NATO Mulls Nixing Annual Summits, Wary Of 'Trump Drama' Overshadowing

Fresh reporting in Reuters says that NATO leadership is mulling ending its practice of holding annual summits as the Trump presidency has "cast a long shadow" over such meetings and as member states are looking for "less drama".

For example, at the 2018 summit Trump threatened to walk ⁠out after bitterly complaining over allies' low defense spending. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general at the time, wrote in a recently published memoir, "Had he made good on his threat to leave ​in protest, we would have been left to pick up the pieces of a shattered NATO."

via Associated Press

Also, in 2019 he exited summit early while lambasting then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "two-faced" after Trudeau was caught on a hot mike blasting Trump's behavior.

One report recalls of the scene:

Footage emerged late on Tuesday that appears to show world leaders joking about Trump at the summit, which has been marked by sharp disagreements over spending and future threats, including Turkey’s role in the alliance and China, as well as a clash of personalities that triggered a flurry of incendiary language being deployed by leaders.

The video shows leaders including Trudeau, Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, and Princess Anne at the Buckingham Palace event on Tuesday evening.

In audio caught on a nearby microphone, Johnson asks Macron: “Is that why he was late?” before Trudeau interjects: “He was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.”

Trudeau adds: “Oh, yeah, yeah yeah. He announced … ” before he is cut off by Macron, who speaks animatedly to the group. Macron’s back is to the camera and his words are inaudible.

After an edited cut in the film, the footage later shows an incredulous Trudeau telling the group: “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.”

In his second administration, President Trump's fierce criticisms have only grown, especially related to lack of help in the Iran war and Hormuz Strait crisis, labeling the alliance a "paper tiger" and charging member states with being "free-loaders".

One European diplomat expressed an increasingly common viewpoint among members: "Better to have fewer summits than bad summits," the official said.

And, per Reuters: "Some diplomats and analysts have long argued that annual summits create pressure for eye-catching results that distracts from longer-term planning."

The 2019 Trudeau hot mic incident:

.@JustinTrudeau, @EmmanuelMacron, @BorisJohnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday. No one mentions @realDonaldTrump by name, but they seem to be discussing his lengthy impromptu press conferences from earlier in the day. (Video: Host Pool) pic.twitter.com/dVgj48rpOP

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) December 3, 2019

For now at least, NATO leadership is insisting it will be business as usual and these annual summits will proceed. "NATO will continue to hold regular meetings of Heads of State and Government, and between summits NATO Allies will continue to consult, plan and take decisions about our shared security," a NATO official told Reuters. But Trump's anti-NATO rhetoric is unlikely to cease anytime soon, setting up for more drama to come.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/29/2026 - 04:15

25,000 Ground Robots In Battlefield Planned By Ukraine For Frontline Logistics

Authored by Mrigakshi Dixit via Interesting Engineering,

In a move toward fully autonomous warfare, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry plans to procure 25,000 unmanned ground vehicles by mid-2026. This initiative aims to replace human soldiers with robotic systems for all frontline logistics and double the 2025 deployment rate.

Reportedly, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov stated that the ultimate goal is to have 100 percent of frontline logistics handled by robotic systems.

BIZON-L ground robot.DevDroid/YouTube

The strategy is already yielding results. In March alone, Ukrainian forces logged over 9,000 missions using ground robots for everything from delivering ammunition to evacuating the wounded.

A key development in this tech surge is the formal codification of the Bizon-L logistics robot. 

$330 million invested

Following a meeting with domestic manufacturers, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced a strategic shift to stabilize the industry by signing UGV contracts through 2027. 

This move supports Ukraine’s ambitious goal to transition 100% of frontline logistics to robotic systems, a transition already well underway.

These unmanned systems are proving vital for high-risk logistics and medical evacuations, insulating soldiers from the most dangerous aspects of frontline operations.

To streamline its defense supply chain, Ukraine has invested roughly $330 million (14 billion hryvnia) since January to deliver over 181,000 systems, including drones and electronic warfare units, via a direct digital procurement platform.

Central to this surge is the Bizon-L, a logistics robot that was recently codified under NATO standards.

The Bizon-L is a heavy-lifter designed for the mud and snow of the Donbas.

This high-capacity UGV can transport 300 kilograms (661 pounds) over a 50-kilometer range and is now cleared for use by both Ukrainian forces and international allies.

Utilizing a combination of Starlink satellite data and radio links protected by thermal shielding, the Bizon-L is stepping in to perform last-mile deliveries — tasks previously handled by soldiers who were frequently targeted by Russian FPV drones. 

Central to this surge is the Bizon-L, a logistics robot that was recently codified under NATO standards.

The Bizon-L is a heavy-lifter designed for the mud and snow of the Donbas.

This high-capacity UGV can transport 300 kilograms (661 pounds) over a 50-kilometer range and is now cleared for use by both Ukrainian forces and international allies.

Utilizing a combination of Starlink satellite data and radio links protected by thermal shielding, the Bizon-L is stepping in to perform last-mile deliveries — tasks previously handled by soldiers who were frequently targeted by Russian FPV drones. 

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/29/2026 - 03:30

Israelis Outraged After Govt Sent Vital Arrow Missiles To Germany Mid-Iran War

There's growing outrage and political division in Israel after news emerged that the government and defense ministry fulfilled a weapons contract with Germany, sending vital Arrow air defense missiles to Berlin during the middle of the Iran war.

At the very moment the missiles were being delivered, Israeli citizens were dying under Iran's fierce ballistic missile retaliation attacks during the height of Operation Epic Fury.

Source: Israel Aerospace Industries/UPI

The Jerusalem Post has "confirmed that Israel continued to send Arrow missiles to Berlin mid-war as part of a contract between the countries, even though Israel had a shortage of its own interceptors," the publication writes.

"Some commentators upon learning this information have accused the Israeli government of allowing at least five persons to die and hundreds to be injured when the IDF did not use the Arrow to defend from certain attacks," the report adds.

The Arrow was developed jointly with the United States and is designed to intercept long-range missiles, serving as the highest tier of Israel's multi-layered defense.

The first Arrow was delivered to Germany in 2025, despite that starting with the last June war, it has been an open secret that Israel is running low on interceptors, and that it takes a significant amount of time to replenish them.

In April, we featured analysis describing how Israel only in the last few years grew to become Germany's largest arms partner in a 'mega deal':

Israel’s delivery of the Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany last year, which was its largest export deal ever at $4.6 billion, led to its share of Germany’s arms imports jumping from 13% during the period 2020-2024 to 55% during the period 2021-2025. At the same time, Israel remained Germany’s third-largest arms client at 10% of its exports from 2021-2025 compared to 11% of them from 2020-2024, with the slight 1% decrease likely being due to three-month-long curb on arms exports to it last year.

Why this matters is because Israel’s new role as Germany’s largest arms supplier might worsen its ties with Russia, especially if exports evolve from defensive systems like the Arrow 3 to offensive ones like the $7 billion deal for 500 rocket launchers and thousands of missiles that they’re now negotiating. Moreover, West Asian geopolitics might radically change after the end of the Third Gulf War, so Russia might not be able to reciprocally sell similar systems to Iran. Israel would then gain an edge over Russia.

Israeli officials have sought to downplay the Arrow deliveries for Germany, in some cases arguing that the benefits for Israel actually saves civilian lives - based on other defense items Israel gets in return.

Also, as JPost writes further, "A Maariv report indicated Israeli sources were concerned that if they did not maintain the pace of Arrow deliveries to Germany, it could harm relations or the already signed and potential future defense deals."

"The Post understands that in addition to general economic benefits, and economies of scale benefits heavily increasing Israel's own volume of Arrows for self-defense, that the deal with Germany provided two other crucial items," the publication adds.

The fact that much of Israel's defense is underwritten by the US taxpayer also provides an ultimate backstop from Israeli leaders' perspective. The longer the Iran war persists, and as more Israeli arms exports leave port, the more the controversy is likely to grow.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/29/2026 - 02:45

Germany's Anti-immigration AfD Party Soars To New Record High Support; Poll Finds

Via Remix News,

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has jumped to a new record high in a recent poll conducted by the opinion research institute Insa. In the poll, the AfD increased its lead over the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU).

According to the “Sunday trend” poll, which is conducted on a weekly basis for the Bild am Sonntag, the AfD has reached a peak of 28 percent, extending its lead over the CDU/CSU alliance. While the party only jumped one point from the previous week, it not only marked the AfD’s highest value ever, but it also means the AfD is closing in on the psychological 30 percent it has long sought.

Sonntagsfrage zur Bundestagswahl • INSA/BamS: AfD 28 % | CDU/CSU 24 % | SPD 14 % | GRÜNE 12 % | DIE LINKE 11 % | BSW 3 % | FDP 3 % | Sonstige 5 %
➤ Übersicht: https://t.co/Gzilw3J3L9
➤ Verlauf: https://t.co/vnhJf7ub9S pic.twitter.com/jhBgFgmCqQ

— Wahlrecht.de (@Wahlrecht_de) April 25, 2026

The CDU/CSU remained unchanged at 24 percent, while the Social Democrats (SPD) maintains its position at 14 percent. The Green Party slipped to 12 percent after losing one percentage point, and the Left Party remains steady at 11 percent. Both the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the FDP would currently fail to enter the Bundestag, as each sits at three percent.

Despite the AfD’s high polling, all other parties continue to say they will not form an alliance with the AfD, which means the party is effectively locked out of power. Unless the AfD can find a coalition party that can give it a majority, the party will remain on the sidelines. However, if the AfD can maintain its current support or even increase it further, forming a coalition among the other parties could prove increasingly difficult in the future.

Insa is not the only polling firm showing the growth of the AfD. In a recent Yougov poll, the AfD reached 27 percent of the vote, while the CDU fell to just 23 percent.

The AfD’s surge comes at a time when soaring energy prices have left the German economy reeling, especially following the war in Iran, which has sent diesel prices between €2.20 and €2.50 a liter.

AfD co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, has become increasingly opposed to U.S. government actions. He quickly denounced the U.S. attack on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, labeling it a “violation of international law.” And in February, right after the attack on Iran, he expressed his “disappointment” at Trump’s broken promise to not start wars and blamed Israel for “dragging” the United States into war against Iran.

In March, Chrupalla also condemned what he said were Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians and Iranians, and just this month, Chrupalla called for the closure of U.S. bases in Germany. Even conservative Germans have long been skeptical of Trump, while the majority of Germans are deeply negative on the U.S. president.

Polling shows that 65 percent of Germans believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. According to ARD-DeutschlandTREND in March 2026, 60 percent of Germans consider the military offensive against Iran by the U.S. and Israel to be “not justified.” That result may look even worse now as energy prices have slammed the German economy.

In other words, Chrupalla may be adopting the positions that are sitting well with the German public.

At the same time, crime statistics released about a week ago show that migrant violence continues to dominate in Germany, with sexual crimes and serious violence in 2025 growing compared to the record numbers seen in 2024. Overall, crime fell slightly compared to 2024, but serious crimes grew. Most of the decline was due to the legalization of marijuana in late 2024, which resulted in a drop in drug offenses.

Foreigners account for approximately 42 percent of all violent crimes.

The AfD is calling for mass deportations, increased funding for police, an immigration moratorium, cutting pro-migrant NGO funding, and stricter laws to deter criminals.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/29/2026 - 02:00

12 Signs That The Relentless Decline Of Our Society Is Accelerating

Authored by Michael Snyder via End Of The American Dream,

I have got some really crazy stuff to share with you in this article. For more than a decade and a half, I have been writing about the decline of our society. Sadly, over that period of time there has been an inexorable deterioration of our culture. We no longer agree on a generally accepted set of moral values, all of our major institutions are crumbling, and chaos reigns in the streets. Every single day I see more indications that conditions are getting even worse. I always hoped that by exposing what was really going on out there that it would inspire people to push for change. But instead, conditions just keep degenerating year after year.

If we love our society, what is happening to it should deeply sadden all of us. If our leaders had made much different decisions, we could have gotten much different results.

But now things are totally out of control and the clock is ticking. The following are 12 signs that the relentless decline of our society is accelerating…

#1 So far in 2026, there have been 116 mass shootings in the United States. Unfortunately, we are 36 percent ahead of last year’s blistering pace. And it appears that there are potentially a lot more mass shooters out there, because one recent survey discovered that 19.3 million Americans have seriously thought about shooting someone else…

About 19.3 million American adults, roughly the combined populations of New York City and Los Angeles, have at some point seriously thought about shooting another person. That’s the stunning extrapolation from a new national survey published in JAMA Network Open, an effort to put a number on this poorly understood group and frame it as a focus for gun violence prevention.

#2 If it seems like there are crazy people everywhere around you, that is because there really are crazy people everywhere around you. These days, you never know what is going to set someone off, and the results can be absolutely tragic. For example, just a few days ago a crazed man in Louisiana shot and killed eight children. Seven of them were his own kids…

A man killed eight children — seven of his own kids and one of their cousins — early Sunday in a mass shooting in Shreveport, Louisiana, officials said. The shooter is also dead after police pursued him, and they exchanged fire. It was the nation’s deadliest shooting in more than two years.

The children were killed in what police described as an “execution-style” shooting. They included five girls and three boys, ranging in age from 3 to 11, the coroner’s office confirmed. According to the office, their mothers identified the children as: Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.

#3 Things are so bad that even disabled Americans are gunning people down. In fact, a quadruple amputee has been charged with murder after he shot a front-seat passenger while he was driving a vehicle in Maryland…

Dayton Webber once said he believed God put him on this planet to inspire others to believe they could achieve anything they wanted to.

Now, the first quadruple amputee in American Cornhole League history faces murder charges after being accused of fatally shooting a man while driving in Maryland.

According to the Charles County Sheriff’s Department, Webber, of La Plata, Maryland, is alleged to have shot and killed a front-seat passenger during an argument on the evening of March 22, 2026.

#4 Authorities keep insisting that crime is under control, but we continue to see spectacular crimes being committed all over the nation. Earlier this week, two men in Philadelphia pulled off an armored truck heist that could have been pulled directly out of a CBS crime drama…

Two masked men armed with rifles carried out a brazen daylight robbery of a Brinks armored truck in the Tacony section of Northeast Philadelphia, escaping with what authorities say could be as much as $1.8 million in cash.

Philadelphia Police Department officials told ABC 6 that the robbery occurred around 9:45 a.m on April 21 on the 7200 block of Torresdale Avenue, as the Brinks truck was servicing a Budget Financial Center.

Brinks is a national security and cash logistics company that transports money for banks and retailers.

According to law enforcement officials, a blue Acura SUV pulled into the lot, with two suspects dressed in black jumping out, brandishing rifles and confronting the driver before seizing bags of cash.

#5 Why would someone purposely crash a vehicle into a police station? Either this is one of the dumbest criminals that I have ever read about, or something else is going on here…

A man deliberately drove his SUV into the Philadelphia Police Department’s 2nd District headquarters Tuesday afternoon, according to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, narrowly missing several people who were standing inside.

Police identified the suspect on Wednesday as 26-year-old Dieufort Joly of the 2100 block of Glendale Avenue.

Joly is charged with six counts of Aggravated Assault, six counts of Simple Assault, six counts of Recklessly Endangering Another Person, one count of Causing/Risking Catastrophe, one count of Institutional Vandalism, and one count of Possession of an Instrument of Crime.

#6 All over America, wild packs of young people are conducting “street takeovers” late at night. Unfortunately, this is even happening in some of our wealthiest neighborhoods…

Madness descended on an upscale Washington DC neighborhood again after a large mob of unhinged teens took over.

On Saturday night, a rowdy group of teenagers spilled into Navy Yard, a ritzy and trendy neighborhood in the US Capital, while people dined out and tried to enjoy their evening.

A massive crowd was seen running through the middle of a busy intersection, with some on foot and others riding bikes, in a video posted to X by investigator Elissa De Souza.

#7 Over the past several decades, millions of Muslims have immigrated to the United States, and their young people are also engaging in the “street takeover” trend…

Thugs waving Palestinian flags blocked traffic, took over the street, lit a fire, and performed car stunts in the family-oriented neighborhood of Middle Village, Queens, NY, last night.

This is Mamdani’s NYC.

Queens, NY has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in New York City.

#8 I don’t have to tell you that sexual promiscuity is absolutely rampant in our society, because it is obvious to everyone. In Minneapolis, officials intend to legalize public sex in bathhouses because the gay Somali community has been clamoring for them to do it…

Minneapolis city leaders are barreling ahead with plans to legalize adult bathhouses and sex venues where consenting adults can engage in sexual activity, scrapping a 38-year ban enacted during the AIDS epidemic.

The push, driven by activists, comes as the gay Somali community in Minneapolis has been clamoring to legalize bathhouses. City leaders are considering the proposal that would allow patrons to engage in sexual intercourse in the venues, the New York Post reports.

#9 Children are considered to be a burden in our society now, and the U.S. birth rate fell to yet another record low last year…

The U.S. fertility rate fell slightly in 2025, to another record low, extending two decades of declines, according to federal data released on Thursday.

The fertility rate — the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age — dropped to 53.1, from 53.8 in 2024, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The number of births dropped too, falling by 1 percent from the previous year, to 3,606,400.

#10 Elderly people are considered to be a burden too, and New York has just joined the growing list of states that have officially legalized assisted suicide…

This month, New York joined the growing number of states that have legalized doctor-assisted suicide. Supporters say giving patients the choice to end their lives with the help of a physician provides compassion for the dying. Opponents warn it creates larger ethical problems.

More than a dozen states and Washington, D.C., allow the practice of doctor-assisted suicide. New York became the latest when the governor legalized the Medical Aid in Dying bill this month—a move many critics say puts the country on an even more slippery slope when it comes to the issue of life and death.

Matt Sharp with Alliance Defending Freedom said, “Under this law, the floodgates are now open wide.”

#11 I keep hearing about a resurgence of religion in this country, but a Gallup survey has found that the percentage of Americans with no religion at all has reached a new record high…

Americans with no formal religious identity, popularly known as the “nones,” reached a record share of the population in 2025, according to Gallup data that shows fewer than 50% of adults also report that religion is “very important” in their lives.

The findings, based on interviews with more than 13,000 U.S. adults across Gallup’s monthly 2025 surveys, show that the share of Americans identifying as “nones” reached a new high of 24%, up from 21% to 22% over the previous four years. The share of Americans identifying as “nones” has grown steadily from 2% in 1948 to its current record.

#12 George Barna is one of my all-time favorite pollsters, and he recently conducted a survey that discovered that only 1 percent of Generation Z has a biblical worldview…

A recent survey of American adults found that despite a surge of interest in Christianity and church attendance in the months since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the number of people who adhere to a biblical worldview remains critically low, including just 1% of Gen Z.

Conducted in January by Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center under the guidance of researcher George Barna, the latest installment of the American Worldview Inventory asked 2,000 American adults a series of 53 questions to discern if they live consistently with a biblical worldview.

The young adults of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.

So what would our society look like with them in charge?

All throughout human history, great societies have risen and great societies have fallen.

The future of our own society will be written by us.

Unfortunately, at this moment our society is in a serious state of decline, and it would literally take a major miracle to turn things around at this stage.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 23:25

RFK Jr.'s New Autism Committee Issues First Proposals

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

A federal committee remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on April 28 published proposals to revamp diagnosing and treating people with autism spectrum disorder.

Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 22, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee said in one proposal that a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should make clear that doctors should be prepared to recognize and treat new issues that occur in autistic people, such as seizures and difficulty sleeping.

The committee said that despite evidence showing new symptoms require treatment, “clinical care remains inconsistent and fragmented across settings.” The symptoms “can be overlooked, deferred, treated as secondary to behavior, or not systematically elicited at all,” it said.

Among the specific recommended changes is treating observations from caregivers of autistic people who are unable to speak, or speak well, as medically relevant information, rather than anecdotal context.

The Health Resources and Services Administration should develop training for doctors to identify and address gastrointestinal changes and sleep disturbances, among other problems, in autistic people, the committee said.

Another proposal suggested that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, another CMS component, clarify that when screening, diagnosing, and treating children with autism, doctors should seriously evaluate conditions such as developmental regression and allergic disease.

“When such triggers are present, further evaluation should be pursued or arranged as clinically indicated,” the proposal said, adding that the evaluation “should not permit these signals to be dismissed solely on the basis of an autism diagnosis.”

The committee said that there is much clinical evidence describing medical conditions that occur among autistic people, but “this evidence is not consistently integrated into clinical assessment, resulting in gaps in recognition, evaluation, and follow-through, especially when these conditions present atypically.”

It added later: “The result has been delayed identification, fragmented care, and preventable morbidity—reflecting a translational gap rather than an absence of evidence.”

The proposals were published as the committee met in Washington to discuss them. It was the first meeting since Kennedy removed existing committee members and selected new ones in January, including some who said vaccines cause autism.

The committee could end up changing the proposals during the meeting.

Dr. Sylvia Fogel, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School and the committee’s chair, said at the opening of the meeting that focusing on treating autistic individuals is imperative because many of the individuals suffer from undiagnosed psychiatric and pain-causing conditions.

“It is unacceptable,” said Fogel, who said her son has what she described as profound autism.

A third proposal would recommend that officials adopt the term profound autism as a reference for autistic people “with the highest and most persistent support needs.”

Fogel said the proposals aim to “address clear and correctable gaps in safety and policy.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 22:35

Watch: Small Earthquake Registered After IDF Blows Up Largest-Ever Hezbollah Tunnel

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday destroyed a major Hezbollah tunnel in southern Lebanon on Tuesday evening, minutes after issuing an unusual warning that the blast would be heard across wide areas.

The tunnel is being described in regional media as the largest one ever discovered thus far in the war in southern Lebanon. Israeli N12 News reporter Amit Segal has written that "the force of the explosion caused a small earthquake to be felt along the northern border." The below footage has been confirmed in Israeli media:

The IDF destroyed a massive Hezbollah tunnel; the force of the explosion caused a small earthquake to be felt along the northern border. pic.twitter.com/symjrjk7bT

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) April 28, 2026

Very shortly before the huge blast, an alert went out to Israeli communities from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights, forewarning of the large explosion - telling people not to panic.

The tunnel was located near the village of Qantara, which is a heavily Shiite Muslim town. The Israeli ground operation has seen Muslim and Christian villages alike razed to the ground in some instances.

Amid the fragile Iran and Lebanon ceasefires, sirens sounded in the Galilee area just minutes before the planned detonation, reportedly also based on potential inbound aerial threats.

Amazingly, the Times of Israel reports in the explosion aftermath that the "Geological Survey of Israel says the massive controlled explosion was picked up by the seismic warning system. However, no earthquake sirens were activated."

"The military told residents earlier it would ensure that the controlled blast would not set off the earthquake sirens, which has happened in the past," the report adds.

Blast images circulating widely on X

The blast was filmed and photographed even from miles away, where smoke was seen reaching many stories into the air. 

Lebanon has been denouncing such controlled demolition activity, given that in some cases entire villages and abandoned towns have been destroyed in similar fashion.

Israel has sought to utterly raze any village it deems a Hezbollah weapons depot or safe area. But this has also included targeting Christian towns in the south of Lebanon, as the below image shows.

The Christian village of Yaroun in southern Lebanon, before and after it was destroyed by the Israeli army. pic.twitter.com/Rg77dlbuCJ

— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) April 26, 2026

Western media has tended to present these Mideast conflicts involving Israel as coming down to "Jewish vs. Muslim" wars - but the Israeli army doesn't discriminate in terms of also attacking Lebanese and Palestinian Christian enclaves. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 22:10

California Dreamin': GOP's Chance To Flip The Golden State

Authored by Mike Robertson via American Thinker,

Ahead of the gubernatorial election this fall, pundits are buzzing with something Californians haven’t heard in years: a real chance to flip the Golden State red - at least with a new governor in Sacramento. Thanks to its top-two primary system, in which the top two finishers advance to November regardless of party, this is more than possible.

This election cycle matters more than most for the Republican Party, and for the people of California. The Golden State has suffered under one-party Democrat rule for more than fifteen years, and the results are shocking. Despite some recent dips in violent crime, years of soft-on-crime policies have left neighborhoods scarred by retail theft waves, open drug markets, and a homelessness crisis that defies solution. 

Businesses keep fleeing - California led the nation in net out-migration again in 2025, with roughly 216,000 residents packing up and leaving, many taking jobs and tax revenue with them. Housing remains wildly unaffordable, earning the state an F grade from Realtor.com for sky-high prices relative to incomes and regulatory barriers to new construction.

Paychecks don’t stretch, education rankings lag (California sits around 24th–37th nationally, depending on the metric), and the state’s aggressive green-energy mandates have driven up electricity and gas costs while water infrastructure struggles to keep pace.

Then came the January 2025 Southern California wildfires. Fire hydrants ran dry, water pressure failed in Pacific Palisades and elsewhere, and critics slammed the response for poor preparation and coordination - exactly the kind of governance failure that leaves residents wondering who’s in charge. 

All of this flows from Blue authorities: sanctuary-state policies that shield illegal immigrants at the expense of public safety, endless fights with the Trump administration, and a relentless push for DEI and woke ideology over practical reforms. Californians have paid the price.

But this November, the tide may finally turn. There is a genuine opportunity to deliver what Californians truly deserve - crisis resolution, safer streets, affordable living, and an economy that works again.

Two Republicans, both with strong Trump backing, are posting surprisingly strong numbers in recent polls. Former Fox News host and Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco have led or tied for the top spots in multiple surveys, while a crowded Democrat field - Katie Porter, Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, and others - splits the vote and often trails.

Voters are clearly fed up with reckless Blue policies that prioritize ideology over results.

The GOP hopefuls’ platforms speak directly to the pain points. Hilton’s “Califordable” agenda promises no state income tax on earnings under $100,000, $3-a-gallon gas, electricity bills cut in half by slashing regulations, aggressive single-family home construction to restore the California Dream, and real education reform - ensuring kids can actually read by third grade. He also vows to crack down on government waste and fraud while enforcing laws against street encampments. Bianco emphasizes public safety first - fully resourcing law enforcement, ending sanctuary policies, cutting taxes and over-regulation, and unleashing California’s energy resources to drive down costs and create jobs.

These are concrete plans, not slogans - targeted fixes for the very problems Democrats have ignored or worsened.

Even amid the political trench warfare between Red and Blue, we must never forget one simple truth: the people living in California are no less American than those in Texas or Florida. Every legal citizen, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, shares the same unalienable rights that our republic exists to protect. It must be our common goal to strengthen this country and improve lives for all Americans - no matter the ZIP code.

That is precisely the mistake the Left keeps making. They treat the nation as two separate countries, portray their political opponents as enemies rather than fellow citizens, and stoke division that too often edges toward violence. This is basically one of the reasons Republican candidates lead the polls now.

Californians deserve better. This November, they just might get it. The dream of a Golden State that works again is alive - if Republicans seize the moment.

Mike Robertson is a contributor to American Thinker. Follow him on X at @Mike_for_MAGA and Reddit.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 21:45

Ft. Knox Full Of Impure Gold Unfit For International Transactions

Authored by Jp Cortez via The Mises Institute,

The bulk of the US gold reserves held in Fort Knox are made up of impure “non-standard” bars that don’t qualify for use in international settlements.

In practice, this means that most of America’s massive gold stockpile is illiquid and wouldn’t be readily accepted on the international market should the need arise:

“It’s a decrepit relic just like our monetary policy is. With respect to America’s gold stockpile, we hold ourselves to a lower standard than the rest of the world,” Money Metals CEO Stefan Gleason said.

The French central bank recently sold 129 tonnes of similar non-standard gold that was stored in New York and replaced it with higher-quality bars that will remain in France.

Notwithstanding the lack of any credible physical audits for decades, US gold reserves are reported to be 8,133.5 metric tons. That’s roughly 261.5 million troy ounces. About half of that (147.3 million ounces according to the US Mint) is stored at Fort Knox. The rest is spread out between the Denver Mint, the West Point Bullion Depository, and the Federal Reserve vault in New York.

America’s gold is valued at $42.22 per ounce by statute. The price does not fluctuate with market movements.

According to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), gold bars must contain 350 to 430 fine troy ounces and have a minimum fineness of 995.0 parts per thousand to be acceptable for international settlements. In fact, the “good delivery” standards across the globe have been transitioning to 0.9999 purity.

Based on documents released during a 2011 House Committee on Financial Services Hearing, however, we find only around 17 percent of the gold bars held by the US government in Fort Knox meet any modern-day purity standards.

Here’s a breakdown of the purity of the gold bars held in Fort Knox:

• Fineness between 899 and 901 – 64 percent

• Fineness between 901.1 and 915.4 – 2 percent

• Fineness between 915.5 and .917 – 17 percent

• Fineness of 0.995 or higher – 17 percent

• The average purity of US gold reserves is 916.7

Problematic Audits, Chain-of-Custody Discrepancies, Missing Records

Keep in mind, we’re operating on guesswork here because the US government’s gold holdings have not been audited since at least the 1970s.

In 1974, the government put together a publicity stunt in the name of an audit. The US Treasury opened just one of its 15 Fort Knox vault compartments to politicians and reporters to view the gold and confirm its existence.

That’s been called an audit. However, none of the bars that were passed around were ever matched to a serial number, assayed or tested for purity, or even verified as part of the United States’ holdings. As Sound Money Defense League Director Matthew Cortez pointed out, “It seems the made-for-TV spectacle in 1974 was more of a pep rally than any credible proof of what the amount of US gold purported to be in those vaults.”

Following the 1974 publicity stunt, the US Treasury says it conducted a multi-year process of opening and inventorying vault compartments and affixing new tamper-evident seals to the doors of each compartment upon completion. However, these so-called audits failed to meet basic transparency or accounting standards.

Some reports have since gone missing, and there is no record of comprehensive assaying, weighing, or transactional history available to the public.

Furthermore, there is evidence that seals on vault compartments have been broken over the years, bars have been moved for unknown reasons, and seals have been re-affixed without fresh auditing. Subsequent annual reviews of the schedules of compartment seals serve only to whitewash the prior discrepancies.

In sum, the US Treasury’s management of US gold reserves is replete with audit “no-nos” that would never pass muster at a responsibly run private depository.

An “audit the gold” bill introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) last year would not only require a comprehensive audit of US gold reserves, including, importantly, an accounting of any transactions involving said gold. It would also require the Treasury to refine all non-standard bars so that they meet modern requirements for international settlements—a process that could take several years.

Why So Much Non-Standard Gold?

How did the US end up holding so many impaired gold bars that are illiquid on global markets?

It is the legacy of US policy that abandoned the gold standard, leaving us with the fiat system we live with today.

Needing to expand the money supply to support his spending plans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to expropriate the public’s gold and add it to the national reserves. On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, effectively making private gold ownership illegal.

FDR claimed the measure was to prevent “hoarding.” However, by creating an expansive definition of “hoarding,” the EO was designed to take virtually all gold coins and bars out of private hands and transfer them to the government.

Many people refer to Roosevelt’s scheme as “gold confiscation,” but that overstates what actually happened. The government didn’t go door-to-door taking people’s gold. However, the Federal Reserve still collected plenty of gold, especially gold held by institutions.

But many Americans also turned in their gold voluntarily as an act of obedience. Some likely did so because they trusted the government, others out of a sense of patriotism, and some probably turned their gold in out of fear.

Everyone was paid roughly $20 per ounce for their gold. But six months later, FDR formally devalued the dollar by some 40 percent when he declared gold worth $35 per ounce.

Much of the confiscated gold was in the form of coins that were generally 90 percent pure. At the time, private banks, along with the Federal Reserve, held a large number of coins. That was because Federal Reserve notes were redeemable for gold.

However, with private ownership of gold effectively banned, people would no longer be able to trade paper for metals, and there was no need to hold on to a bunch of coins. The government melted the coins down and formed them into bars, which now sit in Fort Knox vaults (as far as we know).

In a 1994 article published by The Journal of Economic Education, William C. Wood called the Fort Knox depository “an artifact of the gold standard days.”

The gold currently in Fort Knox came from the melting of Depression-era gold coins, from lend-lease arrangements in War II, and from government operations under the gold standard.

Wood specifically noted, “The gold resulting from melting of coinage has considerably lower quality than the ‘fine’ or ‘good delivery’ gold commonly used in international trade. The majority of the gold in Fort Knox is the lower-quality coin gold.”

In some ways, it makes sense that US gold reserves are impure and useless on the international market. It reflects the nature of the fiat system that replaced it.

Mises Institute Editor in Chief Ryan McMaken called the US gold reserves “a legacy of theft and lies,” pointing out that the gold reserve was never intended to be a “static, untouchable hoard of the US government.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 20:55

DOJ Sues Cloudera For Deliberately Excluding American Workers From High-Paying Tech Jobs

The Justice Department on Tuesday sued Cloudera Inc., accusing the enterprise data and artificial intelligence company of deliberately engineering a hiring process that excluded American workers from at least seven lucrative technology positions while the firm pursued permanent residency sponsorship for foreign workers on temporary visas.

In a 14-page complaint filed with the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, the department’s Civil Rights Division alleges that Cloudera, from March 31, 2024, through at least January 28, 2025, instructed job candidates to submit applications to a dedicated email address, amerijobpostings@cloudera.com, that rejected all external messages with an automated bounce-back error. The company did not advertise the roles on its public careers website or accept applications through its standard portal, as it did for non-sponsorship positions.

Cloudera then attested to the Department of Labor that it could not locate any qualified U.S. workers for the roles, which paid between approximately $180,000 and $294,000 annually, according to the filing. The positions included a Product Manager role in Santa Clara, California, with a listed salary range of $170,186 to $190,000.

The case marks one of the most detailed enforcement actions under the Justice Department’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which was relaunched last year and has already produced 10 settlements targeting employers accused of discriminating against American workers in favor of temporary visa holders.

“Employers cannot use the PERM sponsorship process as a backdoor for discriminating against U.S. workers,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The Division will not hesitate to sue companies who intentionally deter U.S. workers from applying to American jobs.”

On X, she wrote that the department had sued Cloudera “for discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa holders for high-paying tech jobs” and warning employers that they are “on notice.”

We just sued Cloudera for discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa holders for high-paying tech jobs. This is a violation of the Immigration & Nationality Act, & @CivilRights will not hesitate to sue employers for discriminating against U.S. workers! You are…

- AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) April 28, 2026

A Technical Barrier With Regulatory Consequences

The complaint describes a recruitment system designed to satisfy the letter of permanent labor certification (PERM) rules while subverting their purpose. Under PERM, employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers for green cards must first demonstrate that no minimally qualified, willing, and available U.S. worker exists for the position through good-faith recruitment that mirrors normal hiring practices.

Cloudera posted the seven PERM-related jobs on a state job board, in newspapers, and in professional publications. But it deviated sharply from its standard process by refusing to list the positions on cloudera.com/careers and directing all applicants to the nonfunctional email address.

External candidates received a Google Groups error message stating that the group “may not exist, or you may not have permission to post messages to the group.” For at least nine months, Cloudera recorded no external applications through the address and made no effort to investigate or fix the issue. The company nevertheless certified in its PERM applications - under penalty of perjury - that it had conducted bona fide recruitment and found no qualified U.S. worker. No U.S. workers were hired for any of the seven positions during the relevant period.

One Worker’s Complaint Triggers Investigation

The investigation began after a single U.S. worker - the charging party, whose name is redacted - attempted to apply and received the bounce-back message. On January 10, 2025, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section opened a charge-based investigation. Two months later, it launched an independent probe and concluded there was reasonable cause to believe Cloudera had engaged in a pattern or practice of citizenship-status discrimination, violating Section 1324b of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The complaint brings three counts: deterring U.S. workers from applying, failing to consider applications that were submitted, and failing to hire qualified U.S. workers for positions the company had reserved for temporary visa holders.

Cloudera’s Dual Hiring Tracks

For regular, non-PERM vacancies during the same period, Cloudera advertised positions on its external website and accepted applications through its standard careers portal. Only the PERM-track roles - those intended to be filled through sponsorship of workers already on temporary visas such as H-1B - were funneled through the defective email channel. The filing describes this as a “separate recruitment and hiring process” that treated U.S. workers less favorably based on citizenship status.

Because Cloudera employed more than three workers during the relevant period, they're subject to the anti-discrimination provisions of the INA.

If the allegations are proven, Cloudera could face civil penalties for each individual discriminated against, back pay and interest for affected workers, and injunctive relief requiring changes to its recruitment practices. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 20:30

DHS To Vet Immigrants For 'Extremist Views'

Authored by Guy Birchall via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Homeland ​Security (DHS) said on April 27 that past statements expressing what it labeled extremist views from immigrants applying ‌for green cards and naturalization would warrant closer scrutiny.

The DHS statement was in response to a New York Times report over the weekend that, citing internal DHS training materials, said that under new guidance introduced by the Trump administration, immigrants can now be denied a green card for expressing political opinions.

A spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which falls under the purview of DHS, said certain ⁠behaviors and statements “may raise serious concerns for USCIS personnel reviewing an applicant’s file, ​including espousing terrorist ideologies, expressing hatred for American values, advocating for the violent overthrow of the United States ​government, or providing material support to terrorist organizations,” adding that such actions “warrant closer scrutiny.”

The New York Times report claimed that the Trump administration includes criticizing the state of Israel as a potentially disqualifying factor when applying for a green card or naturalization.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said that the administration’s policies had “nothing to do with free speech” and were meant to protect “American institutions, the safety of citizens, national security and the freedoms of the United States,” the paper reported.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and DHS for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The New York Times report prompted criticism from lawmakers and rights groups, who have raised concerns regarding free speech and due process.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) labeled the alleged instructions to immigration officers as “outrageous” in an April 27 post on X.

“Trump plans to deny legal residency in the US based on whether he agrees with your speech,” Hollen wrote.

“Since when did it become ‘anti-American’ to criticize the actions of a foreign government? Who is he fighting for?”

Nonprofit civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent said the move was an “incredibly disturbing attack on free speech, with the government deciding who can enter the country based purely on their expression of political views,” in an April 27 post on X.

The Trump administration has adopted a harsher line on Palestinian advocacy movements it has deemed anti-Semitic by attempting to deport foreign protesters and threatening to freeze funding for universities where protests were held, since Trump retook the White House in 2024.

Last year, the Trump administration said it would vet immigration applications for “anti-Americanism” and anti-Semitism.

DHS stated on April 9, 2025, that USCIS would consider online expressions of anti-Semitic sentiment—particularly those endorsing violence, or terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.

The new policy, which went into effect immediately, also applies to physical harassment of Jewish individuals and will affect applicants for lawful permanent residency, foreign students, and individuals affiliated with educational institutions linked to anti-Semitic activity.

The policy directs USCIS officers to treat expressions of support for anti-Semitic violence or extremist ideologies as negative discretionary factors when evaluating applications.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 20:05

The US Grid Wasn't Built For This

Authored by Tejasri Gururaj via Interesting Engineering,

Global data center power demand is projected to hit 84 GW by 2027—a 50 percent jump from 2023 levels—with AI workloads accounting for 27 percent of that total, according to Goldman Sachs Research.

The grid is strained by increasing demand from electricity-hungry data centers and electric vehicles.Getty Images

The grid cannot keep up with AI. For decades, electricity demand grew slowly and predictably, giving utilities comfortable margins to plan capacity years in advance. That model broke almost overnight. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, utilities’ five-year summer peak demand forecasts jumped from 38 GW to 128 GW, a more than threefold increase in a single planning cycle.

Unlike traditional server loads, which are relatively flat and predictable, AI inference and training jobs generate sharp, near-instantaneous power spikes. Large-scale GPU clusters can produce fluctuations of hundreds of megawatts within seconds. That’s a load behavior utilities have no historical model for.

Energy companies are no longer treating hyperscale data centers as large customers to be served from the grid, but rather as anchor infrastructure to be co-built with.

What follows is a look at what that shift actually demands at the systems level — why natural gas is currently the only tool that can fill the gap at the required speed and scale, what that means for emissions commitments already being made today, and what the longer path to balancing this with storage, transmission, and cleaner alternatives realistically looks like.

Why natural gas is filling the gap today

The US currently generates around 40 percent of its electricity from natural gas, with coal and renewables making up most of the rest. However, neither can meet the requirements of AI data centers, which require firm, uninterrupted, gigawatt-scale power available around the clock. The present US grid is already under strain before data centers even enter the equation.

U.S. power grid voltage levels and customer classes. Credit: United States Department of Energy/Wikimedia Commons.

Renewables hit a hard wall here. Interconnection requests for new solar and wind projects face median wait times of over four years. In contrast, natural gas is cheap, abundant, and already flows through an extensive pipeline network across the country. And unlike new solar or wind projects, gas plants can be up and running in three to five years.

Even so, three to five years is not immediate. Demand is here now, and the gap between what the grid can deliver today and what data centers need is already being felt. Energy companies are trying to figure out how to keep up with this demand in different ways.

Entergy is spending $3.2 billion to build three natural gas plants totalling 2.3 GW specifically to power Meta’s new Louisiana data center, which requires 2 GW for computation alone. These plants carry a typical operational lifetime of around 30 years.

Others are hedging their bets that the infrastructure will attract the tenant. NextEra Energy, the US’s largest renewable developer, is partnering with ExxonMobil to build a 1.2 GW gas plant in the Southeast. CEO John Ketchum summed up the industry’s new posture: the AI sector is shifting toward “BYOG” — build your own generation.

Rethinking the engineering playbook

Power grids are engineered for predictability. Seasonal peaks, industrial cycles, and population growth are modeled to plan generation capacity for the future. Fitting AI into this picture requires much more than just scaling.

Training a large language model means thousands of GPUs running simultaneously, sustaining enormous power draws for days or weeks, then dropping off sharply. These spikes are unpredictable and can be extreme. Dispatch curves determine which plants run when, whereas reserve scheduling ensures backup capacity is always available. AI workloads stress both in ways utilities have no historical model for. The forecasting crisis this has created is visible in the numbers, with a threefold increase in peak demand between 2023 and 2024. 

Developers routinely file speculative interconnection requests for projects that never get built, flooding queues with phantom demand. ERCOT, Texas’s grid operator, developed an entirely new Adjusted Large Load Forecast methodology to account for exactly this — the gap between projected data center load and what actually materializes.

At the plant level, this is forcing a redesign of how generation assets are dispatched. When an AI model responds to a user query, it triggers a sudden, large power surge known as an inference spike. Gas peakers — plants designed for short, high-output bursts — are now being co-located with data center campuses specifically to absorb these inference spikes that baseload plants can’t respond to fast enough.

The DOE’s National Transmission Needs Study identified transmission congestion as already acute across multiple regions before this wave of demand arrived.

Transmission and cost crunch

The physical grid is buckling under the same pressure. Transmission investment in many regions of the US declined steadily after 2015, leaving a system already running close to its limits. Now it’s being asked to absorb demand at a scale it was never designed for.

In Texas, CenterPoint Energy reported a 700% increase in large load interconnection requests between late 2023 and late 2024. In Virginia, another 50 GW of data center projects sit active in the queue. The costs reflect the strain.

Combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) capture waste heat to generate additional electricity, making them efficient enough for round-the-clock demand. Installed costs for new CCGTs have nearly doubled to around $2,000/kW compared to plants built just a few years ago.

The market data tells the same story. The capacity market clearing price, which is the rate utilities pay to secure guaranteed power reserves for peak demand, has also increased. In PJM, the grid operator covering much of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, capacity market clearing prices for the 2026-27 delivery year jumped to $329/MW — more than ten times the $28.92/MW price from two years prior.  

A map of the U.S. high-voltage transmission grid. Credit: Wikideas1/Wikimedia Commons. The long game : Emission costs

The gas plants being built today aren’t just a bridge to the AI boom; they’re a commitment. With an average operational lifetime of 30 years, they will still be running well past every major net-zero target on the books.

A natural gas plant emits around 490g of CO2 per kilowatt-hour over its lifetime. Scale that across the gigawatts of new capacity being greenlit today, and the emissions math becomes difficult to ignore.

Across the southern US, utilities are planning around 20 GW of new gas capacity over the next 15 years, with data centers accounting for 65 to 85% of projected load growth in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia alone. The methane problem compounds this.

Natural gas infrastructure (drilling, pipelines, compression) leaks methane continuously, both accidentally and through intentional venting. Methane traps around 80 times as much heat as CO2 over a 20-year horizon, making the emissions from a buildout of this scale difficult to quantify but impossible to ignore.

It’s the policy fault line that’s now opening up between energy companies, hyperscalers with net-zero commitments, and regulators who are only beginning to grapple with what AI’s energy appetite actually means for decarbonization timelines.

Policies and incentives

Several structural mechanisms are being put in place to eventually shift the balance, though none of them work fast enough to solve the immediate problem.

It’s the policy fault line that’s now opening up between energy companies, hyperscalers with net-zero commitments, and regulators who are only beginning to grapple with what AI’s energy appetite actually means for decarbonization timelines.

Policies and incentives

Several structural mechanisms are being put in place to eventually shift the balance, though none of them work fast enough to solve the immediate problem.

On the storage side, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 offers a 30% tax credit for standalone energy storage systems and zero-emission generation facilities placed in service after 2024. The credit applies not just to generation technologies like solar but also to storage infrastructure itself. This gives data center operators and utilities a financial reason to invest in battery systems needed to make renewables work around the clock.

On the generation side, nuclear is emerging as a leading zero-carbon option for AI data centers, given its ability to deliver firm, always-on power. Google is already moving in this direction, striking a deal with NextEra to restart the 615 MW Duane Arnold nuclear facility for 24/7 carbon-free power.

Transmission remains the hardest problem. A study by the Department of Energy identified significant transmission capacity gaps across nearly every US region — gaps that predate the AI demand surge and will take years of coordinated investment and permitting reform to close.

The path forward

AI’s power demands are arriving faster than the infrastructure built to serve them. The gas plants, the transmission upgrades, the storage credits, the nuclear restarts, none of it is moving at the speed the technology is. 

At some point, that gap has to close. The question is whether that gap closes through deliberate investment and policy coordination, or through something more painful. Power shortages, delayed data centers, and electricity bills that reflect the true cost of building a grid that wasn’t designed for this moment. Engineers and policymakers are working on the former. The clock is running on the latter.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 19:15

Homeowner Floats Mansion Swap For Anthropic Equity

A LinkedIn profile for a luxury property in Marin County, just north of San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge, states that the homeowner is open to exchanging the 14-acre estate for Anthropic equity.

"I own a 14 acre estate in Mill Valley, CA (See link below) and would like to exchange the property for Anthropic equity (understanding in advance that this would be substantially above the valuation of Anthropic's last financing round, in the $800+ BB range)," the LinkedIn profile for the profile located at 114 Inez Place, Mill Valley, stated.

The owner's proposal is aimed at an Anthropic shareholder who wants liquidity or diversification without fully giving up future upside. The seller says the equity holder would retain 20% of the upside in the shares during the lockup period, receive potential tax advantages, and pay no legal or real estate closing costs, as the property owner would cover them.

The sales pitch to Anthropic equity holders:

1. The Anthropic Equity Holder Keeps Upside in Shares: Post exchange, the current Anthropic equity holder will continue to retain 20% of the upside value of the shares exchanged for the duration of the lockup period (until final transfer of shares can occur legally).

2. Tax Advantaged: Can either defer taxes on sale of shares, or reduce taxable basis, whichever is preferred (tax advisors will detail this for the Anthropic equity holder).

3. Transaction Costs: I will cover all legal and real estate closing  costs so there are no out of pocket costs for the Anthropic equity holder.

4. Provides diversification into a solid real estate asset with significant appreciation potential

The proposal concluded:

Objective: Provide liquidity, diversification, and a luxury estate for an Anthropic shareholder on a highly tax advantaged and cash free basis, while still allowing retained upside in shares for the current share owner.

The timing of a proposed private transaction to exchange a 14-acre luxury estate for Anthropic equity comes as the AI startup is reportedly valued at around $800 billion.

However, an overnight report about peer OpenAI missing revenue expectations reinforces bear-case fears that the AI bubble may be showing cracks. This should give the homeowner reason to reassess the deal's structure and seek downside protection if Anthropic's valuation stalls or reverses.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 18:50

Joby Kicks Off Weeklong Campaign After Successful JFK–Manhattan Test Flights

Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Electric air taxi developer Joby Aviation stated on April 27 that it will begin a weeklong testing campaign in New York City, having successfully completed three days of test flights across the city’s heliport network.

ANA Holdings and Joby Aviation show a public demonstration flight of the Joby N5.42JX flying car at the World Expo 2025 Osaka in Osaka, Japan, on Oct. 13, 2025. Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images

Joby’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi launched from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and made stops at Downtown Skyport on the southern tip of Manhattan, West 30th St. heliport on the West Side, and E. 34th St. Heliport on Manhattan’s eastern waterfront.

The routes are potential commercial flight patterns for Joby Aviation’s electric air taxis that could quietly and with zero operating emissions traverse Manhattan in less than 10 minutes, the company stated.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, travel times across Manhattan average 32 minutes or less, but rush hour traffic significantly slows travel times. Traveling the roughly 17 miles from JFK in Queens to midtown Manhattan can take travelers up to 90 minutes or longer.

“This week, flying between JFK and Manhattan, we showed what the White House-backed eIPP initiative makes possible and offered New York a look at what’s coming,” said JoeBen Bevirt, Joby founder and CEO.

Joby Aviation was one of eight proposals picked in early March by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to participate in the DOT’s Advanced Air Mobility Program and eVOTL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). The program, part of President Donald Trump’s Unleashing American Drone Dominance Executive Order announced in June 2025, is aimed at accelerating commercial adoption of electric air taxis and drones for urban transportation, logistics, emergency services, and autonomous flight.

The New York City Economic Development Corp. (NYCEDC), along with heliport operators Vertiports by Atlantic and Skyports Infrastructure, stated that it will begin electrifying the city’s heliport charging infrastructure ahead of potential commercial air taxi service.

“NYCEDC is thrilled to usher in New York City’s transition to electric flight, and these flights mark a real milestone in that journey,” Jeanny Pak, NYCEDC interim president and CEO, said in a statement.

The three days of test flights required close coordination between Joby Aviation, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“These demonstration flights are one data point in a larger body of work we’re building around next-generation electric aviation, and it reflects our conviction that responsible exploration of these technologies now is how we prepare this region for the future,” said Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority.

Joby noted that it will leverage its existing partnerships with Delta Airlines and Uber to create an end-to-end transportation solution from JFK to destinations throughout Manhattan that include air and ground transportation and could reduce travel times from one to two hours to less than seven minutes.

Delta in 2022 made a $60 million equity investment in the electric air-taxi startup, which could eventually ramp up to $200 million if Joby hits certain development milestones. Uber announced in late February that it would begin Joby eVOTL-powered passenger flights in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, later this year.

Joby noted that it is also working through the final stages of obtaining FAA certification so that pilots can begin for-credit testing, a crucial step for commercial flight operations.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 18:25

Jim Quinn: Kill Switch Of Freedom

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“The government should be afraid of the people, the people shouldn’t be afraid of the government.” ― Edward Snowden

“The freedom of a country can only be measured by its respect for the rights of its citizens, and it’s my conviction that these rights are in fact limitations of state power that define exactly where and when a government may not infringe into that domain of personal or individual freedoms that during the American Revolution was called “liberty” and during the Internet Revolution is called “privacy.” ― Edward Snowden

None of what is happening is an accident or happenstance. Everything that has happened since 2019 is part of their diabolical plan to impoverish, cull, and enslave you in a technological gulag, sold to the ignorant masses as technological advancement, improvement of our lives, and protection from whatever bogeyman they designate. They want to digitize and electrify your entire existence, so they can control you, milk you like cows, and slaughter you at a time of their choosing.

The financial system began to unravel in September 2019 and the ruling class needed to accelerate their Agenda 2030 Great Reset plan. The Fed balance sheet, which had surged from $1 trillion in 2008 to over $4 trillion after the Wall St./Fed created financial crisis, was being reduced slowly to $3.8 trillion, but that was too much for our decrepit debt dependent system, and the repo market froze up.

The Fed panicked and started printing again. Conveniently, Gates and the WEF tested their fake pandemic plan at Event 201 in October 2019. They worked out the kinks and rolled it out across the globe in January 2020. Maximum fear and the greatest PR campaign in history for the annual flu resulted in a global shutdown, allowing the Fed to increase their balance sheet to $9 trillion, a 140% increase in a matter of months. Meanwhile, the politicians did their part by driving the national debt from $23 million to it’s current level of $39 trillion, a 70% increase.

It now requires more and more new debt to service the old debt ($1.3 trillion per year of interest on the debt), so the Fed was only able to get their balance sheet to just below $7 trillion, before the system started to break again. They have begun increasing it once more. Nothing like an unnecessary war on behalf of Israel to drive the national debt to above $40 trillion and keep the printing presses humming. They know this empire of debt is unsustainable and in imminent danger of collapse, so they are accelerating the AI based technological prison phase of their plan.

Does anyone in their right mind believe the thousands of data centers they want to build are to benefit the average person? Of course not. These data centers will power your enslavement. And if you think one of the political parties will save you, then you aren’t paying attention. The uni-party is designed to screw you and benefit themselves. Electric cars to save the planet was, and still is, a ridiculous idea, unless those controlling the levers of power want an easy way to automatically keep you from traveling. Since the electric car boondoggle has petered out, both parties cooperated to install kill switches in all gas powered new cars starting in 2027. How exactly is that beneficial to the average person. They hate you and do not care what you think or want.

It is the same story with the CBDCs. How do they benefit the average person? They don’t. They will be able to track and tax every transaction you make. They will be able to create a profile based upon your spending. They will then use their AI tools to determine pre-crimes and arrest you in advance. If you make a social media post or comment offensive to the empire, your social credit score will be downgraded and you will be denied travel and grocery privileges. This is the techno-gulag these billionaire psychopaths in suits dream about. And they are accelerating these plans at breakneck speed. When they decide to pull the rug on this teetering financial system, the CBDCs will be the lifeline they offer.

Ed Dowd, former portfolio manager at BlackRock: The COVID vaccines "were designed to take care of a pension problem with the boomers, and then bring in 10 to 15 million younger, mostly male folks as replacement population."

"If I was going to want to take care of a debt problem… pic.twitter.com/NYOGLNm32x

— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) April 27, 2026

Ed Dowd’s suspicions about the Covid scamdemic are entirely accurate. It was the lynch pin of the depopulation phase of the Great Reset. With the average age of death during Covid of over 80 (from remdesivir and ventilators), they relieved the financial pressure from Social Security and Medicare. The Covid “vaccine” has been the more insidious method of depopulation. Some batches murdered their injectees immediately. Other batches are killing people through myocarditis and turbo cancers. It caused pregnant women to lose their babies. And it has reduced fertility rates across the board.

Replacing native white Americans with low IQ third world dregs is alive and well. Trump is not deporting the tens of millions of illegal invaders, like he promised. Young foreign males commit an inordinate amount of crime and these lowlifes accelerate the destruction and bankruptcy of our welfare system. Both parties cooperated to not pass the SAVE Act, meaning they want illegals to vote in our elections and do the bidding of those pulling the strings.

The billionaire overlords want chaos, economic suffering, and the destruction of the traditional family. And they appear to be winning. If the citizens of this country had a backbone, this KILL SWITCH moment would trigger our current day BOSTON TEA PARTY. But, I’m afraid we are too far gone, too soft, too sedated, too distracted, too cowardly, and too dumbed down to notice. So it goes.

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

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 17:40

Citadel's Griffin To Meet With NY Gov. Hochul After Mamdani's Socialist Games

Citadel's Ken Griffin told the audience at the Norges Bank 2026 Investment Conference in Oslo earlier on Tuesday that he is planning to meet with left-wing New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday to discuss the "future direction" of the state after far-left NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani singled out Griffin in a promotional video stunt to push his proposed new tax on luxury second homes.

"Here's the real question: Is New York going to put its fiscal house in order and run itself from a position of a strong government that's pro-business?" Griffin told the audience. "Why do Americans think we can do socialism? We have none of that in our DNA."

Griffin continued, "I think the willingness of a mayor of New York to make this policy debate a personal attack just demonstrated a profound lack of judgment."

In a recent promotional video, Mamdani attempted to turn Griffin's Manhattan penthouse into political ammunition for his tax-the-wealthy, anti-capitalist crusade to fund socialist experiments through a proposed pied-à-terre tax.

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich. pic.twitter.com/Wky2LFXC9W

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) April 15, 2026

Citadel's CCO, Gerald Beeson, fired back at the far-left mayor in an internal memo to employees, which was conveniently leaked to The Wall Street Journal, in which he warned that Mamdani's political games against Griffin threaten to halt Citadel's $6 billion redevelopment plan in Manhattan, which would create thousands of jobs.

Why Mamdani's team of socialists decided to launch an info-war operation against Griffin and Citadel is a very good question, and it appears not to have been well thought out. This is evident because Mamdani immediately attempted to defuse the situation last week by saying the new tax on pricey second homes isn't "motivated by any one individual."

So why take the political abuse from a bunch of socialist kids running City Hall, Ken?

Remember how easy it was to leave Chicago for Florida?

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 17:20

Improper US Government Payments Rose To $186 Billion In 2025: Watchdog

Authored by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Federal government agencies reported a total estimate of about $186 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2025, an increase of $24 billion from 2024.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office building in Washington on May 22, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

About $153 billion—roughly 82 percent—of this total arose from overpayments.

The Government Accountability Office estimated that cumulative improper payments have reached about $3 trillion since fiscal year 2003. The actual amount may be much higher, the federal watchdog acknowledged in an April 27 report.

These improper payments represent false distributions—such as payments made to the wrong people, paid without proper documentation, or issued in the incorrect amount—from 64 programs reported by 15 federal agencies, and have been a government-wide issue for more than 20 years.

For fiscal year 2025, eight federal programs reported improper payment estimates of $5 billion or more.

Medicaid ($37 billion), Traditional Medicare ($28.8 billion), and Medicare Advantage ($23.7 billion) accounted for more than 50 percent of these erroneous payments.

Medicaid improper payments expanded by $6.3 billion in 2025, compared to the previous year. The Department of Health and Human Services stated that this was due to increased errors in eligibility redeterminations and provider screening as COVID-19 enrollment flexibilities phased out.

The Earned Income Tax Credit ($21 billion), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ($10 billion), and the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program ($10 billion) added up to more than 20 percent of the total improper payments.

Improper payments arising from the Earned Income Tax Credit—a refundable federal tax credit for low-to-moderate-income working individuals and families—increased by $5.2 billion. The Department of the Treasury has not provided reasons for the improper payments.

Improper Payment Rates

Of the programs reporting improper payment estimates, 19 reported improper payment rates of at least 10 percent, including six programs whose rates exceeded 25 percent.

The Small Business Administration reported improper payments in the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program for the first time in fiscal year 2025.

The grant program aimed to help the live arts and entertainment industry survive the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, Congress provided $16.25 billion to the Small Business Administration, which awarded grants to 13,011 different businesses and organizations.

Nearly 70 percent of these distributions were erroneous payments, according to the federal watchdog.

As of October 2024, the small-business agency identified $544 million in potential improper payments that need to be recovered. However, the agency sent only one demand letter in January 2024 and paused the issuance of additional demand letters, according to a 2025 audit report.

As of March 2025, no cases had been referred to the Treasury Department for debt collection.

The improper payment rate in the Emergency Conservation Program for disasters—providing funding and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers to repair and restore farmland affected by natural disasters—reached 55.5 percent in 2025, up from 45.2 percent in 2024 and 40.4 percent in 2023.

The causes of improper payments can range from unintentional administrative errors to fraud, according to a 2024 federal watchdog report. An error could occur when an agency failed to obtain a required signature in a contract prior to payment. Fraud occurred when a recipient used a fake or stolen identity to apply for and receive benefits.

Agencies also suspected significant improper payments in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which spent around $16.5 billion in fiscal year 2025. As of April 2026, Congress had not yet enacted legislation to require states to report the data needed to estimate and report on improper payments for this program.

Lawrence Wilson contributed to the report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 17:00

The Assassination Wasn't "Staged", Leftists Are Just Evil

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

Why is it that every time a leftist tries to kill conservatives, it’s immediately called a “false flag”? And why is every single person who dares to question the false flag narrative attacked by a vicious (and suspiciously organized) online mob? The reason should be obvious but some people just don’t seem to see it: It’s a leftist psyop.

In what is now the THIRD failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Cole Tomas Allen, a donator to the Kamala Harris campaign, a No Kings protester, a BlueSky leftist and transgender defender, burst into the lobby of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner with firearms in an attempt to kill Donald Trump or anyone else in the administration that happened to be a convenient target.

His manifesto reads like most leftist manifestos, and his social media is worse. Infested with mainstream media talking points, infecting his brain with delusions of heroism if only he can “take out the fascists”.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever which side this guy is on. He is a full bore woke zealot brainwashed by typical Democrat rhetoric. And yes, he’s a part time teacher of high school children (let that sink in before you send your kids off to public school).

The online response from the political left within minutes of the attack was predictable, as if they had all received a script to recite whenever assassination attempts on Trump occur. The same people who call for Trump’s murder daily are now saying the event was “staged”. Furthermore, they claim that a long time woke leftist somehow volunteered to help Trump stage an assassination by risking prison time or death.

I’ve heard of bipartisan cooperation, but this is ridiculous. Lefties are really bending over backwards to help a Republican president with his image. Sadly, there were people in the alternative media that also immediately bought into this lie and repeated it. But why?

Leftists are repeating the false flag theory. The establishment media entertains the false flag theory. Why are some conservatives helping them spread these fallacies?

I think it’s important to take this opportunity to examine how 4th Generation Warfare works; first by understanding the reality that portions of the conservative movement are being targeted with it by the left wing, often effectively. The leftists have figured you out.

4th Gen Warfare is asymmetric and aims to break a movement’s political will. It works by striking at the psychological unity of an enemy group and dividing them; this requires that you identify certain cognitive biases within a portion of that group and exploit those biases to create infighting. The group in question is the “truth” or “conspiracy” element of the wider conservative or MAGA movement.

Has any popular conspiracy theorist today considered the possibility that they are being played? Have they considered the possibility that one of the biggest conspiracies of our era is the agenda to misdirect the public away from punishing the leftist cult for their numerous trespasses?

As a conspiracy “realist” for many years, I think the most important thing to remember is this: Not everything is a conspiracy. If you think everything is a conspiracy, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you are wrong and you are doing far more harm to the truth movement than you are doing good.

One of the most critical changes in the western world that is rarely talked about is that conspiracy movements now have substantial political power and social influence. For generations we were called “fringe”; the crazed and irrational dregs, the deplorables. Today, we have vast reach (online and offline) that stretches across America and into Europe.

Today, everything we say has the potential to affect government policies, elections and even wars (if we remain unified). When a movement grows this strong, its enemies can only seek to destroy it by sabotaging it from within.

By extension, there are numerous think-tanks, NGOs and covert operations designed specifically to find our weaknesses and manipulate our discourse (the SPLC is currently being indicted for such operations). More than anything, the enemy cares about what we think.

And what is our greatest weakness? What do these groups consistently exploit to keep us passive and ineffective? The core weakness of conspiracy theorists is paranoia.

Our willingness to “question everything” can sometimes be used against us to misdirect us into rabbit holes that simply don’t exist. Globalists and the political left have quickly learned that the best way to keep conservatives docile is to make us suspect our own side so much that we never turn our anger against the woke cabal.

Two decades ago when I got my start working in the alternative media, the concept of the “false left/right paradigm” was everywhere. It was the key argument of the truth/liberty movement. The idea that progressives and conservatives are actually much more alike than they know. That we all Americans basically want the same things, and the only obstacle dividing us is the fake “uniparty” at the top.

I’m sorry to break it to the people who have attached their entire political philosophy to this idea, but the false left/right paradigm is dead. It no longer exists.

It died at least a decade ago when Democrats and progressives embraced the woke cult, and in the process they became willing allies of the globalists. Where does almost all the globalist NGO money go? Into Democrat campaigns and woke activist groups What group receives the majority of globalist corporate support? Leftists. Who tries to implement nearly every policy that comes out of globalist conferences like Davos? The political left.

Hell, 90% of Jeffrey Epstein’s campaign donations went to Democrats. It was Epstein that was personally in contact with Democrats, texting them and helping them eith their witch hunt proceedings against Donald Trump. The political left is the machine of the globalists. Everything they promote, from transgenderism to open borders to climate controls is part of the globalist religion. They all a part of the same entity.

And now, they’re trying to kill us wherever they get a chance. They are openly proud of this fact and they represent around 25% of the population. Cole Allen isn’t a radical by today’s standards, he is the common denominator within the Democratic Party.

Meaning, leftist and conservatives are true enemies, from the bottom of the pyramid to the top. We do not want the same things. Not even close. There can be no reconciliation, and this only ends one way.

They know this and they are waging a psychological war against us. Think about it: Every new conspiracy narrative is designed to distract us from the culpability of the political left. When an attack or assassination takes place, the blame is always aimed at someone else.

The mountains of evidence proving that the attackers are militant leftists is ignored in favor of anecdotes, hearsay and outright lies. Here is how the formula works, as far as I can tell. It’s complicated, but hear me out…

1) If an assassination against a conservative fails, then it was “staged” by that conservative.

2) If an assassination against a conservative succeeds, leftists celebrate, and then claim “Israel did it”.

Okay, maybe it’s not so complicated. We witnessed this with the Charlie Kirk assassination. According to the arrest record and court documentation, Tyler Robinson, a far left activist with a trans furry boyfriend, confessed to his parents that he shot Kirk, which is why his parents convinced him to turn himself in.

His boyfriend gave photographic evidence of a hand-written confession to the feds. The note was composed by Robinson in the event that he died during the assassination. This is also on record with the court.

Everything points to Robinson because he is the person who most likely pulled the trigger (which is what he admitted to his parents). There is no grand scheme to frame him. Unless Robinson’s parents AND his boyfriend are in on the plan, there is no debate. The conspiracy theories fall apart.

When it comes to Trump, I have been highly critical in the past, specifically during his first term when he formed a horrific swamp creature cabinet. That said, it’s impossible to deny that his second term has been a 180 degree turnaround. Nearly every campaign promise he made has been carried out or at least attempted despite Democrat (and Neocon) interference.

If you are angry about the war in Iran, that’s fine, but Trump has been talking about removing the Islamic regime in Iran since the 1980s. Any Trump voter who is surprised by this did not do their homework. Entertaining baseless false flag assassination theories is not going to help end the war faster.

For the political left, jumping to conclusions and promoting disinformation is designed to control the narrative and sow division before all the facts can be examined. To plant theories in people’s heads and inoculate them to reasonable discourse.

For truth movement people buying into the disinformation, just know that you are being programmed. It doesn’t matter if you like Trump or hate Trump; like his policies or hate his policies. The facts don’t care about your emotion-based theories. If you’re going to attack him, at least make sure your reasons are legit.

The purpose of the “staged” narrative, as I mentioned, is to sow confusion, doubt and division within patriot circles. Globalists and leftists don’t want conservatives to fight back. They don’t want us organized or unified. They want us apathetic and aimlessly fighting with each other. The gas-lighting must end.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 16:20

Trump Belatedly Blasts Merz Over Pointed Iran War 'Humiliation' Remarks 

President Trump on Tuesday belatedly hit back at Chancellor Friedrich Merz after on Monday the German leader told students in a talk that the United States is being “humiliated” by Iranian leaders, amid struggling on-and-off negotiations, and as a crisis in the Strait of Hormuz shows no signs of de-escalating.

Merz had said he didn’t see "what strategic exit the Americans are now choosing" while simultaneously describing that Tehran’s negotiators are proceeding "very skillfully - or indeed very skillfully not negotiating."

The result, Merz had said, is that an "entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, particularly by these so-called Revolutionary Guards." The unusually blunt and direct anti-Trump commentary by the German Chancellor was given before a group of students at a secondary school in western Germany on Monday.

Throughout Monday, the media expected Trump to quickly lash back out, but that didn't come quickly. It's possible that he hadn't seen the Merz remarks, however. But by Tuesday afternoon, Trump complained on Truth Social that Merz apparently "thinks i's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon" and that he "doesn't know what he's talking about!"

He continued with the following jab, echoing a broader critique of other European allies as well: "No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!" 

Merz in his original attack on Trump's Iran war decision had claimed, "If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told ​him even more emphatically." ​And yet the criticisms from EU leaders in the opening days were somewhat muted, meager, and weak.

Responsible Statecraft's Trita Parsi is also a deep Iran war critic, but agrees that the hypocrisy of EU leaders needs to be called out. Parsi writes:

Merz isn't wrong in saying he's "disillusioned" with the US & Israel over Iran because they "claimed at the beginning that they could solve this problem within days. Now I must recognize: It is not solved." But he is in no position to complain. He applauded the war and as a result, owns the outcome. This is typical of some EU leaders who support and help facilitate the US's worst instincts, and then pretend they are innocent when the foreign policy adventure predictably goes wrong.

The comments underscore several European leaders’ reassessment of their relations with Trump. A tendency to smooth ties by currying favor has given way to a more sober perspective of a U.S. president who has repeatedly called into question NATO, bolstered European far-right forces and threatened to seize Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

Regardless, the fresh critique by a leading EU head of state is certainly going to add fuel to the fire of Trump's ratcheting anti-EU and anti-NATO rhetoric, given their absence in helping the US get the Strait of Hormuz back open and the return to normal functioning of global energy transit once again.

via Associated Press

But Trump's own words have been confusing for allies to say the least - on the one hand lambasting them for not joining a US-led coalition, but then sometimes in the same breath declaring that Washington does not 'need their help'. Naturally this enables uncertain fence-sitting allies to shrug and say simply, this is "not our war" - as the lead European powers are doing.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 15:40

US Farmers Are Facing Two Historic Catastrophes At The Same Time In 2026

Authored by Michael Snyder via End Of The American Dream,

This is the worst of times for U.S. farmers. Coming into 2026, we were already in the midst of the worst farming crisis in at least 50 years. Now the war in the Middle East has caused fertilizer prices to go absolutely haywire, and a historic drought has created nightmare conditions for farmers from coast to coast. What we are witnessing is truly unprecedented. One recent survey discovered that 70 percent of U.S. farmers won’t be able to afford all of the fertilizer that they need this year. When have we ever seen that happen before? And some farmers are telling us that they may not plant anything at all this year due to extreme drought. If the information in this article shocks you, that is good, because we all need a major league wake up call right now.

The Strait of Hormuz is the most important chokepoint on the entire planet, and as I write this article there are hundreds of commercial vessels on both sides of the Strait that are unable to travel through it…

Hundreds of commercial tankers are stranded on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz after Iran shut the critical chokepoint on April 18, halting traffic and leaving crews trapped amid reports of gunfire and “traumatic experiences” on board.

The Strait of Hormuz is considered an international waterway under international law, through which ships have the right of transit passage, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Approximately one-third of all globally-traded nitrogen fertilizer normally travels through the Strait of Hormuz, and nations all over the globe use natural gas that is exported through the Strait of Hormuz to make their own nitrogen fertilizer.

So the fact that the Strait of Hormuz is closed is a really big deal, because without sufficient quantities of nitrogen fertilizer we do not have any hope of feeding the entire planet…

The connection is simple, agricultural fact, not speculation: reduced fertilizer application directly translates to plummeting crop yields. Modern industrial agriculture is utterly dependent on synthetic nitrogen, a product of the Haber-Bosch process which itself requires immense amounts of natural gas [3]. With the Strait of Hormuz closed and LNG infrastructure attacked, the feedstock for this process is becoming scarce and prohibitively expensive. As one analysis starkly put it, half the world’s nitrogen supply is now compromised, threatening global agriculture [4]. This isn’t a theory; it’s chemistry and logistics.

The coming scarcity will not manifest as a gradual, manageable price increase. It will be a sudden, severe shortage hitting supermarket shelves. The system has no slack. As farmers face soaring costs for diesel and natural gas, many are reducing planting or cutting back on fertilizer application, which threatens global grain yields [5]. The recent failure of a critical Australian ammonia plant, exacerbating the global crisis, is just one more domino falling [6]. We are witnessing a cascading failure.

This crisis exposes the fatal fragility of our centralized, just-in-time food system, built for corporate efficiency but not for human resilience. It is a house of cards. As noted in studies of agricultural systems, when trade collapses and scarcity of inputs occurs, yields fall drastically [7]. Our entire civilization is balanced on this vulnerable, centralized point of failure. The system is designed to move commodities for profit, not to ensure communities are fed. When the just-in-time model fails, it fails completely, leaving nothing in the pipeline.

Since the war with Iran began, fertilizer prices have been going parabolic.

I shared a chart that proves this last week, and I am going to share it again today…

Needless to say, rising fertilizer costs are going to get passed along to consumers.

That means that all of us are going to be paying significantly higher prices at the grocery store in the months ahead…

Americans worried about grocery prices may soon feel the consequences of an unexpected problem on U.S. farms caused by the war in Iran – rising fertilizer prices are creating a potential ripple effect that could reach grocery stores.

Why? The American Farm Bureau Federation cited the virtual closing of the Strait of Hormuz as the main reason fertilizer prices are increasing . Roughly one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the strait, according to the United Nations.

At least 70% of farmers say they can’t afford all the fertilizer they need because of higher costs tied to the Iran war − a challenge that could lower crop yields, which, if widespread enough, could push food prices upward.

Unfortunately, U.S. farmers are facing another enormous crisis in addition to absurdly high fertilizer prices.

I have written quite a bit about the horrendous drought that is currently plaguing much of the nation.

If you can believe it, over 61 percent of the U.S. is currently experiencing at least some level of drought…

With drought stretching from coast to coast, water restrictions are already in effect in many states even before the thirsty summer season begins. Indeed, more than 61% of the nation is now in a drought, the highest percentage in nearly four years, according to the most recent U.S. Drought Monitor.

In all, 45 of 50 states are enduring drought, with only Alaska, North Dakota, Michigan, Connecticut and Rhode Island completely drought-free.

We are only in late April.

So what will conditions be like once we reach July and August?

In Colorado, the entire state is currently experiencing at least some level of drought, and this is “pummeling Colorado farmers”…

This year’s record-warm, dry spring is pummeling Colorado farmers amid multiple threats, disrupting the state’s $9 billion agricultural sector and jeopardizing even signature crops such as Pueblo green chiles, Olathe sweet corn and Palisade peaches.

Water scarcity, due to exceptionally low mountain snow and soil-drying heat, looms foremost.

To say that farmers in Colorado desperately need rain would be a massive understatement.

One farmer that was recently interviewed by a local news outlet openly admitted that if it doesn’t start raining soon he isn’t going to plant anything at all this year…

“If we don’t get moisture, I’m not going to plant,” said chile grower Praxie Vigil, who runs Vigil Farms along the Bessemer Ditch, a 43-mile irrigation canal that once nourished crops across 20,000 acres east of Pueblo. He was planning to decide this weekend.

“It’s not looking good for any of us. Usually, I just plant and hope for the best. But this year, I’m not going to. This is bad. I can barely water 20 acres,” said Vigil, who works a side job as a pipe-welder to make ends meet.

Farmers all over America are facing some very difficult choices in 2026.

Of course the same thing could be said about farmers all over the world.

Global weather patterns have been going absolutely nuts, and now the worst fertilizer crisis in history is upon us.

At this moment we are still eating food that was grown last year.

But six to nine months from now, a global food shock is going to hit us like a freight train.

We should certainly hope for the best, but it would also be wise to prepare for the worst.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/28/2026 - 15:00