Individual Economists

Crazy Footage Shows Migrants Rampaging, Breaking Into Homes After Invading Spain

Zero Hedge -

Crazy Footage Shows Migrants Rampaging, Breaking Into Homes After Invading Spain

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Nearly 50,000 military-aged men stormed the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco in a single day. What followed was not "asylum-seeking." It was open looting, home invasions, vehicle burnings, and street chaos while Spanish authorities largely stood aside.

Spain's socialist government under Pedro Sánchez had already rolled out mass regularisation schemes and refused to treat the border as a national emergency.

The result played out in real time across the North African territories that form the European Union's only land borders with Africa.

Estimates from Spain's Interior Ministry and local sources put the number who crossed into Ceuta alone at around 49,000 in 24 hours - roughly equivalent to the U.S. troop presence in the Middle East.

Ceuta's president Juan Jesús Vivas described the situation as "absolutely unsustainable" and a "total humanitarian and social emergency," noting reception centres were already saturated and more than 200 arrivals a day had become routine in the preceding period.

Reports have also suggested that the influx was so severe that at least 19 to 34 migrants died in the waters or in stampedes at the Tarajal breakwater.

Footage from the ground shows columns of young men pouring through streets, scaling fences, and swimming around coastal barriers.

In Melilla the scenes turned violent just as quickly. Migrants set vehicles ablaze after breaching the border fence.

There is obviously no processing of these arrivals and no where for them to go. Further videos captured groups breaking into residential buildings, looting stores, and occupying private property.

Some clips show African migrants forcing entry into Spanish homes in Ceuta while residents look on helplessly.

News footage highlighted crowds of military aged migrant men surrounding a Spanish woman who was visibly distressed as the men laughed and closed in around her - an image that has circulated widely as a symbol of the total collapse of order.

Local residents did not simply accept the invasion. In Ceuta, Spanish patriots took to the streets themselves to protect their neighbourhoods and homes when official forces proved insufficient.

Groups of men formed ad-hoc patrols, confronting the influx directly.

The Spanish response was a deployment of roughly 100 to 150 military personnel and additional police.

Orders, according to on-the-ground reports, were to hold position rather than aggressively close the border or remove the entrants.

Armoured vehicles appeared, yet the fence remained open in places and the flow continued through the night.

One reporter on the scene at 4:30 a.m. described 100 people crossing every minute while the military presence did little to stem it.

The scale and coordination point beyond spontaneous movement. Moroccan authorities were filmed emptying trucks full of young men near the Ceuta border.

Separate videos show convoys of trucks and buses ferrying thousands toward the frontier from towns an hour away.

Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members openly shared routes, maps, equipment lists, and contact numbers, framing the crossing as a "liberation."

One widely shared clip asks the obvious questions: who feeds them, who sets the date and route, and who benefits?

Observers have noted the timing - coming after a Spanish Supreme Court ruling that limited immediate pushbacks for sea arrivals and against the backdrop of long-running territorial disputes over the enclaves.

Some speculate Morocco is testing Spain's resolve or seeking leverage. One analysis framed the surge as a potential path to forcing Spanish evacuation of the territories it has held for centuries.

By Friday morning a curious reverse movement also appeared. Hundreds of the same men began heading back toward Morocco on their own, citing hunger and the fact that the city was largely shut down.

"We are hungry, we are going home," some said on camera.

The political fallout has already crossed the Mediterranean. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the images from Ceuta proof that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to Europe's borders and said Italy was prepared to take extraordinary measures, including suspension of Schengen with Spain.

Matteo Salvini demanded the same.

In France, Marine Le Pen insisted on immediate reinforcement of border controls and, if she wins power, restriction of free movement to EU nationals only.

Marion Maréchal described the events as a genuine migrant invasion that requires ending the current Schengen framework.

Finland, Sweden and Denmark also announced Support for the move.

Some think it's too little too late, however.

Sánchez's government has spoken of "solutions" and "cooperation" while deploying limited forces and rejecting a formal national emergency declaration.

The footage from Ceuta and Melilla shows what that approach produces: overwhelmed police, residents forced to defend their own streets, homes occupied, and a clear message to the next wave that the door remains open.

Europe's external border has been tested in the most public way possible. The question now is whether any government still willing to enforce it remains.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 07:00

10 Weekend Reads

The Big Picture -

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:

• How Bots Took Over Our Lives: The New Yorker on the quiet colonization of daily life by automated agents — customer service, social media, dating, commerce. The bots aren’t coming; they’re here, and we barely noticed. During the 2016 election, much of the country was introduced to the concept of internet bots for the first time. Now, just a decade later, it feels like they’re everywhere. (New Yorker)

• Dear Ben I want to begin by apologizing for the thing I am about to do, which is to write you a nonfiction essay explaining why I no longer wish to write nonfiction essays, a maneuver so self-defeating that I can already feel the irony tightening around my ankles like a fishing line attached to a rod in my own hands. Panoptica’s open letter — a pointed piece of criticism addressed to its subject with the directness the format allows. (Panoptica)

• Department of Cerberus: Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg wants America’s war machine to get cozier with companies. The private equity firm he co-founded is building a constellation of next-generation businesses to answer the call. (Businessweek)

• The New Premium Product: Books Written by People: Some publishers think AI could not only help authors but replace them. The Financial Times on the emerging market premium for human-authored books in an era of AI-generated content. Authenticity is becoming a luxury good. (Financial Times)

• how to enter side doors: a field guide to jobs, cold emails, and making yourself legible to the right people. Velvet Noise on the art of the unconventional path — the opportunities that never get posted, the rooms you enter through relationships rather than applications. (velvet noise)

• The Cash Machine: Mispriced Assets on the companies that generate so much free cash flow they’ve become perpetual motion machines — and whether the market is correctly pricing that durability. A baseball team’s television network, a retiree’s annuity, and the label that tells you they have nothing to do with each other (Mispriced Assets)

• Why Sony Can’t Bring Back Its Classic Walkman Models (as Explained by a former Sony engineer). The supply chains, components, and manufacturing processes that made the original Walkman possible no longer exist. You can’t resurrect a product when the ecosystem that built it is gone. (Obsolete Sony’s Newsletter)

• Curing Concrete: Concrete makes up half of all human-made stuff on our planet. And its use will double, in part to battle climate threats created by the production of concrete itself. Industry can deliver cleaner versions, but how soon? The answer might lie with four Indonesians from a tiny, disappearing island. (Bloomberg)

• What the Crackup of the Heritage Foundation Says About the Post-Trump Right: The bastion of American conservatism best known for Project 2025 has been consumed by an ideological — and generational — civil war. The Heritage Foundation currently finds itself engulfed in an internal struggle that mirrors the one roiling the Republican Party: how to harness the energy unleashed by Trumpism without being completely overrun by its conspiracy- and nativist-minded elements, particularly among the rising generation that has known little else. The New York Times Magazine on the civil war inside the conservative movement’s flagship institution — and what the fight reveals about what comes after Trump. The bastion of American conservatism best known for Project 2025 has been consumed by an ideological — and generational — civil war. (New York Times Magazine)

• Fish Bad, Sugar Good… And Other Medieval Ideas About Food: Literary Hub on medieval dietary science — the humoral theory that made sugar a health food and fish a danger, and what it says about how nutritional consensus forms. And Other Medieval Ideas About Food (Literary Hub)

Video of the day: Why Miami No Longer Pays Off

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Som Seif Purpose Investments, founder/CEO, Toronto-based asset manager launched in 2012. He grew his first firm, Claymore Investments to $8B in assets by creating 34 ETFs over 6 years, establishing it as Canada’s leader in low-cost exchange-traded funds; he sold to BlackRock in 2012. Next, he co-founded Wealthsimple, which became the default investing app for a generation of Canadians. His wealth management firm, Purpose, was founded at the end of 2012, and manages>$31B in ETFs, mutual funds, alternatives, private assets, and digital assets. Som was named to Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2011.

 

All US Cities Which Used to Have More Than 100,000 People But Don’t Anymore

Source: Reddit

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

 

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

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

Zero Hedge -

Chaos Agent: Anthony Fauci Represents A System That Needs To Be Cleansed

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

I think nothing enrages Americans more than a lack of accountability from government officials. Yes, it happens often, and the public hasn’t taken up torches and pitchforks (yet), but I would point out that these incidents are cumulative and they light a growing fire within the collective memory. Eventually, people are going to snap if they don’t see action taken to rectify past wrongs.

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci faced a flurry of questions from the Senate Homeland Security Committee over his handling of the covid response as well as his involvement in the gain of function research which likely led to the creation of the viral variant that spread around the world and nearly triggered a permanent Orwellian police state.

Fauci pleaded the Fifth over 100 times.  It’s not a sign of confidence in his own innocence.

He knows he’s untouchable legally, but I think what the man fears most is public judgment, and he’s not going to offer any confirmation that conservatives and the alternative media were right about him all along.  Unfortunately, even with substantial evidence, there is very little that any congressional committee or even the Trump Administration can do about him.

Fauci is well protected, and not just by the sweeping pardon “signed” by Joe Biden which covers the Doctor back to 2014. No, Fauci is also protected by the system – The bureaucracy and the globalist network of which he is a member.  Fauci is a chaos agent and he served his purpose well. They’re not going to let him face punishment.  If they did, then they might find it harder to procure the cooperation and loyalty of other bureaucrats in future schemes.

There are a lot of commentators out there right now who are agitated by the idea that Fauci might escape penalties for his crimes, but I have to ask, what did they expect? Did they think that Biden’s pardon would simply be ignored?

It’s fascinating to me that so many folks in the alternative media and conservative movements tend to attack Trump every time he takes any action that might remotely bend constitutional rules. They warn with suspicion that he’s “becoming a dictator.” Then, those same people will froth cynically and blackpill when Trump doesn’t act like a dictator when it comes to their pet issues.

It’s rather hypocritical. It would be smarter to admit that Trump’s powers are limited, largely by the same bureaucracy that’s protecting Anthony Fauci. It’s the bureaucracy which constantly interferes with migrant deportations. The same bureaucracy that’s preventing the SAVE Act from being passed. The same system that censored us for years because we dared to share the truth.

Fauci is a prime example of the perversions of that system and why it needs to be cleansed, but he’s also just a symptom of a greater disease. Making an example out of him would be a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t solve the greater problem.  People need to stop waiting around for Trump to unilaterally “take down the deep state.”  He’s not in a position to do so.

For those who might have forgotten what really happened, at the start of 2020 the world was on the verge of a massive globalist coup, facilitated by hysteria surrounding the pandemic. By early 2020 I had written several articles covering the potential for a pandemic event being used by the establishment as a rationale for wider lockdowns of the population.

At this time, it was not clear if the coronavirus in Wuhan, China involved a microbe that was truly deadly, or if the threat was overblown. It didn’t really matter, the end game was the same. The goal, in my view, was to create enough fear and chaos to trigger an economic crisis and expedite a medical dictatorship. Once Joe Biden entered the White House, they nearly succeeded.

At the end of January 2020 I published an article titled ‘How Viral Pandemic Benefits The Globalist Agenda’. In that piece I noted:

“First, the notion that it [covid] was caused by Chinese citizens ‘eating bats’ or being exposed to a live animal market is rather ridiculous. We’ve seen NO hard evidence whatsoever that this is true, and I believe the narrative is a cover for the fact that the city of Wuhan where the virus outbreak began is the home of not one but TWO level 4 biohazard labs.

I have a hard time ignoring the strange ‘coincidence’ of the high level biohazard labs in Wuhan in favor of the idea that the virus was launched by chance due to the odd diets of central Chinese people. Given the evidence it appears that the coronavirus was gestated in a lab, not in someone’s bat and snake soup. In 2017, scientists outside of China warned that these labs were not secure and that a virus might escape one of the facilities.”

I argued that the outbreak might be a controlled incident or a false flag. I noted the strange coincidence of “Event 201” disaster simulation held by the Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum only a couple months before the covid pandemic officially began. The simulation involved the international outbreak of a deadly coronavirus.

A few other media outlets came to the same conclusions I did in those early days, including Zero Hedge and the Washington Times. Zero Hedge was ultimately banned from social media (including Twitter), for the position. The Washington Times was pressured to backtrack on portions of their investigation. My website was essentially shadow-banned from search engines like Google.

The media attacked us relentlessly as a “threat to national safety”. They called the idea of a lab leak “baseless conspiracy theory” while citing Dr. Fauci as one of “the most trusted officials in America” when it came to pandemic information (apparently, he was absolutely giddy over his deification by mainstream news platforms).

Six years later we have all been vindicated in our analysis of the pandemic and the abuse of power that it enabled. This week, we have been treated to the release of 1141 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s professional “diaries”, which cover a period from December of 2019 to December of 2022. These diaries confirm everything we suspected at the beginning of the event.

Fauci was deeply embedded in the government’s policy apparatus; he was the go-to adviser for the White House and a primary media representative. He had direct influence over government decisions to enact lockdowns, mandates and vaccine campaigns.  He was also tied to the lab experimentation that (allegedly) led to the creation of the virus in question. In other words, Fauci acted as a primary gatekeeper for the chaos, from inception to solution. From end to end.

I continue to believe (according to the behavior and white papers of globalist organizations) that covid was intended to kill far more people than it ended up killing. The initial estimations by groups like the World Health Organization put the death rate at around 3% and a number of news outlets repeated this data point. I think this was the death rate they expected, but not the death rate they eventually got.

The real Infection Fatality Rate ended up being closer to 0.23% on average. Meaning, the world was shut down over a virus that 99.8% of people would easily survive. This fact was greatly suppressed by the media, by politicians and by bureaucrats like Fauci.  As far as I can tell, Fauci never addressed this data publicly; it was too inconvenient to the fear narrative.

Any mention of the virus being engineered was eventually silenced. Fauci knew of this censorship and often encouraged it in the name of “fighting misinformation”. According to his diaries, he steered the science away from the lab leak theory even though a majority of virologists broached the idea as likely.  Fauci helped organize and participated in discussions that led to the influential “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper (published in Nature Medicine in March 2020). That paper concluded that a laboratory-based scenario was not plausible and strongly favored natural spillover.

After considerable push-back, Fauci would later claim that he was open to wider investigations into covid origins.  But, at the height of the pandemic fervor it was Fauci who consistently labeled these avenues of research as “conspiracy theory”. It was Fauci who poisoned the well.  But why was he so obsessed with eliminating the lab leak theory from discussion?

The NIH funded an EcoHealth Alliance grant, providing an award of roughly $600,000 to the Wuhan lab for bat coronavirus research. Some of that work involved creating chimeric viruses and testing them in humanized mice or human cells. A GOA review of federal funding to Chinese agencies from 2014-2021 found at least $1.4 million had been transferred to the Wuhan Lab during that time.

In 2024 congressional testimony, Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak acknowledged that the NIH funded this research at Wuhan through EcoHealth. He also admitted that the research met a “generic” definition of gain-of-function. This was a complete contradiction of Fauci’s ongoing denials.

The experiments to enhance viruses for human spread were pursued under a little-known loophole in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). As long as the research was meant to develop “solutions or treatments” for the potential spread of manipulated viruses, gain of function experimentation was technically legal.  Fauci’s behavior suggests he was covering his tracks on gain of function and the chance that the NIH program was ground zero.

Currently, US national intelligence agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Energy and multiple foreign intel agencies say they believe the Wuhan lab leak theory is probable (i.e. NOT conspiracy theory).

Fauci might have set the powder keg in place. He might have even lit the fuse. However, the ultimate institutional surge to exploit the crisis required a level of organization much bigger than Fauci. I would look to the Gates Foundation, the WEF, the WHO, as well as influential figures at the Imperial College London, etc. for the top of the pyramid when it comes to the medical tyranny side of things.

In the meantime, the good doctor deserves a lifetime in prison (or execution) for his participation in the coup. Will he get it? Not at the hands of any government, I suspect. Like I said, the bureaucracy is the government BEHIND the government. It is a faceless leviathan that defies transparency. It’s the fail-safe in the event that political leadership grows a conscience. The public can vote out politicians, but we can’t vote out the bureaucracy.

If Trump or the Senate or anyone else attempts to prosecute Fauci, the legal infrastructure overrun by activist judges will protect him. This is a fact. This is how the elites maintain a certain level of control and prevent any real reformation or reckoning.

There are plenty of political leaders in the US that fought back against the mandates (nearly half of all states blocked the restrictions). They helped us win the battle and it’s important to give credit where credit is due. That said, these people can only do so much. They are bound by the rules of the system and the system is designed to safeguard the corrupt.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 23:25

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

Zero Hedge -

Wichita Man Sues City To Rip Out Its 200-Camera Flock Dragnet

A Wichita machinist, Mason Grimmett, sued his own city this week, arguing that the roughly 200 Flock license-plate readers the police department has bolted around town amount to warrantless dragnet surveillance forbidden by the Kansas Constitution. The complaint, filed in Sedgwick County District Court by the Kansas Justice Institute, does not ask for money - rather, it asks a judge to declare the program unconstitutional and shut it down.

The cameras are made by Flock Safety, one of the largest plate-reader vendors in the country, and Wichita started installing them in 2020. The institute now describes the city as saturated with them - close to 200 AI-powered cameras photographing every passing vehicle and logging its make, model, color, plate, and identifying marks into a searchable database. Grimmett, a lifelong Wichita resident who testified against the program at a public meeting in June, argues that the system violates Section 15 of the state constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that the city is, in the complaint's language, tracking and databasing law-abiding Kansans "without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion" and without any judicial oversight at all.

The Cops Who Already Abused It

Grimmett points to several local cases in which Kansas police used Flock cameras to stalk people, including abuse by former Kechi Police Lt. Victor Heiar, who was sentenced to eighteen months of probation for using Flock cameras to track a woman. According to local reports, a former detective was also accused of using plate-reader technology to stalk his wife, and a Sedgwick-area police chief reportedly ran an ex-girlfriend through the cameras 164 times. The institute is not disputing that the cameras help solve crimes. Its point is that they photograph everyone, all the time, and that the same access which cracks a burglary case also lets a jealous cop follow whoever he pleases.

"This is America, and we don't tolerate warrantless surveillance," said Sam MacRoberts, the institute's litigation director, who says that if the government wants to monitor a citizen it ought to go to a judge and explain why. Grimmett says he cannot drive to work, the gym, a doctor's appointment, a polling place, or a meeting of the local Sunflower Privacy Alliance without being catalogued by the department and by Flock.

Part Of A Widening Front

Lawsuits over Flock cameras are starting to stack up. In April, three San Jose residents filed a class action over that city's nearly 500 cameras. In February, a separate class action in San Francisco accused Flock of sharing plate-reader data with ICE, CBP, the FBI, and ATF in violation of California's ALPR Privacy Act, the sort of out-of-jurisdiction access that keeps surfacing in audits elsewhere and that has already pushed at least one California city to suspend its cameras pending review. The pushback has reached Congress, too, where a cluster of Republican bills - Rep. Thomas Massie's move to withhold federal funds from any city running the cameras, and Rep. Tim Burchett's Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act, which names Flock explicitly - now takes aim at the government-contract model the company runs on. Wichita's department has previously described its own program as self-auditing, and the city had not filed a response to Grimmett's suit as of Friday.

None of this will surprise regular readers who have watched the license-plate-reader map fill in city by city while the contracts governing who can query the data stayed conveniently vague. Grimmett, meanwhile, is betting that a state constitution's search-and-seizure clause is the faster route to pulling the cameras down, and a ruling in his favor would hand every other saturated Flock city a template...

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 23:00

'Genetically Altered' Nuclear Monster Sharks Could Be Eating Whales

Zero Hedge -

'Genetically Altered' Nuclear Monster Sharks Could Be Eating Whales

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A mysterious predator has been tearing into whales, seals, and giant tuna off the New York coast, leaving bite marks the size of dinner plates and sparking theories of a radioactive "Sharkzilla" spawned by decades of government nuclear waste dumping.

Because nothing says summer 2026 like the possibility that Cold War bureaucrats cooked up a genetically enhanced killing machine in the Atlantic.

Montauk is once again ground zero for monster shark drama. A humpback whale turned up with a 24-inch bite wound. A gray seal took a 22-inch chomp. A 400-pound tuna was found shredded.

Local shark scientist Craig O'Connell, the Montauk-based marine biologist who's appeared in more than 40 Shark Week programs, launched an investigation in September 2025 and pointed the finger at the Hudson Canyon, a vast underwater gorge about 100 miles offshore that drops from 900 feet to 4,000 feet.

The canyon has a dirty little history. In the late 1960s, the U.S. government dumped 15,000 barrels of nuclear waste into those depths. Ten years later the barrels were found leaking. O'Connell floated the idea that radiation could have triggered genetic mutations in the local predators.

"Radioactive leaks could be impacting wildlife, even top predators," he said. "If animals are subjected to nuclear waste, this could cause genetic mutations and abnormal growth. If this predator is genetically altered, it could be faster, stronger and deadlier than any predator on Earth. We are calling it Sharkzilla."

O'Connell and his team had just 30 hours before a storm to lure, tag, and sample the beast. They dropped baited cameras into the twilight zone more than 600 feet down.

A massive great white lunged at the lens. Then makos appeared - fast, solitary hunters capable of more than 40 mph. Two of them showed up together, then vanished, as if something larger had spooked them. An enormous shadow cruised past and disappeared.

The crew deployed a decoy dolphin named Hudson stuffed with tuna and a homemade "blubber blaster" designed to mimic a rupturing whale carcass. As the light faded, a nearly 12-foot female mako charged the boat.

"This is Sharkzilla," O'Connell shouted.

He swam outside the cage, tagged her on the second attempt, and collected a tissue sample. Tracker signals showed her heading in the same direction as the earlier attacks. Lab tests later found zero evidence of radioactive contamination.

What they actually found was a pregnant mako using the waters as a breeding ground, hunting hard to feed her developing pups. The big females had returned to an area once famous for monster sharks until overfishing wiped them out.

"In the past, this is the place you came to catch monster sharks," O'Connell said.

He added, "There are so many records right here off the shores of Montauk. All these monster sharks were completely fished out. They're gone. But all the evidence we are seeing is telling me that all these big sharks might be back. I know those big sharks are out there, and we are going to find them."

The episode, Sharkzilla Takes New York, airs tonight on Discovery Channel as part of Shark Week 2026. O'Connell later called the encounters "mind-blowing" and noted the mako "exhibited the most threatening posture... All you'd see were teeth."

He also admitted the nuclear idea was speculative: "Could it have created giant sharks? People will have to watch and find out. But it's possible."

So likely no glowing, multi-eyed, radiation-spawned abomination is currently snacking on Long Island's marine megafauna. Just a very large, very hungry, very pregnant mako doing what apex predators do.

The real story is the government once thought it was fine to sink thousands of barrels of nuclear waste into a canyon that feeds the East Coast food chain, then left the mess to leak. Nature, as usual, is more resilient than the bureaucrats who polluted it.

America's waters are still full of surprises. Some of them have very big teeth. And some of the biggest problems were dumped there by the same people who now lecture everyone else about the environment.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 22:35

Unitree IPO Finally Puts A Real Price On Profitable Humanoid Robots

Zero Hedge -

Unitree IPO Finally Puts A Real Price On Profitable Humanoid Robots

Chinese robotics maker Unitree formally launched its IPO on Shanghai's STAR Market on Thursday, opening the books on a deal that aims to raise about 4.2 billion yuan (roughly $618 million) at an implied valuation near 42 billion yuan ($5.9 billion). Once the shares start trading, the listing will put a real, daily market price on a profitable humanoid-robot maker operating at scale - the first the sector has had.

Until now, humanoid robotics companies have been raising capital based on numbers nobody could really challenge since nobody has had to actually clear a market. So far we have Figure AI sitting on a $39 billion private valuation, and a clutch of Chinese rivals each pushing past $3 billion in the primary market. A public listing swaps the euphoria of those private rounds for the discipline of a secondary one. Regulators approved the registration in early July after a review that took roughly 104 days from acceptance, one of the fastest STAR Market clearances on record. Observers have linked the speed directly to Beijing's push to channel capital toward strategic robotics and AI champions. That said, Unitree has been designated a Chinese military company in the US, and Washington is weighing action against subsidized Chinese robotics imports even as the machines turn up for sale on Amazon.

A Rare Profitable Name in a Sea of Losses

Unitree makes an unusually clean test case because unlike most of its peers, it actually turns a profit. The company reported 2025 revenue of about 1.7 billion yuan and adjusted profit around 591 million yuan - a net margin north of 35 percent that, in a field defined by cash burn, is close to an anomaly. It shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year, more than any other company globally, alongside cumulative quadruped sales above 33,000 units. Overseas revenue has consistently run past 40 percent of the total. Founder and chief executive Wang Xingxing controls roughly a third of the business. The prospectus earmarks the proceeds for robot "brains" and model research, robot bodies, new products, and a manufacturing base.

The rest of the field looks nothing like it. UBTech, which is pursuing its own A-share listing, has put its Walker S humanoid through more than 50,000 hours of training on BYD production lines but keeps running losses. It just launched a consumer-grade bionic robot priced as high as 990,000 yuan (about $146,000) in a bid to crack the home market. Overseas, Tesla's Optimus is slated to reach mass production this year. Every player in the space has a demo reel and a private valuation nobody has to defend. Unitree is about to have a share price that trades every day and settles the argument in public.

Whatever Unitree prints when it debuts becomes the benchmark for the entire "embodied intelligence" trade.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 22:10

Trump Defends Anti-Weaponization Fund But Admits It's Effectively 'Dead'

Zero Hedge -

Trump Defends Anti-Weaponization Fund But Admits It's Effectively 'Dead'

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Friday said that he still wants compensation for people he said were victimized by a weaponized federal government while acknowledging that a planned $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund is “dead” after the Department of Justice walked it back amid congressional opposition and court rulings.

“It is dead,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Friday.

“But I wish it weren’t, to be honest with you. I think people were horribly treated, horribly abused … and I’d like to see them compensated for their pain.

“Their families have been ruined. Many, many suicides—they’ve committed suicide,” he also said in the meeting, which was held at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

“People that were very successful, that wanted to go to a rally or an event and ended up spending the rest of their lives in horror.

“And this fund, this fund was not for me,” he said.

“This fund was for those people.”

Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced the fund as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit where Trump had sued the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide money for individuals who claimed to have been targeted by “weaponization and lawfare” under the previous administration. Trump’s lawsuit with the IRS was over a leak of his tax returns.

The fund, however, was met with legal setbacks as a federal judge blocked it from going into effect. That block was extended in mid-June.

Plaintiffs who sued to block the payouts argue that the government can’t legally divert taxpayer money into what they alleged was a slush fund for compensating Trump’s allies.

Also in June, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Congress that the government is scrapping its plans for the fund in the face of a bipartisan backlash, and government attorneys have argued that lawsuits challenging the fund are now moot.

During a House hearing on June 2, Blanche said, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.”

“Not moving forward ever?” asked Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.).

“Correct,” Blanche answered.

Earlier on Friday, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that the fund was meant to defend “the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed” by the Biden administration.

The president added that regarding the alleged victims, “perhaps there has never been a group of people treated so badly in our Nation’s history.”

“They are suffering still, many ruined, and I felt that they should be given compensation for what has been done to them,” he said, adding that Blanche should also be approved as attorney general by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Friday’s meeting is the first televised Cabinet session ever conducted at Camp David. The Trump administration previously attempted to hold the meeting in May, but it was scrapped due to bad weather.

During his first term in office, Trump held a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat that was closed to the press.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 21:45

The Strange Reason Scientists Still Need Pre-1945 Steel

Zero Hedge -

The Strange Reason Scientists Still Need Pre-1945 Steel

The world's most sensitive radiation detectors sometimes rely on low background steel produced before the first atomic bomb test in July 1945, according to a new report from SpaceDaily.

Steel manufactured before the nuclear age lacks the tiny traces of radioactive fallout that atmospheric weapons testing later introduced into the environment, making it valuable for experiments searching for extraordinarily rare particles and faint radiation signals.

The report says that this gave rise to the popular story that scientists depend on steel salvaged from pre war shipwrecks resting on the ocean floor. While there is some truth to that, the claim has been greatly exaggerated. Some laboratories have indeed used steel from old warships for shielding, but it is not true that nearly every sensitive detector depends on sunken ships or that science faces a crisis as this supply disappears.

The reason low background steel matters is that, in cutting edge physics experiments, even the detector's own walls can generate enough background radiation to interfere with measurements. Facilities searching for dark matter, rare nuclear decays, or other elusive phenomena go to extraordinary lengths to eliminate every possible source of interference, often operating deep underground and surrounding detectors with multiple layers of carefully selected shielding materials.

Today, researchers no longer rely exclusively on pre 1945 steel. Advances in metallurgy allow laboratories to manufacture and rigorously screen modern stainless steel, titanium, copper, and other materials with extremely low levels of radioactivity. In many cases, these newly produced metals perform just as well as their pre war counterparts, making the finite supply of old ship steel far less important than popular accounts suggest.

The enduring lesson is not that modern science depends on scavenging sunken fleets, but that the atomic age permanently changed the way physicists design their experiments.

When scientists are trying to detect just a handful of events over the course of an entire year, even the manufacturing history of the steel surrounding an experiment can make the difference between finding a signal and measuring nothing but noise.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 21:20

Trust In Higher Education Hits Another Low As The Public Rejects Institutional Bias

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Trust In Higher Education Hits Another Low As The Public Rejects Institutional Bias

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

According to the latest Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education. One of the Gallup experts told Fox News that one of the key reasons for the continued slide in public trust is "the perception that there's a political agenda being taught." That perception is well documented after most departments purged their ranks of any republican, conservative, or libertarian faculty members. At the same time, many faculty oppose the long-standing principle of institutional neutrality for universities, the subject of a recent debate that I had with the President of the American Association of University Professors.

Gallup's expert added that there is also a view that we are "not teaching people the right kinds of things they need to succeed in the job once they finish."

As I have previously written, this generation of administrators and faculty has destroyed not just public trust in our institutions but their financial viability. Colleges are closing at an alarming rate as both tuition and revenue fall. Yet, faculty members would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias in hiring and teaching.

According to Gallup, roughly a third of polled individuals cited partisan bias or indoctrination on college campuses. Bias was the leading reason for given for the lack of trust, ahead of tuition costs. That is a large chunk of potential applicants and their families. Worse yet, they are not wrong.

Our campuses have been ideological echo chambers where collective orthodoxy is more prominent than academic inquiry. This group think has created an overtly hostile environment for more than half of this country that consider themselves conservatives or libertarians. As schools struggle to maintain financial stability, they are literally cutting away half of their potential applicant pool.

Currently, only 37% of Americans report having "some" confidence in the institution. In any other industry or area, that record of alienation and mistrust would prompt massive changes in management. In higher education, however, colleges and universities remain captive to administrators and faculty members who replicate their views and values to the exclusion of many others.

The result is evident in multiple surveys which reveal widespread self-censorship among students, particularly conservative students. When I confronted a Harvard Law professor in a debate at Harvard Law School with those surveys, he responded by calling these students "conservative snowflakes."

It did not matter that only a third of Harvard students felt comfortable expressing their views in classes or on campus. Since Harvard has also shown the same bias in admissions, only roughly nine percent of the students identify as conservative. Thus, the vast majority of the students who are saying that they self-censor are liberals. This is the environment that the current generation of administrators and faculty have created.

As I have previously written, parents and students who value free speech must increasingly look to public universities where faculty are subject to constitutional guarantees. Public universities may be the final line of defense for free-speech advocates.

We now largely have two systems of higher education for those seeking education with a diversity of opinions and viewpoints. Except for outliers like the University of Chicago and other private universities holding the line on free speech, the orthodoxy found at private universities remains a barrier to many conservative and independent thinkers.

If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members continue to take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to continue funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state.

If faculty members want to continue maintaining echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should have to seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.

Legislatures can demand evidence that schools are maintaining intellectually diverse faculties in determining the level of continued support from citizens.

When some of us have argued for such campaigns, academics hypocritically claim that we are calling for political litmus tests or hiring based on political parties. It is an absurd argument that I have previously addressed, including in my book "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage."

The call is for donors and legislators to withhold funding until they see real reforms, including greater diversity on faculties. They are not directing the hiring but looking at the results. The faculty members objecting to such calls have watched passively (or actively supported) the purging of conservative or libertarian faculty from universities and colleges.

When confronted by their own obvious ideological litmus tests, they shrug. Some acknowledge that their departments are overwhelmingly liberal, but insist that they just cannot find "competent" or "intellectually promising" conservatives. A few will admit that they do not believe that conservative views have a place in their departments.

It is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber. If a large corporation effectively eliminated women or minorities while claiming no conscious discrimination, they would be trounced in court.

For years, I have raised concerns about the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculty members replicate their own views and values. There is no evidence that any faculty members (including those acknowledging the loss of virtually all faculty from the right of center) are honestly willing to reform their schools.

That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many facing rising tuition costs and relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.

A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools - almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.

We are watching the demise of American higher education by its own hand. It will be up to legislators and donors to save these institutions from themselves.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:55

US Withdraws Troops, Patriot Batteries From Northern Iraq Amid Iranian Attacks

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US Withdraws Troops, Patriot Batteries From Northern Iraq Amid Iranian Attacks

There are new reports Friday of more US troop pullback initiatives in the wake of the last couple weeks of US-Iran fighting, and Iranian ballistic missile and drone strikes which have targeted American bases with increased regularity, especially in Jordan and Kuwait.

One regional media publication freshly reports, "The United States military has started to draw down its last remaining forces from Iraq stationed in the vicinity of Erbil's airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, well-placed sources with close knowledge of the process confirmed to Al-Monitor."

via AP

Significant US anti-air defenses are also being pulled back, given they and their radar systems have increasingly been targeted.

"Patriot mobile air-to-surface air-defense systems that detect and shoot down incoming missiles, drones and other airborne enemy equipment have already been removed from the military compound, the sources said, without providing further details," Al Monitor continues.

The pullback from the Iraqi Kurdistan region reportedly began last week and is still in progress, given all the heavy equipment has to be pulled out.

The missile batteries are expected to be 'redeployed' - but this could be further away from within the vicinity of Iran and the Persian Gulf, such as in Israel. Al Monitor notes:

Regional officials described the pullout as routine and in line with the US commitment to withdraw all its forces from Iraq by a Sept. 30 deadline that was agreed with Baghdad.

However, coming amid sustained attacks by Iran and its Shiite proxy militias, and on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in particular, the withdrawal has left the Kurds feeling badly exposed.

It's not just Iran which has targeted US personnel and assets in Iraq, but Iraqi Shia paramilitary units have at times targeted Erbil facilities going back years:

While the Patriot systems were deployed to protect US forces, the Kurds have benefited immensely from the security umbrella as well. Erbil's airport has come under constant attack from Iran and Iran-backed militias since the start of the Iran conflict in February, including this week. US interceptors successfully deterred at least 95% of those attacks, the sources said.

The bulk of Iranian and militia attacks have targeted armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in the Kurdistan Region. However, the Erbil compound has also been targeted multiple times. The Patriots have an operational range of between 60 to 100 miles (100-160 kilometers).

Iran's strategy seems to focused on permanently pushing US forces back in the region, while expanding the scope of the war, in what some analysts have called 'horizontal escalation'.

One writer calls this a process of 'debasification':

In contrast to the previous hot phase of the war, in which Iran targeted bases across the entire theater simultaneously, this wave started with the targets close to Iranian shores, and has progressed steadily to the Israeli border. After destroying much of the radar network protecting regional US Axis bases in the previous hot phase of the war, Iranian planners have prioritized targeting fuel storage, drone hangers, refueling tankers, and barracks. The American response has been to pull assets back ever further from Iran, to bases in Israel and Jordan. We’ll call this process debasification. Iran’s debasification strategy takes advantage of the inherent asymmetry between the vastly different force structure and capabilities of Iranian rocket forces and US Axis air forces.

Iraq's north has long been a place where US forces can feal more at ease with 'friendly' Kurdish groups, rather than the dwindling presence in the rest of the country. But the Kurds have also come under immense pressure within the Iraq war, especially given headlines alleging they were ready to support an Iranian Kurdish uprising inside the Islamic Republic.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:30

Students Seek To AI-Proof Their Careers With Trades Over College

Zero Hedge -

Students Seek To AI-Proof Their Careers With Trades Over College

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,

For years, students were told the future belonged to college graduates with a four-year degree. Now, some of the fastest-growing opportunities are in skilled trades, where there is an escalating demand for labor and a higher level of job security amid the rise of artificial intelligence.

An instructor teaches a student about brazing—a metal joining process used in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems—at a construction trade school in Homestead, Fla., on May 9, 2026. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Vocational schools and specialized training programs are seeing a surge of interest among Gen Z students and younger workers who are considering options beyond traditional higher education.

And the timing couldn't be better. Major infrastructure projects and the rapid buildout of AI-related facilities are fueling demand for workers with hands-on technical skills. Workforce experts say the convergence of these trends could reshape how Americans think about education and career pathways going forward.

"The past couple of years, people have been flocking to things that are considered safe from AI, but then this tailwind came in where there's also a lot of need for these roles to support the labor movement," said Brady Colby, head of market research at Validated Insights, which analyzes trends in higher education and trade school.

He told The Epoch Times that while interest in vocational studies had seen slow, steady growth in recent years, it "really took off" in the past six months.

"It's harder to recruit for some of these skilled trades than it is for computer programmers now," he said.

Validated Insights noted in its June report that trade school revenue surpassed all expected growth in 2025, expanding 11.4 percent and surpassing $19 billion. That's nearly double the original growth forecast.

The Philadelphia Technician Training Institute states on its website that many Gen Z members are choosing vocational colleges "because these institutions provide quick applied education that leads directly to rewarding professions with reliable salaries."

Mike Nager, author of The Smart Student's Guide to Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0, told The Epoch Times: "For decades, four-year degrees were seen as the only path for a safe future. Trades were seen as a fallback for those who couldn't or wouldn't go to college and get a degree."

But now when it comes to choosing a four-year degree path as the default, "the payback just isn't there anymore in many cases," he said.

He also believes an interest in education alone won't be enough to replenish the widening gap in America's skilled talent pool.

"Kids have to be shown what the trades are, get some firsthand experience. This is where the industry needs to step up, create outreach programs to address the 'awareness gap' for trades," he said.

The "awareness gap" is the disconnect between rising demand for skilled professionals and the public's perception of these careers. For years, some say it fostered the societal stigma that vocational career paths led to either overly physical or just low-paying work. On the flip side, this perception created a favorable atmosphere for standard university education.

Changing the Narrative

Cyrus Kennedy, a behavioral analyst and CEO of The Ad Firm, said attitudes toward vocational careers are definitely changing.

"It's a mix of a math problem and a psychological shift," he told The Epoch Times. "Gen Z has watched older millennials drown in six-figure student debt for degrees that don't guarantee a job."

Kennedy said this trend toward vocational studies as higher education is happening at a time when there's "growing fatigue with purely digital, screen-bound work."

"Young people are realizing that specialized trades offer immediate earning potential, job security that AI can't easily displace, and a clear path to entrepreneurship without the financial chokehold of a four-year degree," he said.

Kennedy said another assumption being reexamined about working in skilled trades is the alleged cap on career growth and the risk of physical burnout.

"In reality, the trades are one of the fastest pipelines to business ownership," he said. "An apprentice plumber or electrician doesn't just learn how to fix a pipe; they learn a business model. Many transition into project managers, estimators, or business owners. It requires high-level cognitive problem-solving, customer psychology, and financial literacy."

Steven Morgan, a licensed master plumber and certified HVAC technician at 24hr.Supply, agreed. However, he said there's still a serious physical element involved in many trade professions that shouldn't be taken lightly.

"The body takes a beating. You're in attics in August, and the real money comes after years of licensing and hard experience," he said. "What students overlook most is the ceiling - field tech, foreman, estimator, then running your own shop. The ones who see that from day one go furthest."

He also doesn't find the surge in interest surprising.

"Young people watched a generation take on serious debt for degrees that didn't guarantee much, and they did the math," he said. "An apprentice earns while learning instead of paying to learn. The work also can't be shipped overseas or handed to software.

"Nobody's replacing a licensed plumber with an app."

Industries that have reported the highest number of skilled worker shortages in 2026 include electricians, welders, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and heavy equipment mechanics.

Meanwhile, the median pay in many of these professions now matches or exceeds that of many that require four-year degrees, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Growing interest in technical careers is also reflected in public polls. A Resume Templates survey of 1,250 Gen Z adults in January found that six out of 10 respondents planned to pursue "blue collar" work in 2026. The main reason cited was better long-term job security against possible AI-related job loss.

In May, Challenger, Grey & Christmas published research showing there were 38,579 planned job cuts due to AI - the highest monthly total they'd ever recorded for that specific reason. AI-related downsizing accounted for 40 percent of all announced cuts, up from just 7 percent in January and 26 percent in April.

One-Two Punch

When it comes to rebuilding America's skilled labor force, there are two major factors converging. On one hand, there are millions of trade workers planning to retire through 2032.

On the other hand, there's the ongoing U.S. data center and infrastructure buildout, which is driving a technician talent crisis.

Between now and 2032, 18.4 million workers between the ages of 55 and 64 with post-secondary education plan to retire. This drastically outpaces the 13.8 million workers between the ages of 16 and 24 who will enter the labor market with the same qualifications, according to a Georgetown University analysis.

Concurrently, a Randstad analysis showed the need for skilled labor in the United States is escalating due to the data center boom. Demand for robotics technicians is up 107 percent, HVAC professionals up 67 percent, and construction-related roles up 30 percent.

Students attend a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning class at a construction trade school in Homestead, Fla., on May 9, 2026. Recent statistics show that people are exploring alternatives to the four-year degree, with many opting for trade schools. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 20:05

F-35 Stealth Jet Suffers "Mishap" At San Diego Airbase

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F-35 Stealth Jet Suffers "Mishap" At San Diego Airbase

A US Marine Corps F-35B assigned to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing suffered a "mishap" at MCAS Miramar in San Diego earlier today, according to Fox News.

Viral videos have circulated on X showing the $100 million fifth-generation fighter jet in flames.

Here's more from the report:

Emergency personnel responded to what the Marine Corps described as an "aircraft mishap" on the flight line at about 10 a.m. local time involving an F-35 assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 11, said 1st Lt. Blake Starbuck. The aircraft was based at MCAS Miramar.

The incident was a "Class A mishap involving a Marine Corps F-35B in the vicinity of MCAS Miramar," the U.S. Marines told Fox News. The pilot ejected and was recovered.

At least 14 F-35s have crashed or been written off in major accidents since 2018, including today's Miramar crash. Only one F-35 crash has killed a pilot, involving a Japanese F-35A in 2019.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 19:40

China-Focused Influence Program Courted Senior US Media Figures With Sponsor-Paid Trips

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China-Focused Influence Program Courted Senior US Media Figures With Sponsor-Paid Trips

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

A journalist's review of Committee of 100 (C100) records has renewed scrutiny of sponsor-paid trips that brought senior figures from major U.S. news organizations to China and recorded changes in their views and professional plans.

A tour guide stands near a display showing images of people at locations described as vocational training centers in southern Xinjiang at the Exhibition of the Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism in Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China on April 21, 2021. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo

In response to questions from The Epoch Times, C100 confirmed that it covered travel costs, selected the participants, set their itineraries, and chose whom they met.

The organization rejected journalist and media host Natalie Winters's description of the trips as "pay-for-play," saying no coverage was exchanged for the travel and participants retained editorial independence.

Winters published her review on Substack on July 28, characterizing the multiyear journalist delegation program as a "propaganda pipeline." Her report drew attention to documents posted on C100's website.

A 2012 trip report on the website marked "Internal Use" placed the cost of a nine-day delegation for five journalists at approximately $60,000.

The report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and encourage participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

The five journalists represented The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC. A page about the delegation on the C100 website says they traveled through Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou from Nov. 25 through Dec. 3, 2012.

The trip report described lodging, meals, transportation, sightseeing, corporate and cultural visits, and about 20 arranged meetings with Chinese officials, academics, media representatives, students, and business executives.

C100 Recorded Changes in Views

Winnie O'Kelley, then-deputy business editor at The New York Times, said she would return from the trip with several story ideas and "shape my staff across Asia in some different ways," according to the report.

Gary Silverman, then-U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor at the Financial Times, said he would not again "think or write about China" without reflecting on what he had learned.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer was described as saying his perception of China had changed "in 100 ways."

Jonathan Tepperman, then-managing editor of Foreign Affairs, said the trip had given him a "much deeper, more subtle and more nuanced" sense of China and elite opinion in the country.

He said he had made contacts he intended to continue consulting and called it the best press trip he had attended.

Clive Crook, then-senior editor at The Atlantic, said the visit reinforced his view of China as a "huge and fascinating story" and told organizers to "keep it up."

C100's report highlighted two articles Crook published after the trip: "Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades" and "China's Ghost Towns Won't Have a Hard Landing."

C100's delegation page links to those articles, another Crook article, three Lehrer broadcasts, and a Silverman column. The page says the visit gave participants information and perspectives for their later reporting.

Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who met the delegation, responded to the participants' assessments with a remark recorded in the trip report.

"You made the change!" Shen said.

Participants From Major Newsrooms

C100 began its journalist-delegation program in 2007 and told The Epoch Times that it continued through 2014.

Over that period, C100 records identify participants from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, WNYC, The New Yorker, USA Today, and other outlets.

A C100 account of a gathering of 2011 and 2012 delegates described the program as an opportunity for American thought leaders to witness China's development and challenges and meet officials, experts, journalists, businesspeople, artists, and students.

The 2012 trip report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and expected participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

In a December 2012 message, then-C100 Executive Director Angie Tang wrote that the journalist and civic-leader delegations were "shaping the U.S.-China dialogue on the frontlines."

The 2012 delegation met Cui Tiankai, then-Chinese vice foreign minister; CCTV executive producer Cheng Yue; Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu; Shanghai financial official Fang Xinghai; and academics, corporate leaders, students, and local journalists.

C100 also held discussions with Chinese officials during the same period.

Its account of those meetings says C100 leaders met Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu, Hong Kong Chief Executive-Elect Leung Chun-ying, and C.H. Tung, chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong organization established in 2008.

C100 leaders also discussed possible collaboration on the organization's teacher and journalist delegations to China with He Yafei, then-deputy director of the State Council's Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

C100 Defends the Program

"Committee of 100's journalist delegation program was an open professional exchange that last ran in 2014, during a period when the two economies were rapidly integrating [and] expanded U.S.-China engagement was the stated policy of both American political parties," C100 said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

The organization said the program was intended to give American editors direct exposure to a country often covered from a distance.

"The program's purpose, described openly for years, was understanding through direct experience," the statement said. "Participants disclosed their trips and retained full editorial independence. Nothing in the record shows anyone wrote or edited a story at anyone's direction."

C100 also confirmed that it independently selected the participants, set their itineraries, chose whom they met, and covered travel costs.

The organization did not respond to follow-up questions asking whether the claimed disclosures were made to employers, audiences, or both; requesting examples of those disclosures; and asking whether participants and their employers received advance materials describing the program's aim of improving perceptions of China.

Newsrooms Asked About Approval, Disclosure

The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC were asked by The Epoch Times whether they approved the 2012 travel, whether they paid or reimbursed any expenses, and what sponsored-travel and disclosure policies applied at the time.

They were also asked whether C100's sponsorship was disclosed to readers or listeners in work connected to the trip.

O'Kelley, Silverman, Lehrer, Tepperman, and Crook were separately asked to verify the statements attributed to them and explain whether the trip affected any reporting, editing, staffing, sourcing, or broadcasting decision.

None of the participants or news organizations responded by publication time.

Arranged Access, Restricted Reporting

C100's program emerged during an era when engagement with Beijing was mainstream U.S. policy. Chinese authorities, however, had long treated exchanges, hospitality, and managed access as tools for shaping foreign perceptions - a practice that continues even as U.S. policy toward Beijing has hardened.

On July 27, 19 media workers from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Bangladesh began a six-day visit to Baoshan in Yunnan Province under the guidance of the CCP's Baoshan Municipal Propaganda Department, according to a Xinhua report.

The itinerary directed participants toward coffee production, historic towns, traditional crafts, cultural heritage, agriculture, tourism, and local-development projects.

Five days earlier, a Baoshan government account said authorities in Tengchong had trained more than 300 elementary school guides and university volunteers as local narrators tasked with carrying CCP theories and approved local accounts into communities and households.

Foreign correspondents trying to report outside official programs described a different experience in the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China's (FCCC's) 2025 media-freedom report, titled "The New Abnormal."

The survey found that 94 percent of respondents said reporting conditions in China did not usually, or almost never, meet international standards. Some 64 percent reported interference, harassment, or obstruction while reporting, while 77 percent said sources had declined or canceled interviews or required permission before speaking to foreign media.

Most respondents to the FCCC survey declined to be identified because they feared retaliation against themselves or their news organizations.

One unnamed European journalist said a Chinese Embassy invited the reporter on a government-organized trip to Xinjiang. After returning, the journalist was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and warned that subsequent reporting would be monitored to ensure it was "unbiased."

Another unnamed European journalist said police surrounded a reporting team investigating detention sites and prisons in Xinjiang, examined its cameras and phones, copied footage, and deleted material.

The FCCC said government-organized tours were occasionally offered in Tibet, but journalists who joined them reported having no opportunity to work independently. No surveyed correspondent received permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous Region independently in 2025.

The survey also found that 40 percent of respondents said their Chinese colleagues had faced pressure, harassment, or intimidation from officials or while assisting with field reporting.

C100 said the journalists on its delegations disclosed their trips, but it did not provide examples or specify whether readers and listeners were told who financed the travel.

Chinese police detain a journalist at a checkpoint on the road to the riot-affected Uyghur town of Lukqun, Xinjiang Province, China, on June 28, 2013. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 19:15

Argentina's Milei Borrows Warren Buffett's Idea To Punish Deficit-Spending Politicians

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Argentina's Milei Borrows Warren Buffett's Idea To Punish Deficit-Spending Politicians

More than two years after campaigning to "blow up" Argentina's central bank, President Javier Milei has announced his "Fiscal Shackle" bill - a permanent rule aimed at preventing Argentina from approving or maintaining budgets with fiscal deficits that could have consequences for politicians.

On Thursday, in a speech recorded at the Casa Rosada and broadcast nationwide, Milei proposed an overhaul that would restore the Central Bank of Argentina's sole mandate of preserving the currency's value, stop direct and indirect financing of the Treasury, provinces, and municipalities, and expose officials who violate the rules to criminal charges. "It will be considered fraud and illicit association," he explained.

Milei said this is the "most important set of structural reforms in the last 91 years," taking the year of the Central Bank's founding, 1935, as the starting point for that period. He argued that the central bank has functioned as "a tool for theft" and indicated that his reform proposal seeks "to put an end to the scam of counterfeiting money to finance high-level politics, whose most evident manifestation is the inflation rate."

The plan would also strengthen independence of central bank officials, making them more difficult for future administrations to remove. Milei said the reforms were an effort to end decades of deficit monetization, the primary source of Argentina's recurring inflation and currency crises.

He said the "Fiscal Shackle" bill would impose an automatic shutdown mechanism if public accounts remain in deficit and Congress fails to restore balance. Nonessential government functions would halt, while new spending, hiring, and discretionary provincial transfers would be frozen. Top political officials would stop receiving salaries, although pensions, family benefits, unemployment insurance, health care, and security services would remain protected.

"The results of the Central Bank's portfolio can only be transferred to the Treasury for debt cancellation. The scam of the Non-Transferable Letters will be eliminated... This will include the Fiscal Shackle: it will ensure that Argentina cannot sustain a deficit budget," Milei said.

Remember, the Oracle of Omaha told CNBC's Becky Quick in a 2011 interview that he "could end the deficit in five minutes."

Warren Buffett explained, "You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 18:50

Judge Rejects States' Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements

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Judge Rejects States' Attempt To Block Medicaid Work Requirements

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge on July 30 declined to block new work requirements for Medicaid recipients that states must implement by Jan. 1, 2027.

Judge Richard Stearns of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts turned down a request for a preliminary injunction made by Massachusetts and 25 other states to block the work requirements as the states’ legal challenge proceeds.

Stearns said in a six-page decision that the harms about which the states complained—added costs to comply with the new requirements—are largely reimbursable, since the federal government has said it will pay for 90 percent of the costs.

States have also complained that officials face a “tight timeline” to implement the requirements, which include mandating that beneficiaries aged 19 to 64 work, volunteer, or participate in job training for 80 or more hours per month. The timing, though, was set by Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, not by the defendant, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in its guidance on implementing the requirements, the judge said.

“There is a certain point at which damages fail to justify the issuance of such an extraordinary measure,” Stearns wrote later. “Plaintiffs have not shown that their damages rise above that minimal threshold here. Moreover, the additional costs that may be incurred by the States are unlikely to bloom disproportionately given the familiarity of the responsible state agencies with the tasks to be performed.”

Lawyers for the states and the government did not immediately return requests for comment.

In addition to the Jan. 1, 2027, deadline to implement changes, states in their motion for an injunction noted that under the guidance, they also must inform Medicaid recipients of the looming update in notices by Sept. 1.

The states also opposed the guidance on how to determine whether a person is medically frail, which would exempt them from the work requirements. The guidance suggests that in no case can states base their determinations of whether an individual is “medically frail” solely on their records that an individual has a “particular diagnosis or condition” and improperly limits the short-term hardship exception for individuals experiencing an emergency declared by the president to those who can establish that the emergency renders them unable to comply, state lawyers told the court.

Government lawyers said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act delegated the definition of medically frail to the federal government, and the states are seeking to impose “arbitrary limits” on that authority. They also said the state plaintiffs had not met the standards for a preliminary injunction.

Stearns said on July 30 that the court’s denial of the injunction request “is not a reflection or anticipation of its ultimate views on the merits of the underlying litigation,” which will proceed.

“As illustrated in the pleadings and briefings to date (and in the arguments of counsel during the hearing), this case presents difficult issues regarding the scope of Congress’s delegation of interpretative authority to the Secretary and the faithfulness to Congressional intent with which the Secretary performed his task,” the judge stated.

“This, in turn, requires an examination of the data relied upon by the Secretary and the judgments (some medical) that underlay his amplification of Congress’s legislative outline.

“These are determinations that, in the view of the court, should be made on a developed record of the kind that informs a court’s decision at the summary judgment stage of a case.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 18:25

Memory-Chip Crunch Hits Smartphone Demand Across China

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Memory-Chip Crunch Hits Smartphone Demand Across China

Prices for electronic devices reliant on advanced memory chips, from smartphones to gaming consoles, have risen as the AI data-center buildout tightens supply and drives component costs higher. The resulting memory-chip crunch is now weighing on consumer demand, with Goldman’s latest note showing that the pressure is increasingly visible in China’s handheld-device market.

Goldman analyst Allen Chang, who focuses on everything from smartphones to semiconductors, AI, EVs, and robotaxis, cited new data on Friday showing that China’s smartphone shipments fell 17% from a year earlier and 36% from May, to 17 million units in June.

Second-quarter shipments totaled 69 million units, little changed from the previous quarter and a year earlier but above Goldman's 59 million estimate. Chang expects full-year 2026 shipments to decline 10%.

June 5G shipments fell 12% year over year to 16 million units, representing 85% of the market.

"We expect 2026 shipments to decline at 10% YoY, given rising memory cost weighing on demand," Chang wrote in the report.

Chang noted that the average number of cameras per handset declined to 2.9 this year, down from a 2022 peak of 3.8, while the share of cameras with resolutions of at least 20 megapixels increased to 66% of the total, up from 57% in 2025.

Model pricing for various foldable smartphone brands

Smartphone model launch pipeline

Professional subscribers can read more about the memory chip market, data center buildouts, and smartphones at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 18:00

Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran, To Commence This Weekend

Zero Hedge -

Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran, To Commence This Weekend Summary
  • Trump orders major strikes on Iran, likely to start this weekend.
  • US adds sanctions, Bessent says Tehran can't pay troops, as Iran faces growing pressure.
  • Most Americans say the Iran war isn't worth fighting: AP poll.
  • Iran claims drone strike on US base in Kuwait - after no new US strikes overnight.
  • Oil rises as fears of wider conflict grow and lack of talks.
//--> //--> //--> US announces end of Iranian blockade by August 15, 2026?
Yes 20% · No 80%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Trump Orders Major Weekend Strikes

The Wall Street Journal and CBS are reporting that major US strikes - perhaps harder than anything of the last two weeks - are set to imminently commence. The attacks could be initiated at any point this weekend, after Trump gave the 'order' - it's being reported:

President Trump has ordered a fresh attack on Iran aimed at getting Tehran to surrender that could begin as soon as this weekend and would last a few days, U.S. officials said.

Earlier on Friday, he told reporters that he planned to resume heavy military strikes to force the regime to come to the negotiating table. He predicted that if the U.S. hit Iran hard enough, the hard-line regime would eventually “peter out.”

Trump made clear earlier at Camp David that the Iranians can't be trusted, are 'dishonorable' - and so he's not pursuing talks.

The late afternoon Friday CBS report is more alarming, given that "The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend."

It adds, "There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn't locked in."

Earlier this week there were reports of Trump exploding at his own advisors amid ongoing debates about how the crisis should be handled, and finding an exit strategy.

"Well, they always want to talk, but they break their words so often," Trump said Friday at Camp David, putting his frustration on display later adding: "All they do is make me angry."

A key line from WSJ point to where things are likely headed: "Some U.S. officials believe Iran will continue to drag out negotiations, banking that Trump will abandon his war efforts in the long term in the face of mounting domestic political opposition."

Keep Hitting Them: Trump

Trump is holding a Cabinet meeting on Friday at Camp David. He claimed that the fight against Iran is "going well" and stated that American forces are "hitting them very hard" - adding that "eventually" Iran will have no choice but to "come home" - meaning full surrender.

"It’s going well. Everything we can do is keep winning," Trump also told Fox News. "But we are hitting them hard, shaking them up, and we’re just continuing to win." He suggested there will still be strikes ongoing in coming weeks, and that he's losing faith in the idea of talks with "dishonest" Iran "because they lie".

Additionally, Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is claiming that Iran is unable to pay its troops - though without offering specific evidence to back this, and that the US continues searching for Iranian assets to seize "all around the world". This is after Thursday Washington rolled out yet more sanctions.

In the meantime, the American public continues souring on the Iran war, which has predictably turned into yet another quagmire in the Middle East. Per a new Associated Press poll:

Most Americans say the war in Iran has not been worth fighting, and President Donald Trump’s approval rating on Iran has fallen slightly since last month, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

The results are a stark repudiation of the Republican president’s approach to the conflict, which has dragged on far longer than he originally predicted.

About two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war with Iran, which began Feb. 28, has not been worthwhile, according to the new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents, as well as about 37% of Republicans.

Iran Boasts it Hit Kuwait Base

"We note with concern that the security situation remains precarious," said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi on his country's mediation efforts to find peace between the US and Iran. Talks "are ongoing to normalize the situation, particularly the situation in the Strait of Hormuz," he told reporters as a week full of renewed fighting as come to a close. But there essentially are no current talks, and US officials have indicated they are not even seeking them.

Early Thursday had seen the last major exchanges of tit-for-tat attacks, followed by a window of relative quiet into Friday - but the Iranian military has said it newly targeted strategic US military facilities at Kuwait’s Ahmad Al-Jaber airbase in a drone attack. This was cast as 'retaliation' for US attacks of the day prior which focused on Qeshm island. Several Iranian troops had been killed in the prior assault, and separately a family was slain when their home was reportedly hit.

AFP/Getty Images

Semiofficial Tasnim news agency said the armed forces had targeted hangars, satellite communication systems and equipment warehouses using drones - based on the military statement.

No New US Strikes Overnight

"Iranian state media reported the strike on Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base early Friday, but Kuwaiti officials and the Pentagon have yet to comment," Newsnation summarizes, adding of the current standstill in fighting, "Notably, Iranian media did not report any American strikes hitting targets inside Iran overnight, a change from Wednesday, when the U.S. carried out what officials called a heavy wave of strikes against Iranian positions."

The day prior saw the Iranians heavily target an American outpost in Jordan. Iran believes the US is amassing equipment there in preparation for further rounds of attacks. As for the Friday targeting of Kuwait: "Iran cited a U.S. strike that killed a mother, father and their 2-year-old child in a home on Qeshm Island as part of its justification for the reported Kuwait attack."

'Horizontal Escalation'

On the question of where the crisis goes from here, a Tehran-based researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies, Ali Akbar Dareini, gave Al Jazeera some interesting insight into Tehran's likely thinking:

He said Iran is likely trying to preempt any future attacks by the US in its current targeting in the region. Iran does not want to “allow the US to decide when to start the war, when to pause temporarily and when to restart the war”, he added. “Iran is now targeting the staging grounds of future operations.”

Dareini explained that while Washington has been pursuing “vertical escalation” by ramping up military attacks against Iran, Tehran has sought “horizontal escalation” by expanding the conflict’s “geographical scope”.

“Iran wants a complete, permanent end to war, or it’s going to be a wide-scale regional war,” he said.

As for the latest on potential US-Israeli plans to escalate against the Islamic Republic...

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has claimed its forces struck a pair of tankers attempting to pass though the narrow waterway under the "air escort" of the US military.

The IRGC asserted that the "non-compliant oil tankers… were struck and brought to a halt, while four other oil tankers quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions." Meanwhile, two headlines that don't line up:

  • US President Trump says the Iran war is going well; US is hitting Iran hard and "we just keep winning" (Fox)
  • The Persian Gulf Waterway Management Authority announces that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is not possible due to the continued aggressive actions of the US
Oil Climbs with No Offramp on Horizon

Still, despite of a lack of intense tit-for-tat so far on Friday, oil is rebounding significantly as there are no signs of offramp and the two sides aren't talking - but instead preparing for more rounds in the fight...

But this Friday's somewhat 'quiet' state of things could likely dramatically shift at any moment, as has been the pattern this summer. The aforementioned Tehran-based analyst Dareini describes a serious change and overhaul in Iranian leaders' strategic thinking, which has gone from defensive to proactive, with an understanding of the need to inflict pain on the US side in a preemptive way.

"Iranians are tired from suffering from limited US attacks," Dareini said, charging that the US uses its declared pauses as a "deception tactic" merely in preparation for future attacks and operations.

"There has been a profound change in Iran’s strategic thinking," he added. "The era of restraint is over. Iran has decided that, if needed, it has to take preemptive military action against the US."

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:55

Saudi Arabia Planning Major Escalation In Yemen, Possible Ground Op: Reports

Zero Hedge -

Saudi Arabia Planning Major Escalation In Yemen, Possible Ground Op: Reports

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, said Thursday that there were indications Saudi Arabia was planning a major escalation in Yemen, as the war between the two sides has been reignited following the July 13 Saudi strikes on the Sanaa International Airport.

"We will work to establish the equation of siege with siege, especially since indicators reveal that the Saudis are heading toward comprehensive escalation, and we will seek God’s help against him and confront his comprehensive escalation with comprehensive escalation," al-Houthi said, according to Yemen’s SABA news agency.

The Guardian also reported on Thursday, citing Yemeni sources, that Saudi Arabia was preparing for a major escalation against Ansar Allah by sea and possibly by launching a ground offensive in central Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is looking to launch a new Red Sea coalition to keep the Bab el-Mandeb Strait open, and the Saudi Defense Ministry announced that 14 countries backed the effort. The full coalition hasn’t been released, but according to Saudi officials, it includes—

  • Kuwait
  • Qatar
  • Bahrain
  • Pakistan
  • Turkey
  • Egypt
  • Jordan

Ansar Allah imposed a blockade on Saudi ports following the Saudi strikes on the Sanaa airport, which were meant to prevent the landing of a plane that took off from Iran and was carrying members of a Yemeni delegation that attended the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Yemeni forces have also targeted oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi military has launched additional strikes on Yemen of late.

Escalations against Ansar Allah are unlikely to achieve success since the group faced a brutal US-backed Saudi-UAE war from 2015 to 2022 and multiple US and Israeli bombing campaigns since then that failed to achieve their goals. President Trump has suggested that the US could restart bombing Yemen.

Al-Houthi said in his comments on Thursday that the Yemeni people “are among the most suffering and targeted peoples by the Saudi regime within the framework of the American scheme, and in service of the Israeli enemy.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:40

Trump's Jones Act Waiver Helped Avert Fuel Shortages Across These Key US Regions

Zero Hedge -

Trump's Jones Act Waiver Helped Avert Fuel Shortages Across These Key US Regions

The Department of Homeland Security has issued the broadest Jones Act waiver since at least the 1950s, just weeks after the US-Iran conflict erupted. The measure has allowed foreign-flagged vessels to transport fuel, crude oil, fertilizer, and other essential goods between US ports, bypassing domestic shipping restrictions to mitigate supply chain disruptions across various U.S. regions.

The Jones Act, a century-old law requiring goods transported between U.S. ports to be carried aboard U.S.-Built, US-owned, and US-crewed vessels, was immediately waived in the early days of the U.S.-Iran conflict by the Trump administration.

As of Friday, the waiver has entered its 135th day, suggesting that the administration is continuing to protect domestic supply chains and curb energy prices by temporarily easing maritime protectionist restrictions.

A recent Reuters report stated that the Trump administration was considering another extension of the waiver.

The Cato Institute's Jones Act Waiver Tracker shows that nearly 50 million barrels have been moved since the waiver took effect on March 17.

The tracker indicates that the waiver sharply expanded domestic fuel movements, allowing foreign-flagged vessels to supply regions where limited U.S. shipping capacity, high transportation costs, and vessel shortages had constrained trade.

After 135 days, waiver shipments to the West Coast totaled 13.9 million barrels, equivalent to 108% of the region’s projected full-year baseline. Puerto Rico received 5.02 million barrels, equal to 134% of its normal annual pace, while New England’s 1.25 million barrels represented an increase of 215%. Gulf Coast shipments were 426% above the projected baseline, albeit from a much smaller historical base.

The data suggest the waiver is unlocking trade routes that were previously uneconomical or unavailable under Jones Act restrictions.

The largest effects are being seen in isolated or import-dependent markets, particularly the West Coast, Puerto Rico and New England, while the impact on the well-supplied Lower Atlantic remains marginal. Cargoes have included gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, renewable diesel, propane and ammonia.

Without the waiver, import-dependent markets such as those in California would likely have faced severe fuel shortages, with gasoline prices potentially surging well above $10 per gallon. The quick action by the Trump administration and the Energy Department appears to have mitigated supply disruptions in those regions where fuel shipments expanded the most.

Recall that suspending the Jones Act was one of six policy options identified by JPMorgan’s head of commodity research, Natasha Kaneva, for how the Trump administration could contain energy costs at the pump. The latest shipment data suggest that this option has played a material role in stabilizing vulnerable regional markets.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 17:20

Five States Make The Cut For $50 Billion Nuclear Campuses 

Zero Hedge -

Five States Make The Cut For $50 Billion Nuclear Campuses 

The Department of Energy has selected Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho as the first five potential hosts for Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses (NLICs), advancing an effort that forced states to decide whether they support the entire nuclear industry or merely the convenient parts.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright signed Memorandums of Understanding with the five states after the DOE reviewed 28 applications from 26 states. The agreements allow the federal government and the states to continue exploring potential campuses. 

The potential prize is substantial, with NLICs potentially attracting up to $50 billion in capital investment, generating almost $10 billion in state and local tax revenue and creating 25,000 jobs each.

These would not simply be reactor parks. The campuses are intended to accommodate multiple parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, reprocessing or recycling of used nuclear fuel, and the final disposition of material that cannot be reused. 

Depending on the state and location, a campus could also include advanced reactors, power generation, manufacturing facilities, and co-located data centers.

The DOE is offering states the opportunity to build entire nuclear industrial ecosystems, rather than collecting federal reactor grants while expecting somebody else to deal with the fuel afterward.

That distinction may explain why some supposedly pro-nuclear states are conspicuously absent from the first shortlist.

Texas has spent years presenting itself as the future capital of advanced nuclear power. In 2025, the state established the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office and appropriated $350 million for reactor development, construction reimbursement, and supply-chain projects. State officials called it the largest state investment of its kind in the country.

Yet when Orano USA and Waste Control Specialists proposed a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in Andrews County, the state's enthusiasm for nuclear technology suddenly became rather selective.

Gov. Greg Abbott urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reject it, calling the location unsuitable and warning that the facility could threaten the Permian Basin. Texas legislators subsequently passed a law opposing high-level waste storage, and the state fought the NRC license all the way to the Supreme Court.

Apparently, nuclear reactors are an economic-development opportunity, while the fuel that actually ran through them is somebody else's problem.

New Mexico produced an even clearer example.

The state has supported nuclear technology when it generates investment and high-paying jobs. It committed $3 million in economic-development funding and another $1.8 million in workforce assistance for Kairos Power's expansion in Albuquerque, where the company is developing molten-salt coolant and fuel-manufacturing technology for advanced reactors.

But New Mexico's reception was considerably less cheerful when Holtec International proposed its HI-STORE consolidated interim storage facility in Lea County.

The NRC licensed the multibillion-dollar project in 2023, but New Mexico's governor and legislature fought it through legislation, permit threats, and litigation. Even after a favorable Supreme Court decision revived the federal licensing pathway, Holtec abandoned the project, describing the path forward in New Mexico as “untenable” and saying it would look toward states that were more amenable.

That history likely did not make New Mexico an especially convincing candidate for a federal program explicitly centered on the entire nuclear lifecycle.

As we have previously detailed, used nuclear fuel has been stored safely in pools and dry casks for decades. The United States has accumulated roughly 95,000 metric tons of it, much of which remains stranded at operating and decommissioned reactor sites because anti-nuclear activists have spent decades treating every proposed storage location like the opening scene of a disaster movie.

The NLIC program offers a different bargain. States willing to accept the responsibilities of the complete fuel cycle stand to enjoy tens of billions of dollars in investments and thousands of high-paying jobs for their constituents.

Texas and New Mexico may enjoy calling themselves pro-nuclear when reactors, research grants, and factory announcements are on the table. But supporting nuclear energy also requires dealing responsibly with what comes out of the reactor.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/31/2026 - 15:20

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