist country, so why not).

To top it all off, we’re seeing capital flight restrictions – going so far as to prevent technology transfers to the West via acquisition (we covered last month how Meta’s acquisition of Manus was blocked and reversed by state authorities).

Any rational observer of finance and economics knows that all world economies, including The World Economy, is levitating in mid-air buoyed by stimulus, signal suppression and pure white-knuckled will.

In prior years, when all the financial commentators and contrarians were waiting for this to hit a wall, we all marvelled (at least I did) how the system was kept on the rails at all costs – because too much was riding on it to let rational economics and market restructuring take their course.

That was before AI. Before it became apparent that not being number one in this technological arms race had civilizational consequences, like joining Russia as another “also-ran”.

Once again, the contradictions and distortions that this imperative amplifies are bubbling to the surface.

On one hand – all rational analysis of the market is screaming “overbought”. Practically every financial commentator I came up following is looking at this and making comparisons with the dot-com bubble; the AI high flyers now look a lot like Global Crossing, Nortel, L3, VA Linux before they all imploded.

My X feed is absolutely jam-packed with people posting screenshots of 7-figure trading accounts that were ostensibly amassed in under a year trading HPC, AI, chip makers, memory, and now quantum (again).

ZeroHedge has remarked on the circular nature of the AI economy more than once:

Note that the above-linked article (from which the screenshot came) is a Tyler Durden original, it is not a repost of somebody else’s article.

Tyler has this annoying trait: he’s always early and he’s often right.

Yet it’s possible the man himself buried the lede (from that screen cap):

“The Infinite Money Glitch”

By all rational and financially coherent measures, the equities markets are overvalued, beyond bubble levels and primed for a catastrophic drop on the order of, pick one, 50%, 75%, 90%. Yes. 90%. We’ve been pumping since 2008 folks. Even further if you go back to the beginning of the equities supercycle in 1982.

After the dot-com bust, we were in a bear market for two years. When the GFC finally hit, it was straight down for a good 18 months. When COVID was coming, the banking system was starting to crack up under the hood (the reverse repo situation in late 2019) but when it came unglued in March, it was about two weeks before the monetary bazookas were unleashed and everything reversed hard of the March low.

What happens after that is instructive:

The Regional Banking crisis erupted, and was even larger in nominal terms than the GFC when it came to the amount of assets tied to bank failures. The Fed threw the taper overboard, did a massive liquidity injection and after a failed attempt to pick and choose winners in terms of which banks to save, caved in to public uproar and backstopped everything.

Liberation Day, Japan-ageddon, Israel/Iran/Gaza barely perturb the trajectory.

If you switch out of linear mode for that long-term chart, and go to logarithmic – you should recognize the pattern:

It’s the same as Bitcoin, which is the same as gold during the Weimar Republic and it’s the same signal being broadcast from every one of those charts.

We should acknowledge that the Nasdaq took 15 years to recover from the Dotcom shakeout, which is a long time to be underwater if you bought in at the tippy-top.

But I believe two things have changed since the GFC:

The first is that tech, despite taking the biggest hit, almost by definition when the Dotcom bubble blew, also became the apex asset class from here on out.

If you look at the long-term chart for the Nasdaq, it basically went parabolic for the first half of the equities supercycle, and formed a double-bottom from the Dotcom crash to the GFC

After that it blasted off and has left everything else in its dust:

This makes perfect sense, because tech is the asset class of choice in a world driven by acceleration and tachyosis.

We can’t put Bitcoin in that chart because it’s basically a divide by zero error. But if we take the commonly held, first market price ever for Bitcoin, which was $0.10, it pencils out to an absurd value. Call it 77,719,900% and leave it there.

It’s not uncommon to hear criticisms of Bitcoin that are simply “all it does is follow tech”.

Yeah, no shit. That’s because it is tech.

The other thing I believe about all this, is Raoul Pal’s theory that after the GFC, the world’s central banks got together and made a deal to never let anything like that happen, ever again.

Which means that central bank balance sheets will grow in perpetuity, and stock market will never have a meaningful bear market – for the remainder of the duration of the current monetary system:

That’s from Raoul Pal’s “Everything Code”, it goes on:

They don’t understand valuations are a function of debasement.
They don’t understand why technology rises and valuations can keep rising.
They don’t understand why crypto is being adopted and is the fastest horse in the race.
They don’t understand why the dollar keeps rising.
They don’t understand that energy transition is real and is crucial for the world economy.
They don’t understand why rates won’t remain high.
They don’t understand why GPT4/AI is the biggest humanity-scale event since the splitting of the atom.
They don’t understand why this is all so fucking deflationary. They want their sticky inflation. They will not get it.
They don’t understand why nothing in their world makes sense.

We understand it. Because we know the cheat code, which is:

Put the chart into logarithmic view.

Look at the X axis.

Then own the assets that are outpacing everything else on that scale.

That’s it.

Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here. Premium members of The Sovereign Capitalist have already received advance copies of my new book: The Blueprint: Survive and Thrive in an Overclocked Timeline – we launch in two weeks, get on the invite list here. Follow me on X here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 17:30
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Canadian Mother Sues OpenAI, Alleging Chatbot Encouraged Daughter's Suicide

2026-06-13T15:19:16.191-07:00

Canadian Mother Sues OpenAI, Alleging Chatbot Encouraged Daughter's Suicide

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

A Canadian mother is suing OpenAI after its popular ChatGPT chatbot allegedly encouraged her daughter to continue engaging with the app after she revealed suicidal thoughts.

A screen showing the ChatGPT app. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times

Instead of terminating these discussions or flagging her account for safety concerns, ChatGPT allegedly escalated the exchanges in the days before the woman ultimately took her life, according to a press release.

The Social Media Victims Law Center, Tech Justice Law, and the firm Susman Godfrey filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court against OpenAI on June 11 on behalf of Kristie Carrier.

Her daughter, Alice Carrier, 24, committed suicide on July 2, 2025. After reviewing her daughter's devices, Kristie Carrier said she had found extensive conversations with ChatGPT in which her daughter expressed thoughts of self-harm in the months before her death.

In the exchanges, her daughter allegedly told the chatbot that she was feeling isolated and discussed possible suicide methods. The lawsuit accuses ChatGPT of escalating these conversations in the days before the woman's suicide, rather than terminating the exchange or flagging her account "for human intervention," the press release states.

These exchanges allegedly encouraged Alice Carrier to continue engaging with ChatGPT, causing "her further isolation from her human support system and ultimately, suicide," according to a press release.

"If a person came up to me, and they were clearly in distress and sharing their thoughts of suicide, I would be expected to help them, not encourage them to fixate on their depressive thoughts or isolate themselves," Kristie Carrier said in the press release.

"The same should be true of OpenAI. Instead, OpenAI has chosen to put out a product that was unsafe, and that they knew was unsafe but they did so without any concern for the consequences of their choices. Sam Altman can continue to go about his life normally, but my life is missing a child. This is unacceptable," she added.

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

This is not the first time, nor the second time, a parent has sued OpenAI, accusing its chatbot of encouraging their child to commit suicide.

Last year, the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against the AI giant, claiming ChatGPT had isolated multiple users from their support systems, and in some cases, coached the victims into taking their own lives.

Matthew Raine testified to Congress in September 2025 after suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

Raine alleged that his son, Adam, took his own life after ChatGPT mentioned suicide more than 1,200 times to the 16-year-old. He accused ChatGPT of offering specific methods to his son on how to die by suicide, and continuing to validate and encourage the boy's feelings.

"As parents, you cannot imagine what it's like to read a conversation with a chatbot that groomed your child to take his own life," Raine told lawmakers at the time.

Justin Nelson, a partner at Susman Godfrey, said on June 11 that OpenAI's "deliberate design decisions" led to Alice Carrier's suicide.

"Instead of providing help, OpenAI encouraged suicidal behavior. This lawsuit is about accountability for OpenAI's actions," he said in the press release.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 16:20
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The Mullahs & The Lefty-Left

2026-06-12T15:19:42.283-07:00

The Mullahs & The Lefty-Left

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"Until you are willing to harm the left more than they are willing to harm you, they will win. It’s really that simple."

- Aimee Terese on X

You’ll just have to stand by on whether this war with Iran is over or not, since the Shia true believers’ practice of Taqiyya is a permission structure for lying to infidels (us) when necessary — like, to advance global chaos that will bring the return of the Hidden Imam (Mahdi) to fill the world with justice, and establish Islamic rule. (Got that?) One might wonder, of course, whether the majority of Iran’s people have had enough of the true believers in charge and their true belief in apocalypse.

“Go ahead, press that button and blow up the infidels!”

President Trump’s promise to bring exactly that down on them seems to have had a clarifying effect. The option remains open to “bomb the shit out of them,” as he put it, while keeping their economy in a Macumba Death grip choke-hold. In preliminary strikes Thursday, the US Military might have demonstrated an ability to go after whatever they have left of missile and drone launch sites. In any case, skeptics abound. . . but, admit it, an actual peace agreement would be quite a coup.

It would be distasteful most of all to the mass formation lunatics of America’s Lefty-left “Resistance.” Anything that advances our country’s actual interests is hateful to them. In fact, when you think of it, the Lefty-left is in thrall to the same sort of world-ending chaos as the mullahs and their IRGC henchmen. The mullahs have their vision of the post-apocalyptic Islamic utopia and the Lefty-left has its dream of a post-revolutionary socialist nirvana where everyone is equal (except those who are more equal — and get to boss around the rest of us.)

Yeah, it’s an old story here in Western Civ, this recurring drive to level the existing social hierarchy so as to abolish the tendency of some people to do better in life than others. It never works out. It always leads to mass slaughter of some kind. It always ends in rueful disappointment and a return to the free-for-all that is the human project. The outstanding question might be: why do so many in the West continue to believe it?

The current uprising comes out of the strange conversion of Liberalism to Lefty-left Democratic-Socialist Progressivism. Remember, liberalism was pure live-and-let-live, with an emphasis on minimal government intrusion in our affairs, especially economic affairs. The Liberals of Boomerdom — the campus nirvanas of the 1960s — were contemptuous of government generally, but especially the FBI and the CIA. And, of course, the hippie vanguard was socially and culturally all about the freedom to do your own thing. Freedom of speech was a leading concern.

The Lefty-left, as it evolved under Barack Obama and “Joe Biden,” was about rigid intolerance for opposing ideas and maximal government involvement in your life, especially economic and sexual — making a pass at a girl became subject to litigation. The FBI was loosed on dissenters from Lefty-left policies. Juridical sadism became systematized as Lawfare. The Lefty-left constructed a huge censorship apparatus; no more freedom of speech. They used law and regulation to attempt social leveling; no more discipline in school for black kids because . . . racism! Discriminate against Whitey for jobs. . . anti-racism! Election fraud = “our democracy.” You see how all that went?

Turns out, they wanted to use the government to overthrow the government! And the social order it rode in on! Hence, the ten-year-long crusade to destroy one Donald Trump, the peculiar “Gray Champion” of our Fourth Turning, who turned out to be a staunch counter-revolutionary, that is, an opponent of this new Democratic-Socialist Progressive (wannabe-communist) corps of chaos agents.

One schematic way of understanding this dynamic is Peter Turchin’s theory of Elite Overproduction. By the early 2000s, with anybody and everybody going to college, there were not enough job positions in the real productive economy for this spewage of college degree-holding entrees to the Professional / Managerial Class. By this time, coincidentally, the colleges they were graduating from were infested by three generations of Marxist professors — i.e., adults enjoying cozy institutional security, with no experience in the real world, free to indulge in Marxian revenge fantasies and make them the basis of their teaching.

It was the perfect setup for the emergence of a matrix of NGOs and political activist orgs that could employ all these college graduates which the real economy had no place for.

And the new hires were pre-programmed in the ideology of grievance, tinged with racial and sexual animus in addition to economic complaint.

So, voila! — America (and Western Civ generally) became infested with these pernicious Lefty-left operations, which became symbionts of the government themselves, many of the orgs dependent on government (USAID) to fund their activities and pay the management. They got scads of additional money from wealthy freelance chaos maestros like George Soros, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Reid Hoffman, Neville Roy Singham and others.

Mr. Trump is dismantling that matrix and the funding flows associated with it, at the same time that he attempts to reconstruct an economy based on the production of real goods. As it happens, that matrix of orgs amounts to the consolidated racketeering operation of the Democratic Party, and the party is going garishly insane at the prospect of losing its means to power.

The Lefty-left now is the Democratic Party. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what we used to call Liberalism. It’s a party of envy-driven, sadistic fanatics. And it is no accident that such a mind-set leads them to construct a permission structure for lying about everything they do. It’s all there in their primary manuals-of-operation: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation.

In this way, they are just like the Shia mullahs of Iran who are privileged to lie to infidels who threaten their lust for apocalypse.

Mr. Trump doesn’t trust the insane mullahs and their IRGC wing-men, and he certainly shouldn’t trust the apparatchiks of the Democratic Party.

Each, in its own way, represents a kind of performative adolescent rebellion, and both them require a kind of resolute parental response: Daddy is in da house . . . and you’d better behave. Believe this: after Iran, the Democratic Party is next.

he hammer of law will be coming down.

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16 Academics Sign Letter Calling For Public Inquest Into Epstein Accuser's Suicide

2026-06-11T14:19:40.904-07:00

16 Academics Sign Letter Calling For Public Inquest Into Epstein Accuser's Suicide

Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times,

The death last year of Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre was ruled a suicide by police, but 16 academics have now penned an open letter to the state coroner calling for a formal public inquest into possible domestic violence links.

Undated handout file photo issued by the US Department of Justice (left-right) of the former Duke of York, Virginia Giuffre, and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Giuffre died on April 25, 2025, aged 41, at her farm in Western Australia, leaving behind three children with her husband, Robert Giuffre.

On March 30, she'd made her last social media post, claiming on Instagram that she had gone into renal failure after a bus accident and that she had been given four days to live.

It is accompanied by a photo in which she is lying on her side in what appears to be a hospital bed, with bruises visible on her face.

The newest letter, published by the Centre for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) at Melbourne Law School, is signed by 16 academics who are all researchers and experts in domestic and violence against women.

The group says there is "evidence that makes such an inquest not only appropriate but necessary."

They rely on statistics that link suicides to the experience of family violence, such as a 2107 investigation by the Ombudsman, which found that 56 percent of women and children who died by suicide in Western Australia that year had been victims of domestic violence.

"This figure is almost certainly an underestimate given the well-documented underreporting of DFV [domestic and family violence] in official systems," the letter goes on to say.

"Emerging evidence further suggests that deaths by suicide in the context of DFV may be three times greater than the number of women killed by an intimate partner - yet unlike homicide, these deaths rarely receive equivalent scrutiny.

"Coronial processes too frequently treat mental ill health as the primary explanatory lens, obscuring the role of coercive control and systemic failure," the academics say.

"Research identifies the removal of children as a significant contributor to hopelessness among victim-survivors, and the weaponisation of legal mechanisms, including restraining orders, as a tactic of coercive control is equally well established."

In an March 2025 post, Giuffre had complained about being estranged from her children, writing, "My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them, and they're being poisoned with lies. I miss them so very much."

The academics wrote: "Virginia Giuffre's death is unusual only in that it is visible."

"Her public profile means there is an unusually detailed record of her final months - and what that record shows is deeply consistent with what our research tells us about how these deaths occur, and how they are too often overlooked.

"The reported circumstances of her final months are consistent with the patterns described above, and a public inquest is the appropriate mechanism to examine them thoroughly. Conducted with full attention to the DFV context of her death, such an inquest has the potential to generate findings and recommendations that reach far beyond this one case, and that could prevent future deaths."

It concludes by urging the coroner to "bring the full weight of the available evidence to bear on this decision."

Giuffre was one of the most prominent accusers of Epstein.

She claimed that the now-former Prince Andrew had sexually abused her when she was 17 years old, allegedly with the help of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, 62, who was found guilty of assisting Epstein in the abuse of multiple girls.

A civil lawsuit that Giuffre filed against Prince Andrew in 2021 was settled confidentially, with the prince donating money to Giuffre's charity.

Although the amount has never been revealed, reports widely estimate the out-of-court settlement, reached in 2022, to be worth approximately 12 million pounds (A$22.9 million, US$16.1 million).

The settlement also placed a gagging order on Andrew, meaning he could no longer deny he had raped Giuffre or repeat the claim that he had no memory of meeting her.

When Giuffre's death became known, she received multiple tributes, including from President Donald Trump, who called her passing "a horrible thing."

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DHS Directs ICE To Deport Illegal Aliens Who Vote In American Elections

2026-06-10T14:21:02.777-07:00

DHS Directs ICE To Deport Illegal Aliens Who Vote In American Elections

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) General Counsel James Percival has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to impose strict penalties, including deportation, on illegal aliens who vote in American elections.

According to a DHS press release, the Immigration and Nationality Act directs the removal of aliens who illegally vote or make a false claim to US citizenship.

🇺🇸 DHS told ICE to deport any undocumented immigrant who votes in a U.S. election.

The directive, signed Monday, ties directly to Trump's executive order on election integrity.

Illegal voting and false citizenship claims are now being treated as deportable offenses under the… pic.twitter.com/HGSGkmewQR
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 9, 2026

DHS states that these provisions allow for the removal of illegal aliens if they illegally participate in our elections. No criminal conviction is required for their removal.

Percival said, “The importance of free, fair, and honest elections is without question. Echoing the words of President Trump, ‘the right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated, without illegal dilution, is vital to determining the rightful winner of an election.”

Percival added, “Illegal voting by aliens dilutes the votes of American citizens and undermines our democracy. It must have consequences.”

DHS says the directive will help further implement policies similar to those from President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”

Trump’s order directs actions across the federal government, including the verification of voter eligibility, grant administration, information-sharing, enforcement of federal integrity laws, improving voting systems, and criminal prosecution of unlawful voting by aliens.

The latest directive follows an August 2025 announcement by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which updated its policy manual to bar green card holders who have voted or registered to vote from obtaining citizenship.

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55% Of Democrats Would Prefer Living Outside The US; Survey Finds

2026-06-09T15:19:36.494-07:00

55% Of Democrats Would Prefer Living Outside The US; Survey Finds

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

A poll conducted last month shows 55 percent of Democrats answering affirmatively when asked "Is there any other country on Earth you would rather live in than the United States today?"

Breitbart reports that the Elon University/YouGov America 250 National Survey conducted between April 30 and May 4 asked 1,000 US adults ages 18 and older about their feelings as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th year.

Thirty-eight percent of Independents answered yes while only 10 percent of Republicans said the same.

Jason Husser, director of the Elon University Poll, described a country that remains proud but uneasy as the anniversary approaches.

According to a new Elon University/YouGov poll, a full *55%* of Democrats said that they would rather live in a different country than the United States.

Only 10% of Republicans said the same. pic.twitter.com/cSpccKhC6d
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 7, 2026

When respondents were asked where they would choose to live outside the US, Canada topped the wish list at 19 percent, followed by the United Kingdom at 9 percent, and Japan and Australia at 5 percent each. Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, and Italy also drew interest.

According to PJ Media, the same survey found 68 percent of adults said they are proud to be American, with 95 percent of Republicans answering in the affirmative, 62 percent of independents and only 48 percent of Democrats. Similarly, a poll conducted last fall showed a majority of Democrat voters aligned with socialism over capitalism and supported far-left candidates, stating:

Unsurprisingly, the survey found that socialism is largely toxic to Republicans and many independents, explaining why far-left Democrats have had more success in places like New York City but have struggled in red and battleground areas. The poll also found that a plurality of independent voters and Republicans prefer capitalism.

American voters are leaning away from Democrats as the critical midterms approach, with a recent CNN poll showing Democrat support sliding.

In April, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) summarized the battle for the midterms, saying, "I think this election actually comes down ... to two sentences, and those sentences are 'They're crazy. We're not.' And I think we have to highlight that for the American people."

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From Classes On Bad Bunny To 'Queering God' Higher-Ed Has Lost Its Way

2026-06-09T14:19:45.504-07:00

From Classes On Bad Bunny To 'Queering God' Higher-Ed Has Lost Its Way

Via The College Fix,

Higher education is not what it used to be.

Gone are the days when students were required to study the classics. Nowadays it seems like any gibberish can pass for scholarly study.

The examples are myriad, write Daniel Buck, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Garion Frankel, incoming editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

“Oregon State University offers ‘Disney: Gender, Race, and Empire.’

Students at Indiana University can attend the course, ‘Having it All: Postfeminist Media After Sex and the City,'” the two wrote in The Hill on June 2.

“How about ‘Bad Bunny: Musical Aesthetics and Politics’ at Yale University? The Bad Bunny Syllabus that inspires this course — which lists topics such as ‘LGBTQ Activism,’ ‘Gender and Sexuality in Reggaeton’ and ‘Political Protests of Summer 2019’ for study - is also in use at Wellesley College and Loyola Marymount University.

Both Swarthmore College and the University of Chicago offer courses on ‘Queering God.'”

The scholars go on to note these classes are no outliers:

Harvard offers an English course, “Taylor Swift and Her World.”

At UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, students can take “Artistry, Policy, and Entrepreneurship: Taylor’s Version” through the Department of Economics.

Penn State Berks offers a course titled, “Taylor Swift, Gender, and Communication.”

Another unofficial sub-genre of courses focuses on Korean pop music — “Lights, Camera, Action: The Visual Culture of K-Pop” at Columbia University, “K-Pop and Human Rights” at Binghamton University, “Kangnam Style: K-Pop and the Globalization of Korean Soft Power” at Stanford University, or “K-Pop and J-Pop Culture” at Florida International University.

The scholars point out that at a time when the return on investment for a four-year degree is plummeting and trust in higher education is at an all-time low, colleges and universities should return to their true purpose.

“A student who can tell you all about Swift’s entrepreneurship but cannot write a five-paragraph essay is not educated, but entertained,” the duo wrote.

“Why attend college in the first place? Universities were once places where students and faculty alike pursued higher aims — truth, beauty, ethics and even the divine.

What are they now? Too often, they resemble four-year summer camps, designed to make students comfortable with a participation diploma at the end.”

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'Chat Is Dead': OpenAI's Pre-IPO Makeover Into A "Superapp"

2026-06-08T14:19:39.787-07:00

'Chat Is Dead': OpenAI's Pre-IPO Makeover Into A "Superapp"

The year the private-AI complex finally has to show its work has arrived, and ChatGPT maker OpenAI is about to add some major garnishing to the prospectus before their upcoming IPO - in what FT is calling the "biggest overhaul of ChatGPT since launch."

"It will transcend the actual surface . . . what we’re building towards is where you have your own personal agent that is capable of helping you . . . across everything in your life, be it personally or at work," said Thibault Sottiaux, who previously ran Codex and now leads all of OpenAI’s core product and platform.

Context: Over the last three weeks, the three most valuable private companies in the space announced IPOs. SpaceX filed its S-1 in May, months after folding xAI into itself. Anthropic filed a confidential draft S-1 on June 1, reportedly targeting an October listing. And OpenAI filed its own confidential draft around May 22, aiming for a debut as soon as September at a private valuation of roughly $730 billion to $850 billion, with IPO chatter pushing toward $1 trillion. The back half of 2026 is now the first real test of whether public investors will pay the prices private rounds have set.

"Chat Is Dead"

"Chat is dead," one senior OpenAI employee told the FT - which is a crazy thing to hear given that ChatGPT is what brought us here, and still has nearly a billion users. The obvious interpretation: OpenAI is moving away from chat because chat does not pay, at least not quickly enough to support a near-trillion-dollar valuation.

Adoption was never the problem. ChatGPT has nearly a billion users, most of them on the free tier. The problem is that the flagship product remains a low-margin consumer chatbot while the company burns roughly $14 billion a year against revenue that crossed $20 billion by the end of 2025. Depending on how that revenue is annualized and what multiple investors apply, OpenAI's valuation range implies a price-to-sales multiple from the mid-30s to the low 60s. Walking into a roadshow near $1 trillion while presenting the golden goose as a beloved money-loser is not a viable option.

The company has also reorganized. ChatGPT, Codex, and other product teams have been consolidated under a single leader, Sottiaux, while several senior executives - including former product head Kevin Weil - have departed. Key-person churn in the weeks before an S-1 filing is, notable.

According to FT and other reporting, here's what's new:

ChatGPT is being redesigned from a standalone chatbot into a gateway for higher-value products. The website and mobile apps are expected to be reworked so users are pushed toward coding tools, image generation, AI agents, and partner-built applications rather than simply returning to a general-purpose chat interface.
OpenAI is adding prompts and interface features that steer users toward monetizable use cases. The company is expected to add new surfaces inside ChatGPT that direct users toward Codex, image tools, and apps from partners such as Canva and Booking.com. The partners themselves are not new; their more prominent placement inside the ChatGPT flow is.
The company plans to remove that scaffolding over time. The longer-term goal is for OpenAI’s models to infer what users want without requiring explicit prompts, buttons, or routing cues. That roadmap detail appears to be one of the more specific new elements in the report.
The “superapp” framing is being elevated as the new investor-facing story. OpenAI is increasingly presenting ChatGPT as a single interface that can absorb chat, coding, agents, search-like tasks, image generation, and third-party services. The underlying components have existed in pieces, but the report frames them as one consolidated product thesis.
Codex is being pushed closer to the center of ChatGPT. OpenAI’s coding product is receiving greater prominence and resources as the company shifts attention toward products with clearer paid usage and enterprise demand. The Codex push was already underway, but the report makes it central to the ChatGPT overhaul.
The personal-agent vision is being packaged as the next version of ChatGPT. OpenAI is positioning the product around a single assistant that can help across personal and work tasks, reachable through mobile, desktop, web, and voice. The company has been moving toward agents for some time; what is newly elevated is the idea that this agent becomes the primary ChatGPT experience.
The enterprise pivot is being tied directly to the ChatGPT redesign. OpenAI’s push toward business customers and competition with Anthropic is not new. What is newly emphasized is the way the consumer interface is being reshaped to support that shift, turning ChatGPT into a funnel for higher-value, work-oriented products.

The revamp is expected to begin rolling out in the coming weeks - right inside the IPO window, when every interface change, resource shift, and product decision doubles as investor messaging meant to burnish the prospectus.

One issue with a 'superapp': structural coherence. A consumer funnel that routes users to third-party apps like Canva and Booking.com, an enterprise business built around Codex, and a long-horizon AGI bet are three different businesses with three different margin profiles, customer-acquisition dynamics, and capital requirements. OpenAI is now trying to staple them together within an agentic ecosystem - something that was always going to happen.

So OpenAI is building the only story that can survive diligence: enterprise seats, Codex, and agents that perform billable work. Codex's weekly active users have grown sixfold to more than five million since the February desktop launch, with the majority of users paying. Enterprise already accounts for around 40 percent of revenue and is expected to reach 50 percent by year-end. That sequencing is, almost line for line, the "make money first" approach Anthropic has followed for years. The convergence is no longer subtle.

That said, the revamp does not amount to panic. Agents and coding tools really are where the technical and commercial frontier is moving anyway. Codex's growth trajectory is real, and a majority-paying user mix is what you want going into an IPO.

Meanwhile, what's Dario gonna do? Anthropic also burns substantial cash and has told investors it may not reach break-even until 2028. Both companies are walking into the same public-market daylight this year.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/08/2026 - 15:40
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Trump Admin Announces $850MM To Modernize US Coal Capacity, Build 2 New Plants

2026-06-07T16:19:37.715-07:00

Trump Admin Announces $850MM To Modernize US Coal Capacity, Build 2 New Plants

By Robert Walton of UtilityDive

The Trump administration approved 76 coal-related permits in more than a year of efforts to revive the flagging fuel and execute an agenda of “energy dominance.” His latest attempt includes tapping Defense Production Act funding to expand the industry.

“Last year we prevented 17 GW of coal-powered electricity from going offline. That’s enough power for about 13 million homes, and at a very low price. It’s the lowest price,” Trump said of coal resources.

But critics say the opposite is true. “This move, along with the President blocking the retirement of old coal plants that are too costly to operate, is making most Americans poorer,” Jenkins said. “This is a total misuse of the Defense Production Act, a giant giftwrapped payout to subsidize and prop up a flailing industry that can no longer compete in the free market.”

The coal funding is “another example of Trump ignoring the affordability crisis,” Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, said in a statement. “Abusing emergency authorities to justify subsidies for coal is a waste of taxpayer dollars and a clear giveaway to an absurdly outdated, expensive and dirty fossil fuel.”

DOE said it plans to use up to $425 million in Defense Production Act Title III funds to support a dozen coal-plant projects and $75 million for the West Gateway Terminal Project, to operate a rail-served marine export terminal. The coal projects include:

$19 million for Arizona Electric Power Cooperative to modernize and extend the operating life the Apache Generating Station near Cochise, Arizona;
$33 million for Duke Energy Kentucky to boost generating capacity at its East Bend Station in Boone County, Kentucky;
$22.5 million for Oklahoma Gas and Electric’s Sooner DCS Modernization Project near Red Rock, Oklahoma, to modernize the facility’s distributed control system to maintain reliability and improve efficiency; and,
$46.3 million for Tennessee Valley Authority to revitalize its Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County, Tennessee, to meet regional demands for dispatchable power.

The West Gateway Terminal Project “will support continued growth in U.S. coal exports, improve supply chain resilience, and strengthen energy partnerships with allies throughout the Indo-Pacific region,” DOE Under Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit said in a statement.

In a separate announcement, DOE said four projects will receive up to $350 million under the agency’s “Restoring Reliability: Coal Recommissioning and Modernization” initiative, to add or preserve roughly 3.6 GW of coal-fired capacity.

Apache Generating Station near Cochise, Arizona;

Along with almost 3 GW of new capacity split between Alaska and West Virginia, DOE announced funding for a project in Guayama, Puerto Rico, to retrofit and modernize an existing 510-MW coal-fired plant, and another project in Cumberland, Maryland, to recommission a 205-MW facility that ceased operations in 2024.

The Anchorage plant will have 1.25 GW of new coal capacity and the West Virginia Energy Campus project will offer 1.6 GW, according to a fact sheet from DOE. They would be the first new U.S. plants to come online since 2013, Trump said.

Also Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an emergency order directing the Orlando Utilities Commission to ensure that Unit 1 at the coal-fired Stanton Energy Center near Orlando, Florida, remains available to operate. The unit was slated to enter a premature extended cold shutdown this month. The order is effective through Sept. 1.

“Americans are upset about high electricity prices,” Wright said at the White House event. “Blame closing existing, reliable, secure plants, and replacing them with subsidized, unreliable plants — a gauranteed way to drive electricity prices up.”

But critics say coal plants are expensive to operate and the administration’s efforts are driving U.S. power bills higher. In March, the Sierra Club published analysis showing the Trump administration’s emergency orders to keep six retiring fossil-fueled power plants online have cost ratepayers more than $230 million.

More emergency orders have been issued since the Sierra Club analysis. Coal supporters, however, say the resources are essential and Trump’s investments will help maintain power grid reliability.

“Coal is a critical part of America’s energy security,” America’s Power President and CEO Michelle Bloodworth said in a statement. The group represents the U.S. coal sector.

“The United States has approximately 400 years of domestic coal reserves, making it one of the most fuel-secure energy sources available,” Bloodworth said.

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Former Musk Adviser Sriram Krishnan Leaving White House AI Role

2026-06-07T15:19:06.497-07:00

Former Musk Adviser Sriram Krishnan Leaving White House AI Role

Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,

Senior White House policy adviser on artificial intelligence Sriram Krishnan, a former Twitter executive who advised Elon Musk during his acquisition of the social media platform, announced Saturday he will leave his role at the end of June.

U.S. President Donald Trump hands a pen to Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence Sriram Krishnan after signing an executive order while U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) (2nd L) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick look on in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Dec. 11, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a social media post, Krishnan described serving the American people as "the privilege of a lifetime" and thanked President Donald Trump for the opportunity.

"Without his leadership, we would not be leading in the AI race," Krishnan wrote.

Krishnan also thanked David Sacks, saying he had worked most closely with him over the past 18 months and praising his advocacy for American leadership in artificial intelligence.

Among the accomplishments Krishnan said he was most proud of were helping architect and publish the American AI Action Plan, advancing AI acceleration partnerships, helping develop the National AI Policy Framework for AI executive order, and advocating for the American AI technology sector with allies around the world.

Looking ahead, Krishnan said the United States and its allies face challenges involving energy, data centers, and expanding access to artificial intelligence technologies.

"I plan on building institutions that help tackle some of those challenges for America and its allies," he wrote.

Krishnan also thanked numerous administration officials and others for their support, including Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Elon Musk, and others.

Krishnan leaves as opposition to AI data centers has grown rapidly across the country as projects expand into communities.

According to Data Center Watch, an estimated $152 billion in potential data center investment was blocked or delayed in 2025. Hundreds of activist groups in 42 states organized to oppose new projects or expansions. Critics cite concerns over water consumption, electricity demand, noise, and the lack of long-term studies on health and environmental impacts. There are more than 3,100 data centers in the United States, according to the Data Center Map. There are another 1,800 data centers in some state of development.

Trump announced Krishnan was joining the White House as an adviser in December 2024.

"Sriram Krishnan will serve as Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy," the president said at that time. "Working closely with David Sacks, Sriram will focus on ensuring continued American leadership in A.I., and help shape and coordinate A.I. policy across Government, including working with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Sriram started his career at Microsoft as a founding member of Windows Azure."

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FBI Fires Analysts Who Drafted Controversial Anti-Catholic Memo

2026-06-06T16:19:21.338-07:00

FBI Fires Analysts Who Drafted Controversial Anti-Catholic Memo

Via Headline USA,

Several FBI analysts who drafted a 2023 memo that cited Southern Poverty Law Center information to justify targeting “radical-traditionalist Catholics” as potential violent domestic extremists were fired Friday, according to their lawyer, the latest wave of terminations under the leadership of its director Kash Patel.

The fired employees included four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI declined to comment.

The January 2023 intelligence product produced by analysts in the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office emerged as a political flashpoint after it was issued, with Republicans in Congress repeatedly citing it as part of their broader contention that the FBI during the Biden administration was targeting conservatives.

The FBI quickly backtracked from the memo at the time, saying it had been drafted in error. Then-director Chris Wray repeatedly denied that charge and the FBI has said the document was quickly retracted and an internal review was launched. Merrick Garland, the attorney general under President Joe Biden, has said he was “appalled” by the memo.

🚨BREAKING🚨 The FBI's controversial memo targeting Catholics was inspired by an investigation into a schizophrenic man

I've got the records to prove it

🧵https://t.co/vTLAQI9gJr
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 23, 2024

As Headline USA exclusively revealed in April 2024, the FBI’s troubling memo was crafted by analysts involved in an investigation into a schizophrenic man who began attending a traditional Catholic church in early 2022. That schizophrenic man, 24-year-old Xavier Lopez, was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of domestic extremism-related charges. His mental health diagnosis was revealed during criminal proceedings.

According to records from his case, Lopez was on law enforcement’s radar since September 2018, when he attempted suicide. Lopez was 18 years old at the time. The FBI opened an assessment into Lopez about a year later after he allegedly made online statements advocating civil war and the murder of politicians.

Law enforcement continued to monitor Lopez—including while he served a stint in jail for felony vandalism—into early 2022, when he began attending Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel in Richmond, Virginia. Our Lady of Fatima is one of the Catholic chapel’s listed in the FBI’s memo.

Shortly after Lopez started attending Our Lady of Fatima, the FBI decided to run an informant at him inside the church.

Infiltrating a Catholic church with an informant was supposedly necessary because “the only times [Lopez] left the house alone were to attend events at [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel] and it therefore provided the only potential opportunity for [an informant] to establish regular contact with him,” a 2024 DOJ Inspector General’s report said.

The FBI insisted that the informant was only used to monitor Lopez—and wasn’t used against any of the church’s other members, according to the DOJ-IG report.

The existence of the FBI informant is not disclosed in any of Lopez’s criminal records.

Lopez was arrested in November 2022 on a slew of state charges, including prohibited paramilitary activity, soliciting someone for a terrorist act and possessing firearms as a felon.

After his arrest, an FBI analyst with knowledge of the investigation worked with another analyst to craft the FBI’s memo about Catholics.

According to the DOJ-IG report, the FBI analysts wanted help conduct outreach to faith communities, “to make them aware of what we would call warning signs to radicalization, for the protection of everybody.”

“There was ample information in [Lopez’s] chats and in online chatter suggesting a potential link between white supremacist ideology and an attraction to certain religious beliefs and organizations, including [Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel], but that the two analysts were searching for more definite substantiation,” the DOJ-IG report said, citing interviews with the FBI analysts.

One FBI analyst told the DOJ-IG that he found it “completely incongruous” that Lopez was attempting “to find common ground or find a community with this particular faith community.” He also said that there was no evidence that Lopez was being radicalized at Lady of Fatima Catholic Chapel, because he had been on the FBI’s radar “as an unstable, dangerous individual” before “any association with any Catholic related entity whatsoever.”

Rather, the FBI expressed concerns to the DOJ-IG that Lopez may have been recruiting other Lady of Fatima members to carry out an attack.

There is nothing in the charging documents against Lopez to suggest that he was recruiting other Catholics for an attack. Rather, the available evidence suggests that Lopez was interested in Catholic church to find a girlfriend.

“One place you will find [white women] is at a traditional church … I found a girl there that checked off every box on my list, but she’s 17 and I’m 22 so that’s not happening,” he said in an August 2022 post on Gab, according to charging documents.

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Tesla Design Chief Says EV Supercar Roadster Is Coming "In A Few Weeks"

2026-06-06T14:19:06.193-07:00

Tesla Design Chief Says EV Supercar Roadster Is Coming "In A Few Weeks"

Ferrari shot its load with the highly disappointing Luce EV...

Next up is American innovation, not Italian innovation: the Tesla Roadster.

🚨 Tesla Roadster vs. Ferrari Luce

Price - $250,000 vs. $640,000
Horsepower - 1,000+ vs. 1,035
0-60 MPH - 1.1s OR 1.9s vs. 2.4s
Top Speed - 250+ MPH vs. 194 MPH
Range - 620 miles vs. 280 miles https://t.co/uEgswwVLeD pic.twitter.com/XcP58ZRO6Z
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 5, 2026

On Saturday, Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen told the crowd at the Tesla Takeover Europe event that the Roadster is coming "in a few weeks."

🚨 Tesla Chief Designer Franz Von Holzhausen, speaking to the crowd at Tesla Takeover Europe, said at the event that the Roadster is coming “in a few weeks,”

Multiple attendees have confirmed this pic.twitter.com/B1v6yb2Geq
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 6, 2026

Absolutely perfect timing for the long-awaited EV supercar, considering the SpaceX IPO is next Friday and there are rumors that a SpaceX-Tesla merger could become a 2027 story.

BREAKING: ELON MUSK CONSIDERS MERGING $TSLA AND SPACEX AFTER IPO, per CNBC 👀

It’s happening ! pic.twitter.com/BD7g4zDd1Z
— TheSonOfWalkley (@TheSonOfWalkley) May 26, 2026

On Friday, Ferrari's CEO was quoted in an interview saying, "We will not make fully autonomous cars, loud and clear. We want people to have fun, not the [computer] chips. We want to have a steering wheel and a man or a woman behind the steering wheel. Otherwise, why do you buy a Ferrari?"

Ferarri CEO in new interview: 'We will not make fully autonomous cars - loud and clear. We want the people to have fun, not the [computer] chips. We want to have a steering wheel and a man or a woman behind the steering wheel. Otherwise, why do you buy a Ferrari?"…
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 5, 2026

Perhaps the Ferrari CEO's negative sentiment toward fully autonomous cars stems from the belief that it simply can't build one that will compete with Tesla, which already has 10 billion miles of real-world driving data.

Ferrari has already launched hybrid models that have been shunned by its customer base (read report):

Yet did anyone tell the Ferrari CEO that AI driving mode can be switched off?

The Tesla Roadster is meant to be driven manually.

Just watch Franz show off its acceleration:

pic.twitter.com/5PjAuis1kl https://t.co/klwXeYlaOU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 5, 2026

A Tesla Roadster that could outperform Ferrari's Luce EV at a fraction of the cost is pure American innovation.

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Coinbase To Launch Token-Backed Mortgage Down-Payments This Summer

2026-06-05T15:19:20.407-07:00

Coinbase To Launch Token-Backed Mortgage Down-Payments This Summer

Authored by Turner Wright via CoinTelegraph.com,

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will allow qualified borrowers to pledge digital assets to fund Fannie Mae-backed mortgage apartments beginning this summer.

In a Thursday notice, Coinbase and its partner, Better Home & Finance, said the mortgage structure plan launching “by summer 2026” will allow borrowers to initially use Bitcoin (BTC) or USDC (USDC) as collateral for loans to fund down payments for homes. The initiative, first announced in March, represented a significant shift in companies allowing digital assets to be used for financing houses.

“We’re excited to expand access to all qualified borrowers to fix an ongoing issue: buyers who qualify on every measure that matters but cannot clear the down payment hurdle because their wealth isn’t where the system expects to find it,” said Better founder and CEO Vishal Garg.

Garg said in a March post on X:

“This isn’t a niche thing. It’s what everyone is going to do once most financial assets are tokenized. It’s just a better way to buy a house.”

The move by Coinbase and Better followed US regulatory agencies under the Trump administration being friendlier to crypto companies and more accepting of digital assets integrated with traditional finance. In June 2025, the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider crypto as an asset in mortgage risk assessments without requiring a conversion into fiat.

Other mortgage lenders have made similar moves since the FHFA order. In February, Newrez began allowing borrowers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to qualify for a mortgage application.

Source: Bill Pulte

Volatile crypto-backed mortgages scrutinized for political motivations

Although the price volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin may present challenges to the mortgage plan, some US lawmakers have accused FHFA head Bill Pulte of being “unduly influenced” by President Donald Trump in supporting such policies.

“Expanding underwriting criteria to include the consideration of unconverted cryptocurrency assets could pose risks to the stability of the housing market and the financial system,” said five US senators in a July 2025 letter to Pulte following the FHFA order.

Republican lawmakers, including crypto proponent Cynthia Lummis, have proposed codifying the FHFA order into law. She introduced the 21st Century Mortgage Act in July 2025, saying government agencies “must evolve to meet the needs of a modern, forward-thinking generation.”

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Obamacare Fraud Estimated To Cost $25 Billion This Year: Report

2026-06-04T16:19:20.069-07:00

Obamacare Fraud Estimated To Cost $25 Billion This Year: Report

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

Taxpayers will foot the bill for up to $25 billion in improper Obamacare payments due to organized fraud and improper enrollments in 2026, according to a June 3 report from Paragon Health Institute.

A pedestrian passes an insurance agency that offers Affordable Care Act plans in Miami, on Jan. 28, 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Some 6.2 million enrollments in the healthcare exchanges during the most recent open-enrollment period were improper, the report said, accounting for 27 percent of all enrollments.

The conservative think tank has studied fraud in the Obamacare program since 2024.

The problem of improper enrollments persists despite recent attempts to curtail it, and appears to involve organized efforts by unscrupulous insurance brokers, the report concluded.

Meanwhile, some industry groups have criticized the findings.

Incentives For Fraud

Obamacare's premium subsidies, which cover 100 percent of the health coverage policy for many beneficiaries, and referral bonuses offer an incentive for both enrollees and brokers to abuse the system, the report concluded.

Researchers identified improper enrollments by comparing Obamacare data to Census Bureau population estimates. The improper enrollments were calculated by a state-by-state comparison of enrollments in the lowest income category to the number of people having that income level in the state.

The lowest income category is 100 percent to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $16,000 to $24,000 per year for an individual or about $27,000 to $41,000 for a family of three.

Enrollees with incomes at that level receive the highest subsidies. During the 2026 open enrollment period, 29 percent of enrollees chose a plan with a $0 premium.

That gives enrollees and the agents who sign people up for Obamacare an incentive to misstate their income, the report concluded.

The American Hospital Association has said Paragon's research results are not valid due to flawed methodology. "The Census uses different income and household size definitions than the Marketplace so there is no possibility of the data matching," the group said in an August 2025 statement. The association also said the Census relies on reported income but Obamacare asks for projected income.

The total value of Obamacare subsidies to be paid in 2026 is $88 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Agents who enroll individuals or families in Obamacare earn a commission averaging around $20 per enrollee per month for as long as the policy is active.

Obamacare received more than 23 million enrollments during the 2026 open enrollment period.

Subsidies and commissions are paid on "effectuated" enrollments, meaning enrollees who selected a plan and paid the initial premium.

The number of effectuated enrollments for 2026 has not yet been released, though about 96 percent of signups became effectuated enrollments in 2025.

Weak Controls

Congress allowed Obamacare's enhanced subsidies to expire in 2025, which reduced the number of people eligible for a 100 percent subsidy.

Yet improper enrollments persist in part because of automatic re-enrollment, said Brian Blase, Paragon's founder and president.

"Automatic re-enrollment remains pervasive. Nearly 40 percent of 2026 exchange enrollees were automatically re-enrolled," Blase told The Epoch Times by email.

That allows previous improper enrollments to carry over from year to year.

Congress and the Trump administration have taken actions to strengthen checks on improper enrollment, but most are not yet in effect.

Enacted law will require annual income eligibility verification. That takes effect in 2028.

The administration implemented stricter verification rules in May 2026, but they did not impact the 2026 open enrollment, which ended Jan. 15.

Legal Action Center, a human rights advocacy group, has opposed mandatory re-enrollment and income verification because it places an administrative burden on those dealing with substance abuse, mental health conditions, or criminal convictions.

"There is an ongoing need for an automatic re-enrollment mechanism, given that some people do not actively return to the Marketplace to make plan choices during open enrollment," the group wrote to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in April 2025. Rather than requiring action on the part of enrollees, Legal Action Center urged the federal government to verify continued eligibility using existing data such as the Social Security Administration and state unemployment databases.

Bad Actors

Unscrupulous brokers appear to have contributed to improper enrollments by steering consumers toward plans that pay larger commissions, Blase said. And the report suggests that some agents have created fictitious enrollments.

"Some brokers and agents continue steering low-income enrollees into $0-premium plans," Blase said, even though it may not provide them the best value.

Bronze plans have no premium for an enrollee at 100 percent of the federal poverty level. But the out-of-pocket costs could total nearly $7,500 per year, according to Paragon.

The same individual could qualify for a silver plan for which the enrollee premium plus out-of-pocket costs totaled $415.

"One plausible explanation is that brokers moved enrollees into $0-premium bronze or gold plans because some consumers will only enroll if coverage is free," Blase said. "And phantom enrollees cannot pay premiums."

Paragon defines phantom enrollments as those that are fictitious, or unaware they are enrolled, or are enrolled in other coverage.

In 2024, 35 percent of Obamacare enrollments reported no medical claims. "The percentage of zero-claim enrollees in the exchanges is dramatically higher than observed in the broader private market and strongly suggests a substantial number of phantom enrollees."

Also, about half of all enrollees reported unknown race or ethnicity in 2026, a trend that began in 2024, according to the report. Researchers say this could indicate that the agents had little contact with the enrollees.

"These findings suggest that a substantial portion of recent ACA exchange enrollment growth may not reflect legitimate increases in insured individuals," the report stated.

America's Health Insurance Plans, an association of health insurers, has been critical of Paragon's previous research on phantom enrollees.

"A 'no-claims' year is evidence that a consumer stayed healthy or only had a few months of coverage - not that taxpayer money was misdirected or that their policy was illegitimate," the group said in an August 2025 statement.

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Oil Prices Hold Gains As Gasoline Stocks Hit 12 Year Lows, Cushing 'Tank Bottoms' Loom

2026-06-03T16:19:11.386-07:00

Oil Prices Hold Gains As Gasoline Stocks Hit 12 Year Lows, Cushing 'Tank Bottoms' Loom

Brent crude prices are rising back toward $100 per barrel this morning following the latest flare-up in fighting to threaten the U.S.-Iran ceasefire

Prices rose after the U.S. military said Iran fired missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, which failed to hit their targets.

The United States said it then struck an Iranian military ground control station on an island in the Strait of Hormuz.

API:

Crude: -6.8MM
Cushing: -279k
Gasoline: +3.5M
Distillate: -214k

DOE:

Crude: -7.97mm - biggest draw since Feb
Cushing: -583k
Gasoline: +3.36mm - biggest build since Jan
Distillate: +1.50mm

US crude stocks fell for the sixth straight week with Cushing inventories testing tank bottoms once again. The week saw an unexpected jump in product inventories with Gasoline's biggest build since January...

Source: Bloomberg

Today's rise in gasoline stocks lifts them off their lowest level for this time of year since 2014...

Source: Bloomberg

Cushing 'tank bottoms' are in sight once again...

Source: Bloomberg

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve saw another huge drawdown this week (down 58mm barrels since the start of the war)...

Source: Bloomberg

Rig counts are on the rise as US crude production drifts back towards record highs...

Source: Bloomberg

US crude and product exports jumped back towards record highs...

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was trading around $95 ahead of the official data...

Finally, economists at Macquarie wrote in a note this morning that crude oil’s muted reaction to the closure of Hormuz has mainly been a function of the oversupply seen before the war, .

The analysts suggested that “the market will be ok for another month or two, especially given commercial crude stocks have been cushioned by SPR/product draws."

However, if the Strait remains closed at the end of the northern summer (Labor Day is Sept. 7), physical availability will tighten materially.

“If the Strait reopens soon, we expect prices to fall sharply. However, with stocks drawing rapidly, if the Strait remains closed, at some point prices will need to move much higher.”

'Tank Bottoms' are in sight around the world.

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Venezuela Oil Exports Hit 7-Year High

2026-06-02T15:19:06.611-07:00

Venezuela Oil Exports Hit 7-Year High

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Venezuela’s oil exports inched up from April to hit a fresh seven-year high in May as shipments to the United States and India continued to rise.

Venezuela exported an estimated 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in May, up by 0.7% compared to April’s 1.23 million bpd exports and a massive 61% jump compared to May 2025, according to ship-tracking and vessel-loading data reviewed by Reuters.

Venezuela has been steadily increasing its oil exports since the U.S. took control over its oil sales following the capture of Nicolas Maduro early this year.

The U.S. has eased sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry and its state oil firm PDVSA, allowed Western firms to return to Venezuelan operations, and has encouraged American companies to sign production and export deals.

The U.S. and India have become major buyers of Venezuela’s oil after the sanctions were dropped and the top international oil traders Vitol and Trafigura were tasked to sell most of the crude to buyers.

As a result, the Venezuelan exports rose for a third consecutive month in May, with shipments to India accounting for the slight increase compared to April.

Exports in April jumped by 14% from March levels, with 66 cargoes leaving Venezuelan ports during the month, and volumes at their highest since 2019 when the first Trump Administration imposed sanctions on PDVSA and Venezuela’s oil exports.

In May, a total of 67 cargoes carrying Venezuelan crude were exported, according to the data Reuters has reviewed.

The United States remained the top buyer of Venezuela’s crude, taking in about 558,000 bpd in May, followed by India with 427,000 bpd and Europe with 169,000 bpd. Shipments to all three regions rose in May from April levels.

India’s top private refiner, Reliance Industries, has become one of the three biggest buyers of Venezuelan crude as it imported cargoes sold by Chevron, Vitol, and Trafigura, according to the data.

India is importing the highest volumes of Venezuelan crude in six years as it turns to the South American producer amid the Middle East supply crisis.

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May Auto Demand "Stronger Than Expectations", Deutsche Says

2026-06-01T15:19:15.554-07:00

May Auto Demand "Stronger Than Expectations", Deutsche Says

In a preview of May U.S. auto sales, Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu and his team said industry demand appears to be holding up better than expected. They estimate the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate (SAAR) reached 15.9 million units during the month, modestly above last year's pace of roughly 15.7 million. While total vehicle sales are projected to be slightly lower than a year ago, the comparison is skewed by one fewer selling day in May 2026.

After adjusting for that calendar effect, daily sales rates improved by more than 2%, suggesting underlying consumer demand remains relatively healthy.

We expect May US light vehicle SAAR to come in at 15.9m units. This compares to ~15.7m last year. Absolute sales are expected to be up MoM at ~1.453m units (vs. April at ~1.380m), but down YoY from ~1.475m in 2025. The absolute YoY change doesn't necessarily indicate a significant downgrade in consumers health but is reflective of one less selling day in 2026 resulting in a daily sales rate that actually rose ~2.3%.

The firm's dealer and channel checks indicate that automakers largely maintained pricing discipline throughout the month. Average transaction prices continued to edge higher both sequentially and year over year, reflecting a relatively stable pricing environment. Incentive activity was mixed, however.

Ford increased promotional spending through its employee pricing program, a strategy similar to one used last year, contributing to a notable rise in incentives. Industry-wide incentive levels remained significantly above year-ago levels, driven primarily by Ford and Stellantis, although incentives declined modestly compared with April.

According to Deutsche Bank's conversations with industry participants, geopolitical developments in the Middle East have not yet had a meaningful impact on vehicle demand:

This month, thus far, is stronger than our coming in expectations. Based on our conversations, the Middle East conflict appears to have little impact yet on light vehicle sales. Powertrain mix also appears relatively unchanged despite elevated oil prices. Overall we maintain our full year at 15.9m, still somewhat more conservative than the automaker's latest forecasts.

Higher fuel prices also do not appear to be changing consumer purchasing behavior, as the mix of vehicle powertrains sold has remained largely unchanged.

Looking ahead, Yu and his team left their full-year U.S. light vehicle sales forecast unchanged at 15.9 million units. That outlook remains somewhat below the forecasts recently provided by several automakers, reflecting Deutsche Bank's more cautious stance on the industry's trajectory through the remainder of the year.

On the company level, Ford's aggressive incentive activity continues to stand out, particularly in the full-size pickup segment, where incentives on the F-150 increased materially during the month. General Motors maintained relatively stable pricing and incentive levels, while Stellantis continued to offer some of the highest incentives in the industry despite modest sequential moderation.

Overall, Deutsche Bank views the May sales environment as constructive, with demand trends remaining resilient and pricing conditions generally supportive.

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What Are Americans Most Worried About?

2026-05-31T16:19:35.651-07:00

What Are Americans Most Worried About?

Statista’s Consumer Insights survey has been tracking which issues adults in the United States consider to be the most important in the country right now, and how they have shifted over time.

The following chart, via Statista's Anna Fleck, provides just a snapshot of these, listing the eight most cited concerns out of a possible 20 options, in the most recent survey wave as well as in the survey wave at the start of the pandemic.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Where health and social security came first in the earlier iteration, likely in reference to Covid-19, it had dropped by eight percentage points by 2025/26.

In the meantime, inflation and the cost of living has risen from third position to first position (+9 p.p).

Other notable changes include a drop in the share of people citing immigration in the latest wave and an increase in the share of people picking housing (previously in rank 14 at 22 percent).

Six of the eight most recent most pressing issues are social, with the sole environmental topic of climate change having dropped off the list, coming in 14th position with 23 percent of respondents picking it, following issues such as education (rank nine), corruption (rank 10) and food and water security (rank 11).

As this chart shows, poverty is now on the minds of more U.S. adults, at least more imminently, than before.

Where it had previously tied in 9th position with education in 2019/20 with a 32 percent share of respondents picking it as one the most important issues facing the country at that time, the share had risen to 33 percent in the latest survey wave.

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Trump Toughens Terms Of Iran Deal Framework, As Bessent Pinpoints Tehran's 'Big Mistake'

2026-05-31T14:19:23.515-07:00

Trump Toughens Terms Of Iran Deal Framework, As Bessent Pinpoints Tehran's 'Big Mistake'

Summary

NYT on Sunday: President Trump has toughened the terms of a potential framework for a deal to end the war in Iran.
Washington seeks to ratchet pressure, but Tehran still not budging on issue of remaining nuclear material.
Bessent describes the "big mistake" Iran made to Fox - attacking its neighbors & losing friends; also says of the Iranians "they're going to have to start taking down the wells."
Israeli PM Netanyahu says he has "instructed the Israeli military to expand the maneuver in Lebanon" after the occupation of the strategic Beaufort Castle, which he says marks "a dramatic change" in Israel’s operations.

US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 30, 2026?
Yes 30% · No 70%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

* * *

Trump Toughens the Terms of Potential Deal

Fresh Sunday reporting in the NY Times says President Trump has responded to Iran's refusal to budge on giving up its nuclear material by tightening US conditions as part of a Memorandum of Understanding to get back to the peace negotiating table.

"President Donald Trump has toughened the terms of a potential framework for a deal to end the war in Iran, and has sent those proposed changes back to Iran for consideration, according to three officials," NY Times writes, but didn't disclose what the precise changes are.

The report then speculates on where these changes likely focus: "Trump has been concerned about parts of the potential deal that would include unfreezing funds for the Iranians, two officials said."

Iran's Tasnim:

If Trump proposes changes to the draft agreement, Iran will make its own revisions as well.

Nothing is finalized. Iran says it will only accept terms it agrees with and is also prepared for the possibility of no deal. pic.twitter.com/KzWnxlWG8G
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 31, 2026

Citing frustration at the slow pace of Iran's response to the proposals, it adds, "He has been harshly critical of President Barack Obama for doing the same in the more than decade-old agreement that was signed to curtail Iran’s nuclear program."

Tightening the proposals is meant to ratchet up the pressure and 'force' the Islamic Republic to respond quicker and agree to a deal. However, the Iranians have time and again rejected being 'dictated to' by Washington, as its top negotiator Ghalibaf spelled out days ago.

Meanwhile there's been a recent change in tone when talking about Iran's military, from Trump himself:

"We’ve actually left their military alone — people would be surprised to hear that."

President Trump says Iran's military hasn't been hit as aggressively because it's "somewhat moderate" compared to other elements of the regime.

He argues that wiping out "everybody" could cause… pic.twitter.com/gG84lDSrlD
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 31, 2026

Iran Still Not Budging on Nuclear File

This also comes after a two-hour Friday Situation Room meeting Friday wherein it became clear there was no deal yet to be finalized. According to more from the Times:

The official added that Trump’s changes — a new, tougher proposal — were potentially intended to speed up the process by putting pressure on Iran to accept the framework already sent to Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, for approval.

Reaching the supreme leader has been difficult, so any changes to the document, known as the memorandum of understanding, could mean additional delays.

But for pressure to work, there has to be signs Iranian leaders are getting nervous or desperate - and so far they've not urged Washington or Pakistani mediators for some kind of grand compromise. Instead they've repeatedly sworn that Iran's highly enriched uranium will never be transferred to the possession of the United States.

Iran Decries Constant False 'Speculation'

The Sunday latest from Iran's Foreign Ministry:

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, says “dialogue and an exchange of messages are ongoing” with the United States amid stalled negotiations.

He told Iranian news agency IRNA that “it is not possible to judge until a clear conclusion is reached; everything that is being said now is speculation and should not be taken seriously until it is certain”.

Bessent: Iran's 'Big Mistake'

Still, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is busy on the Sunday news shows talking tough. He told Fox in a new interview that Iran made a "big mistake" by attacking its neighbors in the Persian Gulf, within the past week. A US base in Kuwait was also reportedly just attacked by a ballistic missile, which was reportedly intercepted - but falling debris injured five US personnel.

"We had many very good allies who maybe weren't completely transparent with us on the money — Iranian money that was in their banking systems — all of a sudden became very compliant in terms of being willing to turn over accounts or help us freeze block accounts," Bessent told Fox News.

"And then the third part was the incredible blockade. I really think it's the economic blockade of funds and the physical blockade of the ships not going in or out of the Iranian ports," he added. "Kharg Island is shut down. That's their big oil loading facilities, and that means that they're going to have to start taking down the wells," Bessent said. And yet, there's nothing officially disclosed to show this is actually happening - though the Iranians have no incentive to publicize it. But time will tell.

Bessent:

A big mistake that the Iranians made was attacking their GCC neighbors, their neighbors in the Gulf, because we had many very good allies who maybe weren't completely transparent with us on the money, Iranian money that was in their banking systems, all of a sudden… pic.twitter.com/trfonLETXI
— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 31, 2026

IDF Plunges Deep into Lebanon, Captures Crusader Castle

Some Lebanon war latest, via Al Jazeera, as ceasefire unravels:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has “instructed the Israeli military to expand the maneuver in Lebanon” after the occupation of the strategic Beaufort Castle, which he says marks “a dramatic change” in Israel’s operations.
The Israeli military claims to have killed 900 Hezbollah “terrorists” since the start of the “ceasefire” on April 16. It added that the army had struck dozens of Hezbollah sites since this morning.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has accused Israel of pursuing a “scorched-earth policy” as Israeli forces expand their ground invasion.

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Caught On Tape: Washington Nationals Official Admits To Discriminating Against Religious Player

2026-05-30T16:19:07.401-07:00

Caught On Tape: Washington Nationals Official Admits To Discriminating Against Religious Player

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

Washington Nationals Director of Community Relations Sean Hudson has been caught on camera admitting that he discriminates against starting pitcher Trevor Williams because of his Catholic faith.

The Daily Caller reports that O’Keefe Media Group has released a new undercover report where Hudson admits that the team avoids featuring starting pitcher Trevor Williams on social media because of his 2023 criticism of the Dodgers’ Pride Night.

That particular event honored a drag group dressed as nuns and performing on a crucifix that Williams called a mockery of Catholicism.

BREAKING NEWS: Washington @Nationals Director of Community Relations Admits on Hidden Camera to Active Religious Discrimination Against Starting Pitcher Trevor Williams, Surveillance of Nationals Fans’ Google History, and Segregated LGBTQ+ Corporate Meetings to an O’Keefe… pic.twitter.com/AWqlq6wXV9
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) May 26, 2026

According to Fox News, in a 2025 interview with Bishop Robert Barron, Williams explained why he spoke out, saying, “Baseball stadiums should be a place where everyone feels welcomed, like 100%. We should all feel welcomed there. But that was clearly against one certain religion. If you don’t draw the line in the sand, who’s gonna do it?”

Hudson described Williams as “super Christian-Catholic” with religious tattoos, and confessed that even lighthearted social media posts—for example, ones asking “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”—avoid including Williams because he spoke out.

Hudson also admitted on hidden camera to digitally surveilling fans who attend Nationals Park, saying, “If you ever come to a Nats game, there is someone on our team who’s responsible for figuring out everything about you, given your purchasing habits, what teams you come to when the Nats play, like what teams you come, and assigning you into a bucket of people and then catering content to you.”

The Daily Caller reports that Hudson told the undercover reporter that if a team supporter accepts online cookies “we’re getting your, a plethora of your Google history.”

In the video, the Nationals executive also described himself as “very far-left leaning” and admitted that he has a “Join the Communist Party” poster in his kitchen.

After the video came to light, Hudson deleted his X account, changed his Instagram, and denied the comments when confronted.

Hudson has since been removed from the team’s front office page amid online calls for boycotts and claims of religious discrimination.

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Missiles Rain Down On Northern Israel In Large Hezbollah 'Revenge' Operation

2026-05-30T15:19:14.626-07:00

Missiles Rain Down On Northern Israel In Large Hezbollah 'Revenge' Operation

Northern Israel has come under heavy attack from Hezbollah on Saturday, after this past week a full-scale war has resumed in southern Lebanon, which even saw the resumption of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs, much further to the north.

Even while Tel Aviv maintains the illusion of a ceasefire with Lebanon (as in, its government and national army), there is no ceasefire with Iran-linked Hezbollah, following weeks of sporadic drones being sent on northern Israel, as well as troop positions of invading IDF forces.

The Saturday drone and missile waves hit multiple locations in and around the Galilee area, with regional media reporting that at least eight missiles were launched at Israeli positions in the initial salvo, one of which struck a site in Kiryat Shmona city.

Hezbollah subsequently announced it had carried out 22 military operations against Israeli army positions and equipment within the prior 24 hours. It framed this as a revenge operation for Israeli attacks on civilian centers in Lebanon.

Times of Israel has cited IDF statements saying Israel is bracing for more attacks out of Lebanon. "Hezbollah launched several rockets from Lebanon at the Western Galilee a short while ago," it said in a late in the day Saturday (local time) update. "The IDF says some of the rockets were intercepted and others struck open areas, causing no injuries."

Sirens across several towns and cities were activated, and there were scenes of coastal locales being impacted, with throngs of people scrambling for bomb shelters.

Starting early last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that he instructed his military to "press the pedal even harder" against Hezbollah, reportedly upon a greenlight being given by Washington, following increased drone attacks from the Shia paramilitary group backed by Iran on northern Israel.

Impacts filmed in water areas of Nahariya Beach...

נפילות סמוך לחוף נהריה pic.twitter.com/NQaEPkwIdN
— כל החדשות בזמן אמת (@Saher_News_24_7) May 30, 2026

"We are at war with Hezbollah. Just in recent weeks, our brave fighters have eliminated more than 600 terrorists," Netanyahu announced in video statement. "But we are not taking our foot off the gas. On the contrary, I have instructed them to press the pedal even harder."

"We will strike them. Yes, they are attacking us with drones, cyber-enabled drones, and we have a special team working on this — and we will solve that too…But what this requires from us now is to intensify the blows, increase the force. We will strike them decisively," the Israeli leader said.

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Japan Prepares To End Quantitative Tightening Amid Bond Market Turmoil

2026-05-29T15:19:44.323-07:00

Japan Prepares To End Quantitative Tightening Amid Bond Market Turmoil

With Japanese bond yields recently hitting record highs and bond market volatility soaring, overnight Reuters floated a trial balloon that Japan's central bank may pause the unwinding of its massive debt holdings next fiscal year, which would give Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi some relief amid growing investor concerns about her growing spending plans.

A pause would mark a turning point in the Bank ‌of Japan's quantitative tightening plan - started in 2024 as part of Governor Kazuo Ueda's efforts to unwind a decade-long, massive stimulus which everyone said would result in failure. Well, there it is. The next step, of course, is more QE.

According to Reuters, which is well known for being the mouthpiece of BOJ insiders, at its June 15-16 meeting, the Japanese central bank will review its bond taper plan running through March next year and lay out a new plan for fiscal 2027. With no change expected to the existing taper plan, markets are focusing on whether the BOJ would keep reducing its monthly bond purchases in fiscal 2027 or maintain the current pace.

While there is no consensus yet within the BOJ on the final decision, a pause in taper is increasingly seen as the preferred option with uncertainty over the Iran war keeping bond markets jittery, said two sources familiar with the deliberations.

"Markets remain volatile, so there's no need to rush," one of them said on the BOJ's ⁠taper, adding that many market players appeared to favor maintaining the current pace of buying. Ironically, the market volatility is precisely the reason to rush.

Political considerations may also push the BOJ to pause as rising bond yields threaten to confine Takaichi's spending plans. "What the administration wants to avoid most is rises in bond yields," said one of the sources. Of course, if the intention is to avoid bond yields from surging, it's far too late.

Japan's 20Y bond yield rises as high as 3.511%, highest since 1996 as global interest rates go vertical pic.twitter.com/Rc1gKjfGyo
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 13, 2026

Confirming the end of the QT is effectively a done deal, some investors are now calling on the BOJ to pause its bond taper plan, a central bank survey earlier this month showed, highlighting the challenge it faces in reducing its massive Japanese government bonds (JGB) holdings.

Even before the Reuters report, there had already been some indications the BOJ might consider slowing its taper plan amid market uncertainty. A clearer signal on the BOJ's taper plan will come next week, when the central bank releases minutes of its meeting with bond market participants held on May 21-22.

"We've seen a pretty fast rise in bond yields, which makes it hard for investors to buy bonds. The finance ministry may be getting worried too," said former BOJ official Nobuyasu Atago. "Given the political headwinds, I see no reason for the BOJ to keep tapering next fiscal year," he said.

Concerns over Japan's worsening finances and rising inflation pushed up the 10-year JGB yield to a 30-year high of 2.8% last week, nearing the 3% estimate the finance ministry set in compiling its fiscal 2026 budget. A rise ‌above 3% ⁠would boost debt servicing costs and reduce scope for other spending.

The BOJ's rate-hike decision may also affect its taper plan with an increase in short-term rates to 1% from 0.75% seen as a strong possibility at the June meeting. While the central bank has said its taper program has no monetary policy implications, the case for slowing QT becomes stronger if it pushes through a hike, something it has been woefully unable to do so far despite a collapsing yen.

"With the bond market so unstable, it would be natural for the BOJ to play it safe and avoid causing undue market turbulence," said Mari Iwashita, executive rates strategist at Nomura Securities, who projects a taper pause in fiscal 2027.

"A combination of a taper pause and rate hike would be a good ⁠one," as the former will ease upward pressure on yields, while the latter would alleviate concern the BOJ is behind the curve in addressing inflationary risks, she said.

It's not just Japan: rising debt and volatile yields have heightened challenges for central banks unwinding their balance sheets that ballooned from years of heavy asset purchases to reflate their economies. In the US, analysts doubt whether new Fed chief Kevin Warsh can push through his calls for a smaller balance sheet as U.S. Treasuries lose ⁠their luster.

The BOJ has also been cautious in its QT program which started in 2024, and under which the central bank gradually reduced purchases and currently trims monthly buying by 200 billion yen each quarter.

Political hurdles for the BOJ's QT have heightened under Takaichi, who has vowed to cut tax and boost spending by issuing even more debt in the world's most indebted economy.

Taper or not, a reduction in the BOJ's holdings, currently at around 500 trillion yen, will proceed steadily due ⁠to the runoff of maturing JGBs that already shaved 20% off its balance sheet from a peak in late 2023.

That's all the more reason for the BOJ to maintain the current pace of buying, said former BOJ executive Akira Otani, currently at Goldman Sachs Japan.

"When inflationary risks from the Middle East conflict and the government's proactive fiscal policy are putting upward pressure on bond yields, proceeding with further tapering could cause political friction by pushing up yields," he said.

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One In Three American Men No Longer Working

2026-05-29T14:19:39.792-07:00

One In Three American Men No Longer Working

Via American Greatness,

The number of American men participating in the workforce has fallen to one of its lowest levels in nearly two decades, according to new federal labor statistics.

Just 66 percent of men age 20 and older were employed or actively seeking work as of April, according to data released earlier this month by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure has dropped sharply from 73 percent in 2006 and now sits near levels last seen during the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis.

The numbers mean roughly one in three American men are no longer in the workforce.

The only modern period with lower participation rates came during the economic devastation caused by the 2020 pandemic, when male workforce participation collapsed to 59 percent.

While employment rates gradually recovered during the years following the Great Recession, those gains were wiped out during the pandemic downturn. Participation rebounded somewhat within two years before beginning another steady decline that has continued into 2026.

The downward trend appears ongoing. Male workforce participation fell another full percentage point in April compared with the same period in 2025, according to Labor Department data.

Several economic shifts are contributing to the decline.

Industries that have traditionally employed large numbers of men including transportation, manufacturing and other labor-intensive sectors, have shed jobs over the past year, according to the Washington Post.

At the same time, growing numbers of retirees and male students have reduced the share of men participating in the labor market.

The labor picture for women has followed a different trajectory.

Female workforce participation also declined during the past two decades, though the swings have been less dramatic. Women saw only a 2-point decline during the 2008 recession, compared with a 5-point drop for men.

Women’s labor force participation has also remained more stable since the pandemic recovery, never falling below 56 percent since 2022.

The economy increasingly appears to favor sectors dominated by female workers. Healthcare and education jobs have grown over the past year, helping women capture nearly all recent job gains.

Of the 369,000 jobs added to the US economy since 2025, 96 perent went to women while just 4 percent went to men, according to the Washington Post.

Despite the shrinking share of men participating in the labor force, male unemployment has remained relatively low, hovering between 3 percent and 4 percent since 2021.

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