Zero Rss

US Views Of Islam Have Deteriorated In Past 25 Years

The view that Islam is more likely to encourage violence than other religions is more widespread in the United States today than when Pew Research Center first asked Americans this question in March of 2002, around six months after the catastrophic events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaeda Islamists.

As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, in January, 51 percent of surveyed American adults said Islam was more likely to encourage violence, split between 76 percent of Republicans or Republican leaners and 29 percent of Democrats or Democratic leaners.

Shortly after the attacks that claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people, these number had still stood at an average of 25 percent, with both Republicans and Democrats answering more similarly.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As soon as Sept. 17, 2001, president at the time, George W. Bush, visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. and was quoted saying "Islam is peace", showcasing how different sentiments were at the time, even among Republicans.

But 9/11 was also a watershed moment for the United States and the world as a whole, eroding trust in a stable world order and a positive future.

The number published by Pew could be interpreted so that the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq did more damage to the relationship between the United States and the religion of Islam that 9/11 immediately did. The survey answers over time show how political polarization, affecting many if not most topics, has progressed in the United States in the past decades.

Pew Research Center also found that around 40 percent of U.S. adults said Muslims had a negative impact on the country, while another 40 percent said their impact was neutral and 17 percent thought it was positive.

Between the years 2000 and 2020, the number of mosques in the United States had grown from around 1,200 to 2,800 while the number of Muslims living in the U.S. also more than doubled to 5.5 million.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 04:15

Donald Rumsfeld's New Europe Is Waiting For Its Second Act

Authored by José Niño via The Libertarian Institute

On January 22, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld stepped behind the podium at the Foreign Press Center in Washington and, with one answer to a Dutch public television reporter, redrew the map of Europe. The reporter wanted to know why so many Europeans trusted Saddam Hussein more than then-President George W. Bush. The defense secretary fired back with words the Pentagon transcript preserved in full:

"Now, you’re thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don’t. I think that’s old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members."

Rumsfeld kept going. “Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.” When the reporter cited public opinion, he refused to budge. “But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany on this, they’re with the United States.”

Berlin and Paris erupted in response. The transcript shows Rumsfeld never spoke the words “new Europe,” yet headlines supplied them within hours, and Radio Free Europe conceded that his underlying point about a split continent held up. A year later in Munich, he told reporters he felt too old for regretting his comments at the time.

The Iraq showdown gave the phrase its teeth. France and Germany, backed by Russia, wanted inspectors to keep working, and Paris threatened to veto a second war resolution at the United Nations. On January 30, 2003, the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic answered with the “Letter of Eight,” a joint commentary urging unity against Baghdad. Six days later, foreign ministers from the Vilnius Ten, a bloc stretching from Albania to the Baltics, endorsed what they called Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “compelling evidence” and demanded “a united response from the community of democracies.”

Washington repaid the loyalty. On May 8, 2003, the Senate voted 96 to 0 to admit Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia while their foreign ministers watched from the balcony. The Senate’s own ratification resolution cited their February 5 statement on Iraq. All seven entered NATO in 2004, bringing three former Soviet republics into the alliance for the first time.

Troops trailed the rhetoric. On August 16, 2004, the Bush White House announced a posture overhaul that would bring home “about 60,000 to 70,000 uniformed personnel” over a decade and ship heavy Cold War forces out of Germany. Romania signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2005, and Bulgaria followed in 2006, opening Mihail Kogalniceanu, Novo Selo, and Bezmer to rotating American units. At Bucharest in 2008, Bush pressed allies to declare that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” Russia later went to war with Georgia that August.

Every president since has pushed the line east. Barack Obama canceled Bush’s Polish interceptor plan in 2009 but substituted a phased shield whose Romanian base at Deveselu went operational in May 2016. After Crimea joined the Russian Federation, NATO stationed four multinational battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland, with Americans leading the Polish unit. Donald Trump’s first administration quit the INF Treaty in August 2019, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that “Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise.” A 2020 pact with Warsaw produced a forward headquarters for V Corps in Poznan.

President Joe Biden hardened the frontier further. After February 2022, American forces in Europe swelled to roughly 100,000, congressional researchers noted. The Army opened its first permanent garrison in Poland in March 2023, and NATO declared the Aegis Ashore interceptor site at Redzikowo mission ready in July 2024.

Esteemed diplomat George Kennan saw where this road led. Reacting in 1998 to the first round of enlargement, the father of containment told Thomas Friedman, “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else,” as The American Conservative recounted.

Donald Trump’s second term scrambled the script. In October 2025, the Pentagon sent a 101st Airborne brigade home from Romania without a replacement, leaving about 1,000 Americans in the country. U.S. Army Europe and Africa insisted the move was “not an American withdrawal from Europe or a signal of lessened commitment to NATO and Article 5” but “a positive sign of increased European capability and responsibility.” Armed Services Chairmen Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) fired back that the decision “appears uncoordinated and directly at odds with the President’s strategy.”

Then Trump feuded with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. On May 1, 2026, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced, “The Secretary of War has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany.” Defense officials told CBS the missile battalion slated for Germany would go elsewhere. Three weeks later, Trump rewarded Warsaw instead. “Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” he wrote. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski suggested the move would simply hold American numbers near previous levels.

Punish old Europe, reward new Europe. Rumsfeld would recognize the playbook.

Ukraine will decide how far that playbook runs. In July 2026, Thomas Graham of the Council on Foreign Relations outlined a plausible settlement built on a ceasefire along the front, Western security ties for Kiev without NATO membership, and an end to further eastward enlargement, terms Moscow could market as victory. Graham warned against assuming the tide favors Kiev. Bloomberg sources reported that Vladimir Putin wants the rest of Donbas before serious talks, and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left Moscow in September without a breakthrough.

Suppose Russia keeps its conquests at a ruinous price. A pyrrhic win of that kind would shut NATO’s door to new members, and Washington’s national security class would likely respond as it did in 2003, by pouring money and manpower into the eastern allies it already has. The scaffolding survives every Trump trim. Allies have pledged 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, and a CRS report counted about 86,000 U.S. personnel in European NATO countries as of March 2026, with Congress requiring certification before numbers fall below 76,000.

Once Trump exits, the hawks who blasted his Romania cut will still hold the blueprints and the bases. They may well revive Rumsfeld’s New Europe as a permanent front against Moscow, anchored in Poland, Romania, and the Baltics. Kennan warned that such a posture breeds the hostility it claims to deter. Americans deserve a debate before Washington signs them up for another generation of geopolitical tension with the Russian Bear.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 03:30

Houthis Threaten Strikes On Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan Interests As Yemen Intervention Looms

Houthi officials have put Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan on notice amid the ongoing Saudi-Yemen conflict, and as Riyadh urges partners to assist militarily against the Ansar Allah movement. Iran's state Nour News, which is affiliated with the country's Supreme National Security Council, has issued a report saying the three Saudi allies "will likely be targeted in the next stages"
 - per a Houthi official.

The Houthi official warned that "The targeting of Iran by the enemies will not be limited to the country's borders and, according to him, the next efforts will be to target Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan."

Source: SPA

Already the Houthis have launched several attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities, also including fuel depots next to Riyadh's international airport. The Houthis subsequently confirmed sending ballistic missiles on the capital, in a first of the war. This happened Friday night into Saturday.

According to more from the Iranian media report:

Referring to the position of these three countries in the Islamic world, he said that their power and influence could be an obstacle to the Zionist regime's plans. The Ansarullah official stated that this plan is based on pushing Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan towards wars and internal conflicts, and that Saudi Arabia plays a role in this process. According to him, such a situation could lead to the erosion of capabilities, weakening, and disintegration of the internal social fabric of these countries

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was just in Cairo meeting with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The visit came just in the wake of an Iranian-backed militia attack on the key Saudi East-West pipeline, which one US official described as having been launched from Iraq.

A big focus of the MbS-Sisi meeting was regional security. The Saudis have been asking all regional allies for support at a moment the internationally recognized Sanaa government is rapidly losing ground to the Houthis.

Washington has appeared to shrug its shoulders, staying on the sidelines thus far. President Trump was reported ready to pull the trigger against the Houthis but reportedly TACO'd by close of the weekend.

But there's even greater pressure on the Pakistanis and Turks to take action, given the recently signed Mecca Defense Pact. We featured the following commentary last week:

Turkey's new commitments to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca defence pact could increase the risk of Ankara being drawn into a confrontation with Yemen's Houthis, a development that could have significant consequences for Turkish supply lines to the Horn of Africa. Although Turkey has yet to ratify the pact, expected in October, continued Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, and Ankara’s recent participation in the Saudi-led Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance make some form of confrontation possible.

Another big, obvious risk includes the whole thing spinning out into a full-on regional war, which would likely further fuel US-Iran confrontation, and possibly bring in the Israelis.

Bigger conflict would also likely close Red Sea shipping. The Houthis have so far only declared the Bab Al-Mandab Strait off limits to Saudi and Israeli-linked ships. But the fear is that any moment the group could begin assaults on all international shipping, akin to the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

Even very good reporting on Saudi-Houthi situation often says the Houthis e.g. "reignited" the war this summer, or some such. But this July, Saudi struck airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, to block an Iranian plane from landing. Sometimes that's not even mentioned...

— Andrew Day (@AKDay89) September 21, 2026

The Iranians and Houthis know they hold this card, and are likely intentionally slow-playing their leverage, but ready to pull the trigger on the next potential round of escalation with the US-Saudi-Israeli axis.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 02:45

Germany's Debt King Merz Gets a Greek Lesson in Fiscal Policy

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Revenge is sweet. It tastes all the sweeter the longer one has had to wait for it to arrive, and the deeper the pain of the humiliation that preceded it.

Some may still have the images of the great debt crisis of a decade and a half ago before their eyes: German politicians, led by then-Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, traveled to Athens at regular intervals to make sure everything was in order. Greece, the supposed sinner of the debt crisis, had gone off the rails, accumulated too much debt and was quickly made the scapegoat for the financial-market and sovereign-debt crisis. It was convenient - because it diverted attention from Germany’s own failures.

That someone had apparently left a score to settle was made clear by Greek Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis in an interview with Handelsblatt on Monday. When the conversation turned to the debt question, Pierrakakis, who also serves as president of the Eurogroup, noted that reforms in fiscal policy might be painful at first, but would ultimately pay off politically and economically.

The man is right. And Berlin should listen to him, because the debt club around Friedrich Merz is knowingly driving the budget into the wall with new borrowing of more than 5 percent next year.

It really does sound like an open score to settle when the Greek generously praises Germany’s economic potential in flowery language while at the same time noting that the country is not untouchable: “Germany is the industrial locomotive of Europe” — Pierrakakis is mercilessly putting his finger on the wound. For he cannot have failed to notice how rapidly the country is economically destroying itself, how quickly it is deindustrializing in the grip of climate fanaticism and mutating from a nation of tinkerers and engineers into an open-air institution for moralists and degrowth ideologues.

While Germany has embarked on the road to second-class status, Greece is gradually growing out of its permanent crisis. The problem with the local economy remains the euro: The Greeks actually need a significantly devalued currency in order to compete more effectively on international markets. After the introduction of the euro and the cheaper borrowing costs made possible by Germany’s credit anchor, the country slipped into an artificial debt trap — the land of spendthrifts and pleasure-seekers, according to the ugly narrative.

German banks and insurers had invested as much as 45 billion euros in Greek bonds at the time — money for which German taxpayers ultimately had to foot the bill. Distorted interest rates caused by the introduction of the euro and the euro debt club’s highly heterogeneous economies were bound to produce such a disaster — and the next debacle is already taking shape: Debt is rising everywhere, while interest rates are climbing. The bond market is responding by selling government bonds, thereby driving up the cost of servicing debt through higher interest rates.

Were Greece’s efforts toward austerity and thrift ultimately in vain?

Whether the moment of the great debt reckoning has now arrived is rather unlikely — there is still plenty of room to push the sovereign-debt crisis to the point of rupture. Nevertheless, much is reminiscent of the period 15 years ago, when the bond market reacted in a similar way and the U.S. housing crisis spread through the market mechanism to the fragile European sovereign-bond markets. Greece, the EU’s smallest economy with the highest level of government debt, was hit first before the dominoes began to fall.

Schäuble’s Greek counterpart at the time was Giannis Varoufakis: an intellectual, committed socialist who stood up to the Teutons and the Troika of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — until his party Syriza and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras were brought to their knees.

The consequence: austerity policy. Massive pension cuts, hospital closures — the shrinking of the welfare state. The Greeks experienced their social-policy Waterloo and have since managed to reduce their government debt ratio from the peak of the crisis, around 180 percent, to 146 percent.

Chapeau! The Greeks deserve every bit of respect in the face of the lax fiscal policies all around them — whether in Italy, Germany, France or Spain. Athens is staying the course, voting conservatively and struggling through this painful period of adjustment.

In the Handelsblatt interview, Pierrakakis becomes something of a fiscal-policy armchair philosopher: The cost of doing nothing, he says, is ultimately higher for everyone than the cost of reforms. That may be true. But the lesson contains a kernel of truth that will not move the German governing coalition even a millimeter toward the mountain of necessary reforms growing larger by the day.

Because consolidating this year’s 180-billion-euro deficit-ridden chaos budget would imply corresponding spending cuts. Tax increases would strangle the economy — Germany would have to begin with remigration, end development aid, reform the welfare state and seriously consider what to do about the war with Russia and the massive military buildup it entails.

The pain of austerity is still ahead for the Germans. Whether it is brought about through the bond market or through the harsh cuts of a reform government makes no difference.

All in all, it was a memorable interview because it describes Germany’s changing era from the perspective of the underdog. Above all, Pierrakakis’ remark that Germany has economic potential should resonate for a long time in its ironic sharpness. Because the country has overstretched its public finances and now lives on credit — just as the Greeks once did.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a graduate economist, has worked for or over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/22/2026 - 02:00

The Hunger Margin: How Intel Analysts Learned To Measure The End Of Abundance

Authored by Milan Adams via Preppgroup,

The shift happened gradually, then all at once.

By late 2024, analysts at Langley and Fort Meade who had spent careers tracking terrorist cells and nuclear programs found themselves redirected to spreadsheets showing fertilizer shipments, satellite passes over Ukrainian wheat fields, and soil moisture readings from the Sahel. Nobody had issued a memo announcing the change.

It simply became obvious that agricultural data had become national security data, and that the old distinctions between threats to the state and threats to the food supply had collapsed into a single, uncomfortable reality.

The numbers they confronted were not abstract. 266 million people facing crisis-level hunger or worse - not "food insecurity" as bureaucrats define it, the anxiety of choosing between rent and groceries, but the physiological reality of bodies consuming muscle tissue to keep hearts beating. 1.9 million perched on the absolute edge of famine, the IPC Phase 5 designation that translates, in plain language, to mass death. These figures accumulated across six consecutive years of escalating hunger, each emergency layering atop the last until the system began to resemble geological strata of suffering.

Then came the confirmations that turned statistical tragedy into historical rupture. In 2025, for the first time in the twenty-first century, two simultaneous famines achieved formal verification. Gaza and Sudan - regions separated by thousands of miles but united in the mechanics of collapse - entered what the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification calls "catastrophic" conditions. This means households have exhausted every coping mechanism. Assets sold. Wild foods consumed. Migration attempted, often failed. The stage before mortality curves spike.

Intelligence agencies do not typically concern themselves with crop yields. Their mandate runs toward adversaries with intentions and capabilities: states, terrorist organizations, criminal networks. But by early 2025, the distinction between traditional security threats and agricultural data had dissolved. The Director of National Intelligence's Annual Threat Assessment, typically reserved for cyber warfare and nuclear proliferation, dedicated unprecedented space to "food system fragility" as a destabilizing force with implications exceeding regional conflicts.

The logic was straightforward, once you looked at it. Civilizations do not tolerate starvation passively. The 2011 Arab Spring erupted partly from wheat price spikes. The Syrian civil war's origins traced partially to drought-induced rural migration overwhelming urban infrastructure. When 266 million people face acute food insecurity, the number of potential failed states multiplies. Analysts began modeling scenarios where famine drove migration flows that overwhelmed border security, where desperate populations radicalized or simply marched, where governments fell and weapons stockpiles dispersed into anarchic spaces.

The assessments grew darker as 2025 progressed. Satellite imagery revealed anomalies first. Ukrainian wheat fields showed reduced planting density despite marginal territorial gains. Argentine growing regions displayed parched soil patterns invisible from ground level but unmistakable from orbit. The Sahel's marginal agricultural zones retreated further as fertilizer shipments - delayed by shipping disruptions and currency collapses - simply never arrived. Each failed planting season represented a debt against future harvests that could not be repaid.

The fertilizer crisis provided the mechanism for systemic failure. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium - the triad of industrial agriculture - had experienced price trajectories that defied market correction. Urea prices in the Middle East remained between seventy-five and one hundred eight percent above pre-conflict baselines. Natural gas, the feedstock for nitrogen fertilizer production, had grown volatile. Farmers in developing regions faced a brutal choice: purchase reduced quantities of fertilizer, or abandon planting entirely. Many chose reduction, gambling that diminished yields exceeded no yields at all.

Soil chemistry does not negotiate. The Council on Foreign Relations noted what agronomists understood but policymakers ignored: soil holds phosphate reserves sufficient to absorb one season of deprivation, perhaps two. Beyond that, yield depression accelerates non-linearly. Reduced nitrogen application could compress yields for certain crops by fifty percent within a single growing season. The human stomach makes no distinction between geopolitical causes and agricultural effects. It registers only absence.

Humanitarian funding collapsed precisely when requirements peaked. The $37 billion allocated globally for food assistance in 2024 - a figure already insufficient - plummeted to $21 billion in 2025 as donor fatigue intersected with domestic economic pressures in wealthy nations. The World Food Programme, which had prevented famines through sheer logistical determination in previous decades, found itself choosing which populations to abandon. The $16.9 billion required to address the most acute crises represented less than three days of global military expenditure, yet remained unattainable.

Grain reserves - the buffer against harvest failure that civilization has maintained since Pharaoh's dreams - had eroded to levels unseen in decades. Global wheat ending stocks for 2024/25 reached 257 million metric tons, a nine-year low and declining. Corn stocks followed similar trajectories. The stock-to-use ratio, indicating how many days of consumption existing reserves could cover, had compressed dangerously. Previous generations maintained reserves sufficient for multiple growing seasons. Contemporary just-in-time agriculture had reduced this margin to months, then weeks.

The geography of vulnerability concentrated in patterns that analysts could map but not prevent. Six nations faced the highest risk of famine or catastrophic hunger as 2025 closed: Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Mali, Haiti, Yemen. These were not accidents of weather or bad policy alone. They represented the intersection of conflict, climate stress, and economic collapse - the triad that assessments identified as the new normal. Sudan's conflict destroyed not just this season's harvest but the seed stock and agricultural infrastructure required for future planting. Gaza's siege compressed centuries of agricultural decline into months. Haiti's gangs controlled food distribution as effectively as any medieval siege.

Climate data completed the picture. The 2024-2025 El Niño event disrupted monsoon patterns across South Asia and East Africa. Drought in the Horn of Africa persisted into its sixth year in some regions, exhausting pastoralist strategies developed over millennia. Meanwhile, flash floods destroyed standing crops in Pakistan, Brazil, Libya. The weather had become not merely unpredictable but actively hostile, each season bringing some new permutation of extremity that agricultural systems - optimized for twentieth-century climate stability - could not absorb.

Analysts began employing vocabulary previously reserved for nuclear scenarios. "Cascading failures." "Systemic risk." "Irreversible tipping points." The food system they observed had evolved for efficiency and profit margins, not resilience. Global supply chains assumed continuous functionality of shipping lanes, stable energy prices, peaceful trade routes. When these assumptions failed simultaneously, as they did in 2024-2025, the system lacked redundancy. There was no backup plan beyond hoping that next year's harvest would compensate.

The psychological impact within the intelligence community itself proved noteworthy. Analysts accustomed to studying deliberate threats - enemy actions, terrorist plots, state aggression - confronted a different category of horror: structural inevitability. No amount of drone strikes could restore soil nutrients. No sanctions could compel rain. The famine approaching was not an attack to be thwarted but a physical process to be witnessed, documented, mitigated at the margins.

By mid-2025, classified briefings included projections that would have seemed fantastical five years earlier. Scenarios where multiple breadbasket regions experienced simultaneous harvest failures. Models of migration flows numbering tens of millions. Assessments of which governments could withstand food price spikes of three hundred percent, five hundred percent, a thousand percent. The answers were not reassuring. Modern states rest upon implicit contracts wherein populations accept governance in exchange for basic provisioning. When that provisioning fails, legitimacy evaporates faster than grain silos empty.

Agricultural scientists had warned for decades. The "Green Revolution" that fed billions relied on fossil fuel inputs, aquifer depletion, crop genetic uniformity that maximized yield while minimizing resilience. Each season of intensive cultivation mined soil organic matter that required centuries to accumulate. Each monoculture planting expanded territory available to pests and pathogens. The system worked until it didn't. By 2025, the "didn't" had arrived.

What distinguishes the current crisis from historical famines is not the suffering - human beings have starved in uncountable millions throughout history - but the impossibility of remedy. The 1845 Irish Potato Famine killed one million because the potato crop failed; grain continued flowing from Ireland to England throughout. The 1959-1961 Chinese famine resulted from policy decisions that could theoretically have been reversed. Today's crisis emerges from global systems so complex and interdependent that no single actor controls them, yet no local community escapes their failure. You cannot plant your way out of fertilizer shortages when Haber-Bosch plants require natural gas you cannot afford. You cannot irrigate through drought when aquifers have been pumped dry. You cannot import grain when exporting nations have banned shipments to protect their own populations.

The assessments reportedly concluded with recommendations that bordered on existential. Prioritize stability in nuclear-armed states facing food stress - Pakistan, India, China - regardless of other policy considerations. Prepare for migration flows that would make the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis appear trivial. Accept that certain regions would experience demographic collapse regardless of intervention. This language - sacrifice, triage, strategic abandonment - had not appeared in food security discussions since the Cold War's darkest scenarios. Its reemergence signaled recognition that the present crisis exceeded the framework of humanitarian assistance. It had entered the realm of national security survival.

The 2026 projections, finalized in classified channels during autumn 2025, offered no reprieve. Even assuming average weather - a generous assumption - global grain production would remain below consumption requirements. Stock-to-use ratios would compress further. Prices would rise sufficiently to trigger the political instability that agencies most feared. The "best case" scenarios assumed successful harvests in multiple regions simultaneously, a statistical improbability given recent patterns. The worst cases assumed "compound events" - drought in one breadbasket, flood in another, heat stress in a third - occurring within the same growing season.

Such compound events had occurred before. The 2010 Russian heat wave destroyed one-third of that nation's wheat crop and triggered export bans that contributed to Arab Spring uprisings. The difference in 2025 was systemic vulnerability. In 2010, global reserves could absorb regional failures. In 2025, reserves had been consumed by successive years of deficit. The buffer was gone. Each regional failure would transmit directly to global markets as price spikes, and to vulnerable populations as hunger.

INDICATOR 2022 BASELINE 2025 REALITY TRAJECTORY Global acutely food insecure 193 million 266 million +38% in 36 months People on famine's brink (IPC Phase 5) 570,000 1.9 million +233% expansion Confirmed famines (simultaneous) 0 2 (Gaza, Sudan) First this century Humanitarian funding $37 billion $21 billion -43% collapse Global wheat stocks 284 million tonnes 257 million tonnes 9-year minimum Urea price (Middle East benchmark) $400/tonne $850/tonne +112% volatility Major breadbasket regions at risk 3 8 Systemic contagion El Niño severity index Neutral Strong (1.8°C anomaly) Climate forcing

The table tells a story that prose cannot compress. Each percentage point represents millions of human lives suspended over an abyss. The negative correlations - funding down, need up, reserves depleted, prices soaring - create a vise from which extraction seems impossible. Intelligence analysts deal in probabilities, but by late 2025, the scenario tree had pruned itself to variations of catastrophe.

What the public received were sanitized versions. Press releases about "food security challenges" and "need for increased humanitarian assistance." The classified assessments, leaked in fragments, contained starker language. References to "civilizational stress tests" and "historical inflection points." Comparisons to the fourteenth century's combination of climate deterioration, pandemic, and systemic collapse. Hyperbole, some said. Historical analogy, others countered. The analysts themselves reportedly requested classification upgrades, not to protect sources and methods, but because they feared the political and social consequences of public comprehension.

For comprehension breeds panic, and panic accelerates collapse. When populations understand that grain reserves measure in weeks rather than years, hoarding becomes rational. When farmers realize fertilizer will remain unavailable, they plant less. When governments accept that famine is inevitable, they prioritize regime survival over population welfare. The intelligence community thus faced a paradox: warning loudly enough to motivate action risked triggering the very dynamics that would ensure failure. Warning quietly accomplished nothing.

The 2025 harvests confirmed the modeling. Ukrainian wheat production fell below pre-invasion levels despite territorial gains, because the agricultural labor force had been mobilized, killed, or displaced. Argentine soybeans suffered from drought that irrigation could not mitigate. Australian wheat faced quality downgrades from unseasonable rains during harvest. Each regional failure subtracted from a global balance already overdrawn. The world consumed more grain than it produced in 2024, and again in 2025, drawing down reserves that could not be replenished.

Fertilizer industry executives spoke in private what they dared not announce publicly. The CEO of Yara International, one of the world's largest nitrogen fertilizer producers, reportedly warned that sustained crisis conditions could eliminate ten billion meals per week globally. Ten billion. The number exceeds comprehension until one realizes it represents the caloric foundation for three billion human beings. Remove those meals, and the biological mathematics become inexorable. The body requires approximately 2,000 calories daily for sedentary survival. Below 1,200, organ damage begins. Below 800, mortality becomes probable within months. The hunger margin - the gap between available calories and required calories - had turned negative for hundreds of millions.

What happens when the assessments prove correct is not yet fully visible. History suggests that famine does not produce uniform outcomes. Some societies fragment into violence; others achieve surprising solidarity. Some governments fall; others consolidate authoritarian control over remaining resources. The variables include not just food availability but pre-existing social capital, institutional legitimacy, and the presence or absence of external intervention.

What seems predictable is the silence that precedes recognition. The period when data accumulate but public consciousness has not yet shifted. When grain traders know what consumers do not. When analysts draft reports that policymakers hope to address through incremental measures. When the physics of soil and climate proceed indifferent to human urgency.

This silence characterized 2024 and 2025. The information was available. The Global Report on Food Crises published its findings openly. Agricultural commodity markets reflected scarcity in their price structures. Climate scientists documented the anomalies. Yet the public discourse in wealthy nations remained fixated on other concerns - political scandals, cultural conflicts, technological distractions - while the foundation eroded.

The silence breaks eventually. It breaks when food prices in developed nations spike sufficiently to affect middle-class budgets. When migration pressures overwhelm border infrastructure. When media attention finally focuses on emaciated populations in ways that cannot be ignored. By then, the dynamics have acquired momentum that policy cannot easily arrest. Famine operates on biological timelines - caloric deficits accumulate, immune systems weaken, mortality rises - that do not pause for political deliberation.

The Margin Has Closed

Intelligence agencies prepare for this breaking point because it is their function to anticipate rather than react. They model the scenarios, identify the triggers, recommend the interventions that might - might - mitigate the worst outcomes. But they cannot manufacture rainfall, synthesize fertilizer without feedstock, or force populations to consume less so that others might survive. They operate within constraints that physics and chemistry impose.

The "worst food catastrophe in human history" is not hyperbole if measured by absolute numbers at risk. Previous famines killed millions, but involved populations measured in tens or hundreds of millions. The current crisis threatens hundreds of millions directly, and billions indirectly through price spikes, economic collapse, contagion effects. The scale is unprecedented because the global population is unprecedented, because the integration of food systems is unprecedented, and because the environmental degradation accumulated over centuries is unprecedented.

What the assessments ultimately convey is humility in the face of complexity. The recognition that systems built over generations can fail within seasons. That the margin between subsistence and catastrophe is narrower than comfortable assumption allows. That the future is not an extrapolation of the past but a terrain of radical uncertainty.

The granaries speak in whispers now. The satellite imagery reveals parched fields. The fertilizer plants operate below capacity. The grain traders price in scarcity. The analysts draft their assessments. The populations at risk continue their daily struggle for calories, unaware that their fate has been modeled, projected, and largely determined by forces they did not create and cannot control.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 23:25

China's Rare-Earth Magnet Exports To US Plunge As Trump-Xi Meeting Looms

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday. UBS analysts quoted chief China economist Yu Song as saying the meeting between the leaders of the two global superpowers is largely about strategic stability and modest progress on tariffs, rare earths, and AI safety.

Political risk analyst Marcus Bischoff expects no major breakthrough but says the most realistic outcome is continuity in US-China relations as the most likely outcome. He sees cautious grounds for higher expectations following discussions between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the Trump-Xi summit.

Over the weekend, a Reuters report said that Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were set to discuss advanced AI bots and the global adoption of the technology, as well as rare earths.

As Christian Keller, Barclays' global head of economics research, recently described, China's near-total control of more than 95% of critical material refining has been used as leverage against the US. Whether magnets, tungsten, germanium, gallium, or other critical materials, China has restricted their flows over the last year and a half, forcing the US into a mad sprint to secure conflict-free supplies.

Bloomberg reported the latest details on China's resource nationalism and the weaponization of critical material supply chains overnight, citing customs data released Sunday that showed rare earth shipments from China to the US plunged sharply in August.

Shipments dropped 21% from July to 512 tons, according to the new trade data. The decline leaves US supplies of components used in cars, consumer goods, and weapons as a key talking point, whether in discussions between Bessent and his Chinese counterparts or between Trump and Xi.

Bloomberg Economics' Chris Kennedy said, "Washington needs stability with Beijing to keep these critical inputs moving," adding, "Yet periods of calm that restore access to lower-cost Chinese material weaken the urgency for the US to break its dependence on China."

The latest trade data shows China's quasi-monopolistic control of critical materials can be used as geopolitical leverage.

One major problem for the US is that Barclays' Keller shows Beijing will control mineral mining and global refining of these materials through at least 2030.

Breaking Beijing's quasi-monopolistic grip has been an emerging theme of ours that includes finding producing miners with conflict-free supply chains that can deliver to the West. Those miners will be the early winners because these critical materials are the building blocks of the West's pursuit of reindustrialization, the AI data center buildout, power grid upgrades, and, of course, the incoming rearmament cycle.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 23:00

"Supply Shortage Problem Has Disappeared": Acer CEO Says Memory Prices To Decline In 2027 As CXMT Starts Mass Production Of New Chip Platform

At long last, the memory bubble may be finally bursting. 

According to Jason Chen, chairman and CEO of Taiwanese PC and IT hardware giant, Acer, prices for memory chips will start reversing in the latter half of next year, dismissing the memory cartel pardon Big 3 claim that chip prices will keep rising well beyond 2027, and bucking the popular narrative which expects no declines in chip prices for the foreseeable future. 

According to United Daily News, Chen said that only high-end DDR5 parts like LPDDR5X-9600 and niche CPUs like Nvidia’s N1 and N1X chips are in short supply. Since supplier pricing lags consumer pricing by about a few months, he added that PC prices will still rise between 5% and 20% towards the end of this year, plateau by the first half of 2027, before finally declining after years of AI-drive hikes.

The AI boom has driven shortages for various PC components, beginning with GPUs in late 2022, before expanding to memory chips by late 2025. This made memory prices climb 500% in 12 months, although the increases have finally cooled as consumers refuse to absorb further hikes.

Some memory companies like SK Hynix are saying that the shortage will be worse next year and that it won’t be until 2030 before pricing will start to normalize. The Adata chief even said that the DRAM shortage would last another 10 years. This is plausibly true, especially as HBM demand from AI hyperscalers remains strong, and the various memory chip fabs under construction aren’t expected to come online until the 2030s.

However, Chen disagreed with this take. He said that the major memory suppliers naturally want to keep their margins as high as possible for longer, and the reason memory makers keep coming out and saying "the price uptrend will continue into 2027" is that antitrust rules prevent them from coordinating prices directly, so they use public statements to send a kind of "signal" to one another “so they keep putting out the message: let me tell you, prices won’t come down until the year 20-whatever.”

The Acer chairperson argued that there’s already ample memory and SSD supplies, while the purported CPU shortage is now limited to specific models: "No. How could it stay short forever? Chinese capacity keeps coming onto the market. The supply shortage problem has already completely disappeared."

Chen also expects the cost of the SSDs and memory Acer holds in 2027 to be lower than this year. If that gets reflected in end product prices, he sees a possibility that prices at least stop rising and stabilize in the second half of next year. The Acer CEO said prices could be raised further in Q1 27 as well. But since this is a period of pricing chaos, he expects the size of the increases to gradually shrink. He estimates component prices could peak around the middle of 2027, when the capacity that chipmakers have added is expected to start running in earnest.

After that, prices would stabilize, and whether they can actually come down in the second half remains to be seen. He admitted, though, that nobody can know the exact timing of the reversal. Chen said PC selling prices coming back down is strictly "a hope."

He also added that Chinese memory makers churning out cheaper alternatives would disrupt the market - something that SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won feared. In fact, Acer, alongside HP and Asus, has started using CXMT chips in some of its products, while some Lenovo models sold in Germany were found to have YMTC SSDs.

Nevertheless, he said that price increases are becoming their own trend, saying that SSDs, PCBs, and fiberglass cloth used in motherboards are seeing their own hikes. “A lot of people come and tell us they want to raise prices, and we find it a bit baffling — this needs to go up, too?” Chen said to the reporters.

He wrapped up by saying this chain of price hikes creates inflation (according to Goldman, rising memory prices will push core PCE higher by 0.5%) which in turn pushes central banks to raise rates, and that "this is not a normal phenomenon."

As Tom's Hardware summarizes, the overall tenor from Chen is good news for long-suffering PC enthusiasts if computer manufacturers could finally lower prices after years of shortages and expensive parts.

Certainly happy to take advantage of the soaring profit margins, China's best IPO of the decade, DRAM chipmaker CXMT, said on ‌Sunday its fifth-generation technology platform had entered mass production, a claimed breakthrough that could help China build a stronger competitor to Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology in the global market for memory chips. 

The new platform is ​designed to make more powerful memory chips at lower cost and with less power ⁠use, Reuters reported. CXMT, which earlier this year listed on Shanghai's STAR Market, said it would give electronics makers an additional ​source of supply for chips used in smartphones and other devices. The company is currently the 4th largest DRAM maker in the world - but rapidly growing - after the Big-3 cartel of Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.

CXMT, China's leading producer of DRAM, said the ​new platform packs the tiny structures that store data closer together, allowing more memory to fit on each chip and more individual chips to be made from each silicon wafer.

The Hefei-based memory-chip maker said it had reduced the spacing of key features ​in the part of the chip that stores data to 11.95 nanometres, or about 12 billionths of a ​metre.

It achieved this using "quadruple patterning," a process that repeats several manufacturing steps to produce finer circuit patterns.
"Our process capability is now ‌on ⁠par with the most advanced mass-produced nodes out there in the industry," Luo Xiaodong, CXMT's vice president and head of its marketing centre, said at the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei.

CXMT also unveiled two 24-gigabit LPDDR5X products made on the new platform. LPDDR5X is a power-saving type of DRAM used mainly ​in smartphones and other portable ​electronics. The products each hold ⁠50% more data than CXMT's previous equivalent products and are already in mass production, the company said. They are offered in two package formats for different smartphone ​and portable-device designs.

CXMT said the platform can produce at least 50% more gross chip ​dies per ⁠wafer than its fourth-generation platform, using an 8-gigabit-chip baseline. That measures the potential number of chips made from a wafer before defective units are excluded, rather than the proportion that pass final testing.

CXMT said it developed the platform using computer ⁠simulations ​and joint work with Chinese chip-equipment makers on critical production steps.

The ​advance comes as Beijing seeks to reduce reliance on foreign semiconductor technology and US export controls since 2022 have restricted China's access to ​certain advanced chipmaking equipment and related software.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 22:33

"Technically Not A Hurricane": Rare Nor'easter Threatens Northeast This Weekend

Meteorologists on X are tracking a potential nor'easter that could form off the East Coast late this week. 

A powerful nor’easter could lash the East Coast this week — a rarity for September.

Only around 1 percent of nor’easters have historically occurred during September.

They are most common from November to April. pic.twitter.com/t9LNEgAeqD

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 21, 2026

A late-September nor'easter is rare for this time of year, and it comes as El Niño has curbed hurricane development so far this season. 

Is it nor’easter season already?! Things are getting started early this year!

The East Coast will be on watch for a potentially powerful early-season nor’easter later this week — with rain, wind and waves whose severity depends on the exact track. pic.twitter.com/A1K5vF2Xhj

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) September 20, 2026

"While not technically a hurricane, the coastal impacts from a powerful Nor'easter will bring "battering waves" and erosion plus very strong winds perhaps gusting to 70-80 mph," meteorologist Ryan Maue wrote on X earlier Monday, adding, "Even without a storm name -- news media should take this "climate-fueled cyclone" very seriously." 

While not technically a hurricane, the coastal impacts from a powerful Nor'easter will bring "battering waves" and erosion plus very strong winds perhaps gusting to 70-80 mph.

Even without a storm name -- news media should take this "climate fueled cyclone" very seriously. pic.twitter.com/E57I2hWeAd

— Ryan Maue (@RyanWeather) September 21, 2026

PIX11 senior meteorologist Mike Masco said, "Some model guidance has hinted at gusts of 60–70 mph from eastern New Jersey to eastern Long Island. That is NOT a forecast at this point, but I’m not dismissing the potential, particularly across eastern Long Island." 

🌊 NOR’EASTER SEASON TO KICK OFF THIS WEEKEND?

The European model is showing a setup that could produce a long-duration nor’easter potentially with some tropical characteristics.

Here’s what I’m watching at 500 mb, roughly 18,000 feet up: Upper-level energy rotating in from… pic.twitter.com/7Ar2P7oCY5

— Mike Masco (@MikeMasco) September 21, 2026

The good news is that peak hurricane season was on September 10 (11 days ago), without a named storm, because strong wind shear associated with El Niño was tearing apart developing systems in the Atlantic Basin. However, the season runs through November 30.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 22:10

Chinese County Orders Lawyers To Get Government Approval Before Defending Criminal Charges

Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times,

A county justice bureau in southwestern China has ordered local law firms to report cases related to the government's "anti-organized crime" campaign and obtain official approval before lawyers can argue that a defendant's alleged offense should be classified differently.

The No. 2 Intermediate People's Court in the Beijing suburb of Fangzhuang on Aug. 15, 2006. Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images

The notice, issued directly to law firms by the Justice Bureau of Pu'an County in Guizhou Province, requires lawyers handling cases covered by a recent anti-organized crime public notice to report them to the bureau's public legal services department, according to a Sept. 18 blog post by a legal blogger on Chinese news portal NetEase.

The requirement has prompted concerns among Chinese lawyers that a government administrative agency is attempting to exercise control over how defense lawyers present their cases in court.

The notice states that law firms handling cases covered by the campaign "must promptly report [them] to the county justice bureau's public legal services department."

It adds: "If the defense argument is to change the legal characterization of the crime, it must be reported to the county justice bureau for study and approval before that defense theory can be expressed. All law firms are requested to strictly implement this."

Under the arrangement, lawyers would therefore need to do more than simply notify the justice bureau that they are handling a particular case. Before presenting a defense argument that challenges the prosecution's characterization of an alleged offense, they would have to obtain approval from the same government agency responsible for regulating the local legal profession.

Lawyers Question Restrictions

Two China-based attorneys spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, giving only their surnames out of fear of reprisal.

Zhang, a human rights lawyer from Hubei Province, said the local county requirement violates China's Criminal Procedure Law and interferes with defendants' rights to a defense, as well as lawyers' independent practice.

"Lawyers [should act] independently in accordance with the law and not be subject to unlawful interference by any administrative agency," Zhang said. "Establishing administrative approval or consent as a prerequisite for using a defense argument is tantamount to placing the review of judicial administrative agencies above the law."

China's Criminal Procedure Law provides that defense lawyers should, based on facts and law, present materials and opinions concerning innocence, lesser offenses, or the reduction or exemption of criminal responsibility.

However, the Pu'an County notice requires lawyers to wait for the justice bureau to "study and approve" one category of such defense arguments before presenting it.

Liu, a Beijing-based human rights lawyer, told The Epoch Times that the requirement is particularly significant in cases arising from government-led anti-organized crime campaigns, in which lawyers may need to challenge the evidence or the prosecution's classification of an alleged offense.

"In mainland China, the more anti-organized crime is designated by the authorities as a task, the more lawyers need to question the evidence and the characterization of the crime," Liu said.

If administrative agencies can screen out defense arguments they do not approve of, he said, a trial could effectively be left with only the prosecution's account, reducing the defense to a mere formality.

"Special campaigns such as the 'anti-organized crime' campaign launched by the Chinese Communist Party ... carry clear political-task implications for local officials," Liu said. "This precisely reflects that the [local] authorities concerned are moving toward abandoning judicial fairness, and doing so will lead to more wrongful and unjust cases."

Similar Rule Previously Withdrawn

The requirement in Pu'an has a precedent elsewhere in Guizhou Province.

According to a 2015 report by Chinese state-owned media outlet The Paper, the Zunyi Municipal Justice Bureau introduced a rule in late 2014 requiring lawyers to report cases in which they intended to argue for a defendant's acquittal or seek a change in the criminal charge.

Lawyers filed a government information disclosure request concerning the rule. The justice bureau responded that because the provision was controversial, it had decided to withdraw it.

The earlier rule required lawyers to report such cases. The Pu'an notice goes further by explicitly stating that a lawyer seeking to change the legal characterization of a crime must obtain the county justice bureau's "study and approval" before expressing the defense argument in court.

Ye Zilong contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 21:45

Seattle Mayor Calls For New Gun Laws While Letting Repeat Offenders Roam Free

It's the communist playbook in real time.  Allow crime to fester, then disarm law abiding citizens rather than punishing the people responsible.    

Democratic Socialist Mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson, has been a disaster for the city and she's only been in office nine months.  So far, multiple major corporate employers are leaving Seattle to avoid tax expansion, homeless camps are growing exponentially, she has triggered several public safety controversies, faced potential recall and plunging public approval. 

Anyone with sense could have predicted this, but Seattle is a nesting ground for woke cultism and Wilson said all the right things during her campaign.

As with any far-left administration, it was only a matter of time before Wilson went after firearms rights.  In a recent announcement on a "new approach to gun violence", the Mayor calls for "preventing gun violence before it happens".  Part of this plan includes Wilson pushing for added restrictions to firearms carry in Washington. 

Wilson wants to work with the state legislature to advance gun violence prevention legislation, including regulation of firearms “in sensitive spaces,” regulation of firearms at the city's center, and an update to juvenile firearm possession and sentencing laws (she does not specify what these updates would entail).  

Washington already preempts most local gun regulation. Cities cannot ban carry on their own; any broader restrictions would require a change in state law. Current state rules limit guns in some city-run stadiums and convention centers, with exceptions for people who have a valid concealed pistol license.

Wilson’s proposal has not spelled out whether licensed concealed carry would be included in every “sensitive space.”  But her added restrictions, as presented, would only affect legal and law abiding gun owners.  

The problem with this model is that it ignores the source of the crime.  The vast majority of gun violence in Seattle is committed by 0.1% of all residents, and the majority of these criminals are repeat offenders.  Roughly 900 people in a city of 780,000 are connected to 52% of the violence.  Why not simply lock these 900 people up for good? 

On such case is Alrick Hollingsworth, who served only seven years for shooting five people are a Seattle bus stop and was released early.  Hollingsworth went back out on the streets this year only to commit another shooting.

Wilson and leftists like her will never lock up repeat offenders this because it would contradict their position on "social solutions" to crime response. Many criminals who commit violence are already on law enforcement radar because they have a long rap sheet of lesser offenses.  Wilson promotes a program called "LEAD Seattle" (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) which "diverts" offenders with "lesser crimes" away from prosecution and into social services projects. 

This problem is magnified in juvenile courts where offenders consistently get a slap on the wrist and sent to the revolving door.     

Whether or not the WA legislature agrees with Wilson on increased gun carry restriction is not yet clear, but the narrative is predictable.  Leftist candidates have consistently lost favor with the American public when it comes to gun control and they seem to have backed away from their more aggressive rhetoric on the issue.  However, that doesn't mean they are abandoning their gun grabber roots.  

As we have seen in the past, gun control always starts with incrementalism - They start with less contentious restrictions, like a ban of concealed carry in public spaces, then move the ball forward from there.  Why should the rest of Seattle's citizens pay the price for the actions of 900 dangerous thugs?  There's no logical reason other than control.  The goal is not to solve crime, the goal is to exploit crime as a vehicle to add new laws.  

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 21:20

China Will Dominate Global Nuclear Energy Through 2035, Analyst Says

Authored by Haley Zaremba via OilPrice.com,

The future of nuclear energy is in China's hands. While the United States remains the world's largest producer of nuclear energy, China's sector is growing at such a rapid clip that it is expected to overtake France as well as the United States to become the world's leading nuclear power producer within the next decade. In addition to this rapid expansion of traditional nuclear power capacity, Beijing has also quickly become the global leader in a broad and diverse range of advanced nuclear power technologies.

"By a wide margin, China will have the world's most dynamic and significant nuclear industry through 2035," Damien Ma, energy lead analyst for Gavekal Technologies, wrote in a recent report, as quoted by the South China Morning Post. "Construction efficiencies mean China can build a new plant in about six years, compared with more than a decade for the latest Vogtle reactors in the US," Ma went on to say.

The United States has added just one nuclear plant in the last decade, Georgia's long-delayed, over-budget, and controversial Plant Vogtle. Over the same time, China added a staggering 34 gigawatts of capacity. And, Beijing's latest five year plan shows that China has no intentions of slowing down.

"With innovation and security as its leading themes, the latest FYP illuminates how nuclear energy underpins multiple strategic priorities for China in the context of not only energy security but also technological innovation and global engagement," the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonprofit policy research organization and bipartisan think tank recently reported.

The Chinese government has been eager to build up the most advanced nuclear power sector in the world as a part of Beijing's broader bid to establish lasting dominance in the global energy sector by becoming the world's first electrostate. Building the world's most advanced nuclear energy fleet is a part of this goal, and includes innovative approaches to how nuclear reactors are designed, deployed, and fueled.

"From the world's first in-reactor thorium breeding confirmation to a dual PWR-HTGR plant and commercial supercritical CO2 generation, China is assembling a vertically integrated advanced nuclear ecosystem," Power Magazine reported in March of this year. "The breadth of activity signals a coordinated push toward fuel independence and industrial deployment."

The United States has also been bullish about building up and advancing its aging nuclear sector. The Trump administration has publicized its intentions to "produce lasting American dominance in the global nuclear energy market" and is likewise bullish on developing next-gen nuclear reactors and nuclear fusion technology on its own home turf. Similarly to China, the United States is also fighting to free itself from international nuclear fuel supply chains, and is attempting to do so by building up domestic uranium extraction and enrichment capacities. But the United States' advanced nuclear sector is lagging far behind China when it comes to spending and technological knowhow.

But while China is historically quite secretive about its technological advancements and cutting-edge energy sector developments, this week Beijing made a surprising move to share its expertise with the rest of the world. This week, China signed a deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to more freely share its knowledge on high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) with other countries. HGTRs are a form of advanced fourth-generation reactor that is capable of producing nuclear energy at extremely high temperatures, opening avenues for use in a variety of industrial applications.

The new deal "covers cooperation in HTGR research and development, reactor design, construction, commissioning and operation," as well as the exchange of "information on supply chains and personnel training," according to a recent Interesting Engineering report. "The deal could give other countries greater access to China's engineering experience with HTGRs as interest grows in nuclear systems that can provide both electricity and high-temperature industrial heat."

This development is a promising starting point for a more cooperative approach to what is indeed a borderless problem - climate change and the growing problem of artificial intelligence's energy demand growth. Advanced nuclear energy systems could provide a critical lifeline by offering clean energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 20:55

DHS Lawyer Says Minnesota Judges Coordinated To Block Immigration Enforcement

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) top lawyer accused a federal judge of working with other judges to block immigration law enforcement after the jurist said that the Trump administration's Minnesota enforcement surge created "a grave threat to the rule of law."

Federal law enforcement agents stand in line to keep anti-ICE protesters away from the entrance to the Bishop Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 15, 2026. Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images

The accusations followed a New York Times article published on Sept. 17 featuring a joint interview with seven Minnesota judges.

It is unusual for federal judges to sit for wide-ranging media interviews dealing with their rulings and what impact they have had. The high-profile enforcement surge in the Twin Cities ran from December 2025 to the middle of February 2026.

On Jan. 28, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz issued an order saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had failed to comply with nearly a hundred court orders. Schiltz, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush, previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

"ICE is not a law unto itself," the judge said in a written order. "ICE has every right to challenge the orders of this Court, but, like any litigant, ICE must follow those orders unless and until they are overturned or vacated."

During the surge, DHS moved detainees out of Minnesota almost as quickly as attorneys could get into court. DHS General Counsel James Percival said Minnesota judges sat ready to issue emergency orders to keep those cases from leaving the judicial district. Schiltz said the court was responding to the government's failure to obey its orders.

Judge Nancy Brasel said judges "are allowed to speak out about judicial independence" and "should, in order to keep it." Judge Eric Tostrud said Schiltz was "the perfect person to lead us" during the surge, calling him "independent, brilliant, courageous. And not faint of heart." Judge John Tunheim said the government "wasn't arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street."

Percival said on X on Sept. 17 that Schiltz's comments that appeared that day in The New York Times show "profound bias against DHS and the current [administration] and he admits to extreme misconduct." Percival said that Schiltz admitted to "essentially conspiring with his judicial colleagues to thwart DHS's immigration enforcement in Minnesota."

Percival said the next day on X that the article described "judges sitting by their phones ready to issue [temporary restraining orders] ASAP," during the surge even though "there was no emergency." The restraining orders were issued "to prevent judges from outside [Minnesota] from hearing the cases," he said.

The judge said in the interview that his Jan. 28 order was prompted by concern that the federal government's failure to obey court orders had clogged court dockets, exacerbated tensions in the protest-riven metropolis, and jeopardized the constitutional order. He said he believed most of the noncompliance arose from incompetence and understaffing, rather than conscious decisions to defy the court.

Several federal district judges, appointed by presidents from both parties, also spoke with the newspaper.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the U.S. Department of Justice. No reply was received by publication time.

Jacob Burg contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 20:05

Massachusetts School District Investigated Over Alleged Secret 'Gender Transition'

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Education has announced that it is investigating a Massachusetts school district over allegedly enabling a minor girl student's "gender transition" without the knowledge of parents or securing their consent.

The probe was launched by the department's Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) against the Public Schools of Northborough and Southborough school district, the department said in a Sept. 17 statement.

The girl was enrolled at Algonquin Regional High School, where school personnel allegedly facilitated the student's "social transition to a boy" while keeping her parents in the dark.

"The parents claim that their daughter participated in counseling sessions after school to support the transition while they were under the impression she was receiving academic assistance for her math class," the department said.

The school personnel also allegedly began referring to the child by a male name and using male pronouns without the parents' knowledge.

According to the Education Department, a school counselor is accused of reporting the parents to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) for countering the school's actions.

In December 2024, DCF removed the child from her family home. The parents are still engaged in custody litigation over their daughter.

The Education Department said the allegations raise serious questions about the school district's compliance with federal laws protecting parental rights, specifically the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).

FERPA grants parents the right to access their children's education records for inspection and review. Parents also have certain control over the disclosure of personal information from these records.

Under PPRA, parents have rights regarding surveys, analyses, or evaluations of their children in certain areas, including sex behavior or attitudes and mental or psychological problems.

The law also covers the administration of physical examinations of minors. Parents have the right to review instructional materials used in the educational curriculum.

The Education Department said that under FERPA, parents can request changes to their child's education records. If the school rejects the requested changes, parents can seek a hearing on the issue at the institution.

According to the department, it is currently unclear whether the school district and the school complied with FERPA and PPRA. The SPPO probe will determine whether these regulations were violated.

"Parents have a right to know what is happening with their children at school, particularly when it concerns deeply personal matters involving their health and well-being," Frank Miller, director of SPPO, said in the statement.

"These egregious allegations are not an isolated problem. Families deserve answers, and SPPO will thoroughly investigate reports like this and hold any educational institution that violates federal law accountable."

The Epoch Times reached out to the Public Schools of Northborough and Southborough and Algonquin Regional High School for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Another school district from Massachusetts was previously identified by the Education Department as violating parental rights. In that case, the district was found to have asked students to take part in a survey containing sexually explicit questions despite parents having expressly requested that their children be exempted.

The survey of students as young as seventh grade included questions regarding sexual encounters, alcohol and drug use, and gender identity, the department said, alleging the school district violated PPRA and parents' rights to shape their children's moral education.

Meanwhile, the department announced last month that it had sent letters to schools across the United States, reminding them of educators' obligations under FERPA and PPRA and warning that noncompliance could result in the loss of federal funding.

The letters were sent while the 2026-2027 academic year was underway and were prompted by reports of educational institutions withholding crucial information from parents and issuing surveys containing sexually explicit material even after parents had opted their children out of such activities.

Miller said that in certain cases, state education departments had pressured school districts to violate FERPA.

"The department is committed to putting parents back in the driver's seat. We will fully enforce FERPA and PPRA and ensure parents have the information and authority they need to make decisions for their children," Miller said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 19:15

Saudi Arabia Reroutes Oil Exports As Houthi Strikes Target Yanbu

Satellite images gathered by Bloomberg show supertankers with capacity for 14 million barrels at Saudi Arabia's Gulf export terminals over the weekend, the highest tanker count observed since at least June, according to data compiled from the European Union's Sentinel-2 satellite.

Source: Javier Blas

However, as OilPrice notes, overall Hormuz traffic kept falling over the same weekend, nonetheless. Just a dozen commodity vessels crossed the strait, down from 35 a week earlier, and Thursday's crossings totaled four tankers against a 10-day moving average of 16, Kpler data cited by Reuters showed.

Saudi Arabia moved crude through the strait at 2.9 million barrels a day over the past six days, JPMorgan said in a Friday note, calling the kingdom's shift "the most notable pivot" among Gulf producers.

On September 11, drone strikes launched from Iraq shut down Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, also known as Petroline, which normally carries as much as 7 million barrels a day across 1,200 kilometers from Eastern Province fields to the Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea. The attack took 4-5 million barrels a day of that capacity offline, with total Saudi crude loadings falling from 7.5 million bpd in January and February to about 2.1 million barrels a day by mid-September, a decline of more than 70%.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said September 15 the pipeline would restart within days, but an industry analyst told Al-Monitor pump stations were destroyed in the strike and full restoration could take six weeks or more.

Yemen's Houthi movement claimed cruise missile, ballistic missile and drone strikes on Riyadh and on Aramco facilities at Yanbu overnight September 18-19, and Saudi Arabia confirmed the Houthis targeted civilian infrastructure at the port where the East-West pipeline terminates. The Riyadh missile was intercepted and Saudi authorities reported no casualties or damage from either strike, but the attempt puts Yanbu, the kingdom's primary outlet since the Hormuz freeze, under renewed threat.

Aramco pipes crude to its Ras Tanura terminal on the Persian Gulf, ships it on smaller vessels to the Gulf of Oman, and transfers it to larger tankers there, a routing it is using to move about 60 million barrels loaded at Ras Tanura for September and October delivery, mainly to Chinese and South Korean refiners. Gulf exports have rebounded to an average of 1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day, roughly in line with August levels.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 18:50

Nvidia CEO Says "Zero Percent" Chance Of AI Making Humans Extinct

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has rejected the claims of some artificial intelligence researchers that the technology could wipe out humanity, calling the arguments "doomsday narratives."

Huang said in a Sept. 17 interview with CBS News that predictions made by former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon and Anthropic's alignment science lead, Evan Hubinger, were not grounded in science.

Coxon said in a Sept. 9 post on X that the "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."

Hubinger said he agreed it could end humanity.

"Jacob is correct here - We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade," he wrote.

Huang told CBS's senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent on Thursday that 2030 won't be the end of the world.

"There is zero percent chance that's going to be the end of the world," he said. "Scaring people is unnecessary. It is irresponsible."

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Sept. 14 post on Truth Social that the United States needed no AI guardrails and that it already had significant criminal and regulatory power over Big Tech companies.

"There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China," Trump wrote.

Nvidia CEO Agrees With Trump

Huang said on Thursday that he agreed with the U.S. president's view on legislation and regulation.

"Before we come up with new laws and new regulations, let's apply the current laws and current regulations," Huang said.

"There are all kinds of laws and regulations. ... You have cybersecurity unauthorized entry, you have damage liabilities, all kinds of liabilities associated with cybersecurity. All kinds of liabilities associated with products. ... My point is apply those first, don't let this doomsday narrative cause someone to relieve them of the laws that currently exist."

Huang has been invited to a dinner at the White House on Sept. 24, when Trump will host Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Trump has said AI will be on the agenda during his meeting with Xi.

China

Huang told CBS that Xi wanted China to benefit from AI.

"They want China to prosper, just as we want America to prosper," Huang said.

Nvidia manufactures specialized H200 chips that power large language models (LLMs) used by AI agents to synthesize information.

Trump said in a Dec. 8 post on Truth Social that he had told Xi the United States would allow exports of Nvidia H200 chips to approved customers in China "under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security."

In July 2025, Nvidia restarted exports of H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) to China after U.S. regulators approved it.

Nvidia is now worth more than $5 trillion, making it the most valuable company on the planet. The company manufactures many of its chips in Taiwan, but last year, it opened a semiconductor fabrication plant in Phoenix, Ariz.

Last month, Taiwanese authorities indicted nine people, including a senior partner manager at Nvidia's Taiwan unit, for allegedly taking part in a scheme to export servers with advanced Nvidia chips to China.

In June, Taiwan-born Huang told Nvidia shareholders that attempts to build artificial intelligence data centers with smuggled chips were a "dead end," because the company provides no support or repairs for such products.

"National security is first and foremost," Huang said. "Where commercial opportunities conflict with U.S. national security, national security comes first."

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 18:25

Putin Plans To Skip Miami G20, Prioritizing China Trip: Officials

Both the Kremlin and the White House had recently signaled mutual openness to the idea of President Putin actually attending the G20 Miami Summit which is set for December 14-15. Some reports have recently expressed optimism that some kind of grand Ukraine peace deal could emerge from such an engagement.

However, Bloomberg has poured cold water on this, reporting Monday that "Vladimir Putin is set to travel to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit hosted by President Xi Jinping but is likely to skip the Group of 20 in the U.S. with Donald Trump."

Source: The White House

Kremlin officials have indicated that a personal appearance at the APEC would be Putin's first since 2017

"There’s only a very slim prospect of him joining President Trump for the G20 in Florida, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter isn’t public," notes Bloomberg.

But it does remain possible, given the Shenzhen-hosted APEC summit takes place almost a full month ahead of the annual G20 summit.

The Kremlin now signaling that it intends to turn down any potential Trump invitation perhaps underscores that Putin is much more comfortably in Xi's corner.

Back in April, The Washington Post reported, "The United States intends to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Group of 20 leaders’ summit scheduled for December at President Donald Trump’s Doral golf resort in Miami, though the invitation has not yet been sent."

And then just weeks ago there was a Russian delegation in attendance for the Asheville G20 finance ministers and bank governors meeting. The Europeans were angry over their presence, which included a meeting with Scott Bessent.

Ukraine's President Zelensky is expected to be in Miami. This raised the prospect of an unprecedented Putin-Zelensky meeting even as the war rages. But it should be remembered that Putin has time and again stated he would entertain face-to-face negotiations with Zelensky only if a final settlement was to be signed.

So if the White House does intend to get Putin there, a lot of scrambling and diplomatic progress would have to happen in the next few months. But Putin might also simply wish to send a signal that Western efforts to isolate him on the world stage have failed.

President Zelenskyy said he is ready to meet Putin in person in the United States if Putin attends the G20 summit in Miami in December.

"Yes, of course. We have to come. We have to meet, to speak and make decisions.

It’s not about words. What I will tell him or what he wants to… pic.twitter.com/PVjyTJrS5O

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) September 12, 2026

Traveling to Miami would send a resounding symbol to hawkish European capitals, akin to the prior Alaska summit with Trump. But again, it seems that so far the Kremlin is giving this possibility the preemptive cold shoulder.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 18:00

Houston-Area Birth Tourism Center Shut Down In Legal Action

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A birth tourism operation in the Houston area has agreed to close in a settlement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Friday.

An advertisement for a Houston-area “birth tourism” operation known as De’Ai Postpartum Care Center. The Texas attorney general filed a lawsuit against the center, claiming it has operated an unlawful “birth tourism” business. Courtesy of the state of Texas Attorney General's Office

The center "unlawfully facilitated over 1,000 births to foreign Chinese nationals," Paxton posted on X.

Paxton's office first sued the operation in late April, stating the De'Ai Postpartum Care Center primarily helped Chinese nationals travel to Texas to give birth and secure U.S. citizenship for their children.

The center had operated for years across multiple Houston-area properties. Locations included sites in Sugar Land, Houston, Richmond, and Rosenberg, according to details from the original state lawsuit.

Gov. Greg Abbott on July 21 ordered Texas state agencies to start investigating and eliminating illegal birth tourism schemes and hold accountable any licensed healthcare providers that participate in them.

"Texas will not tolerate the exploitation of our immigration laws by individuals traveling to the United States illegally or under false pretenses to give birth and secure citizenship for their child," Abbott said in a statement at the time.

The De'Ai Postpartum Care Center did not respond to The Epoch Times after multiple attempts to contact them. The De'Ai Postpartum Care Center did not appear to maintain a public website in English, but it had two Chinese-language websites that have since been closed.

State investigators described facilities at the center that could house multiple families and an operation that was capable of handling up to 20 births per day, according to the attorney general's office.

"The Center's scheme not only facilitated an invasion of Texas, but it also involved shielding and facilitating violations of immigration law. Birthright citizenship is a scam that threatens national security, and I will do everything in my power to stop unlawful 'birth tourism' schemes like this one." Paxton said in an April 29 statement.

The lawsuit alleged the center coached clients on how to navigate immigration procedures and evade laws when seeking visas and citizenship for themselves and their children. That alleged coaching included encouraging Chinese nationals to conceal that the primary purpose of their travel was to give birth.

"To make matters worse, operators of the Center were aware that U.S. visas are prohibited for birth tourism purposes," Paxton's office said in a statement after filing the lawsuit.

"In fact, just last week, the Center noted that the federal government is 'strictly' policing birth tourism and recommended that women apply for visas 'before pregnancy' in order to avoid detection," his office stated at the time.

Expectant families could spend tens of thousands of dollars on the center's services, the suit claimed. Once a child born through the operation turned 21, that child could petition for permanent residency for parents and siblings.

Marketing occurred through social media platforms, private messaging applications, word of mouth, and Chinese websites, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit noted that since Jan. 24, 2020, the United States has expressly denied tourist travel "for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States to obtain citizenship for the child," and has maintained that all birth tourism visa applications "will be denied."

Tom Gantert and Jill McLaughlin contributed to this report.

* * * (there's also an extra large compass)

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 17:40

Diesel Hits New Record Above $6.50 As Export Ban Fears Mount, Gasoline Squeeze Looms

UBS analysts warned that the global diesel squeeze could get worse as two major suppliers potentially pull barrels from an already strained petroleum products market. Russia may extend diesel export restrictions through October, while chatter in Washington about a US fuel export ban continues to grow.

As of Monday morning, AAA data show the national average for diesel has reached $6.51 per gallon, with prices gaining a staggering 88 cents so far this month. Prices are rising nearly every day and surging beyond the peak set in 2022 during the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

UBS energy expert Anna Kishmariya says a Russian extension would derail her team's assumption that exports would begin recovering in October as a domestic diesel surplus emerged. She said keeping restrictions in place could suggest more extensive damage to refinery units and a longer repair cycle than previously expected.

The bigger risk is a policy decision coming from Washington, as the US has accounted for roughly 30% of global diesel and gasoil exports this year. Any US export ban would leave major overseas importers highly exposed.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote on X this weekend that diesel prices at the pump in his state were hitting $6.57 a gallon and proposed the idea: "Why doesn't Pres. Trump put an embargo on diesel exports like presidents in the 70s put embargoes on ag products bc food prices were inflated."

On Monday morning, Trump said Russia had "lost control" of its diesel industry due to the war with Ukraine, calling for an end to the "ridiculous and never-ending" war.

Trump was quoted by the Financial Times earlier today as saying he had been on a call with Ukraine's Zelensky, pressing him to stop drone attacks on Russian refineries.

The fuel shock is coming at an uncomfortable time for the Federal Reserve as it confronts broader inflation pressure. Policymakers raised interest rates by 25 bps last week, and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari warned that excessive inflation extends beyond energy.

Goldman Sachs commodity experts Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and Daan Struyven warned last week that the diesel crisis could soon push gasoline prices higher, setting the stage for the next major squeeze.

"The key reason for this new recommendation is that refiners' switching output from gasoline to diesel is rapidly tightening gasoline markets, where less elevated price levels leave room for sharp price upside if the Mideast and Russia-Ukraine conflicts continued to constrain refining output for longer or if more energy infrastructure were damaged," Grigsby and Struyven wrote in the note. 

On the inflation front, Citi US economist Veronica Clark asked clients: "Will rising diesel costs push up goods prices?" 

Clark's take: 

We were surprised to see the median core PCE forecast in the September SEP rise to 3.4% from 3.3% in June. We think it is likely that most Fed forecasts do not include upcoming revisions and that core PCE will ultimately be lower than many officials are expecting this year. 

We continue to track core PCE around 3.0-3.1%Q4/Q4. A renewed substantial increase in energy prices has caused fresh concerns about pass-through to core inflation, particularly as elevated diesel prices mean higher transportation costs for various goods. But recent historical evidence is limited about the correlation between higher diesel prices and core goods in CPI. 

We are still hesitant to conclude there will be substantial pass-through as long as real income growth remains soft. Market rents have picked up slightly in recent months but remain softer than pre-pandemic, suggesting shelter inflation should continue to slow.

As for the proposed US export ban, Height Capital Markets research director Benjamin Salisbury noted, "While it may be politically tempting, we still expect Republicans to resist the urge to ban diesel or other petroleum exports." 

* * *

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 17:20

DOJ Charges 16 Individuals For Election Crimes

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sept. 18 announced charges against 16 people across seven states, alleging various election-related crimes.

A voter at a polling site during the redistricting referendum in Alexandria, Va., on April 21, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The individuals are being accused of "unlawful voting by non-citizens in federal elections, false claims of citizenship to register or vote, and related offenses including wire fraud, naturalization fraud, passport fraud, and unlawful firearm purchases," the DOJ said in a statement.

Eight individuals, all of them immigrants, have been charged in Texas. This includes seven lawful permanent residents and an illegal immigrant.

The illegal immigrant, Moises Anwar Arellano-Alba, 36, from Mexico, is facing two charges of allegedly making a false statement of citizenship in order to register to vote and voting by an alien in a federal election.

Under Title 18 of U.S. Code Section 611, it is unlawful for an immigrant to vote in any federal or mixed election to select candidates for the posts of president, vice president, member of the Senate, member of the House of Representatives, presidential elector, resident commissioner, or delegate from the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, Title 18 of U.S. Code Section 1015 criminalizes knowingly making false statements regarding citizenship in registering to vote or actually casting votes.

Other charged individuals are three Mexicans, two Nigerians, and one person each from Congo and India.

In Idaho, Avila Gomez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, allegedly claimed to be a U.S. citizen and voted in the May 2022 and November 2024 elections, according to the DOJ. In addition, Gomez is accused of procuring Idaho identification cards through fraud. Title 18 of the U.S. Code Section 1028 makes it a crime to knowingly produce an identification document without lawful authority.

In Georgia, three people have been charged - an illegal immigrant and two suspected of being illegal immigrants.

The illegal immigrant, Analiea Milliscent Eccles, 44, from Venezuela, allegedly voted nine times between 2008 and 2024, the DOJ said.

In Massachusetts, a lawful permanent resident who is a Nigerian national was apprehended and subsequently charged with voting illegally in the 2022 elections and allegedly casting votes in the 2024 general election.

In Wisconsin, a Colombian national and lawful permanent resident is being accused of falsely claiming to be an American citizen while registering to vote for the November 2022 federal elections. And in New Jersey and Michigan, one person each has been charged for election-related crimes.

The Epoch Times was unable to reach the legal representatives for Arellano-Alba, Gomez, and Eccles.

In August, the Census Bureau released a report analyzing noncitizen voting in the November 2020 general election.

Out of almost 160 million voters who cast ballots in the election, the bureau "determined with high confidence that over 128 million of these voter records represented citizens, and that over 24,000 of these voter records represented noncitizens at the time of the election," the report said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration's push to further regulate mail-in voting is facing challenges.

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to enhance election integrity with regard to U.S. mail. The order called for the use of secure ballot envelope identifiers and other voter eligibility verification measures. The United States Postal Service issued a rule last month to implement the executive order.

On Sept. 4, a U.S. District Judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the USPS from implementing regulations tightening mail-in voting. The injunction applied to the Nov. 3 midterm elections and any other federal election prior to the date.

The Trump administration then filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to pause the injunction. On Sept. 14, the Supreme Court refused to lift the nationwide injunction, saying that the government was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the injunction.

Trump criticized the decision in a Sept. 15 post on Truth Social.

"Republicans just got another bad decision from the United States Supreme Court, one that the Court System took forever to give, and then blamed it, in part, on no time left to implement a solution to our totally corrupt and out of control Mail-In voting 'disaster,' which is a laughing stock all over the World," he wrote.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 17:00

12 People Arrested After Stealing $250,000 Truckload Of Frozen Chicken

Stolen chicken used to pay off a drug debt?  It's a true barter market in action.  Memphis police serving a warrant at an Economy Inn discovered 12 people (some reports cite 13 people) behind the hotel unloading pallets of frozen chicken from a hijacked Koch Foods 18-wheeler.  The suspects fled the scene but were all captured.

Memphis police arrested 13 people after catching them unloading more than $250,000 worth of stolen fried chicken from an 18-wheeler behind a motel. Officers also recovered guns, fentanyl and cocaine. pic.twitter.com/fvVDUGB3C1

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 18, 2026

According to a press release, Javunte Johnson, 33, was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm.  An arrest warrant was also executed for Johnson for aggravated robbery.  Authorities found the man, along with 12 other people, unloading stolen pallets of chicken valued at $250,000.

Quantrivious Shavers, 25, and Jessie Moore, 37, members of the group, were charged with felony possession of a handgun. Officers recovered three handguns from the incident as well as fentanyl and cocaine.

The driver of the truck, Robert Wilson, reportedly stated that he had brought the massive chicken haul as payment to Johnson to cover a drug debt.

Memphis cargo theft incidents have spiked by 27% since 2025.  The city is one of the few U.S. freight hubs where cargo theft continues to rise while the national total drops.   

According to MPD, twelve people were taken into custody and charged:     

Javunte Johnson, 33, aggravated robbery, theft of property $60,000-$250,000, and convicted felon in possession of a handgun.     

Robert Wilson, 56, theft of property $60,000-$250,000 and evading arrest.     

Quantrivious Shavers, 25, theft of property $60,000-$250,000, convicted felon in possession of a handgun, and possession of a controlled substance with the intent to manufacture/deliver/sell, to wit: fentanyl.     

Samuel Jackson, 38, theft of property $60,000-$250,000 and possession of a controlled substance with the intent to manufacture/deliver/sell, to wit: cocaine.     

John Shipp, 47, theft of property $60,000-$250,000.     

Rico Jackson, 36, theft of property $60,000-$250,000.     

Devean Hoyle, 45, theft of property $60,000-$250,000.     

Trashawn Featherson, 35, theft of property $60,000-$250,000.     

Robert Dishmon, 40, theft of property $60,000-$250,000.     

Marcellous McKinney, 38, theft of property $60,000-$250,000 and Evading Arrest.     

Jessie Moore, 37, was arrested and charged with convicted felon in possession of a handgun and evading arrest, to wit: foot pursuit.     

Alexis Pike, 21, was arrested and charged with evading arrest, to wit: foot pursuit, and theft of property less than $ 1,000 (X2).  

The theft highlights stubborn criminal activity within certain enclaves of the US (largely Democrat run cities) despite the overall trend of falling crime rates nationally.  The details of the criminals aside, it's good to know that chicken has such a lucrative street value if one is ever deep in drug debt.    

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/21/2026 - 16:40