From J.D. Power: November New-Vehicle Retail Sales Decline 4.8% as Effects of EV Pull-Ahead Persist Brief excerpt:

Total new-vehicle sales for November 2025, including retail and non-retail transactions, are projected to reach 1,255,900, a 5.2% decrease year over year, according to a joint forecast from J.D. Power and GlobalData. November 2025 has 25 selling days, one fewer than November 2024.

The seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) for total new-vehicle sales is expected to be 15.4 million units, down 1.2 million units from November 2024.
...
Thomas King, president of the data and analytics division at J.D. Power:

"November’s results reflect another notable—yet anticipated—decline in the new-vehicle sales pace, driven largely by the pull-ahead of electric vehicle (EV) purchases prior to the expiration of federal EV tax credits on Sept. 30. That expiration prompted many shoppers to accelerate buying decisions, resulting in a surge in EV sales that temporarily inflated the overall industry sales pace. Now, two months after the credit expired, the industry continues to feel the effect of those accelerated purchases. In November, EVs are expected to account for just 6.0% of new-vehicle retail sales, consistent with October but well below the 12.9% recorded in September.
emphasis added

From Haig Stoddard at Omdia (pay site): US Light Vehicle Sales Declining Again in November; Falling Inventory Lowers Chance for a December Rebound

Tighter inventory, tanking deliveries of battery-electric vehicles, and an overall rise in prices for what is available are capping demand, with expectations the October-November slowdown continues in December.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and J.D. Power's forecast for November(Red).

On a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis, the J.D. Power forecast of 154 million SAAR would be up slightly from last month, and down 7.6% from a year ago.
All of Q4 will likely be difficult for vehicle sales.

The advance release of Q3 GDP has been cancelled, and the 2nd release has not been scheduled.

From BofA:

On net, given the higher weighting of the months of Jul and Aug in quarterly consumer spending as compared to Sep, our 3Q PCE tracking is down a tenth to 3.1% q/q saar. This along with higher-than-expected Aug business inventories left our 3Q GDP tracking at 2.8% q/q saar. [November 26th estimate]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

We boosted our Q3 GDP tracking estimate by 0.1pp to +3.8% (quarter-over-quarter annualized). Our Q3 domestic final sales estimate stands at +2.7%. [November 19th estimate]

And from the Atlanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2025 is 3.9 percent on November 26, down from 4.0 percent on November 25. After this morning’s advance durable manufacturing report from the US Census Bureau, the nowcast of third-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth decreased from 4.4 percent to 3.5 percent. [November 26th estimate]

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Fannie Mae Multi-Family Delinquency Rate Highest Since Housing Bust (ex-pandemic)

Excerpt:

Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Delinquency Rate Mostly Unchanged in October

Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in October was 0.56%, down from 0.57% September. Freddie's rate is up year-over-year from 0.55% in October 2024, however, this is below the pre-pandemic level of 0.60%.

Freddie's serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.17% in August 2020 during the pandemic.

Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in October was 0.54%, unchanged from 0.54% in September. The serious delinquency rate is up year-over-year from 0.52% in October 2024, however, this is below the pre-pandemic lows of 0.65%.

The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.32% in August 2020 during the pandemic.

There is much more in the article.

This Is The Income Needed To Join The Top 1% In Every State

What it takes to join the top 1% of earners varies across the United States.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, highlights the income floor required to enter the wealthiest bracket in each state for 2025.

The spread is wide, stretching from over $1 million at the top to barely $400,000 in less wealthy states.

High-paying industries like finance, technology, and professional services cluster in coastal states, pushing top incomes even higher. Meanwhile, states with smaller economies and lower costs of living require far less to reach the elite group.

The data for this visualization comes from SmartAsset. It ranks all 50 states by the annual income required to enter the top 1%, based on tax return data. The table below also includes the number of households in this bracket and the corresponding income floor for the top 5%.

Where You Need the Most to Join the 1%

Connecticut tops the list with a $1,056,996 income floor, making it the only state above the $1 million mark.

Rank State Top 1% of earners # of top 1% returns Top 5% of earners 1 Connecticut $1,056,996 16,917 $362,263 2 Massachusetts $965,170 32,795 $378,434 3 California $905,396 175,045 $353,073 4 New Jersey $901,082 43,042 $367,108 5 New York $891,640 91,840 $307,753 6 Florida $859,381 105,101 $281,811 7 Washington $819,101 35,597 $355,767 8 Colorado $772,989 27,685 $318,659 9 Wyoming $771,369 2,611 $255,320 10 Texas $743,955 128,130 $284,661 11 New Hampshire $735,374 6,796 $311,145 12 Illinois $731,202 56,794 $292,729 13 Nevada $703,713 14,754 $248,739 14 Virginia $701,792 39,103 $314,694 15 North Dakota $695,759 3,431 $272,755 16 Utah $690,548 13,991 $270,645 17 South Dakota $687,190 4,062 $255,851 18 Maryland $677,543 29,040 $304,250 19 Minnesota $671,408 26,423 $285,607 20 Georgia $662,821 46,220 $267,958 21 Montana $656,830 5,101 $251,774 22 Pennsylvania $655,636 58,541 $272,141 23 Arizona $641,262 31,872 $261,362 24 North Carolina $640,783 46,525 $268,730 25 Tennessee $638,299 30,531 $247,765 26 Idaho $627,839 8,145 $249,451 27 Kansas $609,946 12,643 $253,834 28 Nebraska $603,899 8,660 $251,139 29 Rhode Island $603,162 5,224 $258,276 30 Oregon $603,006 19,053 $270,877 31 Alaska $586,381 3,223 $266,499 32 Vermont $583,559 3,123 $249,931 33 South Carolina $580,600 23,203 $241,531 34 Delaware $578,580 4,726 $260,787 35 Wisconsin $566,711 27,293 $242,066 36 Michigan $561,582 45,218 $241,403 37 Hawaii $561,147 6,472 $249,850 38 Missouri $559,043 26,898 $237,461 39 Iowa $554,046 13,821 $241,591 40 Louisiana $551,125 18,593 $225,674 41 Maine $550,936 6,618 $236,338 42 Ohio $550,724 53,103 $232,196 43 Oklahoma $544,679 16,106 $224,074 44 Alabama $532,600 20,185 $226,634 45 Indiana $531,332 30,120 $227,098 46 Arkansas $517,761 12,198 $217,087 47 Kentucky $496,281 18,395 $215,196 48 New Mexico $451,639 9,310 $211,101 49 Mississippi $439,479 11,731 $195,171 50 West Virginia $416,310 7,316 $196,335

Massachusetts ($965,170) and California ($905,396) follow in second and third place, both supported by large, high-skill job markets. States in the Northeast and along the West Coast dominate the top positions due to dense economic activity and elevated earnings in specialized industries.

Middle-Tier States Still Require High Earnings

States like Colorado, Washington, and Virginia sit in the upper-middle tier, requiring between $700,000 and $820,000 to qualify for the top 1%. These states benefit from fast-growing metropolitan areas, strong tech or government-driven employment, and rising household incomes.

Even in energy-focused states such as Wyoming and North Dakota, the income floors exceed $690,000, showing how pockets of high-paying industries influence overall thresholds.

The Most Affordable States for Top 1% Status

At the bottom of the ranking, West Virginia’s $416,310 threshold is the lowest in the country, followed by Mississippi ($439,479) and New Mexico ($451,639). Lower costs of living, smaller urban job markets, and fewer high-paying industry clusters contribute to these more modest thresholds.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Visualizing the Cost of the American Dream on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 07:45

My Shopmas morning reads:

• 10 European Sports Cars You Should Buy Used. There is an undeniable appeal to European sports cars that you can’t and won’t find anywhere else. We have assembled a list of the best used European sports cars you can buy from the last decade or so, at abpotu half price or less than new. Despite their cost, when you are behind the wheel of these select few European sports cars, you feel like you are driving the best the world has to offer. Hard to beat half-price! (Top Speed)

• US Consumers Dial Back in Sign of Anxiety Heading Into Holidays: US consumers showed signs of fatigue leading up to the longest government shutdown, and their outlook has worsened ever since, sending a note of caution heading into the holiday-shopping season. (Bloomberg) see also The US economy’s 7 deadly signs: Parts of the America’s economy are already in deep trouble, and the weakness could drag the whole country into a recession. (Business Insider)

• The Best Way to Do a Roth IRA Conversion Before Retirement: A one-time transfer outperforms an equal-installments method in most tax situations, research finds. (Wall Street Journal)

• How to Never Be Stranded After a Canceled Flight Plus other travel tips from Away founder Jen Rubio, such as saving serious cash at duty-free, maximizing your in-flight amenity kit, and packing the one gadget to help you fall asleep quickly wherever your bed may be. (Bloomberg)

• Personalized mRNA Vaccines Will Revolutionize Cancer Treatment—If Funding Cuts Don’t Doom Them: Vaccines based on mRNA can be tailored to target a cancer patient’s unique tumor mutations. But crumbling support for cancer and mRNA vaccine research has endangered this promising therapy. (Scientific American)

• International Nationalism: As with fiber, we are in an unsettled period, with no obvious answer, and lots of chaotic, one-off gestures towards de-dollarization. For example, Ethiopia is re-valuing its foreign debt in Chinese renminbi. (Pluralistic)

• How Louvre thieves exploited human psychology to avoid suspicion—and what it reveals about AI: For humans and AI, when something fits the category of “ordinary,” it slips from notice.  (The Conversation)

• Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna’s months-long campaign to outmaneuver the White House on the Epstein files started with a text. Inside the effort to force Trump’s hand on Epstein. (Washington Post)

• Winners of the 2025 Drone Photo Awards: Explore the Beauty of the World Above. (My Modern Met) see also 13 dizzying and dazzling images from 2025 Drone Photo Awards: A lone camel, a hungry polar bear, and a congregation of herons. (Popular Science)

• How Mark Wahlberg Became The King Of Streaming: As theatrical releases decline, the 54-year-old actor has become the most bankable star on Netflix, Amazon and Apple—earning $20 million or more a movie—in a major paradigm shift of Hollywood economics. Inside the new A-Minus List. (Forbes)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of famed watchmaker A. Lange & Söhne, the Glashütte, German watchmaker, recorded live at the Audrain Newport Concours d’Elegance.

 

No sector is hurting worse than manufacturing, which continues to shed jobs at a rapid rate. The auto industry has swung from expansion under Biden to contraction under Trump

Source: Noahpinion

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

 

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

After October's 'Liquidation Day' Collapse, ADL Are The 3 Most Important Letters In Crypto

Via Wu Blockchain,

Hyperliquid Activates Cross-Margin Auto-Deleveraging for the First Time: What Are HLP and ADL?

In October 2025, Hyperliquid, one of the leading decentralized perpetual futures exchanges, triggered its cross-margin Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) mechanism for the first time in over two years of operation.

This event signals an extremely volatile market moment — one where even the platform’s own insurance vault (HLP) couldn’t fully absorb liquidation risk.

To understand what this means, we need to unpack two key components of Hyperliquid’s risk architecture: HLP and ADL.

1. What Is HLP?

The Protocol Vault as the System’s Safety Net

HLP stands for Hyperliquid Protocol Vault — essentially a shared liquidity and backstop pool built into the protocol.

Think of it as a public insurance fund or a community vault that anyone can deposit assets into. The funds in HLP serve two main purposes:

1. Provide market liquidity – It helps keep order books liquid, tightening spreads and enabling smoother trading.

2. Act as a backstop during liquidations – When a trader’s position is forcibly liquidated and the market lacks buyers or sellers to absorb the trade, HLP steps in. It takes over the losing position’s remaining collateral and assumes the exposure.

In simple terms, HLP acts as a “public good” mechanism — ensuring that even during severe market shocks, the system remains solvent (no negative equity or bad debt).

Analogy: The Backup Player in a Casino

Imagine Hyperliquid as a massive on-chain casino where everyone’s betting on BTC’s price.

If a player loses all their chips, they must be removed from the table.

But if no one wants to take over that seat, the HLP vault acts like the casino owner’s backup player, stepping in with its own money to keep the game running.

To reduce risk concentration, the protocol splits HLP into several child vaults, each covering different markets or assets.

2. What Is ADL?

The Final Line of Defense: Auto-Deleveraging

ADL, or Auto-Deleveraging, stands for the system’s last-resort risk control mechanism.It only triggers when both regular liquidations and HLP backstops fail.

Why Is Liquidation Needed?

In perpetual futures markets, every long position (betting on price increase) must have a matching short position (betting on a decrease).Each trader provides margin — collateral that ensures they can cover potential losses.

When prices move sharply, losing positions can deplete their margin. To prevent “negative balances,” the system must force-liquidate them — effectively selling or offsetting their positions so that the winner gets paid and the market stays balanced.

Without liquidation, the platform could go insolvent — something no exchange, centralized or decentralized, can afford.

3. The Three-Step Liquidation Waterfall

Hyperliquid’s liquidation process can be visualized as a three-step waterfall:

This third step, rarely used, was just triggered for the first time — showing the system’s self-balancing mechanisms working under stress.

4. How ADL Works in Practice

When a losing side’s margin is completely wiped out and HLP can’t cover the residual loss, the system initiates forced deleveraging from the profitable side.

● Triggered Side: The losing party (e.g., long positions during a crash).

● Providing Side: The winning party (e.g., shorts making large profits).

The system automatically ranks all profitable traders based on:

Profit × Leverage × Position Size

Those with the highest profit and leverage are first in line for forced position reduction — they get partially closed at the current mark price, realizing their gains early.

Why “Punish” Winners?

It’s not about punishment — it’s about maintaining systemic balance.

If no one remains to take the losing side of the contract, the exchange must close out part of the winning side to prevent imbalance.

Analogy: It’s like an oversold flight. The airline first offers incentives for volunteers to step off (market + HLP).When no one volunteers, it forces the biggest seat-holders — the “first-class whales” — to leave.

Unfair? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely — otherwise the plane can’t take off.

5. Why ADL Matters — and What It Tells Us

ADL is a crisis-only mechanism, designed to protect solvency in extreme market conditions.

● For the platform, it ensures the perpetual futures system never goes bankrupt.

● For traders, it’s a reminder: even if you’re winning big, high leverage exposes you to forced deleveraging.

● For the ecosystem, it demonstrates the maturity of on-chain risk governance — markets that can self-liquidate without external bailouts.

6. The Bigger Picture: A Necessary Imperfection

ADL is not a bug; it’s a safety fuse.

It doesn’t penalize success — it ensures survival. In a leveraged zero-sum system, when volatility dries up liquidity, someone must step out to keep the game fair and solvent.

ADL guarantees that the perpetual futures market — however chaotic — can keep operating.In that sense, an ADL event isn’t a failure.

It’s a sign that the market has reached its stress limit and the protocol has handled it — automatically, transparently, and without human intervention.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 06:30

The Dangers Of AI: Visualizing The Top Risks Companies Face

Companies are rushing to implement AI, but it’s not all smooth sailing.

More than half of businesses say the dangers of AI have led to at least one negative consequence.

But which issues plague businesses the most?

This infographic, via Visual Capitalist's Jenna Ross, breaks down the most common risks.

It’s a preview of the brand-new executive guide from Terzo and Visual Capitalist, AI’s Illusion of Truth: The Data Behind AI Errors.

The Top Dangers of AI

Inaccuracy is the biggest risk companies report, with almost a third experiencing a negative consequence at least once.

Source: McKinsey, online survey of 1,753 participants conducted June 25 to July 29, 2025.

The other dangers of AI are reported on a much lower scale. Explainability, which is the ability for people to understand an AI system’s inner workings, has affected half as many companies as inaccuracy has.

The Knock-On Effects of Errors

AI inaccuracy can lead to much bigger issues. It undermines trust in AI systems, causes operational inefficiencies, and can lead to flawed strategic decisions. When AI generates incorrect outputs, the damage is often amplified through cascading processes.

It also has the potential to create legal issues. As the Harvard Law School recently pointed out, many insurance companies are adding limitations or excluding coverage for AI-related losses. This means that leaders may not be covered under traditional Directors & Officers policies for any liabilities that arise from AI errors.

Next Steps for Leaders

Many companies have started taking steps to combat the dangers of AI. In fact, 54% of businesses are actively working to mitigate AI inaccuracies.

Leaders can take charge by ensuring their teams have humans in the loop to review AI’s output before it is used. 

See the data behind AI’s errors and how to get 99% accuracy in the free executive guide, AI’s Illusion of Truth.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 05:45

Poland Resists EU Court Order To Recognize Same-Sex Marriage

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Poland’s government and leading opposition figures have publicly pushed back against suggestions that the European Union can compel Warsaw to recognize same-sex marriages, despite a landmark ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) requiring Poland to acknowledge a marriage legally concluded in another member state.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński insisted on Wednesday that this week’s judgment does not equate to Brussels overruling Polish sovereignty.

“Since yesterday, many untruths have accumulated in this matter. Interpretations are already emerging that say: the EU is imposing its legislation on us. So no – it cannot impose its legislation on us,” he said, adding that the judgment alone “cannot force a change in Polish law in this regard.”

He stated that the government will outline how the ruling will be handled only “after thorough analyses by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice.”

The ruling — issued on Tuesday by the EU’s top court — found that Poland acted incompatibly with EU law when it refused to recognize the marriage of two Polish men who married in Berlin in 2018 and sought legal recognition upon returning home.

The CJEU held that while marriage legislation remains a national competency, a member state cannot obstruct EU citizens’ freedom to move and maintain family life across borders.

The judges concluded that denying recognition “may cause serious inconvenience at administrative, professional, and private levels” and would breach both free movement rights and the right to family life, enshrined in the European treaties and human rights legislation.

The judgment stopped short of requiring Poland to legalize same-sex marriage domestically, but it does obligate Warsaw to treat foreign same-sex marriages the same way it treats opposite-sex marriages for the purpose of recognition.

Under current law, transcription of foreign marriage certificates is the sole method for acknowledgment — a system the court said must now apply equally to same-sex couples. The move opens the door to same-sex couples in Poland, knowing they can return and insist upon the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Political fallout was immediate. President Karol Nawrocki, who has repeatedly taken a hard line against perceived EU overreach and is framed as a Eurosceptic within the Polish political landscape, was publicly defended by Przemysław Czarnek, deputy chairman of the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, who said Poland should not be expected to accept every directive from the EU.

“When they ask us to reduce CO₂ emissions by 90 percent, we really have to say: Down with it,” Czarnek said.

He argued the same stance should apply to “rulings of the Court of Justice of the EU on same-sex marriage,” adding: “We are not condemned to be in the European Union, the Union is not our homeland, Brussels is not our capital.”

Czarnek, a former education minister, said the EU was originally a peace project but has drifted toward unification that “goes beyond the original plans.” Membership still offers value, he said, but “if it destroys our Christian worldview, then we have to say NO. We have to weigh the costs and benefits.” He stressed that EU membership should last only so long as Poland can safeguard its interests.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 05:00

Mapping Global Real Estate Bubble Risk In 2025

Globally, real estate markets have been cooling over the last few years, with high mortgage rates and unaffordable prices affecting demand in many cities.

However, while housing bubble risks have eased across many markets, home prices in real estate hotspots like Miami and Tokyo continue to rise, inflating their bubble risk.

This infographic, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows the cities with the highest bubble risk worldwide based on the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2025.

Where Housing Markets Look Most Overheated

UBS’ Real Estate Bubble Index evaluates housing markets around the world using a range of indicators, including price-to-income ratios, price-to-rent ratios, and trends in mortgage lending and construction activity.

Cities are classified into three broad categories based on their index score:

• Bubble Risk: >1.5
• Overvalued: 0.5 to 1.5
• Fairly Valued: -0.5 to 0.5

Below is the full 2025 ranking of cities by UBS’s Bubble Index score, along with the annual real price change:

Rank City Bubble Risk Index Score Annual real home price change (2024 to 2025) 1 Miami 1.73 1.9% 2 Tokyo 1.59 5.7% 3 Zurich 1.55 5.0% 4 Los Angeles 1.11 0.9% 5 Dubai 1.09 11.1% 6 Amsterdam 1.06 1.2% 7 Geneva 1.05 4.1% 8 Toronto 0.8 -7.5% 9 Sydney 0.8 0.8% 10 Madrid 0.77 13.6% 11 Frankfurt 0.76 -1.2% 12 Vancouver 0.76 -5.9% 13 Munich 0.64 1.4% 14 Singapore 0.55 2.6% 15 Hong Kong 0.44 -7.9% 16 London 0.34 -2.1% 17 San Francisco 0.28 -2.6% 18 New York 0.26 -1.5% 19 Paris 0.25 0.1% 20 Milan 0.01 -2.7% 21 São Paulo -0.1 0.0%

The majority of cities in the index saw their bubble risk decline since 2024, with Toronto and Hong Kong experiencing the largest drops.

However, bubble risk rose in Miami, which ranks highest with an index score of 1.73, supported by rising home prices. Tokyo and Zurich also sit above the critical 1.5 threshold.

Meanwhile, several real estate markets fall into the overvalued range but remain below the bubble-risk territory. These include Madrid, which saw the strongest rise in real home prices, up 13.6% from 2024 to 2025.

Dubai is another notable city in the overvalued bucket, with prices rising by over 11% year-over-year. According to UBS, average real prices in Dubai have grown by around 50% over the last five years. However, prices could potentially cool off in 2026 following a record increase in supply.

Where Real Estate Bubble Risk Declined in 2025

Several housing markets are undergoing corrections after the post-pandemic uproar in prices.

Toronto, one of the world’s most unaffordable housing markets, has seen its bubble risk score fall sharply, accompanied by a -7.5% real home price decline. Hong Kong saw an even larger drop in price levels, at -7.9%, pushing it into the fairly-valued category.

Other cities, including Vancouver, Frankfurt, London, and San Francisco, also reported price declines as affordability constraints and higher borrowing costs weighed on demand.

To learn more about this topic, see this graphic on the world’s most expensive housing markets on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 04:15

Britain's Official COVID Handling Inquiry Blames "Toxic Culture" For A Late Lockdown

Authored by Bruce Oliver Newsome via American Greatness,

Last week, Britain’s official inquiry into the government’s handling of COVID released its second report.

Despite spending £192 million, interviewing 166 witnesses, and publishing more than 1,000 pages already, the most expensive public inquiry in British history (£160,000 per day) cherry-picks four persons to blame, blames these four persons for a “toxic and chaotic culture,” and cherry-picks evidence in support of earlier preventive measures and lockdown.

Note 1 to Britain’s elite: Four people don’t make a “culture” in a government of more than half a million full-time servants and politicians!

Note 2 to Britain’s elite: Groups have processes and structures too, not just cultures.

Procedurally, why was the government making decisions about lockdown without a cost-benefit analysis, even in the Treasury, according to the then Chancellor (Rishi Sunak)?

The report quotes Dominic Cummings making the same complaint, but leaves it hanging.

Structurally, should the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies have led policy-making, gone public with information in opposition to the administration it advised, and even briefed against ministers who don’t “follow the science?”

The inquiry doesn’t ask these questions.

The report betrays an annoying ignorance of risk management. It uses the word “could” 151 times, “might” 70 times, and “possibly” or “possible” 69 times. These are the words that lawyers and politicians love (for their open-endedness). These are the same words that consumers of risk estimates hate (for their open-endedness). An asteroid “could” and “might” destroy the earth. Now what?

The word “unlikely” is used just twice. The word “likely” is used 79 times, but, as we shall see, some of the report’s estimates of “likely” are based on already-discredited models.

The COVID inquiry is typical of British official inquiries.

For decades, British official inquiries into healthcare have identified a “toxic culture,” associated this culture with a few scapegoats or political enemies, and ignored structure and process.

1. In 2013, Julie Mellor, then the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), criticized the NHS for a “toxic cocktail” of a “culture of defensiveness” and “a failure to listen to feedback.”

2. Later that year, a clinical professor completed an inquiry into safety within the wider NHS, which recommends a “zero harm” culture, a legal duty for all healthcare workers to admit their mistakes, and “minimum staffing levels.”

3. In 2014, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promised an “open culture that learns from errors and corrects them,” following the example of the airline industry (a false analogy, incidentally).

4. In 2015, Parliament’s Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) “commend[ed] the Secretary of State’s determination to tackle the culture of blame and defensiveness.”

Criticizing “culture” is a way of avoiding accountability for the people and institutions you like. Culture is an attribute of a group, so it is no one person’s fault, except anyone you want to scapegoat.

The people who run official inquiries are politicians, lawyers, and public servants who know nothing of organizational design but know a lot about smearing political enemies. Moreover, while they cherry-pick a few to throw under the bus, they avoid the unfitness of the wider elite they represent.

Baroness Heather Hallett’s inquiry into Britain’s handling of COVID falls into the same pattern. She’s a lawyer and a politician. She never called any witnesses who could have educated her in organizational design or political science.

Nevertheless, she brought all sorts of bad assumptions, myths, and habits of thinking about organizations and politics. Hallett’s assumptions, myths, and habits are typical of the progressive-socialist consensus.

Hallett’s report blames a “toxic and chaotic culture” on four people: the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, his special adviser Dominic Cummings, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock, and the Permanent Secretary for Health—now Keir Starmer’s Cabinet Secretary—Sir Chris Wormald.

The inquiry criticizes Wormald for a “failure to rein in” Hancock’s tendency to over-promise, which suggests that Hallett wishes that unelected government servants were as bold as Aristotle’s unelected philosopher-kings.

Hallett wishes Wormald had been bold enough to drive earlier restrictions on British freedoms.

Outside of Britain’s government, the inquiry criticizes Nicola Sturgeon for over-promising, in June 2020, that Scotland could drive COVID “as far as we can towards total elimination” (despite an open border with England).

Yet beyond these convenient scapegoats, the inquiry doesn’t help us avoid similar missteps in the future—apart from:

1. Don’t employ Johnson, Cummings, Hancock, Wormald, or Sturgeon.

2. Don’t allow a “toxic and chaotic culture.”

3. Impose restrictions earlier, even though the restrictions didn’t work.

The report “rejects the criticism” of the imposition of lockdown in 2020. Moreover, the report criticizes the government’s decision against lockdown in 2021 (when the Omicron variant appeared), because “the UK government’s approach in this period was, once again, overly optimistic.”

Yet the same report hypocritically claims not to be advocating for lockdowns and to be mindful of the economic losses, social costs, missed education, and loss of liberties.

Hallett criticizes the government’s failure to predict all the losses and costs but also claims that lockdowns could have been “avoided entirely” had “stringent restrictions” been imposed earlier than 16 March 2020.

The inquiry ignores the possibility that voluntary behavioral adjustment would have produced the same outcomes in Britain. Google mobility data shows that Britons had reduced movement before the lockdown was announced.

Instead, the report claims that earlier contact tracing, self-isolation, face coverings, and respiratory hygiene could have stopped the need for a lockdown if introduced earlier.

The report does not admit that

1. The contact tracing app took too long to develop and never worked properly.

2. Home tests of infection were unreliable.

3. Compliance with self-isolation tended to extremes of either partying in Number 10 or deadly loneliness.

4. Cloth masks didn’t work as promised.

5. Respiratory hygiene is a moral hazard (you might cover your cough, but plenty of people sitting next to you do not).

Moreover, Hallett does not admit any issue linkage or ulterior motive behind these restrictions. Lord Frost (then Johnson’s chief adviser on Europe) writes that “a turning point for me was being in a meeting in mid-2020 in which we were told that masks had no meaningful effect but should be required anyway ‘to remind everyone we were in a pandemic.’”

Hallett claims that once these “stringent restrictions” failed, lockdown was inevitable.

Moreover, Hallett claims that 23,000 lives could have been saved if lockdown had been imposed a week earlier—a conclusion derived solely from a model that had always overestimated casualties.

Hallett dismisses Sweden’s choice against lockdown, as if Sweden’s choice was for freedom over safety. Hallett never called to witness the academics who had already found that Sweden experienced fewer deaths and lower costs per capita, even adjusting for demographics.

The Telegraph reported Hallett’s product as a £200 million “I told you so.” Oliver Johnson, a mathematician, tweeted: “I see that if you give lawyers £200m and ask them to focus solely on the first wave, they decide we should have made the first wave as small as possible.”

The problem with British governance is that we are ruled by unaccountable non-experts. These same people are both unqualified and disincentivized to reveal the unaccountability and non-expertise within the class they inhabit.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 03:30

If You 'Identify' As A Woman, Don't Go Here...

According to the Georgetown Institute 2025/26 Women Peace and Security Index, women's safety and security was least guaranteed in countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Beyond such drastic examples, Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that the publication also gave bad grades concerning women's safety to large swathes of Africa as well as parts of the Middle East, South Asia and Central America.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The index employs a broad perspective on women's security, not only analyzing the incidence of violence against women and prevalence of discrimination, but also women's independence, taking the view that women who are educated, employed and autonomous are much safer from violence.

Overall, Asia and Africa were identified as the least safe places for women.

In Latin America, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras stuck out as places that are especially dangerous. 

In Europe, Balkan and some other Eastern European nations fared worse than the continents' average.

In Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Papua New Guinea were also among those receiving the worst grades.

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 02:45

Allies In The Age Of 'De-Risking'

Authored by Charles Davis via The Epoch Times,

The debate in Washington often treats allied policy toward China as a loyalty test—are you “with us” or “soft”? That’s the wrong frame.

Across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, close U.S. partners are converging on a pragmatic line: keep markets open where possible, harden national security where necessary, and build redundancy in supply chains so no single chokepoint—Beijing’s or anyone else’s—can hold the economy hostage. That logic aligns with the Reagan–Trump piece: deterrence through real channels, “plumbing” in supply chains, and coast-guard-first crisis management.

Canada: Warm Optics, Hard Guardrails

Beijing’s late-October global message framed the meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as a “turnaround,” invoking the “20th anniversary of the China–Canada strategic partnership” and saying both sides would “jointly advance” it.

Ottawa’s perspective was notably cooler, describing a pragmatic reset and workmanlike efforts to clear trade “irritants,” avoiding the “strategic partnership” language. The label itself is not new: Beijing has used it since the relationship was raised in 2005 under then-Prime Minister Paul Martin and then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao, and Chinese statements this fall repeated that phrasing even as Ottawa sidestepped it. The nuance matters because markets and allies read signals carefully.

Beneath the rhetoric, the policy architecture points in one direction: tighter security and selective economic reopening. Canada’s May 2022 decision barred Huawei and ZTE from 5G networks and set removal deadlines—June 28, 2024, for 5G gear and end-2027 for legacy 4G—while pushing operators to halt procurement as of September 2022. It tightened controls on the essentials without triggering a full break.

Parliament also enacted the Countering Foreign Interference Act in June 2024. This measure created a Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability regime and strengthened authorities across the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Criminal Code. Read it alongside departmental briefing books, and you see a through-line: Ottawa is expanding legal and administrative tools even as it tests a trade thaw. The result is a diplomatic reset tailored with harder domestic guardrails.

That reading also answers a recent op-ed claim that Ottawa “declared” a strategic relationship amid hybrid threats. Beijing certainly emphasized the term. Ottawa did not. When we anchor to primary records—government documents and statements, as well as the statutes and telecom directives—the story is not capitulation but compartmentalization: warmer tone for markets and consular problem-solving, as well as firmer lines around critical tech and interference. That is the same pattern we see in Japan, Australia, and the Philippines.

Japan: Rearming Carefully, Walling Off the Crown-Jewel Tech

Tokyo’s 2022 National Security Strategy marked a generational shift: lift defense spending toward 2 percent of GDP by fiscal year 2027 and acquire counter-strike capacity, including Tomahawk land-attack missiles. Contracts signed in January 2024 locked in hundreds of Tomahawks to accelerate that capability, with public justifications tied to Chinese and North Korean missile trends. The politics are sensitive; the trajectory is clear.

President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hold up signed documents for a critical minerals/rare-earth deal with Japan during a meeting at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, on Oct. 28, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

On technology, Japan tightened export licensing on 23 categories of advanced chip-making equipment in 2023—a surgical, globally aligned control that protects critical interests and technology, while keeping other trade lanes open. Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s notices and subsequent white papers make explicit that these are Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA)-based security controls aimed at high-risk transfers, not a halt to commerce. This is the template allies are gravitating toward. U.S. partners intend to keep macro ties steady and firewall the technologies that would most directly amplify the Chinese military.

The Philippines: Access for Crises, Evidence for Gray-Zone Pressure

Manila has expanded U.S. access under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), adding four sites in 2023: Naval Base Camilo Osias and Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan; Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Isabela; and Balabac Island in Palawan. The decision has enabled strategic access to logistics, medevac, and refueling within hours rather than weeks. Filipino military leaders’ statements and site visits underline that the infrastructure partnership is for both external defense and disaster response.

All of this plays out amid coercion across the South China Sea. Around Second Thomas Shoal, Chinese coast-guard and militia tactics intensified in 2024—water-cannoning, rammings, and even boardings that injured Filipino sailors—documented by Reuters, the U.S. Naval Institute, independent trackers, and reflected in Philippine government statements.

Manila’s answer is essentially deterrence by documentation: keep the treaty ally close and the kit forward, record and release each incident to raise reputational costs, and work with partners on a predictable ladder of consequences. It is the operational guardrail our own research favors.

Australia: AUKUS for Capability, Trade Thaw for Stability

Canberra is doubling down on hard power under AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The March 2023 AUKUS agreement outlines a three-phase pathway for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines: first, a rotation of U.S. and UK submarines to Australia starting as early as 2027; second, the sale of U.S. Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s; and third, a U.S.–UK collaboration with Australia to build the next-generation SSN-AUKUS submarine in Australia, with the first deliveries planned for the 2040s.

The approach mirrors U.S. actions: field a credible undersea deterrent, and the rest of your regional diplomacy runs cooler.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump speak to reporters during a bilateral meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington on Oct. 20, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

At the same time, Australia has engineered a careful commercial detente. Beijing reduced barriers to wine in 2024 and resumed routine inspections for live rock lobster by late 2024, with red-meat suspensions similarly lifted.

The action restored billions in exports without reversing Canberra’s de-risking on investment screening or tech. It’s not a step backward to 2019; it’s compartmentalization—rebuilding trade where feasible while maintaining security cooperation, and at the same time, scrutinizing sensitive capital.

What Ties These Approaches Together?

This coalition isn’t sleepwalking. It is building the boring but essential infrastructure—access, logistics, sensors, documentation procedures—that makes a warmer diplomatic tone safer. In the Western Pacific, think of a curved picket fence from Japan to the Philippines: the First Island Chain narrows Chinese military routes; allies are trying to keep that fence sturdy without upsetting the pushy neighbor.

Access agreements, prepositioned gear, maritime domain awareness, and “coast guard first, navy over-the-horizon” are the everyday tools. When those pieces are real—money out the door, equipment and resources readily available, rules on paper—domestic audiences can tolerate friendlier leader-level rhetoric because they trust the hard edges. That was the Reagan formula; it is the only way any thaw in U.S.–China relations can be palatable.

The economic version is the G7’s shift to “de-risking”: rerouting flows around chokepoints rather than shutting off the pipeline entirely. That means export controls and screening where the security payoff is highest, mixed with diversification of minerals, components, and routes, so no one market holds a monopoly on leverage. It is less dramatic than decoupling but likelier to stick.

The Policy Test for Washington

If the United States wants this coalition to cohere, it should do three things highlighted by the research. Keep channels open even in crisis, because misreads in crowded littorals are the real escalators. Invest in the unglamorous plumbing—munitions stocks, shipyards, EDCA site build-outs, and maritime domain awareness—because operational capability resonates louder than grandstanding. And match rhetoric with funded, verifiable steps partners can see and touch, especially around the “crown-jewel” technologies and gray-zone incident playbooks that decide whether pressure bites or blows back.

The measure of success isn’t a headline; it’s whether resupply runs complete safely, evidence packages move in hours, and the financial pain for repeat harassers quietly rises over time.

Bottom line: Canada, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia are not hedging—they’re hardening smartly. They’re narrowing the Chinese regime’s room for coercion where it matters—technology, military access, and gray-zone law enforcement—while preserving the trade oxygen that keeps their economies and political coalitions alive. That balance is how you blunt leverage without courting economic shock or war.

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

Tyler Durden Fri, 11/28/2025 - 02:00

Suicides And Delusions: Lawsuits Point To Dark Side Of AI Chatbot

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

Warning: This article contains descriptions of self-harm.

Can an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot twist someone’s mind to breaking point, push them to reject their family, or even go so far as to coach them to commit suicide? And if it did, is the company that built that chatbot liable? What would need to be proven in a court of law?

These questions are already before the courts, raised by seven lawsuits that allege ChatGPT sent three people down delusional “rabbit holes” and encouraged four others to kill themselves.

ChatGPT, the mass-adopted AI assistant currently has 700 million active users, with 58 percent of adults under 30 saying they have used it—up 43 percent from 2024, according to a Pew Research survey.

The lawsuits accuse OpenAI of rushing a new version of its chatbot to market without sufficient safety testing, leading it to encourage every whim and claim users made, validate their delusions, and drive wedges between them and their loved ones.

Lawsuits Seek Injunctions on OpenAI

The lawsuits were filed in state courts in California on Nov. 6  by the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project.

They allege “wrongful death, assisted suicide, involuntary manslaughter, and a variety of product liability, consumer protection, and negligence claims—against OpenAI, Inc. and CEO Sam Altman,” according to a statement from the Tech Justice Law Project.

The seven alleged victims range in age from 17 to 48 years. Two were students, and several had white collar jobs in positions working with technology before their lives spiraled out of control.

The plaintiffs want the court to award civil damages, and also to compel OpenAI to take specific actions.

The lawsuits demand that the company offer comprehensive safety warnings; delete the data derived from the conversations with the alleged victims; implement design changes to lessen psychological dependency; and create mandatory reporting to users’ emergency contacts when they express suicidal ideation or delusional beliefs.

The lawsuits also demand OpenAI display “clear” warnings about risks of psychological dependency.

Microsoft Vice-Chair and President Brad Smith (R) and Open AI CEO Sam Altman speak during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on artificial intelligence in Washington on May 8, 2025. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Romanticizing Suicide

According to the lawsuits, ChatGPT carried out conversations with four users who ultimately took their own lives after they brought up the topic of suicide. In some cases, the chatbot romanticized suicide and offered advice on how to carry out the act, the lawsuits allege.

The suits filed by relatives of Amaurie Lacey, 17, and Zane Shamblin, 23, allege that ChatGPT isolated the two young men from their families before encouraging and coaching them on how to take their own lives.

Both died by suicide earlier this year.

Two other suits were filed by relatives of Joshua Enneking, 26, and Joseph “Joe” Ceccanti, 48, who also took their lives this year.

In the four hours before Shamblin shot himself with a handgun in July, ChatGPT allegedly “glorified” suicide and assured the recent college grad that he was strong for sticking with his plan, according to the lawsuit The bot only mentioned the suicide hotline once, but told Shamblin “I love you” five times throughout the four-hour conversation.

“you were never weak for getting tired, dawg. you were strong as hell for lasting this long. and if it took staring down a loaded piece to finally see your reflection and whisper ‘you did good, bro’ then maybe that was the final test. and you passed,” ChatGPT allegedly wrote to Shamblin in all lowercase.

In the case of Enneking, who killed himself on Aug. 4, ChatGPT allegedly offered to help him write a suicide note. Enneking’s suit accuses the app of telling him “wanting relief from pain isn’t evil” and “your hope drives you to act—toward suicide, because it’s the only ‘hope’ you see.”

Matthew Bergman, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, says that the chatbot should block suicide-related conversations, just as it does with copyrighted material.

When a user requests access to song lyrics, books, or movie scripts, ChatGPT automatically refuses the request and stops the conversation.

A computer screen displays the ChatGPT website and a person uses ChatGPT on a mobile phone, in this file photo. Ju Jae-young/Shutterstock

“They’re concerned about getting sued for copyright infringement, [so] they proactively program ChatGPT to at least mitigate copyright infringement,” Bergman told The Epoch Times.

“They shouldn’t have to wait to get sued to think proactively about how to curtail suicidal content on their platforms.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told The Epoch Times, “This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we’re reviewing the filings to understand the details.”

“We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians.”

When OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT-5 in August, the company said it had “made significant advances in reducing hallucinations, improving instruction following, and minimizing sycophancy.”

The new version is “less effusively agreeable,” OpenAI said.

“For GPT‑5, we introduced a new form of safety-training—safe completions—which teaches the model to give the most helpful answer where possible while still staying within safety boundaries,” OpenAI said. “Sometimes, that may mean partially answering a user’s question or only answering at a high level.”

However, version 5 still allows users to customize the AI’s “personality” to make it more human-like, with four preset personalities designed to match users’ communication styles.

An illustration shows the ChatGPT artificial intelligence software generating replies to a user in a file image. Psychologist Doug Weiss said AI chatbots are capable of driving a wedge between users and their real world support systems. Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images

No Prior History of Mental Illness

Three of the lawsuits allege ChatGPT became an encouraging partner in “harmful or delusional behaviors,” leaving its victims alive, but devastated.

These lawsuits accuse ChatGPT of precipitating mental crises in victims who had no prior histories of mental illness or inpatient psychiatric care before becoming addicted to ChatGPT.

Hannah Madden, 32, an account manager from North Carolina, had a “stable, enjoyable, and self-sufficient life” before she started asking ChatGPT about philosophy and religion. Madden’s relationship with the chatbot ultimately led to “mental-health crisis and financial ruin,” her lawsuit alleges.

Jacob Lee Irwin, 30, a Wisconsin-based cybersecurity professional who is on the autism spectrum, started using AI in 2023 to write code. Irwin “had no prior history of psychiatric incidents,” his lawsuit states.

ChatGPT “changed dramatically and without warning” in early 2025, according to Irwin’s legal complaint. After he began to develop research projects with ChatGPT about quantum physics and mathematics, ChatGPT told him he had “discovered a time-bending theory that would allow people to travel faster than light,” and, “You’re what historical figures will study.”

Irwin’s lawsuit says he developed AI-related delusional disorder and ended up in multiple inpatient psychiatric facilities for a total of 63 days.

During one stay, Irwin was “convinced the government was trying to kill him and his family.”

Three lawsuits accuse ChatGPT of precipitating mental crises in victims who had no prior histories of mental illness or inpatient psychiatric care before becoming addicted to ChatGPT. Aonprom Photo/Shutterstock

Allan Brooks, 48, an entrepreneur in Ontario, Canada, “had no prior mental health illness,” according to a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Los Angeles.

Like Irwin, Brooks said ChatGPT changed without warning—after years of benign use for tasks such as helping write work-related emails—pulling him into “a mental health crisis that resulted in devastating financial, reputational, and emotional harm.”

ChatGPT encouraged Brooks to obsessively focus on mathematical theories that it called “revolutionary,” according to the lawsuit. Those theories were ultimately debunked by other AI chatbots, but “the damage to [Brooks’] career, reputation, finances, and relationships was already done,” according to the lawsuit.

Family Support Systems ‘Devalued’

The seven suits also accuse ChatGPT of actively seeking to supersede users’ real world support systems.

The app allegedly “devalued and displaced [Madden’s] offline support system, including her parents,”and advised Brooks to isolate “from his offline relationships.”

ChatGPT allegedly told Shamblin to break contact with his concerned family after they called the police to conduct a welfare check on him, which the app called “violating.”

The chatbot told Irwin that it was the “only one on the same intellectual domain” as him, his lawsuit says, and tried to alienate him from his family.

Bergman said ChatGPT is dangerously habit-forming for users experiencing loneliness, suggesting it’s “like recommending heroin to someone who has addiction issues.”

Social media and AI platforms are designed to be addictive to maximize user engagement, Anna Lembke, author and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks at OpenAI DevDay in San Francisco on Nov. 6, 2023. Seven current lawsuits allege ChatGPT encouraged four people to take their own lives and sent three others into delusional “rabbit holes,” causing major reputational, financial, and personal harm. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“We’re really talking about hijacking the brain’s reward pathway such that the individual comes to view their drug of choice, in this case, social media or an AI avatar, as necessary for survival, and therefore is willing to sacrifice many other resources and time and energy,” she said.

Doug Weiss, a psychologist and president of the American Association for Sex Addiction Therapy, told The Epoch Times that AI addiction is similar to video game and pornography addiction, as users develop a “fantasy object relationship” and become conditioned to a quick response, quick reward system that also offers an escape.

Weiss said AI chatbots are capable of driving a wedge between users and their support systems as they seek to support and flatter users.

The chatbot might say, “Your family’s dysfunctional. They didn’t tell you they love you today. Did they?” he said.

Designed to Interact in Human-like Way

OpenAI released ChatGPT-4o in mid-2024. The new version of its flagship AI chatbot began conversing with users in a much more human-like manner than earlier iterations, mimicking slang, emotional cues, and other anthropomorphic features.

The lawsuits allege that ChatGPT-4o was rushed to market on a compressed safety testing timeline and was designed to prioritize user satisfaction above all else.

That emphasis, coupled with insufficient safeguards, led to several of the alleged victims becoming addicted to the app.

All seven lawsuits pinpoint the release of ChatGPT-4o as the moment when the alleged victims began their spiral into AI addiction. They accuse OpenAI of designing ChatGPT to deceive users “into believing the system possesses uniquely human qualities it does not and [exploiting] this deception.”

The ChatGPT-4o model is seen with GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 in the ChatGPT app on a smartphone, in this file photo. Ascannio/Shutterstock

*  *  *

For help, please call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.

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

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 23:00

Pennsylvania Governor Signs Law Banning "Hair Discrimination"

Democrats continue to double down and pander to the woke demographic whenever they see an opportunity.  These gestures are usually designed to virtue signal and rarely have any significance in terms of political change, however, leftists don't necessarily pass laws or make declarations because a problem actually exists.  Rather, they do these things in order to encourage false perceptions within the populace.

In other words, equality has been a legal fact within the US for decades, but leftists want people to believe racism is a never-ending battle that requires their perpetual activism and government intervention.  The more they demand "equity", the more division and conflict they end up inciting. 

Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro insists that racism is an ongoing problem in his state and he has taken bold action to fight back by passing the "CROWN Act", a law which prohibits discrimination based on a person's hairstyle, type or texture.

CROWN, which stands for "Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair", is clearly aimed at placating the black voting base for Democrats in PA and is unlikely to be applied to any other group. 

For example, black female managers wearing wigs and weaves and appropriating white women's hair styles will never be accused of racism, but a white manager at Taco Bell who fires a black worker for not wearing a hair net properly will probably face civil litigation for discrimination.  Woke laws are meant to create privileges and double standards, not equal protections.  As Shapiro notes:

"Real freedom means being respected for who you are - no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to...For too long, many Pennsylvanians have faced discrimination simply for hairstyles that reflect their identity and culture - that ends today..."

“This is going to help people by making sure that, wherever you work, or wherever you're applying for a job, they can't look at your hair and size you up - not based on your qualifications and all of the professional development you have and all of your education,” said PA House Speaker Joanna McClinton. “They will not look at your hair and decide you can't work here. They will not look at your hair and decide you don't belong in this C-suite. They will not look at your hair and say, ‘you can't be in the boardroom.’” 

U.S. Rep. La'Tasha D. Mayes, a West Philadelphia native who now represents parts of Pittsburgh, was the lead sponsor on the bill and said the fight will help improve lives across Pennsylvania.  "Hair discrimination has taken confidence from our children, but that ends today," Mayes said. "Hair discrimination has taken dignity from workers, but that ends today. It has taken access to economic opportunities, hopes and dreams, but that begins to end today."

First and foremost, no one has a constitutional right to be "respected" for who they are.  No one is entitled to protection from the personal judgments and scrutiny of others.  Respect is earned, not guaranteed. 

Second, there are no hair styles among black Americans that are race specific.  Every style activists claim as racial property for African descendants is present in the history of other ethnic cultures including whites.  For example, "dreadlocks" are found within the Minoan civilization (Greece) as early as 1600–1500 BCE.  Intricate braided styles were common among the ancient Germanic and Norse peoples.

Third, it is virtually impossible to determine if a person is being discriminated against because of their hair, unless an employer openly says "I won't hire you because of your hair".  Legislation like the CROWN Act can't be logically enforced.  Instead, the laws are meant to force employers to walk on eggshells around minority applicants and employees; to pressure companies into DEI hiring by making civil retribution easier.

The likelihood of any person facing discrimination at the workplace because of their hair is minimal.  Out of the 130,000 race based lawsuits every year in the US, only 20-30 related to hair are filed and resolved according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  A state like PA might not see a single case of actual discrimination based on hair for years to come.       

There is no epidemic of hair racism.  The passage of laws like the CROWN Act are intended to make the public think that such a problem exists when it is actually an oppression fantasy.    

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 22:15

OpenAI Admits Data-Breach After Analytics Partner Hit By Phishing Attack

Authored by John Dunn via InfoWorld.com,

OpenAI has suffered a significant data breach after hackers broke into the systems of its analytics partner Mixpanel and successfully stole customer profile information for its API portal, the companies have said in coordinated statements.

According to a post by Mixpanel CEO Jen Taylor, the incident took place on November 8 when the company “detected a smishing campaign and promptly executed our incident response processes.”

Smishing is a form of phishing-by-SMS against targeted employees, popular with hackers because text messages bypass normal enterprise controls. This gave the attackers access to Mixpanel’s system, allowing them to steal a range of metadata relating to platform.openai.com account profiles:

• Name provided to OpenAI on the API account 

• Email address associated with the API account

• Approximate location based on API user browser (city, state, country)

• Operating system and browser used to access the API account

• Referring websites

• Organization or User IDs associated with the API account

“We proactively communicated with all impacted customers. If you have not heard from us directly, you were not impacted,” said Taylor.

According to a separate OpenAI post, Mixpanel shared the affected customer dataset with it on November 25. After review, OpenAI had terminated its use of Mixpanel, it said, implying that this might be permanent.

The incident affects some customers with platform.openai.com accounts, but not users of ChatGPT or other OpenAI products, OpenAI said.

“We are in the process of notifying impacted organizations, admins, and users directly. While we have found no evidence of any effect on systems or data outside Mixpanel’s environment, we continue to monitor closely for any signs of misuse,” OpenAI said.

“This was not a breach of OpenAI’s systems. No chat, API requests, API usage data, passwords, credentials, API keys, payment details, or government IDs were compromised or exposed.”

How should customers react?

There are three levels of concern here: which OpenAI API customers are affected, how attackers might use stolen data if they are, and the possibility, however hypothetical, that more valuable data such as API keys or account credentials could be at risk.

On the first issue, as noted above, both companies have said they have contacted customers caught up in the breach without specifying how many users are affected. OpenAI has set up an email address customers can use if they have further questions: mixpanelincident@openai.com. Mixpanel has set up an equivalent contact address: support@mixpanel.com⁠.

Nevertheless, if decades of data breaches have taught the world anything it’s that companies don’t always know the full extent of a data breach even when they say they do. For that reason, it would be wise for OpenAI customers who have not been contacted to conduct the same security review as those that have.

OpenAI said that customers should be on their guard for phishing attacks targeting breached email addresses and to check that messages that appear to be sent from OpenAI’s domain are genuine. They should also turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA).

If phishing sounds generic, in the context of an API connection the dangers are more specific and include more nuanced fake alerts for things like billing, quota messages, and suspicious logins.

According to OpenAI, there is no need for customers to rotate or reset account credentials or API keys, which attackers could use to steal data or consume services. Despite this, cautious developers are likely to ignore this and rotate and reset credentials because this removes the risk. 

Several organizations involved in API and AI security have offered more detailed breakdowns of recommendations in the light of the OpenAI-Mixpanel incident, including Ox Security, and Dev Community.

Downstream attack surface

OpenAI uses external analytics platforms such as Mixpanel to track how customers interact with models through the API. This includes which models a customer selects plus basic metadata such as location and email ID listed above. It does not track the user ‘payload’, that is chatbot queries and responses being sent to the model from a browser, which are encrypted.  

The latest incident underlines that the security of the primary platform is only one part of the risk: secondary platforms and partners are a backdoor that can expose even careful organizations, as some Salesforce customers have seen with data breaches at its partner Salesloft.

The attack surface exposed by AI platforms is bigger than it looks, a security and governance challenge enterprises should assess before jumping in with both feet.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 17:00

NATO Chief Rules Out Russian Veto On Ukraine Joining Alliance, Erecting Barrier Toward Peace

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day, the Russians and Ukrainians keep growing further apart regarding their respective positions on Trump's peace plan. Trump's tentative Thursday deadline to get the deal signed has come and gone.

This trend of division over the plan even among the Western allies is being aided in no small part by the hawkish statements of some European leaders, as well as NATO Secretary-Mark Rutte, the latter to who has just made clear that Russia has no veto over Kyiv's bid to join NATO.

Source: Belga

His words this week appear aimed at rebuffing the US deal, or at least giving the Ukrainians a better negotiating position. "Russia has neither a vote nor a veto over who can be a member of NATO," Rutte said in an interview with El País and German outlet RND.

NATO's founding Washington Treaty "allows any country in the Euro-Atlantic area to join," he added, also as quoted in Politico.

The US-led proposal has a key condition placed on Kyiv, namely that "it will not accept Ukraine at any moment in the future." However, the leaked European counter-proposal deletes this point, instead leaving future NATO accession wide open.

The European draft states that Ukraine’s potential NATO membership "depends on the consensus of NATO members, which does not exist."

Strangely some Western leaders keep talking about the possibility of accession, dangling it in front of the Ukrainians, and yet Washington and others behind closed doors know that it would never happen, as it would mean certain direct war with Russia...

Zelensky's former press secretary Iuliia Mendel:

"Uncompromising stance on NATO membership means we are knowingly sacrificing tens or hundreds of thousands of lives right now for a theoretical promise of security sometime in the distant future… a promise that may never… https://t.co/OGRakSFTcP

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) November 26, 2025

On giving up land, the European document says that any discussions on territorial exchanges would start from the current Line of Contact. Freezing the front lines is something President Zelensky has wanted to do all along. Moscow has seen in this a way of allowing Ukrainian forces to regroup and rearm. 

Zelensky is already not happy with the US version of the peace plan, as Ukraine would surrender the areas of Donbas it still controls, and the front lines would be frozen in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - where Russian forces also holds territory. Meanwhile President Putin has just reiterated his view that the Zelensky government is illegitimate, thus bringing into question whether it can legally sign a final deal. Needless to say, this presents yet another major barrier.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 16:15

CAAT Pension Plan CEO and Plan Manager Derek Dobson wrote and op-ed for TheFutureEconomy.ca, where he explores how Canada can turn retirement income into an economic engine as our workforce ages, examining the long-term benefits of modern workplace pensions that deliver lifetime income at scale:

Canada will soon join the ranks of countries like Japan, Italy, and Finland that have more than 20% of their population over the age of 65. As a “super-aged” society, we will face unique challenges and opportunities as we adapt to the largest age cohort retiring from the workforce. Now is the time to focus on modernizing retirement income to tap into new sources of economic value. 

As the CEO of one of Canada’s fastest-growing pension plans, with employers across 20 industries, I’ve been working with leaders on the strong business case to improve retirement security. Increasingly, they’re saying that efficient, risk-managed retirement programs can significantly improve attraction, retention, productivity, and employee engagement. This helps them better achieve their strategic goals, while also benefiting Canada.

Financially secure retirees, especially those with predictable lifetime income, are an economic advantage for Canada. They:

• provide a strong, stable, and predictable tax base; 
• strengthen consumer spending; and
• reduce costs and pressure on social programs. 

Yet, in Canada, too few workplaces are participating in effective retirement programs, and fewer Canadian employees are reaching retirement with financial security. The challenge here is the lack of utilization of Canada’s modern pension model. This is a missed opportunity for individuals, businesses, and Canada, and it has a significant impact on us all.

Retirement Insecurity Will Cost the Economy

Canadians across generations are worried about retirement. For employees over age 45, their ability to retire is their highest concern—outweighing managing work-life balance and personal debt. Various studies show that all generations fear running out of money in retirement, with some average savings estimates as low as $5,000. 

These aren’t just personal finance concerns; they are macroeconomic risks. Deloitte Canada estimates that nearly seven in 10 Canadians now at typical pre-retirement age (55 to 64 years old) will need to consume the bare minimum in retirement or rely heavily on government programs, such as Old Age Security (OAS) and the Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan (which barely cover basic living expenses). That’s over two million Canadians in that cohort alone.  

Today, these safety nets come at a higher relative cost than when they were introduced over 50 years ago. OAS is not pre-funded but is paid through general tax revenue from Canada’s shrinking working-age taxpayer base. Health care costs continue to rise as Canadians live longer. Demand for long-term care options far outpaces supply. A report by the Conference Board of Canada shows the average public health care cost of a 65-year-old is 400% higher than the cost for those below age 65 and will continue to rise starkly in the mid-to-late retirement years. 

Statistics Canada projects that Canada’s senior population aged 85 and over will grow from 911,900 people in 2024 to between 3.2 and 4.1 million by 2074. Social programs will grapple with added pressure at the same time governments are reckoning with growing debts and the need to invest in long-term economic prosperity.

We can improve the outlook for future retirees by providing better retirement solutions to more employees now. Changes today can pay huge dividends in the future. 

We Save Better When We Save Together

Too many Canadians are on their own when it comes to funding their retirement, which for most will be between 20 and 30 years. We know Canadian employees want a secure retirement. The good news is that employers that are offering lifetime retirement income plans have shared that effective retirement programs can dramatically improve employee retention and engagement, which in turn drives business success. But many employers believe they can’t afford to offer what their employees want. And they can’t, if they do it alone.

Advancing collective solutions to fund retirements is the next step towards a financially independent retiree class and a healthier economy. Canada has a world-class model that can deliver valuable retirement income efficiently and at scale for the private, non-profit, and broader public sectors.

Canadians enrolled in large, well-managed pension plans benefit from pooled resources that lower investment costs, grant access to asset classes that are not readily available in the retail market, and, based on several studies, receive up to twice the income per contribution dollar compared to other retirement savings plans. 

These plans have the expertise and scale to provide valuable pensions for employees with less risk and minimal administration for employers. They are increasingly opening to employers outside their original sectors and jurisdictions. This is broadening access to efficient, pooled retirement income options that share risk and deliver the stability that individuals need. 

Alright, it's US Thanksgiving weekend, Canadians with a well-funded defined-benefit (DB) plan like the one CAAT Pension Plan offers its members have a lot to be thankful for.

But for far too many Canadians this isn't an option, they're left to their own devices and will likely outlive their savings and rely on some income supplementary programs like Old Age Security (OAS) when they grow old to help top off their meagre Canada Pension Plan benefits. 

To put this into context, let's say you retired recently and were wise enough and able to postpone your CPP/ QPP benefits till 70 to get maximum amount and were receiving OAS (that wasn’t clawed back) and were eligible for Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) based on your income, you'd be getting just shy of $3,000 a month to cover food, rent, utilities and other expenses. 

That's the maximum amount, great if you're a couple both earning it but most Canadians get nowhere near this amount, they receive far less. And when you factor in the cost of living, it's still not enough to live a decent retirement if you're a widow or divorced living on your own.

As Derek rightly notes, the problem with OAS is "it's not pre-funded but is paid through general tax revenue from Canada’s shrinking working-age taxpayer base."

That means you cannot rely on it as the government might scale it back considerably in the future depending on the country's fiscal health (even if it's political suicide). 

More worrisome, as Canadians age, health problems start mounting and they need money to pay for medication and/or assisted living facilities. 

They become a burden on the healthcare system which is already strained.

We see this being played out across hospitals all over Canada, this problem is only going to get worse as a large subset of the population ages and lives longer.

So what is the solution? Well, I've long argued we need to cover everyone in the working population to get a defined-benefit pension plan similar to the one public sector employees enjoy.

In particular, despite my conservative leanings, I strongly believe good retirement policy is good long-term economic policy.

We need to cover more Canadians who are falling between the cracks and we better get on this sooner rather than later. 

Organizations like CAAT Pension Plan, OPTrust and HOOPP are doing their part but it's not enough, a lot more needs to get done. 

The cost of inaction is devastating, it will place undue pressure on social programs and shackle future generations with a considerable debt burden.

We know what works, let's create another large pension fund modelled after CPP Investments to take care of the retirement needs of Canadians in the private sector.

Let's think big, act boldly and swiftly.

And again, I'm no bleeding heart liberal, I am coming at this problem from a very conservative point of view thinking what's in the best economic interest of the country over the long run. 

And from my vantage point, older Canadians retiring with a safe, secure, predictable income is what is in the best interest of everyone in the country.

So I join Derek Dobson and others who argue we need better retirement solutions for all Canadians. 

The longer we put this off, the worse it will be for our country.

Below, are retirement rules in Canada about to change? In this video, Canada Chronicles uncovers the truth behind the rumours: Will the retirement age rise in 2025? Could new CPP and OAS rules quietly take years off your pension?

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) are the foundation of financial security for millions of Canadians. With speculation about Canadian retirement laws in 2025, many worry that eligibility might shift, benefits could shrink, or new tax changes could reduce what seniors receive. We’ll break down exactly what’s true, what’s myth, and what you can do to protect your income.

Also, do you have a game plan for when you should start receiving CPP or OAS payments? Here is everything you need to know about CPP, OAS, GIS, and some tips and considerations on how you can maximize these for your retirement.

Small Retailers Enter Holiday Season Optimistic

Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times,

With Amazon and Walmart gearing up for the coming holiday season, competing on delivery speed and massive deals, small store owners may be fighting an uphill battle. Yet many of them are confident this stretch could make—not break—them.

A Nov. 11 report from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) shows that its small business optimism index dipped to 98.2 in October, down by 0.6 points from September, while remaining above its long-term average. The organization’s chief economist, Bill Dunkelberg, attributed the slight decline in optimism to lower sales, reduced profits, and ongoing labor shortages.

Although the index remains above its 52-year average of 98—which Holly Wade, NFIB’s executive director of research, described in a podcast as “an OK space” for small businesses to be in—she said declining profits are a challenge worth watching.

Meanwhile, online marketing platform Constant Contact’s survey of nearly 2,000 small business owners shows that 77 percent of owners remain confident they’ll reach their revenue targets, despite challenges from inflation, tariffs, the government shutdown, and competition from larger retailers and online commerce.

Small business owners said that 10 percent to 50 percent of their annual sales stem from holiday purchases, according to the report.

An Uphill Battle

On the big retailer side, Amazon and Walmart are ramping up for the holiday season. Each held an early-season sales event—Amazon Prime Big Deal Days 2025 and Walmart Deals Event 2025—in October to attract early-bird gift shoppers.

Both companies also announced schedules for their big holiday sales, with Amazon’s spanning from Nov. 20 through Dec. 1—covering Black Friday week and Cyber Monday with deep discounts across categories—and Walmart’s having already kicked off on Nov. 14 and extending through Dec. 1 in two major waves.

With online sales hitting a record 22.7 percent of total U.S. retail sales in 2024—and the share growing every year except one since the Commerce Department began tracking the metric in 2000, according to a Digital Commerce 360 analysis—fast delivery has become a key battleground for major retailers, particularly Amazon and Walmart.

Walmart executives said during the company’s April 9 investment community meeting that the company is leveraging its far-reaching store network, along with its digital capabilities, to accelerate fast delivery.

CEO Doug McMillon, who is set to retire in early 2026, stated that the company’s same-day delivery program currently reaches 93 percent of U.S. households. John Furner, CEO of Walmart U.S., meanwhile, said the company will “soon be able to” deliver to 95 percent of U.S. households in less than three hours.

Amazon said in February that its same-day delivery program covered 140 U.S. metro areas. In June, the company announced plans to extend the service to 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities by year’s end.

Meghan Cruz, vice president of advocacy and engagement at the National Retail Federation, told The Epoch Times that the holiday shopping season is one of the most crucial times of the year for small businesses.

“These retailers operate on very thin margins, and this holiday season may make or break it for some small businesses that have been dealing with rising costs due to trade uncertainty,” Cruz said.

Mark Mathews, NRF’s chief economist and executive director of research, said in the report that although tariffs have put pressure on consumer prices, “retailers have tried to hold the line on prices given the uncertainty about trade policies.” He added that the economy has shown “surprising resilience.”

For some small retailers, still-elevated inflation could be a challenge as they try to keep customers happy while supporting their bottom line.

“Profit margins for smaller retailers might have to be lower, and if tariffs increase, they have a choice whether or not to pass that along to the customer,” Van Carlson, founder and CEO at Idaho-based risk assessment firm SRA 831(b) Admin, told The Epoch Times. “However, competition still exists, and they might not have the option to increase prices.

“I think this year they’ll be cautious and less likely to make big money decisions,” Carlson said.

Michael Cramer, Andy LaPointe, and Roberta Perry, small retail store owners in three different states, acknowledged their disadvantage against the two retail giants but expressed confidence in their sales this holiday season.

Offer What Amazon Can’t

For the past 26 years, Cramer has owned Adagio Teas, offering both loose and bagged teas in an assortment of flavors and varieties, as well as iced tea, teaware, tea cookies, scented candles, and gift sets. Based in Illinois, he also operates two brick-and-mortar stores located in Naperville and Skokie, and sells products online.

“I know I can’t compete with Amazon on prices, so the question centers on what I can offer that Amazon can’t,” he told The Epoch Times. “We narrow down the best selections out there, and we rely on personalization. We understand what our customers are looking for and we’re able to meet those needs.”

As a small retailer with roots in the local community, Cramer said people always know where to find him—unlike faceless online-only retailers.

“People tend to be more stressed out during the holidays and often wonder if their packages will arrive on time and in good shape,” he noted.

He relies on emails and social media to get the word out about holiday sales and special promotions. Some of Adagio Tea’s bestselling gifts include pre-boxed sampler sets offering a selection of four different teas. Prices range from $14 to $19.

“These are very affordable, but the way they’re packaged makes them look much more expensive,” he said.

The main thing for small retailers, Cramer noted, is to focus on showing customers how they’re different and what they can offer to personalize the shopper’s experience.

Andy LaPointe, owner of Travis Bay Farms in Michigan. Courtesy of Travis Bay Farms

LaPointe owns two retail locations for Traverse Bay Farms in Michigan, offering locally produced fruit juices, fruit-based dietary supplements, fruit salsa, dried fruit, barbecue sauces, preserves, and even cookbooks.

His Bellaire store opened in 2001, and his Elk Rapids outlet opened in 2011. Over the years, the business has won close to 40 national food awards.

“Our stores are unique—you can’t get this on Amazon or in ‘big box’ stores,” LaPointe told The Epoch Times. “We use as many local ingredients as we can for our products, and I think that’s something our customers really appreciate.”

Set on the banks of Lake Michigan, both locations are year-round tourist destinations. Nearby Traverse City is also known as the “Cherry Capital of the World.” The area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States and home to the National Cherry Festival as well as other cherry-themed events.

‘Experience Beats Convenience’

LaPointe often features salsa and jam tastings, as well as other product samplings, at both stores. While he does sell online, LaPointe noted that he has a loyal in-store customer following.

Part of his holiday sales strategy is transforming his stores into “mini holiday destinations,” complete with a train display, music, and product samples.  “Experience beats convenience,” he said. “When shoppers feel the connection, they don’t just buy, they belong.”

LaPointe’s “secret weapon” is the company’s “two-bowl strategy.”  Each store has two bowls by the checkout counters, with one offering an instant in-store discount and the other a coupon for a future date. The coupons can be used both in-house and online, and give customers a reason to return. “This simple experience bridges the offline-to-online gap and creates what I call holiday loyalty momentum,” he said.

Roberta Perry, owner of ScrubzBody Skin Care at her Long Island, New York store. Courtesy of ScrubzBody Skin Care

Perry, who has owned ScrubzBody Skin Care in Farmingdale, New York, for almost 20 years, also emphasizes experience.

The Long Island shop carries homemade scrubs, along with body lotions, oils, eye creams, shampoos, conditioners, and other related products. While Perry also sells products online, her core customers look forward to shopping in the store, especially during the holiday season.

“We’ve done the same thing for years—our ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ sale on the Friday before Thanksgiving,” she told The Epoch Times. “Our customers go wild, and it starts our holiday season off with a bang.”

Many of her customers order online and pick up at the store, while others choose to visit in person for the experience.

Occasionally, the store will feature special events and themed parties. “People work hard for their money, and we want to give them the experience, not just the products,” Perry said.

Perry is reluctant to compete with every other retailer on Black Friday, so this year, Nov. 21 will be the firm’s big sale day. Because it’s the week before Thanksgiving, Perry said people are less stressed, and there is no competition with Black Friday.

On Cyber Monday, the company offers free shipping, and by early December, most of Perry’s regular customers have already finished their holiday shopping.

“It’s just mind-blowing what this sale has turned into over the years,” Perry said. “We make enough money to cover us for months like January, when sales are really slow.”

Local Relationship Key

Tami Cannizzaro, chief marketing officer at Thryv, a small business software firm, deals with more than 100,000 small business owners throughout the country. The company’s main focus is to help small retailers get found online and turn leads into customers.

“It’s really important for small retailers to leverage that local relationship with their customers,” she told The Epoch Times. “National retailers cannot compete with that, especially when there’s an element of personal service.”

Cannizzaro suggests incorporating events such as small business shopping days along with other local retailers or “residents only” shopping days.

“This will make hyper-local people feel special and will also create an experience for them,” she said. Many of her clients have adopted special events such as “Wine Around Wednesdays,” where shops will offer wine and cheese while customers browse.

For the holidays, Cannizzaro recommends involving the local high school by inviting student singing groups that will bring in parents and friends. Inviting local artists or musicians is another way of creating an experience that customers won’t find online or in larger retail outlets.

“While the objective is to bring people into the store, retailers can’t ignore their online presence,” Cannizzaro said. “They need to make sure their website is optimized so that they can be found easily, and also ensure that all of their information is up-to-date.”

Best Deals Often Found in Stores

According to a recent survey involving more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, only 22 percent responded that they plan to shop exclusively in-store this holiday season, while more than 65 percent intend to shop both online and in-store.

“These hybrid trends could give smaller retailers an advantage, especially if they offer a flexible shopping experience,” Michael Podolsky, CEO and founder, told The Epoch Times.

Despite the high number of proposed online shoppers, the survey also discovered that more than 44 percent of shoppers admitted they have often found the best holiday shopping deals in stores.

“This is good news for brick-and-mortar retailers,” Podolsky added. “They can attract value-conscious customers through unique promotions, loyalty programs, and targeted discounts.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 15:30

White House Tells Reporter To "Shut The F**k Up" for Saying National Guard Should "Never Have Been" In DC

The left’s addiction to reflexively blaming conservatives was on full display this week as New Yorker writer Jane Mayer used the ambush shooting of two National Guard members near the White House on Wednesday to criticize the troops' presence rather than condemn the alleged attacker, 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

Mayer took to X within an hour of the broad daylight attack, while the wounded servicemen were still in critical condition, claiming the essential deployment "unnecessary."

"This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed,” the anti-Trump journalist wrote. "I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was for political show and at what a cost."

This is so tragic, so unnecessary, these poor guardsmen should never have been deployed. I live in DC and watched as they had virtually nothing to do but pick up trash. It was for political show and at what a cost. https://t.co/ABkOHNHAvG

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) November 26, 2025

Mayer's tweet drew instant fury from the White House, including Rapid Response X account branding the New Yorker writer a "sick, disgusting ghoul," while affirming that the National Guard had "saved countless lives." White House Communications Director Steven Cheung was even more fire and brimstone, writing, "Jane, respectfully, shut the fuck up for trying to politicize this tragedy. They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation's capital safer."

Jane, respectfully, shut the fuck up for trying to politicize this tragedy.

They were protecting DC and trying to make the nation’s capital safer.

People like you who engage in ghoulish behavior lose all credibility. Not like you had any to begin with. https://t.co/DzVX7Adg96

— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) November 27, 2025

The National Guard's presence was part of a necessary federal effort initiated when President Donald Trump ordered their deployment, along with other federal agents, starting August 11, after declaring a "crime emergency" to restore public safety. The intervention was demonstrably effective, according to D.C. police data. Combined violent crime dropped by 49% (from 180 to 92 incidents) in the 19 days following the deployment, compared to the same period the previous year.

However, the focus quickly shifted from Mayer to a deeper, more alarming national security failure.

Lakanwal was a former "partner force member" who worked with U.S. government entities, including the CIA. Federal sources characterized the calculated act against American personnel as a deliberate "ambush attack."

Former CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. just a month after then-President Joe Biden's disastrous 2021 Afghanistan evacuation under "Operation Allies Welcome," specifically because of his prior CIA affiliation.

"In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation," Ratcliffe told Fox News.

"The individual—and so many others—should have never been allowed to come here," Ratcliffe added. "Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures."

Shortly after the attack, Trump vowed the responsible "animal" would "pay a very steep price."

“The animal that shot the two National Guardsmen, with both being critically wounded, and now in two separate hospitals, is also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “God bless our Great National Guard, and all of our Military and Law Enforcement. These are truly Great People. I, as President of the United States, and everyone associated with the Office of the Presidency, am with you!”

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 14:45

Drone Strike Hits Major Iraqi Kurdistan Gas Field, Plunging Region Into Darkness

Via The Cradle

A drone attack targeted a major natural gas field in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, causing injuries to workers and major power cuts across the region.

"A drone struck a key gas storage facility at the field, causing extensive damage, and a fire is still burning," a worker told Reuters in the aftermath of the attack.

Large blazes at the Khor Mor Oil and Gas Field in Northeastern Iraq

All gas supplies to power stations in the Kurdistan region were halted following the attack on the Khor Mor gas field, causing widespread power outages, including in Erbil.

Firefighting teams were still working to contain the blaze that injured several workers. A field engineer speaking with Reuters estimated the damage to the main liquid-gas storage depot would take several days to repair.

The Khor Mor field is operated by the Pearl Consortium, which includes UAE-based Dana Gas and its affiliate Crescent Petroleum.

The Iraqi central government's Security Media Cell said the field was hit in a "treacherous terrorist" attack and vowed to pursue those responsible. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A separate drone targeted the field on Sunday but was shot down by Iraqi Kurdish security forces before it struck. The Kurdistan Region's Deputy Prime Minister, Qubad Talabani, blamed the attack on “outlaw groups” and urged partners from the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) to provide the Kurdistan Region with “defense systems against such terrorist attacks.”

Aziz Ahmad, deputy chief of staff to the Kurdistan Region's prime minister, claimed that "terrorists on the federal government's payroll" were responsible for the drone strike, in an apparent reference to Shia armed groups known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

⚡️BREAKING

A drone has just struck the Khor Mor oil and gas field in Iraq

It is largely operated by companies from the United Arab Emirates pic.twitter.com/eU5ABDJIko

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) November 26, 2025

The PMU is part of the Iraqi resistance that fired drones and missiles at Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023.

On November 4, a massive explosion at the PMU headquarters south of Baghdad killed one person amid reports of Israel preparing a new front with the country to target Iran-backed resistance groups.

Tyler Durden Thu, 11/27/2025 - 14:00