America's Top Restaurant Winner Slaps Diners With Mandatory Tip And Woke Lecture On Receipt

The top-rated restaurant in America (at least according to Food & Wine's 2025 pick) is now buried under a pile of one-star reviews after deciding to lecture diners on receipts about the supposedly "racist" history of tipping, while auto-adding a non-negotiable 20% service charge to every bill, SFGate reports.

A customer enters during a soft opening at Burdell in Oakland, Calif., on Sept. 6, 2023. The Michelin Guide restaurant recently received an onslaught of poor reviews following a viral Reddit post.  Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

The fury began with a now-deleted Reddit post of the woke note tacked onto receipts at Burdell, the Oakland soul-food spot that's become a progressive darling with Michelin nods and critical acclaim.

“Tipping in the US has an ugly past, allowing the continuation of underpaid labor,” the receipt lectured. “We don’t like that history. Included on your check is a 20% Service Charge which we use to pay hourly staff a consistent and livable wage, not dependent on archaic tipping customs or chance. No need to add anything else. Thank you!”

Predictably, the internet did what it does best by review-bombing the place on Yelp with complaints about everything from terrible food to claims of hidden fees, despite the restaurant insisting the charge is disclosed on menus and its website. Some diners felt ambushed by the mandatory add-on and the moralizing footnote.

Chef-owner Geoff Davis has since scrambled to find an excuse for all the hate, landing on claiming that mainly non-locals are simply jumping on a culture-war bandwagon.

“Most of the people who left reviews are from outside our region and community,” Davis told SFGate. “They’re using this as a crusade against Oakland, DEI, and the moment that we’re in. People are upset about a lot of things in America right now.”

“It blows my mind that there are so many restaurants that employ this model, and we’ve been doing it for so long with no surprise for the most part,” he added.

Davis previously faced backlash over his sky-high prices, saying that it's an “uphill fight” to operate a soul-food restaurant because of America's past, according to SFGate.

“It is what it is, and as Americans, we have to understand that racism is part of our core identity as a country. All we can do is do the best work that we can,” Davis told the news outlet.

Tyler Durden Wed, 02/11/2026 - 22:10

Local Police Are Finally Arresting Anti-ICE Agitators In Minnesota

Something changed in Minneapolis, and fast.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told lawmakers during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday that local police arrested 54 anti-ICE protesters overnight, a development that would have been almost unthinkable just a few weeks ago. During his testimony, Lyons described a noticeable shift on the ground as immigration enforcement operations continue in the city.

Minneapolis Police officer William Martin stands outside burning buildings near Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following protests and property damage surrounding the police killing of George Floyd. Photo by Tony Webster/Minnesota Reformer. 

For weeks, Minneapolis had been a flashpoint. Demonstrators swarmed federal agents. Officers were filmed, heckled, and in some cases assaulted while trying to carry out what Lyons described as “targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation[s].” Instead of focusing on apprehending criminal illegal aliens, agents were stuck navigating angry crowds, something they weren’t trained to do.

That appears to be changing.

Under questioning from Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Lyons confirmed that protests have cooled and ICE agents are once again able to concentrate on their core mission. “We’ve seen a de-escalation in the fact that the protests, while they still go on, have subsided, and ICE has been allowed to do their targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation,” Lyons said.

The key detail was who made the arrests. According to Lyons, the 54 protesters were taken into custody by local authorities. “ICE officers did not have to be engaged in that,” he told the committee.

That line spoke volumes.

For much of the recent unrest, ICE agents were left in a precarious position. McCaul pointed to what he described as a surge in hostility fueled by overheated rhetoric from Democrats about ICE. He noted “rhetoric on the left led to over a thousand percent increase in assaults on ICE officers” and “an increase of over eight thousand death threats to them.”

Those numbers help explain why federal agents found themselves pulled into crowd-control situations they were never meant to handle.

“Your officers are not trained to effectuate crowd control,” McCaul pointed out. “They are trained to move in surgically, go in and remove these dangerous, violent criminals from the United States of America.”

McCaul argued that former Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino’s leadership was the problem. He noted that under his watch, the situation deteriorated to the point where two shooting deaths occurred amid the chaos, and coordination between federal and local authorities broke down, which McCaul described as “a perfect storm.”

McCaul described Homan as “a consummate professional, law enforcement professional,” and made it very clear he supports President Trump’s move to replace Bovino with Homan. And based on Lyons’ testimony, the impact of the change has been immediate.

McCaul outlined what he sees as a return to basics: targeted enforcement actions, better coordination with state and local law enforcement on crowd control, renewed emphasis on ICE detainers, body cameras for agents, and an end to roving interior patrols in major cities. McCaul argued that patrol-style tactics belong at the border, and that Homan is “returning to the original mission of ICE.”

.@RepMcCaul says he believes Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino's presence in Minneapolis "escalated the situation" in Minneapolis.

With Homan's arrival, McCaul says order has been restored.

Acting ICE Director responds, saying that since Homan's arrival, protests have… pic.twitter.com/dajDyOQBBn

— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) February 10, 2026

The 54 arrests in Minneapolis mark a turning point. Local authorities are finally stepping in to handle protesters who try to obstruct federal operations. That shift lets ICE agents focus on apprehending violent offenders instead of fending off crowds. 

Last week, Homan revealed that, thanks to cooperation with local law enforcement, he was pulling 700 federal agents out of Minnesota.

"We currently have an unprecedented number of [Minnesota] counties communicating with us now and allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets," Homan said.

The change in leadership and tactics is clearly paying off. There are fewer clashes, fewer distractions, and a clearer chain of responsibility between federal officers and local police.

If this trajectory holds, Minneapolis may offer a preview of how the administration intends to carry out immigration enforcement nationwide: tightly focused operations, visible coordination, and a firm line against interference.

Tyler Durden Wed, 02/11/2026 - 19:40

India's Coal Use Could Double By 2050

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

India’s coal demand could more than double by 2050 from current levels under current policies, a new report by NITI Aayog, the policy think tank of the Indian government, showed on Tuesday.

Under the Current Policy Scenario (CPS), coal demand in India is forecast to rise even through 2070, according to the projections.

In this scenario, long-term demand could more than double to 2.615 billion tons by 2050, up from 1.256 billion tons in 2025, the think tank’s analysis found.

If India keeps the current policies, coal demand will be higher even in 2070 compared to 2025 levels.  

The share of coal is set to drop from 73% in 2025 to 47% in 2070, thanks to the rise of renewable energy.

This suggests that coal will still be king in India if current policies are kept.  

Even in the net-zero scenario (for India, the net-zero goal is 2070), coal demand will rise to 1.827 billion tons by 2050, up from 1.256 billion tons in 2025. But then demand will collapse to only 161 million tons by 2070.

Despite the fact that renewables now dominate new power additions, India needs coal to continue to provide “dependable, cost-effective baseload power, anchoring system reliability as cleaner sources expand,” the government think tank said in the report. 

To manage the transition, India needs to scale up rapidly energy storage, flexible generation, and stronger transmission and distribution networks, the report noted.

Despite booming renewable capacity additions, India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its power demand as authorities also look to avoid blackouts in cases of severe heat waves.

Coal will still be a key part of India’s power system for the next two decades, Rajnath Ram, adviser for energy at NITI Aayog, said in September 2025. 

“We cannot be subjective about coal. The question is how sustainably we can use it,” the official noted.

Tyler Durden Wed, 02/11/2026 - 19:15

Trump Pushes To End Senate 'Blue Slips' As GOP Confirms Judges At Record Pace

In just the past week, the Senate confirmed half a dozen of Trump’s judicial nominees, continuing a streak that’s left Democrats visibly frustrated.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, 33 judges have sailed through confirmation — already eclipsing his entire first-term total. By comparison, during Trump’s first year in office, the Senate confirmed 19 Article III judges, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. 

While Senate Republicans are moving fast and confirming judges at a blistering pace, there are mounting calls to scrap one of the Senate’s oldest customs — the “blue slip.” 

The century-old practice has long allowed home-state senators to weigh in on judicial nominations before they advance, but Democrats have been abusing it, turning it into a de facto veto on nominees they don’t like.

Trump has wanted the tradition gone because of the way Democrats have abused it.

Last year, he reportedly told Senate Republicans to “get rid of blue slips, because, as a Republican President, I am unable to put anybody in office having to do with U.S. attorneys or having to do with judges."

Some Republicans sympathize with Trump’s view, seeing the blue slip as an outdated relic that slows confirmations.

But others see danger in dismantling another institutional guardrail.

“Nuking the blue slip would be a huge mistake,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told Fox News Digital, joining several colleagues warning that a short-term rules victory could backfire the next time Democrats control the Senate.

For them, the issue isn’t about speed — it’s about reciprocity.

They argue the GOP will one day need the same courtesy they’re now being pressured to destroy.

While that is certainly true, like the filibuster, it is likely to be nuked by Democrats the next time they’re in power if they feel this guardrail hampers their ability to get what they want. In fact, that’s exactly why the blue slip started to get abused in the first place. In 2017, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley was forced to reshape the practice after Democrats used it as a veto on Trump’s judicial nominees during his first term. 

Grassley noted at the time that the blue slip began as a “courtesy to get insights on federal court nominees from home-state senators in an era when such information was hard to come by.” It was never, he argued, meant to give senators “veto power over the president’s judicial nominations.” Grassley also reminded Democrats that their predicament was self-inflicted. “Democratic senators’ recent calls for an ahistorical interpretation of the blue slip courtesy stem from a decision they made in 2013 to end the 60-vote filibuster for lower court nominees. This move, often referred to as the ‘nuclear option,’ effectively silenced half of the Senate during confirmation votes.

At the time, many Democratic senators argued it was unfair for a minority of senators to block nominees with majority support.” he wrote.

“Now that they are in the minority, Democrats are scrambling to cope with the fallout from their decision.”

That history lesson seems lost on much of Washington. For now, the tension within the GOP shows no signs of easing, and despite his earlier move, Grassley remains a proponent of blue slips in theory.

"Because it's a question of 110 years, and everybody in the Senate wants to maintain the blue slip," Grassley said.

That is likely wishful thinking. During the Biden years, Senate Democrats ignored the spirit of the tradition whenever it suited them, confirming 42 judges in the first year of Biden’s presidency — a pace even faster than Trump’s current term.

 Trump’s allies argue that the President’s judicial agenda is too critical to be slowed by Senate traditions that Democrats themselves long abandoned.

Others, however, believe that retaliating by erasing every trace of procedural courtesy risks making future confirmations impossible when Democrats are back in power.

 

Tyler Durden Wed, 02/11/2026 - 18:50