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A Collapsing Europe Shows Where Democrat Policies Will Take America

Authored by Andrew Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

Immediately before WWII, the biggest threat to Europe was Soviet socialism.

During WWII, the biggest threat was the open socialism (in the form of fascism) in Germany and Italy.

After WWII, during the Cold War, the biggest threat, once again, was Soviet socialism. Nevertheless, the post-war Europeans embraced socialism and touted its success, never realizing that it worked only because the U.S. paid their defense costs and absorbed the costs of wars around the world.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, and America’s defense spending waned, the true costs of socialism began to be clear: The economies became sluggish; the birthrates collapsed, necessitating importing third world, usually Muslim, labor; the social services started imploding, especially because those same third worlders drained the systems, despite never having contributed to them; soft on crime policies destroyed civilized society; and the brain rot of socialism saw Europe embrace the madcap, self-destructive idea of Net Zero carbon output, which has seen Europe retreat from the modern world into a cold, dark, pre-modern time.

All of this is what today’s Marxist Democrats want for America.

Democrats have always revered Europe. For decades, they’ve made nasty jokes about “flyover country,” referring to those parts of America that haven’t embraced European sophistication as parochial hicks. Obama summed it up with his “bitter clingers” remark, Hillary called the same people “a basket of deplorables,” and Joe Biden routinely berated Trump voters as dangerous idiots (a compliment the same voters would have returned to Biden himself).

When Democrats talk about socializing medicine, they point to Europe, a place where the cost of medical care is diffused through the tax base. England, with its National Healthcare System, shows that socialized medicine really isn’t what the Democrats think it is. In England, the patients get killed, the government endlessly debates ending medical care for old people, wait times are endless, and the patients and staff (see here, too) are at the mercy of government-mandated political correctness.

Overall, outcomes are not good. And as Canada shows, because the system has no innovation and no wealth incentives, euthanasia becomes not just one of many options, but a preferred option.

Democrats also look to Europe for its (in their view) admirable climate policies. But most of all, they love Europe’s open-border policies. Since 2015, Europe (including the UK) has thrown open its borders to the world’s Muslims.

        View this post on Instagram                      

A post shared by Visegrád24 (@visegrad.24)

That chart, by the way, is accurate. I checked. Also, those immigrants are expensive, costing Germans around 40-50 billion Euros (around $45-57 billion) annually. The German economy is about 80-85 percent smaller than America’s.

In Belgium, “Great Replacement fears in Belgium: 56% of Flemings are afraid they are being slowly replaced by foreigners.” Considering that almost 73% of people under 18 in Belgium have immigrant backgrounds, I’d say the Flemings are correct. In one generation, Belgium will be a Muslim country.

Data show that Muslim immigration dramatically increases crime in once-low-crime European nations:

Denmark is one of the rare European countries to publish crime data by country of origin.

Somalis top the list when it comes to rapes, fraud, forgeries and grievous assaults.

Palestinians lead in burglaries, blackmail and theft.

Data: Statistics Denmark (STRAFNA4, FOLK1C),… pic.twitter.com/AJ91a2eL5p

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 23, 2026

The immigrants that commit the most crime are also the costliest for the taxpayers. pic.twitter.com/9RXuA4ELkk

— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) May 23, 2026

If you want to see some of those criminal behaviors in action, there are a bazillion videos such as these available on X, everything from violent crime to revolting food hygiene:

Denmark is one of the rare European countries to publish crime data by country of origin.

Somalis top the list when it comes to rapes, fraud, forgeries and grievous assaults.

Palestinians lead in burglaries, blackmail and theft.

Data: Statistics Denmark (STRAFNA4, FOLK1C),… pic.twitter.com/AJ91a2eL5p

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 23, 2026

The immigrants that commit the most crime are also the costliest for the taxpayers. pic.twitter.com/9RXuA4ELkk

— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) May 23, 2026

If you want to see some of those criminal behaviors in action, there are a bazillion videos such as these available on X, everything from violent crime to revolting food hygiene:

Italy 🇮🇹:
Nigerian migrant Omo Robert was expelled from Malta after being caught sexually abusing a female horse.

Where did he go? Straight to Italy, of course, welcomed as a guest by Caritas while waiting for asylum.

There, he stormed into a shop armed with a hammer and,… pic.twitter.com/F5NM9h46kC

— Francesco 🇮🇹 (@SaP011) May 23, 2026

He served only a year in prison in France. Today he is a free man awaiting his next crime. pic.twitter.com/1LfGxNpw2o

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 24, 2026

London is scary. pic.twitter.com/JF7FqcoMCm

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 24, 2026

Halal food delivery. Zero hygiene. https://t.co/9u1w5qPH2r pic.twitter.com/b7DhHLPoII

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 24, 2026

Asylum seekers in Germany beat a German boy who is forced to kneel. Merkel will be happy and proud of this. https://t.co/6lKhRfSCpC pic.twitter.com/n3KxG9Vm32

— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 23, 2026

Meanwhile, in the UK, PM Starmer’s government has proudly announced that net migration decreased by 171,000 last year, besting the so-called “Conservatives”:

Net migration down 82%.

Net migration is now at 171,000, down from a high of 944,000 under the Conservatives.

This Government is restoring order and control to our borders. pic.twitter.com/ERo3QujQMD

— Shabana Mahmood MP (@ShabanaMahmood) May 21, 2026

That’s nice, except for what that boast doesn’t say:

In the year ending December 2025, the total number of people immigrating to Britain stood at 813,000. For comparison, this figure is around two-thirds of the population of the U.K.’s second-largest city, Birmingham.

That figure comprises 110,000 British nationals returning to the U.K., and 76,000 EU citizens. By far the largest contingent of immigrants was from non-EU countries, accounting for 627,000 arrivals.

The 171,000 figure is also largely offset by emigration — nearly a quarter of a million (246,000) British nationals left the country, while 118,000 EU nationals and 278,000 non-EU nationals also packed their bags.

Total emigration of 642,000 was marginally down on the 680,000 recorded the previous year.

So, while the headline figure looks impressive, that is still a considerable decline in British nationals — down a net figure of 136,000 — effectively being replaced by largely non-EU immigrants. A total of 138,000 Indians, 56,000 Pakistanis, 54,000 Chinese, and 47,000 Nigerian nationals arrived.

There’s one other quality-of-life problem with third-world, mostly-Muslim immigration, which is that doctors who arrive from Muslim-majority countries and are hired in their socialized medicine systems have problems adapting—and the patients suffer. In Britain, Muslims are over-represented as doctors relative to their numbers in the greater population, and there are problems as a result, especially around hygiene, males treating females and vice versa, moving beds to face Mecca, and all sorts of other things (and that’s an old report, before the energy really got behind accommodating Islam).

And of course, it’s not just in the UK; it’s everywhere:

The Perils of Foreign, Especially Muslim, Doctors in Europe
by Hugh Fitzgerald

In Germany, there is a shortage of doctors, and an influx of foreign doctors has not solved that problem but instead, has led to poorly trained doctors harming, and in some cases, killing, their… pic.twitter.com/H828BfnnT8

— Robert Spencer (@jihadwatchRS) May 21, 2026

Here’s another example of the products of medical schools in the Muslim world.

My question for you is, do you want America to go down this road? If yes, vote Democrat. If no, even if you’re feeling piqued about this or that thing that Donald Trump has done, you’d still better vote MAGA.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/25/2026 - 05:10

70% Of All Crypto 'Wrench Attacks' Happen In France: Report

About 70% of all wrench attacks, physical attacks against crypto holders and their families, carried out in an attempt to steal digital assets, occur in France, according to Bitcoin journalist Joe Nakamoto. 

There have been 41 crypto-related kidnappings in France so far in 2026, Nakamoto said, or about one attack every two and a half days, he added. 

As CoinTelegraph's Vince Quill reports, Nakamoto attributed the rise in wrench attacks to know-your-customer data collection, which is stored in centralized servers that were compromised in several high-profile data leaks, including the 2020 leak of hardware wallet provider Ledger’s customer data.

That data leak disclosed the identities, home addresses and emails of more than 270,000 customers worldwide, he added. Jameson Lopp, the CEO of crypto wallet and key management company Casa, said:

“France is the canary in the coal mine, demonstrating how financial regulations create a surveillance apparatus that causes direct harm to bitcoin holders.”

An overview of wrench attacks in France so far in 2026. Source: Joe Nakamoto

Opposition to know-your-customer data collection is mounting inside the crypto and Bitcoin communities, as digital asset holders continue to be targeted with physical attacks and kidnappings, prompting a need for increased security measures.

Don’t become a target: Bitcoiners offer advice to safeguard against attacks

The attacks are typically orchestrated by criminals living abroad, who contract young people living in France to carry out the physical attacks, Nakamoto said.

Users can stay safe by using crypto custody services that offer security features like a pre-agreed-upon word or phrase that lets a custodial or key management company know the holder is being actively attacked.

A database of known wrench attacks. Source: GitHub

The company can then freeze the assets, making sure they are not accessed by the attackers, and can even alert law enforcement authorities, he said.

He also suggested keeping a “decoy” crypto wallet with a small amount of funds to hand over to criminals in the event of an attack. 

Finally, crypto holders should keep a low profile and not discuss crypto topics online or make it public knowledge that they hold digital assets, he added.

At least 88 individuals have been arrested in connection with crypto wrench attacks in France, according to Vanessa Perrée, the country’s national prosecutor for organized crime.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/25/2026 - 04:35

"The World Is Losing Trust": Foreign Investment In Germany Plunges To Lowest Level Since 2009

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Foreign companies are continuing to shy away from investing in Germany, with the number of new projects falling last year to its lowest level since 2009, representing an eighth consecutive annual decline.

An analysis by the auditing and consulting firm EY, reported by the German Press Agency, found that foreign investors announced 548 new projects in Germany in 2025. That was 10 percent fewer than the year before.

Henrik Ahlers, the head of EY in Germany, said the figures were a “warning sign for Germany as a business location. Germany is falling behind, and other European locations are developing significantly better.”

He said Germany has talked for years about the need for reform, but has done too little, while other countries have made government services more digital, simplified their tax systems, and made it easier for companies to do business.

“In Germany, high taxes, high labor costs, expensive energy, and at the same time, paralyzing bureaucracy are stifling investment,” Ahlers noted.

“Germany’s inability to reform has now become known worldwide. Unfortunately, little remains of its image as a strong, high-quality location and an economic rock in turbulent times,” he added.

The fall in investment comes at a difficult time for the German economy. Last month, the Halle Institute for Economic Research said company bankruptcies in Germany had reached their highest level since 2005.

The institute recorded 4,573 bankruptcies among partnerships and corporations in the first three months of the year. That was higher than the level seen during the 2009 financial crisis.

The last time the figure was higher was in the third quarter of 2005, when 4,771 bankruptcies were recorded.

The rise was especially sharp in March, when bankruptcies were 71 percent above the average for the same month between 2016 and 2019.

Germany’s industrial sector is also under pressure. A Reuters report last August said 245,500 industrial jobs had been lost in Germany since 2019, before the coronavirus crisis.

Volkswagen has become one of the clearest examples of the problems facing German industry. The carmaker plans to cut around 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 after reporting a sharp fall in profits.

Its net profit fell 44 percent in 2025 to €6.9 billion, the lowest level since the fallout from the emissions scandal. Revenue was almost unchanged at just under €322 billion, while global deliveries slipped slightly to just under 9 million vehicles.

Volkswagen blamed the fall in profit on problems at Porsche AG, U.S. import tariffs, and the cost of restructuring the business. Porsche’s operating profit fell from more than €5 billion to just €90 million in a year.

Volkswagen finance chief Arno Antlitz said the company’s current level of profit was not good enough, explaining the drop had been “shaped by geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and intense competitive pressure” but noting that the company’s current operating margin was “not sufficient in the long run.”

Across wider Europe, EY said foreign investors announced 5,026 new projects last year, down 7 percent from the year before.

France remained in first place with 852 projects, followed by the United Kingdom with 730. Germany was third.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said the figures showed that international confidence in Germany was falling.

“The world is losing trust: Foreign companies are investing less and less in Germany,” she wrote on X. “In 2025, the number of investments fell by 10% to the lowest level since 2009. Germany can no longer afford the reform refusal of the Black-Red coalition!”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/25/2026 - 04:00

Shurk: Prominent Democrats Must Go To Prison

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Until then, it’s open season on all of us...

Reports last week confirmed that former special counsel Jack Smith “secretly arranged” to preserve evidence in his criminal cases against President Trump in order to maintain the threat of future prosecution once the president leaves office.  This is not a big surprise.  

Democrats have thrown every civic norm out the window in their ruthless efforts to target Trump’s businesses and send him to prison for life.

In his quest to imprison an American president, Jack Smith accused Trump of engaging in a conspiracy to “overthrow” the 2020 election, as well as retaining possession of classified documents after leaving the White House.  Both allegations are ridiculous, and Smith’s own words make him sound like a lawfare hitman and anti-MAGA zealot.  He told members of Congress in January, “Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, it was foreseeable to him, and that he sought to exploit the violence.” 

 Smith stated emphatically that Trump committed “serious crimes.”

Serious crimes?  You mean like using the FBI to spy on all the Republican presidential primary candidates in 2015 and 2016?  Oh right, that was President Obama.  Or fabricating intelligence in order to justify a counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump?  Oh, that was Obama’s corrupt CIA director, John Brennan.  Or paying British Intelligence operatives to manufacture a fake “Russia collusion” dossier implicating Trump?  Oh, that was Hillary Clinton.  Or using the FBI and CIA to frame President Trump as a Russian spy?  Oh, that was Obama and Clinton, too.  Or sabotaging President Trump’s administration by using a Democrat spy on the National Intelligence Council to construct a false story about an innocuous phone call in order to trigger a bogus impeachment?  Oh, that was Intelligence Community Democrats attempting to hide Joe Biden’s corruption in Ukraine by, again, framing President Trump for a quid-pro-quo “crime” he never committed.  Or submitting fraudulent documents to the FISA Court in order to maintain spying operations against President Trump?  Oh, that was corrupt James Comey, corrupt Robert Mueller, corrupt Andrew Weissmann, corrupt Norm Eisen, corrupt Mary McCord, and their Democrat accomplices in the FBI and DOJ who covered up Obama’s illegal spying operations while framing President Trump as a criminal, spy, and traitor.

Listening to Jack Smith call President Trump a “serious” criminal sounds ridiculous when serious criminals Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Comey, and legions of their Democrat colleagues, subordinates, and co-conspirators in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, D.C. courts, and FISA Court (see Judge James Boasberg’s impeachable offenses) have never been properly investigated or punished for undermining President Trump’s election, sabotaging his administration, and framing him for treason.  The most powerful Democrats in the country organized a coup d’état in broad daylight and dragged the country through a barbed-wire field of partisan propaganda for the last ten years, and Jack Smith wants Americans to be upset that President Trump retained documents that he was entitled to possess?  It’s just such lunacy.  The constant gaslighting from D.C. operatives is equally infuriating and exhausting.

Glossing over the Democrats’ monstrous Russia Collusion Hoax, their relentless efforts to subvert the Trump-led government, and their continuing obsession with tossing the president in prison for imaginary crimes is bad enough, but Jack Smith does what all Democrats do: He pretends that the January 6, 2021, protest for election integrity was an attempt by Trump and his supporters to overthrow the government.  This lie is so brazen that it’s astonishing how Democrats can keep telling it with straight faces.

The people who showed up at the Capitol that day had one objective: to express their strong belief that mail-in-ballot fraud, violations of multiple states’ electoral statutes, and numerous voting discrepancies had tainted the 2020 election.  Several senators intended to make these very arguments before the certification of the election’s results.  The people who gathered outside the Capitol were exercising their First Amendment right to assemble peaceably.  They were unarmed.  Most had no criminal records.  A large number had served their country in various capacities.  Most who entered the Capitol walked around as tourists, took pictures, interacted in a friendly manner with Capitol Police, and posed no threat to anyone.

Only after law enforcement officers chose to fire flash-bang grenades on the assembled crowd did a section of the protest turn into something that could be described as a riot.  Trump supporters — not police officers — died on January 6.  Ordinary Americans exercising their constitutional rights were thrown into a state of fear of being hurt or killed.

Nevertheless, Smith continues to propagate the lie that the three-hour event at the Capitol was somehow the greatest threat to the country since 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War (real comparisons that Democrat propagandists continue to make).  Smith and his fellow Democrats desperately wish for Americans to believe that a hot-chocolate-drinking gathering of grandparents, revelers, and veterans was somehow going to topple the government of the United States.  If a crowd of retirees is capable of overrunning Washington, what’s the point of a trillion-dollar military budget?

Smith’s perpetuation of the Democrats’ J6 propaganda is bad enough, but the fact that he treats that day as equivalent to the Civil War is all the more preposterous given that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their fellow Democrats openly encouraged Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists to burn down neighborhoods, loot businesses, and murder civilians throughout the summer of 2020.  If President Trump “caused Jan. 6” and the events of that day were “foreseeable” to him, then the violence and mayhem of 2020’s so-called “summer of love” were certainly foreseeable to Democrats.  The BLM riots of 2020 were the most costly in American history, and Vice President Harris encouraged Democrats to donate money to a bail fund that put arsonists, rapists, and murderers back on the street.

Were the Democrat-organized riots of 2020 “foreseeable”?  

Of course.  

Did prominent Democrats “exploit the violence,” as Smith accuses Trump of doing with January 6?  

They absolutely did. 

Biden and Harris ran for the White House on the message that the violence would end once they were elected.  

Will preening, self-righteous Jack Smith investigate, harass, arrest, or prosecute any of these Democrats?  Of course not.  Will Democrat rioters be tossed into pre-trial solitary confinement and refused bail by partisan prosecutors and judges?  Definitely not.  To this day, Democrats celebrate BLM and Antifa domestic terrorists as champions for civil rights.  When Democrats burn cities to the ground, the arsonists get statues.  When MAGA Americans protest for free and fair voting, they are condemned for crimes they never committed.

Unfortunately, this is how leftists all over the world now operate.  

Brazil’s communist President Lula has imprisoned his predecessor, President Bolsonaro, for supposedly trying to overthrow the government.  French President Macron has permitted his political opposition, Marine Le Pen, to be prosecuted and convicted for similarly bogus “embezzlement” crimes.  Germany has flirted with designating the popular anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany, a “terrorist” organization and banning its candidates from running for office.  When the “wrong” candidate won Romania’s presidential election eighteen months ago, the country’s Constitutional Court annulled the outcome by blaming “Russian interference.”

If President Trump hadn’t possessed the financial resources and sheer grit to face down the onslaught of malicious and meritless prosecutions against him, he would likely be in a courtroom or a prison today.  If he hadn’t been re-elected a third time, January 6 defendants would still be awaiting trial or serving time in prison for an imaginary “insurrection.”

Screw Jack Smith.  He’s no lawman, and he has no principles.  He’s nothing but a corrupt propagandist, partisan hack, and lawfare assassin.

Nothing will change until prominent Democrats are prosecuted and convicted for their crimes.  Until then, it’s open season on all of us.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 23:20

Which US States Gained The Most Residents In 2025

Nearly 15 million Americans moved in 2025, with many relocating across state lines in search of lower costs, job opportunities, and warmer climates.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Gabriel Cohen, shows net migration per 10,000 residents across all 50 states in 2025, revealing where population inflows were strongest and which states saw the biggest outflows.

The data comes from HireAHelper.

Southern and Mountain West states dominated the rankings for inbound migration, while several high-cost coastal states continued to lose residents.

The data reflects large-scale shifts happening in the country’s population distribution, both from the Eastern half to the Western half, as well as shifts away from more expensive states to cheaper, often inland ones.

The Mountain West Over the West Coast

In 2025, the Western half of the U.S. saw a continuation of post-COVID trends as people left behind coastal states like Washington (-10.7) and Oregon (-9.0) in favor of more inland Mountain West states like Wyoming (+26.0), Utah (+7.3), and especially Idaho (+63.2).

The data table below highlights the net migration loss/gain per 10,000 inhabitants in 2025:

The more populous coastal states, which have long been hubs for key economic sectors like tech and aviation, have seen a number of moves in recent years owing to jobs either relocating or shifting to remote work.

Nowhere on the West Coast saw a bigger drop than California, which saw a net migration loss of -25.1, as nearly 100,000 residents left behind the increasingly unaffordable state in favor of cheaper neighboring states like Nevada, which lacks a state income tax.

The Cost of Living Factor

California is not alone in losing people over affordability issues. If net migration trends are any indication, other high cost of living states such as New York (-28.2) and Massachusetts (-37.9) also increasingly shed residents.

A majority of the Northeast fared similarly, with all states but Delaware, Maine, and New Hampshire seeing more people leave than arrive in 2025.

And in the immediate region surrounding the nation’s capital, the states of Maryland (-27.4) and Virginia (-13.7) also saw negative net migration, likely reflecting in part the large reduction in the federal workforce seen over the course of the year.

The Rise of the Sunbelt

If one region is seeing across-the-board growth, it’s the South, led by states like South Carolina (+79.7), Tennessee (+43.6), and Alabama (+36.6).

Long one of the more economically depressed regions of the country, a combination of lower costs of living and nicer weather has led to rapid growth for southern “Sun Belt” states such as Arkansas and Oklahoma, to say nothing of massive favorites like Texas and the Sunshine State of Florida.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Decline of Housing Affordability in the U.S. on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 22:45

The Inherited IRA 10-Year Rule Is Fully Enforced In 2026 - What Beneficiaries Need To Do Now

Authored by Adam H. Douglas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

If you inherited a traditional IRA from someone who was already taking required minimum distributions (RMDs), you may have to take annual withdrawals for the next decade, and the account must be empty by the end of the tenth year.

Many inherited IRA beneficiaries must now take annual RMDs. Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Shutterstock

The Internal Revenue Service waived penalties for missed withdrawals from 2021 through 2024 while the rules were being finalized. That grace period is over. Starting with the 2025 tax year, the rules are fully enforced. If you missed a 2025 RMD, a 25 percent penalty applies unless you take corrective action now.

Who Does The 10-Year Rule Apply To?

The SECURE Act, passed in 2019, eliminated the "stretch IRA" for most non-spouse beneficiaries. Under the old rules, you had an option to spread withdrawals across your own lifetime. That option is gone for most people who inherit today.

If you are a non-eligible designated beneficiary (NEDB), which covers most adult children and other non-spouse heirs, the 10-year rule is probably going to apply to you. In general, you are exempt if you fall into one of these categories:

• The surviving spouse of the deceased
• A minor child of the deceased, though the 10-year rule applies once you reach adulthood
• A beneficiary who is chronically ill or disabled
• A beneficiary who is not more than 10 years younger than the original owner

What if none of those apply to you? Then the 10-year rule is likely to be your framework.

When Do Annual Withdrawals Have To Start?

The answer depends on whether the original IRA owner died before or after their required beginning date (RBD), generally April 1 of the year following the year they turned 73.

• If the original owner died before their RBD and was not yet taking RMDs: No annual withdrawals are required, and the account must be emptied by end of year 10.
• If the original owner died on or after their RBD and was already taking RMDs: The general rule is that annual withdrawals are required every year, and the account must be emptied by end of year 10.

If your parent was already taking RMDs when they passed, you must take a distribution every year from year one through year 10 - you cannot skip years and take everything in year 10.

The 10-year clock starts the year after the original owner's death. If you inherited the IRA in 2022, your deadline to fully empty the account is Dec. 31, 2032.

How Much Has To Come Out Each Year?

There is no fixed percentage. Your annual RMD is calculated using two inputs:

• The account's balance as of Dec. 31 of the prior year
• Your life expectancy factor from the IRS Single Life Expectancy Table in IRS Publication 590-B

The calculation:

Prior year-end balance ÷ life expectancy factor = Your RMD for the year

Your life expectancy factor is based on your age as of Dec. 31 of the current distribution year. Look up that number in the IRS table each year; it changes as you age. You recalculate annually using the updated factor and the prior year's Dec. 31 balance.

Your IRA custodian can often provide this calculation directly. A tax professional can verify it, which is worth doing in your first distribution year.

What Happens If You Missed Your 2025 RMD?

The penalty for a missed RMD is 25 percent of the amount you should have withdrawn. The IRS reduces that to 10 percent if you take the corrective distribution and file Form 5329 within the two-year correction window.

Here is what to do if you missed a 2025 distribution:

• Take the missed distribution now. Withdraw the full amount you should have taken in 2025 as soon as possible.
• File Form 5329. This IRS form reports additional taxes on qualified retirement plans. You will attach it to your tax return or file it as a standalone form.
• Request penalty abatement, if applicable. If this is your first missed RMD and you have a reasonable explanation, the penalty might be waived by the IRS. Attach a written explanation to Form 5329 when you file.

Rather than risk it not being waived, act now. The two-year window for the reduced 10 percent penalty is already running.

FAQs About The Inherited IRA 10-Year Rule What Is The Difference Between An Eligible Designated Beneficiary And A Non-Eligible Designated Beneficiary?

An eligible designated beneficiary includes surviving spouses, minor children of the deceased, disabled or chronically ill individuals, and beneficiaries not more than 10 years younger than the original owner. These individuals can spread withdrawals over their lifetime instead of following the 10-year rule. Everyone else is a non-eligible designated beneficiary subject to the 10-year rule. Most adult children who inherit a parent's traditional IRA fall into the NEDB category.

Can I Wait Until Year 10 And Take Everything Out At Once?

It depends on when the original owner died. If they died before their required beginning date and had not yet started RMDs, you are not required to take annual distributions and may take the full balance in year ten. If they had already started RMDs, annual withdrawals are required throughout the 10-year period. Taking everything in year ten in that case does not avoid penalties for missed annual distributions in earlier years.

How Do I Find My Life Expectancy Factor For The RMD Calculation?

Your life expectancy factor comes from the Single Life Expectancy Table in IRS Publication 590-B, available at irs.gov. Find your age as of Dec. 31 of the current distribution year and read the corresponding factor. Divide the account's prior December 31 balance by that factor to get your RMD amount. Your IRA custodian may also calculate this for you. Verifying it independently is advisable, particularly in the first year of distributions.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 22:10

$150 Humanoid Robot House Cleaning Service Threatens To Undercut Maid Services

It's no secret that some humanoid robotics companies are training their machines for work on factory floors, while others are positioning their bots to enter homes in the coming years.

One of the first real signs of humanoids entering homes today is a new cleaning service in San Francisco that uses what appear to be Unitree humanoid robots trained to clean everything from floors and countertops to stovetops, mirrors, and nearly any surface in the house.

Called "Gatsby," the new service deploys humanoid robots to homes for a flat service charge of $150.

"We just made U.S. history. Today, Gatsby ran the first-ever consumer cleaning by a humanoid robot in the United States," Gatsby wrote in a press release earlier this month.

The company noted, "We picked someone random off our SF waitlist, they booked a cleaning, we delivered the robot, and it cleaned their entire apartment on its own. No humans inside. This is the first of its kind in the U.S., and we're proud to be the pioneers writing this line in the history books today."

For the average deep clean of a typical U.S. home, the price ranges between $200 and $400, and for much larger homes, $500 or more, according to Angi List. This means the robotic cleaning service can even undercut an independent cleaner or a professional cleaning company, which often employs migrant workers.

News of Gatsby's cleaning service comes as shipments of humanoid robots are expected to ramp up this year and accelerate by the end of the decade, according to a recent UBS note.

The goal of tech firms is very clear: deploy these bots first on factory floors, in warehouses, and at logistics hubs, then move into consumer markets once the machines become reliable enough for home use.

Once these bots enter the consumer market, they will begin to chip away at demand for migrant labor and drive down household costs for services such as cleaning, cooking, laundry, and other chores, which have traditionally required human labor and can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars per month.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 21:35

Trump Indicates He'll Sign Bill Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump has indicated he would sign a bill to make daylight saving time permanent as a House of Representatives committee advanced a measure that would codify the change.

U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House in Washington on May 15, 2026. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

"Big Vote today (48-1!) in the Energy and Commerce Committee on a Bill including The Sunshine Protection Act, which will be making Daylight Saving Time Permanent! This is so important in that Hundreds of Millions of Dollars are spent every year by people, Cities, and States, being forced to change their Clocks. Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!" Trump wrote on Thursday in a Truth Social post.

The president said that there is considerable "work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production," referring to the changing of the time. He also said that "it will also be a very nice WIN for the Republican Party."

"We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day - And who can be against that - This is an easy one!" Trump added.

Known as the Sunshine Protection Act, the bill was proposed by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who released a statement saying that it would "bring us one step closer to ending the outdated and unpopular practice of changing our clocks twice a year."

"Floridians and Americans across the country are tired of the biannual time change, and the evidence is clear that permanent daylight saving time can improve public health, reduce traffic accidents, lower crime and encourage more outdoor activity," he said in the statement.

In a social media post last year, Trump urged Congress to address the issue.

"The House and Senate should push hard for more Daylight at the end of a day. Very popular and, most importantly, no more changing of the clocks, a big inconvenience and, for our government, A VERY COSTLY EVENT!!!" he wrote in April 2025.

For years, advocates have called for the United States to stop making the twice-yearly changes. Among those urging that the country stick to one time for the entire year are the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

A poll from The Associated Press and NORC released in October 2025 also found that only 12 percent of Americans favor the current daylight saving time system. Around 47 percent are opposed to the current system and 40 percent are neutral, it also found.

The United States first started using the time shift more than a century ago, during World War I, and again during World War II. Congress passed a law in 1966 that allowed states to decide whether to participate but required their decisions to be uniform across their territories. All states except Arizona and Hawaii make the time shifts, and those two states remain on standard time year-round.

According to Buchanan's office, the Sunshine Protection Act was included in an amendment to a larger bill, the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 21:00

Colbert Blames Trump, But Massive Profit Losses Killed His Show

Progressive ideologues in entertainment are well known for avoiding responsibility for their failures at any cost, which is what makes them incredibly dangerous.  Scapegoats are targeted for destruction while activists elude scrutiny so that they can bungle another project or institution, and another, and another.  On and on it goes; like a bacteria they travel from one organ to the next, breaking it down from the inside.  

This is what people like Stephen Colbert represent.

From 2019 to 2025 The Late Show lost approximately 25% of its peak viewership.  Much like Jimmy Kimmel and other midnight comedy programs obsessed with politics instead of telling jokes, Colbert lost any ability to make fun of his own side.  Instead, he became a propaganda mouthpiece for the establishment and a complete disgrace as a conduit for Covid hysteria and vaccine mandates. 

Whatever esteem he might have had as an entertainer was lost.  His career was now tied to woke activism and running interference for the "elites".  He likely believed that in a town like Hollywood this would cement his position and keep him safe from cancellation.  However, despite their grand theatrics as "soldiers of the revolution", Hollywood executives still love money. 

Colbert's show was losing around $50 million per year.  His bloated production crew of 200 people and ludicrous salary of $20 million per season created an annual filming cost of over $100 million.  Ad revenues for the show dropped from $121 million in 2018 to $70 million in 2024.  Keep in mind, there are thousands of creators on YouTube that do essentially what Colbert does with almost no budget, and they bring in a far larger audience.

One of the great group shots of "The Late Show" staff posing on stage: pic.twitter.com/L2oknhvyos

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 22, 2026

There's no doubt that Colbert will go on to other productions well after the cancellation of his disastrous Late Show.  Hollywood has pedestalized the former comedian as a martyr for the great woke cause.  The corporate media has done the same, suggesting that the death of the Late Show will be looked on by historians as "Exhibit A" of Trump's "attack on democracy".  But, it's still a fact that he lost his show because he was losing vast amounts of money for CBS. 

The key to satire, and most comedy in general, is to shine a spotlight on hard truths while suppressing one's inherent bias.  The ability to throw one's own sacred cows on the pyre is what makes satirists famous.  One cannot be a propagandist and be a successful satirist at the same time.  One cannot be a court jester and be afraid to take the risk of making fun of royalty.

The royalty in Colbert's case is not Trump, but the progressive elite and Big Pharma.  Attacking Trump in Hollywood or New York presents no risk.  Poking fun at the woke mafia presents incredible risk.  Colbert has long been a coward in this regard.  He has, though, thrown perhaps the biggest toddler fit in recent memory over the end of The Late Show in an attempt to make the event as political as possible.    

Colbert will never be out of work completely.  Recent announcements have him writing on the script for Peter Jackson's next Lord of the Rings spin-off film (which is shaping up to be a disaster).  He also made a surprise appearance on the cable access show "Only In Monroe" with an average audience of 12 people, which is perhaps a venue more suited to his talents. 

The idea that Colbert has been censored by a vengeful White House is complete fantasy.  The claim that this is an "attack on democracy" is merely designed to inflame more leftist madness.  No one is entitled under the Constitution to their own late night TV show, especially when they're burning $50 million a year. 

Losing the respect of a large swath of the American public, though, makes it unlikely that Colbert will do well in any future project.  In the end, he will fade from memory as just another establishment shill.    

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 20:25

Child Safety Groups Urge FTC To Investigate Roblox

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Two child safety groups filed a complaint against online interactive gaming platform Roblox with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on May 20, alleging that children face sexual and financial harm on the platform.

A boy poses for a photo while holding a game pad in front of a screen displaying the logo of the children's gaming platform Roblox, in this illustration taken on Dec. 8, 2025. Ramil Sitdikov/Illustration/Reuters

Filed by nonprofits National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and Fairplay, the complaint claims that certain Roblox features are "developmentally inappropriate for the platform's massive young user base and pose a substantial risk of harm." Such features include engagement-maximizing design features, a complex virtual currency system that can result in more user spending, and chat and communication features that expose children to sexual exploitation.

These components "capitalize on young users' developmental vulnerabilities, exploit their desire for authentic self-expression, monetize their lack of impulse control, and turn in-game purchasing power into a form of social status," the complaint states.

"As a result, young users say they feel a constant pressure to keep up with their peers on the platform, and are thereby driven to buy and spend Robux in order to enjoy Roblox's experiences.

"At the same time, the voice and text chat features that make the platform social repeatedly expose children to sexual content and harmful adults, resulting in sexual exploitation and abuse."

According to the complaint, Roblox requires users to be at least 5 years old to open an account.

Last month, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said at a press conference that Roblox, which has roughly 151.5 million daily active users, is used by almost half of all American children under 16. Around 42 percent of the platform's users are children under the age of 13.

The nonprofits asked the FTC to investigate Roblox for violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and check whether the company is in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Meanwhile, Roblox's share price has crashed. On July 31, 2025, the company's share price hit its year-high of $150.59. On May 21, 2026, prices closed at $46.14, a decline of nearly 70 percent. Since Sept. 29, Roblox's market capitalization has tumbled from $98.7 billion to $32.8 billion as of May 21, a loss of almost $66 billion.

Design, Currency, Communication Issues

Regarding the platform's design and marketing features, the complaint alleged that the company leverages them to "capitalize on child users' vulnerabilities."

For instance, one tactic used by the company is making users' game inventories of virtual assets visible to each other.

"By allowing children to investigate who owns what, Roblox takes advantage of their developmental proclivity for social comparison, which involves measuring their self-worth relative to others," the complaint reads.

To take part in Roblox's in-game economy, users must navigate a wide range of virtual currencies, including the platform's primary currency, Robux, and other currencies issued by developers.

To calculate the real-world dollar costs of the items, users must perform complex calculations that greatly surpass children's mathematical skills, making them susceptible to financial harm, according to the complaint.

As for chat and communication on Roblox, the complaint raises concerns that these features could facilitate "predation and abuse by enabling adult contact with minors."

The company gives parents control over how their children can communicate on the platform. However, Roblox's webpage on parental controls clarifies that these settings "do not apply to chat features developed independently by developers."

In a statement to The Epoch Times, a Roblox spokesperson said that the company "strongly disputes" the claims made in the complaint.

"Our platform is designed to provide a positive, healthy, and enjoyable experience - we build for fun and connection, not short-term engagement. While no system can be perfect, we have a set of safeguards designed to support a safe and civil environment, and clear policies for game creators that require fair treatment of players," the spokesperson said.

"Most games on Roblox are free to play, and no one is required to purchase Robux.

"In addition, we have clear policies prohibiting both actual and simulated gambling, and a set of rules governing how game creators can use gameplay mechanics like paid random items."

Lawsuits, International Scrutiny

Roblox is facing several lawsuits from states such as Iowa, Louisiana, Texas, Kentucky, and Florida, citing child safety issues.

In December 2025, Iowa sued the company, accusing the platform of being the "perfect environment for child predators, pornographers, scammers, fraudsters, online sex rings, and inappropriate content."

Amid growing concerns about child safety, Roblox announced age-based accounts and expanded parental controls for users under 16 on April 13.

Under the policy, users aged 5 to 8 and 9 to 15 will have separate accounts subject to stricter censorship of adult content.

"All content uploaded to Roblox goes through their existing moderation systems, including AI asset scanning, ongoing user report review, and multimodal moderation that evaluates scenes in real time for potential policy violations," the company said in a statement.

In addition to the United States, Roblox has faced bans and scrutiny in other nations.

The platform has been banned in Turkey and Iraq. Russia blocked Roblox in December 2025, accusing the platform of enabling "LGBT propaganda" and the dissemination of extremist materials.

In January, the Netherlands announced opening an investigation into the platform, citing potential risks to minors. Last month, Australia issued formal notices to major gaming platforms, including Roblox, asking the companies to describe how they prevent the radicalization and grooming of children.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 19:50

My Retirement Accounts Fail In The World I Actually Live In

Authored by Patrick Brenner via RealClearMarkets,

I remember the first time I logged into my retirement account as a young professional. It felt like a milestone: proof that I had entered the world of adulthood, of long-term thinking, of ownership. I work in the nonprofit sector, so technically it's a 403(b), not a 401(k). The distinction is academic; the promise is the same: contribute consistently, invest wisely, and over time, build financial independence.

The longer I've contributed, the more I've realized something uncomfortable: my retirement plan isn't built for the world I actually live in.

Like many in my generation, I came of age during a period of profound economic change. Companies stay private longer. Technology, infrastructure, and energy companies increasingly raise capital outside public markets. The most dynamic growth in the economy often happens before a company ever reaches a stock exchange. When I look at my retirement options, I'm locked out of that world.

Instead, we see a familiar menu consisting of a handful of mutual funds and some index options that quietly steer me toward a standardized allocation. These are not bad investments, but they represent only a fraction of real economic growth.

For my younger peers just entering the workforce, this gap is even more consequential. The directions are thus: start early, take advantage of compounding, and think long term. If we each had a dollar for every time we got the lecture about the "time value of money," we'd all retire tomorrow. But we are also being funneled into portfolios that exclude entire categories of assets like private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure that have historically delivered higher long-term returns and meaningful diversification.

Brett Arends at Market Watch incorrectly asserts that opening retirement plans to these assets would expose workers to high fees, illiquidity, and complexity. He misses a more important question: compared to what?

There's real asymmetry. Institutional investors regularly allocate 20 to 30 percent of their portfolios to private markets. They do so because these assets offer diversification, illiquidity premiums, and exposure to parts of the economy unavailable in public markets. Ordinary workers are confined to a narrower universe because litigious zealots neutered the system, compelling fiduciaries to avoid risk at all costs.

This narrowing of investment options originates in the legal environment surrounding employer-sponsored retirement plans. Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), plan sponsors face an onslaught of litigation. The risk of lawsuits compels employers to increasingly default to the safest legal options rather than to the best outcomes for participants, thereby directly limiting potential returns.

Even if you set aside litigation, the deeper issue is structural. The retirement system hasn't kept pace with the evolution of capital markets.

The proposed rule from the Department of Labor deserves serious attention. At its core, the rule introduces a safe-harbor framework for evaluating "designated investment alternatives" in defined-contribution plans. The definition encompasses everything from traditional mutual funds to more complex vehicles, including those that can incorporate private assets.

The framework is asset-neutral. It outlines how fiduciaries should choose. Plan sponsors are obligated to evaluate investments using a set of common-sense factors: fees, performance, liquidity, valuation, benchmarks, and complexity. If they do so objectively and analytically, they are presumed to meet their fiduciary obligations.

The White House's Council of Economic Advisers suggests that younger participants could benefit from allocating up to 30 percent of their portfolios to private markets. Institutional investors have approached portfolio construction using private markets for decades.

Yet parts of the proposed rule undermine that very goal. A 15 percent cap on private assets, derived from SEC Rule 22e-4, would limit exposure, a particular problem for collective investment trusts, which are regulated differently and historically operated without such constraints.

Angela Antonelli offers helpful insights. Georgetown Univerisity's research from the Center for Retirement Initiatives and other CRI analysis, even relatively modest exposure to private real assets, private credit, and private equity has the potential to boost outcomes by 7% to 8%, not just for the "average" DC participant but also across a range of more real financial savings patterns that DC participants too often find themselves in over the course of their working years.

Large institutions, from university endowments to public pension funds, routinely invest in private markets and reap the benefits of diversification and higher returns. We've created two classes of retirement savers: those with access to the full spectrum of capital markets, and those without.

That divide is the difference between participating in today's economy and being stuck in a version of it that no longer exists. Retirement policy should be about equipping workers to build wealth in the modern world.

Right now, my 403(b) originated on a promise that has become so antiquated it might be unattainable. Instead of "taxing the rich," can't we just be allowed to invest like them?

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 18:40

Newsom Declares Emergency In Orange County; EPA Head Says Chemical Tank Will "Likely Fail"

The head of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said Sunday that a chemical storage tank in Southern California that has forced officials to declare an emergency and prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands residents is likely to fail.

Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the EPA, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday that the “most likely scenario” is a “low-volume release” of the tank, where officials will be able to “monitor, neutralize, and contain the threat.”

“The Orange County Fire Authority is working to keep the temperature of the tank down. That is very important,” he said on CNN, referring to the fire department in the Southern California county.

He said keeping the temperature under 85 degrees F is key.

But, as Jack Phillips reports for The Epoch Times, Zeldin warned:

“We’re being told that the tank will fail, but there are different scenarios as to what that means, the most catastrophic scenario being an explosion that results in other tanks to explode. That’s the reason why you see such a big evacuation that’s been done in the surrounding areas.”

“You have all levels of government, local, state, federal, working together. EPA has personnel on the ground, air monitors deployed in the local community,” Zeldin also said.

“We have been involved in the modeling of different scenarios.”

Drones were monitoring temperatures at 10-minute intervals to watch for any spikes and planning was underway to ensure a possible leak could quickly be prevented from spreading into waterways or the ocean, Covey said in a video released online.

“Sitting back and allowing these tanks to fail is unacceptable,” Covey said, adding there was no guarantee tanks will not breach and leak.

“Our goal is to protect your homes—no damage to them—and protect the environment.”

As of Sunday morning, Zeldin said: “This is an emergency response. This isn’t yet an environmental response, and the scale of that environmental response will be determined based off of what happens when that tank fails.”

As a result of these warnings, Phillips reports that California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Orange County.

“The safety of Orange County residents is the top priority. We are mobilizing every state resource available to support local responders and make sure the community has what they need to stay safe,” Newsom said.

The malfunctioning tank holds approximately 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate, a flammable and volatile chemical used in plastics manufacturing for aerospace applications.

The tank, located at a manufacturing facility in Garden Grove, first started displaying signs of instability on Thursday.

On Friday, there were increased fears of an explosion, according to Orange County Fire Authority interim Chief TJ McGovern.

Approximately 50,000 residents were evacuated in Garden Grove, which is home to around 172,000 people and located 30 miles south of Los Angeles.

The governor’s proclamation directs all state agencies and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to support Orange County and impacted areas, and unlocks additional emergency response resources and authorities.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 18:05

Bubble-Wrapped World: How Safety Culture Has Destroyed Our Sense Of Adventure

Authored by Murray Lytle via The Epoch Times,

Are Canadians less adventurous than they once were? It’s hard to argue otherwise.

Alexander Mackenzie was only 24 when the North West Company named him chief fur trader at Fort Chipewyan, in what is now Alberta. A few years later, in 1789 he travelled north along what is now known as the Mackenzie River to become the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean overland. Four years later he crossed the Rocky Mountains and was the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean, beating Americans Merriweather Lewis and William Clark by a full dozen years.

In 1898, Martha Purdy arrived in Dawson City to escape a failed marriage and make her fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush. It was while climbing the notorious Chilkoot Pass that she discovered she was pregnant with her third son. She later remarried and, as Martha Black, was the second woman to be elected to Canada’s Parliament. She was also a successful entrepreneur and a world-renowned expert on wild flowers.

Canadian history is filled with tales such as these. Explorers, soldiers, settlers, and other restless souls who endured great hardships and did great things.

There is a natural sense of awe that arises when retelling such lives filled with adventure. To our modern selves, they appear as fascinating aberrations, gifted men and women with unusual appetites for risky or dangerous undertakings. Their willingness to set out into the unknown strikes us today as thrilling, unnerving, and more than a bit foolhardy. But while their accomplishments may be striking, they lived in more adventurous times.

Today, society shrinks from adventure and the unknown.

Through a combination of practical circumstances, changing social standards, and dramatic shifts in individual risk tolerance and government behaviour, opportunities for adventure have been drastically curtailed.

How can Canadians get that sense of adventurousness back?

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered”, G.K. Chesterton once wrote. “An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” There is a case to be made that adventures are simply harder to come by these days.

There are no more blank spaces left on maps, and hence no places for modern-day Mackenzies to discover.

The omnipresence of the internet and GPS similarly makes it almost impossible to get truly lost anymore. And if you do, help is usually close at hand.

Beyond these practical limitations, however, it seems incontestable that society today is less interested in promoting, facilitating, or participating in adventurous life experiences.

No one talks of running away with the circus or joining the French Foreign Legion anymore, even in jest. According to Statistics Canada, twice as many millennials are still living at home as was the case with previous generations. And if any of these young adults do go away, it’s more than likely to be an adventureless “gap year” holiday between graduate degrees recorded in minute detail on Snapchat and Instagram.

The perpetual childhood of today’s younger generations contrasts sharply with the youthful accomplishments of past eras. William Wilberforce, for example, was elected to the British Parliament at age 21 and then proved instrumental in ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His friend William Pitt became Prime Minister at 24, and spent his career fighting the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who became a general at 24. Quite a lot can be accomplished when one starts early.

Other factors that limit the availability of adventure in our post-modern era include the suffocating impact of the welfare state. When Mackenzie left his family home at 15 to become an apprentice in the fur industry, it was because he had little choice. He needed to make his way in the world as a teenager. The same urgency applied to Black when she decided to escape a failed marriage by travelling to the Yukon. With no government to hold your hand, adventure follows. Popular culture in earlier eras also did its bit as well by celebrating explorers and adventurers as celebrities in the same manner that we laud singers and athletes today.

Just as adventure was once regarded as a social virtue to be admired, society today aggressively enforces the opposite expectation—that it is our duty to avoid risk at all costs. In their 2021 book “The Coddling of the American Mind,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and lawyer Greg Lukianoff take a close look at the impact of a creeping safety culture on the behaviour of younger generations.

Children, the authors observed, are now deliberately shielded from any sense of risk or uncertainty. How can anyone—young boys most of all—learn about the world around them when school principals announce at the onset of every snowfall that “all snow must stay on the ground.” The ideal of adventure and resilience has been replaced by a debilitating sense of fragility and risk-avoidance.

So is the dream of looking over an untravelled horizon that animated people like Alexander Mackenzie or Martha Black completely dead in the 21st century? Not exactly.

Adventure should properly be considered a spirit, not a place.

It is driven by a powerful mixture of curiosity, necessity, and an openness to experiencing new things. And it can be found wherever uncertainty reigns. Today, that might entail travelling to strange lands, meeting new people, or even engaging in uncomfortable discussions about whether Alberta should remain part of Canada forever.

Wherever the unknown lies, adventure can be found.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 17:30

Two Billboards In New York Capture The Conflict Of Our Time

Authored by Kay Rubacek via The Epoch Times,

Two billboards went up in New York City recently. This is a city of advertising, where images appear when someone wants the whole world to see them. One billboard is selling artificial intelligence, and the other is warning about it. The juxtaposition between these two advertisers, who most likely wouldn’t have seen the other’s message in advance, captures the conflict of our times and cements the uncertainty about the future within an artificial intelligence world.

The selling billboard is dark, purple, and almost cinematic.

An AI-generated face with artificial perfection stares out. Three words above her say: “Stop Hiring Humans.” The Era of AI Employees Is Here. The company is Artisan. The company says it “is a provocation. It works because it’s uncomfortable.” It is real. It wants your payroll budget, and it is not embarrassed to say so.

The warning billboard is light, purple, and funny in the way that grief sometimes is. A sad stick figure holds a small sign: Will Create 4 Food. Mock chat bubbles float across it like a corporate memo from a future that has already arrived: “Thank you artists for donating your life’s work to our AI. Your generosity hasn’t gone unnoticed. Just uncompensated.”

The organization’s name is Replacement.AI. It is also real, but it is not selling anything. It is run by anonymous artists who spent their own money to tell you the truth. Their website calls itself “the only honest AI company.” Its homepage reads: Humans no longer necessary. Stupid. Smelly. Squishy. It’s time for a machine solution.

The quotes on the site are genuine, such as one from OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.” And another from OpenAI’s charter, “To build ‘highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.’”

On the page dedicated to artists, the site reads: “If you’re one of the millions of artists, musicians, writers, journalists, scholars, or other creatives whose work we’ve stolen to train our AI, we want to thank you. We couldn’t have achieved a $100 billion valuation without all of your hard work, just sitting on the internet for us and our other AI company friends to scrape. Unfortunately for you, financial compensation is out of the question. Just because we’re making money from your copyrighted material doesn’t mean you’re legally entitled to any of it.”

It is satire. It is also accurate. In a submission to the House of Lords, OpenAI admitted, “It would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.”

The courts are beginning to agree too that something was taken. Well over thirty copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed by creators against AI developers. Visual artists sued Stability AI and Midjourney. Getty Images sued, arguing that over twelve million photographs were scraped without license. The New York Times sued OpenAI. Universal Music filed a $3.1 billion lawsuit against Anthropic in January 2026, alleging its AI was built on a foundation of piracy. None of these cases have reached final verdicts. The legal system is moving at human speed through a problem that was created at machine speed.

What passed through a million years of accumulated human experience—the knowledge handed from mind to mind, generation to generation, the grief and wonder pressed into stories and paintings and films and arguments on the internet at three in the morning—was consumed by hungry algorithms. There was no purchase or licensing. The great ingestion happened in server rooms, while the rest of us were clicking I Agree to ever-lengthening terms and conditions that no one ever bothers to read. And that phase is now over.

Yet predictions for our future keep rolling in, each one confident, and each one contradicting the last. Goldman Sachs estimates AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs. The World Economic Forum projects 92 million jobs displaced by 2030, offset by 170 million new ones created, which is a net gain, on paper at least. Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, warns AI could replace half of all entry-level office jobs within five years. Jensen Huang says greater productivity creates more hiring, not less. In 2025 alone, Amazon eliminated 14,000 corporate roles, Microsoft cut 15,000, and Salesforce reduced its customer support workforce by 4,000. Like the billboards in Time Square, both are right, yet neither agree. What the experts ultimately share is uncertainty.

And the AI models are hungry again. This time, media organizations are making sure they require payment from AI giants for their content. New York Times is partnering with Amazon’s AI, Meta with News Corp, and Google with Reddit. But human-made internet content is finite and cannot keep up with the voracious appetite of AI models that do not need time to sleep or metabolise. So the machines have no choice but to prompt themselves, and generate new content upon previous content, with less and less human origin, leading us down a spiral of infinite iteration with less human touch, less human spirit, and less human soul. The only thing the “experts” seem to agree on is that the business potentials are both exhilarating and terrifying.

Meanwhile, Artisan’s billboard promises relief from the burden of human employees. Lower payroll. No sick days. No long hot showers a person needs to feel like a person again. The face on that billboard doesn’t need to ground herself. She doesn’t need anything. What is being sold is not intelligence, but the absence of need. It is a cold world to advertise, and the advertisers seem not to fear the cold.

Two billboards in New York City, and the same ones are popping up in other major cities across the nation. Between them is the argument that is yet to be resolved: whether what is being built is a tool or a replacement, a future or an ending. The experts cannot agree. The lawyers are still filing. The models are still hungry. And somewhere in Times Square, a sad stick figure is still holding his sign, hoping someone walking past will stop long enough to read it.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 16:20

"Vindictive": Obama-Appointed Judge Dismisses Tennessee Smuggling Charges Against Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Authored by Kim Jarrett via The Center Square,

A federal judge dismissed Tennessee charges against a man who, at one time, was at the center of the immigration debate.

Abrego Garcia, who illegally entered the U.S. from El Salvador in 2011, faced federal charges of human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling.

The charges stemmed from a traffic stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol in December 2022, where Abrego Garcia was found transporting eight passengers across the country.

One of the police officers believed that he was smuggling them, remarking that he was “hauling these people for money,” according to a video obtained by The Center Square through an open records request.

He allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license and was suspected of trafficking the passengers, though he was let go at the FBI’s request.

The car belonged to an illegal immigrant named Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, who was sent to prison in 2020 for human smuggling.

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw called the charges “vindictive” because Abrego Garcia challenged his deportation to El Salvador. 

“The objective evidence here shows that, absent Abrego’s successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the Government would not have brought this prosecution,” Crenshaw wrote in his order.

“The Executive Branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop. Only after Abrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the Executive Branch reopen that investigation.”

The Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March 2025, according to previous reporting from The Center Square.

Prior to that, Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland and had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in MS-13 in 2019, after immigrating illegally to the United States as a teenager with his parents around 2011.

Officials prepared to deport Abrego Garcia then, but an immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal,” believing his life would be in danger if he were returned to El Salvador. 

The Department of Justice did not immediately return a message from The Center Square about the case. 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 15:10

Feds Subpoena Hasan Piker, CodePink Cofounder Over "Humanitarian" Trip To Communist Cuba

Federal officials have issued "Requests for Information" via Treasury Department subpoenas to Turkish-American millionaire and far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker and pro-China CodePink cofounder Susan Medea Benjamin as part of a broader probe into whether the activists violated sanctions laws during a "humanitarian" trip to communist-run Cuba, according to a new Fox News report.

Fox's Asra Q. Nomani, who leads an investigation into dark-money funded NGOs, said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control is examining whether the activists financed, coordinated, or delivered goods to Cuba in ways that crossed legal boundaries under U.S. sanctions.

🚨 The Treasury Department has subpoenaed Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin as part of a probe into possible Cuba sanctions violations.

Between Hasan’s “wads of cash” and Medea describing thousands of pounds of goods sent to Cuba, it is not hard to see why Treasury has questions. pic.twitter.com/WRhC5PMDmw

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) May 24, 2026

Investigators are also examining whether the two met with Cuban government-linked personnel or entities.

Expanding on Nomani's report, a likely line of inquiry is whether Piker, Benjamin, or members of the broader delegation met with Cuban officials or personnel linked to the Dirección General de Inteligencia, Cuba's intelligence service, or the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, a regime-aligned organization long used to develop foreign activist networks for overseas statecraft operations.

Nomani's sources said the trip was part of the "Nuestra América Convoy," or "Our America Convoy," involving a global network of communist sympathizers, activists, and influencers who brought supplies to the island.

Well well well…

Marxist Hasan Piker and CodePink Cofounder Susan Medea were subpoenaed about a trip to Cuba.

"Nuestra América Convoy”

Investigated to see if the trip violated US law.

Guess who else was part of the trip?

Isra Hirsi

The Marxist daughter of Ilhan Omar.

Oops! pic.twitter.com/wb3IeHuqu5

— C3 (@C_3C_3) May 24, 2026

 

Nomani noted, "The investigation is part of a broader effort by officials at Treasury, State and Justice departments to curb malign foreign influence operations inside the United States, particularly activities tied to support for political violence, extremist movements or acts the U.S. government classifies as terrorism."

"The scrutiny reflects growing concern among federal authorities and lawmakers over whether foreign actors and aligned organizations are attempting to shape American political discourse, mobilize activists, sow discord and normalize rhetoric that could encourage violence or undermine U.S. national security interests," she continued.

U.S. law imposes broad restrictions on financial transactions involving Cuba, primarily through the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, which are administered by the Treasury Department's OFAC.

The rules generally prohibit unlicensed travel-related transactions and the export of goods or services to Cuba, with limited exceptions for journalism, humanitarian projects, educational programs, and activities intended to support the Cuban people.

One question is whether the March delegation operated within those carveouts, or whether its financing, logistics, coordination, or delivery of supplies crossed into prohibited support for Cuban government-linked entities.

Why Piker, Benjamin, and far-left members of the delegation felt compelled to champion the failed communist country is addressed in a note we penned in late 2025 titled:

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

If you really want to understand why the radical left appears to hate America and seeks to implode the nation from within, it is not difficult to see that these ideas are rarely developed organically. More often, they are shaped and reinforced by outside influences. This chart helps explain why the radical left has become so extreme.

As per The Washington Times, "Cuba's intelligence apparatus is training foreign nationals to wage war against the West."

Why?

The Trump team appears to be shifting from an observation mode to an action phase in its campaign against radical-left nonprofit networks, some of which are supported by foreign adversaries and left-wing billionaires.

The target is increasingly clear: NGOs, activist groups, and influencer networks that push anti-American propaganda, inflammatory political rhetoric, revolutionary agitation, and Marxist ideology while masquerading as anti-war advocates or civil-rights organizers.

If Treasury OFAC subpoenas are any leading indicator, the Trump team may be entering the action phase. That should put the nonprofit world on notice.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 14:35

Resident Floats Surefire Way Of Getting Potholes And Trash Cleaned Up In Shithole LA...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Los Angeles residents have had enough of living in a crumbling, graffiti-covered wasteland where basic services have collapsed under years of Democrat mismanagement.

In a display of pure ingenuity, citizens are fighting back by tagging over blighted areas with "Vote Pratt," betting that Mayor Karen Bass will rush to erase any sign of support for her political rival far faster than she addresses the endless decay.

This clever workaround shines a harsh light on the priorities in a city drowning in filth, where open drug markets and rat-infested encampments flourish while taxpayers foot the bill for billions in ineffective "solutions."

Not AI. pic.twitter.com/jUJhkGnjo7

- Thomas Hawk (@thomashawk) May 24, 2026

pic.twitter.com/mLQhnVnWQS

- Make L.A. Great Again ?? (@lalovestrump) May 23, 2026

The idea took off after one resident pointed out the obvious: if neighborhoods are blanketed in graffiti that the city ignores, simply spray "Vote Pratt" over it and watch the cleanup crews mobilize within minutes.

One post noted, "This could possibly do the trick," while others highlighted how quickly political messaging gets scrubbed compared to everyday blight.

I just took this photo today at Runyon Canyon ? "Spencer Pratt for Mayor" had been covered up a few time but someone just writes it again. pic.twitter.com/jjZyFe0y8n

- Freddie Corso ? (@freddiecorso) May 24, 2026

Videos and images circulating on X show the extent of the problem and the creative response, with AI-generated visuals encouraging more residents to test the theory.

pic.twitter.com/uPZDmJ1Gp9

- D Scott Dorgan (@DScottDorgan) May 23, 2026

The same tactic could target potholes, now mockingly dubbed "Bass-holes" due to the mayor's reluctance to release funds for basic road repairs.

pic.twitter.com/pV9OAhoUJJ

- HowlingPeterman (parody) (@JacoboPeterman) May 23, 2026

? Great idea! pic.twitter.com/kYYy3IXVlZ

- Oddland66 ?? (@Oddland66) May 23, 2026

The citizen hack represents more than a workaround - it exposes the deep dysfunction where political optics trump governance. In a city blessed with resources and climate, decades of open-border-friendly policies, soft-on-crime approaches, and unchecked spending have produced predictable decay.

This grassroots push to elect Pratt comes as no surprise to anyone following LA's descent. Just days ago, reports painted a grim picture of massive homeless encampments overrun by rats, open-air drug markets operating brazenly near police stations, and public spaces rendered unusable by tents, trash, and crime.

Helicopter footage has captured post offices swallowed by encampments, blocking mail access and parking. Residents describe navigating urine-soaked doorways blocked by belongings just to enter their own apartments, with police unwilling or unable to intervene under current policies.

Despite California dumping an estimated $24 billion into homelessness programs between 2018 and 2023 - with LA spending hundreds of millions annually - the results are nonexistent. The county reports around 72,000 homeless individuals, many unsheltered, with over half originating from out of state, according to critics of the system.

One man who moved to California openly admitted the appeal: easy access to food stamps, cash assistance, and a lifestyle where "they pay you to be homeless." These incentives have created what detractors call a Homeless Industrial Complex - a self-perpetuating system of nonprofits and bureaucrats motivated to manage the crisis rather than solve it.

EXPOSED ? California Democrats are paying people to be homeless

Homeless man moved across country to California to be homeless

"How long you been in San Francisco?"

Homeless man "Since June. If you're gonna be homeless, it's pretty f*cking easy here. I mean, if we're gonna be... pic.twitter.com/X7j9ut09pm

- Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 20, 2026

Mayor Karen Bass has come under fire for broken promises to end street homelessness. When confronted on CNN about missed targets, she cited unanticipated "bureaucratic barriers." In another exchange, she advised residents not to trust their own eyes but official statistics instead, despite visible evidence to the contrary.

? LMAO! CNN brutally rips Karen Bass for the homeless crisis in Los Angeles.

CNN: "Your goal was to end street homelessness in LA by 2026. It's now 2026. We haven't ended it, and we're not close. How are you so off?"

BASS: "When I said that...I didn't realize the bureaucratic... pic.twitter.com/DD3fJcKQu6

- The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) May 20, 2026

Enter Spencer Pratt, the mayoral candidate whose name is now central to this cleanup hack. Pratt has called for a no-nonsense approach: a short grace period after taking office followed by mass enforcement against crime, open drug use, and disorder. He has emphasized clearing streets and involving homeless individuals directly in cleanup efforts rather than feeding another layer of bureaucracy.

? JUST IN: LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt announces Los Angeles criminals and homeless degenerates will have 2-3 WEEKS after he gets into office before MASS ARRESTS ensue

"First 3 weeks: signups, no nakedness, no drug use, no robbing, no dog abuse."

Love this guy MORE AND... pic.twitter.com/exoqW3j28e

- Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 10, 2026

Real change requires rejecting the failed ideologies that enabled this mess: endless tolerance for lawlessness, incentives that import problems, and a bureaucracy that thrives on failure.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 14:00

Trump Bats Down Critics As Iran Deal Gets Close: 'Exact Opposite' Of 'Amateur' Obama JCPOA

Update(1345ET): Both sides are continuing to be mostly tight-lipped in terms of offering confirmation of what precisely is in the deal, with President Trump having earlier said he's in no hurry. But this weekend contains some of the most positive momentum towards an actual peace deal and extended ceasefire to date. Per some of the latest from NYT:

Iran’s leaders or official state media have not publicly commented on what is in any potential agreement or what is being discussed. Over the last 24 hours, Iranian and U.S. officials have offered some conflicting depictions of what a deal might contain. On Sunday, the U.S. official said a deal had not yet been signed and was still subject to final approval from President Trump and Iran’s supreme leader, which could take days.

The senior U.S. official said the mechanism by which Iran would dispose of its highly enriched uranium was still being negotiated. Mr. Trump has insisted that the United States seize the material as part of his vow to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump said in a social media post earlier on Sunday that he had ordered his negotiators “not to rush into a deal,” after saying a day earlier that a preliminary agreement between the two countries was “largely negotiated.”

But Trump is catching some political heat both at home and in Israel, for potentially agreeing to a deal which cedes too much ground to Tehran - or at least that's the growing criticism of the hawks. He issued the below Truth Social on Sunday, seeking to bat down this criticism, and once again asserting his deal will the the EXACT OPPOSITE of Obama's JCPOA. But time will soon tell...

Trump also shared this statement from Fox's correspondent. Tehran has remained insistent that it will never transport its enriched uranium outside it borders:

Not quite yet at the goal line, per Reuters:

Iranian media: There is still a possibility of canceling the agreement due to Washington's obstruction of some clauses

— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) May 24, 2026

*  *  *

Top U.S. and Iranian officials signaled they are inching closer to an initial peace deal to wind down the U.S.-Iran conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though major details remain murky, especially around the future of Iran's nuclear program.

President Trump said the peace deal has been "largely negotiated" and will be announced "shortly," with the reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint among its key components.

🚨 "An Agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other Countries, as listed..." - President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/Z49bOkkUoh

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 23, 2026

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier that "significant progress" has been made, but no final deal has been reached.

Rubio added that the world could learn "over the next few hours" about progress on resolving the shipping disruption at the Hormuz chokepoint.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited 'significant' progress in the past 48 hours toward a deal with Iran that could help resolve the situation around the Strait of Hormuz https://t.co/AgaPjulhKo pic.twitter.com/QwFObVmuhv

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2026

The proposed deal aims to reopen Hormuz, end or pause fighting across multiple fronts, and restart tanker flows through the strait, as the world is dangerously close to an energy cliff. If disrupted for another month, this could spark even more severe economic trouble for the global economy.

Iranian officials said the deal would also lift the U.S. naval blockade, halt fighting involving Israel and Hezbollah, reopen Hormuz without tolls, and release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

The biggest unresolved issue is Iran's nuclear program. U.S. officials said the framework includes a commitment by Tehran to give up enriched uranium, though the mechanism for that commitment would be negotiated later.

However, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency dismissed Trump's claim of an imminent deal as "far from reality."

Fars reported that, under the latest text exchanged, management of Hormuz would "remain exclusively under the authority and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran" if a deal is reached.

Earlier, Fars reported that Iran's nuclear program, blocked funds, and the status of Hormuz remained "serious points of disagreement" in talks with the U.S.

Iran had indicated that a final draft of the deal was under review.

Iranian state television cited Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying, "Over the past week, the process has been moving toward a convergence of views."

Latest Headline Round-Up

Peace Deal Progress

• Trump said Saturday that a peace deal with Iran has been 'largely negotiated' and he plans to announce an agreement shortly that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday there may be 'some good news' regarding the blocked Strait of Hormuz in the coming hours

• Pakistan's military cited 'encouraging progress towards a final understanding' after intensive negotiations over the last 24 hours

• Iran and the US are still at odds over 'one or two provisions' of a potential peace agreement, according to Tasnim news agency

Peace Deal Terms

• The agreement involves a 60-day ceasefire extension during which the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, and Iran would be able to freely sell oil, according to a U.S. official

• A draft agreement stipulates that the US and its allies commit not to attack Iran or its allies under any circumstances, with Iran making a similar commitment, according to Fars news agency

• Iran's nuclear program, blocked funds and the status of the Strait of Hormuz are 'serious points of disagreement' in talks, according to Fars News

Regional Involvement

• Several Arab nations joined Pakistan in trying to push for a resolution to the Iran war as they urged Trump to allow more time for negotiations

• Pakistan's Prime Minister congratulated Trump on his 'extraordinary efforts to pursue peace' after a phone call involving leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Jordan and Pakistan

• President Trump's Iran deal will ensure the US military stays in the region for at least the next 30 days, per Fox News.

Macro Impact

• US forces have redirected 100 commercial vessels during its six-week-long blockade of Iran's ports, according to Central Command

• A liquefied natural gas tanker carrying a shipment for India has exited the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since the Iran war began months ago

• The European Central Bank is heading for an interest-rate increase next month unless a sustainable peace deal between the US and Iran can be found, according to the ECB's Martin Kocher

Polymarket

Odds of Hormuz traffic returning to normal by the end of June stand at 61%.

//--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by end of June?
Yes 62% · No 39%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

The US-Iran permanent peace deal, as of May 26, stands at 35%.

//--> //--> US x Iran permanent peace deal by May 26, 2026?
Yes 35% · No 65%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

WTI and Brent crude oil prices crashed on Hyperliquid (via Augur Infinity):

S&P500 soars on Hyperliquid (via Augur Infinity):

Bitcoin's chart continues to trend higher, with price action on an "up and to the right" trajectory.

Must Reads:

• If Iran Imposes A Permanent Toll On Hormuz, Who Will Start Charging Next: Deep Dive Inside The World's Oil Chokepoints

• Hormuz Shock Raises Recession Risk As Retailers Sound Alarm On Consumer Stress

Why the US needed an urgent peace deal, as explained by UBS:

• UBS Warns Of "Scary" Oil Price Scenarios Once Inventory Buffers Run Dry

Friday's US-Iran Wrap

• Iran Says 'No Deal' Will Materialize If US Insists On Enriched Uranium Handover

Saturday's US-Iran Wrap

• Israel Unleashes New Gaza Strikes Soon After Trump Says Iran Peace Deal 'Largely Negotiated,' Hormuz To Reopen As Final Terms Discussed

Professional subscribers can review the latest institutional reads on Iran, the Hormuz Strait, energy markets, and more on our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 13:45

Suicide Bomb Attack On Train In Pakistan Kills At Least 30, Over 100 Wounded

A massive suicide car bomb attack blew up and derailed a train transporting security personnel in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

The blast ripped through the train passenger cars, killing at least 30 people and leaving more than 100 others wounded, with the casualty count expected to rise as rescuers dig through the twisted metal.

via AFP

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group operating in the mineral-rich region, immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's coordinated strike.

Local officials and police told international outlets that at least three coaches and the engine had derailed after the explosion. Security forces have cordoned off the whole area amid ongoing search and rescue efforts.

The completely overturned and were immediately engulfed in massive flames. Authorities have condemned the heinous act of terrorism.

Soon after the attack, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to X to condemn the carnage: "Such cowardly acts of terrorism cannot weaken the resolve of the people of Pakistan," Sharif stated.

"We remain steadfast in our determination to eliminate terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," he added.

While Islamabad promises total elimination of the threat, the reality on the ground has long been of an insurgency capable of hitting high-value military logistics lines at will.

One source said that the "The blast occurred near a railway track as a train carrying Pakistani security personnel and civilians was travelling near Quetta’s cantonment area, according to officials and media reports." And so it seems the terror group knew that large numbers of military and security personnel would be coming through.

Over a year ago, there was a major hijacking of a train carrying 346 passengers in the same region, in March 2025. That attack resulted in the deaths of at least 21 passengers and at least four Pakistani soldiers involved in the security response.

Death toll expected to climb:

A suicide attack in Quetta, Pakistan, has killed at least 34 people and injured 82 others. The blast struck a train, with gunfire heard nearby. Vehicles were damaged and windows of surrounding buildings were shattered. pic.twitter.com/1Rcu0cc7Mu

— World Source News (@Worldsource24) May 24, 2026

As we've featured before, the Baloch Conflict owes its origins to Balochistan’s contentious incorporation into Pakistan but has evolved in recent years to take on shades of "resource nationalism". What’s meant by this is that some locals believe that their resource-rich region, the largest in Pakistan at nearly half the country’s size, isn’t receiving its fair share of wealth.

The BLA and its supporters also accuse Pakistan of selling the region out to China. Pakistan denies these claims and has always blamed Afghanistan and India for the conflict.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 13:25

UAE State Oil Company Head Says Hormuz Bypass Pipeline Nearly 50 Percent Complete

Authored by Evgenia Filimianova via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The head of the UAE's state oil company said on May 20 that a major new oil pipeline designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz is nearly 50 percent complete, as regional tensions and competing maritime controls reshape global energy routes.

UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who's also the managing director and group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, speaks via video during a presentation at the 44th annual CERAWeek by S&P Global conference at the Americas Hilton-Houston in Texas on March 23, 2026. CERAWeek by S&P Global

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said during an interview at the Atlantic Council that the project is being accelerated toward a planned 2027 completion date.

"Right now, too much of the world's energy still moves through too few choke points," Al Jaber said. "That is exactly why the UAE made the decision more than a decade ago to invest in infrastructure that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz."

Al Jaber said the UAE's second west-east pipeline is already "almost 50 percent complete."

The project comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted following months of conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.

The UAE said last week that it would accelerate construction of the pipeline to expand export capacity through Fujairah, a port city on the Gulf of Oman outside the Strait of Hormuz.

The country's existing Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, already allows the UAE to bypass Hormuz for a portion of its exports.

The new project is expected to significantly expand that capacity.

Al Jaber warned that global energy systems remain vulnerable because too much oil and gas infrastructure depends on narrow maritime chokepoints.

"Energy security is no longer just about your ability to continue to produce," he said. "It is about routes, access, storage, and redundancy."

He said global spare oil production capacity remains dangerously low while energy storage levels continue falling.

"In just two months, the world drew down around 250 million barrels from storage," Al Jaber said. "We have 30 to 35 days of effective cover. We need to at least double that."

The comments followed warnings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that oil markets could enter a "red zone" this summer if disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continue.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said on May 21 that more than 14 million barrels of oil per day had been removed from global markets because of infrastructure damage and restrictions linked to the conflict.

UAE Moves Beyond OPEC

The pipeline expansion also comes weeks after the UAE formally exited OPEC and the broader OPEC+ alliance.

The UAE announced on April 28 that it would leave the organization effective May 1, describing the move as a "sovereign responsibility in a new energy age."

Al Jaber said the decision would give the UAE greater flexibility to expand production and invest globally.

"Ultimately, real strength is not measured by the abundance of resources, but by how they are harnessed to serve the nation," he said.

The UAE said ongoing instability in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz influenced the decision.

"Outside OPEC, the UAE will remain what it has always been, a disciplined, responsible, credible, reliable, and a stabilizing force in the global energy markets," said Al Jaber.

He also described relations between the UAE and the United States as increasingly integrated across energy, infrastructure, defense, and technology sectors.

Iran Expands Strait Oversight

The pipeline expansion coincides with Iran's efforts to formalize oversight of maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran announced in May the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, or PGSA, a new body tasked with supervising transit through the waterway and coordinating shipping permissions inside Iranian-designated control zones.

The PGSA said on May 20 that Iran had defined a maritime supervision area stretching from Kuh Mobarak in southeastern Iran to the southern coast of Fujairah in the UAE on the eastern side of the strait, and from Qeshm Island to Umm al-Quwain in the UAE on the western side.

The authority also said vessels operating within that area must coordinate transit frequencies and obtain permits from Iranian authorities before crossing the waterway.

Iranian Ambassador to France Mohammad Amin Nejad told Bloomberg on May 21 that Tehran and Oman are discussing a permanent tolling system for the strait.

Zones Of Control

The Iranian supervision zone appears to overlap at least partially with areas where U.S. naval forces are operating under Washington's blockade targeting Iranian ports.

U.S. Central Command said in an April 12 statement that American forces would blockade vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports beginning April 13.

It said the blockade applies to ships traveling to or from Iranian ports in both the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, while stating that U.S. forces would "not impede freedom of navigation" for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to non-Iranian destinations.

Iran's newly declared PGSA supervision zone covers much of the same shipping corridor through which U.S. naval forces monitor and intercept commercial traffic linked to Iranian ports.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on May 21 that an Iranian tolling system would be unacceptable and warned it could derail negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

"It would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible," Rubio told reporters before departing for NATO meetings in Sweden.

Rubio described the proposed toll system as a "threat to the world" and "completely illegal."

Rubio said after meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Helsingborg, Sweden, on May 22 that Western allies hope to reach an agreement with Iran that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

He warned, however, that governments also need contingency plans if Iran refuses to restore maritime access.

Rubio said that if Iran continues restricting passage or threatens vessels that refuse to comply with Iranian demands, "something has to be done about it."

Several countries represented at the NATO meeting, he said, would be even more affected by prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz than the United States because of their dependence on Middle Eastern energy supplies.

Rubio added that NATO members must begin preparing for scenarios in which "Iran decides, 'We don't care, we're going to keep the Straits closed.'"

Motorists drive past an ADNOC Gas subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company facility in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on March 3, 2026. Ryan Lim/AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Sun, 05/24/2026 - 12:50