America's Record Health Spending Explained In 5 Charts

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times,

U.S. health care spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024, according to recently released data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

That includes all health spending through federal and state health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, money paid by individuals to health insurers and providers, spending by employers, and payments made by insurance companies.

Here’s a look at the overall picture of America’s health spending and what that means for consumers and taxpayers.

The United States spends more on health care than any nation in the world.

That’s true whether as a gross amount, a per-capita average of $15,474, or a share of the national economy, 18 percent.

And the amount keeps growing. Per capita health care spending has grown every year since 2000, rising at 77 percent higher than inflation.

Health care is the largest industry in the United States by total spending and employment.

Health care, grouped with social services by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employed more people than any other industry and was one of the fastest growing U.S. industries.

About $18 of every $100 spent in the United States went to pay for health care in 2024. That’s more than was spent on housing ($12), groceries ($5), national defense ($4), or cars ($3).

Health care spending rose 7.2 percent in 2024, but health care prices accounted for less than half of the increase.

Those prices rose 2.5 percent, which was below the overall inflation rate of 2.9 percent that year.

Most of the increase was due to increased cost or use of other goods and services, the increased demand for medical services, and changes in the population.

The overall demand for medical services increased and was the most significant reason for increased spending, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Americans spent $768 billion on non-medical expenses in 2024, about 15 percent of health care spending.

Most health care funding is provided by individuals through out-of-pocket payments, health insurance premiums, taxes used to fund government health care programs, or money paid by employers to health insurers in lieu of employee wages.

Most of the money flows through other hands, which include the federal government, state governments, and employers.

President Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress have proposed placing more discretion for health care spending in the hands of consumers, for example by providing funded health savings accounts to individuals rather than paying subsidies directly to insurance companies.

Democrats, whose legislative and policy proposals generally favor controlling costs through increased regulation and subsidies, have so far opposed that idea.

Health care spending accounted for more than a quarter (27 percent) of all federal spending in 2024 and was the largest spending category.

The cost of health care is the greatest financial worry for Americans, according to recent polling from health policy research group KFF.

Two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) said they worried about being able to afford insurance premiums and medical bills. Health expenses were a greater concern than paying for utilities, food, housing, and gas.

More than half (55 percent), said their health care costs had increased in the past year.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 17:30

ICE Urges Newsom Not To Release 33,179 Criminal Illegal Immigrants Into Communities

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have requested the state of California and Gov. Gavin Newsom not to release over 33,000 criminal illegal immigrants with ICE detainers back into the streets, ICE said in a Feb. 6 statement.

ICE detainers are requests to state, local, or federal law enforcement to notify ICE before releasing a removable immigrant. A detainer can also request that an immigrant be held for 48 more hours beyond their scheduled release date to allow DHS time to take custody. The request is sent to prisons and other confinement facilities.

California’s failure to honor ICE detainers has resulted in the release of 4,561 criminal illegal immigrants since Jan. 20, ICE said in its statement.

“There are currently 33,179 aliens in the custody of a California jurisdiction with active detainers. The crimes of these aliens include 399 homicides, 3,313 assaults, 3,171 burglaries, 1,011 robberies, 8,380 dangerous drugs offenses, 1,984 weapons offenses, and 1,293 sexual predatory offenses.”

Some of the illegal immigrants already released from California jails into communities include a Mexican national arrested for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age, a Chinese national arrested for sexual battery, a Mexican national who has been arrested for a sex offender violation, and a Guatemalan convicted of first-degree murder.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin accused Newsom and other “sanctuary politicians” in the state of putting American lives at risk by releasing criminals into neighborhoods.

“Criminal illegal aliens should not be released from jails back onto our streets to terrorize more innocent Americans. If we work together, we can make America safe again. 7 of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE law enforcement,” McLaughlin said.

Newsom has defended California’s sanctuary policies. California’s Senate Bill 54 prohibits state and local law enforcement from using their money or personnel to investigate, detain, or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes, the governor told conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in a Jan. 16 podcast.

However, California cooperates with federal immigration enforcement under certain circumstances, Newsom said.

“We have over 10,000 that I’ve cooperated with since I’ve been governor of California,” he said. “California has cooperated with more ICE transfers probably than any other state in the country. And I vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my legislature to stop the ability for the state of California to do that.”

ICE Administrative Warrants

ICE acting Director Todd Lyons sent a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Feb. 4 regarding the arrest of immigrants in their homes in the state. The letter focused on administrative warrants used by ICE to arrest aliens.

Administrative warrants, also known as ICE warrants, allow immigration officers to arrest and detain a foreign national. Unlike judicial warrants issued in criminal cases, administrative warrants do not require a neutral magistrate. Instead, an officer must establish probable cause to believe the illegal immigrant is removable from the United States.

A 2024 ruling from a California district court held that entering the land surrounding a home to arrest the occupant violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In the letter, Lyons highlighted a 2007 judgment from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that supported the use of administrative warrants to arrest “aliens with final orders of removal in their place of residence.”

“An alien subject to a final order of removal has a diminished reasonable expectation of privacy when federal officers arrive with a valid administrative warrant and reasonable cause to believe he or she is in a residence,” the ICE acting director wrote.

Lyons highlighted that an alien with a final order for removal has generally undergone proceedings in which an immigration judge has determined that the individual is removable from the United States. This neutral immigration judge also ensures the foreign national receives all necessary protections under the U.S. Constitution.

As such, “ICE officers may enter an alien’s residence with a final order of removal and an administrative warrant. No community serious about keeping its residents safe will tolerate a clear aberration of the law,” Lyons wrote.

“ICE and the American people once again demand California honor ICE detainers to take the worst of the worst off the streets and make America safe again.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 16:20

Gambling Stocks Slide Ahead Of Super Bowl As Prediction Markets Shine

The rise of prediction markets ahead of Super Bowl weekend has become a major overhang for legacy sportsbooks, prompting investors to de-risk their equity positions and sending shares of Flutter Entertainment (owner of FanDuel) and rival DraftKings sharply lower year to date.

Today's matchup between Seattle and New England at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara is expected to drive record trading volumes on prediction markets, according to Jordan Bender, a senior equity analyst at Citizens.

"A big piece of why we think Super Bowl handle will be down is that prediction markets are taking a bite out of that," Bender said.

Since the 2024 presidential election cycle, prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket have attracted growing trading volumes that would have traditionally flowed to sportsbook apps.

Professional sports gambler Rufus Peabody told Bloomberg, "It really feels like everything's prediction markets, prediction markets, prediction markets."

Peabody, who began trading on Kalshi in September, noted, "Maybe not for the average recreational bettor, but certainly in the sharp community."

Kalshi and other federally regulated exchanges have opened prediction markets to millions of Americans living in states where sportsbooks remain illegal, sparking a fierce legal battle with federal and local gaming regulators.

These event contracts are not just for sports but also offer bets across markets, elections, and geopolitics. The fastest growth, however, is in sports betting.

According to the Dune data dashboard, Kalshi saw nearly $10 billion in contracts traded in January, with the vast majority tied to sports betting (about $8.5 billion).

Traders on Kalshi and rival Polymarket have swapped $800 million worth of contracts tied to the Super Bowl so far, the American Gaming Association wrote in a report. This compares with $1.8 billion Americans are expected to bet on the game through traditional regulated sportsbooks.

In November, Polymarket received regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to return to the US markets.

"Polymarket is back. Polymarket's U.S. app is now being rolled out to those on the waitlist," Polymarket states on its platform.

Despite the rise of prediction markets, several Wall Street analysts still expect the existing US sportsbook companies to take in a record Super Bowl haul this weekend.

https://t.co/7qawl9HAt5

— Polymarket Sports (@PolymarketSport) February 8, 2026

H2 Gambling Capital senior analyst Ed Birkin forecasted that total wagers - before prediction markets are taken into account - will soar 9% this year to $1.78 billion. He pointed out that prediction markets will attract $630 million in bets for the Super Bowl and account for 80% year-over-year growth in wagering activity for the event.

Polymarket's latest Super Bowl bets:

More bets 

Let the games begin. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 15:45

Molotov Cocktails, Volatility, Stability, And Faux Liquidity

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Markets have experienced high levels of volatility over the past few weeks. From silver, to software stocks, to cryptocurrency, we have seen violent price swings on almost a daily basis. We have political risks, geopolitical risks, as well as the implications of a rapidly evolving technological shift. We touched on Non-Standard Deviations last week, and are going to expand on that today.

We will attempt to examine the bigger picture of the potential volatility from transitioning from one world economic order to another. We also highlight how liquidity, or in our view, the lack of a true depth of liquidity, plays in this world.

Molotov Cocktails

Gasoline, in a tank (or a bottle) at room temperature, is stable. Apply a catalyst (a rag lit on fire) and we enter the “volatility” phase. An explosive, hot, and unpredictable phase.

Once the heat has dissipated, we are left with CO2 and H2O (carbon dioxide and water). Both are very stable. And in our example, there is some broken glass from the bottle, which isn’t as stable as when it was in the form of a bottle, but it isn’t doing much of anything.

There are all sorts of examples of these transitions from one form of stability to another form of stability, with some sort of volatility in between. A rock near the edge of a cliff that is pushed over. Nuclear fission may also fit. I think we could even apply the word entropy here, but we went with the Molotov Cocktail since it implies an intentional act of destruction.

The Global Economic System

We had settled into a multilateral, trade-based global economic system. The complexity of supply chains grew over time. Dependent on trade, but optimized by companies to serve their purpose.

Companies grew and became increasingly global in their scope. For many, the concept of national boundaries was vastly diminished.

While global tensions existed, the big, richer nations were all free to trade. Many resource rich nations prospered (or at least their leaders did).

Then China, quietly, and barely noticed by anyone, tossed out the first Molotov Cocktail. That may sound provocative (and may even be provocative), but it is a good place to start this discussion. It fits with our work under Trump 1.0, when so many were lamenting that the U.S. was “starting” a trade war, and we argued that we had been in a trade war for years, if not decades, and were “finally” firing a shot.

In the past decades, China has quietly, though overtly:

• Taken Intellectual Property. There is no question that the IP theft occurred. We can argue about the size of the theft, but it did occur. This was as much on “us” for letting it go on and continuing to believe that we could trade “normally” with China.
• Cornered the Market on Processed and Refined Rare Earths and Critical Minerals. This is largely on “us.” We didn’t want the “dirty” aspects of this industry in our own backyards. NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) played a key role in allowing this development to occur. It was almost as though the “lack of greenness” was “hidden” if “we” let China do all the “dirty” work. Clearly the latest round of trade negotiations (and viable threats from China) have highlighted this.
• Subsidies and unfair trade practices. Long after the Chinese economy developed into a high- powered, industrialized, and sophisticated manufacturing hub, the world gave it many trade advantages (on “us”). The flipside was that China was very good at subsidizing businesses by keeping prices of certain things at a level where China could then squeeze competitors out of the market. That was largely on “China” but “we” were more enamored with the cheaper prices than we were concerned about the repercussions of being de-industrialized. Heck, less industry (and carbon) was a “feature” not a “bug.”

Without a doubt, this administration has tossed a Molotov Cocktail, or two (or even a hundred), and this is reshaping the global economic system.

The administration’s policies have set off a chain reaction that is re-shaping the global economy, but much of it is in response to (or in an effort to change the path of) China, which had been steering for the world.

A ProSec System Can Be Stable As Well

As you know (and might be sick of hearing about), we think a ProSec Economy is the direction we are headed. That production for security and resiliency will dominate policy for governments (across the globe), corporations, and asset managers. We could also describe this as a “Me First” or “Me Mostly First” world order, but I think that has more negative connotations than it really should have.

In this ProSec world countries will:

• Produce a significant “amount” of “things” they NEED domestically. There will be levels of “NEED” that apply. Just like humans need air more than water, and in turn, need water more than food to live, countries will identify their true “NEEDS” and develop businesses around those “things.” “Things” like electricity and energy will be high on that list. For advanced countries, semiconductors will fit into that. The need for processed, refined, and smelted materials will be addressed. Ultimately, healthcare and pharmaceuticals will be prioritized. See ProSec 2026 for a more detailed list of “things.”
• The “amount” that a country can produce domestically will vary by the “thing” that it is producing. Some things, like energy and electricity, can be done fully domestically by almost any advanced country (if they adopt an array of products). Though even there, they may be dependent on others for some level of supply. There will be things that are not economically feasible to produce at scale in some countries. Countries will need to rely on close relationships (by proximity and values) to ensure a robust and resilient economy. One that cannot easily be threatened by another country’s economic policies.
• There is still plenty of scope for “regular” trade. Not every good or product will be important enough for security and resilience to deserve focused efforts from governments (which will play an outsized role at the start of this changing mindset). And even on some “things” there is opportunity to trade – just not at a level where the trading partner can hold you hostage.

It is easy (at least for me) to see a STABLE global economy, based on the principles of ProSec.

It is the TRANSITION from the existing global economic state of play to this increasingly self-sufficient world that will be difficult and volatile.

Faux Liquidity Adding to The Volatility

When you look at your screens and see bids and offers lined up, the market looks quite liquid. There is some truth to it. Never has the market been more liquid for small trades. I would completely agree with that statement.

Having said that, I think we have an “illusion of liquidity” or what I prefer to call Faux Liquidity. When I “imagine” the state of liquidity, here is what I see:

• Hundreds if not thousands of algos (because no human can do this) trying to compete to “scalp” the next tick or fraction of a penny on any trade. Generating bids and offers, trying to capture some portion of the flow profitably.
• Some portion of these algos (the more sophisticated and presumably more profitable ones) rely heavily on correlation. Commodities might be the easiest example of this to see. Different exchanges list different contracts. There are futures, but there are also ETFs. In some cases, you have those who can participate in the “physical” space. They can try to capture what they see as “arbitrages” between markets. As you move to equities and fixed income, the ETFs (and the create/redeem process for those) can play an even larger role. There are all sorts of opportunities to manage risk (and market making) profitably.
• When functioning well, this creates orderly markets that seem incredibly liquid.

The downside is:

• Correlations changing rapidly. Maybe there are margin calls in one specific product on some exchange creating issues. Maybe two things that are generally correlated break apart due to a political announcement, or even a geopolitical event.
• Bid/offer spreads widen as algos drop out. The beauty of thousands of algos chasing a trade means the “inside market” (best bid and offer) can be tight. If algos start losing money (using a function of increased volatility and shifting correlations), they drop out, or don’t chase as aggressively. The bid/offer spread can widen. The size that can be executed on the bid or offer decreases.

That is when we get “air pockets” or what I call “faux liquidity.”

Large trades can no longer be absorbed “easily” by the system, causing prices to lurch to and fro. One minute we are at 100. The next minute at 105. Now the bid/offers start filling back in around 105, but how the heck did we jump from 100 to 105 in seconds? Nobody knows (well, we do, it is the symptom of faux liquidity). Just like the school of fish avoids the shark (images by Grok), only to congregate moments later in another location, the algos adjust to the new level and get back to their job of making small increments while avoiding being eaten by the big move.

I didn’t even mention:

• Passive investing. In a world dominated by the market cap of a handful of stocks, passive looks a lot more like momentum, where inflows (and believe it or not outflows) reinforce momentum as the flow is concentrated in so few names.
• Leveraged ETFs. I have no idea why the SEC approves 2x or 3x leverage on single stocks. I barely understand it on indices, where the path dependent nature takes a toll on the investor, but I cannot begin to understand the need to have it on single stocks. These amplify movements.
• 0DTE. I haven’t forgotten about zero day to expiration options. Daily and weekly options dominate options trading. VIX is increasingly like the DOW – fun for old timers to talk about wistfully, but far less relevant than it once was to market discussions. As what started the day as a far out of the money option becomes an at the money option, the delta hedging needs the market to continue to move in that direction.

We live in a world where the trading instruments and the market making functionality, on any given day, have the risk of amplifying moves, creating bigger gains or losses, than might otherwise have occurred

Bottom Line

We are transitioning:

• From a more global system of trading, to one where countries are more conscious of the risks of being overly dependent on others for “things” that are necessary.
• From a “deterministic” world of compute, to one where probability-based AI is reshaping industries and investment at a record pace.
• A shift from a U.S. dollar denominated world, where dollars were needed to trade, to provide reserves, and could play a prominent role in sanctions and other mechanisms to influence behavior, to a world where the dollar may not be as important.
  • Some would argue that maybe we are even shifting from a “fiat” currency world, to a “digital” or cryptocurrency world. I do think we will see more digitization, but it will be digitization of existing currencies and instruments, more than the dominance of Bitcoin (as an example). I won’t discount the idea out of hand, but it is far from my base case.

The mix of Molotov Cocktails and Faux Liquidity make for a challenging environment.

On the other hand, I think the market is underpricing the number of cuts and timing (I think at least 3 by September with a 50/50 chance that Powell cuts once before his term as Chair is over). I am worried about jobs and the “working” poor. See The Fed, Affordability, and Electricity for more on this view.

Stay warm and enjoy the Super Bowl.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 15:10

Trump Admin Refuses To Comply With Immigration Court Order

The Trump administration has drawn a line in the sand.

It will not comply with a federal court order demanding due process for 252 Venezuelan migrants deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador last March under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

The Justice Department made that position clear in a new filing, setting up a collision course with U.S. District Judge James Boasberg and a near-certain return to the Supreme Court.

The case has emerged as a defining test of judicial power in Trump’s second term, pitting the executive branch’s immigration authority against the federal courts and their ability to enforce constitutional protections for illegal immigrant gang members.

The Venezuelans were flown to El Salvador in March 2025 despite an emergency order from Boasberg instructing the administration to halt the deportations and turn the planes around mid-flight. That decision triggered an eleven-month legal battle that reached the Supreme Court in April after months of wrangling in the lower courts. 

The justices ruled in the government’s favor on its authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, but Boasberg, an Obama appointee, doubled down in December, issuing another order directing the government to “facilitate” due process for the migrants who had already been deported. He presented two options: bring the men back to the United States for in-person hearings or facilitate hearings abroad that meet constitutional standards.

The Justice Department rejected both options in its Monday filing.

“In its filing Monday, the Justice Department argued again that the administration is powerless to return the Venezuelan migrants who were summarily deported last year,” reports Fox News. “The department rejected the notion that the U.S. could ‘facilitate’ due process proceedings for the migrants in question as previously ordered by the court, describing the options to do so as either legally impossible or practically unworkable due to national security concerns and the fragile political situation in Venezuela after the U.S. capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro during a raid in Caracas last month.”

Justice Department lawyers argued that returning the migrants is legally impossible and presents national security risks. They cited strained diplomatic relations with Venezuela and the alleged gang ties of the deportees. The filing also dismissed the idea of holding hearings at the U.S. embassy in Caracas, citing the recent capture of Nicolás Maduro and the resulting political instability. The department further contended that the United States lacks jurisdiction to conduct habeas proceedings abroad and that attempting to do so would interfere with delicate diplomatic efforts.

The filing made clear that the administration believes it owes the migrants no additional due process. If Boasberg orders otherwise, Justice Department lawyers said they would immediately appeal and seek a stay from higher courts.

The department maintained that the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act represents a national security decision outside the proper reach of judicial review.

“If, over defendants’ vehement legal and practical objections, the Court issues an injunction, defendants intend to immediately appeal, and will seek a stay pending appeal from this Court (and, if necessary, from the D.C. Circuit),” the Justice Department said in a statement.

Boasberg has attempted to dictate what the executive branch can do on immigration policy, an area where presidential authority is broad and judicial deference is typically the norm. Similar demands for court-mandated due process protocols were absent during the Obama administration, which deported immigrants in record numbers. During those years, the federal government shifted sharply from judicial removals to fast-track, nonjudicial proceedings. By 2012, 75 percent of illegals removed did not see a judge before being deported from the United States, amounting to 313,000 nonjudicial removals in a single fiscal year.

The Trump administration views the current legal fight as an extension of that same presidential authority enjoyed by Barack Obama. It sees Boasberg and other judges issuing immigration orders as rogue actors seeking to seize control of enforcement policy from the executive branch.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 14:35

NIH Allocates $10 Million For Research In East Palestine Three Years After Toxic Train Crash

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three years have passed since a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, an eastern Ohio village near the Pennsylvania border.

A neighborhood near the train wreck where vinyl chloride from derailed tank cars was vented and burnt in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 6, 2023. Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo

On Feb. 3, the disaster’s third anniversary, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a grand opening ceremony for the East Palestine Train Derailment Health Research Program Office.

The office will serve as the home to a five-year, $10 million research initiative to assess and address the long-term health outcomes stemming from the derailment.

“NIH’s research hub offers the people of East Palestine a pathway to clear answers about their health they deserve,” said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Everyone affected by this environmental disaster deserves access to independent, gold-standard science that puts their well-being first.”

Life in East Palestine abruptly changed around 9 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2023.

The crew of a Norfolk Southern Railway freight train carrying 151 cars saw smoke and fire, and realized that 38 cars had derailed.

The flammable, toxic chemicals in 11 derailed cars had ignited, with flames spreading to an additional 12 cars.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, nine cars were carrying hazardous materials in addition to the 11 that derailed.

The hazardous chemicals, including vinyl chloride in some of the rail cars, began to spill onto the ground and into the air.

Vinyl chloride is used to make PVC pipes and other products.

The National Cancer Institute notes that the toxic chemical has been linked to cancers of the brain, lungs, blood, lymphatic system, and liver.

Vinyl chloride creates carbon monoxide and hydrogen chloride when it burns.

When the latter mixes with water, it generates hydrochloric acid, a corrosive substance that can burn the skin and eyes, and is toxic if inhaled.

Burning vinyl chloride also produces a small amount of phosgene gas, which was used as a chemical weapon on World War I battlefields.

As the fire continued, authorities on Feb. 6—fearing shrapnel from a major explosion—decided on a controlled detonation of five cars, which sent a massive cloud of black smoke into the sky.

Visible for miles, it was likened to the mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear weapon.

The government characterized it as a “controlled burn,” but residents said it was anything but controlled.

A dark cloud of chemical-filled smoke could be seen for miles, and debris landed on properties several miles away.

The train cars were ruptured in the detonation, and spilled the rest of their contents into a drainage ditch connecting to Sulphur Run, a stream that flows through the heart of East Palestine.

Before the burn, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged residents to evacuate a one-by-two-mile area surrounding East Palestine, which included parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

DeWine described the urgent evacuation as a “matter of life and death.”

Fire from a burning train is seen from a farm in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, 2023. Melissa Smith via AP

Three days later, DeWine held a press conference announcing that the evacuation order had been lifted and residents could return to their homes.

Norfolk Southern trains resumed their routes through East Palestine, and federal and state officials said testing showed that the air and water were safe.

Fear and uncertainty remain among East Palestine residents.

Many locals complained about a toxic smell in the air, burning eyes, rashes, headaches, and other health issues.

These reports prompted concerns about potential long-term health effects, including “maternal and child health, as well as psychological, immunological, respiratory and cardiovascular health,” according to the NIH.

“This research program is designed to bring rigorous, independent science directly to the community,” NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said.

“By establishing a local presence, we can better engage residents, support enrollment in studies, and ensure the research reflects the real experiences and concerns of the people affected.”

After the grand opening, a community meeting was held to outline the research program, explain how residents can enroll in studies, and provide people a chance to ask questions and share their experiences directly with researchers.

Jami Wallace was a lifelong East Palestine resident until the derailment.

She no longer lives in the community but has served as an outspoken advocate for people who have experienced health consequences from the disaster.

“I was diagnosed after the derailment with hypothyroidism. I’ve been diagnosed with asthma, I’ve been diagnosed with an adult chronic cough, I have a cyst on my right ovary that I have to have an operation on,” said Wallace, who is co-founder of the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition.

“I get phone calls every day from people who are seeing cancers and thyroid disease, respiratory and neurological issues. You can’t tell me it’s not from those chemicals.

“I’ll fight Norfolk Southern, and I will fight my own government until we get accountability and we get justice.”

The Feb. 3 event included researchers and representatives from NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the University of Kentucky, the University of Pittsburgh, and Yale University.

“Since the beginning, we have seen the public experience respiratory issues, we’ve seen and heard about rashes, nose bleeds in children, eczema, reproductive health questions and concerns, so now we have a team of about sixteen scientists on our team that can help answer those questions for the public,” Dr. Erin Haynes of the University of Kentucky said.

“We have learned that the community is experiencing health conditions from the derailment, and we want to be able to give them answers to know if it is a true direct association.

“A lot of things are unanswered, but this large-scale study that we now have funding to do will really help answer those questions.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 14:00

Raskin: Voter ID Law Violates The 19th Amendment In Denying The Vote To Women

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

With polling showing over 80 percent of Americans in favor of voter ID laws, it is hard to come up with reasons why you need an ID to board a plane but not vote in a federal election. That was particularly glaring this week when Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) required people to show an ID to attend his campaign events after opposing an ID requirement to vote. So if you want to hear Ossoff speak against voter ID, you will have to show your ID. Now Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has a rather bizarre argument: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, if passed, would likely violate the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

CNN Host Kasie Hunt told Raskin that “Voter ID is supported by the majority of Americans. But there are Democrats on the Hill and you voted against this? Why not support voter ID?”

Raskin then had this curious response:

“… what’s wrong with the Save act? What’s wrong with it is that it might violate the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, because you’ve got to show that all of your different IDs match.

So if you’re a woman who’s gotten married and you’ve changed your name to your husband’s name, but you’re so now your current name is different from your name at birth.

Now you’ve got to go ahead and document that you need an affidavit explaining why. And why would we go to all of these, troubles in order to keep people from voting when none of the states that are actually running the elections are telling us that there’s any problem.”

In fact, under various voter ID laws, states can create systems to address issues such as different maiden names or name changes following a divorce, including requiring a standard attestation provided by the state.

Nothing in the SAVE Act requires birth certificates be brought to polling places. 

It allows for the use of a signed attestation supplied by the state.

As for identification, various forms are allowed:

The legislation would require documentation that shows an individual was born in the U.S., including either:

• An ID that complies with the REAL ID Act and indicates the holder is a citizen;

• A passport;

• A military ID card and military record of service that shows a person was born in the U.S.;

• A government-issued photo ID that shows the person’s place of birth was in the U.S.;

• Other forms of government-issued photo ID, if they’re accompanied by a birth certificate, comparable document or naturalization certificate.

Now, on the 19th Amendment, Raskin’s argument is simply ridiculous. Indeed, if this were credible, why has it not been used successfully against prior state voting ID laws? Rather than making this claim on CNN, it would be interesting for Raskin to try it in court once the SAVE Act passes.

It is unlikely to succeed because the 19th Amendment guarantees the right to vote, but, like all citizens, women can be asked to prove their eligibility to vote. The suggestion that requiring a signature on an attestation form is a barrier to voting is simply incredible.

The Nineteenth Amendment provides:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Requiring proof of your identity neither denies nor abridges the right to vote. Indeed, for supporters of voter ID laws, it protects the right to vote by ensuring that only eligible voters are counted in elections.

Would requiring the REAL ID also violate constitutional rights like the right to travel or association for those with name changes? Of course not. The government may require basic identification for such transactions while creating reasonable methods of addressing name or address changes.

The claim of a 19th Amendment violation is spurious but par for the course in our current political environment. As with claims that democracy is about to die, these inflammatory claims are designed to distract voters who overwhelmingly support Voter ID. Democratic members are unified in opposing such laws. That is a debate that should be resolved on the merits, not meritless constitutional claims.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 12:50

At Least 112 USAF C-17 Aircraft Headed To Middle East: 'Desert Storm Levels'

An eye-opening and massive number of C-17 Globemaster military transport and cargo planes have been observed heading to Europe and the Middle East, in what some monitors have forewarned looks like the build-up to major war in Iran.

One regional watcher and pundit commented in response: "112 C-17s are in or on their way to the Middle East. Guys, that’s a lot. Like Desert Storm a lot. Stay tuned."

C-17, via USAF/X

This as on Friday the prominent open source account Armchair Admiral and others used public flight tracking data to tally that the huge armada of US Air Force C-17s and counting are en route - a trend since mid-January.

"A total of 112 U.S. Air Force C-17's have now either arrived or are en route to the Middle East with a further 17-18 in-progress flights, a number of Royal Air Force logistics flights from RAF Marham to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and movement on U.S. Air Force CORONETs," the source said.

C-17s are massive, and can deliver huge amounts of equipment or large numbers of troops in a single go. The US military lists some of the following key capabilities:

• Payload capacity of over 170,000 pounds
• Ability to operate on short, austere runways as small as 3,500 feet
• Intercontinental range, with in-flight refueling extending reach even further
• Rapid load/unload design to keep missions moving under pressure

Iran and the US just concluded an initial round of indirect talks mediated by Oman, but despite some hopeful statements issued by either side, it is very clear Iran is not willing to negotiate its ballistic missile program - a sticking point being demanded by Washington. A second round is expected in the coming days, unless military action ensues first.

Iran's foreign minister has newly questioned whether Washington is taking these talks seriously, or if they are merely a pretext for more time to allow for a US force build-up in the region.

112 since mid January, here is the original source:https://t.co/opZmBMG8q3

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) February 8, 2026

FM Abbas Araghchi asserted Tehran is not intimidated but that this raises "doubts about the other party's seriousness and readiness to engage in genuine negotiations." He added: "We are closely monitoring the situation, assessing all the signals, and will decide whether to continue the negotiations."

Prior to these weekend comments, the Iranian top diplomat stated, "If the United States launches an attack against us, we do not have the capability to attack its territory, so we would target American bases in the region. This would draw the entire region into war. We do not attack neighboring countries; we target American bases."

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 12:15

Nearly 2,000 Truckers Deemed Unfit Are Removed From American Roads

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

Almost 2,000 truckers deemed to be unqualified to drive on U.S. roads have been removed, with several arrested and many vehicles put out of service, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a Feb. 6 statement.

Trucks line up next to the border wall before crossing to the United States at Otay commercial port in Tijuana, Mexico, on Jan. 22, 2025. Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

The action came as part of the first wave of Operation SafeDRIVE, a “high-visibility, multi-state enforcement and education effort focused on reducing dangerous driving behaviors, ensuring drivers are properly qualified, and addressing unsafe drivers and vehicles on the nation’s roadways,” the department said.

Inspectors from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration teamed up with law enforcement partners in 26 states and the District of Columbia in the three-day effort, Jan. 13 to 15, carrying out “targeted enforcement actions along major freight corridors and other high-risk locations.”

The operation resulted in 8,215 inspections, with 56 truckers being arrested for driving under the influence and illegally being present in the United States, DOT said. A total of 1,231 vehicles were put out of service.

Out of the 2,000 truckers, 704 were removed from service, including nearly 500 for violating English proficiency standards. The removal of these 500 truckers follows the Trump administration’s implementation of English language proficiency requirements for truck drivers.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March designating English as the official language of the United States. In April, he signed another executive order that instructed Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy to remove commercial truck drivers failing English proficiency tests.

Proficiency in English should be a “non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers,” Trump wrote in the order. “They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers.”

Derek D. Barrs, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the recent operation was about safety of the trucking sector. When drivers ignore rules or operate without having proper qualifications, they put lives at risk, he said.

Duffy said Operation SafeDRIVE “shows what happens when we work together with our law enforcement partners to pull unqualified drivers and vehicles off American roads.”

“We need a whole-of-government approach to ensure the Trump administration’s strong standards of safety are in place to protect American families and reduce road accidents.”

Crackdown on Unqualified Truckers

The crackdown on unqualified truck drivers comes amid incidents of illegal immigrants being involved in truck-related accidents.

In August, an illegal immigrant truck driver was accused of causing a crash that killed three people in Florida. In September, another illegal immigrant was arrested after a truck he drove caused an accident that resulted in a 5-year-old girl suffering critical injuries.

This month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested an illegal immigrant from Kyrgyzstan after his truck hit a van in a head-on collision that killed four people in Indiana. He had obtained a commercial driver’s license in Pennsylvania, the Department of Homeland Security said in a Feb. 5 statement.

The Trump administration’s actions against unqualified drivers in the trucking industry has faced legal challenges.

In December, the state of California sued the administration after DOT decided to withhold $33 million in federal funding over the state allegedly failing to comply with the English proficiency requirement for truckers.

California argued in the lawsuit that it does enforce English-language rules for commercial drivers, accusing the DOT action of being “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law; imperils the safety of all persons driving in California; and threatens to wreak significant economic damage.”

In June, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched a nationwide review that discovered widespread noncompliance regarding the issuing of commercial driver’s licenses across several states, especially California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and Washington.

In September, Duffy announced emergency action to restrict the eligibility of foreign-domiciled drivers to obtain these licenses.

“Licenses to operate a massive, 80,000-pound truck are being issued to dangerous foreign drivers—oftentimes illegally,” Duffy said.

More recently, DOT announced on Jan. 8 that a review of North Carolina’s nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that 54 percent were issued illegally. Duffy called this a dangerous situation.

“I’m calling on state leadership to immediately remove these dangerous drivers from our roads and clean up their system,” he said.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 10:30

San Fran's Tenderloin District Stores Double As "Secret Casinos" And "Sleazy Drug Dens"

San Francisco officials say they have shut down or taken legal action against nine convenience stores in the Tenderloin after uncovering illegal gambling rooms, drug operations, and fencing schemes, according to the NY Post. City Attorney David Chiu said the shops had become centers of “drug-driven lawlessness” and helped sell stolen goods to shady customers.

“These convenience stores were magnets for drug activity, and, in some cases, the stores were selling illegal drugs themselves,” Chiu said, adding that his office has targeted the businesses over the past 18 months. In one case, police searching a smoke shop found five gambling machines, more than $17,000 in cash, gun magazines, and cannabis products.

The Post writes that another raid in 2025 revealed nearly 51 grams of meth hidden under a shelf, hundreds of glass pipes, electronic gambling machines, thousands of dollars in cash, and stolen merchandise. Officials say such discoveries highlight how some neighborhood shops had turned into underground casinos and drug hubs.

The crackdown is linked to a nighttime safety ordinance passed in July 2024. The pilot program restricts certain stores in high-crime areas from operating between midnight and 5 a.m. Businesses that break the rule can be fined up to $1,000 or face lawsuits. City leaders now want to extend the program and expand it to other troubled neighborhoods.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey said the policy gives residents a “cooling-off period” that discourages illegal behavior. Police Chief Derrick Lew also welcomed the effort, saying officers will remain “relentless” in targeting illegal drug markets.

Several other stores were forced out after landlords were alerted to unlawful activity, according to the city attorney’s office. Officials argue that closing these problem locations is a key step toward improving safety in one of San Francisco’s most troubled districts.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 09:55

Pentagon To Cut Academic Ties With Harvard, Hegseth Says

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Feb. 6 that the Pentagon will cut all academic ties with Harvard University as the institution “no longer meets the needs of the War Department or the military services.”

Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on July 4, 2025. Learner Liu/The Epoch Times

Hegseth said the Pentagon would discontinue graduate-level professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs with the Ivy League school beginning in the 2026-27 academic year for active duty service members.

This policy will apply to service members enrolling in future courses, while military personnel already enrolled at Harvard will still be allowed to finish their courses, according to the Pentagon chief.

“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” he said in a statement.

“Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”

Hegseth said Harvard is no longer a welcoming institution for military personnel, citing its partnership with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on campus research programs and a campus culture he said enabled attacks on Jewish students and “promotes discrimination based on race in violation of Supreme Court decisions.”

In a separate post on X, Hegseth said the institution was promoting “woke” ideology, which goes against the department’s values.

File this under: LONG OVERDUE

The @DeptWar is formally ending ALL Professional Military Education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University.

Harvard is woke; The War Department is not. pic.twitter.com/0kpsvivtsQ

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 6, 2026

The Pentagon and military services also will evaluate similar relationships with other Ivy League schools and civilian universities in the coming weeks, according to the statement.

“The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost-effective strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to, say, public universities and our military graduate programs,” Hegseth said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Harvard for comment and did not receive a response by publication time.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said his administration would demand Harvard pay $1 billion in damages, accusing the university of being “strongly antisemitic.”

“Harvard has been, for a long time, behaving very badly! They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The Trump administration has attempted to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding from Harvard following an investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and claims of anti-Semitism in higher education last year. The White House said in April 2025 that Harvard failed to protect its students from harassment and violence on campus.

Harvard President Alan Garber filed a lawsuit against the administration in April 2025, seeking to restore $2.2 billion in grants and contracts withheld by the government.

A federal judge later reversed the funding freeze, ruling that the government violated the First Amendment through its efforts to combat anti-Semitism. The Justice Department appealed the decision in December 2025.

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 09:20

Humanoid Robots Get "Brains" As Dual-Use Fears Mount

Chinese humanoid robotics firms are laser-focused on advancing "robot brains" for next-gen platforms already entering series production and headed to factory floors this year. Once these intelligent models push beyond scripted video stunts - we've all seen in promotional videos - into real-world autonomy, the systems become battlefield-ready, dual-use robots.

The Shanghai Morning Post reports that China-based robotics firm Dobot has developed Dobot-VLA, a vision-language-action model that allows its full-size humanoid Atom robot to "see through" clusters of tasks, "understand" ambiguous instructions, and make autonomous decisions to "get the job done."

"[This] ability to adapt autonomously based on an understanding of the environment is the starting point for humanoid robots to create value in industrial applications," the company told SCMP.

Rival UBTech open-sourced its humanoid-focused multimodal model, "Thinker," on GitHub and Hugging Face, aiming to address common embodied-robot issues such as lag and spatial inaccuracies.

UBTech claims strong benchmark results against Nvidia and ByteDance models and reports near-perfect performance (99.9%) on certain factory-floor tasks, such as moving boxes and sorting parts, with its "Walker S2" humanoid robot.

SCMP pointed out, "China's robotics industry is accelerating a shift from physical stunts that rely on preprogrammed routines to sophisticated abilities that require learning and adapting in the real world, seen as essential for mass commercial adoption in manufacturing and other scenarios."

The broader theme is that humanoid robot brains are being developed at hyperspeed, suggesting these robots will be marching on factory floors in the very near term, not just in China but also across the Western world, starting later this year.

We've warned readers that "Humanoid Robots Begin March on Assembly Lines and Beyond," meaning some of these systems could be dual-use and could soon appear at polygon weapon-testing facilities in Ukraine, potentially headed for battlefield deployment later this year if there's no peace deal by spring. The same could be said of Russian forces, which may soon be experimenting with Chinese bots.

Read the latest:

• Here Come Humanoid Robots: Industry Makes Clear Pivot Toward "Dedicated-Purpose" Commercial Deployments

• AI's Next Frontier Is Physical As Humanoid Robots Begin March On Assembly Lines And Beyond

• Watch: Russian Soldiers Surrender To Gun-Wielding Robot; Humanoid Warfare Nears

Skynet is already here.

The rise of humanoid robotics, first on the factory floor and then on the modern battlefield, is inevitable. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 07:35

China Takes Step Towards 'Starlink Killer', Could Be Game-Changer In Ukraine

Via Remix News,

A new, compact, high-power microwave weapon, the TPG1000Cs, has been developed at a Shanghai Nuclear Technology Institute, which could become one of the most serious threats to the Starlink satellite network. The device can deliver 20 gigawatts of energy for up to a full minute, the South China Morning Post reported, cited by Portfolio.

The TPG1000Cs, the world’s first compact driver for high-power microwave weapons, has been created at the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology in Shanghai. The device can deliver 20 gigawatts of power for up to one minute.

At just four meters long and weighing just five tons, the device is small enough to be mounted on trucks, warships, airplanes, or even satellites. Some Chinese experts estimate that a ground-based microwave weapon with a power of over 1 gigawatt could be capable of seriously disrupting or even damaging satellites in low Earth orbit, such as Starlink, being used in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Previously known similar systems could operate continuously for no more than three seconds and were much larger. The Russian Sinus-7 drive, for example, was operational for about a second, delivered about 100 pulses per shot, and weighed up to 10 tons.

China has repeatedly signaled that Starlink poses a serious threat to its national security. Chinese military researchers are currently developing new “Starlink killer” weapons, including high-powered microwave systems and lasers, that could be used to relatively cheaply combat large constellations of low-orbit satellites if necessary.

SpaceX has lowered the orbital altitude of its Starlink satellites to reduce the risk of collisions. But that makes them much more vulnerable to attacks from ground-based directed energy weapons. If China eventually deploys the TPG1000Cs in space, the invisible strikes could be even more devastating.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sun, 02/08/2026 - 07:00

Will Falling Birth Rates Mean A More Conservative World?

Authored by Michael Barone via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

George Orwell was on to it almost 80 years ago—the problem of below-replacement level birth rates. In a short book written for the Britain in Pictures series in 1947, written just as Britain was emerging from wartime rigors into an uncharted postwar future, Orwell noted that despite an upward blip in birth rates during the war, “the general curve is downward. The position is not quite so dangerous as it is sometimes said to be, but can only be put right if the curve not only rises sharply but does so within ten or at most twenty years.”

David Veksler/Unsplash.com

“Otherwise,” he went on, forebodingly, “the population will not only fall, but, what is worse, will consist predominantly of middle-aged people. If that point is reached, the decline may never be retrievable.” Orwell did not live to see it—he died at the age of 46 in 1950—but the danger was averted. Postwar birth rates rose in Britain and parts of Europe, though not so robustly as in the United States, where the baby boom peaked in 1957 and petered out after the introduction of the birth control pill in 1962.

The peak U.S. fertility rate, or the projection of how many children the median woman would have if current birth rates continued, hovered above 3.5 and then plunged to 1.74 in the bicentennial year of 1976, just about the same as 2025’s 1.79.

Fertility rates remained low in the 1980s, then rose and occasionally reached the replacement rate of 2.1 in the high-immigration 1990s through the Great Recession of 2007. The latest rate was an uptick from the 1.6 levels of the COVID-19-affected 2020–24 period, leaving the United States with something similar to the dilemma Orwell warned Britons against.

And it’s not just the United States. Plunging birth rates are a worldwide phenomenon. Europe’s fertility rates have been well below replacement for years, with nations’ under-70 populations set to fall by 20 percent in the next decade, not only in economically stagnant Britain and France, where births are tilted toward immigrants, but also in rapidly growing, low-immigration Poland.

Birth rates have dropped below replacement rates since 2000 in most of Latin America, largely because of lower-income mothers, such as Hispanic women in the United States, having fewer children.

China, despite the repeal of its one-child policy in 2015, saw its fertility rate plunge to 0.9 in 2025. If births continued at current numbers, the lowest evidently since the 18th century, China’s population would shrink by more than half, from 1.4 billion to 625 million. Elsewhere in East Asia, the latest birth rates have fallen to 0.8 in Taiwan and Thailand, and even lower in South Korea.

Koreans have shown the determination to maintain their culture, including their alphabet and independence, in a neighborhood with many more Japanese and Chinese. They have risen from abject poverty to become world-class exporters since the 1953 armistice. But they may be at risk of disappearing: At current birth rates, every 100 South Koreans today will have only six great-grandchildren.

What is behind this worldwide trend? At least one thing is clear about what is happening in America—and how it’s different from previous periods. It’s that childbearing has increasingly become a partisan activity.

As the Institute for Family Studies’ Lyman Stone pointed out, American conservatives and progressives each had a fertility rate of 2.7 in 1980, well above replacement level. In the 2020s, conservatives’ fertility rate has dropped marginally to about 2.4, still above replacement level.

But the progressives’ rate has fallen to 1.8, below replacement level, and generally tracks the pattern in economically developed countries.

It’s not difficult to see why. Young women increasingly tilt left politically and also tend to marry less often, hold jobs outside the home, say they don’t want children, and travel more frequently. These behaviors correlate with childlessness or with delaying childbearing, which often results in fewer births than desired.

The gap reflects “systematic differences in family formation between conservatives and liberals,” analyst Zachary Donnini wrote. Before the Great Recession, this was masked by high birth rates among black women who were heavily Democratic. But black (and Hispanic) birth rates fell sharply after 2007.

At the same time, the gap in political and cultural attitudes between young men and women has grown wider, on campus (where young men are increasingly outnumbered) and off, and both marriage and premarital sex rates have declined.

Extrapolate those trends outward, and you see something like the picture revealed in the Census Bureau’s recently released 2026 estimates of states’ populations. They showed two-thirds of the national population increase occurring in safe red 2024 states, 21 percent in the seven seriously contested purple states, and only 11 percent in the safe blue states.

Similarly, since children tend to share their parents’ political views, Wall Street Journal contributor Louise Perry wrote, we can “expect the partisan fertility gap to usher in a United States that is more conservative. In fact, the whole of the developed world is on track to become more conservative.” That’s a trend that Orwell, a proud socialist, might well have found even more dangerous than it’s sometimes said to be.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 23:20

Trump Imposes Secondary Tariffs, Reaching 25%, On Countries Still Importing From Iran

US and Iranian delegations conducted eight-hours of indirect negotiations mediated by the Omani government in Muscat on Friday, but it was merely minutes after the close of the talks that the US Department of State announced yet more sanctions on Iran.

The punitive measures target 15 entities, two individuals and 14 vessels, charging them of being part of "the illicit trade in Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products" - or the so-called shadow fleet.

via The Export Practitioner 

The Friday US statement signaled support for antigovernment protests which dominated headlines for much of the last month, but which have died down since.

"Time and time again, the Iranian government has prioritized its destabilizing behavior over the safety and security of its own citizens, as demonstrated by the regime's mass murder of peaceful protestors," the State Dept. explained.

But Tehran has pointed out not all of them were peaceful, given that dozens or even hundreds of police and security personnel were killed and wounded, in some cases by armed rioters who also torched buildings.

The Iranian response to these new actions was for Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to make clear Tehran's position that 'fair' dialogue as equals must be free of threats or pressure.

In a post on X, he said Iran "enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year" - which means that "great distrust" now defines US-Iran relations and it needs to be overcome if any agreement can be forged.

But despite this plea, President Trump took more action in the form of slapping tariffs on any country still doing business with Iran:

The executive order, which takes effect on Saturday, directs the administration to impose new tariffs on countries that still do business with Iran.

It states that tariffs "may be imposed on goods imported into the United States that are products of any country that directly or indirectly purchases, imports, or otherwise acquires any goods or services from Iran."

The order also sets out a mechanism for determining and applying those duties, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio tasked with setting the rate.

These tariffs could reach as high as 25%, echoing a threat first floated by Trump in mid-January. This would significantly impact the single biggest buyer of Russian oil, China.

The additional tariff would also be felt by Russia, Germany, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates - the latter three of these being Washington allies.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 22:45

Thousands Of Iraqis Volunteer To Defend Iran Against US Attack

Via Middle East Eye

Thousands of Iraqis have signed a pledge to help defend Iran in the event of a US attack on the Islamic Republic. According to a statement, almost 5,000 people in Iraq's Diyala province gathered to declare their intent to defend both Iraq and its eastern neighbor, as well as Iran-backed armed groups, "without any compensation".

"We announce our readiness to volunteer to support our security forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we categorically reject American intervention in the Islamic Republic," the statement read.

Men sign up for the 'martyrdom brigades' run by Iraq's pro-Iran paramilitary group Kataeb Hezbollah at a mosque in Baghdad, via AP

The announcement comes as tensions have continued to mount between Iran and the US, despite ongoing talks between the two states in Oman.

Washington announced new sanctions on Friday aimed at curbing Iran's oil exports, including measures targeting 14 vessels flagged in countries such as Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates. It also announced sanctions on 15 entities and two people.

US aircraft carriers, meanwhile, remain positioned off Iran’s coastal waters, with US Central Command (Centcom) releasing footage showing the Nimitz-class USS Abraham Lincoln conducting a replenishment operation in the Arabian Sea.

On Thursday, Iran’s army spokesperson, Brigadier-General Mohammad Akraminia, said the military was ready for war, which would "encompass the entire region and all US bases" if that is what Washington wanted. US President Donald Trump has previously warned that “bad things” would likely happen if a deal could not be reached. 

Ammar al-Tamimi, a leader in the Iran-backed Badr Organization, which coordinated the gathering in Diyala, said the volunteers were not associated with any specific armed faction. "Rather, we are volunteers ready to serve as a reserve force for the security forces," Tamimi told Rudaw.

“This formation consists of 4,947 names, and its organizational structure, along with the names of each volunteer, will be submitted to the Diyala Operations Command, which will then forward them to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi:

If the United States launches an attack against us, we do not have the capability to attack its territory, so we would target American bases in the region.

This would draw the entire region into war. We do not attack neighboring countries; we… pic.twitter.com/IoC3wYKNDD

— Clash Report (@clashreport) February 7, 2026

Iraq has maintained close ties with Iran since the 2003 war that overthrew Saddam Hussein. Both Iran and the United States have competed for influence in Iraq, where thousands of US troops remain stationed, and numerous political parties and armed groups are aligned with Tehran.

Iran-aligned groups in Iraq such as Kataeb Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba have also set up recruiting stations across the country, including in Baghdad, to enlist volunteers in the event of a US attack on Iran.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 22:10

Fifth Circuit Upholds Policy That Illegal Immigrants Can Be Detained Without Bond

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal appeals court has sided with the Trump administration in upholding a policy that mandates detention without bond hearings for illegal immigrants in the United States who entered without inspection.

President President Donald Trump (2L), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (L), and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (R) tour a detention center for illegal immigrants, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on July 1, 2025. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

In a 2–1 decision issued Feb. 6, the New Orleans-based Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed lower court rulings that had granted habeas petitions to two Mexican nationals, Victor Buenrostro-Mendez and Jose Padron Covarrubias. The panel determined that such individuals qualify as “applicants for admission” under federal immigration law, subjecting them to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1225(b) rather than discretionary release options available under § 1226(a).

The majority opinion, authored by Circuit Judge Edith Jones, emphasized adherence to statutory text. “The text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations,” the court stated, rejecting arguments that the policy represented an unlawful shift from prior interpretations by the Department of Homeland Security and Board of Immigration Appeals.

“By eliminating the exclusion/deportation dichotomy, [Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act] put aliens seeking admission lawfully on equal footing with those who entered without inspection,” Jones wrote. “It seems strange to suggest that Congress would have preserved bond hearings exclusively for unlawful entrants.”

Circuit Judge Dana Douglas dissented. She argued that the Congress, which enacted the 1996 Act, “would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi praised the ruling in a post on X.

“The Fifth Circuit just held illegal aliens can rightfully be detained without bond,” she said. “A significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn.

Tonight our @TheJusticeDept attorneys secured yet another crucial legal victory in support of @POTUS Trump’s immigration agenda.

The Fifth Circuit just held illegal aliens can rightfully be detained without bond - a significant blow against activist judges who have been…

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) February 7, 2026

The policy, implemented in September 2025, expands mandatory detention beyond arrivals at ports of entry to include illegal immigrants in the U.S. interior, potentially affecting thousands held in facilities across Texas and Louisiana, where the Fifth Circuit holds jurisdiction.

Another Fifth Circuit ruling in September 2025 in W.M.M. v. Trump granted a preliminary injunction against deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act, citing inadequate notice periods for due process.

In that case, the court found seven-day notices insufficient, requiring at least 21 days given detention barriers like limited access to counsel and legal resources.

“Notice must be ‘reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances,’ to afford parties ‘a reasonable time to make an appearance,’” the majority wrote, drawing parallels to challenges in expedited removals and mandatory detentions.

The consolidated appeal stemmed from district court dockets in the Southern District of Texas, where judges had ruled the detainees eligible for bond hearings.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 21:00

Washington Post CEO And Publisher Quits As Newspaper Implodes In Epic Chaos

How the mighty have fallen.

In a "poetic ending" plot twist, that even jaded conspiracy theorists would have had trouble scripting, Washington Post CEO and publisher Will Lewis has abruptly and unexpectedly stepped down from his perch atop Jeff Bezos's crumbling media empire. Well, maybe not that unexpectedly...

Will Lewis, the chief executive and publisher of The Washington Post, has stepped down

That's right, the same WaPo that spent years hurling "fake news" grenades at us here at ZeroHedge, trying to get us deplatformed, demonetized, and disappeared from the internet, is now eating crow as their own house of CIA-funded cards collapses. Yes, this is our unapologetic victory lap – we've outlasted another establishment hack, which earlier this week saw an in house "Red Wedding" where hundreds of CIA conduits "reporters" were fired... and it feels good.

Lewis's exit was announced late on Saturday around 6pm ET, just days after he orchestrated a bloodbath of layoffs that axed a whopping 30% of the staff – over 300 journalists sent packing in what can only be described as a desperation move to staunch the bleeding from years of financial hemorrhaging and dwindling readership.

Lewis, ever the gracious Brit, framed his departure as a noble sacrifice "in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post." Sure, Will – because nothing says "sustainable future" like firing a third of your workforce and then bailing before the pitchforks come out. Also the news that he was at the Super Bowl after the biggest mass termination in WaPo history probably didn't help.

Will Lewis has gone to Super Bowl every year since joining Washington Post… which is not a great excuse for missing a Zoom call. https://t.co/TMFJY1GrST

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) February 6, 2026

Meanwhile, as Semafor notes, the real reason for Lewis' departure is the he presided over two major errors, one his, and the other that of his boss, Jeff Bezos who clearly has grown bored with his vanity media project. 

First, Lewis blocked the Post reporting on his role in the UK phone hacking scandal, preventing the publication of a story few would have read anyway. Then, Bezos pulled a planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris at the 11th hour, for apparent fear of offending Donald Trump. That endorsement wouldn’t have made much of a difference politically, but hundreds of thousands of subscribers canceled over what they saw as a craven capitulation.

.@maxwelltani on the Post's lost years, and strategic void pic.twitter.com/wc8OEdD8AM

— Ben Smith (@semaforben) February 8, 2026

Let's rewind a bit on Lewis' illustrious - if catastrophically short - tenure. Handpicked by billionaire overlord Jeff Bezos - whose Amazon tried three times to demonetize ZeroHedge not once, not twice, but three times (and only thanks to the FCC intervening do we have any Amazon ads showing) - at the start of 2024, Lewis was supposed to be the savior who would "transform" the once-venerable rag and reverse its slide into irrelevance.

Instead, he presided over a dumpster fire of epic proportions, culminating in this latest round of pink slips that left the newsroom in shambles. Former editor Marty Baron, the guy who once helmed the paper during its Watergate glory days or whatever passes for glory in legacy media these days, didn't mince words: he called it one of the “darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations.”

Ouch. And Katie Mettler, ex-chair of the WaPo guild, piled on with a zinger: “I’m glad Will Lewis has been fired. I wish it had happened before he fired all my friends.” Tell us how you really feel, Katie.

Cutting through the shades of gray, we were more laconic: WaPo is finished. 

In the interim, the keys to the kingdom go to some dude named Jeff D’Onofrio - the former CFO who' nobody had ever heard of until now, and who is stepping up as the placeholder boss.

Good luck, Jeff – you'll need it. With readership tanking, ad revenue in freefall, and trust in mainstream media at all-time lows, the WaPo's "sustainable future" looks about as promising as a subprime mortgage in 2008.

But let's not forget the delicious irony here. This is the same Washington Post that has repeatedly tried to kneecap ZeroHedge, labeling us as purveyors of "disinformation" and cozying up to Big Tech censors - such as Amazon and Google - in a bid to silence dissenting voices. 

Remember when they accused us of being Russian bots or spies, or whatever flavor-of-the-month smear was trending? That aged like milk. And while the CIA's favorite (well, no longer favorite) mouthpiece was busy playing hall monitor for the establishment narrative, we've been here, grinding away, delivering truth that their advertisers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. And guess what? We're still standing, stronger than ever, with record subscribers and 100 million page views per month, while their imported CEO packs his bags and slinks back across the pond.

Is there a Polymarket, we wonder, on when ZeroHedge will surpass WaPo in readership. 

But we digress: Karma, folks, is real, and it's spectacular. And as WaPo licks its wounds and hunts for yet another white knight to bail them out (or maybe they'll go for a black knight this time, after all the whole equity thing), we'll be over here popping the champagne. After all, in the cutthroat world of media, survival isn't about being "respectable"; it's about being right. And on that front, ZeroHedge wins again.

In the end, Democracy may well die in darkness, but WaPo's time of death was 6pm on February 7, 2026.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 19:46

AI 'Kill Chains' And Rise Of Skynet-Like Weapons Offer Glimpse Of 2030s Battlefield

Ukraine has become the proving ground for 2030s warfare, where Western weaponry, Russian weaponry, and anyone else's "next gen" weaponry collide on a modern battlefield that's already providing a sneak peek of what conflict will look like: weaponized AI, ground robots, FPV swarms, and automated kill chains, with humanoid robo-killers that could enter field testing as early as this year.

The focus of this note is how "kill chains" are becoming central to modern warfare, with humans increasingly pushed out of decision-making on the Ukrainian frontlines, according to a report by The Times, which adds: "AI will soon be able to meld weapons systems faster than armies' commanders can think."

Framed as an "intelligent kill web," a human commander, analyst, or soldier sits at the center like a spider, viewing vast streams of sensor data and weapons systems that talk to each other faster than the speed of thought. The result is a compressed kill chain, in which identifying targets and killing opponents happen at extraordinary speed.

"You need to be able to collect information, to process information, to write and disseminate your order faster than your opponent," Yvan Gouriou, a newly retired French army general, told The Times. He is now a strategy adviser to the defense software firm Systematic Defence.

According to dozens of current and former Western military officers, defense industry sources, and analysts who spoke with the outlet, the "intelligent kill web" marks the dawn of the age of algorithmic warfare.

Examples:

• The French Army upgraded command software to add real-time AI analytics (moving beyond traditional homegrown tools).

• The United States Army 4th Infantry Division ran exercises in Colorado testing an AI "lattice" that detected, labeled, and assessed targets, tied to a next-gen C2 prototype led by Anduril with software contributions from Microsoft and Palantir Technologies.

• The United States Air Force ran "Dash" experiments where AI planners reportedly became far faster than human officers and, in newer results, materially more accurate on tactical viability (though earlier iterations made subtle errors).

An insider at one European arms manufacturer told the outlet that integrating AI into defense is "akin to the introduction of electricity." The person warned that this technological advance raises a serious question: how much control human commanders will retain on a modern battlefield in the years ahead.

Here's what 2030s warfare will look like:

Separately from the report, the Ukrainian military recently hosted a closed-door war-tech conference where they showcased AI already on the battlefield.

Drone boats with missiles...

The broader takeaway here is that weaponized AI, robots, FPVs, and other advanced systems, soon including humanoid robots, on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe, offer a glimpse of what 2030s conflict could look like. Most disturbing of all, the rise of "Skynet-like" weapons and autonomous kill chains has already arrived.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 19:15

Young America's Affordability Crisis Has Political Consequences

Authored by Micky Horstman via RealClearPolitics,

One and a half million more young adults live with their parents today than a decade ago. They’re losers … economically. 

Since the pandemic, fair market rents have increased as much as 40% in Chicago, the cost of owning a car is up more than 40%, and car insurance and health care prices have spiked. Student loan debt has quadrupled since 2000, and entry-level wages haven’t kept pace with inflation.

For young people without financial or family support, it’s an affordability crisis that feels insurmountable. Cost of living was Gen Z’s top political issue in 2024; they feel the “American Dream” slipping farther away.

And it’s driving them to the extremes. While political pundits insist Gen Z is “more well-off,” than other generations, and reporters write about “the big myth of zoomers’ economic conditions” – pointing to rising wealth and low unemployment compared to previous generations – political extremists from Democratic Socialist Hasan Piker to far-right nationalist Nick Fuentes are validating the distressed generation narrative.

As Gen Z flocks to the fringes, it’s on lawmakers to bring them back and renew their belief in the American Dream. They can do this by repairing the systems holding young people back, not pushing populist quick fixes or pretending these lived experiences aren’t real.

Wealth rises when you’re living in your childhood bedroom. Low unemployment doesn’t matter if jobs on the market are temporary, low-wage, or evaporate the moment the economy hiccups or AI replaces you. The kids are scared.

The far right blames immigrants. The far left blames billionaires. Leaders propose handing out $25,000 in down-payment support or mass deportations to solve the youth’s housing problems. These extremes are wrong.

The reality is: Government regulations have spiked costs and killed opportunities for young people.

For years, lawmakers infused aspects of left- and right-wing populism into the economy through government mandates, zoning hurdles, rent regulations, and most recently, tariffs. Then they acted surprised when prices climbed and jobs plummeted.

These policies don’t work, regardless of which party implements them, and they are especially harmful for younger generations. Whether it’s California’s disastrous Prop 13, which has kept property taxes locked while home prices skyrocketed, or Florida’s plan to eliminate property taxes for retirees, these policies limit housing supply and raise costs for young and first-time homebuyers.

In New York City, voters were swayed by a Socialist candidate who promised to solve the affordability crisis and make billionaires pay their “fair share.” Zohran Mamdani’s housing platform calls for rent stabilization efforts and expanding government-funded affordable housing development. Ultimately, rent control measures will drive up the cost of housing, and public sector development will come at a high cost for taxpayers – as seen in Chicago where similar “affordable” units cost taxpayers as much as $700,000 each.

Cities such as Austin and Minneapolis, which are becoming havens for Gen Z, prove what happens when free-market barriers come down: Buildings go up, rents drop, and jobs appear.

Minneapolis voters rejected a far-left Socialist candidate for mayor who ran on a similar platform to Mamdani. Populism isn’t attractive to voters when rent is cheap. The secret to affordable living, as it turns out, is removing barriers that restrict housing supply, such as zoning, permitting, and aesthetic requirements.

On the labor front, the progressive push for a $15 minimum wage has put businesses in a chokehold for a decade. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson removed the subminimum wage, forcing restaurants to pay employees a staggering new hourly rate. As a result, restaurants closed and businesses fled. When the incentives for hiring youth and tipped employees vanished, wages began to slow and youth employment declined. Instead of creating new incentives for businesses to hire young workers, the progressive solution has been calls to “tax the rich” and pour taxpayer dollars into city-run youth job programs.

On the other side, Nalin Haley, political commentator and son of Nikki Haley, and Jarrod Wright, host of an America First-themed podcast called “The Wright Wing,” have advanced anti-immigration talking points and convinced Gen Z that workers with H-1B visas will ruin the economy, encouraging an end to the program. Now, Texas is launching investigations to evaluate the program and curbing new applicants. Meanwhile, President Trump’s tariffs are raising costs on everyday items and essentials for the “American dream” including cars and housing. Immigration crackdowns have created only political unrest, not economic security for Americans.

Cost reduction, job creation and wage growth won’t be found in government mandates or in eliminating who comes into the country.

Gen Z needs policies that increase opportunities and lower the regulatory and tax burdens. Lawmakers must reform barriers to work, such as occupational licensing and degree requirements, to expand opportunities for young workers.

Only when the American Dream feels within reach will leaders be able to pull Gen Z back from the extremes.

Tyler Durden Sat, 02/07/2026 - 17:30