Zero Rss

UK COVID Inquiry's Endorsement Of Censorship Sets Chilling Precedent

Authored by Molly Kingsley via DailySceptic.org,

According to the UK’s Covid Inquiry, whose fourth report was published in April, there was “in principle, nothing unlawful or inappropriate in the government monitoring publicly available social media to identify potential trends in disinformation or misinformation” during the pandemic period.

The same report, in declining to criticise the censorious activities of the UK Government during the pandemic, noted that the UK government’s Counter Disinformation Unit was required to ensure that its actions were “lawful, necessary and proportionate”.

On a careful reading of this language, the inquiry stops (just) short of expressly endorsing the full scope and extent of the government’s censorship operation.  However, the relevant sections of the inquiry’s report create the distinct, and we can assume deliberate, impression that the CDU’s censorship operation was conducted in accordance with constitutional and democratic principles, and was not only justified but was necessary and proportionate. 

As someone who was on the receiving end of that censorship operation, with the receipts to evidence the very broad scope of commentary that was judged by the CDU to be wrongful or dangerous, this came as a serious disappointment, albeit not a great surprise.

Some would argue that in a national emergency scenario, some degree of information monitoring and intervention might be justified.

The trouble with that argument is that one very quickly then has to grapple with the fact that – as we saw during the pandemic period – it’s precisely in moments of national crisis – moments where critical decisions must be made in complex situations – that contrasting views are most valuable and essential.

As Jay Bhattacharya, Acting Director of the US Centres for Disease Control, has put it: “Dissent is the very essence of science.”

In my own case, the offending posts and articles caught by the CDU were typically either opinion pieces or comments quoted in mainstream news articles. They included such outlandish and outrageous statements as, “It would be unforgivable to close schools”, “Let children use playgrounds” and “It is indefensible that children’s lives are still not back to normal when the rest of society is”. Clearly, many would now agree with these viewpoints. However, even if some, or indeed many might not have agreed with those points of view at the time, the fact that they were valid, lawfully-expressed opinions cannot be disputed.

Perhaps the CDU’s hypersensitivity would not have mattered so much if, as according to the Covid Inquiry’s account, all that was happening during that period was “monitoring” of public sentiment by the government. The inquiry’s report notes that the CDU had ‘trusted flagger’ status with all of the major social media platforms, the effect of which was that CDU flags received special attention; but the same report is at pains to record that decisions about removing or suppressing content “remained exclusively a decision for each social media platform”.

Yet a subsequent investigation by the Telegraph revealed that 90% of the posts referred to social media companies by the CDU were taken down. Indeed, evidence given to the inquiry by the former head of the CDU confirmed that when information was flagged by the CDU it “immediately goes to the top of the pile. Whoever it is in whatever company then acts on it. It is the same system they have across government for things like terrorist content.”

What makes this even worse is that the remit of the CDU went beyond anything that could reasonably be termed mis- or disinformation. In particular, we know in relation to Covid vaccine-related commentary – because a CDU official told a Parliamentary Select Committee in December 2020 – that each of the following categories of content was considered for flagging and removal as ‘anti-vaccine misinformation’:

• commentary about the speed of the development of the Covid vaccines: “It is not safe, those kinds of narratives”;

• commentary about side-effects from the Covid vaccines; and

• commentary about “monetary and big business and links to pharma”, which seems to indicate that criticism of the pharma industry and its financial influence were off limits.

All of this is in sharp contrast to events on the other side of the pond. In May 2024, a US Congressional report observed in the context of its examination of the Biden administration’s pandemic censorship operations:

“By suppressing free speech and intentionally distorting public debate in the modern town square, ideas and policies were no longer fairly tested and debated on their merits. Instead, policymakers implemented a series of public health measures that proved to be disastrous for the country.”

Free debate is one of the key measures of the health of a democracy. Without it, we lose the ability to challenge and to stress test ideas. As we saw during the pandemic, it is often when speech is most controversial that the need to hear it is greatest.

In contrast with the US where a degree of candid investigation of core pandemic failings, especially concerning the suppression of speech and social media censorship, is now taking place, our own Covid Inquiry has completely side-stepped its duty to properly interrogate serious infringements of cornerstone rights and principles of public discourse. Given the investigations going on in the US and the fact that key reports have been public for close to two years, not only is this approach wilfully blind but it is an affront to the liberal democratic ideal of free speech. It sets an appalling precedent, whereby in future public health crisis (or potentially any crisis) we can now expect broad-in-scope monitoring and narrative control of lawful, and indeed essential, contrasting views to be the norm. And, it is disingenuous. At the same time that the inquiry has defended the patent overreach of the government’s censorship operation, it has completely ignored the flagrant, extensive and devastating mis- and disinformation propagated during that same period by pharmaceutical companies, government ministers and senior public health officials who were permitted and encouraged to make statements which were manifestly inflated, exaggerated, coercive or untrue.

Official statements overstating the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccine programme, particularly when combined with coercive policies affecting children, are blatant examples of dangerous misinformation.

Each of the major vaccine manufacturers has now been found guilty by the UK regulator, many on repeated occasions, for the persistent overstating of benefit and understating of harm in relation to their Covid vaccine products. And yet the inquiry’s report is completely silent on this topic.

Unfortunately the end result, as predicted by many Daily Sceptic readers, is a shameful whitewash that will only further corrode trust in public health.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 06:30

Korean Bubble Mania: Retail Investors Max Out On Margin Debt, Choose To "Risk Complete Collapse" Than Miss Stock Rally

For many years, Koreans were bitcoin's best friend.

After bitcoin emerged about a decade ago as the asset class with the most pronounced momentum - both to the upside and the downside - Korea's daytrading army, famous for being totally unable to do any fundamental valuation analysis but legendary for its wilnningness to piggyback on any momentum with suicidal leverage, became enamored with bitcoin and the result were face-ripping meltups and heartstopping crashes, a daily breathless rollercoaster where 10% moves in hours if not minutes had become the norm. 

But then, last September something snapped. After bitcoin had tracked Korea's Kospi index closely for years, the two series - formerly joined at the hips for years - diverged and went their separate ways, the Kospi soaring to never before seen levels, while bitcoin stagnated, shrinking ever lower as its former momentum-addicted traders abandoned it for something shinier, and with much more momentum: memory stocks.

As shown in the chart below, the Kospi-Bitcoin divergence started right around the time last September when memory stocks like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix began what would be an absolutely historic meltup for the ages (if not so much for bitcoin). 

And while we had previously showed our readers a behind the scenes peeks into Korea's crypto trading culture, nothing prepared us for what is taking place right now... because what is taking place is nothing short of absolute batshit insanity.

Consider this: a single post uploaded May 8 by a Korean civil servant on Blind, the anonymous workplace community app, quickly set off a frenzy online. The post included a screenshot of his brokerage account showing he had poured a staggering 2.3 billion won ($1.7 million) into shares of semiconductor giant SK Hynix, one of the key driving forces behind Korea’s roaring stock market.

But even more striking is that the 1.7 billion won of that investment was financed through margin loans borrowed from his brokerage!

“I believe the semiconductor market will continue its upward climb through 2028, but I’m taking a more aggressive approach to grow my assets faster,” he wrote. Four days later, on May 12, he returned with an update claiming he had already locked in 267 million won in profits.

That same day, another Blind post surfaced - this time from a Seoul Metro employee in her 20s, who wrote that rather than missing out on the rally, she would “risk complete collapse,” adding that she had used 150 percent margin financing to fully leverage into stocks.

As Korea’s bull market barrels ahead, the Korea Times writes that more momentum-addicted retail investors are turning to borrowed money to magnify returns, despite huge risks of losing more than 100% of one's capital. As of Friday, outstanding margin loans used for stock purchases had ballooned to a record 36.47 trillion won, according to the Korea Financial Investment Association.

While retail investors end up with all the risk, for Korea’s securities firms, the recent retail mania and associated borrowing boom has become a lucrative windfall.

According to recent industry data, the nation’s 10 largest brokerages - Korea Investment & Securities, Mirae Asset, Samsung, Kiwoom, NH, KB, Shinhan, Hana, Meritz and Daishin - generated a combined 600 billion won in interest income from margin lending in the first quarter of this year, up 55.9% from a year earlier.

Margin loans allow investors to borrow money from brokerages to buy stocks by pledging existing assets as collateral. While this can amplify gains, it also comes with annual interest rates ranging from 7 to 9%, and if share prices fall too sharply, brokerages force-sell holdings to recover their loans.

For now, bullish sentiment shows few signs of cooling: with the benchmark KOSPI climbing from the 4,000 range late last year to surpass the historic 8,000 mark in less than half a year, many retail investors appear willing to embrace higher-risk strategies in pursuit of faster gains, similar to what happened in China during the 2015 bubble when margin debt hit daily record highs. 

Up 75% this year, the quick ascent of South Korea’s Kospi Index has largely been driven by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which accounted for more than two-thirds of the advance. The surge reflects record profits at the chipmakers, and with valuations still below regional and global peers, some investors argue the rally lacks the excesses typical of past boom-and-bust cycles.

Wall Street, of course, is more than eager to encourage reckless risk taking: in a May 10 report, JP Morgan raised its base-case KOSPI target to 9,000, with a bull-case projection of 10,000, arguing that investors should “stay positioned for further upside and not preemptively anticipate a cycle-end.”

The investment bank pointed to a “higher for longer” memory chip upcycle, fueled in large part by sustained artificial intelligence-driven demand, while also identifying brokers, insurers, holding companies and dividend-heavy sectors as major beneficiaries of the country’s broader market transformation.

Not everyone agrees.

For one, signs of froth are literally everywhere one looks. Key market measures showing uneven earnings growth, rising volatility and record margin debt are beginning to give some investors pause. “This is a party you want to enjoy while staying near the exit,” said Mo Young, a portfolio manager at RootN Global Investors in Seoul. The problem with this is that everyone thinks they can sell before everyone else does. That "strategy" always ends in tears. 

Just like in the US, Korea's market breadth shows that the rally remains highly concentrated. Just 33% of benchmark stocks are now trading above their 50-day average, down from 70% three weeks ago. Meanwhile, 2% of members - mostly memory and chip stocks - are hitting new 52-week high despite the Kospi’s successive records, which underscores the narrowness of the gains.

“In other words, buying the index is not simply buying a diversified slice of Korea; it is increasingly a concentrated bet on memory semiconductors,” said Christian Heck, a New York-based portfolio manager at First Eagle Investment Management. 

“The index itself is no longer obviously cheap, and broad exposure requires underwriting a very large semiconductor-cycle bet,” he added. “Selectivity is essential.” 

Palvir Bahia, a fund manager at Polar Capital which manages $40.5 billion said his fund is "monitoring the rising margin debt closely as the market rally has led to an increase in margin debt which heightens market volatility, particularly on down days when retail investors are forced to sell in order to maintain account balances.” 

The risk of forced retail liquidations has dragged in the chief of the country's financial watchdog who expressed concerns that retail investors could suffer losses amid increased market volatility, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) on Tuesday.

During a meeting on consumer risk response a day earlier, FSS governor Lee Chan-jin said retail investors could increasingly pivot toward highly volatile, risky assets as the country is set to introduce single-stock leveraged, or inverse, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) next week.

And just in case record margin debt and historic call buying wasn't enough, the watchdog warned that the introduction of single-stock leveraged ETFs could further accelerate capital flights to high-risk financial products. Because that's just what Korea's stock bubble needs. 

A bubble which may burst any minute since cracks are starting to show in the index itself.

The Kospi dropped nearly 5% on Tuesday, the worst performer across Asia, as chip stocks tracked US peers lower amid rising bond yields. The index is now testing the ultra-steep trend line, with the 21-day moving average sitting just below current levels. As Market Ear notes, "these are short-term make-or-break levels for the AI melt-up."

 

As we have observed previously, the Kospi is basically two memory stocks, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which is why the Kospi is basically the SOX on steroids.

With everyone ignoring stocks and plowing their margin debt right into calls for leverage upon leverage, the Kospi VIX is now a broken market. The spot-up, vol-up regime which signals a "melt-up" phase driven by FOMO and extreme positioning, has been unlike anything seen before, resulting in many investors dismissing buying protection due to stratospheric vols. First, the VIX soared as stocks surged (due to call buying); now vol stays high as the KOSPI sells off. Vols at these levels are pricing around 4.5% daily index moves going forward! That's not just extreme, that's batshit insane, and virtually guarantees that all levered investors will be wiped out unless they have tons of available cash balances to absorb margin calls, which they don't. 

With Samsung and SK Hynix posting record profits, signs of froth are also  emerging in smaller stocks where earnings growth is virtually non-existant. Non-tech firms have driven just 4% of the 12-month earnings gain since September, according to William Bratton, head of cash equities research for APAC at BNP Paribas.

Valuations are particularly stretched in materials sectors, which include electric-vehicle firms, trading at nearly 60 times forward earnings. Battery maker Posco Future M Co. stands out at over 300 times, despite carrying the highest number of sell ratings on the Kospi, Bloomberg data shows.

“If there is a meaningful slowdown of inflow from retail investors or systematic traders, or if hedge funds reduce their big positions that were most profitable, the market structure could become even more fragile,” Kim added.  

And it's about to get much more fragile: as Goldman notes, foreigners have net sold the Kospi for the 9th consecutive day (and have been aggressively selling for much of 2026) with today's latest selling focused in Tech (-$3.4bn). And while local institutions were net sellers for most part of the day, they closed as small net buyers with buying concentrated in Tech (+$168mn). Meanwhile, the willing target of everyone else's distribution, retail investors, have continued to be net buyers and absorbed all of the supply from foreigners... the same retail investors who are now levered to the gills and are out of funds, so they are buying with the bank's money. 

As we pointed out a week ago, hedging Korea, and partly the broader AI mania, via EWY looked interesting. The last major upside overshoot at the start of the Iran war, eventually mean-reverted all the way back toward the 50 day moving average. Having previously outlined the EWY put spread logic, with the unwind starting to accelerate again, it's time to start thinking about rolling strikes lower to keep max optionality.

KOSPI may be turning from the leader of the AI melt-up into the market’s most important stress signal, and when it blows, millions of levered retail investors will lose everything they own, and more thanks to the magic of leverage. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 06:15

Global Rush For "Non-Red" Suicide Drones Begins As Taiwan Sees Booming Orders

Four years of war in Ukraine have rewritten how warfare is fought, accelerating the urgent need for low-cost aerial unmanned systems and ground robots. It has also prompted Taiwan to emerge as a supplier of low-cost suicide drones.

Taiwan's national news agency, the Central News Agency, reported that a Taichung-based Taiwanese drone manufacturer is now focused on producing a domestically made variant of Iran's Shahed one-way attack drone.

CNA said Carbon-Based Technology's main exports are "triangular-wing drones with a control range of over 90 km, and catapult-launched small attack drones."

CNA noted that demand for these attack drones is soaring, with "plans to expand the factory three to five times." The company is facing "production capacity" constraints due to surging orders.

"The payload can be adjusted according to mission requirements, conforming to the current global military 'asymmetric warfare' trend," CNA stated, describing CBT's suicide drones.

CNA noted, "The Russia-Ukraine war sparked a global surge in demand for "non-red" (non-Chinese) drones. This, combined with Taiwan government support, brought rapid overseas interest and orders from countries including Japan, India, and Southeast Asia." 

The acceleration of suicide drone production also comes as the possibility of a Chinese invasion remains a very real threat, drawing heavily from lessons learned in Ukraine.

The broader takeaway is that Taiwan views drone manufacturing as both a national security capability and an industrial policy to supply Western militaries.

As we have outlined before, militaries around the world are entering a major procurement cycle to stockpile low-cost one-way attack drones, as lessons from Ukraine and the Gulf region rapidly reshape modern warfare.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 05:45

Starmer Hit With Legal Threat After Barring Conservative Speakers From Entering UK For National Rally

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been issued with a formal letter of claim after several foreign politicians, commentators, and activists were blocked from entering the United Kingdom ahead of a major rally in London last weekend.

The legal threat was announced over the weekend by Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek, who said she and others had instructed a lawyer to act on their behalf over potentially defamatory remarks made by the prime minister last week.

“Today, Dominik Tarczyński, Don Keith, Ada Lluch, Joey Mannarino, and I have formally instructed our lawyer, Francesco Gargallo di Castel Lentini, to issue a Letter of Claim to Keir Starmer,” Vlaardingerbroek wrote on X. The lawyer mentioned is Vlaardingerbroek’s Italian husband.

Enough is enough.

Today, @D_Tarczynski, @RealDonKeith, @AdaLluch, @JoeyMannarino and I have formally instructed our lawyer, @Fr_Gargallo, to issue a Letter of Claim to @Keir_Starmer. The letter demands that he immediately retract his defamatory statements in which he labelled us… pic.twitter.com/myseUDpc8U

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) May 16, 2026

“The letter demands that he immediately retract his defamatory statements in which he labelled us ‘far-right agitators’ who wish to incite violence.

“Should he fail to comply, we reserve all our legal rights to pursue further action against him.”

The dispute follows a speech delivered by Starmer last Monday in which he said his government had barred what he described as “far-right agitators” from entering Britain to attend the Unite the Kingdom march organized by Tommy Robinson.

The demonstration took place in London on Saturday. Ahead of the event, those named in the letter received notices from the Home Office informing them that their U.K. Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) had been cancelled. The message stated that their presence in Britain was not considered “conducive to the public good.”

Among those affected was Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński, a conservative politician and outspoken opponent of mass migration.

“This is what communism looks like in the 21st Century. I have just been denied entry to the U.K. in order to speak at the largest patriotic event in Europe,” Tarczyński wrote on social media after being refused entry.

In total, 11 people were reportedly banned from entering the U.K. to attend the rally. They included American nationals, Don Keith and Joey Mannarino, and Spanish conservative influencer Ada Lluch.

Mannarino wrote in response, “None of us want to incite violence. None of us are agitators. We are simply people who want to see Europe remain Europe, the U.K. remain the U.K., America remain America, and so on.”

The letter of claim, dated May 13, was addressed to Starmer at 10 Downing Street and described the prime minister’s remarks as “potentially defamatory, untrue and denigratory.” It said the statements had been made against private citizens, parliamentarians, and lawyers, and demanded a formal retraction.

The row also comes amid broader warnings issued ahead of those attending the London protest. The Metropolitan Police cautioned that certain placards and chants could amount to hate crimes and lead to prosecution.

Those warnings followed new guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service on acts that may be treated as stirring up hatred.

Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson defended the guidance, saying, “This is not about restricting free speech. It is about preventing hate crime and protecting the public, particularly at a time of heightened tensions.”

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 05:00

South African Farming Crisis May Trigger Food Shortages Across The Continent

For decades South Africa has operated as the breadbasket for half of the African continent, and the vast majority of that food was grown by white farmers (Boers and Afrikaners).  In other words, the very survival of Africans has long been dependent on the hard labor of the white people they are taught to despise.

South Africa has around 142 race-based laws which largely discriminate against white citizens, especially when property, business and government office is involved.  The Expropriation Act of 2024 allows the socialist government to confiscate any land of their choosing to "redress past discriminatory laws or practices" (land owned by white citizens).  This is part of a project to "fulfill land reform goals" (transfer wealth and farming operations to black citizens). 

The problem is, when land is seized or forced into sale to black owners, farming production reportedly collapses.  That is to say, once the white farmers are gone, crop yields fail and the black owners often resell the land and leave.  In other cases, the new owners allow the land to languish, using the homes for living but never cultivating the surrounding property. 

Black South Africans own more farmland per capita than French, German and Spanish farmers combined, yet, starvation persists in the region.  Excuses as to why this is happening persist, but the fact remains that if Africa wants steady food production, they will have to rely on experienced white Afrikaners to make it happen because no one else is going to do it.

Furthermore, the government's failure to maintain basic infrastructure has forced local farmers to take on the costs in order to keep food production on track and the roads ready for freight.  

The pressure from government projects for "reparations" as well as the constant threat of violence from militant race communists targeting white farmers has made the job difficult.  Now, shortages of diesel and fertilizers caused by the Iran War are creating a perfect storm of circumstances which may cause a food crisis going into 2027.  If the shortages are not rectified, half of the African continent will be throttled by a lack domestic food supplies. 

The war is, apparently, the straw that's breaking the camel's back.  After years of the South African government sabotaging its most productive citizens and replacing them with less useful farmers, it was only a matter of time before a Black Swan event would lead to collapse.

Iran's refusal to allow safe passage of tankers from countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is, interestingly, hurting BRICS nations far more than it is hurting the US or the west.  Around 25% of South Africa's oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz.  South Africa also imports around 80% of its fertilizer supplies.

The US blockade is only targeted at ships coming from Iranian ports with Iranian oil.  All other ships are allowed to pass. 

For now, the region is relatively safe from food shortages due to an unusually solid harvest in 2025, but 2027 looms and predictions are up in the air as to what will happen.  Once a planting season has passed, there is no way to make up the loss.  Foreign imports of food would be the obvious solution, but it's a costly one.  Meaning, price inflation is likely for most of Africa in 2027 and government rationing is a possibility. 

The end result will undoubtedly be blamed on the closure of the Hormuz, but South Africa's progressive policies set the stage and created the house of cards that is Africa's food supply chain.  They are completely unprepared for any significant supply shocks, and the result could be disastrous.   

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 04:15

UK Schools Push Radical Race Doctrine On Kids, Claiming Black People 'Cannot Be Racist'

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Schools in the north of England are teaching pupils that black people cannot be racist towards white people.

According to materials adopted by a group of Sheffield schools, led by Notre Dame High School, teenagers are explicitly told: “Black people can be racially prejudiced towards a white person which is wrong and totally unacceptable. However, this is not racism. Racism is racial prejudice plus power. In the UK, white people hold the cultural power.”

For children as young as 7, lessons focus on “empathy building” around “privilege,” asserting that white people are “likely to be privileged by the colour of their skin” and have a “responsibility” to reduce racism by monitoring their language, challenging friends, and reporting incidents.

Pupils told it's impossible for black people to be 'racist' to white peers https://t.co/hE74ZXEs2z

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) May 18, 2026

Handouts for older pupils push narratives on criminal justice, claiming black people are disproportionately targeted by police due to racism, with questions guiding students toward that conclusion.

The scheme aims to “interrupt systemic racism” and promote “strong social justice values,” according to its creators.

Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott slammed the materials, noting “It is deeply alarming that children as young as seven are being exposed to divisive identity politics in schools under the banner of ‘anti-racism education’… Labelling children by race and teaching them to focus on what divides them will only foster resentment and deepen division.”

Shadow minister Neil O’Brien called it “political indoctrination” and vowed to tackle such content.

These latest examples highlight a disturbing pattern in UK education: grooming children with critical race theory concepts, framing whiteness as inherently privileged and problematic, while shielding certain groups from accountability and cracking down on any dissent.

This comes as nurseries in Wales, funded by over £1.3 million in taxpayer money, have been urged to report “racist” incidents involving toddlers to police, turning playgrounds into surveillance hubs for the state’s anti-racism agenda.

Childcare workers are being trained to spot and log “racist incidents” by children barely out of nappies, with instructions to contact police via 999 or 101 if it could amount to a hate crime.

Funded by the Welsh Government and pushed by Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning (DARPL) at Cardiff Metropolitan University, the program covers over 300 nurseries, playgroups, and childminders. It demands audits of resources for “diversity” and discussions of skin colour with toddlers to create “anti-racist” environments from the cradle.

Critics rightly point out that toddlers lack the cognitive ability to be racist, yet the state treats them as potential thought criminals.

UK schools have also pushed books telling children “there’s plenty of room” for small boat migrants, framing mass illegal immigration as something positive and inevitable.

The Green Party has also floated such extreme proposals for what to teach children, while the government urges schools to snitch on “anti-Muslim hostility” in an Orwellian surveillance push.

Counter-terror police have warned teens that sharing “funny content” could be terrorism, and a taxpayer-funded video game literally flags kids questioning mass migration as potential extremists.

Parents of a child who questioned why he had to celebrate Ramadan in school when he is not a Muslim were sent a letter informing them of the ‘racist’ incident.

British children are being conditioned to view their own heritage and skin colour as sources of guilt, accept open borders and cultural replacement without question, and self-censor any pushback—or face reports, labels, and potential police involvement.

This is not education. It is state-sponsored division and thought control, bankrolled by taxpayers under a Labour government disconnected from reality.

Parents are waking up to the grooming, and the pushback is growing. Childhood must be reclaimed from ideologues before an entire generation is lost to this divisive nonsense. Freedom of thought and equal standards for all—not racial power games—should define British values.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 03:30

NATO Scrambles Jet, Shoots Down Ukrainian Drone Over Estonia, In War First

It's being widely reported as a major "first" of the war: a NATO fighter has jet shot down what is believed to have been a stray Ukrainian drone over a Baltic country.

The incident happened over southern Estonia on Tuesday, resulting in a regular NATO patrolling unit being forces to urgently scramble a pair of F-16 fighter jets in response. After the shoot-down, Ukraine owned up to it by issuing public apology.

via Associated Press, file image

Kiev called it an "unintended incident" - but then also suggested Russia caused it by diverting the drone's path through electronic warfare. 

"We apologize to Estonia and all our Baltic friends for such unintended incidents," a Ukrainian government statement said. "We have been and remain in close cooperation through our specialized institutions to get to the heart of the matter in each case and seek ways to prevent them, including through the direct engagement of our expert groups."

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry then deflected, calling attention to Russian actions: "Moscow does this on purpose, together with intensified propaganda," it said.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur had earlier described that the drone's trajectory left the military with no choice: "we decided that we needed to take it down," he had earlier announced.

"Most probably, today we can say that it was a drone that was, let’s say, meant to hit Russian targets," he conceded, appearing to accept Ukraine's explanation. According to further details:

A Romanian F-16 Nato jet shot down a drone over Estonia on Tuesday in what appears to be the latest case of Russian electronic jamming diverting long-range Ukrainian drones into the alliance’s territory.

A local resident told the Estonian public broadcaster, ERR, that he had seen two fighter jets – part of a Nato force policing the skies over the Baltic states – flying in the area before a loud bang that brought the drone down. He said the drone had crashed about 30 metres from the nearest residential building.

Moscow, for its part, has been warning Baltic countries against allowing Ukraine to launch drones from their territories, or to allow their airspace to be used for such hostile attacks.

For example, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has freshly called out Latvia: "The primitive Russophobia of Latvia’s current rulers proved stronger than their capacity for critical thinking or their sense of self-preservation," it said in a Tuesday statement. 

However, Ukraine as well as Baltic officials have slammed the Kremlin statements as part of "yet another disinformation campaign."

The whole incident is unusual given that typically NATO jets scramble in response to Russian drones. But here we have an ally vs. ally drone shootdown, and happening in airspace which is deemed NATO's domain.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 02:45

Nearly Half Of French Voters May Support National Rally, And Immigration Is A Major Concern

Via Remix News,

Last Friday, an Ipsos poll conducted for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, Le Monde, and Cevipof indicated that 45 percent of French voters are now considering voting for the National Rally (RN) in the 2027 elections, meaning the anti-migration party’s candidate is favored to win the presidency.

According to Antoine Bristielle, director of the Foundation’s Opinion Observatory, the poll shows that RN “has managed to unite very different electorates around a common foundation, but that its cohesion remains fragile as soon as one moves away from this foundation.”

The Jean-Jaurès Foundation identifies four main profiles of RN voters, which can be grouped into two categories.

The “identity-based liberals” include older, politically engaged voters firmly rooted in the right, as well as the “forgotten France,” which represents “a working-class bloc, more economically vulnerable, marked by a strong sense of abandonment and combining demands for social protection with identity radicalism.”

However, the other two groups are more recent profiles, demonstrating the RN’s expansion to new voters.

The “shifting France,” representing those “less politically engaged and still uncertain,” and the “opportunistic radical right.”

This latter group of voters, seen as “more affluent, more educated, and highly politically engaged,” is, according to the report, “already largely aligned with the RN’s positions” but may have voted for other right-wing parties in the past.

Immigration, as expected, is a paramount topic for at least three of the four groups.

“There are too many immigrants in France” is confirmed by 97 percent of “forgotten France,” 99 percent of “identity-based liberals,” 43 percent of “shifting France,” and 96 percent of “opportunistic radical right.”

As to the statement, “Now, I no longer feel as at home as before,” the percentages of support were 96, 98, 72, and 94, respectively.

The full study is available here.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/20/2026 - 02:00

House Lawmaker Introduces Legislation To Expose CCP Exploitation Of Sister City Agreements

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A House lawmaker has introduced legislation to prevent foreign adversaries, particularly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from exploiting sister city partnerships and jeopardizing U.S. national security.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) speaks during a campaign event with Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Jan. 14, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the Sister City Transparency Act (H.R.8833) on May 14. In a statement announcing the bill, Roy’s office said local governments across the United States maintain roughly 1,800 sister-city partnerships with foreign municipalities, including 157 with communities in China.

“America’s local communities should never be left vulnerable to foreign influence operations masquerading as cultural exchange,” Roy said in a statement on May 14.

“The Sister City Transparency Act brings much-needed oversight and accountability to these partnerships, helping ensure they serve the interests of the American people—not the strategic ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party or other foreign adversaries.”

Study on Sister City Partnerships

The legislation would direct the comptroller general—the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)—to conduct a study of sister-city partnerships with communities in countries deemed to have “significant public sector corruption,” including Russia and China, the lawmaker’s office explained. According to the language of the bill, the measure would specifically target countries that scored 45 or lower on Transparency International’s 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index.

China scored 41 in the 2019 index and 43 in the 2025 index.

The study would identify how foreign communities select U.S. communities for sister city partnerships, including whether certain economic activities or demographic factors influence those decisions; analyze the activities conducted in these partnerships and their economic and educational outcomes; review what types of information these partnerships make publicly available, including details related to contracts; and review how American communities “safeguard freedom of expression” and mitigate risks such as “foreign espionage and economic coercion” within these partnerships, according to the legislation.

Another part of the study would look into whether these partnerships involve economic arrangements that could make American communities “vulnerable to malign market practices” or educational arrangements that could “diminish the freedom of expression,” according to the legislation. Additionally, it would assess the extent of foreign access to local commercial, educational, and political institutions, and whether foreign actors could achieve “strategic objectives” contrary to U.S. economic or national security interests.

The legislation would also require a study of whether these partnerships are linked to broader foreign malign activities, such as “human rights abuses and academic and industrial espionage,” and how U.S. communities can prevent misuse of visa programs connected to them, according to the legislation.

The comptroller general would have six months to submit a report on its study to six congressional committees, including the armed services and foreign affairs committees in both chambers. The report would include findings, conclusions, recommendations, and, if necessary, a classified annex.

Concerns Over CCP Influence

“The CCP has demonstrated a pattern of exploiting international partnerships to expand influence, gather intelligence, and apply political pressure. Similar to concerns raised with Confucius Institutes, sister city relationships can create vulnerabilities for American communities, including exposure to foreign espionage, economic coercion, and ideological influence operations,” Roy’s office stated.

Similar legislation (S.1351) was introduced in the Senate in April 2025 by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

“Communist China is exploiting sister city partnerships to achieve its own strategic objectives, and we need to make certain we are not enabling this activity in our own communities,” Blackburn said in a statement at the time. “This legislation would shine a bright light on these partnerships to keep our enemies from furthering their own dangerous agendas.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 23:25

Demographic Winter Pushes South Korea To Field War Robots As Troop Pool Shrinks

South Korea's population decline and shrinking pool of military-age men are forcing Seoul to rethink its military force structure, with officials now exploring robots and AI-powered drones to offset future manpower shortages.

South Korea's military is taking a direct page from Ukraine's battlefield playbook by preparing to procure low-cost unmanned aerial systems and robotics for future wars, primarily through a potential partnership with Hyundai Motor - for now.

"Potential deployments include Boston Dynamics' four-legged Spot, the four-wheeled MobED mobility droid, and wearable platforms like the X-ble Shoulder exoskeleton," Bloomberg reported.

South Korea's standing force has slumped 20% over the past six years to about 450,000 troops and is projected to fall to 350,000 by 2040. The demographic winter is already hitting national defense: the population of 20-year-old men has declined by 30% between 2019 and 2025, shrinking the enlistment pool.

Samsung Securities analyst Esther Yim wrote in a note that "robotics is a field without legacy constraints," adding that "these systems can leverage electrical and electronic technologies developed for autonomous vehicles, allowing for rapid proliferation."

For many months, we have outlined how modern warfare is being reshaped by Ukrainian innovation and, more recently, the U.S.-Iran conflict. Ukraine has served as an AI warfare laboratory, accelerating the rise of low-cost drones, ground robots, and, eventually, humanoid warbots.

What's clear: future wars of attrition will mostly be fought with intelligent machines, as manpower-constrained militaries substitute AI drones and ground bots for soldiers on the battlefield.

Beyond Ukraine and South Korea, many other countries are experiencing a demographic winter, characterized by ultra-low fertility, rapid aging, and current or projected population decline.

Here are those countries by region: 

East Asia and Southeast Asia

• South Korea

• Japan

• China

• Taiwan

• Singapore

• Thailand

Southern and Western Europe

• Italy

• Spain

• Greece

• Portugal

• Germany

• Austria

Central and Eastern Europe / Balkans

• Poland

• Hungary

• Romania

• Bulgaria

• Croatia

• Latvia

• Lithuania

• Moldova

• Albania

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Serbia

This suggests that militaries in the countries listed above will be some of the first to prioritize ground bots, drones, and other battlefield robotics as their pools of military-age men continue to shrink. The next weapons stockpiling cycle has already begun as the world fractures into a more volatile and increasingly dangerous environment.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 23:00

"Digital Enslavement" Is A Subtle Weapon Of Social Subordination And Global Control

Authored by Peter Koenig via Global Research,

In a recent Buddhist retreat in Lima, Peru, about 200 participants were urged to abstain for the three-day retreat from our enslavement screens, “smart” phones, computers and television.

Difficult to say how many really followed the advice, but many did.

What was amazing is that during the first day, ignoring constant phone notifications was not easy for the many. But consciously resisting it made it easier. And the following days, we were hardly thinking of them anymore. The days were filled with meditation and different types of spiritual exercises… the digital age was peacefully removed into a corner.

Unfortunately, after the retreat, the hide-out corner became lively again and took up again most of our attention, in “angst” of what we may have missed during the highly divine retreat. Spirituality must have gradually evaporated again… and what we call “reality” kicked in.

Interestingly, what we call “reality” is a fake, indoctrinated reality. Over years we were told that technical advances, or as the World Economic Forum (WEF’s) Great Reset calls it, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is a concept describing how emerging technologies are blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It fundamentally alters how we live, work, and relate to one another.

Sending messages, videos, and silly jokes, rather than talking to each other, interchanging with physically presence. Along with this brainwashing propaganda, we were drugged with the belief that working from home is full of advantages. It is an outright lie.

These “work-from-home” benefits are geared to separate us from one another so that physical interaction is avoided, making us more manipulable, controllable and dispensable, capable of being replaced by robots, and eventually by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

And mind you, the 4IR was illegally approved by the United Nations (UN). There was a not-well-known Cooperation Agreement signed between the WEF and the UN in Geneva in June 2019 that established an unequivocal link between the UN (created by 51 nations (today 193 member nations) in October 1945 in San Francisco) and the world’s by far richest NGO, the WEF, established in Geneva Switzerland.

The UN was created to guarantee peace in the world, to make sure that no more wars, especially World Wars (WW), that would ravage planet earth. That principle is anchored in the UN Charter. The WEF is owned and run by BlackRock, the world’s largest financial asset manager, controlling together with Vanguard, an interchangeable partner, and StateStreet, a close associate, some 25 to 30 trillion US dollars equivalent in assets, controlling literally every sector of vital industries and services, like energy, food, transport, health but also of the world’s weapon industrial complex. It is a blatant contradiction to the UN Charter. The UN is controlled by financial behemoths, with powers way beyond BlackRock.

The 4IR is, therefore, not a human-friendly program. It is a global control mechanism, that could be right out of Orwell’s “1984” – but way more complex, dangerous and deadly.

Unlike previous revolutions, 4IR is not just about smart machines and systems; it is characterized by a lightning-fast convergence of diverse technologies. The WEF highlights several core pillars:

• Digital: Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and blockchain.

• Physical: Autonomous vehicles, 3D printing (additive manufacturing), and advanced materials.

• Biological: Gene editing (CRISPR), synthetic biology, and neurotechnology.

CRISPR stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.” It is a technology that research scientists use to selectively modify the DNA of living organisms including humans.

The WEF, an executing agency for the financial giants attempting to control the globe, and especially for those pulling the strings behind the WEF, are viewing these advancements as an unprecedented opportunity to address global challenges—such as fast-tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – in fact the population reduction agenda – and improving sustainable energy management – the fake Global Climate Change Agenda (GCCA).

The GCCA can be made responsible for every calamity affecting the world, the human race, including any new diseases and plandemics that another key executing agency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been put in charge of.

As this article may go to print, the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA) takes place in Geneva from 18 to 23 May 2026. One of its primary objectives is to make the Pandemic Treaty operational. For that, unanimous agreement is needed on the details of the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) System. This framework regulates how countries share virus samples and genetic data in exchange for guaranteed, equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments.

PABS Agreement has not been reached during last year’s WHA. The PABS is unlikely to be approved this year either. The PABS would give WHO full control over every member country’s health system. National health sovereignty would be gone.

What is little known to most people, instead or in parallel with PABS debates, some 300 so-called “side events” are taking place in the WHA week. Topics range from Climate Change, Environment and One Health, to Global Public Health, to Health Systems and Universal Health Coverage, to Population and Care [Control]. See this for the full list.

Through its global Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR), the WEF brings together governments, businesses, and civil society to establish governance protocols. This ensures that these exponential technologies are harnessed responsibly for human control.

While the C4IR’s foundational headquarters and its first location was launched in San Francisco, USA in 2017, it has evolved into a highly decentralized global network. The network spans dozens of independent national and thematic centers across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas.

Digitization of humanity is thought-out to the last detail and the WHO is in-charge for much of these details. WHO has been created in April 1948, some three years after the UN and most of its sub-agencies. WHO is in charge of controlling health and death, a Rockefeller project; the Rockefeller clan being among the world’s prime eugenists.

Back to the Buddhist retreat: what people experienced by abstaining for three days from their electronic devices is rather phenomenal. Many said, they could imagine a life without these digital handcuffs. Indeed, it’s only a bit more than a generation that humanity has been gradually indoctrinated and subjugated to ever growing digitization, to its gradual use for everything.

We have literally developed a Stockholm syndrome – loving our hangman, our judge and prison ward. Sad but the majority of people today still have a hard time realizing it.

Imagine, only 30 years ago, the internet was hardly known to the public. The Network Infrastructure was developed by the US Department of Defense (DoD) (1969–1983), a Pentagon project, evolving into the modern internet on January 1, 1983.

The World Wide Web (1989) emerged from the CERN (Centre européen pour la recherche nucléaire, French acronym for European Center for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The Web is used to navigate the Internet.

What many say and feel is that, if EVERYONE would step back and return to the good old non-digital age, say 30 years back, it would be easy, because we would start afresh, and feel free again – in unison, having learned a lesson, never to forget.

That doesn’t mean we couldn’t use the societal useful electronic inventions for improving our lives – but never again fall for the targeted enslavement from full-control digitization – which is so far advanced that we are shortly before all electronic, digital money — to the point where you walk through a shopping mall’s cashier gate and pay by facial recognition which is linked to your all digital bank account. This exists already in large cities, like Moscow and other parts of the world.

Beware of misbehaving, or else your digital bank account is blocked.

Spiritual teachings and guidance may bond us together to form a strong body of think-alike humans called RESISTANCE.

And we shall overcome.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 22:35

D.C. Feds Launch "Summer Surge" To Crack Down On Youth Crime

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and federal law enforcement officials held a press conference around midday Friday to announce a "Summer Surge" under the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force ahead of America 250 events across the Capital Beltway.

The urgency reflects a decades-long, disturbing pattern of elevated summer violent crime by youths, worsened by failed progressive policies from left-wing officials in the D.C. area and extending into the Baltimore metro area, which have allowed juveniles to terrorize law-abiding citizens with limited consequences.

NBC Washington reporter Mark Segraves, who attended the press conference earlier, said that D.C. law enforcement will "prosecute parents of juveniles breaking curfew"...

DOJ announces “Summer Surge” in DC USAO announces they will now prosecute parents of juveniles breaking curfew. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/3MYw9U24w0

— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) May 15, 2026

Local outlet NBC Washington reports that the summer surge is coming "about two weeks after the D.C. Council chose not to vote on extending Mayor Muriel Bowser's emergency youth curfew zones over the summer."

President Trump issued an executive order in early 2025 that established the task force. He declared a violent crime emergency and temporarily federalized the Metropolitan Police Department by late summer 2025. 

DC-Baltimore metro area has a youth violent crime crisis: 

• D.C. Mayor Imposes Juvenile Curfew After Mobs Of Kids Wreak Halloween Night Havoc

• DC Enforces Youth Curfew "To Keep Young People Out Of Trouble"

• Citywide Youth Curfew Begins In Baltimore As Mayor Strives To Restore Law And Order

The broader read is that the Trump administration wants safe streets in the D.C. metro area ahead of America 250 events.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 22:10

Cuban Leader Warns Of Potential 'Bloodbath' If US Takes Military Action

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

Cuba’s leader on Monday warned that any U.S. military action against the communist-controlled island nation would cause a “bloodbath” and lead to regional insecurity.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Eurasian Economic Forum in Minsk, Belarus June 26, 2025. Sputnik/Sergey Bobylev/Pool via REUTERS

“If it were to materialize, it would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability,” Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a May 18 post on X, according to a translation. [ZH: We're sure Palantir and Anthropic calculated it in roughly 8 seconds...]

He also insisted that Cuba doesn’t pose any threat and doesn’t have “aggressive plans or intentions against any country,” but said that it has the “legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught.”

In recent months, the United States has imposed significant pressure on the country’s communist regime, blocking oil shipments from Venezuela following the U.S. military capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.

The Trump administration is pressing Cuba’s leadership to end political repression, release political prisoners, and liberalize its ailing economy.

That prompted Cuban Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy to announce on May 13 that the country had completely run out of diesel and heavy fuel oil, with its power grid entering a critical state. O Levy said Cuba had not received any oil imports since December 2025 until Russia sent about 700,000 barrels of crude oil last month.

A Cuban official on Sunday accused the U.S. government of creating a fabrication following an Axios report, citing what it said was classified intelligence that claimed Cuba has acquired hundreds of drones.

In a post on social media, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez wrote that “Cuba neither threatens nor desires war” and that the country “prepares itself to confront external aggression in the exercise ​of the right to legitimate self-defense recognized by the UN Charter.”

In a May 18 emailed statement to The Epoch Times, a State Department spokesperson said the Trump administration will move “to protect Americans, our interests and our homeland from any threat.”

“President Trump ... has taken historic action to rid our backyard of uncontrolled migration, dangerous narco trafficking, organized crime, and hostile foreign military presence,” the department spokesperson added.

President Donald Trump has said that after the war with Iran, he will turn his attention to Cuba. He pledged “a new dawn for Cuba” during a speech at a Turning Point USA event in April.

During comments to reporters on May 15 aboard Air Force One, the U.S. president said that Cuba’s leadership “needs help, as you know, and you talk about a declining country—they are really a nation or a country in decline.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe and other U.S. officials visited Cuba on May 14, at the invitation of the country’s communist regime, officials said. An official statement from Cuba’s regime noted that the meeting “took place ... against a backdrop of complex bilateral relations.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department reiterated that the United States would provide Cuba with $100 million in humanitarian assistance and support for satellite internet services “if the Cuban regime will permit it.”

“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the department said on May 13.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 21:45

Iran Teaching Civilians How To Shoot: Public Tutorials On State TV & In Marketplaces

Amid stalled peace talks and ongoing tit-for-tat threats, Iranians are reportedly arming themselves in preparation a potential US ground invasion, or renewal of major military action in its skies.

CNN cameras captured individual citizens being given gun component lessons in the middle of streets and in busy bazaars. Also state TV has been featuring detailed tutorials and presentations on how to effectively use the AK-47.

"I am so ready to sacrifice my life for my country and for my people," one young woman named Tiana told a CNN correspondent this week during a pro-government rally.

"All the people, the whole army, all commanders that we have, they're ready to sacrifice their lives too, and ready to fight with their whole heart and soul," she added.

Another, identified as Fatima - who actually grew up in London and Dubai - stated that "We know this war isn’t over. We know Trump is not really going to negotiate." She added of the US leader, "He’s just going to be, like, 'You do what I tell you or I’m going to kill you.' And then he’s going to attack us even if we do as he says."

An elderly man further chimed in, "Trump knows we don’t have a bomb, but he is attacking us anyway," he said to the CNN crew.

While not often covered by Western mainstream press, there have been pro-government demonstrations stretching all the way back to January, even when massive anti-government and largely economically-driven protests and clashes with police were at their peak:

The rallies, or "night-gatherings" have been taking place across the country every evening for nearly three months, essentially since the start of the war.

CNN filmed the following:

CNN aired footage from Iran showing the Islamic regime instructing children on how to use AK-47 rifles. pic.twitter.com/KWXeGoFHlD

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 19, 2026

Meanwhile, Iranian state media is no doubt trying to signal the US and Israel that if a ground invasion ensues, a lasting insurgency would be unleashed - just as it did for years during the American-led occupation of neighboring Iraq.

On the eastern side of the border, in Afghanistan, it was a similar story, where the Taliban is actually now back in control after a two-decade long nation-building effort.

Below: Iran's State TV Is Teaching Civilians How to Shoot Iran's national television aired a segment showing an anchor being taught how to handle a firearm, with live instruction for a general audience. The lesson ended with the anchor raising the weapon and FIRING DIRECTLY at a UAE flag on set.

🇮🇷 Iran's State TV Is Teaching Civilians How to Shoot

Iran's national television aired a segment showing an anchor being taught how to handle a firearm, with live instruction for a general audience.

The lesson ended with the anchor raising the weapon and FIRING DIRECTLY at a… https://t.co/y2OYkLOMfl pic.twitter.com/lowCZIEJhX

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) May 16, 2026

The card which Iran has to play is asymmetric and guerrilla warfare. It may have at this point lost most or all of its navy and air force, and much of its anti-air arsenal, but it remains formidable in terms of an ability to still inflict damage on US forces - enough to be politically or economically very costly for Washington.

This would remain true even if the US were to renew major operations. As one pundit has pointed out: "Endurance regimes do not need clean victory to change the game. They only need to survive the shock while making the old equilibrium too costly for their adversaries to restore." So 'winning' for Iran looks much different, compared to US objectives.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 21:20

Why College Grads Hate AI

Authored by Adam Sharp via DailyReckoning.com,

I saw a fascinating clip on Twitter/X recently.

At the graduation ceremony for the University of Central Florida, the commencement speaker brought up AI.

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.”

BOOOOOO! HISS! The new college grads are not fans.

To understand how the public attitude toward AI has changed, watch the 1-minute video below of a commencement speech in Florida:

Gloria Caulfield, a real estate executive, was booed by the students when she mentioned AI during her commencement speech at the University of Central… pic.twitter.com/pFdeIbH2dg

— Luiza Jarovsky, PhD (@LuizaJarovsky) May 13, 2026

Source: X

Gloria Caulfield, the speaker, was shocked by the negative response.

“What happened?”, she asked in a Long Island-tinted accent.

Eventually the speaker continued:

“Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.”

And the crowd goes wild cheering at that nostalgic thought. But then…

“And now, AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands…”

The crowd absolutely hated this line. More, louder booing and hissing. The speaker said it hesitantly. She knew it wasn’t going to go over well, based on prior reactions. If this young crowd would have had rotten vegetables handy, a volley of tomatoes and eggplant would have been launched in Gloria’s direction.

Young People (Understandably) Hate AI

Put yourselves in the shoes of a young American for a moment.

Houses are unaffordable. Rent and food are almost as bad. To have children comfortably, you’ll need to be in the upper 10% of earners (depending on the area).

You’re watching the stock market zoom ahead, but have little or none invested.

Your country is importing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, mostly from India, to fill tech jobs. They’re willing to work 60-80 hours a week for far less pay.

And now, along come AI agents. Autonomous artificial workers who plan, complete, test, and complete complex tasks. Coding is currently the primary target, but agents will rapidly expand to every corner of the white collar world.

Ken Griffin’s Revelation

Billionaire Ken Griffin, founder of giant hedge fund Citadel, has been an AI skeptic. Up until now.

With the latest agents, his team is making a disturbing amount of progress. Ken says he went home on a recent Friday afternoon “depressed” about the societal changes these agents would bring.

An excerpt from Fortune’s reporting:

For Griffin, the most striking proof isn’t in coding or content—it’s in high-end financial research. Work that Citadel would previously have assigned to teams with master’s degrees and PhDs in finance, work that took weeks or months, is now being completed by AI agents in hours or days.

“To be blunt, work that we would usually do with people with master’s and PhDs in finance over the course of weeks or months is being done by AI agents over the course of hours or days,” Griffin said at Stanford.

We’ve entered the disruption stage now. And young people are on the front-lines. The first jobs cut were entry-level, but now AI is eating its way up the food chain.

Fortunately AI is still horrible at picking stocks and writing, which is our speciality. And honestly, I don’t see them getting significantly better anytime soon. AI models are trained on the entire internet, good, bad, and horrible. But anything is possible, and nobody is 100% safe from the coming wave.

Three Paths – Blue Collar, AI Master, or Entrepreneur

As I see it, young people today have three primary paths to choose from.

Path #1: Blue-Collar

First, they can take the blue collar route. As I’ve mentioned before, my 16-year old son will be starting an apprenticeship to become an electrician this summer. I’m proud he chose this path, and think it’s a great decision.

Opportunities for plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics, and other blue collar workers are wide open. It will be many decades before robots replace these jobs.

And of all people, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently acknowledged this trend.

“AI gives America the opportunity to build again. Electricians, plumbers, iron workers, technicians, builders—this is your time. AI is not just creating a new computing industry, it is creating a new industrial era.”

Isn’t it fascinating that the primary beneficiary of the AI boom is touting blue collar work? There’s a good reason for it…

Path #2: AI Masters

The second path young people can choose is a bit riskier, but has a higher upside. They can attempt to become an “AI master”. After all, there will still need to be people in the loop.

We will still need people checking the code AI writes, assigning projects, and overseeing progress.

Over the past few years a saying has taken hold, and it’s worth repeating. There are a few different versions, but here’s mine: “Your job won’t necessarily be taken by AI, but it will be taken by someone using AI better than you.”

Path #3: An Entrepreneurial Boom

The third path, of course, is becoming an entrepreneur. And AI makes this easier than ever. Even non-technical people can write solid code now, so the tech part of building a business has certainly become easier.

I expect many young people will take the entrepreneurial path. They may not have much of a choice in the matter, assuming they’re determined to enter the white collar world.

I fully expect a small-mid sized business boom over coming years. And though these businesses won’t hire as many people as they used to, there will still be significant opportunities to hire smart people.

A Breaking System

For many decades, the goal of most parents was to send their kids to college so they can find a good white collar job.

This era is ending. The transition may take another few decades to complete, but we are now headed in a different direction.

The future of white collar work will look like a smaller number of “AI masters” managing fleets of AI agents.

Blue collar work is on the rise. It will become an increasingly popular option. But many people are still stuck playing the status games, where the “rules” say we must send our kids off to university. They don’t want to tell the neighbors that little Billy’s going to be a plumber. This will change rapidly if AI plays out like I expect it to.

Young people today have many things to be upset about. And they’ve thought about these issues far more deeply than we have. So consider reaching out to the young people in your life, and asking them about their plans.

If they seem confused about what to do, ask if they’ve considered a blue collar career. I’m convinced that it’s the best path for millions of young Americans.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 20:55

Multiple States Begin Ejecting Illegal Immigrants From Subsidized Healthcare

The political left often betrays their true agenda in the legislation they choose to oppose.  The SAVE Act, for example, would require proof of citizenship to vote in US elections; a law which the majority of countries around the world enforce.  It's widely supported by around 80% of the public, yet, Democrats stubbornly refuse to pass it.  

Why?  Because they know there are illegal immigrants voting in their favor, and they know that mail-in ballot fraud exists and often benefits them. 

By extension, Democrats aggressively attempted to block Trump Administration efforts to ensure that illegal immigrants could not receive healthcare subsidies.  Their argument was that "no illegals actually access those subsidies".  Of course, if this was true, then it should not matter if Trump adds such restrictions - According to Dems, nothing would change.

In reality, progressive politicians know that around 1.4 million "asylum seekers" (illegal immigrants who entered the country under Biden's open border policies and then took advantage of the system) were on the healthcare rolls at the end of 2024.  They also know that by offering welfare programs to illegals, they are buying the future loyalty of those migrants (as well as keeping them in the country to rig the census in favor of blue states).   

Today, this loophole is being rectified by a number of states that are now requiring proof of citizenship in order to qualify for public healthcare programs.  You would think this is common sense, but Democrats and some medical institutions are not happy with the changes. 

Hospitals across the state of Tennessee say they are receiving notice from the Department of Health requiring them to verify the citizenship status of everyone enrolled in public benefit programs. 

Opponents to the reforms say this includes Children’s Special Services, which provides access to care for children from birth to 21 years of age.  The process for disenrolling kids 18 to 21 has already begun, and there is a process underway to disenroll kids zero to 17. 

It is a typical Democrat tactic to target and isolate a single "vulnerable" group and use them to justify the existence of welfare benefits for all foreigners.  You don't want to steal that wheelchair away from little Pedro or snatch life saving medicine away from poor innocent Gabriela, right?  It is also the case than many of these healthcare providers stand to lose millions in government subsidized payments if migrants are kicked off the rolls. 

The propaganda is highly manipulative.  However, just a few months ago, the political left was arguing that "no undocumented immigrants" are receiving government healthcare benefits (Democrats say "undocumented" because they consider asylum seekers "documented").  Today, they are frantic over patients being checked for citizenship before receiving medical welfare.    

For now, adult applicants who can’t verify their status will be disenrolled by May 29. This comes after the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law requiring all applicants for public benefits ages 18 and older to verify they are in the U.S. legally.

At bottom, anyone regardless of citizenship is typically able to access emergency services in the US.  However, taxpayer funded care should be reserved for citizens only.  Foreigners are not entitled to taxpayer dollars; it's really that simple.  Keep in mind, this is how it works in almost every country in the world, including communist countries like China with "universal healthcare".  

A number of states are implementing or are on the path to implementing similar laws, including North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma.  

Ultimately, anyone who cannot afford their own healthcare should not be looking for citizenship in the US in the first place.  Becoming an American citizen is a privilege, not a handout.  

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 20:30

Sanctuary Jurisdictions Must Comply Or Face More ICE Boots On The Ground: Homan

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

Sanctuary jurisdictions in the United States will see more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel on the ground if they do not allow local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE officers, border czar Tom Homan said in a May 15 interview with the Daily Signal.

Federal law enforcement agents confront anti-ICE protesters during a demonstration outside the Bishop Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 15, 2026.

In the interview, Homan was specifically asked about New York. In January, the state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, proposed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which bars state and local law enforcement agencies from signing or maintaining any Section 287(g) agreements with ICE.

Such agreements authorize ICE to delegate certain immigration functions to local and state officers under the agency’s oversight. Local and state officers can detain suspected illegal immigrants under the deal.

If passed, the New York bill would void all existing Section 287(g) agreements in the state. Homan said in the interview that he had talked to Hochul about the consequences.

“I said, Look, you end cooperation in the jails, we’re going to have to send more agents to do the job, because now, rather than one agent arresting one bad guy in the jail, which is safer for the agent, safer for the alien, safer for the community, of course, you’re going to release him. Now we got to send a whole team, six or seven agents, to go find him. So, it’s going to result in more agents in the community,” Homan said.

“Totally briefed on the whole thing, but she decided to go ahead and do it anyways. Well, I made a statement that we’re going to send more agents to New York. We have to, as a response to this, go arrest those public safety threats.”

When asked whether any sanctuary jurisdiction that doesn’t cooperate with ICE would face more ICE personnel on the ground, Homan replied, “Absolutely.”

The border czar said that he warned Hochul that there would be more collateral arrests if that’s the situation. For instance, if ICE were to arrest a criminal illegal alien, and the individual was with another illegal immigrant, then the second individual would be arrested as well.

Plus, Hochul’s legislation bans ICE from leasing beds from sheriffs in the state, due to which every illegal immigrant arrested has to be flown out of state for detainment. So, if New York locks ICE out of local jails for detaining illegals, “then we’ll simply fly them out,” Homan said.

Earlier this month, Hochul announced that an agreement had been reached with legislative leaders on the key priorities of the fiscal year 2027 state budget, including a provision banning state, local, and federal officials from wearing masks while on duty.

“Good luck with the law of banning masks. Federal law always trumps state and local law. And while threats are up over 8,000 percent, masks is a non-starter, so good luck enforcing that,” Homan said, regarding that provision.

New Yorkers in Danger

In a Jan. 30 statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, warned that Hochul’s proposal barring local police departments from partnering with ICE would place New Yorkers in danger.

Between Jan. 20, 2025, and Dec. 1, 2025, New York failed to honor several ICE detainer requests that resulted in the release of 6,947 criminal illegal immigrants into the streets, the agency said in an April 16 statement.

This includes people charged with 2,509 assaults, 392 dangerous drugs offenses, 305 robberies, 300 weapons offenses, 207 sexual predatory offenses, 199 burglaries, and 29 homicides.

Meanwhile, in April, a group of lawmakers introduced the Sanctuary City Elimination Act, which aims to ensure that all federal, state, and local law enforcement officers can coordinate with ICE without fear of backlash, according to an April 16 statement from the office of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

“For far too long, sanctuary cities across the nation have sidestepped federal immigration law and created safe havens for dangerous illegal aliens, putting the safety and security of Americans at risk and undermining the rule of law,” Cornyn said.

The act “would ensure local and state law enforcement coordinates with ICE officers, ban certain federal funds from going to sanctuary cities, and allow victims of criminal illegal aliens who are released from sanctuary jurisdictions and reoffend in other states to seek justice.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 20:05

IRGC Says It Foiled US Arms Shipments To 'Terror Groups' Near Border With Iraqi Kurdistan

Via The Cradle

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Monday that it foiled an attempt to smuggle a large shipment of US-made weapons and ammunition into the country.

"Counter-revolutionary terror groups based in north Iraq, acting on behalf of the US and Zionist regime, intended to transfer a large shipment of brand-new US weapons and ammunition into the country. They were targeted and struck in Baneh, Kurdistan Province. Large quantities of weapons and ammunition were discovered and confiscated," the statement said.

Arms seizure image circulated by IRGC in state media

The statement added that intelligence efforts are ongoing to identify and arrest all internal collaborators allegedly linked to the armed groups.

The IRGC Hamzeh Sayyed al-Shuhada Headquarters warned "all mercenary elements, their agents, and their leaders that any security-related action will be met with severe force, and … a regret inducing response."

The announcement comes as Washington has been seeking to arm separatist Iranian Kurdish groups in order to destabilize the Islamic Republic. At the start of the war, reports said that US President Donald Trump was seeking to turn Kurdish militias into a "ground force" within Iran. 

Kurdish groups opposed to the Islamic Republic denied last month US claims that Washington armed their fighters during the January 2026 unrest in Iran. 

Last week, Trump slammed Iranian Kurds for "stealing" US weapons and failing to deliver them to "protesters" and dissidents who, according to Washington, were willing to fight against Iranian forces. 

"The Kurds take, take, take," the president told reporters, adding that they "kept" the weapons and "only fight hard when they get paid."

Iranian Kurds were heavily involved in the 2022 armed riots, which broke out in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Former US national security advisor John Bolton openly admitted that year that weapons from the Iraqi Kurdistan region were being smuggled into Iran for separatists to use against government troops.

President Trump on being 'disappointed' in the Kurds...

#Trump on #Kurds and his order to attack #Iran:

I'm very disappointed in the Kurds, we gave them weapons to deliver inside Iran, but they kept them instead. pic.twitter.com/lknQd6AOrr

— Mina (@Mina696645851) May 12, 2026

Kurdish groups also participated in this year's unrest in January, during which thousands of people were killed, including security forces, armed anti-government rioters, and civilians. 

After the US-Israeli war erupted in February, Iraqi-based, Iranian Kurdish militias came under heavy missile and drone attacks – from both Tehran and its allies in the Iraqi resistance. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 19:40

"A Breakthrough": White House Says Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Announcement Is Imminent

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The White House is on the verge of a formal announcement on the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve — and the official leading the charge says the hard part is done.

Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, told an interviewer this week that the administration has cleared a major legal hurdle in standing up the reserve. 

“We’ll have an announcement,” Witt said.

“I wish I could say more… It’s a breakthrough as far as getting everything in place, legally sound, properly safeguarding the assets.” 

The signal follows a similar declaration Witt made at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, where he told the crowd an update was coming within weeks.

President Trump signed the executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve on March 6, 2025.

Since then, Witt says his deputy Harry John has driven the interagency process: identifying what legal authorities exist, commissioning the necessary legal memos, and building a custody and reporting infrastructure across federal agencies that were designed for gold, not private keys. 

The reserve holds an estimated 328,372 BTC — roughly 1.6% of total global supply — accumulated through law enforcement seizures, including the Silk Road takedown, the 2022 Bitfinex hack recovery, and years of criminal forfeitures. 

The executive order bars the Treasury from selling a single coin.

A government bitcoin hack lit a fire for the U.S. government

Witt pointed to a breach at the U.S. Marshals Service as proof that the reserve’s security mandate is urgent. A government contractor named John Daghita allegedly stole more than $46 million in cryptocurrency from USMS custody accounts in late 2025, and the FBI arrested him in March 2026. A separate $24 million theft was traced to October 2024. 

“It’s a case in point for why it was so necessary that the president established the SBR,” Witt said.

An executive order dies the moment a new president takes office. That vulnerability is the core argument for two bills now moving through Congress.

Rep. Nick Begich recently rebranded the BITCOIN Act as the American Reserves Modernization Act (ARMA), which would authorize the U.S. Treasury to purchase up to 200,000 BTC per year for five years — with holdings locked for a minimum of 20 years.

Senator Cynthia Lummis has put Congress on a deadline, pushing for a vote before the summer recess as midterm campaigning begins to consume floor time. 

If the BITCOIN Act passes, the Treasury’s first open-market Bitcoin purchase is projected for Q4 2026 — making the U.S. the first sovereign nation to actively accumulate Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 19:15

"Need Solidarity , Not Stigma": African Officials Say US Ebola-Related Restrictions Unnecessary

The U.S. government on May 18 said it will not let people without U.S. passports enter the United States if they have been to African countries affected by, or close to, a new Ebola outbreak within the past 21 days.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, the countries are Uganda, Congo, and South Sudan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a public health order.

The order, signed by acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, suspends the right of people from those countries to enter the United States because of “the serious risk posed by the introduction of Ebola disease into the United States by covered aliens based on the emergent outbreak of Ebola disease” in Congo.

The public health order will be in effect for 30 days, according to the CDC.

Federal law enables the CDC to prohibit entry by certain migrants if officials judge that barring their entry will prevent the “introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries.”

U.S. officials also said they are going to step up public health screening and monitoring of other travelers who have arrived from areas affected by the outbreak. Screening includes identifying symptoms such as fever and analyzing possible exposure history.

“At this time, CDC assesses the immediate risk to the general U.S. public as low, but we will continue to evaluate the evolving situation and may adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available,” the public health agency said in a statement.

One American who was in Congo has tested positive for Ebola, and six others were exposed, CDC officials said in a briefing on May 18.

African officials on May 15 first confirmed the outbreak in Congo, reporting 80 confirmed and suspected deaths, and hundreds of confirmed and suspected infections.

The outbreak has since spread to Uganda, and South Sudan borders the region in Congo where many of the cases have been recorded.

The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern over the situation, in part because the organization said there were “significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time.”

The virus behind the outbreak, the Bundibugyo virus, has no vaccine or specific treatment.

Dr. Satish Pillai, the CDC’s manager for Ebola response, told reporters on a call on May 18 that the outbreak is “a highly fluid situation” and that the CDC’s response includes deploying experts to the region as well as helping authorities in Africa attempt to prevent further infections and trace contacts of confirmed cases.

African Officials Say US Ebola-Related Restrictions Unnecessary

Stieber goes to report that African officials said on May 19 that travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. government over fears that Ebola could enter the United States are unnecessary and counterproductive.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said “travel restrictions and border closures are not the solution to outbreaks” and called on countries to refrain from imposing such restrictions.

“The world must avoid repeating the mistakes of previous health emergencies, where fear-driven measures caused major economic damage without delivering proportionate public health benefits,” the public health agency said.

“Africa needs solidarity, not stigma. Africa needs investment, not isolation. Africa needs partnerships that strengthen both economies and health systems. No one is safe until Africa is safe.”

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at an unrelated event on Monday that he was concerned about Ebola.

Heidi Overton, deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said during the event that there are “no cases of Ebola in America.”

“We want to keep it that way, and we are doing everything we can to support Americans in the region,” she added.

Congolese authorities said on Tuesday that there are more than 130 suspected deaths and more than 500 suspected cases linked to the outbreak.

The organization said that international officials should improve communication on risk, invest more in surveillance and infection prevention, accelerate the development of vaccines, and expand laboratory testing for the Bundibugyo virus.

Case fatality rates from past outbreaks caused by the virus have ranged from 30 percent to 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

“In the absence of a vaccine, there are many other measures countries can take to stop the spread of the virus and save lives, even without medical countermeasures, including risk communication and community engagement,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the organization, told the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/19/2026 - 18:50