Trump Mulls Farmer Aid As Fertilizer And Fuel Costs Bite

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he is considering support for U.S. farmers struggling with high fertilizer prices, as rising energy costs and market volatility continue to squeeze producers across the farm belt.

A farm field near West Bend, Iowa, on May 6, 2026. Scott Olson/Getty Images

"I am looking at doing a form of help," Trump told reporters at the White House, without giving details.

Farmers face pressure from fertilizer and fuel costs, both of which have been affected by the conflict with Iran and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy and fertilizer trade.

Fertilizer prices have eased from recent highs, with granular urea prices in New Orleans falling to $453.50 per short ton, their lowest level since Feb. 6, reported Bloomberg Green Markets on June 8.

That was down 36 percent from a mid-April peak.

The market remains vulnerable to disruption, particularly because urea is the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer and nearly half of global urea exports come from countries affected by the Middle East conflict.

High fuel prices have also hit farmers.

Diesel prices reached record highs in parts of the Midwest in May, including Indiana and Illinois, due to the Iran war. Grain and soybean farmers are especially exposed because diesel is needed for tractors, combines, irrigation, and crop transport.

The pressure in farming has become a heated political issue in Washington.

At a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on June 10, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) challenged Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins over whether Trump administration policies had increased farmers' costs.

"Georgia farmers are telling me that they continue to struggle with high costs, costs exacerbated by President Trump's war in Iran, and his tariffs - which is a tax on all of us on virtually everything," Warnock said.

Warnock said that the administration had lowered tariffs on some farm equipment and asked whether that move was an acknowledgement that tariffs had raised the cost of farming.

However, Rollins defended the administration's record, saying it was working to reduce the agricultural trade deficit.

"We're cutting that $50 billion agricultural trade deficit in half that we inherited a year and a half ago," she said.

Warnock pressed again, asking whether tariffs had increased costs for farmers, saying Rollins was "forecasting" future results rather than answering the question.

Rollins said that the Trump administration is "reshoring fertilizer back to America."

"In two or three weeks, we're going to break ground in Louisiana on what will be the largest fertilizer plant in the world," she said.

In May, farmers called for emergency relief and adoption of key bills to stem soaring fertilizer costs.

"American farmers are price-takers on both ends, paying monopoly prices for inputs they must buy, then accepting commodity prices they cannot control, with no pricing power on either side," Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) said during a May 12 Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing.

"That's not a market. It's a trap for the American farmers."

"Simply put, farmers need more competition in this marketplace," South Dakota Corn Growers Association president Trent Kubik said.

"Federal antitrust laws exist for precisely this reason - to promote and sustain competition, the lifeblood of our economy.

"Increased competition for more participants in the fertilizer manufacturing space is the only thing that can deliver meaningful and durable price relief."

The concern is not limited to the United States.

European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen said this week that Europe needs long-term fertilizer solutions to avoid food shortages.

"We need to do our homework as well and address the issues to make fertilizers not only available but also affordable, because, otherwise, there will be food shortages in the European Union," Hansen told Euronews on June 10.

He said many European farmers were considering not planting because production had become too expensive and they could not easily pass on the costs.

Reuters and John Haughey contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 15:10

President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All Summary:

• President Trump confirms that he is expecting to sign the US-Iran peace deal tomorrow (Sunday), opening the Strait to all

• Pakistan PM confirms US and Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement

• IRGC continues to push back against deal

President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All

President Trump said a long-awaited deal to end the war in the Middle East is scheduled to be signed on Sunday, paving the way for the opening of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement issued through Truth Social, President Trump first took a shot at President Obama:

Barack Hussein Obama’s Deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was an easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now.

Then explained why his deal is different:

My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON!

In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement.

The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.

Building relationships:

Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had.

Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.

We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future.

About the nuclear dust:

At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States.

...

Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly.

If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!

Trump's statement, however, ran counter to Iran's foreign ministry which indicated earlier in the day that the deal would not be signed Sunday, according to state media reports.

We shall see...

Iran Peace Deal Signing Expected Within 24 Hours, Technical Talks To Follow, Pakistan's Sharif Says

After Friday witnessed a rare moment of agreement between Tehran and Washington saying that indeed a peace deal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is indeed 'very close' - there's been more color issued by Pakistan.

The country's Prime Minister Shehbaz ​Sharif said that the United States and ​Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement, but that curiously Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic ​signing ​expected ⁠within the next 24 ​hours.

Is this going to be history's first Docusigned peace agreement? 

Sharif further indicated this signing will be followed by ​technical-level ⁠talks this upcoming week - but this is definitely where the proverbial devil will be in the details. 

Contained within the MoU signing will reportedly be an extension of the April 7 ceasefire by 60 days, during which the Strait of Hormuz would gradually reopen - or we should say that this is at least the very optimistic version of things, given that Tehran still insists that its military is in control of the Strait, which the Pentagon has flatly rejected is a a reality.

So Iran is seeking to hold on tightly to its obvious geographic leverage, while the US is rejecting that this is the case at all.

Another interesting possibly point of contention - but which looks to be merely papered over for now - is the status of the nuclear file, which has long been a major point of fierce contention.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear Friday Iran's understanding that terms dealing with the country's nuclear program would be finalized in the 60 days after the initial agreement is signed. So in essence, this means Iran could get its wish of pushing nuclear negotiations back, only after the hot conflict has clearly ended. Iran has long sought to separate the issues of a final end to the war from consideration of its nuclear program.

Importantly Araghchi indicated the two sides could extend the 60-day period further, and a yet a lot could go wrong in such an extended interim. Still, it remains that Washington - and certainly the American public - doesn't have the appetite for an escalation that would lead to a boots-on-the-ground scenario complete with full regime change operations (and this means almost inevitable nation-building).

We are closer to a peace deal than ever before. With finalisation likely expected in the next 24 hours, Pakistan is preparing for the electronic signing of the peace deal immediately after, followed by technical level talks next week.

We would like to thank United States of…

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) June 13, 2026

CNN earlier floated the possibility of peace being firmed up in a formal ceremony held in Geneva. The following Saturday report seems to lend credence to this as an impending scenario:

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Switzerland expressed hopes of a breakthrough in peace negotiations to end the US war with Iran during a Saturday phone call, according to Islamabad's Foreign Ministry. 

Though no further details were offered, the sides said they hoped the effort would contribute to regional peace and stability.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis reportedly agreed to maintain close contact ahead of talks expected to take place prior to an upcoming G7 summit in nearby Evian, France, from June 15-17.

IRGC and Deep Rifts Remain In iran

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is again alleging a familiar US narrative - that there are deep rifts within Iran over just how to respond to US deal-making efforts. The question is to what degree the civilian leadership actually holds the power to make final decisions, or also how tight a grip the IRGC holds over this process.

"Iran faces its own political dilemma in selling a deal to hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are steadfastly opposed to giving in to Trump’s demands for limits on its nuclear program, especially without upfront concessions from Washington," WSJ writes. "But it has absorbed damage during the war and from the U.S. blockade of the Persian Gulf, pushing Tehran toward an agreement."

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said he discussed the draft MoU with the U.S. in a joint meeting with the Russian and Chinese ambassadors in Tehran. “The strategic partnership between Iran, China, and Russia, will continue with full strength,” Gharibabadi said. pic.twitter.com/8srDtnobyF

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) June 13, 2026

In the meantime peace and red lines are still being hotly tested:

U.S. forces shot down multiple Iranian one-way attack drones heading toward the Strait of ​Hormuz, a source familiar with the ⁠matter told Reuters ​on Friday, in the latest ⁠military flare-up even as Washington and Tehran cite progress in peace ​talks.

The source, who ‌spoke on condition ‌of anonymity, said the drones had posed a ⁠threat to ‌commercial traffic.

President ⁠Donald Trump had ⁠warned ⁠Iran earlier on Friday against firing ‌more drones at ships attempting to transit ‌the Strait, ​saying ‌Tehran "better get their act together, and FAST!"

Iran's strategy has been to smell blood in the water and capitalize - sensing a bit of White House panic (the longer this drags on... quagmire being a key dreaded word), and so it has an interest in prolonging the economic pain and global energy shock toward exacting a pound of flesh from the Trump administration (so long as the Islamic Republic itself can survive the stand off). 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 13:00

69 Arrested In 'Operation Hands Down' Targeting Central California Gangs

Authored by Cynthia Cai via The Epoch Times,

Authorities announced dozens of arrests, drug and firearm seizures, and thousands of dollars in cash confiscated in a large-scale operation targeting gangs in California's Central Valley.

Suspects arrested in Operation Hands Down. Fresno County Sheriff’s Office

The multi-agency effort, dubbed Operation Hands Down, served 43 search warrants at various locations throughout the San Joaquin Valley, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) stated in a June 10 press release.

More than 500 law enforcement members joined the operation, leading to 69 arrests and the confiscation of 73 guns, 55 pounds of methamphetamine, 3 pounds of cocaine, a small amount of powdered fentanyl, and nearly $165,000.

"This marked the culmination of a two-month undercover operation focusing on Mexican Mafia and Sureño gang members committing various crimes," the CDCR stated.

The arrests are expected to lower the amount of gang violence seen across the Central Valley, the department added.

Among those arrested was Stefan Coronado from Stockton, California, who was identified as a secretary for the Mexican Mafia, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said during a press conference.

Coronado allegedly oversaw criminal street gang activity within the Fresno County Jail from around 2023 to early 2026, including collecting taxes from inmates, facilitating communications between gang members, and acting as a Mexican mafia representative to influence the Sureño gang.

Police also arrested Eduardo Roberto Garcia, a suspect believed to be a high-ranking and influential Sureño gang member associated with the Mexican Mafia, who is now facing murder charges, Zanoni said.

Zanoni said Garcia is also being charged with assault in a previous case in which he allegedly attacked a female bartender in the city of Sanger and rendered her unconscious. The incident was captured on surveillance camera, according to Zanoni.

"It highlights the violent nature of Garcia and his gang activities," said Zanoni. "The investigation significantly disrupted organized Sureño criminal street gang activity throughout Central California while exposing the continued influence of the Mexican Mafia over both street-level criminal operations and violence occurring within our custodial facilities."

Additionally, eight Sureño gang members currently being held in the Fresno County Jail have been charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and gang enhancements for their alleged involvement in two separate stabbing attacks inside the facility, he said.

The operation also helped law enforcement uncover evidence related to previous cases in the Central Valley region, including a gang-related shooting, robberies, and a 2023 murder case.

During the operation, police detectives found gang members as young as 14 years old involved in illegal firearms sales across multiple counties.

"If you engage in violent criminal gang activity in California, we will come for you, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law," said Attorney General Rob Bonta at the press conference.

Bonta thanked federal and local law enforcement partners for collaborating on the operation.

The Fresno District Attorney's office stated that 15 cases have been filed so far in connection with the operation, involving suspects ranging in age from 15 to 42.

The charges include murder, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, drug and firearm trafficking, illegal firearms possession, and sex offenses, according to Assistant District Attorney Steve Wright.

All suspects arrested as a result of Operation Hands Down are expected to appear in court as prosecutors proceed with their cases while their criminal charges are under review.

"This activity reached well beyond Fresno County and was a significant threat to all our communities," said Siddhartha Patel, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Sacramento Field Office. "This is a united effort, all of us. Today's announcement demonstrates the impact we can have when we work together."

Patel encouraged anyone who has information regarding gang activity to contact the FBI by visiting tips.fbi.gov or calling 1-800-225-5324.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 12:50

Court Denies SBF's Last-Ditch Effort To Toss Conviction, Leaving Trump As His Only Hope

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried will remain in PMITA prison for the foreseeable future, after a federal appeals court rejected a hail-mary attempt to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence on the grounds that he didn't receive a fair trial. 

A three-judge panel on Friday unanimously refused to toss his 2023 guilty verdict, which SBF's attorneys argued was tainted by improper evidentiary rulings and a biased judge - which is hilarious because Judge Lewis Kaplan is a Clinton-appointed judge who oversaw the E. Jean Carroll v. Trump Bergdorf Goodman 'fingering' trial - where despite Carroll not being able to remember the year it allegedly happened, and the Jury ruling "no" as to whether Trump raped Carroll, Kaplan went leeroy jenkins and awarded her $5 million.

"The government’s evidence against him was, conservatively stated, robust," Judge Barrington Parker wrote for the panel.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a New York jury in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s largest digital-asset trading platforms.

The company collapsed in a matter of days in November 2022 after reports about the financial ties between FTX and Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm also founded by Bankman-Fried. Those reports showed that Alameda held a large amount of FTX’s own token, raising questions about the company’s financial stability and triggering a wave of customer withdrawals.

The collapse sent shockwaves through the broader crypto market, driving the total value of digital assets down from an all-time high of about $3 trillion in late 2021 to roughly $800 billion by the end of 2022.

Federal prosecutors described Bankman-Fried’s scheme as one of the largest financial frauds in American history. They said the evidence showed that while he assured investors, regulators, and the public that FTX customer funds were safe, he secretly transferred billions of dollars from customer accounts to Alameda and other entities.

Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried then used those funds to make investments unrelated to FTX customer deposits, cover Alameda’s losses, and finance other spending, while falsifying business records to conceal the transactions.

He was later sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ruling comes as Bankman-Fried has formally submitted a pardon request to President Donald Trump, according to information posted on the Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney website.

The exact date of the filing is unclear, but the website states that a request for a “pardon after completion of sentence” was submitted in 2026 and remains pending.

In an interview with Fox Business from prison earlier this week, Bankman-Fried said he “absolutely” wants a pardon, though he acknowledged that the decision is “ultimately up to the president, not up to me.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on that matter.

Trump, meanwhile, said in a January interview with The New York Times that he was not interested in pardoning a list of high-profile figures that included Bankman-Fried. When asked about Bankman-Fried, Trump replied, “I don’t know him at all.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 12:15

India Caps Fuel Sales To Avoid Shortages

Submitted by Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

India has imposed limits on gasoline and diesel sales at retail fuel stations to avoid supply crunches, with commercial consumers banned from buying any fuel from retail stations, Bloomberg reported, noting there will be daily limits on diesel sales.

The diesel cap was set at 200 litres per vehicle or customer, with resale of the fuel forbidden, Reuters noted in a report on the news. Commercial users, meanwhile, will have to get their fuels from bulk sellers after their rush to retail fuel stations drained some of them. Fuels are cheaper at retail stations to shield consumers from the oil price shock.

The limits will be in effect for an initial period of 90 days, per the government order that instituted them. They can be canceled earlier, however, the document also said.

Since the war in the Middle East began and cut off over 40% of India’s crude oil flows, those that passed through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the highest-flying economies in Asia, have seen their oil import bill soar, investors fleeing the capital market, and the local currency plunging to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar.

As a result, the world's third-largest crude importer saw its wholesale inflation jump to 8.3% in April from a year earlier, significantly accelerating from 3.88% annual inflation in March, driving wholesale fuel prices higher. These surged in April, with gasoline prices up by 32.4% and diesel prices up by 25.19%. That’s up from a monthly rise of 2.5% for gasoline in March, and 3.62% for diesel. For May, inflation is seen rising by 4% as a result of the energy price surge, with wholesale inflation soaring by over 9%.

Because of the energy flow disruption, India ended a four-year freeze on fuel prices, hiking them four times in the space of a single month.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 11:40

Northeast Heat Wave Arrives As World Cup Matches Get Underway

As the World Cup starts, a prolonged spell of summer heat is expected to grip New York and much of the Northeast through the end of the week and into the weekend.

Daytime temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s across several major cities, while high humidity will make conditions feel even hotter, according to Bloomberg.

Forecasters expect the most intense heat on Thursday and Friday, when heat alerts will be in place across large parts of the region. Multiple cities along the East Coast could see daily temperature records challenged or broken as the unusually warm air mass spreads across the area.

The timing coincides with the start of several FIFA World Cup matches in the Northeast, including games scheduled in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. While temperatures are expected to ease somewhat after sunset, spectators and athletes may still face hot and uncomfortable conditions during evening events.

Bloomberg writes that the heat is also expected to drive up electricity consumption as households and businesses rely more heavily on air conditioning. Transportation networks could experience disruptions as well, since extreme temperatures can affect rail infrastructure and overhead power systems, leading to slower train service.

Elsewhere, a separate weather system is creating risks across parts of the Midwest. Forecasters have warned that strong thunderstorms could bring damaging winds, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and localized power outages, potentially affecting travel and other infrastructure.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 11:05

Anthropic Blocks Foreign Access To Fable 5, Mythos 5 After U.S. National Security Order

About four days after Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a next-generation "Mythos-class" AI model, the frontier AI lab led by Dario Amodei revealed late Friday that it was disabling foreign customers' access to these cutting-edge models, citing an export-control directive from the federal government.

"The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees," Anthropic wrote on X around 9 p.m. ET.

The AI lab's website stated that the federal directive was received around 5:21 p.m. ET. To ensure compliance, the lab was forced to shut off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all customers.

Anthropic continued, "The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Claude models is not affected."

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.

The net effect of…

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) June 13, 2026

Anthropic pointed out that it understands the government's concern centers on a potential method of bypassing, or "jailbreaking," Fable 5.

Dario's company laid out some of Fable's safeguards:

• We have instituted strong safeguards that greatly reduce the likelihood that Fable is misused for tasks related to cybersecurity (among others). In fact, our safeguards are so strong that many users have complained that they are overly broad.

• In the weeks leading up to the launch of Fable, Anthropic worked with the US government, the UK AISI, multiple private third-party organizations and internal teams to red-team Fable's safeguards for thousands of hours in total.

• These tests showed that Fable's safeguards are substantially more effective than those of any previously deployed model.

• No testers have yet been able to find a universal jailbreak—a jailbreak method that can very broadly bypass the model's safeguards, unblocking a wide range of cyber capabilities.

• We suspect that perfect jailbreak resistance is not currently possible for any model provider. Every safeguard used in the industry is vulnerable to non-universal jailbreaks (which can elicit some cyber information in specific circumstances), and it is likely that universal jailbreaks will eventually be found in the future. We stated this clearly when we released Fable 5.

• Given that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth strategy with Fable 5. We aimed to make jailbreaks either narrow (in the case of non-universal jailbreaks) or very expensive to produce (in the case of universal jailbreaks), and to combine this with thorough monitoring to quickly detect and shut down any successful attacks. This is also why Anthropic has required 30-day retention of customer data with Fable—a policy change that carries real costs for us with customers, but that allows us to research and mitigate jailbreaks.

• We stand by this defense in depth strategy. It reduces the risks posed by Fable, making them comparable to the risks of existing models already deployed across the industry.

• We have not even received a disclosure of a concerning non-universal potential jailbreak that led to a harmful result. The potential jailbreaks that have been disclosed to us are either entirely benign responses or are minor findings that provide no Mythos-specific uplift.

Jailbreak concerns already out in the X universe? 

this is definitely what got fable banned https://t.co/3b0rmIIdLe

— Wes Winder (@weswinder) June 13, 2026

Last week, shortly after Tuesday's Fable release, BMO analyst Brian Pitz told clients, "We maintain that Anthropic is the leading pure-play AI lab, combining best-in-class model intelligence with its cutting-edge, benchmark-leading Claude Fable 5 frontier model released June 9, 2026; with clear commercial traction and momentum in its enterprise offerings."

Pitz said, "Anthropic's strengths are particularly evident in coding, agents, and enterprise, where Claude has emerged as a leading model powering tools such as Claude Code and Cowork, both of which have scaled rapidly. This reinforces the company's advantage in translating model intelligence beyond benchmark performance into viable, real-world applications—what we view as the next key battleground in AI."

The release of Claude Fable 5 prompted Pitz's team to declare, "While it is too early to crown a winner among foundation models, we see Anthropic and OpenAI as the leading pure-play AI labs today."

Read Pitz's note here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 09:55

Britain Goes Full 'Airstrip One'

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

In George Orwell's 1984, Great Britain was just a province of Oceania named "Airstrip One" as a none-too-subtle nod to the U.K.'s role as host to the heavy bombers of U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II.

Four decades past the real 1984, and there's still no Oceania. But Britain looks more and more like Airstrip One as Parliament considers a bill opening up everyone's smartphone to government supervision — and jail time for tech execs who don't submit.

You had to figure this was probably coming, right?

Right.

Reclaim the Net reports that "Ministers are reportedly drafting a law that would force Apple, Google, and the rest to make it impossible for a child to send, receive, view, or share a single nude image, with the executives who refuse facing up to five years in prison."

That might sound all well and good, but as usual, For the Children™ is little more than the government's justification for total surveillance.

"You cannot block every naked picture someone might stumble across without inspecting every picture, every message, every video call, every streamed film, on every device, all the time," Reclaim noted, with nudity serving as "the excuse and the unbroken view into your phone is the actual prize."

The industry term is "client-side scanning," which sounds much nicer than "a government mandated app that looks at everything on your phone all the time."

And even that sounds better than "Big Brother is Watching You," which is exactly what it is.

As already required by Britain's Online Safety Act, Apple and Google forcibly install age verification on every iPhone and Android device in the UK via app store updates.

No, it can't be uninstalled.

As I reported in January, what this means in practice is that London's Office of Communications ("Ofcom" in Newspeak) mandates on-device software able to read everybody's "private" messages in real-time and scan their images, too, before any personal encryption tools come into play. 

London pinky-swears that it'll only look for CSAM and terrorism-related materials, but as the Telegram's Zia Yusuf put it back then, "the slippery slope is obvious" and "mission creep is inevitable." The country looking to ban traditional chef's knives (really!) in the name of safety simply cannot be trusted with this much digital power.

Nobody can, really. 

The way things work now, if you don't pass the mandatory age check, the iPhone software bars adult websites on every installable browser, and the Communication Safety feature scans every AirDrop, FaceTime, Messages, and photo for nudity, blurring whatever it catches. And the Android filter works in a similar way.

All For the Children™, naturally. 

But as Reclaim also pointed out, client-side scanning is "a general-purpose content scanner pointed at one target this year and swivelable toward any other the next, a flyer for the wrong march, a banned book, a face the Home Office has taken against."

Now that the software is installed, Parliament can authorize the Home Office to ignore the age check and look for whatever it wants to on literally everyone's device. That's exactly what Parliament wants to do next.

Orwell envisioned ever-present two-way telescreens mounted on almost every wall that could only try to monitor everyone all the time. He never envisioned a telescreen that people would pay good money for, carry around 24/7, and trust with their every notion and secret.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 09:20



 

 

This week, I speak with Jean Eric Salata, chair of EQT group. The firm is a purpose-driven global investment organization with over $310 billion in total assets under management, making it the largest private markets firm headquartered outside the United States.

We discuss his time working in Asian private equity investment, along with what he sees as necessary to become a good investor across different cultures, including what he learned in Japan and Hong Kong. We discuss the AI CapEx infrastructure super-cycle and how it is affecting US and overseas economies.

A list of his current reading is here; A transcript of our conversation is 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 Master’s in Business next week with Seth Klarman, CEO and portfolio manager of The Baupost Group. Founded in 1982 with $27 million in seed capital, over the past four decades, Baupost has grown to $22 billion, with annual net returns of over 20%. The legendary investor is known for his patient, risk-averse, and contrarian approach to finding deeply discounted securities across equities, distressed debt, and real estate.  He is the author of Margin of Safety (1991) and the editor of the 7th edition of Security Analysis (2023).

 

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

 

 

 

 

The post MiB: Jean Eric Salata, Chair of EQT group appeared first on The Big Picture.

Sweden Plans To Lower Criminal Age To 14 Amid Rise In Violent Crime By Children

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,

The Swedish government has announced plans to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 14 after dropping plans to lock up violent offenders as young as 13 in special prison units.

Ambulance and police stand at the scene where Swedish rapper Einar was fatally shot in Hammarby Sjostad district, in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 22, 2021. Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP

Earlier this month, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer announced plans to cut the age from 15 to 13, but on June 11, he said there was not enough support in parliament for that and that he had agreed to compromise at 14.

"We are going to propose that the age of criminal responsibility should be cut to 14 instead of 13 years old," Strommer told reporters.

Currently, anyone under 15 who is suspected of having committed a serious crime is sent to a youth home, run by social services, and cannot be sentenced to a custodial sentence in prison.

Strommer said in 2025 that more than 50 children under 15 were suspected of murder or attempted murder.

There has been a surge in gang crime and drug-related violence in Sweden over the past 20 years, and it now has one of the highest rates of shootings and bombings in Europe, dozens of which were carried out by minors.

Thousands Of Gang Members

Swedish police estimate there are 17,500 active gang members and around 50,000 who are loosely associated with them.

Magnus Lindgren, a former police chief in Uppsala County and current secretary-general of the Safer Sweden Foundation, told The Epoch Times last year that there were about 15,000 "very dangerous criminals" in Sweden, who were divided evenly into biker gangs, football hooligans, and criminals from around 60 high-crime neighborhoods.

Organized crime gangs, such as the Foxtrot Network, use social media to recruit teenagers and children as young as 11 to commit acts of violence, including bombings and murders.

The recruiters, who operate anonymously, post adverts in special groups on social media apps and offer money through banking apps.

The EU's law enforcement agency, Europol, launched Operational Taskforce GRIMM in April 2025 to target so-called "violence-as-a-service," which it said often used "young perpetrators."

After the 2022 elections, Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the center-right Moderates, formed a government that includes the Christian Democrats and Liberals, but has the crucial support of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, who campaigned against immigration and in favor of tougher criminal justice measures.

Kristersson's government has overhauled Sweden's criminal justice system, giving the police more powers and introducing tougher sentences for violent crime.

Under the new plans, children aged 14 who are convicted of violent criminal offenses will be sent to special prison units.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that the age of criminal responsibility should be no lower than 14, which is the average across the European Union.

Swedish organized crime networks are also operating in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, and also in the Netherlands and Belgium, which have the two biggest ports - Rotterdam and Antwerp - for importing narcotics, hidden in cargo.

On March 12, 2025, sanctions were imposed on Rawa Majid, the alleged leader of the Foxtrot Network, one of Sweden's largest organized crime groups, by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

OFAC stated that the gang trafficked illegal drugs and carried out attacks on Israelis and Jews in Europe on behalf of the Iranian government.

Norwegian Teen On Trial

A Norwegian teenager, Johannes Natland, was arrested in Huddersfield, England, in March 2025 and is currently on trial in London, where he has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder on behalf of the Foxtrot Network.

Natland, who was 18 at the time, was found in possession of two handguns and 17 bullets and has admitted to possessing firearms.

Giving evidence in court this week, Natland said he had been offered 25,000 euros ($29,000) to kill someone but said he planned to shoot himself in the foot to get out of having to do it, the BBC reported.

"I thought if I was to say no, I would be in serious danger, they're going to hurt my family," Natland said. "I thought they'd kill me."

The Epoch Times reached out to Natland's barrister, Paul Hynes KC, for comment but did not receive a response.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson attends a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on Feb. 26, 2024. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 08:45

Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Hungary is dismantling the restrictive digital asset framework introduced under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a policy overhaul that will decriminalize crypto trading and eliminate the prison sentences that had driven major platforms from the country, government spokesperson Anita Kobol said Thursday, according to Bloomberg. 

The rollback marks a full reversal of legislation that took effect July 1, 2025, after parliament passed rules criminalizing the use of unlicensed exchanges and certain unauthorized high-value crypto transactions. 

Those transactions — ranging between 50 million Hungarian forints (roughly $162,000) and 500 million forints (roughly $1.62 million) — subjected individuals to prison terms of up to two or five years, depending on the transaction value.

Service providers operating without a central bank license faced sentences of up to eight years.

The rules required approved validation for both crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions, a burden that led platforms including Revolut to suspend crypto services in Hungary and triggered an EU probe into whether the restrictions complied with bloc-wide regulations. 

Domestic trading volumes fell as local firms absorbed steep compliance costs.

Hungary’s politically motivated safeguards against bitcoin

Zoltán Tanács, Hungary’s Minister of Science and Technology, characterized the previous rules as “politically motivated” rather than market safeguards and announced the government’s intent to scrap the penalties. 

The new administration plans to abolish criminal prosecution for market participants, revise cybersecurity rules affecting approximately 4,000 Hungarian businesses subject to the NIS2 directive, and align national law with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.

Officials have identified Estonia as the template for rebuilding Hungary’s digital regulatory environment. Tanács said the reforms should draw international platforms back to Hungary and reduce friction for domestic operators, according to Bloomberg.

The shift carries significance beyond Hungary’s borders. The Orbán-era framework was one of the most restrictive in the European Union, and the EU’s inquiry had put Hungary at odds with the broader MiCA framework that governs crypto activity across the bloc. 

Alignment with MiCA would bring Hungary in line with the regulatory standard now binding all 27 member states.

Hungary’s pivot follows a wider trend of governments reconsidering punitive crypto policies. In April, Pakistan’s central bank lifted an eight-year ban on cryptocurrency operations, part of a broader move toward regulatory openness across emerging markets. 

The convergence of those shifts suggests that restrictive unilateral frameworks face mounting pressure as institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates globally and cross-border regulatory coordination deepens under frameworks like MiCA.

The Hungarian government has not yet set a timeline for when the legislative changes will take effect.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 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:

• Meet the Bodyguards Signing Up to Protect America’s Frightened Billionaires: After a season of high-profile assassinations, political violence, and kidnappings, wealthy Americans are racing to hire personal security services. GQ on the private-security boom catering to anxious tech and finance moguls. Genuine threat or vanity expense — the budget moves either way. After a season of high-profile assassinations, political violence, and kidnappings, wealthy Americans are racing to hire personal security services. (GQ)

• China is training a robot future — one folded shirt at a time: Localized, low-cost data harvested in homes and factories gives China a scaling edge over the research-heavy and outsourced U.S. approach. Rest of World on the army of low-wage Chinese workers generating the physical-world training data behind the next robotics wave. The picks-and-shovels are humans, for now. (Rest Of World)

• The Interview: Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’ Pelley, who was at the network for 37 years, including as White House correspondent, anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and “60 Minutes” correspondent, was fired after an explosive series of events and much turmoil over the past few years at CBS. These events include a controversial financial settlement with President Trump. Pelley exits 60 Minutes with a candid read on the Bari-Weiss-influenced editorial drift. The institutional erosion at CBS News continues. (New York Times)

• How Much Stuff Do You Own? Some people have decided to answer that question by cataloging their belongings, one material possession at a time. A clear-eyed accounting of how much material life modern Americans carry around. Useful counterweight to the next “abundance” essay. Some people have decided to answer that question by cataloging their belongings, one material possession at a time. (Inconspicuous Consumption)

• I Read the Pope’s Encyclical on A.I. I’m Astounded By What He Wrote. It’s an urgent warning—and a celebration of humanity and what we can do at our best. (Slate)

• Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?: Quanta on the strange revival of memory-transfer experiments. The science is preliminary, the philosophical implications are not. In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscientists who attempted to recapture the magic. (Quanta Magazine) see also Jeff Bezos Is Funding a Wild Hunt for the Brain’s ‘Core Algorithm’ Wired on the Bezos-backed neuroscience moonshot looking for a single learning rule under everything cognitive. Probably won’t work; the side-effects of the search are the interesting part. With $500 million in funding and a reported $2.5 billion valuation, Flourish wants to reinvent AI by putting real neurons under the microscope. (Wired)

• A Love Story: This is the template of a love story that many of us dream of living. It involves two people who will build a life together—and work through whatever comes their way. And something big is about to come their way. A Pudding-style data-and-illustration essay that’s genuinely affecting. Hard to summarize, easy to recommend. (Pudding)

• Stop eating Lady Gaga’s Oreos OR: The Great Switcheroo: Here’s a story from 30 years ago that would make no sense today. It’s 1992. Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten is selling well. But then MTV puts the music video for their song “Jeremy” in heavy rotation, and the band rockets into superstardom—shows suddenly sold out, fans smashing record store windows, the whole shebang. That’s familiar enough, but what happens next is not. Pearl Jam responds to this hullabaloo by refusing to make music videos for the next five years. They decline photoshoots and interviews. When their producer tells them that their song “Better Man” is a surefire hit, they cut it from their second album. Nevertheless, that album sells nearly a million copies in its first week, setting a record. Then it sells six million more, staying at #1 on the Billboard chart for over a month. Funny, useful, and probably going to ruin your next supermarket trip. (Experimental History)

• Trinidad Chambliss Is Making Millions Playing College Football. The NCAA Wants to Stop Him. The 23-year-old star quarterback talks to Vanity Fair about his landmark legal case, his coaches past and present, and his upcoming season at Ole Miss. Vanity Fair on a small-school transfer earning more than most NFL rookies — and the NCAA case trying to claw it back. The post-NIL ecosystem in one player. (Vanity Fair)

• What Steven Spielberg Taught Me About Fear, Catharsis, and Being Human: Hollywood is struggling, but Spielberg insists that the big screen is still the best place to work out our collective dreams, joys and sorrows. A NYT Magazine essay on what Spielberg’s films actually do to audiences — and why theatrical exhibition still matters. A surprisingly personal piece. Catharsis, and Being Human: Hollywood is struggling, but Spielberg insists that the big screen is still the best place to work out our collective dreams, joys and sorrows. (New York Times)

Video of the day: Steven Spielberg on Aliens, Young Directors and Being Turned Down For Bond

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Jean Eric Salata, Chair of EQT Group and Chair of EQT Asia. EQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization with over $310 billion in total assets under management, making it the largest private markets firm headquartered outside the United States.

 

The BBC has become the world’s top news website… by collapsing a little less than its competition

Source: Sherwood

 

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.

A Villainous Blueprint For Managed Poverty

Authored by Veronique de Rugy via The Eoch Times,

Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was often accused of inventing cartoonish villains.

Rogues like Ellsworth Toohey in “The Fountainhead” would scheme to seize the global economy’s commanding heights in pursuit of a distorted sense of justice.

But the people who hold such ideas don’t just appear in cartoons or in Rand’s novels.

Enter Thomas Piketty and company.

In early June, Piketty - the French economist whose work on inequality has made him something of a rock star even while being serially challenged for methodological errors, data imputations and cherry-picked baselines - and his large team unveiled what can only be described as a villainous plan.

It’s a comprehensive program for global managed decline dressed up in the language of climate justice and equality.

The plan is far too ambitious for most nations to accept.

But given the influence of Piketty and his circle of economists on U.S. wealth taxes and prominent global policy proposals, we should take its underlying ideas seriously.

Piketty’s plan would cap GDP per capita in wealthy countries at roughly $69,000, far less than America’s current $94,430.

The plan would also limit annual global economic growth to between 0 percent and 0.5 percent. Monsieur Piketty would allot only 0.115 percent annual growth to the U.S, whose GDP has expanded by more than 3 percent on average since 1930. This would hurt not just the billionaires but every American.

The plan would mandate an international three-day work week and reduce construction activity by 70 percent, manufacturing by 87 percent and even leisure-sector activity by 58 percent.

There would be massive and punishing trade actions against noncompliant countries.

It envisions a “Global Justice Fund” financed not by taxing carbon but by global wealth and income taxes.

This fund would be 20 times the size of current development aid and would be administered by a new international bureaucracy answerable to heaven knows who.

Don’t be fooled by Piketty’s training as an economist.

This is not economic thinking. Consider the utter inconsistency of relying on a vast stock of wealth (mostly from the U.S.) for redistribution while suffocating long-term growth to near zero. Much of the value of the assets needed to finance this scheme would be destroyed. It is also disqualifying to claim that sub-Saharan Africa will grow at 4 percent if we crush the economies that provide the capital for its investments and buy its exports.

Let’s ask the uncomfortable question: What would it require to enforce Piketty’s plan?

About this matter, he is conveniently vague.

Confiscating something on the order of 10 percent of world GDP and redirecting it through a newly created supranational body does not happen by asking nicely.

You cannot restructure the global economy at that scale without a coercive apparatus that dwarfs anything in human history.

The mechanism must be authoritarian.

It would require a world government with the power to tell billions of people which jobs they may and may not hold, what they may build, what they may eat and how many hours they are permitted to work.

And to what end?

“Climate change” is an insufficient answer when Piketty’s entire edifice is built on a discredited foundation. The report relies on a baseline from the “RCP8.5” climate scenario that projects Earth warming by as much as 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. But last month, the UN’s own climate panel officially retired RCP8.5 (always a high-end estimate) as “implausible.” A more central projection is around 2.7 degrees Celsius. Replies to Piketty’s X feed pointed this out immediately. His response, as far as anyone can tell, has been silence.

That leaves the inequality argument. Worldwide income inequality is nearing a 150-year low, but Piketty insists that radical redistribution of wealth is essential for the Global South. And where have billionaires and wealth been popping up fastest in recent decades? Embarrassingly, data from Piketty’s World Inequality Database confirms that it’s in South and Southeast Asia and East Asia. These are the exact Global South regions that have spent recent decades rescuing hundreds of millions of people from poverty through market-directed economic growth.

A core confusion of the degrowth ideology is its conflation of inequality and poverty, in fact two very different things. Reducing inequality by making everyone poorer is not a victory for the poor. The billions of people still lagging in the global income distribution have one realistic path out: growth. Dynamic, market-driven, property-rights-protected growth is the only proven path to prosperity. It’s also the path to environmental improvement, which costs money.

Degrowth is the ultimate luxury belief.

It’s dreamed up by tenured professors in Paris and progressive think-tank pundits in Brussels.

These are people who already have high incomes, comfortable apartments, generous health care and pensions and whose ideas would pull up the ladder on billions of poor people.

Rand’s villains always insisted they were acting for the greater good. They always had elaborate plans. They always needed just a little more power to make it work. And they thought little about the terrible burdens their plans would impose on ordinary people.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 23:25

Half Of Israelis Agree Deterrence 'Weakened' Following Wars In Iran, Lebanon: Poll

Via The Cradle

Israelis are raising doubts about their government and military's ability to provide security after more than three months of renewed war against Iran and Lebanon. 

According to a Maariv poll released on Friday, 50 percent of Israelis believe their country's deterrence has declined following the recent escalation with Iran and Lebanon, compared to 28 percent who say it has strengthened, while 22 percent are undecided.

via Le Monde

The US and Israel launched a renewed bombing campaign on Iran on February 28. The Islamic Republic retaliated by firing missiles and drones at Israel and US bases in Persian Gulf states until a ceasefire was reached on April 8, largely halting the fighting amid negotiations.

According to the Maariv poll, 49 percent think the Israeli army's freedom to carry out strikes in Lebanon has decreased after the latest confrontation, versus 30 percent who say it has improved and 21 percent who are unsure.

On 2 March, Hezbollah took advantage of Tel Aviv's vulnerability from the war with Iran by renewing its own missile and drone attacks on Israel. Hezbollah had refrained from retaliating to thousands of Israeli bombings of Lebanese territory that violated the previous ceasefire reached in November 2024. 

Israel responded by intensifying its airstrikes and sending ground troops to occupy additional Lebanese territory. At least 30 Israeli soldiers have since been killed and 1,302 injured, primarily by Hezbollah's newly introduced FPV drones.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to launch an attack on Iran despite US President Donald Trump's supposed request not to do so.

In an interview with the Financial Times (FT), Trump stated, "I call the shots. I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn't call the shots."

However, Netanyahu ordered a strike on Iran just hours after Trump's comments. Iran responded by striking targets in Israel.

According to the poll, Israelis are divided in their opinion on Netanyahu's decision to ignore Trump and order the bombing. Around 29 percent said he acted correctly, 36 percent said a stronger strike should have been carried out, and 19 percent preferred to follow the US position.

Meanwhile, 62 percent of poll respondents expressed distrust in Trump, while 21 percent said they trust him regarding Israeli interests in any agreement, and 17 percent said they did not know. A poll published by Israel’s Public Broadcaster (KAN) on 28 April found that a majority of Israelis believe the state has failed to secure victory in any war since October 2023.

According to the survey, 57 percent of respondents said no victory had been achieved, while 28 percent believed success had been reached in at least one arena, and a further 15 percent said they were unsure. 

The findings came after more than two years of Israel's reported genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, during which Tel Aviv waged multiple offensive military campaigns against Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, alongside attacks in Yemen and Syria and a campaign of destruction and displacement in the occupied West Bank. 

On Thursday, Trump warned that in the coming hours the US would hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and take “total control” of Tehran's oil and gas industry before reversing course and claiming that a deal with Iran is expected to be “finalized” soon.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 22:35

Public Schools Are In A Downward Spiral

Authored by Larry Sand via Heartland.org,

After decades of steady growth, attendance in U.S. K-12 public schools has shifted drastically. Over the past five years, registration has fallen by 2.3 percent, or 1.18 million students, and schools show no signs of rebounding. Lower birth rates are the primary driver of the downturn. The number of births has decreased steadily in recent years, with 690,000 fewer children born in 2024 than in 2007.

California lost nearly 75,000 K-12 students as of the 2025-26 school year, a slide more than twice as steep as the previous year.

Since 2017-2018, the Golden State has seen a 10 percent decline.

New York City has also been hard hit.

As of the 2025–26 school year, 793,300 students are enrolled in K-12 schools, down nearly 10 percent from 2020.

The loss of enrolled students has prompted some desperate measures. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is offering “free” childcare for 2-year-olds regardless of their parents’ income. In 2024, parents of toddlers spent an average of more than $23,000 on center-based childcare, according to the NYC Comptroller.

For those still attending public schools, chronic absence—the percentage of students missing 10 percent or more of a school year—is a growing problem. As of January 20, the latest data show that chronic absenteeism, which surged from 15 percent pre-COVID to 28 percent in 2022, remains elevated at 24 percent.

Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy, notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels. However, the data reveal significant racial and ethnic disparities, with 39 percent of black students, 36 percent of Hispanic students, 24 percent of white students, and 15 percent of Asian students chronically absent.

A major factor behind rising absenteeism is that many students lack motivation to attend school. In 2024, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z students ages 12 to 18 and found that only 48 percent of those enrolled in middle or high school feel motivated to attend. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice poll found that 64 percent of teens said school is boring, and 30 percent view it as a waste of time.

Additionally, a 2024 survey revealed that nearly 64 percent of school parents say K-12 education is headed in the wrong direction, up 8 points from 2023.

Marc Oestreich, an education policy consultant and strategist, writes that in many cases, students are responding to schools that fail to teach them to read, fail to adapt to their needs, and fail to demonstrate that another day in the building is worth their time.

Oestreich asserts, “The honest version of the absenteeism story is not that American parents have suddenly become uniquely irresponsible, or that students have collectively misplaced their work ethic somewhere between TikTok and the bus stop. The honest story is that a substantial number of families, concentrated among the poor, the male, and the badly served, have concluded from direct experience that what their local public school offers is not worth the time.”

While public schools are struggling, private school attendance has remained steady. However, as more parental choice bills advance, the number of children attending private schools will very likely increase. There are currently 75 private school choice programs in 34 states, serving more than 1.5 million students.

Also, the Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which takes effect on January 1, 2027, is likely to substantially increase the number of students leaving public schools for private schools.

Through the program, individual taxpayers will be eligible for a dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $1,700 for contributions to approved scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). In turn, the SGOs will be required to use these contributions to grant scholarships to students at private and public elementary and secondary schools within their states. Students who are eligible to attend public school and whose family income is below 300 percent of the gross area median income will be eligible for the scholarships. The scholarships can be used for qualified expenses such as tuition, fees, books, supplies, room and board, uniforms, transportation, computer technology, equipment, and internet access.

The program is especially popular among black and Hispanic communities, groups most likely to experience chronic absenteeism. A recent poll found that 63 percent of Hispanics and 68 percent of blacks—groups most in need of choice—support a private option.

Thus far, 31 states have opted into the federal scholarship program, and two governors (in Minnesota and Wisconsin) have said their states won’t participate. The remaining states and the District of Columbia have not yet formally decided or announced their decisions.

In states without a private choice program, the best option for parents is to educate their children at home. In fact, homeschooling continued to grow across the United States during the 2024-2025 school year, with an average increase of 5.4 percent, nearly three times the pre-pandemic growth rate of about 2 percent.

Micro-schools, where classes typically have fewer than 15 students of varying ages and schedules, and curricula are tailored to each class’s needs, are growing in popularity and currently educate about 2 percent of the U.S. student population—roughly 750,000 students. Most micro-schools are independently run by parents, though some are part of a formal network that provides paid, in-person teachers. Lessons take place in various settings, including homes, libraries, community centers, etc.

Micro-schools today are less “micro” than they were, according to the latest analysis of the sector from the National Microschooling Center. In 2024, the median number of students in a typical micro-school was 16. That figure has since risen to 22, reflecting the increased experience of school operators, reports Don Soifer, the center’s CEO. However, some now serve as many as 100 students.

In sum, except in the case of declining birth rates, government-run schools are shedding students because many are not offering a worthy product.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 20:55

Russia Is Single-Handedly Standing Against The West: Putin

"It was they who carried out the coup d'etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes" - Putin in a fresh address to Russian service members came out swinging, giving a familiar lesson in recent history.

And quite provocatively, he emphasized that Russia is now practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict in the Friday remarks.

"Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly," Putin said, state media cited, and he noted that the 'special military operation' he ordered to stave off NATO encroachment is revealing itself to be "exceedingly high-tech."

via AP

"The NATO nations are all, without exception, ramping up efforts to do all they can to orchestrate actions against Russia," he added, sate media continued.

He stressed that Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, but that the Western allies and their hegemonic expansion and meddling did.

He perhaps for the first time acknowledged some pain inflicted on Russia due to Ukraine's long-range drone waves, which for months have been inflicting serious damage primarily on oil and energy sites:

Now, Western nations have set out to "inflict a strategic defeat on Russia," but "this is not something that can be done," Putin said.

"The enemy is expanding the use of [kamikaze] drones… trying to strike at our morale, trying to break up Russian society… and cause economic damage," he noted, stressing that "they will not succeed."

These drones have grown more long-range in their targeting and increasingly effective, as Russia's anti-air defense - which are set up primarily to intercept higher flying and faster inbound missiles or jets - seem powerless. 

Or rather, if Ukraine sends 100 drones on Russia on any given night, at least dozens are bound to make it through, the recent pattern has shown. But Putin also seems to be strongly suggesting that Western intelligence is assisting Ukraine's drone mayhem on the Russian populace.

Images have surfaced online showing what the military-industrial plant in Cheboksary looks like after being struck by a "Flamingo" drone. The photos show that anti-drone nets had been installed around the facility, but they ultimately failed to prevent the attack. pic.twitter.com/FSK9tP96V8

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) June 10, 2026

Earlier this month, the Putin-hosted St. Petersburg Economic Forum came under significant drone attack from Ukraine. Videos revealed that international dignitaries entered the venue against the backdrop of thick black smoke from drone hits on oil and other facilities.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 20:30

Welfare-Warfare State Reform Is Not Freedom

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

The libertarian movement can be divided into two basic groups: libertarians who call for reforming welfare-warfare state programs and libertarians who call for dismantling welfare-warfare state programs.

I fall within the latter group. Why? Because I want to be free. Reform doesn’t get me freedom. At best it gets me a better serfdom. That’s nice, but it’s not want I want for the rest of my life. I want to be free, and only by dismantling infringements on freedom can I attain genuine freedom.

Consider 19th-century slavery, for example. Imagine libertarian reformers in the state of Mississippi calling for slavery reform. They would say, “Slavery is here to stay. It’s in the Constitution. We have to strive for what we can get. We also need to gain the respect and credibility of the people of Mississippi. We won’t do that by being radical and calling for the end of slavery. We must settle for advocating slavery reforms, such as shorter working hours, fewer lashings, better food, improved working conditions, and a bit of education.”

Would the slaves have been happy with such reforms? Undoubtedly, because their slavery would have been improved. But there would have been one big problem with these reforms: They wouldn’t have meant freedom for the slaves. To achieve freedom would have necessitated a dismantling of slavery, not its reform. Thus, the dismantle-libertarians would be raising people’s vision to a higher level — one that showed the evil, immorality, and destructiveness of slavery itself.

The fact that calling for the dismantling of slavery wouldn’t have been a popular position among the people of Mississippi would have been considered irrelevant to dismantle-libertarians. What would have mattered to those libertarians was not what the general population felt about them but the fact that they would be advocating what was right.

The principle is no different with respect to the serfdom under which we live today.

Our way of life is not one of strict slavery, like that of 19th-century slavery. But it is quite similar in terms of the serfdom way of life under which we live.

Under our serfdom way of life, the federal government is our master, and we are its servants.

We work to support the federal government.

That is our mission in life under the welfare-warfare state political-economic system under which we have all been born and raised.

The government decides how much of our earnings we are permitted to keep, much as a parent decides how much of an allowance to give his children.

That’s what the federal income tax, which formed no part of American life for more than 100 years after the founding of the United States, is all about.

We live under a governmental system that requires us to share a part of our earnings with others.

That’s what Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidies, bailouts, and other welfare-state programs are all about. We are told that this mandated sharing shows what a good, caring, and compassionate people we are, even though no one is free to opt out.

We live under a governmental system that punishes us for consuming substances that the government says are harmful to us.

It serves as our daddy to make certain that we are taking care of ourselves. It sends us to our room if we disobey. The room is in a federal penitentiary..

We live under a governmental system that forces parents to subject their children to the state’s educational system, which can easily be described as army-lite. Here children’s minds are bent and molded into conformity, regimentation, deference to authority, and blind obedience to the ruler or to the government and its official narratives. It’s here that people are indoctrinated since early childhood into believing that their serfdom way of life is freedom.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

We live under a socialist (i.e., central-planning) immigration-control system that comes with a brutal immigration police state, which entails death, suffering, humiliation, and massive destruction of economic liberty, free markets, private property, civil liberties, and privacy.

We live under a national-state governmental system, one in which the military, the CIA, and the NSA wield omnipotent, totalitarian, and dictatorial powers, including assassination (i.e., murder), secret surveillance, seizures, kidnappings, torture, and incarceration for life — all without due process of law and trial by jury.

What do reform-libertarians say about this serfdom way of life?

They say, “The system needs reform.” And so they come up with all sorts of welfare-warfare state reforms to make the serfdom more palatable.

Some examples of libertarian welfare-warfare state reforms are: school vouchers, raising the Social Security retirement age, health-savings accounts, income-tax reduction and reining in the IRS, improved concentration camps for illegal immigrants who are being deported, ending civil-asset forfeiture, legalizing only marijuana, reducing military spending, limiting secret surveillance, reining in the CIA, limiting foreign interventionism to cases involving “national security,” and getting members of the “freedom movement” into public office to manage the welfare-warfare state and the regulatory departments and agencies.

Would such libertarian reforms be beneficial? Undoubtedly!

They would almost certainly improve our serfdom way of life, much like libertarian slavery reform would have improved the condition of 19th-century slaves.

But there is one great big problem with libertarian reform of the welfare-warfare state. It’s not freedom, any more than slavery reform would have meant freedom for the slaves.

In order to achieve freedom, it is necessary (1) to identify the infringements on freedom that are preventing people from being free, and then (2) dismantle, not reform, every single one of such infringements.

Is that an easy task? Of course not, especially when the vast majority of Americans are convinced that their serfdom way of life already constitutes freedom. (Goethe: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”)

But if freedom were easy, everyone in history would have had it.

Achieving freedom is extremely difficult. It requires a critical mass of people who have come to understand what genuine freedom is and have decided to do whatever they can to achieve freedom, rather than simply settle for a warmed-over, improved serfdom.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 20:05

"They All Believe That Taiwan's Part Of China", Former Reagan Advisor On Chinese Nationalism

Iran is dominating headlines, but Washington’s favorite bipartisan monster abroad is never too far from the sights of the hawks. Just days ago, and while the U.S. is fighting a war, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell scolded Marco Rubio for pausing a weapons shipment to Taiwan.

Last night, ZeroHedge hosted opposing think tankers to answer the question that DC likes to keep ambiguous: Should the U.S. defend Taiwan if China invades?

In the “no” corner was Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who once served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. Arguing “yes”, we should intervene, is the Heritage Foundation’s Steve Yates, a former deputy national security advisor to the Vice President Dick Cheney.

Below were the highlights for those who missed it:

Are We Prepared?

Bandow argued that the Taiwan debate often understates both the depth of Chinese nationalism and the possibility that a U.S.-China conflict could escalate beyond anyone's control. He said his interactions with Chinese students while teaching summer programs convinced him that the issue is not simply the ambition of Xi Jinping but a broadly shared belief that Taiwan is part of China.

"Chinese students are very nationalistic. They all believe that Taiwan's part of China. So this is a sentiment that is not just the folks in Zhang Nanhai. I mean, it's not just President Xi."

Bandow's central warning was that threatening war requires being prepared to follow through even if events spiral. He questioned whether the United States has fully grappled with the consequences of escalation, particularly if China began losing and faced attacks on mainland targets.

"If we're going to threaten to go to war, it's very hard to back down… If the Chinese find themselves losing, if the Chinese find that we are attacking mainland bases, what are they likely to do? They are likely to escalate… How do we control that?"

Bandow said Taiwan is "a wonderful place" but asked whether Americans are prepared to risk their own society (and life, civilization… really everything). The key question, according to him, is not whether Taiwan deserves sympathy, but whether the United States is prepared for what could become a full-scale war with another major nuclear power.

"Are we prepared to risk our own society?... We cannot assume it would turn out well… Are we prepared for a full-scale war?"

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— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 12, 2026

Fentanyl!

Yates said Beijing's role in the fentanyl crisis is not accidental, arguing that China's extensive surveillance apparatus makes it implausible that authorities are unaware of the scale of the trade flowing through Chinese manufacturers and financial networks.

"It's the world's most advanced surveillance state to the point where they literally will find images of Winnie the Pooh on Hong Kong protesters' phones… completely implausible that they can have illicit precursors manufactured at a scale sufficient to result in half a million American fatalities counted conservatively over ten years without them knowing."

The issue, he said, has been raised repeatedly at the highest levels of diplomacy and can no longer be dismissed as something that escaped Beijing's attention.

"It's not something that snuck up on them… There really is no ambiguity of where it's coming from and at what scale."

While Yates acknowledged he cannot prove that Chinese leaders explicitly intended to kill Americans, he argued that intent becomes harder to dismiss when the trade continues after years of warnings and mounting casualties.

"Did they say, 'I want to do this in order to have this effect?’ Maybe, maybe not. I don't think we'll ever get to know… But once it is in train and moving and three presidents have raised it and the casualty numbers reached what would be considered a weapon of mass destruction level, it's kind of hard to say that they have clean hands, or there's no intent to allow it to happen."

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— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 12, 2026

Full Debate

Watch the full debate below or listen on Spotify. 

https://t.co/SyvVxuu7Gt

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 19:40

The SPLC's Real Scam

Authored by David Harsanyi via The Epoch Times,

It turns out that the most generous funder of white supremacist groups in the United States was likely the Southern Poverty Law Center.

At least that’s what the Department of Justice’s superseding indictment against the SPLC alleges. The organization secretly paid informants to engage in the active promotion and funding of racist groups while denouncing and “fighting” the very same groups in public.

The SPLC purportedly created fictitious entities to hide funding from their donors.

The SPLC, for instance, is accused of bankrolling the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, paying a leader nearly $300,000 to post racist messages, organize and even transport people to the infamous Charlottesville protest, where one person was killed.

In another instance, a pair of white supremacists who approached the SPLC about leaving the Klan were encouraged to stay in the group and recruit new members.

Given salaries, the two men were allegedly reimbursed for the costs of their activities, including those “incurred for cross-burning events, to include the wood and fuel used.”

In the end, I’m not sure what the legal jeopardy there is in engaging in this brand of duplicitous activity, but it is without a doubt corrupt, fraudulent, immoral, and bad for the country.

Many people correctly point out that SPLC is merely interested in keeping white supremacist groups operational to justify its existence. White nationalists and identitarian groups have no genuine political power or support, so it makes sense that SPLC and other groups would prop them up for fundraising. The notion that Americans live in a nation of deep-seated systemic and cultural racism is a foundational belief of the American left. Having a bunch of cartoonishly racist groups running around the country not only perpetuates the myth but helps raise money.

But a far more vital objective of the SPLC is destroying the reputations of effective legitimate organizations that are involved in mainstream political debates that have absolutely nothing to do with racism or extremism.

The purpose of the “hate” maps and enemies’ lists compiled by SPLC isn’t to alert Americans about local skinheads, but to associate those skinheads with the American College of Pediatricians, Family Research Council, Ben Carson, Turning Point USA, American Family Association, and Moms for Liberty.

In 2016, for instance, the SPLC “Hate and Extremism” list added Alliance Defending Freedom, a highly effective legal organization that’s won multiple religious freedom cases in front of the Supreme Court. Oftentimes the ADF represents minority clients. Its most high-profile case involved Jack Phillips, the persecuted cake maker from Colorado whose First Amendment rights were stripped by the government. But the group also takes on cases regarding state funding for abortion or the biological males competing in girls’ sports.

You may disagree with ADF’s positions on those issues, but only an extremist progressive actually considers it a “hate” group worthy of inclusion on a list with “neo-confederates.” It’s not the pinhead “Neo Volkisch” that concerns the SPLC, it’s the impressive lawyer with the ADF.

By making their case to the press, these conservatives are wisely appealing to the SPLC’s most powerful source of influence.

Yet, the SPLC’s “hate list” has been treated as an authoritative source on extremism by virtually every legacy media outlet for years.

During the height of BLM protests and riots, The New York Times cited the SPLC as an unimpeachable authority on hate groups in hundreds of stories over a one-year span. The group was cited by the paper thousands of times over the previous decade. That’s a single media organization. From the mid-2010s through 2025, when the SPLC was sending millions to prop up the worst right-wing extremists in the country, virtually any story about rising extremism on NBC News featured the SPLC.

The question is, how can any reputable media outlet, much less a government agency, ever use the SPLC as a source again?

They’ll try.

Even now, outlets like the Associated Press refer to the SPLC as “civil rights” group.

The SPLC, formed in 1971 by civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama, hasn’t been fighting for the rights of African Americans for a long time. By the mid 1980s, the SPLC had already shifted away from the civil rights fight to rooting out “right-wing extremism.” In 1986, the entire legal staff, save founder Morris Dees (who was pushed out of the organization in 2019 after allegations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination), quit over the change.

The SPLC, probably superfluous when it was formed, has long been a shady left-wing activist group with a near-billion-dollar endowment. The new indictment only further confirms it was worse than we thought.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 19:15

India Set To Miss Budget Deficit Target As Oil Shock Strains Public Finances

Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

India may be on track to miss its target for budget deficit for the first time since 2021 as the oil supply shock pressures government coffers.

The government of the world’s third-largest crude oil importer is preparing to exceed its own deficit target from early this year as the Middle East crisis is testing the resilience of public finances amid soaring energy import bills, an Indian official with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg on Friday.

India may allow the budget deficit to widen to 4.8% of GDP for the current fiscal year ending March 2027, up from a 4.3% limit set in February, days before the Iran war broke out and broke the oil and gas markets.  

Still, India’s Finance Ministry has reassured the major credit rating agencies that the deterioration of the country’s fiscal position would be exclusively due to external pressures and the geopolitical situation, not because of changes to the fiscal policy, the official told Bloomberg.

India is scrambling to contain the economic and financial impact of the worst oil supply disruption in history as analysts say the high oil prices would continue to weigh on the Indian currency, economic growth, and public finances as long as supply is choked at the Strait of Hormuz.

India, which imports more than 85% of the oil it consumes, received about half of all its imports from the Middle East before the war. Now, state-owned and private refiners are looking to diversify imports, including by taking in record volumes of Russian oil, and turning to Venezuela and Brazil for additional crude to offset the lost Middle Eastern supply.

The major crude importer has seen its growth prospects diminished as its high import dependence and the high price refiners pay weigh on inflation and GDP growth.  

India’s economy remains resilient to the external shocks, but the oil price surge poses near-term downside risks to economic growth and upside risks to inflation, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said at the end of May.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/12/2026 - 18:25