Zero Rss

Barnacle Scrapers Cash In As Persian Gulf Shipping Bottleneck Eases

Demand for commercial divers who clean ship hulls has surged as vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf prepare to leave following a tentative US-Iran peace agreement reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to Bloomberg.

According to Captain Manandeep Singh Kukreja of Prominence Shipping Services, requests for hull-cleaning crews have increased more than 30-fold since the announcement. Fees for cleaning a single vessel could rise up to 60%, from about $5,000 to $8,000.

Bloomberg reports that around 600 ships remain stuck in the Gulf after more than three months of disruption. Many have accumulated algae, slime, and barnacles, which can prevent entry into ports due to invasive-species concerns.

“The next 30 days, it’s going to be like striking gold for diving companies,” Kukreja said. “Everyone wants to get out of Hormuz and get back to earning money.”

“They’re going to make the best out of this opportunity. It’s a no-brainer that they will hike their prices.”

Cleaning needs vary by vessel. Some ships require only light slime removal, while others need extensive barnacle scraping after months in the warm Gulf waters.

The surge in demand for hull-cleaning crews reflects the broader disruption caused by months of conflict around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important energy chokepoints.

Since fighting erupted in late February, hundreds of vessels have been stranded in the Persian Gulf, disrupting oil shipments, driving up shipping and insurance costs, and creating the largest interruption to global energy flows in decades. As a tentative peace deal raises hopes that traffic can resume, shipowners are racing to prepare vessels for departure, underscoring the scale of the operational and financial fallout from more than three months of turmoil in the region.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 04:15

Iran 'MOU' Deal Triggers Traders To Use 'Semis-Energy' Barbell As 'Source Of Funds'

Via Remix News,

Sweden has passed a new migration law that will allow residence permits to be refused or revoked if foreign nationals are deemed not to have lived in an orderly manner, marking another major tightening of the country’s immigration system.

The Swedish Parliament adopted the government’s amendments to existing immigration laws on Monday by 302 votes to 44, with the Left Party and the Green Party voting against the measure. The changes will mainly come into force next month.

Under the new rules, a foreign national’s conduct will carry greater weight when authorities decide whether to grant, extend, or revoke a residence permit. The law does not set out an exhaustive list of behaviors that will be treated as unacceptable, leaving the Migration Agency to assess cases individually. It means that an immigrant who may not hold a criminal record but has acted in a disorderly manner in other ways could be told to leave.

Decisions can be appealed to a migration court.

Government representatives and investigators have cited several examples of conduct that may count against an applicant, including failing to follow Swedish laws and regulations, ignoring decisions by public authorities, systematically avoiding debts or fines, working illegally, failing to pay taxes, criminality, and links to extremist organizations.

Migration Minister Johan Forssell defended the proposal when it was presented in March, saying Sweden should demand more from those seeking to remain in the country.

“Anyone who doesn’t make the effort to do the right thing shouldn’t be able to count on staying,” Forssell said.

The measure forms part of a broader shift in Swedish migration policy under the current government, which has moved to make residence, citizenship and asylum rules more restrictive.

Earlier this month, Parliament also approved the removal of permanent residence permits for several asylum-related categories, including people granted protection, long-term residents in Sweden, and their family members.

Sverigedemokraterna levererar på våra vallöften! I dag har riksdagen röstat ja till dubbla straff för gängkriminella, ett återinfört tjänstemannaansvar och vandelskrav för uppehållstillstånd. 🇸🇪 pic.twitter.com/MNxX5n4Tf9

— Sverigedemokraterna (@sdriks) June 15, 2026

Hailing the move, the right-wing Sweden Democrats wrote on X, “The Sweden Democrats are delivering on our election promises! Today, the Swedish parliament voted yes to double penalties for gang criminals, the reintroduction of official liability, and character requirements for residence permits.”

While the party is not in government, it props up the current administration on the proviso that restrictive immigration reforms continue to be implemented.

Earlier this year, Sweden also passed a strengthened return package giving police and migration authorities more tools to enforce deportation decisions. Several public authorities will be required to share information with police if they suspect a foreign national has no right to remain in the country. The package also expands the use of fingerprints, photographs, and checks of mobile phones in migration cases.

Other recent changes include stricter work-permit rules, including a salary threshold of at least 90 percent of the Swedish median salary for most applicants, and tougher citizenship rules.

The ordinary residence requirement for citizenship recently rose from five to eight years, alongside tougher requirements on self-sufficiency, conduct and knowledge of the Swedish language and society.

The government also increased voluntary repatriation grants at the start of the year, allowing eligible adults with protection-related residence permits to receive up to 350,000 Swedish kronor if they return permanently to their country of origin.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 03:30

Poland Moves To Tax Fuel Windfalls Earned During Iran War

Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com,

Poland's government has approved a one-off windfall tax on fuel companies that benefited from soaring energy prices during the U.S.-Iran-Israel war, seeking to recover part of the billions spent protecting consumers from higher fuel costs.

The proposed levy would impose a 60% tax on excess profits generated between March and December 2026, during the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Polish Finance Ministry estimates the measure will raise around 4 billion zloty $1.1 billion.

Under the proposal, excess profits would be calculated using fuel sales margins that exceed a company's average 2025 margin by more than 20%, reflecting profits from an extraordinary geopolitical supply shock instead of improved business performance.

"Exceptional economic and geopolitical conditions" created unusually high profits across parts of the fuel sector while imposing significant costs on the state budget, the Finance Ministry said in a statement carried by Polish news outlets.

State-controlled energy giant Orlen is expected to bear the largest share of the tax burden, accounting for roughly 60% of the projected tax base according to the government's impact assessment.

The proposal follows months of emergency measures introduced by Warsaw to shield households and businesses from soaring fuel prices. Poland temporarily reduced VAT and excise duties on fuels and imposed price controls designed to ensure consumers benefited from the tax cuts. According to government estimates, the fuel excise reduction and reduced VAT collections cost Poland around $435 million a month.

The measure still faces political hurdles, though. Tusk's coalition controls parliament; however, the legislation must also be signed by President Karol Nawrocki, an opposition ally who has repeatedly blocked government fiscal initiatives.

The government initially proposed a 75% windfall tax before reducing the rate to 60% following consultations with industry groups, which warned that the original proposal would have pushed the effective tax burden on some companies to nearly 94%.

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 02:45

Germany's Anti-immigration AfD Party Jumps To Record 9-Point Lead Over CDU In Latest Poll

Via Remix News,

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to run away from its main rival, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Socialist Union (CSU) in a new poll, which shows the AfD nine points ahead.

The AfD achieved a new record in the current YouGov poll, reaching 29 percent, while the CDU/CSU and SPD have hit all-time lows. The results are expected to pile on the pressure on a governing coalition the German public increasingly despises.

In the YouGov poll, CDU/CSU achieves 20 percent of the vote and SPD earns 12 percent. The Union parties have never been worse in a YouGov poll.

BUNDESTAGSWAHL | Sonntagsfrage YouGov

AfD: 29% (+1)
Union: 20% (-2)
GRÜNE: 14% (+1)
SPD: 12% (-1)
LINKE: 12% (+1)
FDP: 5% (+1)
BSW: 4%
Sonstige: 5%

Änderungen zur letzten Umfrage vom 12. Mai 2026

Verlauf: https://t.co/f9MV7iZ8iJ#btw29 pic.twitter.com/yO2VS2jJn5

— Deutschland Wählt (@Wahlen_DE) June 16, 2026

However, the Greens at 14 percent and the Left Party at 12 percent are making slight gains.

The FDP is also gaining ground, reaching 5 percent for the first time in a year and a half after a new chairman was elected, Wolfgang Kubicki.

The results for the CDU in particular are bound to spark further turmoil in the party, with some members perhaps even eyeing a future coalition with the AfD, a move that has been soundly rejected by CDU leadership. In particular, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to never work with the party.

The conundrum for the CDU remains that the party is forced to build coalitions with predominately left-wing parties like the Greens, the SPD, and even the Left Party, through its firewall against the AfD. The resulting politics have left CDU voters increasingly unhappy with the results, but remarkably, about half of CDU voters also reject a coalition with the AfD.

Majority of Germans reject politicizing the World Cup

YouGov also found that a majority of Germans do not want the World Cup politicized. The German national team has a history of taking a “woke” stance in the last two World Cups, but the German team was eventually humiliated in each tournament, failing to advance past the preliminary round in both World Cups.

However, Germans soundly reject politics in football, with 65 percent of respondents saying they want the World Cup and politics to be strictly separated. AfD voters (82 percent) and CDU/CSU voters (74 percent) are especially in favor of this position. More than half of SPD voters at 55 percent also share this view.

However, those on the more extreme left, back politics in football, like the Left Party (41 percent) and the Greens (34 percent).

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 06/18/2026 - 02:00

America At 250: Survey Finds Enduring Patriotism, Growing Anxiety

Authored by Karlyn Bowman and Nicole Penn via RealClearPolitics,

As we approach the nation's semiquincentennial celebrations, the American Enterprise Institute released a new public opinion survey exploring Americans' views about the nation's past and present. The survey is part of AEI's America at 250 initiative, and it expands on a survey conducted 30 years ago by the Public Agenda Foundation in NYC.

Americans continue to endorse many of the ideals the founders championed, and they worry about their erosion. Nearly eight in 10 believe Americans take their freedoms for granted, while only 19% say Americans appreciate the freedom we have.

More than two-thirds of Americans believe that society has to teach kids what it means to be an American, while three in 10, 31%, believe this is something that happens naturally as they grow up. Three-quarters think high school students should be required to study the Declaration of Independence this year as part of the nation's 250th anniversary, including 61% of Gen Z-ers. Twenty-nine percent nationally say they have read the Declaration in full, while 45% have read it in part. Slightly more than a quarter, 26%, say they have not read the document. Still, 85% said they could give a good answer to what the 4th of July holiday actually celebrates, while 13% said they would be more comfortable looking it up.

Americans don't want to gloss over their history, and 65% said it was important to have public discussions of the nation's historical failures and flaws. In another question, 90% said it was very or somewhat important for high school students to learn how slavery and racial discrimination shaped the country. Forty-two percent said the public schools these days do not pay enough attention to the harm done to African Americans in U.S. history. Still, 75% in another question agreed with the statement "America is not perfect, but the country's leaders have worked hard to make it better." To this group of Americans, it was important to teach the country's failures and flaws but also its successes and strengths.

The survey revealed some significant gaps between members of the Gen Z cohort and baby boomers. Thirty percent of the Gen Z-ers strongly agreed that the Founding Fathers deserved respect for how they created the country compared to 60% of baby boomers. Two-thirds of Gen Z compared to 89% of boomers said they were very or somewhat proud to be an American. There were also big gaps between the parents surveyed in 1998 and parents today. Parents today are less likely to see the country and its history positively and also less likely to insist that schools teach positive claims about it.

Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute where she studies public opinion. 

Nicole Penn is the assistant director of AEI’s Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 23:25

China's Alibaba Unveils AI Brains Designed To Power The Next Generation Of Robots

Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering,

Chinese firm Alibaba has launched its first embodied AI model family, which links large language models with real-world robotic actions.

The Qwen-Robot suite includes three distinct models, each targeting a different layer of physical intelligence.Unitree/YouTube

The Qwen-Robot suite was developed by Alibaba's Tongyi Lab and is undergoing pilot testing with selected Alibaba Cloud enterprise clients.

The suite comprises three models focused on navigation, manipulation, and world modeling for robots operating in physical environments.

Alibaba said the models enable machines to perceive, reason, and interact with the real world, joining a growing global push to advance embodied AI beyond traditional chatbot applications.

Robots meet reasoning

Alibaba says its Qwen family of AI models has become very good at understanding the physical world. These models can recognize objects, understand spatial relationships, follow complex visual instructions, and reason about real-world environments. For example, a model can understand a command such as, "Go to the kitchen, find the red cup, pick it up, and place it on the shelf."

However, understanding a task is different from actually performing it. While a vision-language model (VLM) can describe the steps needed to complete a task, it cannot directly control a robot's movements.

The challenge is connecting human language and visual understanding with the motor actions required to interact with the physical world.

This problem is difficult because robot training data is very different from internet data. Information collected from navigation systems, robotic arms, vehicles, and cameras comes in different formats and is expensive to gather. Simply combining all this data often creates conflicts rather than improving performance.

To address this, Alibaba developed the Qwen-Robot Suite, which includes three specialized models. Qwen-RobotNav focuses on movement and navigation. It helps robots follow instructions, navigate to locations, track targets, and support autonomous driving.

According to its website, Qwen-RobotManip focuses on physical interaction. It enables robots to grasp, move, and manipulate objects using a large training dataset collected from different robotic systems. Qwen-RobotWorld acts as a world model, predicting how environments may change and helping robots understand the likely outcomes of their actions.

Together, these models aim to enable robots to understand instructions, interact with objects, navigate environments, and make decisions in the real world.

Physical AI accelerates

Alibaba showcased Qwen-RobotNav on a Unitree Go2 quadruped powered by NVIDIA Jetson Thor hardware and a single low-resolution camera. The robot successfully navigated an unfamiliar apartment, following spoken instructions across multiple rooms without preloaded maps, while maintaining an inference latency of 196 milliseconds.

The company claims that Qwen-RobotManip, its robotic manipulation model, was trained on more than 38,000 hours of open-source data covering object handling and interaction tasks. According to Alibaba, the model recently achieved the highest score in the generalist category of the RoboChallenge real-world robotics benchmark, earning a process score of 59.83 and a task success rate of 45 percent.

The company also unveiled Qwen-RobotClaw, a robotics agent framework that enables Qwen models to use the Qwen-Robot suite as physical-world tools. In one demonstration, an agent searched for a restroom, identified an out-of-order sign, and independently rerouted to another location. Alibaba further open-sourced Chat2Robot, a browser-based platform for testing embodied AI interactions.

As competition in embodied AI intensifies worldwide, Alibaba has expanded its ambitions beyond language and multimodal software with the launch of its Qwen-Robot models. The move reflects a broader industry shift toward creating AI systems capable of understanding and interacting with the physical world.

Alibaba's move comes as competition in physical AI accelerates globally. In the US, Google DeepMind is advancing Gemini Robotics, while Nvidia is expanding its robotics ecosystem through Cosmos, Isaac, and GR00T. Start-ups, including Physical Intelligence, Skild AI, and Figure AI, are also developing general-purpose robotic intelligence, according to the South China Morning Post.

China is strengthening its position by pairing its manufacturing advantages with growing investments in AI software for autonomous decision-making. The sector now spans AI developers, robotics firms, and EV makers. Companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Unitree, AgiBot, UBTech, Galbot, Spirit AI, GigaAI, Xpeng, and Xiaomi are actively pursuing embodied AI technologies.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 23:00

Drug Czar On How She Is Taking On The Cartels And China

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

The dim tunnel passage hugs narrow, winding concrete steps that lead 55 feet down, with a ceiling no higher than 4 1/2 feet, making it a claustrophobe's nightmare.

The underground passage stretching from Tijuana, Mexico, to a warehouse in California near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry known as "Buy 4 Less" is about 2,000 feet long and features reinforced walls, rail, ventilation, and electrical systems.

Sara Carter, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, at her office in Washington on June 8, 2026. Carter was sworn in to the role in January. Her office coordinates anti-narcotics policy for 19 federal agencies. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said on June 1 that the tunnel had been discovered during a Homeland Security investigation involving a suspected drug smuggling operation.

Four people were charged with conspiring to distribute more than a ton of cocaine worth $45 million. Authorities said the discovery dealt a blow to the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars of narcotics have probably made their way through this tunnel. Imagine the national security implications of that," drug czar Sara Carter told host Jan Jekielek on a recent episode of EpochTV's "American Thought Leaders."

Power Play

Carter said federal agencies have been turning to technology to help combat cartels, although she couldn't disclose details. She said the cartels' use of tunnels to transport illicit drugs shows that they are feeling U.S. pressure along the border.

"They're having a much harder time getting their product across the border because we've shut it down," she said.

Carter attributes it to the Trump administration's whole-of-government approach to stop the flow of illicit drugs into the country, at the border and beyond.

Carter was sworn in this January as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which coordinates anti-narcotics policy for 19 federal agencies. The office leads the Trump administration's effort to reduce illicit drug manufacturing, trafficking, drug use, and overdose deaths.

"Our Homeland Security task forces, now under President Trump, have the capability ... to do what's needed to cut off the heads of the snake," she said.

Carter attributed President Donald Trump's efforts to close the border to illegal immigrants and designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations as significant factors in reducing the flow of drugs across the border, and ultimately driving overdose deaths.

Yet Carter said the cartels aren't the only problem fueling drug use in the United States - adversarial nationals are also part of the problem.

"We have adversaries that have contaminated our supply chain. We have cartels that couldn't care less," she said.

Carter acknowledged the Chinese Communist Party's involvement in the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl distributed by the cartels.

"It is unrestricted warfare," she said.

"I have already spoken with Chinese counterparts about this. I have made it very clear that we understand, and we know where these precursor chemicals are coming from, and that it will not be tolerated."

Carter said China has been put on notice to disclose such chemicals in shipments coming into the United States. Likewise, she has been talking to Mexican officials about safeguarding their own ports against the importation of illicit drugs.

At U.S. ports, the government is also working to hold private industry accountable. If cargo ships are caught with precursor chemicals, then the federal government will hold them accountable, she said.

"We're looking at all kinds of new technology, technology that was unheard of in the past," she said. "How can we implement this technology to ensure that the cargo that is coming in is clean?"

Cooperation Through Strength

Carter said that countries understand that Trump is willing to wield U.S. power to stop the drug trade, putting nations on notice around the world.

Trump's military operation in Venezuela resulted in the arrest of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who had a $50 million bounty on his head as the alleged leader of the De Los Soles cartel, which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

"One of the best operations I've ever seen conducted," Carter said. "We have done what we said we were going to do. There were no more games."

She also said that the amount of cocaine and other drugs flowing from Venezuela has dropped since Maduro's capture.

Trump's projection of strength has led to unprecedented cooperation from both Mexico and China, she said.

One example is a February operation in which the United States provided Mexico with intelligence that they used to take down the Jalisco New Generation cartel's kingpin, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho."

Mexican officials cooperated with the United States, sending in the Mexican National Guard and special forces to confront the cartel's leader, Carter said.

"We said, 'Look, here's the information, go get them,' and they did, and we'd never seen that before, not like that, not in that same way, not with that cooperation," she said.

Likewise, China's Ministry of Public Security has been uncharacteristically cooperative, she said. FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to China in November 2025 to meet with his counterpart to discuss stopping the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals.

During Patel's visit, the Chinese regime agreed on a plan to stop fentanyl-related chemicals as part of its deal with the Trump administration to crack down on the lethal synthetic opioid.

Two milligrams of fentanyl - the size of a few grains of salt - can be fatal. The drug has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

'Don't Give Up'

Overdose deaths have been decreasing, but Carter said there are still far too many.

She said 68,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2025, down from a high of 112,000 in 2023. Some have attributed that decrease to a reduction in the amount of fentanyl found in street drugs.

Carter said she does not consider it an overdose when a person orders what he believes to be Adderall online and then dies because the pills are laced with fentanyl.

"This is unacceptable. This is the United States of America," she said.

Members of Congress look on as President Donald Trump signs the Secure America Act in the Oval Office in Washington on June 10, 2026. The $70 billion package funds Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations through the end of Trump’s term in office in fiscal year 2029. Alex Wong/Getty Images Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 22:35

Welcome To Baltimore: Chaos, Gunfire, And Roaming Youth Mobs Transform Bar District Into Warzone

One of Baltimore City's premier bar and restaurant districts was transformed into a warzone over the weekend, with roaming gangs of underage kids, large unruly crowds, fights, and even a shootout that seemed like a scene from the crime drama The Wire. Urban decay in Baltimore is rampant and is a symptom of failed left-wing leadership, which seems more focused on city-killing progressive politics, DEI, illegal aliens, and climate change than actually providing basic law and order to taxpayers.

Fox Baltimore reports that Fells Point was flooded with hundreds of young people, mostly underage teens, overwhelming parts of the nightlife district known for its local shops, bars, and restaurants.

More from Fells Point:

Imagine wanting to go out for dinner and a few drinks on a Saturday and this is what you walk into 🤦‍♂️

Completely unacceptable pic.twitter.com/cP8lRyezM5

— QE Infinity (@StealthQE4) June 17, 2026

What came next was chaos...

In a video that has been making the rounds on social media, footage shows people running after reportedly hearing gunfire in Fells Point early Saturday morning.

🎥: @lorjuu on Instagram pic.twitter.com/n1sxFiS3SV

— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) June 17, 2026

The scenes of chaos raise new concerns that the failed left-wing leadership under Mayor Brandon Scott has lost control of the city’s youth. The direct consequence will be that tourists - those still brave enough to visit a city in terminal decline - may abandon plans to come to Fells. This will impact mom-and-pop restaurants.

A large police presence filled Fells Point overnight after hundreds of young people crowded the streets, prompting multiple calls for disorderly conduct and at least one arrest.

STORY: https://t.co/EUHZOFMv1r pic.twitter.com/DoQdQQaifT

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) June 15, 2026

City leaders are unserious. 

FOX45 is pressing city leaders on how they plan to address the disorderly crowds in Fells Point seen over the weekend. https://t.co/KdJaF2jx68 pic.twitter.com/7dkBehwcU5

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) June 16, 2026

Lawlessness is nothing new in Baltimore, which continues to suffer a population collapse, now at a 100-year low.

Related:

• "Exponentially Deteriorating": Baltimore's Lawlessness Spreads Into Suburbs As Democrats Lose Control

As public safety concerns mount, quality of life deteriorates, and taxes remain ungodly high, raising a family in a city controlled by Democrats has become unbearable and dangerous - all the more reason to flee to the county or leave the state entirely for a common-sense red state.

Related:

• "Marylanders Are Voting With Their Feet": Johns Hopkins Finds Blue State Exodus To Persist For Years

And it gets much worse, well, the local economy is in turmoil: 

• "Billion-Dollar Ghost Town" Surrounds Under Armor Headquarters

• Downtown Baltimore CRE Crash Signals Deeper Fiscal Crisis Ahead

• Build It, And They Will Come? Not The Case At Baltimore's Harbor East Luxury Tower

For anyone traveling up or down the I-95 along the East Coast this summer, the Baltimore exit may be one to avoid. The wise move is to keep on driving. And if you want a taste of Baltimore, just re-watch The Wire on a streaming platform from the comfort of your sofa. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 22:10

Majority Of Americans Say It Would Be Good For Society If More People Were Religious: Poll

Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times,

A majority of U.S. adults (65 percent) say they believe that it would be good for society if more Americans were religious, according to a poll by Gallup.

A man prays following an Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, on Feb. 22, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Gallup's Values and Beliefs survey, released on June 16, found a substantial gap between the sexes, with 70 percent of men agreeing that more religiosity would be good for the country, compared with 61 percent of women.

By age grouping, the younger generations were least likely to agree, with less than half (49 percent) of 18- to 34-year-olds saying it would be good if more Americans had a faith, compared with 66 percent of 35- to 54-year-olds and three in four (75 percent) of those aged 55 and over.

In terms of political affiliation, the vast majority of Republicans (94 percent) thought that having more religious people would be better for the United States, followed by independents (59 percent), and Democrats (51 percent).

"Nonreligious people are the only major subgroup that believes increased religiousness would be negative (55 percent) rather than positive (27 percent) for the nation," pollsters said of the findings of their survey, conducted between May 1 and 17.

Proportion Down From 2013

While nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans say that more religiosity would be good for the country, Gallup noted that this proportion is down from the 75 percent of U.S. adults who expressed the same opinion when asked by the polling firm in 2013.

This 10-point shift reflects changes in opinion in most key demographic and political groups, mostly dramatically among women, 18- to 34-year-olds, those with some college, and Democrats - with all those groups shifting opinion by negative 16 points.

The only exceptions were Catholics (up 5 percent), those with no religious affiliation (up 3 percent), and Republicans (also up 3 percent).

The decline mirrors the decrease in religious sentiment across the United States.

According to Gallup findings from March, less than half (47 percent) of Americans say that religion is "very important" in their lives. The reading has been gradually declining from 58 percent in 2012. In 1952, this proportion was 75 percent, and 70 percent in 1965.

Religion Increasing Influence

The latest survey also found that Americans see religion increasing its influence in life in the United States, with 39 percent of U.S. adults saying religion's influence is on the rise. This is among the highest readings in the past two decades, only lower than 41 percent in December 2025 and 40 percent in September 2006.

"The recent increase began after Republican Party victories in the 2024 elections, with the percentage climbing from 20 percent in May 2024 to 35 percent in December of that year," Gallup said.

"The past two readings, from May and December, have been even higher since the GOP has been in office and governing."

Commenting on the findings overall, Gallup said that "while Americans continue to believe a more religious society would serve the U.S. well, fewer hold this view than did in 2013.

"This shift has come as the percentage of Americans who are religious are, by nearly any measure, near historical lows."

Pollsters added that the findings come at a time when the Trump administration "has sought to elevate the role of religion in public life, including by establishing the White House Office of Faith, beginning government meetings with Christian prayers, and encouraging federal workers to express their faith in the workplace."

White House Faith Office

In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a White House Faith Office.

The office was tasked with working alongside faith and community leaders to develop policy recommendations for combating faith-based discrimination, strengthening religious liberty, and strengthening families and marriages.

In February of this year, Trump said during the National Prayer Breakfast that there were many signs that faith was returning to the United States.

"Religion is back, now, hotter than ever before," Trump said in his speech at the Washington Hilton on Feb. 5.

"Thankfully, as we gather today, there are many signs that religion is coming back. Now, it's no longer signs.

"It's just coming back; it's coming back so strong. You know, your churches are filling up."

President Donald Trump bows his head during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in Washington on Feb. 5, 2026. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 21:45

COVID Origins, Lab-Leak Accountability, And The Next Pandemic Threat

The Hudson Institute hosted Dr. Steven Quay on Monday afternoon for a discussion on COVID-19 origins, during which he presented genetic evidence from his new book, The Code as Witness, arguing that the virus originated through gain-of-function research in a Chinese lab.

Years later, there has still been no accountability for what Quay argues was a Chinese lab leak that killed more than one million Americans and caused U.S. economic damages in excess of $18 trillion. Nor has there been a unified U.S. government consensus on the lab-leak theory, let alone on potential consequences for China or Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In the roughly one-hour discussion, which was opened by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a leading voice for stronger oversight of high-risk biological research, Quay, a Hudson senior fellow, said features encoded in the virus's genetic material point directly to lab manipulation rather than natural zoonosis.

Quay warned that irresponsible and unregulated gain-of-function research is accelerating globally and could produce pathogens far deadlier than the one that caused COVID.

Last week, Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a set of internal intelligence slides documenting a long-running US program that has funded a global network of biolabs that handle dangerous pathogens - including dozens in Ukraine.

Returning to Quay's discussion at Hudson, he pointed to several genetic features he says are difficult to explain by natural evolution alone, making it impossible. These include the furin cleavage site, the virus's early optimization for human ACE2 receptors, the ORF8 gene, restriction-enzyme patterns, and the rapid D614-to-G614 mutation.

Hudson Senior Fellow David Asher, drawing on decades of national security and intelligence work at the State Department, spoke with Quay about the confluence of the U.S. government and scientists who censored the lab-leak theory.

Asher told Quay that, years after the pandemic, there is still no formal COVID commission that gives the American people a clear understanding of where the virus came from, who should be held responsible, or a unified government consensus on the virus.

The Quay-Asher discussion then shifted to the biosecurity policy. They spoke of the urgent need for accountability, biosafety reform, and risk reduction as gain-of-function research accelerates globally.

Even with no clear federal government consensus on COVID origins, a recent YouGov poll demonstrated sharp partisan divides among the American people: 80% of Republicans and 47% of Democrats say the virus came from a Chinese lab. Meanwhile, 66% of Republicans and 26% of Democrats think it is definitely or probably true that the virus was released on purpose.

The American people demand accountability. It is time for a COVID commission.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 21:20

From Diablo Canyon Closure Fights To Record-Speed Renewals: The Nuclear Reversal 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) clocked another subsequent license renewal (SLR) in under 12 months. Southern Nuclear’s application for the two-unit Edwin I. Hatch plant in Georgia cleared the finish line on June 11, extending both boiling water reactors from 60 to 80 years of operation.

Hatch-1 is now licensed through August 2054. Hatch-2 runs through June 2058. That is roughly 1.85 GWe of carbon-free baseload secured into the 2050s. The approval makes Hatch the second and third units to ride the NRC’s new streamlined SLR track that targets decisions in 12 months or less. 

Duke Energy’s Robinson Unit 2 in South Carolina was the first, cleared in what staff called the fastest-ever review earlier this spring. St. Lucie Units 1 and 2, run by Florida Power & Light, received their extensions in late April, stretching Unit 1 to March 2056 and Unit 2 to April 2063.

The NRC has moved a noticeable cluster of applications in 2025 and 2026. 

Oconee, Summer, Point Beach, Browns Ferry, and Dresden all picked up subsequent renewals last year. When the agency signed off on Diablo Canyon’s extension in April it issued its 100th renewed commercial reactor license. 

For years the California plant served as the headline example of the “all plants must close” era. Activists and state policy pushed hard for a 2025 shutdown. After legislative rescue and full federal review, the units now hold approval into the mid-2040s. 

The speed of the recent reviews stands out, as historical SLR proceedings averaged roughly two and a half years. But the NRC has now proven that the staff can reach timely calls while keeping strict safety oversight. Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and Cooper already sit in the accelerated pipeline with decisions expected in 2027, and more applications are queued for later this year and 2027.

The practical result is a growing share of the existing fleet now operating under, or heading toward, 80-year licenses. Research inside and outside the NRC is already examining materials performance and aging-management needs for operation beyond 80 years, with some policy signals pointing toward frameworks that could support century-long runs where the data justify it. 
 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 20:30

How Deep Are The Newsoms In It?

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

This deep...

It seems impossible — or just too revolting — to keep up with the financial hanky-panky of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner (gag) Jennifer Siebel Newsom. But thanks to a couple of investigative reporters with stronger stomachs than I have, let's see if I can't put everything you need to know into one easily digestible column.

I love it when other people do my dirty work for me, so let's get started.

"Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list," Newsom practically boasted on Monday.

"He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one."

Well, let's see what Fox Business anchor Liz MacDonald and my old friend and Red State colleague Jen Van Laar have to say about that.

MacDonald said Tuesday that the DOJ probe "is about California Democrats’ modern-day machine politics," which she described as a "feedback loop of Sacramento-corporate lobbyists-governor/wife nonprofit-behested nonprofit donations-lucrative state contracts-Sacramento."

Don't bother writing all this down — there won't be a quiz at the end of today's column. You're welcome.

"The modern Sacramento machine trades corporate compliance and nonprofit funding/donations for policy access and state business," MacDonald added, and then explained how that grift (allegedly!) worked for the Newsoms:

According to IRS Form 990 disclosures, her nonprofit frequently buys from Siebel Newsom’s for-profit film company—Girls Club Entertainment LLC—writer, producer and director services and the licensing and production rights for her documentaries. Then it sells the docs to the state and public schools. 

 IRS records show that her nonprofit has paid her Girls Club Entertainment LLC roughly $1.64 million for these production and licensing rights since 2012, which includes a steady annual contracting fee of $150,000 since 2018.

TL;DR: Siebel Newsom produced unwatchable propaganda videos for children, for which Democrat-dominated schools then paid her handsomely. Or as MacDonald summed it up, "Over the past decade, Siebel Newsom has collected over $3.7 million in combined personal salary and LLC payouts funded by the nonprofit."

Then there are behested payments, which MacDonald explained are "a unique mechanism in California politics where an elected official asks a corporation, labor union, or wealthy individual to donate money to a specific charity, nonprofit, or government program." Unlike campaign donations, there are no caps.

As governor, Newsom requested a record $226 million in behested payments in one year.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the California Partners Project," MacDonald wrote, "a nonprofit founded by his wife."

"Many of the biggest donors were corporate giants (like health insurers and utility companies) actively bidding for lucrative state contracts or fighting state regulations."

One hand washes the other with filthy lucre, if you'll allow me to mix metaphors. 

Which brings us to Jen Van Laar, and her hip-deep-in-the-muck wade through the Newsoms' finances, going back years.

Way back in 2021, Jen asked, "Somebody Paid $3.7 Million Cash for CA Gov Newsom's Estate - But Who?" But couldn't come up with any satisfactory answers. That's because the Newsoms alternately claimed that "the Newsoms’ cash was used to purchase the home but was done through an LLC managed by his first cousin," or that "Newsoms obtained a loan… to purchase the home because the sale happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to obtain a mortgage."

Then, California's First Couple played similar LLC games, buying a second home for $9.1 million in ritzy Marin County. "Based on my examination of 15+ yrs of Newsom's financial disclosures, tax returns, and real estate transactions," Jenn explained in March, "they absolutely did not have $9.1M in cash."

Clearly, somebody did.

The shenanigans were so egregious that — no matter what TDS nonsense Newsom's social media team posts on X — the DOJ investigation began under the Biden administration. As I quipped on Instapundit this week, maybe Newsom needs to take a break from social media and lawyer up. 

Then there are the real-world effects, the fallout from personal corruption and statewide, one-party rule.

On Tuesday, Victor Davis Hanson wondered if California is "reaching critical mass," thanks to one-party rule creating a "neo-feudal society" that is "hardly democratic." The most egregious example was the fate of 2014's Proposition 1, a $7.12 billion water bond "designed to solve the state’s chronic water storage deficit."

Even though Prop 1 is an actual constitutional amendment, including "$2.7 billion specifically designated for new reservoirs," an alliance of bureaucracies, elected officials, and green activists still managed to block any new reservoir construction.

"Adding insult to injury," Hanson continued, "Governor Gavin Newsom instead used $250 million from the Proposition 1 fund to blow up four dams on the Klamath River."

Californians voted for more water infrastructure. Newsom's party blocked them, and Newsom himself had four dams destroyed that had "once provided storage, electrical generation, recreation, and flood control."

Tell me again about Muh Democracy™.

All of which is my long-winded way of concluding that, as corrupt as the Newsoms appear to be, they are merely a symptom of the progressive disease killing our once-greatest state. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 20:05

These Are The States Starting To Panic About AI Taking Over

Residents of Washington state are more concerned about artificial intelligence replacing jobs than workers anywhere else in the United States, according to a new report released in June 2026. The study, conducted by IP address provider Floxy, comes amid growing concerns about workplace automation after more than 54,000 American jobs were reportedly lost to AI-related workforce reductions last year.

To determine where Americans are most worried about automation, researchers analyzed all 50 states using several indicators. The study measured AI adoption rates among working-age residents, assessed how vulnerable local industries are to automation, and tracked search activity for terms such as "will AI replace my job," "AI taking jobs," and "AI layoffs." Researchers also factored in cybercrime rates, identity theft statistics, and the strength of state-level data protection laws.

Each state received an AI Panic Index score ranging from 1 to 99, with higher scores indicating greater levels of concern about AI-driven job displacement.

With an AI Panic Score of 99, Washington tops the rankings. Approximately 4,087 AI-related job displacement searches are conducted per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in the country. Researchers suggest this concern may be linked to the state's close ties to the technology sector, as both Amazon and Microsoft are headquartered there and have recently announced significant workforce reductions tied to AI initiatives. At the same time, nearly one-third of Washington's workforce already uses AI tools, giving many employees firsthand exposure to the technology's growing capabilities.

Wyoming ranks second, with more than 20,000 residents regularly searching for information about protecting their jobs from AI. Although the state lacks the large technology sector found in Washington, around one-quarter of working adults already use AI tools such as ChatGPT, potentially increasing awareness of how automation could affect future employment opportunities.

Nevada places third on the list. The state combines relatively high AI adoption with one of the nation's highest cybercrime rates, creating heightened awareness of technology-related risks. Approximately one in three Nevada workers already use AI tools, and around 55,000 residents search monthly for information about whether AI could replace their jobs.

Massachusetts ranks fourth, with roughly 160,000 residents searching each month for information related to AI-driven job losses. The state's thriving technology and biotechnology industries are advancing rapidly alongside AI innovation, contributing to concerns about automation. With about one-third of adults already using AI tools regularly, many workers are becoming increasingly aware of the technology's potential impact on their roles.

Maryland ranks fifth and records the highest AI adoption rate in the country, with 36.3% of working-age residents already using AI in the workplace. Despite widespread adoption, concerns remain high, particularly given the state's large concentration of technology and knowledge-based jobs that could be vulnerable to automation in the years ahead.

Commenting on the findings, Floxy Chief Technology Officer Aimen Hallou said concerns about AI-related job displacement are well-founded: "These concerns are not overblown. AI was directly linked to tens of thousands of job cuts in the US last year, and that's only counting companies that openly admitted it. Amazon eliminated 14,000 corporate roles, citing AI; Microsoft cut 15,000, and both were explicit about why. The broader reality is that MIT researchers estimated AI can already perform the tasks of roughly 1 in 8 American workers. That number is only going to grow as the tools get cheaper and more capable."

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 19:40

Fire Erupts At Massive Food Storage Warehouse In Southern California

A large fire is ripping through a massive cold-storage facility in Boyle Heights, Southern California, a critical node in the region's cold-food supply chain.

Local outlet KTLA reports the fire at Preferred Freezer Services, Big Bear #7, located at 1400 S. Los Palos St. in Los Angeles, was first reported around 2:35 p.m. local time.

"First-arriving units reported that fire was showing from the roof of the massive single-story building, which they estimated was about 1,000 feet by 500 feet," the local outlet stated.

#BreakingNews: Firefighters are battling an explosive fire that broke out at a large storage facility in Boyle Heights on Wednesday afternoon, igniting rows of solar panels on the roof. Details in bio. pic.twitter.com/bzEdPCcvyA

— KTLA (@KTLA) June 17, 2026

More footage:

BREAKING: A major fire has erupted in an industrial area of Bobigny, a suburb northeast of Paris, sending large plumes of smoke into the sky as emergency crews respond to the scene. pic.twitter.com/ORz9QMKcCC

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 17, 2026

@OC_Scanner pic.twitter.com/45ER1UM5bR

— Barry L.A. (@plcfox1) June 17, 2026

Huge warehouse fire in Boyle Heights. pic.twitter.com/vNJjlVPlaR

— Comrade S (@AnnStory8) June 17, 2026

The cause of the fire is unknown at this time, but this is not just another warehouse blaze. The facility is part of a major Southern California cold-chain node.

Big Bear #7 was built as a large refrigerated warehouse near I-5 and downtown Los Angeles, with roughly 95,000 pallet positions, 32 dock doors, and capacity for about 160 million pounds of product. It was designed to consolidate frozen goods under one roof for the Los Angeles market. 

In early April, a disgruntled employee at a one-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark distribution center in Ontario, California, burned the warehouse down to the ground.

*Developing...

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 19:21

US Embassy Warns Americans Against Renting Jet Skis In The Bahamas

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Embassy in Nassau issued a security alert on June 15, urging American citizens to avoid renting jet skis in The Bahamas, citing security risks and a lack of safety regulation enforcement.

The warning comes amid reports of sexual assault cases involving jet ski operators and injuries linked to jet ski incidents in the country.

The alert advised U.S. citizens to be wary of solicitations from jet ski operators near the Cruise Port, Junkanoo Beach, and Arawak Cay, and the small islands east of Paradise Island.

It also reminds U.S. citizens about regulations that bar individuals under 18 from renting jet skis and prohibit jet ski operators from riding with renters in The Bahamas.

According to the embassy, at least six U.S. citizens have been hospitalized because of jet ski-related injuries since August 2024, with three requiring emergency medical evacuation to the United States.

The embassy said at least two American women reported being sexually assaulted by jet ski operators this year. Another two female U.S. citizens reported sexual assaults last year, following three similar reports in 2024.

Some of the victims alleged that jet ski operators solicited them for rides from “the small islands just east of Paradise Island, downtown Nassau, and Paradise Island beaches,” including areas stretching from Junkanoo Beach to Saunders Beach and Cabbage Beach, according to the embassy.

“The victims said they were assaulted on isolated islands near Nassau,” it stated.

The embassy referenced an August 2025 incident, in which a U.S. citizen riding a jet ski was killed after being struck by an unlicensed operator who was driving an unregistered boat off Paradise Island.

Due to security risks arising from jet ski activities, U.S. government employees working in the Bahamas have been barred from renting or using jet skis on New Providence and Paradise islands, the embassy said.

The U.S. State Department has placed The Bahamas under a Level 2 travel advisory, meaning travelers are advised to “exercise increased caution” when traveling to the country due to violent crime like armed robberies, burglaries, and sexual assaults, as well as swimming-related risks.

The advisory states that most crimes have been reported in the area of Nassau and Freeport on New Providence and Grand Bahama islands. It advises those traveling to The Bahamas to remain vigilant at vacation rental properties, especially those without private security.

U.S. citizens are also advised not to answer the door for unexpected visitors at a hotel or residence, to keep doors and windows locked, and not to “physically resist any robbery attempt,” according to the advisory. It also warned Americans against bringing firearms or ammunition to The Bahamas.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 19:15

Musk Supports Nuremberg-Style Trials After UK Rape-Gang Inquiry Release

Via Remix News,

After Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe released the Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which documented the systemic rape and often torture of up to 250,000 young British girls at the hands of predominately Muslim rape gangs, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk agreed with calls for Nuremberg-style trials for the perpetrators and those who enabled the heinous attacks.

One post calling for Nuremberg Trials in connection to the rape gang inquiry and executions for those who were responsible, also received a one-word response from Musk, who stated: “Yes.”

Yes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2026

An excerpt from the report reads:

“The incidents of criminal activities listed in this report are drawn from court records, official and unofficial inquiries across the country, and witness testimony provided to the Inquiry. They confirm that this was never a series of isolated local failures. It was a coordinated, nationwide pattern of organised child sexual exploitation that repeated in town after town, city after city, from the far north to the south coast. The same ethnic and religious profile of the perpetrators was documented throughout almost all of the witnesses who contacted the Inquiry.”

The politicians who turned a blind eye to the Rape of Britain must go to prison pic.twitter.com/JFfHZSwiDc

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2026

The report further states that “the scale of the rape gang phenomenon is endemic across the entirety of Britain.”

The report cites the figure of 250,000 raped across Britain, which comes from a statement in the House of Lords by Lord Pearson of Rannoch on May 14, 2019:

“Do the Government accept that if we extrapolate nationally the Jay report on Rotherham and other reports from Telford and Oxford, there appear to have been upwards of 250,000 young white girls raped in this century, very largely by Muslim men, usually several times a day for years?”

He added that this number “is probably an underestimate.”

The report found that this number can now be supported through the data collected in the report, which scaled the data from the most thoroughly and well-documented inquiries.

The report cites:

“Rotherham (Jay Report, 2014): At least 1,400 girls abused between 1997 and 2013, with some updated estimates exceeding this. Perpetrators were overwhelmingly Pakistani Muslim men.”

“Telford Inquiry (2022): More than 1,000 children (predominantly girls) over decades, again with the same perpetrator profile.”

List of heinous crimes

The report makes for difficult reading. It found that the victims were typically between eight to 12 years old.

Children were forced to have sex with dogs and beaten with bats, which were then inserted into them anally and vaginally.

In one case, a little girl’s tongue was nailed to the wall so she could not move while she was being raped by multiple men.

It was also found that police were warning rapists that they were being reported in order to threaten the victims into stopping their reports. In other instances, police participated in the gang rapes themselves.

One girl was raped by between 30 to 80 men, most of whom were never charged by British authorities.

In another case, a little girl was told: “If you don’t come back, I’m going to rape your little sister instead.”

When one mother tried to call for help, a British police officer told her: “You should be happy your daughter is experiencing a different culture.” He then hung up on her.

Another girl was blinded by acid while trying to escape one of the rape gangs.

Widespread torture and rape across the country

The report also noted the widespread nature of the mass gang rapes, both geographically and temporally:

“Grooming gangs operate in 149 Local Authority Districts with victims numbering in the hundreds of thousands,” according to the report.

“The grooming gang model has been confirmed in dozens of towns and cities. Our independent Inquiry, led by Rupert Lowe MP, has heard evidence demonstrating coordinated operations extending to all corners of the country, in at least 149 local authority districts.”

The report notes that, “When the Rotherham/’Telford scale is applied across the documented national distribution, and multiplied by the extreme under-reporting factor accepted by official reviews, the total reaches the 250,000 threshold as a bare minimum.”

However, much of the abuse remains in the shadows and more investigation is required, not only to document this historical injustice, but to potentially hold those accountable for what occurred.

“We are far from grasping the full extent of grooming gang criminality in modern Britain. It is reasonable to assume that, since sexual abuse of all kinds tends to be under-reported, this is also true of grooming gangs. The Independent has reported that almost 19,000 children were identified as sexual exploitation victims in England in one year alone, despite the reluctance of state actors to name or tackle the problem of the rape gangs. After decades of abuse, victims must number in the hundreds of thousands. The full scale is not yet known.”

The report acknowledges that it may be impossible to ever ascertain how many victims there truly were, as much of the information was not documented or remains suppressed.

Every major review has emphasised that recorded statistics severely understate reality:

• Baroness Casey National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (June 2025): The audit explicitly states that the scale, nature, and characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation remain impossible to quantify precisely due to inconsistent data collection and historical suppression.

• Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and multiple local inquiries (2022-2025): “It is simply not possible to know the scale” because ethnicity, group offending, and historical cases were routinely unrecorded or shelved to protect “community cohesion.”

Government actors presided over a cover-up

The report further notes that key players in the government were instrumental in keeping the mass rape from being investigated and revealed to the public.

The report notes:

• Roger Stone (Labour council leader, Rotherham 2003-2014): Presided over local government during the cover-up documented in the Jay Report.

• Multiple Rotherham Labour councillors interfered in police investigations, tipped off perpetrators, or dismissed victims as “making lifestyle choices” to protect “community relations” and votes.

• While Sir Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions, it has been reported that 13,000 suspected rape gang members and paedophiles were let off with warning letters.

As stated earlier, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan repeatedly insisted there were no grooming gangs operating in the city. He described evidence from whistleblowers as politically motivated. He told the London Assembly that child sexual exploitation in the capital is a “far more complex” matter and does not fit the grooming-style patterns on display across deprived northern towns. These statements he made despite the fact that the Metropolitan Police had in its possession reports of young girls being plied with alcohol and drugs then raped by groups of men in hotels and other locations across London. A Daily Express investigation revealed that Khan had direct access to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary documents detailing the very patterns of offending he had denied. Khan read these files yet continued to deny the existence of grooming gangs in public.

Overall, the Labour Party did not just fail to prosecute the gangs. In some cases, its own members were the abusers and in most cases its councillors, leaders, and ministers put loyalty to Pakistani Muslim blocs before child safety. No other political party has such a well-documented track record of direct involvement with and institutional protection of industrial-scale child rape. This was in large part due to Labour’s own electoral self-interest.”

Police dismiss victims as racists

In regards to the police, a huge portion of the UK police force was active in the cover-up.

Only the police took any formal action, issuing ‘harbouring notices’ to the men – official warnings stating they had no permission to associate with, contact, or house a vulnerable child. However, no further action followed. When Fiona’s mother called the police to report her daughter missing and mentioned a history of abuse by Asian men, the call handler told her: “You can’t describe them as Asian men because that’s racist. You should just be glad your child is being taught a different culture.”

On one occasion, a police officer returned Fiona to the house where the abuse was occurring and told the men to “have fun with her.” On another occasion, police instructed the abusers that if they could persuade Fiona to sign herself out of care, the police would stop bothering them.

A migrant-fueled rape crisis

The report notes that these grooming gangs primarily consisted of Africans, Indians, Gypsies, Asians, and Muslims:

Researcher Peter McLoughlin in Easy Meat (2016) compiled a comprehensive list of grooming gang convictions from 1997 to 2018 (with updates in subsequent analyses), drawing from published court outcomes. His examination of names indicated that approximately 87% of those convicted bore distinctively Muslim names, which was a figure echoed in related analyses far exceeding the Muslim proportion (around 6%) of the general population of Britain.

The majority of these convicted groups consisted entirely of men from Muslim backgrounds. These groups are predominantly of Pakistani heritage, especially when the group exceeds ten or more members. The larger group size dynamic of Pakistani perpetrators is on display in major prosecutions and official reviews from locations such as Rochdale, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Oxford, Telford, and others.

Other convictions have involved groups primarily composed of Muslims from non-Pakistani origins, demonstrating that the issue is not necessarily confined to one ethnic group:

• Two Somali-origin gangs in Bristol
• A mainly African-heritage gang in Banbury
• Three Iranians in Chelmsford
• Three Syrians and one Kuwaiti in Newcastle
• Two Turkish men in Somerset
• A Romanian rape gang in Rotherham

The large Newcastle “‘Operation Sanctuary” case, involving 17 men and one woman from diverse Muslim backgrounds: Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Indian, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Eastern European heritage. Nearly all published names were Islamic.

An additional expert commentary included statement from Dr. Taj Hargey, an imam at the Oxford Islamic Congregation. He noted that virtually every individual in these grooming gangs appeared to be Muslim, estimating that 95 percent of those involved are of Muslim faith.

Beyond Europe?

The grooming gangs are also operating in other countries, including France on a massive scale, but also such cases are arising in Germany. Remarkably, Musk’s calls for a Nuremberg-style trial just so happen to coincide with reports that in the city of Nuremberg itself, there are grooming gangs operating targeting underage German girls.

In a distressing scene that echoes the findings of the U.K. Rape Gang Inquiry Report, German leftists laughed in parliament when Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alice Weidel described young German victims being systematically raped by foreign men in Nuremberg just earlier this month. The same mentality that allowed for the rapes of tens of thousands of British girls is also present across Europe and it is embedded in the heart of European institutions.

🇩🇪Migrant gangs are being accused of turning underage German girls into sex slaves in Nuremberg.

When AfD co-leader Alice Weidel brought this topic up in parliament, Left Party MP Katrin Fey laughed, according to the official Bundestag minutes.

Despite this laughter, a report… https://t.co/UvDxUxW0xH pic.twitter.com/MyKJY4aSbz

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 12, 2026

For his part, Lowe says the issue is and continues to be mass immigration.

“Essentially what has happened is that the decaying political establishment has imported millions of migrants from alien cultures that are entirely incompatible with the British way of life,” stated Lowe on X.

Essentially what has happened is that the decaying political establishment has imported millions of migrants from alien cultures that are entirely incompatible with the British way of life.

Those migrants have colonised large parts of our country, and live their lives how they…

— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) June 17, 2026

“Those migrants have colonised large parts of our country, and live their lives how they choose to do so because our authorities are too frightened of being called racist to challenge them. That has meant attitudes have flourished and spread which, in short, treat women and non-Muslims like shit. And yes, I do mean that.”

He said that the entire political class was to blame, including “Conservative, Labour and Reform politicians [who] are all directly responsible for this vast importation. Personally, I will never forgive anyone responsible. Vulnerable working class white girls were treated like a piece of meat. Raped, abused, tortured, murdered. It was a racial attack, and it was a coordinated attack. All across Britain. They targeted these girls because they were vulnerable, they were young, they were white. Until the political class accepts that fact, nothing will EVER change.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 19:15

"Zero Hormuz Dependency": UAE Races To Rewire Energy Flows, Bypassing Chokepoint Chaos

The shuttered Strait of Hormuz is expected to reopen within days, though conflicting reports suggest the US-Iran memorandum of understanding could be formally signed as early as today, Thursday, or Friday. Either way, the interim peace deal appears likely to be signed within the next 48 hours, setting the stage for energy flows through the critical maritime chokepoint to begin normalizing, a process that could take many months.

The broader takeaway is that buyers of crude, refined products, and LNG now have to rethink their sourcing stack after the US-Iran conflict effectively shut Hormuz for several months. That means diversifying supply chains and reducing exposure to single-point maritime chokepoints. For Gulf energy producers, the Hormuz disruption will accelerate a massive push toward alternative export channels that bypass Hormuz entirely, potentially reducing Tehran's ability to use the strait as a lever in future conflicts.

In the first month of the conflict, Saudi Arabia's Hormuz-bypassing East-West pipeline ramped up to its full capacity of 7 million barrels a day, allowing the Kingdom to divert flows from Persian Gulf loading terminals to those at Yanbu on the Red Sea.

Separately, there has been a rush across other Gulf states to identify alternatives to Hormuz, and major plans to begin building new pipeline routes may soon be approaching.

Earlier this month, Sheikh Khaled Ahmad Al-Sabah, managing director of international marketing at Kuwait Petroleum, said Kuwait is among the countries that have reportedly held talks with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about potential cross-border pipelines that could connect Gulf oil production to buyers without relying on tanker transits through Hormuz.

New signals from Gulf states seeking to rewire energy flows emerged on Wednesday in a new note citing a top UAE official who said the energy exporter is preparing to have "zero dependence" on Hormuz.

"We're moving toward having zero Hormuz dependency and that's regardless of whether it's open or not," UAE's Minister of Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi told Bloomberg in an interview. "It's going to open and we hope that will happen quickly, but we will not stop the new plan."

The plan includes major investments in pipelines, rail, and road links from UAE ports in the Persian Gulf to Dibba, Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and at least one new harbor on the Gulf of Oman coast.

Abu Dhabi has already announced plans to fast-track a second crude pipeline to Fujairah by 2027 and is now reviewing a third petroleum pipeline, as well as ways to export petrochemicals, LNG, and other energy products without relying on Hormuz.

The UAE can reroute more crude through pipelines to eastern ports, but LNG, aluminum, container imports, and other commodities are harder to shift. Dubai's Jebel Ali remains the world's largest container hub outside Asia, and moving more cargo through eastern ports would raise inland transport costs and boost shipping times.

In recent weeks, the Iraqi cabinet approved plans to accelerate crude exports through the Kurdistan-Turkey pipeline network, which would more than triple its existing shipments from 220,000 barrels per day to 770,000.

"Iraq is in a much more complicated situation because we know that most, if not all, of its oil transits through Hormuz," Alan Lemangnen, senior economist at QuantCube, told CNBC in an interview.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the Hormuz squeeze is rewiring the Persian Gulf's energy map. Over time, that shift could render Iran's leverage over the Hormuz chokepoint far less effective, if not obsolete.

Perhaps Tehran has already read the writing on the wall. That may help explain why Iranian officials are now willing to play ball with the Trump administration through an MoU to reopen Hormuz and eventually enter talks over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 18:50

James Harden Arrested On Hypocritical Firearms Charge In Texas

Via Gun Owners of America,

NBA player James Harden was arrested over the weekend in Texas for “unlawful carry of a firearm in a motor vehicle.”

But wait, how can carry in a vehicle be unlawful in a state like Texas, where constitutional carry is the law of the land?

On Saturday, June 13 at around 3am, Harden was driving a Mercedes sedan that was part of a group of five vehicles traveling through downtown Houston, Texas.

According to reports, one of the vehicles was pulled over near the 1600 block of Jefferson Street, when Harden pulled up behind it in his vehicle. During the interaction, an officer noticed a handgun sitting in the cupholder of Harden’s vehicle - for which he was arrested under a misdemeanor charge and taken to Harris County Jail after Harden indicated that the handgun was his. 

The charge? “Unlawful carrying of a weapon in a motor vehicle,” a misdemeanor under Texas state law.

But how can that be possible - isn’t Texas a constitutional carry state?

What could possibly qualify as “unlawful carry?”

Well, according to the statute, the carry of a handgun in a vehicle is illegal when:

“The handgun is in plain view, unless the person is 21 years of age or older or is licensed to carry a handgun under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code, and the handgun is carried in a holster”

Translated from legalese, this means that Texas views any handgun “in plain view” not secured in a holster by someone without a state issued permit to carry, a crime.

A carve out in Texas’s constitutional carry law, the statue says that if a handgun is visible in a vehicle, it must be in a holster.

According to sources writing on the technicalities of the law itself, a firearm not in a holster must be hidden. In a glove box, console, under the seat or in a bag — those are all perfectly legal.

Having the gun out on the seat? Go to jail.

This seems like a massive oversight for a state that by most measurements, is one of the most pro-gun states in the country.

According to reporting, Harden owns the gun legally, and there was no crime committed. While there are conflicting reports about the traffic stop as to whether Harden himself had made a traffic violation or not, the carrying of the firearm itself was legal under Texas law.

The only exception was the technicality of Texas law requiring that handguns in plain view by those without a permit be secured in a holster.

And for that, Harden had to be arrested and taken to jail.

This story got a ton of attention over the weekend because Harden is a famous basketball player, but we at GOA are left thinking, how many other law-abiding gun owners has this exact situation happened to?

Texas must change this law.

That’s why we spoke out about this situation right as it happened.

https://x.com/GunOwners/status/2065904365391454648

If there’s one message, we’d like politicians in Texas to take away from this situation it’s this:

Texas must change its law.

The glaring hypocrisy from a state that has constitutional carry, to be arresting someone for something so pedantic as not having that gun in a holster, in plain view in their own car, committing no crime, is outrageous.

While this may have happened to a celebrity - regular, every day, law-abiding gun owners in Texas are at risk of the exact same situation happening to them.

Lawmakers in Texas should not let that stand.

Change the law. Nobody should be arrested for carrying their firearm simply because of the position the firearm is observed in by law enforcement; it’s a right - not a privilege.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 18:25

Congress Moves To Boost Drone Funding As "War Unicorns" See Possible Procurement Supercycle

Needham analysts see increasing congressional support for drones and counter-drone technologies as lawmakers advance the latest FY27 National Defense Authorization Act and related appropriations bills. This is bullish for defense-tech "war unicorns" specializing in drones, robotics, autonomy, and counter-UAS systems, as the Trump war economy shifts into higher gear.

Analyst Austin Bohlig launched Needham's FY27 Defense Budget Tracker, which provides clients with updates on next-generation defense technologies, especially drones, robotics, and autonomous systems.

Bohlig said the defense funding framework remains intact, with about $1.15 trillion in total defense spending and about $21 billion allocated for "defensive and offensive unmanned and autonomous systems."

"While the proposed $350B defense reconciliation package, including ~$54B for unmanned-related initiatives, remains the largest outstanding variable, we remain upbeat on the overall funding outlook and believe additional funding for unmanned and autonomous systems is likely," the analyst said, adding:

FY27 Defense Authorization and Appropriations Advance:

We believe Congress made incremental progress over the past two weeks in advancing the FY27 defense budget process. Both the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved their respective versions of the FY27 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), authorizing $1.15T in defense spending and advancing the legislation to their respective chamber floors. On the funding side, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee recently approved a defense spending bill largely consistent with the Administration's proposed FY27 budget, providing ~$1.1T in discretionary funding across the DoW. The bill is scheduled to be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee later this month, while the Senate Appropriations Committee needs to continue to draft its companion legislation in the coming months.

$21B Unmanned Budget Remains Intact as Congress Pushes for Additional Investment:

From an unmanned systems perspective, we believe the initial FY27 legislative drafts reinforce and potentially accelerate the DoW shift toward autonomy and robotic warfare. The President's FY27 discretionary budget request includes ~$21B for autonomous systems spanning UAS, USV, UUV, UGV, C-UAS and enabling autonomy technologies. In our prior FY27 Deep Dive , we identified and analyzed many of the largest known unmanned and autonomy-related programs embedded within the defense budget. That said, we believe congressional testimony and proposed legislative language suggest strong bipartisan support for expanding these investments rather than scaling them back. As a result, we have a high degree of confidence that funding for unmanned and autonomous systems will at least meet the Administration's proposed levels, with a growing possibility for upside as the legislative process continues to unfold.

Proposed $350B Incremental Defense Package Remains Up in the Air:

While the FY27 base defense budget appears to be advancing largely as expected, we believe the more important debate is the proposed $350B defense reconciliation package, which includes ~ $54B of incremental funding for autonomous systems through the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) program. This funding has become increasingly politicized over the past several months, particularly after Congress decided not to include it in the 2nd reconciliation package in May, creating uncertainty around the timing and likelihood of passage and, in our view, contributing to investor concerns across the defense sector. Although the timing remains uncertain, we remain upbeat on the ultimate funding outlook and believe there are multiple legislative pathways for the DoW to access incremental funding should the current reconciliation approach encounter delays.

Separately, Breaking Defense has reported that the defense spending bill would create a combatant command for drones, reinforcing the congressional push toward unmanned systems as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have spooked the U.S. military into the early chapters of a drone and counter-drone procurement super cycle. The modern battlefield has forever changed.

This is great news for war unicorns operating in the space, with years of tailwinds almost certainly ahead.

Related:

• JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms

• Goldman Sits Down With Anduril As 'War Unicorns' Reshape Defense Tech

• "Flying Beer Cooler": Pentagon's Next Kamikaze Drone Ushers In Era Of Cheap Mass-Produced Airpower

Professional subscribers can read much more on military tech at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 18:00

Rare Earth Stocks Pop After G7 Unveils Plan To Reduce Dependence On China For Critical Minerals

Rare earth stocks spiked on Wednesday after G7 leaders agreed to strengthen coordination on critical minerals as they seek to reduce dependence on China-dominated supply chains, according to a new report from Reuters.

Without naming China directly, the group set a goal of limiting reliance on any single external supplier of rare earths and permanent magnets to less than 60% by 2030, with a longer-term target of 50%.

Reuters reports that to support that effort, the G7 plans to align critical mineral stockpiling strategies, beginning with lithium and nickel, and establish a new platform for policy coordination, data sharing, market monitoring, and crisis response. The platform will work closely with the International Energy Agency, which will provide analysis and early warnings of supply disruptions and market distortions.

The group also pledged to support investment across the entire critical minerals supply chain—from mining and processing to manufacturing—through development finance institutions, export credit agencies, and private-sector partnerships. Since the start of 2026, governments have announced 195 related projects totaling €64 billion ($74 billion) in investment.

Neha Mukherjee, research manager at consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence commented: "The G7 statement is an important signal of intent, but the pace of diversification will ultimately depend on whether policy support translates into investment ​across the midstream and downstream parts of the value chain."

Despite the commitments, analysts note that diversification will be difficult, particularly because China controls about 90% of global processed rare earth and permanent magnet production. The G7 is also exploring measures such as joint procurement, subsidies, quotas, and price-support mechanisms, while expanding domestic stockpiles and increasing recycling capacity to make recycled materials a significant share of critical mineral consumption by 2030.

Tyler Durden Wed, 06/17/2026 - 18:00