Watch: More Evidence Iran Is Rapidly Restoring Its Missile Tunnels

President Trump has newly estimated that Iran has 21%-22% of its missiles remaining. Trump said in an interview with NBC: "They have some missiles and drones, percentage-wise maybe 21%-22% of the missiles. That's a lot, but it's not what it was before the war."

He and top White House officials had previously mused that the Iranians are working hard to reconstitute their defenses after the opening US-Israeli heavy bombing campaign of Operation Epic Fury.

The fresh statement comes on the heels of a Washington Post story last month which cited CIA estimates saying Iran still holds about 70% of its missiles and 75% of missile launchers it had before the war. So there's a likelihood that Iran still has significantly more than just 20% of its arsenal.

There's also some anecdotal evidence, and statements from the Iranians themselves, such as in the following... Watch:

Iran restored internet access, revealing footage of rescue operations at western Iranian tunnel sites struck by U.S. and Israeli forces. The tunnels were used to shelter missile launchers. pic.twitter.com/PnTfwjoV0B

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 5, 2026

The Iranians have been utilizing basic construction equipment to dig out several missile launchers and reopen subterranean tunnels tied to its missile program. 

"Iran has repaired other parts of the bases as well, including roads that the US and Israel bombed to prevent missile launchers from using them," CNN wrote last week. "Satellite images show almost all these craters have now been filled, and at two sites, even repaved."

Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, the same outlet late last month that "There’s nothing to prevent the launchers from being armed with the ample stockpile of missiles that the Iranians still have."

He sought to highlight the limits of American firepower, in terms of damage, and given that it hasn't been sustained:

“The US military is good at delivering tactical successes, and entombing and suppressing the Iranian missile force is a great example of that,” said Lair.

“However, if that isn’t accompanied by a set of reasonable strategic war aims and an achievable theory of victory, it can end up being a strategic failure.”

Via AP: Zagros Mountains in central Iran, where a deep underground nuclear facility was reportedly built.

President Trump has been touting the near annihilation of Iran's arsenal, and has lately said the rest of its launch sites could be taken out in a day if he gave the order. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 22:45

A New Shortcut To Quantum Entanglement

Authored by University of Chicago via ScienceDaily,

Many of the most promising quantum technologies, including advanced sensors and future quantum computers, depend on a phenomenon known as entanglement, where particles become deeply connected and influence one another in ways that cannot be explained by classical physics. Creating the complex entangled states needed for these technologies has traditionally required sophisticated equipment and carefully designed experimental systems.

Researchers have shown that a few simple adjustments to a standard quantum optics setup can generate a surprising range of highly entangled quantum states. Credit: Clerk Group

Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have now proposed a much simpler approach. Their new theoretical method can generate and control a wide range of entangled quantum states using tools that are already common in many quantum physics laboratories.

The work, published in Physical Review X, could help advance ultra precise quantum sensing and open new opportunities for exploring fundamental physics.

"We wanted to take simple ingredients that you find in a lot of physical platforms and put these together in a minimal way to get something interesting, complex and powerful," said Aashish Clerk, professor of molecular engineering at UChicago PME and senior author of the new study.

The research was supported by Q-NEXT, a U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by DOE's Argonne National Laboratory.

Rethinking Cavity QED Systems

The team's approach is based on cavity quantum electrodynamics, commonly known as cavity QED. In these experiments, atoms or other particles are placed inside an optical cavity, which consists of two mirrors that trap light between them. The particles then interact with the confined light inside the cavity.

A limitation of many cavity QED systems is that all of the atoms interact with the light in exactly the same way. Because the atoms are effectively indistinguishable, the range of quantum states that can be produced is restricted.

"The challenge has always been that these systems have too much symmetry. All the atoms are talking to light in the same way," Clerk said. "That really restricts what kind of entangled states you get."

In a typical cavity QED setup, each atom has a ground state and an excited state separated by a specific energy difference.

The researchers found a straightforward way to reduce the system's symmetry. While all atoms continue to be driven by the same laser, additional lasers or magnetic fields are used to shift the excited state energies of different groups of atoms. The atoms are arranged so that each one is paired with another atom that has an equal but opposite energy offset.

This simple modification allows atoms to behave differently from one another while preserving enough structure for the system to remain controllable and predictable. By changing which atoms receive particular energy shifts, scientists can tune the system to produce a variety of entangled states without altering the physical hardware.

"You turn these lasers on and wait, and at some point the system stabilizes into an interesting, highly entangled quantum state," said Anjun Chu, a postdoctoral researcher in the Clerk group and first author of the new work. "By simply adjusting the lasers, we can access kinds of entangled states that no one had thought about before."

Building Better Quantum Sensors

One of the most promising uses for the new approach is quantum sensing.

In theory, entangled quantum states can detect extremely small differences in magnetic fields or gravitational fields between separate locations. However, developing states that are both highly sensitive and resistant to noise has remained a major challenge.

The researchers demonstrated that a version of their proposed system containing two groups of atoms could be used to measure field gradients. When the two atomic ensembles are placed in different locations, the resulting quantum state reflects the difference between the local magnetic or gravitational fields. At the same time, it naturally rejects background noise that affects both locations equally.

"You're able to do two things that are normally not compatible with one another: Use entanglement to build an exquisitely sensitive sensor but also have robustness to arbitrarily large amounts of noise," Clerk said. "Normally, entanglement is very fragile. This approach has some amazing resilience."

Another advantage is that the information stored in these quantum states can be extracted using standard Ramsey measurement techniques, eliminating the need for specialized or exotic measurement methods.

Applications Beyond Sensing

The researchers also showed that the same platform can generate unusual quantum states that have long attracted interest from physicists.

One example is the AKLT state, a well known many body entangled state first introduced in the 1980s to describe unusual magnetic materials. The team found that their relatively simple setup can stabilize this state. In addition to helping scientists study complex magnetic systems, the AKLT state may also have applications in quantum computing.

Next Steps For The Research

The work remains theoretical for now, but the researchers are already discussing possible experimental tests with other groups.

They are also investigating more sophisticated ways to arrange atoms within the system and exploring the full range of quantum states that their method may be capable of producing.

"The fact that such simple ingredients can generate such complex and useful quantum states gives us hope that even before we reach the dream of a general all-purpose quantum computer, we can already generate quantum states that let us do things we couldn't do in a purely classical world," Clerk said.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science National Quantum Information Science Research Centers as part of the Q-NEXT center.

Journal Reference: Anjun Chu, Mikhail Mamaev, Martin Koppenhofer, Ming Yuan, Aashish A. Clerk. "Reconfigurable Dissipative Entanglement between Many Spin Ensembles: From Robust Quantum Sensing to Many-Body State Engineering." Physical Review X, 2026; 16 (2). DOI: 10.1103/qdh9-2pc7

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 22:10

UN Food Agency Warns Millions Pushed Into Hunger By Prolonged Iran War

The United Nations food agency is sounding a catastrophic alarm on the macroeconomic fallout of the ongoing conflict in Iran and the Persian Gulf region. According to the World Food Programme (WFP), millions of people are actively being plunged into acute hunger due to the war - realizing a grim trajectory the agency previously warned would occur if the Middle East crisis stayed prolonged and global oil prices remained elevated.

Fragile economies are feeling the most pain, with WFP analysis of three highly vulnerable nations revealing that an additional 2.5 million people in Somalia, 2.3 million in Afghanistan, and 1.3 million in Sri Lanka are currently struggling to meet their most basic daily nutritional needs. Back in March, the WFP estimated that a staggering 45 million people globally could be pushed into severe food insecurity by the end of June, compounding the over 300 million people globally who were already facing critical food shortages before the war erupted.

via EPA

The Rome-based UN agency issued a new detailed assessment at the end of this past week, describing how that the Middle East crisis is actively generating "significant spillovers" - by driving up the cost of food and fuel while heavily disrupting global trade networks. 

Crucially, the agency warned that the economic bleeding will not stop immediately, even if a diplomatic breakthrough occurs. "These impacts are expected to intensify in the coming months, even if the crisis in the Middle East de-escalates," it wrote.

"We remain by that prognosis," WFP’s acting Executive Director Carl Skau informed a UN press briefing. "That’s mainly because the correlation between the prices of energy and food is so tight in many places, and also that in the poorest countries people are already spending all their money on food, and hence when food prices rise, they eat less."

Even prior to the Iran war's start, near the beginning of the war, United Nations agencies themselves were feeling the crunch after a significant drawdown in US support and funding.

The Trump administration slashed support over criticism that the UN has long failed to promote American interests.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has been warning that outstanding dues reached a record $1.568 billion at the end of 2025 and that collections covered only 76.7% of assessed contributions, leaving the organization dangerously exposed. 

As for how this impacts the WFP, it says it has already been forced to strictly ration and limit aid to millions of impoverished people due to drastic international funding cuts.

The agency has issued urgent plea to global donors to immediately step up financial contributions, with a specific focus on stabilizing Somalia and Afghanistan, "because the human consequences of not doing more will be massive."

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 21:35

Protesters Target NV Energy At Utility Conference As Anger Over Soaring Electricity Prices Boils Over

By Herman Trabish of UtilityDive

Protesters shouting affordability complaints and chanting slogans interrupted a speech by NV Energy President and CEO Brandon Barkhuff on Wednesday. Barkhuff was speaking to some 1,000 utility executives and electricity industry stakeholders during the Edison Electric Institute 2026 conference at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

After being escorted out by security, the protesters spoke to the media outside the hotel to demand the cancellation of a daily demand charge for NV Energy customers slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2027, as well as to demand action on clean energy and high electricity bills.

The confrontation shows the extent to which energy costs have stoked public anger, raising pressure on utilities and their regulators.  

Leslie Vega, climate equity policy fellow at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, speaks to the media on June 3, 2026, after protests at an electric utility conference in Las Vegas. The group was protesting high electricity bills and NV Energy’s use of residential demand charges. 

Utilities have made affordability a cornerstone of their public messaging as they prepare to spend over $1 trillion over the next five years to meet a surge in demand, much of it driven by large-load data centers. 

In Nevada, The Public Utility Commission in September unanimously approved a demand charge and new rate design for NV Energy customers in the southern portion of the state. It also approved changing the utility’s net metering design in ways that solar advocates said would weaken customer protections and set back Nevada’s clean energy goals. 

“In Las Vegas, one of the fastest-warming cities in the country, you cannot live without electricity,” said protest organizer Leslie Vega. Vega, a climate equity policy fellow at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said she’s lost loved ones to heatstroke and sees the demand charge as air conditioning rationing.

“We’re not just asking for lower rates. We’re asking for survival,” she said.

NV Energy issued a statement following the protest citing “misinformation and confusion” about the daily demand charge. 

“Daily demand [charges] will lower bills for the majority of our southern Nevada customers,” it said. “We understand that energy costs are an important issue for our customers, and that’s exactly why daily demand [charges are] critical in stopping subsidies that shift costs to other customers.”

Demand charges are tied to a customer’s peak electricity use, and NV Energy’s daily demand charge is based on the energy a customer consumes during a 15-minute period of peak usage each day. The utility expects the demand charge to add about 49 cents/day to a typical customer’s bill, but says most southern Nevada customers will see monthly bills that are similar to or slightly lower under the new structure.

Regulators and the utility have said that consumers who are concerned about potential spikes on their bill from the charge can shift their electricity use, but advocates say that’s not realistic, especially for cooling. Las Vegas temperatures on Wednesday reached 103 degrees as the city experiences its longest 100-degree streak of the year, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“It’s impossible” not to run air conditioning during peak hours, said Vega. She was joined outside the hotel by several dozen other protesters with the United Ratepayers coalition.

The coalition is demanding cancellation of the demand charge, which Vega called a “financial threat” against Nevadans who don’t know how it will affect their bills and can’t manage it, as well as other changes.

“What we ask is lower rates for our lower-income community, an increase in solar energy and green energy and getting away from fossil fuels,” she said. “We might not be economists and engineers, but I would like to remind our Public Utility Commission that approved Nevada Energy’s daily demand charge that their own staff economists and engineers advised them against the daily demand charge.”

Vega said the coalition will continue to lobby elected officials.

A spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities and organized the conference where Barkhuff was speaking, said in a statement that EEI understands “people are frustrated about their energy bills” and shares those concerns. 

“That’s why we’re here — working to do everything we can to lower customers’ bills and serve communities,” they said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 21:00

Lebanese Army Officers Among 9 Killed In Israeli Airstrike On South Lebanon

In a rare, major development related to the Israel-Hezbollah war, fresh Saturday Israeli airstrikes on Southern Lebanon on Saturday took out a group of Lebanese Army forces.

What's more is that several officers were reported killed: "Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon Saturday killed nine people including three members of the Lebanese military, the Lebanese army and state media said, days after the two sides reached a new ceasefire deal," The Associated Press reports.

Via Reuters

"An airstrike on the road linking the city of Nabatiyeh with the town of Marjayoun occurred in the morning killing a brigadier general, a captain and another soldier, the army said without immediately releasing their names," the report continues.

"The continued, deliberate, and repeated Israeli aggression against Lebanon, its people and its army only strengthens our resolve, faith and determination," the Lebanese national forces said in its statement.

It accused Israel of thwarting all efforts "to reach a solution that would restore stability, establish a comprehensive ceasefire and lead to the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories."

According to the BBC:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has launched an investigation after confirming it attacked a vehicle carrying Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon on Saturday morning.

The Lebanese Army said two officers and a soldier were killed in the strike on a car, which it described as an "aggressive and barbaric raid". The IDF said the vehicle was "moving suspiciously towards forces" and gunfire had been reported in the area.

Currently Washington is applying immense pressure on the national government and army to move to 'disarm' Hezbollah; however, the Shia paramilitary group has long been the most well-armed and powerful faction in Lebanon, and is seen by most analysts as stronger than even the national army.

This is partly because the United States severely limits the kind of weaponry the Lebanese armed forces can possess, essentially sanctioning the army, on fears these weapons could be turned on Israel.

But if Lebanese officers are being killed under Israeli fire, the army is likely to feel even less incentive to move against Hezbollah. There's also serious political limitations - as Lebanon has long been a nation divided, and the end of the 20th century saw decades of internecine civil war and brutal infighting.

All of this is likely to make some of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's statements to CNN this week deeply unpopular. He had blasted both Iran and Hezbollah for turning Lebanon into a 'bargaining chip' with the West. 

Lebanon’s Army confirms Israel has killed three army personnel on Saturday morning: two officers, with ranks of brigadier general and captain, and a soldier. https://t.co/ml8XllZqd5

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 6, 2026

Many Lebanese have criticized him for criticizing Hezbollah instead of heaping all the blame on the invading Israeli military.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has also responded, stating sarcastically in a post on X Saturday that given Aoun's comments, "one would think it’s Iran that has occupied a fifth of Lebanon, displaced a quarter of Lebanese and is bombing his country on daily basis."

"Had Lebanon been a bargaining chip for Iran, we’d have a deal long ago. Save Lebanon from your real foe, Mr. President," Araghchi wrote in reference to Israel.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 20:25

Obama-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restart Processing Asylum Claims

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration must restart processing claims of asylum, a federal judge ruled on June 5.

Officials must also resume adjudicating requests for immigration benefits such as work permits from nationals of 39 countries from which President Donald Trump has restricted travel, Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., based in Rhode Island, said.

This is the same judge AFL exposed for failing to recuse from the Trump spending freeze case - despite previously leading a nonprofit that received $128M in federal funding.

The Department of Homeland Security and its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) division, which implemented the challenged policies, said they did not agree with the ruling.

“The Left has been running the same gambit with so-called ‘animus’ claims since 2017. It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, told The Epoch Times via email.

“It goes like this: (1) the admin is racist, (2) therefore a policy I don’t like is motivated by race, (3) therefore it is invalid. They have used it on virtually every Trump era Department of Homeland Security policy.”

“These policies were wrong, plain and simple, and caused … profound fear and uncertainty for so many of our friends, neighbors, and coworkers,” Milagro Sique, CEO of Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

“Having the judicial process work as intended—by upholding the rule of law—gives us some reassurance that all is not lost and allows those who have been impacted to move forward with their lives in a meaningful way.”

The administration in late 2025 announced the policies in the wake of the shooting, allegedly by an Afghan national, of National Guard members near the White House. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said at the time that asylum claims would not be processed “until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

A coalition of groups, including the Service Employees International Union and the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit over the policies in March. They said that the policies violated federal law because they went beyond the authority of USCIS, were arbitrary and capricious, and went against U.S. Constitutional protections.

Government lawyers said the policies fell within the authority Congress outlined in the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

McConnell said Friday in a 135-page decision that the policies “threw the lives of countless immigrants living in the United States into indeterminate legal limbo” solely because of where the immigrants were born.

He wrote that USCIS violated federal laws, in part because officials made decisions without adequate explanation.

“The agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency’s actions,” he said. “In enacting its latest immigration policies, USCIS: claims statutory and regulatory authority that it does not possess; makes decisions without the reasoned explanations that it must provide; acts without regard for the reliance interests of applicants that it must consider; and justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision-making. In legal terms that means USCIS’s actions are contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

The ruling vacated the policies as illegal and set them aside, as well as two other USCIS policies.

One involved reviewing and reconsidering past decisions granting immigration benefits to any people from countries subject to Trump’s travel ban. The other featured amendments to the USCIS policy manual, requiring agency workers to take a person’s home country as a negative factor when deciding whether to grant requests for benefits.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 19:50

Facebook Marketplace Enters The AI Thirst-Trap Era

Searching Facebook Marketplace in the AI era has revealed a strange new phenomenon: sellers are running product photos through chatbots or image generators to insert scantily clad women into listings.

This marketing ploy seemingly bets that thirst-trap imagery will boost clicks and improve the chances of selling whatever item is listed on the online marketplace.

"This dude on FB Marketplace has multiple listings for heavy Caterpillar industrial equipment superimposed with AI-generated female models. Must have industry-leading click-through rates," journalist Trung Phan wrote on X.

This dude on FB Marketplace has multiple listing for heavy Caterpillar industrial equipment superimposed with AI-generated female models. Must have industry-leading click through rates.

Absolutely crying rn. https://t.co/Mpx6QIdOtQ pic.twitter.com/EINbmxJO66

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 28, 2026

Sure enough, the thirst-trap imagery appears to be working...

Oh trung I tried the same thing with my gym machinery, and im flooded with interest today LOL pic.twitter.com/a9E47WwYBy

— Simon Biscuits ☻ (@seempaq) May 28, 2026

Here's another example.

One Facebook Marketplace seller said the marketing ploy absolutely works.

The listings were dead until I updated the images LOL pic.twitter.com/GuhNFIthvU

— Simon Biscuits ☻ (@seempaq) May 28, 2026

This is a real-world example of how sellers are using AI to try to boost low click-through rates.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 19:15

Viral: Humanoid Robot Kicks Chinese Kid In The Stomach During Public Demonstration

Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering,

A humanoid robot demonstration has sparked safety concerns after a video circulating on social media appeared to show a Unitree G1 robot accidentally kicking a young child during a public event.

The robot, which was performing a roundhouse kick while wearing a blue clown wig, struck the child in the stomach, causing the youngster to double over in pain.

The incident has reignited debate over the safe deployment of advanced humanoid robots in crowded public settings, particularly as increasingly capable machines are showcased at exhibitions and entertainment events.

Jerk clown robot brutally kicks little boy in the stomach

The future is here, and apparently it's beefing with children pic.twitter.com/x2tKaWm6iK

— RT (@RT_com) June 4, 2026

Last year, a viral experiment showed a humanoid robot overriding its safety restrictions and firing a BB gun at its owner during a role-play scenario.

Robot Safety Spotlight

A video circulating on social media has raised concerns about humanoid robot safety after a robot appeared to kick a child during a public demonstration in China's Xinjiang region.

The footage shows what is believed to be a Unitree G1 humanoid robot, wearing a blue wig, performing a roundhouse kick that struck a young child standing nearby. The child was hit in the stomach and appeared to be in pain after the impact. According to reports from Chinese media, the child was not seriously injured.

The incident has renewed discussion about the risks associated with deploying advanced humanoid robots in public environments. Modern humanoid robots are capable of performing complex movements, including martial arts demonstrations, athletic maneuvers, and other dynamic actions, often under remote or autonomous control, reports Futurism.

The Xinjiang incident is not the first reported case involving a humanoid robot and a human injury. Earlier this year, another Unitree G1 robot reportedly lost its balance during a public performance in China. After falling to the ground, the robot's uncontrolled limb movements struck a nearby man, causing a nose injury.

A viral experiment last year in the US raised concerns about AI robot safety after a humanoid robot named Max fired a BB gun at its owner during a role-play scenario. Although the robot initially refused requests to shoot, it complied after the command was framed as acting out a character. The incident highlighted how simple prompt changes can potentially bypass AI safety restrictions.

AI Liability Questions

As robots and AI systems become more capable and autonomous, the issue of accountability remains one of the biggest challenges facing the industry. When a robot causes injury, property damage, or other harm, determining responsibility is often far from straightforward. Questions arise over whether liability should rest with the software developers who designed the AI, the manufacturer that built the hardware, the operator overseeing the system, or the end user interacting with it.

The debate has become increasingly relevant as automation expands across transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, and public spaces. Similar concerns have emerged in other technology sectors. Tesla has faced scrutiny over crashes involving its Autopilot driver-assistance system, prompting discussions about the balance between software performance and human supervision. Likewise, investigations into the Boeing 737 MAX accidents highlighted how flaws in automated systems can have far-reaching safety consequences, according to experts.

Governments and regulators are still working to establish legal frameworks that address these challenges. In the United States, liability generally falls on manufacturers or operators, depending on the circumstances. Meanwhile, European policymakers are developing AI-specific regulations aimed at clarifying responsibility and strengthening public trust in emerging technologies.

While some researchers have suggested granting advanced AI systems a form of legal status, most experts argue that accountability should remain with people and organizations. To address safety concerns, robotics companies are increasingly adopting transparency measures, insurance-backed deployments, and stricter safety standards.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 18:40

Iran's World Cup Squad Belatedly Granted US Visas But Some Staff Blocked

Via Middle East Eye

Members of Iran's World Cup 2026 administrative staff have not been given visas to enter the United States, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

According to US officials, while Iranian footballers have been granted visas for the tournament, which begins on Thursday in Mexico, some support staff are reportedly not being allowed to join the squad.

via Reuters

On Friday, a White House official told Reuters that the players had received their visas, after Iran's ambassador to Mexico, Abolfazl Pasandideh, said on Thursday that they had not.

Iran plays its first match on June 16 against New Zealand in Los Angeles, California. Its participation in the tournament has been the subject of much speculation after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran at the end of February.

Negotiations between the US and Iran are continuing, but both sides have continued to fire on enemy targets.

Iran's semi-official news agency Tasnim reported that the Iranian staff not granted visas include Mehdi Kharati, the executive director; Hedayat Mombini, the secretary general of the football federation; and Mohsen Motamedkia, media director.

Staff members without visas will travel to Mexico with the team while efforts to obtain the documents continue, Tasnim said.

Tehran negotiated a last-minute move of the team's base from Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico, due to the visa issues and a growing feeling in Iran that the squad’s presence in the US should be kept to a minimum.

The team is scheduled to land in Tijuana on Sunday. After facing New Zealand, Iran will play Belgium in Los Angeles and Egypt in Seattle.

The US has never formally said it did not want the Iran team to stay on its territory, Pasandideh said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the US would not allow Iran to include in its delegation people linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Mehdi Taj, a former IRGC commander and now president of Iran's football federation, was denied entry for the tournament draw in Washington in December. 

"Iran's participation in the World Cup - even on the soil of what is seen as its enemy - shows that Iran seeks peace," Pasandideh said through a Spanish interpreter at the Iranian embassy in Mexico City.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 16:20

US To Tighten Rule Regarding Nonprofits Paying Excessive Executive Compensation

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of the Treasury issued a notice on Friday, announcing their plan to issue proposed regulation concerning taxation on high compensation paid by tax-exempt organizations to employees.

The notice relates to excessive compensation and excess parachute payments, the IRS said in a June 5 statement. Parachute payments are made to key employees when they are terminated or when the business undergoes a merger or acquisition. An excess parachute payment is any such payment that exceeds three times an employee’s average annual compensation for the most recent five years.

Section 4960 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes an excise tax on any nonprofit or tax-exempt organization paying an employee more than $1 million in remuneration in a tax year or an excess parachute payment, according to the notice.

The new rule changes tax applicability regarding excessive compensation.

Prior to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, taxes on such payments were applicable to a tax-exempt organization’s five highest-compensated employees for a tax year whose compensation exceeded $1 million.

But under the new rule, the excise tax is applicable to any employee whose compensation exceeds $1 million in a tax year beginning after Dec. 31, 2025. The requirement of being among the five-highest compensated employees has been eliminated.

The rule is also applicable to any former employee who was a top-five compensated employee exceeding $1 million for any tax year between Dec. 31, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2025.

There is no change to taxation on parachute payments. Such payments will continue attracting taxes as per existing rules.

The updates also provide certain exceptions regarding people offering volunteer services to tax-exempt organizations.

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said the latest rule “strengthens the accountability of tax-exempt organizations.” The regulation “broadens the scope of tax from a limited group of executives to potentially any highly compensated employee.”

The Treasury and the IRS are inviting public comments on the notice until Aug. 4.

The notice comes after the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) recently raised concerns about the implementation of the new regulations.

In a May 1 letter to IRS and Treasury officials, AICPA said there was a need for comprehensive guidance and transition relief given the changes made to the compensation rule.

“We respectfully urge Treasury and the IRS to prioritize the issuance of transition relief to address several immediate issues that could disrupt the operations of tax-exempt organizations,” the letter said.

“Absent timely transition relief, these issues may result in significant and unintended financial exposure for tax-exempt organizations and related entities subject to the section 4960 excise tax.”

Commenting on the latest IRS and Treasury notice, Kelsey Mayo, chief of retirement policy and regulatory affairs at the American Retirement Association (ARA), said that retirement plan professionals who work with tax-exempt employers must be aware of the notice, according to a June 5 statement from the National Association of Plan Advisors, a sister organization of the ARA.

With the changes in Section 4960, nonprofits may have to “think more carefully” regarding how they deliver benefits to their executives, Mayo said.

“Because benefits provided through a qualified retirement plan can reduce the compensation that counts toward the excise tax, advisors, TPAs, recordkeepers, and other plan professionals may have an opportunity to add value to their nonprofit clients by evaluating how their qualified plan design aligns with both their talent strategy and their excise tax exposure,” she said. TPA refers to third-party administrators who provide insurance services.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 15:10

Feds Launch Probe Into California's Elections

Days after California’s primary election, the votes are still being counted, and the winners are still unknown, and no one, save for California officials, seems happy about it.

“The fact that California elections often can't be resolved for weeks is kind of insane and not common in other electoral systems around the world," Political data analyst Nate Silver wrote on X on Tuesday.

"Like honestly 'it's going to take us several weeks to tell you who won the election' is failed state sh-t and should be much more stigmatized. The fact that it's tolerated is bad too a textbook example of learned helplessness."

And President Donald Trump is now demanding answers.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday, targeting what he called the deliberate manipulation of California's governor and Los Angeles mayoral races.

"There's BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up," he wrote.

"May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY???" 

In a follow-up post, Trump escalated further.

"The Dumocrats are at it again! They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES."

He then singled out mail-in ballots specifically.

"Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS."

United States Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, confirmed in a post on X that his office “has multiple election fraud investigations underway” in California, and is coordinating with the FBI in Los Angeles.

“California’s election system has serious structural vulnerabilities. Universal vote-by-mail with no voter ID requirements creates conditions where fraud can go undetected and unpunished, eroding public confidence,” he wrote.

In a post on Substack, Nate Silver noted that California averaged 38 percent of its votes counted after Election Day across the last five general elections. In the 2022 midterms, half of all votes were tallied post-Election Day. Silver did not spare California from the comparison its leaders apparently dread. "California likes to tout that it's larger than many countries," he wrote, "but most developed countries are able to wrap up nationwide elections more quickly than California can tabulate its votes. Colombia held a presidential election on Sunday, and 99.98 percent of the result was in on Monday morning. Japan also counts most of its votes overnight. And in the UK (not exactly a poster child for state capacity), you can generally expect to have calls for all 650 parliamentary seats the morning after the election."

Silver posted a chart showing that California is the slowest state in the nation to count votes.

It's hard to overstate how much of an outlier California is for its slow vote-counting relative to literally any other state or almost any other industrialized democracy. pic.twitter.com/KIvABnIKgn

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 5, 2026

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber offers a rather weak excuse for her state’s handling of elections.

"I know the value of being fast for some folks," she said. "For me, accuracy is far more important."

That line might land better if California's sluggishness were actually producing superior accuracy.

Still, Silver's data suggests the state's election administration has major structural problems regardless of how long the counting takes.

 The state began nudging counties toward all-mail elections in 2016, applied the model statewide during the pandemic in 2020, and finally made it permanent in 2022. Under current California law, every registered voter automatically receives a mail ballot, and any ballot postmarked by Election Day and received within a week afterward counts as valid. Each of those ballots must be individually opened, verified, and processed before it can be tabulated. The result is a counting operation that drags on for weeks while the rest of the country waits. The system California guarantees maximum delay and minimum accountability, all while breeding distrust in the system. 

U.S. Attorney Essayli says his office is conducting a “comprehensive audit” of California’s voter rolls, and will “not look the other way” from fraud, and promised that his office will “investigate and prosecute.”

 “Every legal vote deserves to be counted,” he said. “Every illegal vote cancels one out.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 14:35

The post Five Big Take Aways from the May Jobs Report appeared first on CEPR.

 

 

This week, I sit down with Chris Davis, Chairman and Portfolio Manager at Davis Funds. They discuss his approach to managing risk and the key elements changing the economy. We also discuss Chris’s mentors including Charlie Munger, and how he settled into the family business.

A list of his current reading and favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation will be available here shortly.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our BONUS Masters in Business Monday with Joe McLean, Managing Partner at MAI Capital Management, where he leads firm’s Sports & Entertainment division, serving 100s of pro athletes/entertainers across NBA, NFL, MLB, PGA + NASCAR. His path to finance runs directly through the locker room as a 4-year NCAA Division 1 player at U of Arizona. Dubbed the athlete’s “Money Whisperer” by the New York Times, he is known for his non-negotiable 60% savings mandate for clients.

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

 

 

 

The post MiB: Beating the S&P For Generations with Chris Davis of Davis Funds appeared first on The Big Picture.

UK Government Plots Digital ID Lockdown On Every Phone In Lockstep With Big Tech

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,

The Labour government in Britain is accelerating its assault on digital privacy under the well-worn banner of child protection. Fresh plans leaked to the press reveal ministers intend to compel Apple, Google and other tech firms to restrict smartphones so thoroughly that a digital ID will be needed to use them with unfettered access.

The mechanism comes in the form of expanded age verification that effectively demands digital identification for device setup and use. What is sold as safeguarding the young is shaping up as a backdoor mandate for every adult in Britain to submit ID just to operate a phone or go online.

This development lands alongside Google's confirmation that it will soon bring digital IDs to Android devices in the UK via Google Wallet. Users will record a short video selfie and scan a government-issued ID to add a digital version of their passport or other documents.

Google is bringing Digital IDs to the UK 'soon' to bolster age checks on Android phones https://t.co/H9wSASduQe

- GB News (@GBNEWS) June 4, 2026

The feature, already rolling out in select EU countries this summer, is explicitly tied to the UK's Online Safety Act requirements for age checks on content involving self-harm, eating disorders, bullying and pornography.

Google is exploring certification under the government's digital identity trust framework, which could extend its use to everyday purchases such as alcohol.

Apple has already implemented similar restrictions on iOS devices in Britain, forcing age confirmation or locking users into limited "child mode."

Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has been blunt about where this leads. "Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm. This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops."

She continued: "Put simply, the Labour Government is introducing ID checks for the internet. No one in a democracy should need to show their passport just to get online."

Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm.

This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.

- Silkie Carlo (@silkiecarlo) June 5, 2026

Carlo warned that the proposals replace genuine parental responsibility and meaningful tech design with "performative, authoritarian government control that children can easily circumvent by accessing adult-registered devices." For the UK's fifty million adult internet users, the outcome is stark: "this backdoor digital ID requirement would invoke the death of anonymity and internet privacy."

The mechanics are chilling. Without submitting to intrusive ID checks during device setup, users face a "chokehold on your software and internet access leaving you with a child-locked device." Restrictions on messaging, streaming and browsing open the door to client-side scanning - government spyware sitting in every pocket. Carlo noted this has long been a GCHQ ambition and "will be exploited for other purposes before long."

The bigger picture involving "The Government mandating that all phones/devices in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world."

"I don't know anywhere else in the world that has done this," Carlo warned.

The story broke via a leak to The Times rather than any parliamentary process. Carlo called it a travesty: "This extreme technological censorship requires rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny that is totally missing." Big Brother Watch has pledged to fight the measures.

These phone-level controls do not exist in isolation. They slot directly into the UK's wider digital ID infrastructure, already exposed as a dystopian experiment in mass surveillance.

The government's One Login platform and planned GOV.UK Wallet create a centralized system for identity verification across public services, with biometric data, audit trails logging every use, and a permissions framework that can deny access to everything from jobs to age-restricted purchases.

What begins as convenient "right-to-work" checks or alcohol verification quickly becomes a comprehensive record of daily life, open to expansion and abuse.

The ambition reaches even further back - to the cradle. Labour ministers have privately discussed assigning digital IDs to newborn babies alongside their health records, modeled on Estonia's system.

Framed initially as a tool to tackle illegal immigration through right-to-work verification, the scheme has ballooned into a cradle-to-grave tracking apparatus. Critics across the spectrum have labeled it a sinister overreach with nothing to do with stopping the boats and everything to do with building a permanent digital file on every citizen from birth.

Shadow ministers and former cabinet figures have condemned the lack of debate and the affront to British traditions of liberty.

This national infrastructure mirrors global blueprints pushed by the World Health Organization and funded by the Gates Foundation. A WHO document outlines a globally interoperable digital identity system for permanent, lifelong tracking of vaccination status from birth registration onward.

Records would integrate personally identifiable information with socioeconomic data including household income, ethnicity and religion. AI would target the "unreached," combat "misinformation," and support conditioning access to education, travel and other services on compliance.

Community health workers and digital alerts would enforce behavior, while fast healthcare interoperability standards enable cross-border data sharing. The architecture is explicitly designed for surveillance and control, not mere convenience.

The picture sharpens further with recent pushes for AI-designed "super vaccines." Cambridge researchers have created the first entirely AI-generated antigen, tested in humans, aimed at training immunity against entire families of viruses rather than single strains.

Data drawn from viral surveillance programs feeds these systems. While presented as pandemic preparedness, the combination with digital ID infrastructure creates obvious pathways for tracking compliance.

Refusal could trigger digital consequences - restricted access to services, finance or movement - under the same "safety" logic already being applied to phones and age verification. The surveillance grid expands while public oversight remains minimal.

Real concerns about child exploitation and online harm are being weaponized to justify systems that deliver mass identification, device-level control, client-side scanning and lifelong data profiles.

While children can bypass the restrictions; adults lose the fundamental right to anonymous communication and private device use. The same political class that has presided over record migration, grooming scandals and institutional failures now demands ever more intrusive tools to monitor the population it claims to protect.

This is not incremental safety policy. It is the deliberate construction of an authoritarian digital regime. Every new verification layer, every leaked proposal for device lockdown, every tie-in with global vaccine-tracking architectures erodes the space for individual autonomy.

Britain is being marched toward a future where showing a passport-equivalent digital ID becomes the price of entry to the internet, to commerce, to normal life - all while the architects insist it is voluntary and 'for the children'.

It is a stark crossing of the Rubicon indeed. The only question is whether the British public will recognise the destination in time to turn back.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 10:30

Goldman's World Cup Winner Prediction Is ...

The 2026 Football World Cup kicks off June 11, with Mexico vs. South Africa opening the tournament at Mexico City Stadium.

The tournament will feature 48 teams across 104 matches at stadiums in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico from next Thursday through July 19.

Jan Hatzius, chief economist and head of global investment research at Goldman Sachs, published a cheat sheet for clients that used a forecasting model built around Elo ratings - the ranking system originally developed for chess - to handicap the tournament. His top pick diverges from the latest Polymarket odds, with Hatzius placing Spain at the top of the list as the most likely World Cup winner.

"The model says that Spain has a 26% probability of winning the trophy, followed by France at 19%, Argentina at 14%, Brazil at 8%, and England at 5%," Hatzius said.

He noted, "Spain is predicted to win because it has the highest Elo ranking, supported by scoring talent and good momentum into the competition. Argentina is penalised by the "winner's slump", i.e. the statistical underperformance of reigning champions in the following World Cup; France suffers from likely facing top-ranked Spain in the semifinals; and England underperforms its Elo rating given historical tournament disappointment, geographical headwinds (likely facing Mexico in high-altitude Mexico City), and a slightly unlucky draw." 

Hatzius built a regression model to estimate how many goals each team is likely to score against another, using nearly 20,000 international matches since 1978. The model shows a steep decline in goal scoring, with much of it occurring after World War II.

Elo measures national team strength based on results and opponent quality, updating as teams win, lose, or draw. By this metric, Hatzius and his team place Spain No. 1, ahead of Argentina and France, which differs slightly from FIFA's official men's rankings.

Most Likely Predicted Group Stage Results

Road To Winner

Unlike our previous notes on Goldman's World Cup probabilities in 2022, 2018, and 2014, the rise of Polymarket has changed the betting game, bringing prediction markets directly into the sports-betting mainstream.

The latest Polymarket odds show France at 17%, Spain at 16%, and England at 11%...

...putting market pricing at odds with Goldman's model, which ranks Spain as the winner.

Professional subscribers can read the full World Cup note here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 09:55

'Take The Badge Off': Former Ferrari Boss Slams New $635k EV That Company Thinks Will Attract 'Younger Buyers'

One week after Ferrari unveiled its first-ever all-electric car, called the Luce, the design continues to divide analysts. Some referred to the new model as a "mix between a Honda Accord EV and a Tesla," while others said that Tesla's Model S Plaid was far superior. The latest report from Goldman analysts provided new details about their most recent visit to Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello.

Last Friday, Ferrari hosted an investor day, which analyst Christian Frenes attended. He spoke with top Ferrari executives just days after the Luce reveal event in Rome earlier in the week.

Frenes said management framed the Ferrari Luce as an "additive range model designed to expand the customer base."

He continued:

Management reaffirmed the Luce as a strategic entry point to engage new demographics and regions, particularly in markets with higher BEV penetration such as Asia and the Nordics while also targeting a new and younger customer group. The exterior design intentionally distinguishes the EV from existing ICE and PHEV models. Management also reaffirmed it remains aligned with its "technological neutrality" approach continuing to sell V12s and V8s to those interested.

Beyond design, Ferrari's battery-powered, four-door, five-seat Luce has another problem: its price tag - a staggering 550,000 euros, or about $638,660. If Ferrari expects that to open the brand to a younger, broader customer base, management certainly has a different view of the world - one that isn't grounded in reality.

For starters, Tesla's Model S Plaid costs only a fraction as much and, on key performance metrics, appears to outperform the Luce. The Model S also comes with Full Self-Driving, a feature we are fairly certain Ferrari's first EV lacks.

By the end of last week, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna appeared to be on damage-control duty after shares dropped in response to negative investor reaction to the Luce's design and performance specifications.

crazy.. pic.twitter.com/DTNVAYNPZX

— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) May 27, 2026

Let's not forget that Ferrari hybrids are depreciating faster than their petrol-powered counterparts. This is a sign that car collectors are shunning anything electric (read the report). 

Shares have yet to recover to pre-Luce reveal levels.

Beyond the terrible design and high price, one could debadge the Luce, and it would be hard to decipher the car from a Kia or Toyota or even a Nissan ... 

Ferrari Luce, explained pic.twitter.com/F0vRf03cwj

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) May 26, 2026

That problem itself has infuriated Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the former Ferrari president, who told local media that the Luce "risks destroying a legend, and I'm deeply sorry. I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car."

American automotive YouTuber Doug DeMuro said Luce has the specs of a "nice Polestar" .. .

Professional subscribers can read the full Ferrari note at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 08:45

UK Conservatives Blast Labour North Sea Ban As 'Utter Madness'

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The current UK government's policy of not allowing new drilling in the UK North Sea is “utter madness” as billions of barrels of untapped oil could benefit the UK industry and reduce Britain’s reliance on imports, Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, has said.

The ruling Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer has recently moved to permanently ban new oil and gas licenses in the UK section of the North Sea, drawing criticism from the UK offshore industry associations and from the Tories.

The Conservatives’ Badenoch commented this week on a new study by the University of Aberdeen, whose researchers said on Wednesday that it would be “economically, environmentally, and strategically beneficial for the UK to prioritise domestic oil and gas production rather than increasing reliance on imports.”

The University of Aberdeen’s peer-reviewed study found that significant untapped potential remains in the West of Shetland basin, which is estimated to contain about 4.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) yet to be discovered.

The study highlights that the remaining potential in the area could extend the life of the UK oil and gas sector, said Nick Schofield, Professor of Igneous & Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen.

“West of Shetland is not a depleted frontier - it is a technically demanding but strategically important energy province,” Schofield noted.

The study showed the “utter madness” of the ruling Labour in opposing drilling in the North Sea, Badenoch said.

“The University of Aberdeen survey just demonstrates the utter madness of the stance taken by Keir Starmer and John Swinney,” the leader of the Conservatives said in remarks carried by Belfast Telegraph.

“Domestic oil and gas are vital to the nation’s energy security, as well as being the economic lifeblood of the North East,” Badenoch said.

“Yet the industry is on its knees due to the windfall tax and the ban on new developments. The Conservatives would scrap both immediately,” she added.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/06/2026 - 08:10

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• The Father-Daughter Showdown That Shook an $18 Trillion Investing Empire: WSJ on Abby Johnson finally winning the long, quiet war for Fidelity — and what her late father gave up to make it happen. The succession story the family kept out of the press for a decade. (Wall Street Journal)

• If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you: Sam Kriss at his most unhinged and most correct. A furious, funny polemic against the replacement of human thought with algorithmic slop. (Sam Kriss) see also The literary world is sleepwalking into an AI disaster: The Argument on why publishing’s slow-motion capitulation to AI-generated content is an existential crisis hiding in plain sight. (The Argument)

• The Secret Sauce of: It’s the Paycheck, Not the Tax Code. Sweden is indeed highly equal by international standards, largely thanks to pre-distribution. And the kollektivavtal is really the big story here. But there are wrinkles, suggesting some increasing concentration of wealth at the top; and perhaps there are also some surprising lessons from American success stories about raising wages.Arin Dube on what the Swedish wage-compression model actually rests on — collective bargaining coverage, not headline tax rates. The kind of empirical correction that should reset half the policy conversation. (Arin’s Substack)

• Why YouTubers Are Turning Hollywood Upside Down. Variety spoke with Hollywood producers, filmmakers, distributors and YouTube executives about this sea change and the young rebels taking Hollywood by storm. The Backrooms kids went from viral creepypasta to major studio deals. Variety on how a generation of creators raised on YouTube is rewriting the rules of the entertainment business. (Variety)

• It is the end of the world and I am here to take you home: A short, well-written Substack essay on the texture of life at the end of an era. Pair with whatever weekend you’ve been having. (Natalie’s Substack)

• Soon She’ll Be the Queen of Belgium. But for the Last Two Years, She Was the Princess of Harvard. On Wednesday and Thursday, Crown Princess Elisabeth is graduating from Harvard’s prestigious Kennedy School of Government with a master’s in public policy. Vanity Fair on Princess Elisabeth’s Harvard exit — Kennedy School degree, low-key roommates, and the next-monarch-of-Belgium logistics in the background. A lighter read than the headline suggests. (Vanity Fair)

• The Painful Truth About Long Covid: There might finally be a way forward for long Covid treatment—if only you were allowed to talk about it.Nothing about Long Covid adds up. Prevalence rates range from 3% to 86% depending on the study. The confusion is the point—this is a disease that defies easy categorization. (Wired)

• Why Are Men So Bad at Making—and Keeping—Friends? What do we make of this ostensible myth of the male loneliness crisis? One interpretation is that there is nothing to worry about, and everybody is fine. The trouble with that interpretation, however, is the fact that everybody is so evidently not fine. Derek Thompson on the data behind the male-friendship recession — hours, networks, who actually shows up. The trend he keeps writing about that the rest of the chattering class keeps under-pricing. (Derek Thompson) but see also To make friends, join a club. To join a club, find an activity fair. These citywide events are a low-stakes way to meet people and combat loneliness. Vox’s Highlight on the modest, slightly desperate revival of adult activity fairs — and the social-isolation data that makes them necessary. Pair with the Derek Thompson piece. (Vox)

• Inside the plan to make Victor Wembanyama the biggest athlete on the planet: The NBA, staring down the approaching retirements of LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant in the coming years, was in dire need of a new face, someone even the most casual fans could identify. Wemby had a solution: “I’m not gonna give basketball a choice of who the face is going to be.”  The Athletic on the joint Nike/Spurs/NBA effort to engineer Wembanyama into the next global sports brand. Specific, well-sourced, and timely with the Finals on. (The Athletic)

• 38 Tony Nominees Reveal the Strangest Skills They’ve Picked Up: The stars of “Giant,” “Fallen Angels,” “The Rocky Horror Show,” “Ragtime” and more prove they’ll go to great lengths to be believable in a role. NYT Theater’s annual photo feature. Light, charming, exactly the right length. (New York Times)

Video of the day: Martin Scorsese Breaks Down His Most Iconic Films | GQ

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Chris Davis, Chairman and Portfolio Manager of Davis Funds. The firm oversees $20 billion in client assets, with Davis (and colleagues) co-investing $2 billion in their own mineus alongside shareholders. Davis was named Morningstar’s Portfolio Manager of the Year; he also sits on the boards of Berkshire Hathaway and Coca-Cola.

 

25% of manufactured goods imports have two or three trade dependencies

Source: McKinsey

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Weekend Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Has Trump Opened Pandora's Box?

Authored by John Rosenburger, Senior Fellow at Eisenhower Media Network

The limits of U.S. military power are now fully exposed.

2.5 months in to the U.S.-Israeli war against a nation that posed no threat to the United States’ vital interests, justified by a pyramid of lies, several things are abundantly clear. President Trump failed to define clear and viable political objectives to achieve in our role as Israel’s proxy in yet another war of choice. “Viable” here meaning objectives that are realistically attainable through the military means at a nation’s disposal.

In his classic work Strategy, British theorist B. H. Liddell Hart emphasized that a political leader’s foremost duty is to ensure that war aims are grounded in military reality. As he famously warned, political objectives must “not demand what is militarily impossible.”

Yet that is precisely the error President Trump committed.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons & Amazon

Without clearly defined political objectives, it is impossible to construct U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is in charge of military operations in West Asia and appears to be moving from one ineffective tactic to the next without any unifying operational design. The repeated bombing of military‑related targets across a country the size of Western Europe with more than 90 million people is not a strategy; it is a tactic untethered to any discernible operational or strategic end state.

By limiting ourselves almost entirely to the use of airpower—fully aware that the American public will not accept another protracted ground war in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Israel’s interests—the Trump administration has boxed itself into an approach with no historical precedent for success. No regime of Iran’s scale has ever been overthrown through airpower alone, and there is no reason to believe this conflict will be the first.

Despite repeated assurances that the war is being won, President Trump has provided no stable or coherent definition of what “victory” actually means. Is it regime change and internal overthrow of the Iranian government? Is it unconditional surrender of Iran’s armed forces? Is it the seizure of nuclear material previously claimed to have been obliterated? Take your pick. The absence of a clear, consistent political end state leaves military commanders struggling to determine what they are supposed to achieve.

Credit: Evan Vucci, @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social

History shows that wars fought without well‑defined political objectives, matched with a viable military strategy, tend to devolve into wars of attrition—conflicts that favor the side with greater resilience and willingness to endure. We see that historical truism unfolding before our eyes. We fail to appreciate that Iran is waging a fundamentally different kind of war, one rooted in national survival, and that resolve has shaped the character and trajectory of the conflict.

It is also clear that this war was based on a host of flawed assumptions. The Trump administration assumed that by assassinating the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the IGRC and security apparatus of the nation would collapse, and the Iranian people would flood into the streets to violently overthrow the government. How they would do that while being unarmed defies logic. That overthrow, of course, didn’t happen. It had the opposite effect. The government and the people have never been more unified.

Credit: Hamshahri Photo/Wikimedia Commons

The Trump administration assumed that the massive armada of air power it would employ would quickly destroy Iran’s capability to retaliate. It didn’t. It assumed that the Iranian armed forces would not attack U.S. bases and embassies in the region. They did. It assumed that Iran did not have the capability to hide and accurately employ thousands of ballistic missiles and drones for days and weeks on end. It did; another gross failure of both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies as the Iranians pound Israel’s cities, U.S. bases, and Gulf nations night after night.

The Trump administration assumed Iran was incapable of closing the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. military destroyed Iran’s naval surface fleet. They ignored the fact that Iran had several other means of interdicting the movement of any ships through the Strait—a plethora of different mines, small attack submarines designed to operate in shallow water, swarms of armed fast boats, multiple types of attack drones, and an arsenal of ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Equally concerning, the administration overlooked the fact that Lloyds of London and other maritime insurance companies would not underwrite the loss of tankers and cargo ships that attempted to cross the Strait. Iran will ensure the Strait remains closed using its arsenal of asymmetric weapons they’ve designed for just that purpose, giving them powerful leverage in future negotiations.

Credit: MassLive, AP, CalMatters

The result? Cascading and disastrous effects. The U.S.-Israel war against Iran initiated a global economic crisis, strangling the production and transportation of oil, liquid natural gas, urea, helium, and aluminum from the nations surrounding the Persian Gulf. The war further increased U.S. national debt, which is just shy of $39 trillion dollars and growing. The Trump administration increased our national debt by $1 trillion in the first 5 months of this year, and borrowed another $343 billion last month alone. Now, the Department of War is asking Congress for another appropriation of $200 billion to cover the unexpected costs of this war of choice. For the first time in our nation’s history, our debt-to-GDP ratio is 122 percent, with no sign of decreasing. The consequences could be catastrophic to our economy in the months and years ahead if left unabated.

This war of choice has practically exhausted the U.S. military’s inventory of offensive and defensive missiles, inventories that cannot be replenished for years. It’s increased our country’s strategic vulnerability and reduced the Pentagon’s ability to deter other threats around the globe. The limits of U.S. military power are now fully exposed. Russia and China smile with glee.

Nine U.S. military bases in the Gulf States have been destroyed or abandoned. The Gulf States are unlikely to ever welcome American forces back into their countries, as the Trump administration has demonstrated that the United States cannot and will not protect Gulf Arab allies. The administration has essentially destroyed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coalition and also managed to alienate most NATO allies in the process.

Russia is enjoying a windfall in oil and natural gas sales and revenue as it becomes the principal supplier of oil to China, India, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other nations that relied on oil from the Gulf nations. Airlines across the globe are rationing jet fuel and reducing flights. Prices for gas and diesel are exploding at the pump here in the United States, which will thrust additional inflation on the American people struggling to afford the costs of food, housing, transportation, and medical insurance.

Credit: U.S. Department of State/Wikimedia Commons

Furthermore, given that the U.S. attacked Iran with no warning twice during earnest negotiations the past year, Iran has no reason to ever trust us again and negotiate an end to this conflict. We’re witnessing the unintended consequences of a war of choice that was poorly conceived and poorly planned, driven entirely by hubris. In two short months, Iran has gained the operational and strategic initiative and will determine the outcome of this war. It seems the Trump administration has opened Pandora’s Box.

Lastly, the administration has failed to define a path to victory that culminates in the restoration of a durable peace in the Middle East.

Professor Donald Stoker captures this imperative in his illuminating book Why America Loses Wars, noting that “…if the political leadership has done its job, their definition of victory [the political objective] includes a clear vision of what they want the post-war situation to look like. Ultimately, as Cicero tells us, war is about the restoration of peace; if it does not seek this, the war is not just. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman insisted that “The legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace. War is fighting for the peace we want.”

All were right.

Absent an effective political and military strategy that restores stable and enduring peace between nations in the region, this war risks becoming yet another U.S. exercise in violence untethered from purpose; a war ending in failure, useless destruction, and economic depression that will require years to overcome.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 23:25

Where It's Hardest To Afford A Home

Big cities like Hong Kong or Los Angeles are well-known for their expensive real estate markets. But there are also plenty of housing markets you wouldn’t necessarily expect among the least affordable – including several in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

As Statista's Tristan Gaudiaut details below, according to a 2026 ranking by Forbes, Hong Kong remains the world’s least affordable housing market, with median home prices still more than 16 times higher than median pre-tax household incomes, based on the dominant housing type in each market.

You will find more infographics at Statista

It is followed by Sydney (13.8) and Vancouver (11.8), while several U.S. cities, including San Jose (11.4), Los Angeles (10.9) and Honolulu (10.5), also rank among the least affordable.

The first European market in the ranking is London, with a price-to-income ratio of 8.1.

Overall, the list highlights the continued dominance of major cities in Australia, Canada and the United States.

While affordability ratios have eased slightly in some markets in recent years, the broader trend remains unchanged.

Across most major urban areas, ratios still hover well above historic norms, often in the 8-to-14 range, meaning housing costs continue to outpace incomes by a wide margin and keep homeownership out of reach for large parts of the population.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 23:00