Zero Rss

What's In A Name? Alaska GOP Succeeds In Stopping Democrats From Stealing The Senate Election

Alaska's election officials may have just saved a U.S. Senate seat from one of the more brazen ballot schemes in recent memory. The state's Division of Elections issued a preliminary ruling this week that Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg is ineligible to appear on the 2026 Senate ballot, dealing a significant blow to Democrats - in what Republicans have characterized as a coordinated Democratic effort to siphon votes from incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan through deliberate name confusion.

US Senator Dan Sullivan (R)

Dan J. Sullivan is a 69-year-old retired teacher who filed to run as a Republican for the U.S. Senate mere days before the late-May filing deadline. Not only is his name virtually identical to the incumbent senator's, but he's also recycled the incumbent's former campaign slogan, and is using a logo similar to the senator's own branding. The attempt to deceive voters is obvious, and under Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, where ballot position and name recognition carry outsized weight, the potential for voter confusion was significant and consequential

According to a report from the Anchorage Daily News, Carol Beecher, director of the Division of Elections, made the state's position clear in a letter to Dan J. Sullivan on Wednesday. "Based on a review of the evidence presented and in the Division's possession, the Division has determined that the preponderance of evidence does not support your eligibility for the office of United States Senator," Beecher wrote.

The ruling is preliminary, with the fake Sullivan given until 5 p.m. Thursday to submit additional evidence before the division issues its final decision.

Sullivan's response to scrutiny has been consistent and unconvincing. He denied coordinating with Democratic operatives and presented himself as a legitimate independent GOP candidate, but he also refused to submit a sworn affidavit requested by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who announced Monday that the state was investigating his candidacy and warned him he could face exposure for perjury if his sworn answers proved false.

Sullivan called the allegations baseless, argued Dahlstrom's questions were irrelevant, and insisted the state had no "credible basis" to remove him from the ballot. On Thursday morning, after receiving the preliminary ineligibility notice the night before, Sullivan said he would not be available for comment and added, "We decide where we go next."

The paper trail contradicts Sullivan's denials. According to voter registration records attached to formal complaints filed by the Alaska Republican Party, the fake Sullivan listed his party affiliation as "undeclared" as recently as March 26, 2026. Before 2024, he had consistently been listed as undeclared or nonpartisan. Last year, he was affiliated with the Alaskan Independence Party.

Carmela Warfield, chair of the Alaska Republican Party, signed the complaints and charged that Sullivan misrepresented his party affiliation when he filed on May 29. One complaint states, "Despite never having registered as affiliated with the Republican Party, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.'s declaration swears he is a registered Republican," and calls for his declaration to be rejected.

There is also evidence of coordination with Peltola. When the fake Sullivan issued a press release announcing his candidacy, a PDF of that release showed in its metadata that its author was Amber Lee, a left-wing consultant whom the New York Times has described as a supporter of Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democratic former congresswoman and Sen. Sullivan's top challenger in the 2026 race. Peltola's campaign has denied any involvement. Given that the candidate's own press release traced back to a Peltola ally, that denial falls flat.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee moved aggressively on multiple fronts, urging election officials to keep Sullivan off the ballot by citing Alaska rules prohibiting ballot listings that are "confusing or misleading to voters." The NRSC separately asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate and potentially refer the matter to the Department of Justice, alleging his campaign materials mimicked the senator's and that he had previously donated to Democrats, including Peltola herself. Sen. Dan Sullivan and the NRSC have both characterized the Petersburg Sullivan as a sham candidate coordinated with Democratic allies to dilute the incumbent's vote share ahead of the August 18 primary.

The left's fingerprints are all over this. A retired teacher with no real political history, no Republican registration, an Alaskan Independence Party affiliation from last year, a history of donating to Democrats, a press release authored by a Peltola supporter, a logo that mimics the incumbent senator's branding, and a candidacy filed at the last possible moment.

Ranked-choice voting was always going to make Alaska a prime target for ballot manipulation. The ranked-choice voting system enabled Peltola to be elected to Congress in Alaska in 2022, despite Republican candidates receiving more cumulative votes.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 18:05

Bitcoin & The Clash Of Two Inexorable Realities

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Two inexorable realities have come into sharpened focus over the last month or so.

Both are themes we have been exploring and monitoring – one, since practically the very beginning of this service, the other, over the last year or so.

• The first is the unsustainable nature of the global monetary system: we are not unique in calling that out – it’s practically a trope and has been for a long time.

• The other is the existential necessity to win the new arms race – which is less about kinetic weapons now and more about computation, information and 5GW.

In the past, when the Soviet Union put as astronaut into space before NASA, it was a humiliation and a psychological defeat – but the USA arguably still held strategic advantage where it counted at the time, which was here on earth, with more nuclear missiles, tanks and military bases than the USSR.

The US space program kicked into overdrive, and NASA was able to slingshot past the Russians, and over time and across more dimensions, the Soviets never caught back up or retook the lead – in anything.

To this day, Russia’s resurgence onto the world stage – articulated through concepts such as Neo-Eurasionism or “Third Rome” (basically their version of “Manifest Destiny”) – is more than anything, an aspirational framework for “getting up to speed”, while rationalizing their inability to do so in traditionalist, volk-ish trappings.

Their high priest of this quixotic mix, is “Fourth Political Theory” author, university professor and philosopher, Alexander Dugin – whose other titles include “Last War of the World-Island” and – perhaps most tellingly, although least known of his works here in the West – “Katechon and Revolution”.

The word “Katechon” (from the Greek: ὁ κατέχων / τὸ κατέχον which translates loosely as “the Restrainer”) is important in the Russian collective psyche because it contains a massive “tell”.On its surface, it’s supposed to encompass Russia’s “state messianism” and symbolize its opposition to The West – their “Antikeimenos”.

The day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dugin posted on Facebook “Now we are in a war of the spirits. Katechon vs. Antekeimenos”.

Antikeimenos (from the Greek: ὁ ἀντικείμενος) is the term St. Paul uses in Thessalonians 2:4 for the figure of the Antichrist. It appears exactly once in the Greek New Testament, in that single verse. The literal sense is “the one who opposes” or “the one set against”.

And therein lays “the tell” – what the Russian collective psyche is admitting to, and trying to come to grips with, and it is this:

If we reframe the Cold War as the first technological contest between Great Powers, Russia has to confront the fact that they lost – and they’ve never been able to recover from it.

In the contemporary pantheon of international relations and political economy, absolutely nobody today thinks of Russia as a “great power”. When you peel back the ideations of “The Fifth Empire” or “The Soviet Union 2.0”, you get to that underlying underdog mentality – trying to recapture super-power status.

They lost the space race. Then the Cold War, and now they can’t even beat the Ukraine.

That was supposed to be an overwhelming military victory, but the Ukrainians, mainly through wholesale adoption of drone warfare, have managed to give the invaders a rough time of it, even penetrating deep into Russian territory using high-altitude balloons to deliver suicide drones.

Make no mistake, all that financial support from the West aside, the Ukrainians have been able to stave off complete defeat through technological means and because cheap, sophisticated weaponry (drones) completely upended the conventional battlefield.Such are the travails of an erstwhile great power that has lost a technological competition. You can bet today’s incumbents – namely the USA and China – understand these stakes, and neither of them has any intention of losing:

• AI
• Energy
• High Performance Computing (which leads us into)
• The Space Race 2.0
• Quantum Computing

This is why the “catastrophic climate change” narrative has been rather suddenly sunsetted in The West (at least, the non-Euro west): we need more energy, including nuclear – lots, and lots of nuclear.

It’s why White House Asset Management (WHAM) is pumping money into quantum computing companies (including, from our wish list: D-Wave, which we hadn’t yet pulled the trigger on).

It’s also why China has moved further out on the interventionist side of the state capitalism spectrum, with mandated “Capital Reallocation” programs where the government has issued structural directives forcing state-owned pensions, insurance funds, and enterprise pools to funnel trillions of yuan directly into equities, while the state-backed “National Team” continues steady, strategic purchases of domestic ETFs to put a floor under major indices.

The Chinese debt overhang on bad real estate loans is even larger than what we had here in the run up to the GFC, so regulators there are pulling out all the stops to keep the balloon duct-taped together:In early 2026, Beijing quietly abolished enforcement of its strict “three red lines” policy. Developers are no longer required to report monthly data regarding debt-to-equity, cash, and asset metrics, freeing up fresh credit channels.

They’ve backstopped an additional 7 trillion yuan under a new “property project whitelist” mechanism, which extends developer loan maturities by up to five additional years to stave off defaults.

Commercial and state banks are aggressively financed to help local governments buy up unsold, completed housing inventory directly from developers to convert them into subsidized public housing (this is a nominally communist country, so why not).

To top it all off, we’re seeing capital flight restrictions – going so far as to prevent technology transfers to the West via acquisition (we covered last month how Meta’s acquisition of Manus was blocked and reversed by state authorities).

Any rational observer of finance and economics knows that all world economies, including The World Economy, is levitating in mid-air buoyed by stimulus, signal suppression and pure white-knuckled will.

In prior years, when all the financial commentators and contrarians were waiting for this to hit a wall, we all marvelled (at least I did) how the system was kept on the rails at all costs – because too much was riding on it to let rational economics and market restructuring take their course.

That was before AI. Before it became apparent that not being number one in this technological arms race had civilizational consequences, like joining Russia as another “also-ran”.

Once again, the contradictions and distortions that this imperative amplifies are bubbling to the surface.

On one hand – all rational analysis of the market is screaming “overbought”. Practically every financial commentator I came up following is looking at this and making comparisons with the dot-com bubble; the AI high flyers now look a lot like Global Crossing, Nortel, L3, VA Linux before they all imploded.

My X feed is absolutely jam-packed with people posting screenshots of 7-figure trading accounts that were ostensibly amassed in under a year trading HPC, AI, chip makers, memory, and now quantum (again).

ZeroHedge has remarked on the circular nature of the AI economy more than once:

Note that the above-linked article (from which the screenshot came) is a Tyler Durden original, it is not a repost of somebody else’s article.

Tyler has this annoying trait: he’s always early and he’s often right.

Yet it’s possible the man himself buried the lede (from that screen cap):

“The Infinite Money Glitch”

By all rational and financially coherent measures, the equities markets are overvalued, beyond bubble levels and primed for a catastrophic drop on the order of, pick one, 50%, 75%, 90%. Yes. 90%. We’ve been pumping since 2008 folks. Even further if you go back to the beginning of the equities supercycle in 1982.

After the dot-com bust, we were in a bear market for two years. When the GFC finally hit, it was straight down for a good 18 months. When COVID was coming, the banking system was starting to crack up under the hood (the reverse repo situation in late 2019) but when it came unglued in March, it was about two weeks before the monetary bazookas were unleashed and everything reversed hard of the March low.

What happens after that is instructive:

The Regional Banking crisis erupted, and was even larger in nominal terms than the GFC when it came to the amount of assets tied to bank failures. The Fed threw the taper overboard, did a massive liquidity injection and after a failed attempt to pick and choose winners in terms of which banks to save, caved in to public uproar and backstopped everything.

Liberation Day, Japan-ageddon, Israel/Iran/Gaza barely perturb the trajectory.

If you switch out of linear mode for that long-term chart, and go to logarithmic – you should recognize the pattern:

It’s the same as Bitcoin, which is the same as gold during the Weimar Republic and it’s the same signal being broadcast from every one of those charts.

We should acknowledge that the Nasdaq took 15 years to recover from the Dotcom shakeout, which is a long time to be underwater if you bought in at the tippy-top.

But I believe two things have changed since the GFC:

The first is that tech, despite taking the biggest hit, almost by definition when the Dotcom bubble blew, also became the apex asset class from here on out.

If you look at the long-term chart for the Nasdaq, it basically went parabolic for the first half of the equities supercycle, and formed a double-bottom from the Dotcom crash to the GFC

After that it blasted off and has left everything else in its dust:

This makes perfect sense, because tech is the asset class of choice in a world driven by acceleration and tachyosis.

We can’t put Bitcoin in that chart because it’s basically a divide by zero error. But if we take the commonly held, first market price ever for Bitcoin, which was $0.10, it pencils out to an absurd value. Call it 77,719,900% and leave it there.

It’s not uncommon to hear criticisms of Bitcoin that are simply “all it does is follow tech”.

Yeah, no shit. That’s because it is tech.

The other thing I believe about all this, is Raoul Pal’s theory that after the GFC, the world’s central banks got together and made a deal to never let anything like that happen, ever again.

Which means that central bank balance sheets will grow in perpetuity, and stock market will never have a meaningful bear market – for the remainder of the duration of the current monetary system:

That’s from Raoul Pal’s “Everything Code”, it goes on:

• They don’t understand valuations are a function of debasement.

• They don’t understand why technology rises and valuations can keep rising.

• They don’t understand why crypto is being adopted and is the fastest horse in the race.

• They don’t understand why the dollar keeps rising.

• They don’t understand that energy transition is real and is crucial for the world economy.

• They don’t understand why rates won’t remain high.

• They don’t understand why GPT4/AI is the biggest humanity-scale event since the splitting of the atom.

• They don’t understand why this is all so fucking deflationary. They want their sticky inflation. They will not get it.

• They don’t understand why nothing in their world makes sense.

We understand it. Because we know the cheat code, which is:

Put the chart into logarithmic view.

Look at the X axis.

Then own the assets that are outpacing everything else on that scale.

That’s it.

Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here. Premium members of The Sovereign Capitalist have already received advance copies of my new book: The Blueprint: Survive and Thrive in an Overclocked Timeline – we launch in two weeks, get on the invite list here. Follow me on X here.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 17:30

Canadian Mother Sues OpenAI, Alleging Chatbot Encouraged Daughter's Suicide

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

A Canadian mother is suing OpenAI after its popular ChatGPT chatbot allegedly encouraged her daughter to continue engaging with the app after she revealed suicidal thoughts.

A screen showing the ChatGPT app. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times

Instead of terminating these discussions or flagging her account for safety concerns, ChatGPT allegedly escalated the exchanges in the days before the woman ultimately took her life, according to a press release.

The Social Media Victims Law Center, Tech Justice Law, and the firm Susman Godfrey filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court against OpenAI on June 11 on behalf of Kristie Carrier.

Her daughter, Alice Carrier, 24, committed suicide on July 2, 2025. After reviewing her daughter's devices, Kristie Carrier said she had found extensive conversations with ChatGPT in which her daughter expressed thoughts of self-harm in the months before her death.

In the exchanges, her daughter allegedly told the chatbot that she was feeling isolated and discussed possible suicide methods. The lawsuit accuses ChatGPT of escalating these conversations in the days before the woman's suicide, rather than terminating the exchange or flagging her account "for human intervention," the press release states.

These exchanges allegedly encouraged Alice Carrier to continue engaging with ChatGPT, causing "her further isolation from her human support system and ultimately, suicide," according to a press release.

"If a person came up to me, and they were clearly in distress and sharing their thoughts of suicide, I would be expected to help them, not encourage them to fixate on their depressive thoughts or isolate themselves," Kristie Carrier said in the press release.

"The same should be true of OpenAI. Instead, OpenAI has chosen to put out a product that was unsafe, and that they knew was unsafe but they did so without any concern for the consequences of their choices. Sam Altman can continue to go about his life normally, but my life is missing a child. This is unacceptable," she added.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

This is not the first time, nor the second time, a parent has sued OpenAI, accusing its chatbot of encouraging their child to commit suicide.

Last year, the Social Media Victims Law Center and the Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against the AI giant, claiming ChatGPT had isolated multiple users from their support systems, and in some cases, coached the victims into taking their own lives.

Matthew Raine testified to Congress in September 2025 after suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

Raine alleged that his son, Adam, took his own life after ChatGPT mentioned suicide more than 1,200 times to the 16-year-old. He accused ChatGPT of offering specific methods to his son on how to die by suicide, and continuing to validate and encourage the boy's feelings.

"As parents, you cannot imagine what it's like to read a conversation with a chatbot that groomed your child to take his own life," Raine told lawmakers at the time.

Justin Nelson, a partner at Susman Godfrey, said on June 11 that OpenAI's "deliberate design decisions" led to Alice Carrier's suicide.

"Instead of providing help, OpenAI encouraged suicidal behavior. This lawsuit is about accountability for OpenAI's actions," he said in the press release.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 16:20

Watch: Humanoid Warbot Live-Fires Mortars At Vegas Test Range

It is not just one-way attack drones (read JPMorgan report) operating on AI-enabled kill chains that human soldiers have to worry about on the modern battlefield. We have been laying out this story and were among the first to point out that humanoid robots are not only entering factory floors and warehouses, but are also moving toward the battlefield.

San Francisco-based robotics company Foundation Future Industries is developing a "dual-use" humanoid robot called the "Phantom MK1," designed for heavy manufacturing, logistics, and the military.

The defense angle for the Phantom MK1 is quite simple: replace the human soldier with the robot for close-quarters battle (CQB) operations, including breaching and room-clearing support.

Beyond CQB, a never-before-seen video now shows the Phantom MK1 operating a mobile light mortar system during a live-fire training exercise in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Phantom MK1

To better understand the Foundation's position, we reached out for comment. The company responded with the following statement:

The US military has backed Foundation in over $73M on grants and contracts to develop their robot to this point.

Although many of the use cases they've worked on have been logistics-focused, the ultimate goal has always been kinetic use cases. 

Although drones and UGVs have been promising new robots on the Ukrainian battlefield, humanoids are the only robot being built that promises to interact with the entire fleet and arsenal of human weapons and vehicles. 

Launching mortars and soon breaching doors have become near-term proofs of humanoids moving from logistics to kinetic engagements. 

Watch Phantom MK1

In February, we outlined that humanoid robots would soon move onto the modern battlefield, not just factory floors and warehouses. A little more than a month later, TIME picked up on that reporting. More recently, CNBC followed with a piece titled, "This Trump-linked startup plans to put humanoid robots in the military."

Foundation co-founder and CEO Sankaet Pathak recently said that a humanoid-soldier arms race is "already happening," as Russia and China develop dual-use technology.

Phantom MK1 Holding 9mm Pistol 

"Just like drones, machine guns, or any technology, you first have to get them into the hands of customers," Pathak said.

You're getting a front-row seat to what the 2030s battlefield will look like (read report). 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 15:45

Trump Mulls Farmer Aid As Fertilizer And Fuel Costs Bite

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

High fuel prices have also hit farmers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The concern is not limited to the United States.

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

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

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

Reuters and John Haughey contributed to this report.

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

Former NIH Head Secretly Helped With Paper Dismissing Theory COVID-19 Came From Lab

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, acknowledged that he secretly assisted with a paper stating the virus that causes COVID-19 "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," according to a newly released missive.

Dr. Francis Collins speaks in Washington on Sept. 9, 2020. Michael Reynolds/Getty Images

"This is work that Tony, Jeremy, Larry, and I helped with, but are appropriately not mentioned explicitly in the paper," Collins said in the March 6, 2020, email to NIH officials, which was released by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on June 11.

Tony refers to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through late 2022. Jeremy refers to Jeremy Farrar, at the time the director of the Wellcome Trust. Larry refers to Dr. Lawrence Tabak, an NIH official.

Collins noted the conclusion that stated, "The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered." SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The first COVID-19 cases appeared in Wuhan, China, in 2019, near a laboratory that was conducting enhanced experiments on coronaviruses funded by the NIH.

Collins was responding to an email from Kristian Andersen, one of the authors of the paper, which was titled "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2." Andersen and other scientists said in the paper, published on March 17, 2020, in Nature Medicine, that they analyzed data and concluded that it came from nature.

To date, no natural source has been identified for the virus. The Trump administration maintains the virus came from the Wuhan lab.

The paper did not mention any contributions from Collins, Fauci, Tabak, or Farrar, who made at least one critical change to the document, according to emails released by lawmakers in 2023. It thanked American virologist Michael Farzan "for discussions" and the Wellcome Trust "for support." Nature did not return a request for comment by the time of publication. Collins did not respond to a request for comment.

Collins told lawmakers in 2024 that his role "was for information, not for me to edit," that he never edited or suggested edits to the paper, and that, to his knowledge, neither did Fauci or Farrar. He also said he is not a virology expert.

Change In Stance

Early drafts of the paper had the authors stating that it was possible that the virus came from a lab. In private messages, since made public, the authors also said that characteristics of the virus indicated it was manmade. They have defended the changes in their stances as being driven by evidence.

In the newly released emails, Andersen, who has said that the paper was "prompted" by Collins, Fauci, and Farrar, had written to the trio.

"Thank you again for your advice and leadership as we have been working through the SARS-CoV-2 'origins' paper," he said.

He told them he welcomed comments, suggestions, and questions about the paper, which had just been accepted for publication.

Collins said in a previously released email to Fauci, Tabak, and others in April 2020 that he was wondering whether the NIH could "help put down this very destructive conspiracy," linking to an article alleging the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan.

"I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle this," he said. "But probably didn't get much visibility. Anything more we can do?"

Collins told lawmakers in 2024 that in the email, "I meant that we should do what we can to get the truth out there, as opposed to statements that were reckless and speculative that were not based on evidence." He said that the possibility that the virus came from the lab, whether it originated there or not, was not a conspiracy theory.

Fauci Shared Another Paper

Fauci, who has denied allegations that Proximal Origins was written to disprove the lab origin theory, met on multiple occasions with intelligence officials in 2020 and 2021. James Erdman III, a CIA operations officer, told Paul and other senators in May that Fauci provided a list of experts to whom the intelligence community (IC) should talk, and that the list included the Proximal Origins authors.

"Dr. Anthony Fauci influenced the IC's analytic process and COVID origin's findings by leveraging his position to ensure the IC consulted with a conflicted list of curated Subject Matter Experts (SME), public health officials, and scientists," Erdman said.

Fauci has not returned emails seeking comment on Erdman's testimony and the missives Paul just released.

One of those emails showed Fauci wrote to Beth Cameron, a National Security Council official, on July 8, 2021, a day after he took part in a council briefing.

"The article accessible from the link in the subject line above just came out as a 'preprint' yesterday. It is from a group of highly qualified virologists," Fauci wrote. "Please show it to your team. It summarizes what I said yesterday."

The article, titled "The Origin of SARS-CoV-2," included Farrar and Anderson as coauthors. The authors said that there was "currently no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has a laboratory origin" while there was evidence supporting links to animal markets in Wuhan.

Fauci "was pushing the natural-origin story while secretly getting classified briefings on the actual origins," Paul wrote in a post on X. "The American people were told one story. These documents - and a CIA officer's sworn testimony - tell another," he added in a follow-up post.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 14:00

"Swift And Lethal": U.S. Southern Command Eliminates Tren De Aragua Kingpin In Venezuela

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed late Friday that U.S. forces, working in coordination with Venezuelan security services, conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua compound inside Venezuela, killing the foreign terrorist organization's leader, Niño Guerrero.

The decapitation strike is part of the Trump administration's Western Hemisphere defense posturing of purging the Americas of transnational narco-terror networks and should put renewed focus on how TdA-linked gangsters are embedded inside the US, thanks to the Biden-Harris regime's nation-killing open orders.

“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth.” - President DONALD J. TRUMP 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/3R5IPxhPXX

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 13, 2026

"Earlier this week, the @DeptofWar — in full collaboration with Venezuelan security forces — conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) compound in Venezuela. TdA founder & leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka "Niño Guerrero," was confirmed killed during the strike," Hegseth wrote on X.

He added, "The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere. We will continue to work closely with security partners, like Venezuela — and counties in the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C) partners — to take the fight to our enemies."

Earlier this week, the @DeptofWar — in full collaboration with Venezuelan security forces — conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) compound in Venezuela. TdA founder & leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka “Niño Guerrero,” was confirmed killed during the…

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) June 13, 2026

Guerrero, 43, had been indicted in New York on racketeering, terrorism, drug smuggling, and related charges. U.S. authorities had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Prosecutors accused him of running TdA like a multinational crime syndicate, including laundering money through crypto, trafficking drugs and weapons, and directing violence across borders.

Federal prosecutors have associated TdA gangsters and affiliates with a sprawling criminal network that includes drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, sex trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, theft, fraud, extortion, and much more.

Related:

• Democrat Judge Caught Harboring Suspected Tren de Aragua Gang Member

Odd move by Democratic lawmakers... 

• Adam Schiff, Tim Kaine Introduce Bill To Protect Caribbean Drug Traffickers From Trump Strikes

Last month, the Department of Justice said that TdA members and associates had been identified or arrested in Colorado, Tennessee, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Washington, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas, and elsewhere. 

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center recently warned that the TdA presence in the U.S. operates as a decentralized transnational gang network, with more autonomous local leaders and fragmented cells after the group expanded beyond Venezuela and invaded the U.S under open borders.

Along with TdA and the removal of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, the U.S. has been escalating the fight against drug cartels in Mexico.

The U.S.-Mexico cartel fight has shifted from drug interdiction to counterterrorism-style operations, with US military and intelligence support helping Mexican special forces map, isolate, and dismantle command and control nodes of cartels before they can regenerate. Reuters previously reported that U.S. officials wanted Special Operations troops or CIA officers to accompany Mexican soldiers on raids against suspected fentanyl labs, while a newly formed U.S. military-led Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel reportedly aided Mexico's hunt for CJNG boss El Mencho through intelligence and target-package support.

Beyond purging FTOs and drug cartels from the Americas, the Trump administration has also played a crucial part in shifting the political landscape in countries from far-left leaders and unhinged socialists to center or, in Argentina's case, libertarian-right.

Related: 

• The New Battle For The Americas: Why The Western Hemisphere Is Becoming A Global Flashpoint

Trump's emerging strategy is clear: clean up the Western Hemisphere, purge cartels and socialists and Marxists, and ensure China does not gain ground.

One threat assessment question: whether the decapitation strike could raise the risk of TdA-linked retaliation inside the U.S. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 13:25

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

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

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

• IRGC continues to push back against deal

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

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

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

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

Then explained why his deal is different:

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

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

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

Building relationships:

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

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

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

About the nuclear dust:

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

...

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

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

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

We shall see...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We would like to thank United States of…

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) June 13, 2026

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

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

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

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

IRGC and Deep Rifts Remain In iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Cynthia Cai via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was later sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India Caps Fuel Sales To Avoid Shortages

Submitted by Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Northeast Heat Wave Arrives As World Cup Matches Get Underway

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The net effect of…

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) June 13, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jailbreak concerns already out in the X universe? 

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

— Wes Winder (@weswinder) June 13, 2026

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

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

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

Read Pitz's note here.

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

Britain Goes Full 'Airstrip One'

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

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

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

You had to figure this was probably coming, right?

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, it can't be uninstalled.

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

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

Nobody can, really. 

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

All For the Children™, naturally. 

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

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

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

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

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

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thousands Of Gang Members

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Norwegian Teen On Trial

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hungary’s politically motivated safeguards against bitcoin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 08:10

Romania Asks Ukraine To Add Self-Destruct Function To Stray Drones, After One Exploded At Its Port

Errant Ukrainian drones which wonder across borders and into neighboring Baltic and Eastern European countries are becoming enough of a problem to where some NATO allies pushing for a self-destruct function. 

Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruta has proposed that Ukraine program its maritime drones to self-destruct if they veer into the country's territorial waters, coming just on the heels of a major disaster.

AP image: explosion of errant Ukrainian drone at key Romanian port.

The remarks were prompted by a Magura-type kamikaze naval drone having exploded in Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta on Friday. 

Others also detonated while still at sea east of the city, apparently close enough to Romanian waters to be of serious concern - though Ukraine's navy bit back by alleging that Russian signal jamming is to blame. 

Miruta said that "maritime drones can be programmed so that, if control is lost, they are unable to enter Romanian territorial waters and will self-destruct once they are 12 nautical miles from the coast."

"This should be a default feature built into the system from the moment the drone is launched into the water," he said.

A sea drone self-destructed near an oil terminal in Romania's Black Sea port ‌of Constanta, without causing casualties, as Ukraine said Russia jammed the vessel causing it to drift off course https://t.co/aiiVBb6zoI pic.twitter.com/FbtP0DlxPf

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2026

The drone explosions were serious, just judging by the photographs and videos alone:

 A Ukrainian maritime drone that was being used in the country’s war against Russia exploded Friday at a Black Sea port in Romania, while three other sea drones exploded outside the port, Romanian authorities said. No one was hurt.

The drone that self-detonated in the port of Constanta exploded at around 10:30 a.m., after the area had been secured and isolated by the Romanian Intelligence Service, coast guard and the Defense Ministry, authorities said.

The Romanian government described in a statement: "Immediately after identifying the drone, the Ministry of Defense contacted its Ukrainian counterparts, who confirmed that they had lost control of the operation of four drones."

"The other three drones self-detonated — two offshore and the third outside the port," it added. "Confirmation of these events came from both the Ukrainian side and from data obtained by the Romanian authorities."

Romanian media report the (what appears to be a Magura-type) sea drone discovered in Constanta Port may have carried dozens of kilograms of explosives. The device was found near ARSVOM headquarters and later self-detonated after authorities evacuated and secured the area.… pic.twitter.com/2UanLH7s2w

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) June 5, 2026

There have also been a lot of errant aerial drone incidents of late, prompting NATO to scramble aircraft and shoot them out of the sky. These aerial drones might need a self-destruct feature as well.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 07:35

'The Suicide Of Europe': Historic EU Migration Pact Goes Into Force Today As Fracture-Lines Grow

Via Remix News,

Six years ago, in 2020, French political leader Marine Le Pen described the Migrant Pact, which was then in the planning stages, as the “suicide of Europe.” She said it would bring 60 to 70 million new migrants to Europe, as Remix News reported at the time.

Europe is about to find out just how prophetic its critics have been. On June 12, the highly contested EU Migration Pact officially came into force, instantly triggering a sharp political divide across the continent.

Brussels is already signaling a hardline approach toward resistance; the bloc’s own EU Migration Commissioner recently admitted that the Union is preparing a “crackdown” on member states that refuse to comply with the new relocation directives.

At the heart of the controversy is the pact’s mandatory migrant quotas, framed by Brussels as “burden-sharing.” In practice, critics argue this distribution system allows nations like Germany and France a convenient mechanism to offload asylum seekers onto Central and Eastern European nations – such as Poland and Hungary – which have historically maintained strict anti-refugee stances.

Europe’s anti-immigration politicians are already responding to what they say is a law that will bring disaster to Europe. Le Pen, six years later, is calling for a “constitutional referendum on immigration.”

“Tomorrow, the Migration Pact will enter into force. It will require the States of the European Union to welcome migrants, under penalty of fines. When we come to power, we will propose to the French a constitutional referendum on immigration, the only means to regain control of our migration policy,” she wrote on X.

Demain, le Pacte des migrations entrera en vigueur. Il imposera aux États de l’Union européenne d’accueillir des migrants, sous peine d’amendes.

Lorsque nous arriverons au pouvoir, nous proposerons aux Français un référendum constitutionnel sur l’immigration, seul moyen pour…

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) June 11, 2026

The financial penalties for defiance are severe. Non-compliant governments face fines as high as €21,000 per migrant, potentially costing dissenting nations hundreds of millions of euros. Furthermore, the pact allows for these financial penalties to be adjusted upward in the coming years, which could quickly escalate the cost of non-compliance into billions of euros.

Meanwhile, other establishment European politicians are celebrating the move. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tried to frame the migration pact as a positive for controlling immigration.

“The migration turnaround has been initiated—nationally and at the European level. As of today, the Common European Asylum System applies: better control and order, faster procedures, and a fair distribution of responsibility. The reform must be implemented effectively. This is how our country will benefit,” wrote Merz.

Die Migrationswende ist eingeleitet - national und europäisch. Ab heute gilt das Gemeinsame Europäische Asylsystem: bessere Steuerung und Ordnung, schnellere Verfahren, gerechte Verteilung von Verantwortung. Die Reform muss effektiv umgesetzt werden. So profitiert unser Land.

— Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz (@bundeskanzler) June 12, 2026

Of course, the EU is also trying to sell the pact on social media as well.

Fairer rules, shared responsibility and stronger coordination. The EU pact on migration and
asylum starts applying today.

🎥 Watch our video to learn more. pic.twitter.com/ikhjI4P3n5

— EU Council (@EUCouncil) June 12, 2026 The end goal of the EU Migration Pact

Linguistically, the EU’s emphasis on sharing a migration “burden” represents a stark rhetorical departure from the peak of the 2016 refugee crisis. A decade ago, newcomers were widely championed by Brussels as Europe’s future workforce—the doctors, lawyers, and engineers destined to salvage the continent’s aging pension systems. Today, that idealistic language has been replaced by the utilitarian vocabulary of managing a “burden.”

Strategically, the pact acts as a political pressure valve. By reducing the immediate concentration of migrants in Western Europe, Brussels hopes to blunt the rapid electoral rise of populist right-wing parties. Simultaneously, the framework seeks to introduce demographic diversity into Eastern European nations, which EU leadership has long criticized as being overly homogenous and politically conservative. Over the long term, the naturalization and family reunification of these migrants could fundamentally alter the electoral dynamics in these traditionally conservative regions in favor or left-wing and pro-migration parties.

However, Central and Eastern European populations remain overwhelmingly opposed to forced relocation. Decades of polling show a deep societal preference for maintaining current demographic structures, setting the stage for protracted constitutional and political gridlock between national capitals and Brussels.

Hungary under new leadership

The EU’s political chess board has also shifted significantly with Hungary’s recent transition of power. Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, long the most fierce opponent of Brussels’ migration quotas, has been succeeded by Prime Minister Péter Magyar.

A report in Euractiv’s newsletter questions “whether some national governments are ready” for the EU Migration Pact, which has “raised questions over whether Brussels will need to crack down on non-compliant capitals.”

In an interview, Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said they are ready to use “sticks” to make countries like Hungary fall into line.

“There are sticks and carrots in the pact. So, you get funding, you get money, only if you apply the pact,” he said.

In fact, Euractiv is quite open that Magyar may be more than willing to sell out the public on the issue of migrant quotas.

“Péter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister, once firmly opposed to the EU migration pact, is now keeping his options open. Pressed by the opposition Fidesz to rule out implementation, he sidestepped the question, saying only that ‘there will be no illegal migrants in Hungary’ under a Tisza government,” wrote Euractiv.

This carefully worded distinction leaves the door wide open for the arrival of migrants who are processed “legally” under the parameters of the new EU framework. Unsurprisingly, Commissioner Brunner has lauded the new Hungarian administration’s shift, calling the government “very constructive” and adding, “Our job is to explain the advantages for Hungary and make them visible on a political level.”

Certainly, Brunner was smart enough to not frame the new migration pact as the “suicide of Europe” while trying threaten the new Hungarian government. He can be given that much credit.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 07:00

Mother Of All 'Ifs': Trump Officials Claim Iran Deal Delivers Peace, Inspections & Hormuz Reopening; Iran Says Indeed 'Close' Summary

• Araghchi: A deal, if reached, will be signed remotely by both sides and then announced.
• The UAE had agreed to release a total of $10b, more than $3b of which had already been delivered (Reuters).
• Bloomberg latest: US Senior admin officials says Iran deal accomplishes core US objectives and deal reopens Strait of Hormuz; Iran deal guarantees long-term peace in region and includes inspection regime.
• Pakistan PM Sharif: "we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached & Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps."
• Surprise, surprise: Iran FM says sides "have never been closer and pending its finalisation, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content, details to be shared in due course."
• Trump on Truth Social rejects Iran's version of MoU terms (below): "What they said, including their weak & pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth."
• Tehran: "Contrary to what is being circulated by Western media, Iran will not commit to relinquishing control of the Strait of Hormuz."
• CNN speculates (prematurely, it seems) on Geneva signing of 'Islamabad Declaration' as soon as Sunday or next week.

//--> //--> //--> US x Iran permanent peace deal by June 30, 2026?
Yes 32% · No 69%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

UAE Ready to Unlock Billions for Iran as US Deal Gets Closer

There's been much more movement on a final MoU revealed today that previosly. Now Reuters is reporting on potentially unlocked Iranian funds, in order to get a negotiations format back to the direct negotiating table, to hammer out a final peace deal.

The UAE has agreed to unlock billions of dollars for Iran, Reuters reports, citing four sources:

• The UAE had agreed to release a total of $10b, more than $3b of which had already been delivered
• Two other sources with knowledge of the arrangement tell Reuters the move put the total funds involved at $20b
• Reuters could not establish whether the funds earmarked for the transfers belong to the UAE or originate in long-blocked Iranian accounts in the ⁠UAE banking system, or elsewhere
• “The UAE’s foreign policy is guided by promoting de-escalation ​and reducing tensions across the region, while advancing lasting peace and stability, a UAE official tells Reuters. “The UAE supports efforts, including those undertaken by the United States, to protect the peoples of the region from the repercussions ​of conflict”

Trump Admin Official: Imminent Deal Accomplishes Core US Objectives

Bloomberg is out with some specifics, via an unnamed Trump admin official, providing some further texture to what seems the most 'hopeful' (emphasis on the tick marks) development concerning a finalized Memorandum of Understanding to end the war and hash out a final deal...

It remains that there are a healthy dose of ifs in here...

BBG: US Senior admin officials says Iran deal accomplishes core US objectives and deal reopens Strait of Hormuz [Iran has a very different interpretation of this point]; Iran deal guarantees long-term peace in region and includes inspection regime.

• If Iran complies, will be rewarded economically.
• Benefits for Iran accrue if they actually deliver.
• US expects to sign agreement overt next few days.
• US to get enriched material under Iran deal.
• Draft agreement also lifts US blockade and leads to dismantlement of Iran nuclear programme.
• Iranians don't get anything upon signing agreement.
• Not quite at finish line yet, but very close.
• 80-85% confident a deal gets signed.
• Iran deal is specific about opening Strait and lifting of blockade and moving of enriched material.
• Will be significant sanctions relief based on how Iran performs.
• US seen substantial progress in text of agreement.
• Regional peace agreement is broad.
• Agreement on specificity over destruction and removal of enriched material.
• Confident Israelis will get on board.
• Some Iranians don't love this deal, but think dissent is quite minimal.

Vice President JD Vance has sought to clarify the US position:

Iran is "not receiving any cash" just for signing a deal, Vice President JD Vance said Friday.

Vance said in a post on X that he was "seeing a lot of fake information about a potential deal."

"The Iranians are not receiving any cash, and no funds are being released for simply signing a deal or attending a meeting," he said, adding that the agreement on the table had been structured, "to ensure that the U.S. and its allies' concerns are prioritized."

Only if Iran "meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region."

"This deal has the potential to remake the region and lead to lasting peace," he said. "The president is going to get us a good outcome, one way or the other."

As a reminder, here are the 14-points issued by the Iranian side on Friday:

1. An immediate and permanent ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon.

2. A commitment by Washington not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs and to respect its sovereignty.

3. A complete lifting of the maritime blockade within 30 days.

4. A commitment by the United States to withdraw its forces from the vicinity of Iran.

5. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, according to Iranian arrangements.

6. The suspension of sanctions imposed on the sale of oil, petrochemical products, and their derivatives, while enabling Iran full access to the financial resources generated from them.

7. The necessity of presenting reconstruction plans for Iran valued at no less than $300 billion by the United States and its allies.

8. Conducting negotiations within a 60-day period to reach a final agreement that includes nuclear issues, the full lifting of primary and secondary U.S. sanctions, as well as the cancellation of resolutions by the UN Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

9. Iran reaffirms its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to produce nuclear weapons.

10. A U.S. commitment, during the negotiation period, not to increase its forces in the region and not to impose new sanctions on Iran.

11. The release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds within 60 days, with half of this amount made available to Iran before the start of negotiations and after signing the memorandum of understanding.

12. The establishment of a monitoring mechanism to implement the agreement.

13. The approval of the final agreement through a resolution issued by the UN Security Council.

14. Final negotiations will not begin before the release of half of the frozen Iranian funds, the suspension of oil sanctions on Iran, and the lifting of the maritime blockade. 
The final agreement shall be limited to the fate of enriched materials, uranium enrichment activities, the lifting of sanctions, and the reconstruction program of the Iranian economy, while excluding any discussion of Iran’s missile program and support for resistance movements from the agenda entirely.

There's clearly still some seriously daylight between the warring sides, however, so by close of the weekend - or possibly just within the next hours - the reality of the situation is likely to be made known. Via newswires:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Says Iran's decision-making bodies are meeting about the memorandum - State TV.

IRAN CIVILIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ACCEPTABLE: US OFFICIAL

Pakistan PM: Final MoU Text Has Been Reached

Pakistan Chimes In with PM Sharif declaring that "we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached and Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps." Oil drops lower.

• SHARIF: FINAL, AGREED UPON TEXT OF PEACE DEAL HAS BEEN REACHED
• PRESIDENT TRUMP TOLD ME IN A SHORT CALL THAT HE CONSIDERED IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ARAGHCHI'S POST "VERY POSITIVE" - AXIOS REPORTER

Amid ongoing intense mediation efforts by Pakistan, we are fully aware of incessant misinformation campaign being waged by those who want to sabotage the peace deal. Setting aside the noise, we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached and…

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) June 12, 2026 Something Actually New Under the Sun

Now this is a true first: President Trump sharing FM Arachchi's tweet...

First Time Iran Pushes Positive 'Closer Than Ever' To Deal Statement, Oil Drops

Amid the constant back and forth yo-yo and ping pong concerning how close or not a final MoD between Tehran and Washington is, now Tehran is pushing the "never been closer" rhetoric, which is somewhat of a surprise given Trump just called their own public '14-points' "fake news" in terms of US agreement to it.

But this is the first time in a long while that the Iranian side has side anything positive on the question of reaching a deal, and getting back to a direct negotiating framework.  The country's top diplomat has just stated that the warring sides have never been closer and pending its finalisation, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content, details to be shared in due course.

After crude jumped on Trump's 'fake news' Truth Social (below, which indicated he had not accepted many key Iranian demands), oil pushed back down on the new Araghchi statement:

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has never been closer. Pending its finalization, the media should refrain from entering speculation about its content.

In line with our responsible and transparent approach, all details will be shared with the public in due course.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 12, 2026 Trump Bats Down Iran's MoU Narrative & Terms

And there it is: President Trump himself denies the earlier in the morning return of a 'deal is near' - by taking to Truth Social and rejecting the stated Iranian terms (as delivered publicly in state media sources):

What they said, including their weak & pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth.

Immediately, the expected and familiar spike in oil and the return to pessimism, though at this point there have been no bombs away, after the White House canceled what was to be a third night of strikes (last night):

'US-Iran Deal Is Near' Narrative Returns, But Tehran Refuses To Surrender Hormuz Leverage

After having heard the same line many, many times before - and yet with no result (instead, more often the opposite of sliding into further conflict and escalation) - Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday welcomed the "progress" made between the United States and Iran in indirect negotiations.

CNN and other mainstream outlets are reporting on this "hint" that an interim deal taking shape (again). But given the pattern and track record of such reporting, which has consistently proven premature, elusive, and often downright false - it's hard not to have cynicism and to see much of this as but crude propaganda aimed at keeping energy prices down.

"Both sides welcomed the progress achieved through sustained diplomatic engagement and expressed hope that these efforts will soon lead to a durable understanding and peaceful resolution," according to Pakistan’s readout of a Foreign Ministry call with the European Union's chief diplomat.

via AFP

And yet, the message out of Iran does not suggest positive momentum or the beginnings of any kind of deal taking shape - though it remains that anything is possible (depending on how much either side is willing to 'give up' their respective red lines and firm positions).

Iran: Strait is 'Firmly' Under Our Control, Won't Give it Up

Iran is currently saying the Strait of Hormuz is 'firmly' under IRGC control - an assertion the Pentagon has vehemently rejected, with Iranian Admiral Habibollah Sayyari saying it continues to wield "power" over the Gulf region.

"The west of the Strait of Hormuz, the strait itself, and the Persian Gulf are under the firm control of the IRGC Navy," Sayyari was quoted as saying in state media. "No vessel can enter without our permission." Another commander also asserted that "We have had and continue to have power in the region" - batting down Trump's words which say Iran's military has been utterly defeated and decimated at this stage.

CNN Claims MoU Signing In Geneva Planned: Really?

But again, returning to the optimistic Friday reports, which may have no basis in reality whatsoever (time will tell), CNN is going so far as to report on the venue of a signing ceremony for a Tehran-Washington Memorandum of Understanding:

A signing ceremony for a memo of understanding with Iran would most likely be held in Geneva, Switzerland, three sources told CNN on Friday. That signing could take place as early as Sunday, according to a person familiar with plans.

That comes after US President Donald Trump on Thursday touted a “great settlement” that could resolve the war with Iran, suggesting it would be finalized in the coming days. Trump said he anticipated a signing ceremony for the document soon, potentially in Europe, to be attended by Vice President JD Vance. However, Iranian officials have yet to confirm an agreement has been reached.

Two sources with knowledge of the diplomatic talks said the signing ceremony would be held in Geneva – not far from where Trump and a US delegation will attend a G7 summit next week in France. One of those sources said a signing ceremony would mark the start of “phase two” of diplomatic talks, as officials work through the implementation of the memo of understanding.

Multiple sources said the memo is being called the “Islamabad declaration,” in recognition of the key mediating role Pakistan played. But nothing has been confirmed, and an Iranian source suggested the Austrian capital Vienna was also being considered.

According to reports from Iran, the proposed deal may be even more scandalous than what was reported last night.

Iran’s Mehr News Agency, citing a source close to the Iranian negotiating team, claims the draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran… https://t.co/rMctp2wbPS

— גיא עזריאל Guy Azriel (@GuyAz) June 12, 2026

But the nature of the MoU would likely just involve committing to a framework basis on which both sides would get back to the negotiating table, and not yet necessarily a final, lasting peace deal. Iranian state media on Friday did seem in agreement that there's been some level of progress on at least getting back to formal talks based on a MoU, per Bloomberg:

Iran’s semi-official news agency Mehr said the countries are negotiating an agreement in which the strait would be reopened within 30 days under Iranian arrangements. Under a draft agreement, the US would have no role in the future management of the strait and Iran would make no commitment to transfer control or restore conditions that existed before the US and Israeli attacks, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iran Pushes Back Against US/Media Narrative

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has meanwhile rejected media speculations regarding an agreement and reaffirmed Iran’s resolute and principled stance, per Mehr. He stated: "Textually, the text has almost been finalized in its major parts. The problem is that the contradictory positions of the United States have always caused turbulence and disruption in this process."

In terms of even rhetoric alone, the two sides still seem very far apart:

President Trump on Thursday insisted the U.S. was nearing a deal on peace talks with Iran, pulling back from his threats just hours earlier to launch more military strikes and seize Iran’s oil infrastructure.

Trump said Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had signed off on the plan, which he said would be completed in coming days, paving the way for additional talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

Tehran said it hadn’t decided. “Iran hasn’t reached a final conclusion about the agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said, according to state media. “We will announce it when we reach a conclusion.”

More hurdles are in the details:

Iran’s IRNA news agency reports the issue of US sanctions on Iran will be left for after the signing of the memorandum of understanding and a 60-day deadline for conducting peace negotiations.

“Iran does not offer any commitments in the memorandum regarding the nuclear issue, and the other party does not commit to lifting the sanctions,” it said.

“If Tehran decides to sign the memorandum, some of its frozen funds will be released immediately, and the rest gradually.”

Iran’s Mehr News claims a draft Trump-Iran deal would leave the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control, provide $300B in reconstruction funding plus $24B upfront, suspend sanctions, withdraw U.S. forces from the region, ease pressure on missiles/proxies, and restrain Israel in…

— Amena Bakr (@Amena__Bakr) June 12, 2026

Tehran reaffirms its position in the following fresh statement:

“Contrary to what is being circulated by Western media, Iran will not commit to relinquishing control of the Strait of Hormuz. The only matter referred to in the memorandum of understanding is the return of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz after the end of the war,” Iran’s state media reported.

“The main objective of signing the memorandum of understanding is to end the war on all fronts”, it added.

All of this comes during a week which started with Iran and the US renewing a state of active fighting, and with Gulf states coming under Iranian ballistic missile attack, in retaliation for the latest waves of major US tomahawk strikes against Iran.

Still, Bloomberg and others are reporting the following: "US and Iran Nearing a Peace Deal Around G7 Meeting Next Week." What can be said except we've been here before, and time will tell. Did Trump cancel yesterday's planned strikes because a deal is really finally being forged?

More Latest Developments

via Newsquawk

• Iranian media Mehr News reported that the US-Iran 14-point MoU includes a US commitment to lift sanctions, withdraw its forces from around Iran, lift the naval blockade, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift oil sanctions, and release frozen Iranian funds; nuclear issue pushed back by 60 days for final agreement. Additionally, the US is required to present a plan to rebuild Iran’s economy, while the final negotiations between the two countries should focus on nuclear and economic issues, without discussing Iran’s missile program. This text still needs to be reviewed and finalized by the relevant institutions in Iran. [Click here for the full 14-point MoU] 
• The US-Iran MoU is likely to be signed next week, according to CBS citing sources, with Bloomberg later reporting that it could happen at the G7 meeting in Geneva next week. First steps include ensuring "freedom of trade" by demining and opening the Strait of Hormuz. The signing would kick off 60 days of talks to negotiate details. In principle, Iran would commit to a lockout of 15-20 years during which it would not enrich uranium and would dismantle its nuclear sites. In exchange for taking these steps, Iran would receive financial relief staggered over time and sequenced to correspond with compliance.
• US President Trump said he understands that Iran’s Supreme Leader has approved the deal and that lifting the blockade is part of the Iran deal, while he added that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon and that they want to make a deal a lot more than he does. Trump added it's a very strong MOU, they found Iran to be rational, and they will make a deal. Furthermore, he said the Strait will open immediately upon MOU signing, maybe Saturday or Monday, but doesn't want to set a deadline for the deal, and stated a Kharg Island deal would be off the table now.
• US President Trump said at a virtual campaign rally that they settled up with Iran and it is pretty much completed, while they got everything they wanted and claimed they ended the war with Iran.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu held a call with US President Trump on Thursday night regarding the possibility of a pending peace deal between the US and Iran, according to CBS News.
• Airplanes associated with US VP Vance's advance team are moving ahead of potential Iran MoU signing, according to New York Post reporter.
• Iran state media said Tehran would not cede control of Hormuz under draft US deal, AFP reported.
• Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the issues raised about the agreement are speculation and the issue has not been finalised, while it added that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz is less secure due to US actions and that what is being said about the time and place of signing the agreement is media speculation. Furthermore, the spokesperson said that Iran has so far not reached a final conclusion about the agreement, but stated that the text of the agreement is almost ready.
• Sources cited by Al Hadath said Iran has given final approval, which Qatar conveyed to the US.
• Iranian state media reported that explosions heard in Sirik was related to a confrontation with a vessel that violated regulations whilst attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Israeli airstrike reported in Jebchit, southern Lebanon, according to Al Araby.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 03:30

How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America's Nonprofit Universe?

In February, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing titled "Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond." While Democrats deflected and tried to make the hearing about MAGA and free speech, the underlying topic remains important.

🧵Senate Hearing Raises Alarms Over FOREIGN INFLUENCE Looting American Pockets 📢

During a Senate subcommittee testimony chaired by @HawleyMO, @seamusbruner connected government fraud, nonprofit funding networks, migrant-based money transfers from U.S. to overseas, and the… pic.twitter.com/4V7B6n8CKf

— Government Accountability Institute (@Govt_Acct_Inst) February 11, 2026

So how bad is foreign influence in America's nonprofit universe? It turns out: very bad.

The Muslim Brotherhood

Earlier this week, the New York Post published a story reporting that CAIR was under investigation by HHS for alleged fraud. The report referred to CAIR receiving $30 million in taxpayer dollars to resettle Afghan refugees, with little proof of how the money was spent.

In HHS letters to the governors of California and Washington, the states in which the alleged fraud occurred, the agency stated that it had been informed that "there may be connections between CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch, Hamas."

The governors of Texas and Florida have both designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization and a transnational criminal organization in 2025, while also taking actions against CAIR.

If CAIR is, in fact, a terror-connected foreign influence operation operating under the guise of tax-deductible American 501(c)(3) nonprofits, that should be of great concern. A look at CAIR's current chapter directory shows approximately 30 active offices and chapters across the Homeland. That figure does not include affiliated mosques with overlapping leadership, nor former CAIR operatives who have gone on to work in government, politics, media, and related fields.

Cuban Intelligence

Just last week, Marco Rubio and the State Department sanctioned ICAP, a known front organization for the Cuban intelligence service. One might ask how this is connected to domestic nonprofits. The answer is: directly, and on a scale that is difficult for the public to understand.

Back in the 1960s, members of the radical-left student group SDS visited Fidel Castro's communist regime in Cuba. Some members of that delegation reportedly received training in guerrilla warfare, including bomb-making techniques. A few years later, some of those individuals went on to form the Weather Underground, America's most notorious domestic terrorist organization, which bombed nearly two dozen federal buildings.

We asked the simple question late last year:

• Is There A "Cuba Connection" Behind The Radicalization Of America's Nonprofit Left

While members of the Weather Underground were in hiding, they allegedly passed messages to one another through the Cuban Embassy.

These radical students were trained through ICAP, a Cuban front organization that has continued hosting American left-wing activist delegations since the 1960s. In the last decade, these efforts have reportedly expanded with assistance from the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), which holds meetings at the Cuban Embassy.

The NNOC website lists 77 American nonprofit organizations as members of its network. Some of these organizations have nationwide chapter structures and multi-million-dollar budgets.

The Neville Roy Singham Network

As has been widely reported, the nonprofit network associated with Neville Roy Singham is also national in scope.

The ANSWER Coalition, which organizes national protests, lists 14 chapters on its website.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the political party associated with this network, lists 66 chapters nationwide and is currently running candidates for public office.

CODEPINK, which has faced scrutiny regarding sanctions-related issues, lists 12 chapters on its website.

The network's headquarters is The People's Forum in New York City. In 23 cities, activists organize through "Liberation Centers," which serve as hubs for local organizing, protest activity, and support for PSL political campaigns.

Domestic Politics and the DSA

Perhaps the most significant avenue through which foreign influence affects American politics is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has increasingly become a coalition of organizations and interests with extensive international connections.

The DSA announced in January that it had surpassed 100,000 members in 2025, including an additional 5,000 members in New York City. The organization has also celebrated a series of electoral victories, including the election of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. The DSA estimates that roughly 250 elected officials nationwide are affiliated with the organization, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Where did the DSA's foreign influence begin? That is difficult to determine, but its international affiliations have expanded significantly over the last decade.

David Duhalde, who served as DSA Deputy Director from 2015 to 2018, is reportedly in a relationship with a member of Samidoun, an organization that has been designated in some jurisdictions as a front group for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In 2017, the DSA passed a BDS resolution. Two months later, Linda Sarsour announced her membership in the organization.

In 2019, the DSA passed a Cuba solidarity resolution and joined the ICAP-connected National Network on Cuba (NNOC).

In 2023, the DSA joined Progressive International, a transnational political network whose board includes Fidel Castro's niece, Jeremy Corbyn, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Wang Hui of Tsinghua University in Beijing, Yanis Varoufakis, and a variety of similar socialist politicians, academics, and diplomats from around the world.

Considering the scale of these networks and their ability to influence protests, elections, and public policy, the United States faces a significant challenge. The extent to which foreign actors and foreign-aligned organizations can shape domestic political movements raises legitimate questions about transparency, accountability, and national sovereignty.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted at a regular press briefing that a coming crackdown was nearing for dark-money-funded NGOs and alleged foreign influence operations routed through far-left activist networks.

Even the globalist at The Atlantic had to admit...  

Here, the exchange between a reporter and Bessent suggests the potential enforcement phase has already begun:

Reporter: "I want to ask you about Antifa. In October, the Treasury Department started working with the FBI to investigate who's funding Antifa. Can you give us an update on that investigation? How close are you guys finding out who is funding it?"

Scott Bessent: "It is ongoing. We made substantial progress, and I think in the weeks and months ahead, we are going to have a lot to report."

(Bessent continues on IRS guidance for nonprofits): "The IRS is now giving guidance on the Form 990, which nonprofits they have to file. We are going to demand that nonprofits know their grant recipients. So if a grant recipient is violent, if they are suppressing people's rights, then YOU are responsible for that. And I think that's a very good first step."

Watch the Exchange:

🚨 WOW! Scott Bessent just revealed the IRS has moved to make NGOs LIABLE for violent activity committed by their grant recipients like Antifa

George Soros has been put on NOTICE.

"The IRS is now giving guidance on the Form 990, which nonprofits they have to file. We are going… pic.twitter.com/15ToheHbwa

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 28, 2026

Certain NGOs and left-wing activist networks have evolved far beyond traditional nonprofit missions of charity and public benefit, instead functioning as a permanent protest-industrial complex advancing anti-capitalist and anti-Western agendas. This has fueled unrest, mobilized protests, psyops, and worked to obstruct President Trump's pro-America agenda under the banner of social justice.

Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2025

Bitcoin Policy Institute exposed:

All eyes are now on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's expected crackdown.

Tyler Durden Sat, 06/13/2026 - 02:30