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How Interceptor Missiles Work: The Technology Behind Stopping Missiles In Mid-Air

Authored by Kaif Shaikh via Interesting Engineering,

Intercepting a missile sounds straightforward. Launch another missile at it before it reaches its target. In reality, it is one of the most technically demanding challenges of defense.

Here's how modern interceptor missiles protect against aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic threats.Getty Images

Unlike offensive missiles, interceptor missiles must detect, track, calculate, and collide with a target that may be traveling several times the speed of sound, often within a matter of minutes. Some even destroy their targets without carrying an explosive warhead, relying instead on the sheer force of impact. Here's how interceptor missiles work.

It Starts With Detection

An interceptor missile is only as effective as the network supporting it. Long before an interceptor launches, satellites equipped with infrared sensors detect the intense heat generated by a missile launch. Ground- and sea-based radars then begin tracking the missile's trajectory, calculating where it is likely to travel and, more importantly, where it can be intercepted.

This information is continuously shared across a command-and-control network that decides whether an engagement is necessary, selects the most suitable interceptor, and determines the optimal launch time.

Predicting Where A Missile Will Be

One of the biggest misconceptions is that interceptor missiles simply "chase" incoming threats. Instead, fire-control computers predict the future position of the target based on its speed, altitude, direction, and expected flight path. The interceptor is launched toward that predicted intercept point rather than directly at the missile's current location.

As both missiles continue moving, onboard guidance systems receive updated tracking data and constantly adjust the interceptor's course until it reaches the target. The entire process, from detection to interception, may take only a few minutes for short-range ballistic missiles.

Three Opportunities To Intercept

Ballistic missiles travel through three distinct flight phases, each offering different interception opportunities. The boost phase begins immediately after launch while the rocket motors are still burning. During this stage, the missile is highly visible due to its intense infrared signature, but interception is extremely difficult because defensive systems must already be positioned near the launch site.

The midcourse phase is the longest portion of flight, when the warhead travels through space after booster separation. Systems such as the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense using SM-3 interceptors and the U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense are designed to engage threats during this stage.

Finally comes the terminal phase, when the warhead re-enters the atmosphere and descends toward its target. Systems such as THAAD and Patriot PAC-3 operate in this phase, providing the final opportunity to stop an incoming missile before impact.

Hit-To-Kill Versus Explosive Interception

Not every interceptor destroys its target in the same way. Many older interceptor missiles use blast-fragmentation warheads, detonating near the incoming missile and destroying it with high-speed metal fragments.

Modern systems increasingly rely on hit-to-kill technology. Rather than exploding nearby, these interceptors collide directly with the incoming missile at extremely high speed. The enormous kinetic energy generated by the impact is sufficient to destroy or disable the target without carrying a large explosive payload. Systems including THAAD, SM-3, and Patriot PAC-3 employ hit-to-kill interception for many ballistic missile defense missions.

Why Is Interception So Difficult?

Intercepting a missile is often compared to "hitting a bullet with another bullet," but the reality is even more challenging. Incoming ballistic missiles can travel at several kilometers per second, leaving defenders with only a narrow engagement window. Modern missiles may also deploy decoys, maneuver during flight, or fly at lower altitudes to complicate tracking.

Weather, electronic warfare, radar coverage, and terrain can further reduce the time available to detect and engage a threat. For this reason, countries increasingly rely on layered missile defense, where multiple interceptor systems operate at different ranges and altitudes. If one layer fails, another still has an opportunity to intercept the incoming missile.

Examples Of Interceptor Missiles

Different interceptor missiles are optimized for different threats. The Patriot PAC-3 focuses on defending military bases and cities against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft during the terminal phase.

THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) intercepts short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles at much higher altitudes, including outside Earth's atmosphere. The naval SM-3 interceptor protects ships and allied territories by engaging ballistic missiles during their midcourse phase, while SM-6 provides additional terminal defense against aircraft, cruise missiles, and some ballistic threats.

Other countries operate systems such as Israel's Arrow-3, David's Sling, and Iron Dome, each designed for different ranges and threat types.

The Future Of Missile Interception

As hypersonic glide vehicles and maneuverable ballistic missiles become more common, traditional interception methods are becoming increasingly challenging. Future systems are expected to combine more capable sensors, artificial intelligence-assisted tracking, and new interceptors, such as the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI), currently under development, to engage hypersonic threats before they begin their final descent.

While no missile defense system offers perfect protection, modern layered architectures have significantly improved the ability to detect, track, and intercept increasingly sophisticated threats. Success ultimately depends not on a single interceptor missile but on the seamless integration of satellites, radars, command networks, and multiple defensive layers that work together within seconds.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 22:35

Revolutionary War Cannons Hidden For 240 Years Go On Display

A remarkable collection of Revolutionary War artifacts that lay hidden beneath the Savannah River for nearly 240 years is now on public display in Georgia's oldest city as the nation marks America's 250th anniversary, according to Fox News.

The Savannah History Museum officially unveiled 19 cannons recovered from the river as part of its new Loyalists & Liberty: Savannah in the American Revolution exhibit. Historians say the discovery represents the largest cache of 18th-century artillery ever recovered from a single Revolutionary War naval event.

Fox News wrote that the cannons were discovered unexpectedly in 2021 after crews with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uncovered them while dredging the Savannah River to deepen the shipping channel for larger cargo vessels.

"When they were recovered, the cannons were heavily encrusted with oyster shells and marine growth after centuries underwater," said Nora Fleming Lee, CEO of the Coastal Heritage Society. In addition to the artillery pieces, crews also found smaller artifacts, and several of the cannons still contained cannonballs and their original gunpowder charges.

Following their recovery, most of the cannons were transported to a preservation laboratory at Texas A&M University, where conservators spent several years removing salt from the iron through a specialized electrolysis process before stabilizing and protecting the metal for long-term display.

Seventeen of the cannons underwent full restoration, while two were intentionally left in their original condition so visitors can compare how they looked when first pulled from the river. All 19 are now permanently exhibited at the museum.

Researchers believe the weapons came from British ships that were deliberately scuttled in 1779 to create a blockade across the narrowest section of the Savannah River. The barrier was intended to prevent French naval forces from sailing upriver and helping American troops retake Savannah, which was then under British control.

The ships are believed to have been sunk only weeks before the Battle of Savannah, one of the deadliest engagements of the Revolutionary War, where more than 800 casualties were recorded in less than an hour. The battle took place on the same grounds where the Savannah History Museum stands today.

Museum officials say the exhibit goes beyond showcasing military artifacts. Through the stories of Indigenous people, enslaved and free Black residents, women, children and other overlooked figures, it explores Savannah's role in the American Revolution from multiple perspectives, using the recovered cannons as a centerpiece to tell a broader and more inclusive story of the nation's founding.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 22:10

Condomnation: WaPo Hits Platner With Fresh 'Sneaky Stealthing' Accusation

Update: Just when you thought the media couldn't try harder to force Graham Platner out of the race for Senator from Maine, WaPo is out with a new one: that 'sneaky' oysterman was secretly shucking his condoms off during sex - or so an ex-girlfriend told the deep state's favorite paper of record. 

"He would pull condoms off," claims Lyndsey Fifield, who says she dated Platner from 2013-2015 in Washington DC - and previously accused him of physical abuse. "He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me."

And just like how the NY Times withheld key details until the dam broke thanks to Politico (read below), WaPo knew about this accusation since June 20.

Fifield initially told The Post about the alleged condom removal during a June 20 interview that was off the record. She said she decided to speak publicly about it Tuesday in part because, she said, she wanted to show that Racicot was not alone in experiencing issues with Platner involving sexual consent. -WaPo

In other words, this was 'off the record' until she 'decided to speak publicly about it Tuesday' in order to support a fellow accuser. WaPo then writes:

"Removing a condom during sex without consent, known as “stealthing,” is classified as a form of sexual assault in several countries, including Britain, Canada and parts of Australia. In the United States, Maine, California and Washington state have laws that address the nonconsensual removal of condoms during sex."

...

She estimated that Platner removed condoms without her consent at least six times when they had sex at both of their residences in D.C. during their two-year, on-and-off relationship. She said she told him that she was upset about it but that he would make light of the situation.

So - he stealthed Fifield an alleged six times - and she continued letting him inside of her vagina after said stealthing was an established maneuver, your honor. 

"I confronted him both during and after [sex] because he knew that I was not on birth control and how dangerous that was," she told the Post, which waited until now to tell the world. "He would act like cute about it, like ‘Oh sneaky me.’"

Sneaky indeud. But not sneaky enough to save his 2026 run for Senate a decade later, it would seem. 

Platner's campaign has denied Fifield's allegation, calling her claim "categorically false and politically motivated."

A Platner campaign official fires back at @MaineDems, telling NBC News: “The Platner campaign has reached out to the party to try and understand what this process would look like. At no point has the campaign tried to ‘put its finger on the scale.’ Over 150,000 Mainers voted for… https://t.co/l9CbmYkCE6

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 8, 2026

Now it's over...

Q: How much more gross can P-Hustle get before the end?

A: pic.twitter.com/nt7rrvvYB5

— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) July 7, 2026

* * * BEFORE YOU GO - If you want amazing meat, pick up some of this BMS 7+ Wagyu from veteran-owned KC Cattle Co. Salt & pepper, pan sear / oven finish, and it needs nothing else. NO stringy meat, each bite is seriously packed with flavor, and the fat just melts as you chew. This happened not 6 days ago at house Durden. And yes the dogs got some too.

Earlier: Graham Platner's Senate campaign is imploding after Politico published a detailed account on Monday from Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Democrat from Maine, who accuses the progressive darling of rape. Donors are heading for the exits, Democrats are withdrawing endorsements, and calling for Platner to drop out.

But there's another scandal hiding in plain sight, and it involves the New York Times, which published an exposé last month featuring three women who dated Platner, who had each accused him of domestic abuse.

Racicot also appeared in the New York Times' story on Platner last month. The paper interviewed her and spoke with another anonymous woman as well. Yet when the Times published its June report, it omitted the sexual assault allegations from Racicot and the anonymous Democratic woman who had dated Platner. Instead, the story centered on another accuser, Lyndsey Fifield, a Republican operative whose partisan resume became a central focus of the article.

"After the story went up, I began to ask them... wait, where are the stories from the other women? Where are their accusations of sexual assault? Why am I the focus? Why are there 11 paragraphs dedicated to detailing my work history (more than has been published about Graham's by far)?" Fifield asked after the story was published.

According to Fifield, reporters contacted her in early April and pressured her past her initial refusal. They told her there were other women and they needed to "band together." They also promised to protect her. She eventually relented. "I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists," she wrote on X, turning down other outlets and sitting quiet through weeks of delays.

Then she handed them everything a reporter could want: five friends who could corroborate her story, former roommates who watched Platner stalk her row house from five doors away, screenshots, landlord emails documenting the lease she broke to escape him, and time-stamped diary entries. Reporters called just the two friends who could confirm the relationship timeline rather than the abuse, and told her they saw no need to contact the ex-fiance she confided in during pre-marital counseling since the diary covered it.

The published story claimed nobody could corroborate her account. "Why does it say 'nobody could corroborate' when I offered them sources that COULD corroborate?" Fifield asked. Friends had confirmed to the Times that she disclosed the abuse years before Platner announced a run for anything. That corroboration never made print.

Three women who had never met, Fifield, Racicot, and the third anonymous accuser, described the same cycle of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and love-bombing. The Times had all of it but gave readers mostly a deep dive on the Republican woman's employment record instead. "It dawned on me that this really was a set up all along," Fifield wrote. "The journalists I trusted who convinced me to share a story I never wanted to tell methodically delayed and twisted this into a gift to the Platner campaign. Violating the trust of his victims. Shattering the trust I placed in them with the most vulnerable story of my life."

I bucked all advice from my friends (and resisted my conservative bias) and decided to fully trust the Times journalists. As they left my home they asked that I not talk to any other outlets and I insisted then and repeatedly over the following weeks that I would keep my word and only share this story with them.

— Lyndsey Fifield (@lyndseyfifield) June 5, 2026

Politico's Adam Wren appeared on MSNOW's "Morning Joe" to walk Mika Brzezinski through the vetting of Racicot's story. Brzezinski noted the absence of any police report and asked, "Given the very high standards Politico has before they write something like this and publish it, what aspects of this story brought it to the level of publishable?" Wren explained how Racicot "had confided into a number of people, including her therapist, in almost real time." The corroboration consisted of "email exchanges between she and her therapist" and conversations with people she confided in during the months that followed.

When Brzezinski pressed Wren on what tied Platner to the act itself, he cited an Instagram message Racicot sent the next day, as well as messages to others afterward. Therapist emails and secondhand descriptions of unrecovered messages cleared Politico's bar, but eyewitness roommates, screenshots, landlord emails, timestamped diaries, and friends confirming contemporaneous disclosures fell short at the New York Times, which lied to America by claiming nobody could corroborate Fifield's story, and completely omitting Racicot's claims of sexual assault.

Morning Joe spends 5 minutes grilling Politico's @adamwren for running a story on Platner's ex accusing him of rape. "Given the very high standards Politico has before they write something like this and publish it, what aspects of this story brought it to the level of… pic.twitter.com/JgLW17ZF4y

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 7, 2026

Platner's campaign will likely die in the coming days, but the New York Times' credibility went first.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 22:01

Elon Musk's Answer To Mortality

Authored by David DeMay via AmericanThinker.com,

Ask most Silicon Valley billionaires what they think about death, and you’ll get some version of a declaration of war. Peter Thiel has funded life-extension research for years and has spoken openly about wanting to “fight death.” Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and a growing circle of biotech-backed investors have likewise poured billions into companies pursuing not merely longer life, but the possibility of radically slowing or even ending human aging.

Elon Musk - the wealthiest of them all and arguably the most publicly concerned with humanity’s long-term survival - has consistently argued almost the opposite.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in conversation with Larry Fink, Musk remarked, “There is some benefit to death.”

He warned that dramatically extending human lifespans could lead to “an ossification of society,” leaving institutions increasingly rigid and ideas “stultifying” as the same generation remained in power indefinitely.

His reasoning is straightforward. Most people form their core worldview relatively early in adulthood and rarely change it fundamentally. If those individuals never leave positions of influence, society risks locking one generation’s assumptions permanently into its political, economic, and cultural institutions. In Musk’s view, mortality is not merely a biological limitation; it is one of the mechanisms by which civilizations renew themselves.

What makes his position especially interesting is that it is not rooted in scientific pessimism. During the same discussion, Musk suggested the opposite: Aging is probably a solvable scientific problem. He noted that virtually every tissue in the body appears to age in parallel.

“You’ve never seen someone with an old left arm and a young right arm,” he observed, arguing that such synchronized aging hints at a common biological mechanism. Once that mechanism is understood, he speculated, the solution may appear surprisingly obvious.

The tension is striking. Musk appears to believe that aging is likely to become an engineering problem with an engineering solution. Yet he has shown remarkably little interest in dedicating his own fortune to solving it. His hesitation is philosophical rather than technological: He questions whether dramatically extending individual lifespans would ultimately strengthen or weaken civilization.

That places him in sharp contrast with many of his peers. For much of Silicon Valley, mortality has become the next great engineering challenge—a problem to be solved through biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and unprecedented capital investment. Musk has instead argued that society should be at least as concerned with preserving its capacity for renewal as with extending individual lives.

A second priority reinforces that distinction. Rather than focusing primarily on longevity, Musk has repeatedly argued that declining birth rates pose the more immediate civilizational threat. A society may someday conquer aging entirely, he has suggested, yet still decline if it ceases to produce enough children to replace itself. Extending the lives of existing people cannot compensate indefinitely for a shrinking number of new ones.

Taken together, his views form a coherent hierarchy of priorities. Aging is real and probably solvable, but not necessarily the most urgent problem. Indefinite life extension carries the risk of social stagnation. Declining fertility, by contrast, threatens the long-term continuity of civilization itself.

Whether one agrees with that hierarchy is another question. What is difficult to ignore, however, is that Musk’s own life reflects the priorities he describes. While many technology leaders have invested extraordinary sums in extending the human lifespan, Musk has become the father of fourteen children and has consistently argued that building the next generation matters more than indefinitely prolonging the current one.

That does not prove his family is a deliberate philosophical statement, nor does it reveal his private motivations. But it does reveal a notable alignment between his public arguments and his personal choices. Rather than devoting his fortune primarily to extending his own life, he has devoted a remarkable part of it to creating the generation that will outlive him.

Silicon Valley’s prevailing instinct has been to treat mortality as an engineering problem: extend the individual life for as long as possible. Musk has consistently offered a different answer. He sees death as one of the mechanisms by which societies remain capable of renewal, while viewing falling birth rates as the more immediate threat to humanity’s future. Whether that philosophy ultimately proves correct remains to be seen. What is already clear is that his actions are unusually consistent with his words. In that sense, Musk’s answer to mortality is not another decade of life. It is another child.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 21:45

At Least 19 Suspected Heat-Related Deaths Reported In New Jersey

At least 19 people died of suspected heat-related deaths in New Jersey over the 4th of July holiday weekend, after a nasty heat wave blanked parts of the central and eastern United States. 

People try to stay cool during a heat wave in Bryant Park in New York City on July 1, 2026. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In a statement to reporters, New Jersey Health Commissioner Dr. Raynard Washington said that people started dying as early as July 2, with most reported in the central and northern areas of the state - many of whom were found in homes without air conditioning. 

"A few were outside their residences, some on the street, and some even in parked cars," Washington said, adding that most of the dead were elderly people and young adults. 

"It's also important to note that these are just suspected and are being investigated. These numbers won't be final until after medical examiners have had a chance to complete their investigations."

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said at the press briefing that temperatures across the state reached 90 degrees to 100 degrees Fahrenheit on July 4, with the heat index nearing 110 degrees because of the humidity.

As the Epoch Times notes further, the governor described the hot weather as "the hottest stretch ... in over 14 years."

"The heat's hitting all of us, not just seniors, not just those with underlying health conditions, people of all ages," Sherrill said at a press briefing.

While the heat wave began to ease in New Jersey on July 5, hot and humid conditions were expected to persist. Sherrill said that showers and thunderstorms could occur through July 6.

The National Weather Service issued a warning on X about considerable flooding across portions of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast from July 5 through July 6.

"Numerous showers and thunderstorms are expected to impact the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast today and Monday," it stated. "Very high levels of atmospheric moisture will support heavy rainfall rates that could result in locally significant flash flooding."

Central and northern New Jersey remain under a flood watch, as rainfall rates are expected to exceed 2 inches per hour in those areas, according to the governor.

"Some storms may bring heavy downpours, frequent lightning, and damaging wind gusts. Localized flooding is possible, especially in low-lying and poor drainage areas," Sherrill said in a post on X.

"Never drive through flooded roadways, and head indoors if you hear thunder. Stay informed, stay cool, and stay hydrated. Limit time outdoors during the hottest part of the day."

Flash flood warnings and flood watches were in effect across New York on July 5. The state division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services warned that storms capable of producing torrential rain were moving into the Mid-Hudson region, which could trigger flash flooding in southeastern New York.

More than 95,000 households were left without power on July 5 because of the storms, primarily concentrated in the Mid-Hudson and Long Island regions, according to the division.

"Last night's storms brought down trees and knocked out power across parts of the Hudson Valley and Long Island," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in an update on X.

"We're tracking an estimated 82,000 outages statewide and working with utility companies to restore power as quickly and safely as possible."

The weather service added in an overnight update that heat advisories were in force through to the evening of July 6 for parts of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Meanwhile, hot, dry, and windy conditions in the west has contributed to fire restrictions in states such as Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 21:20

World's First Fully Robotic Pharmacy Automates Prescription Dispensing

Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering,

Queue, a California-based robotics startup, has unveiled the world's first fully autonomous robotic pharmacy, designed to automate prescription dispensing, verification, and delivery.

Queue has deployed its robotic pharmacy with a major US pharmacy chain for early commercial use.Queue

The platform accepts sealed wholesale medication bottles and produces filled, verified prescriptions with minimal human intervention.

Queue says the technology aims to reduce pharmacy operating costs, improve dispensing accuracy, and expand access to prescription services by enabling automated pharmacy operations closer to where patients need them.

The company also announced it has raised $12.6 million in funding to accelerate development and deployment of the system.

Automating Prescription Fulfillment

The system is designed to automate the entire prescription fulfillment process, from handling sealed wholesale medication bottles to producing filled and verified prescription vials with minimal human intervention.

Unlike conventional pharmacy automation, which typically assists individual tasks, Queue's platform integrates dispensing, verification, and fulfillment into a single autonomous workflow. Medications enter the system in sealed manufacturer bottles, where robotics, computer vision, and automated handling mechanisms manage storage, counting, dispensing, and verification before generating patient-ready prescription containers.

The platform currently supports 250 of the most commonly prescribed medications in the U.S., covering a large share of routine prescriptions. Built with multiple automated safety and verification steps, the system is designed to reduce dispensing errors and maintain consistent prescription accuracy throughout the fulfillment process.

Addressing Workforce Shortages

Queue's robotic pharmacy enters the market as the U.S. pharmacy sector faces mounting operational challenges. Industry reports have highlighted growing pharmacist workloads, staffing shortages, and declining numbers of pharmacy graduates entering the workforce. Pharmacy technician vacancy rates have also remained high, increasing operational pressure on existing staff while raising concerns about the potential for human error during prescription fulfillment.

At the same time, many pharmacies continue to face financial strain from declining reimbursement rates, making it increasingly difficult to sustain traditional operating models. Researchers from the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, have found that nearly one-third of U.S. pharmacies have closed since 2010, contributing to the growth of pharmacy deserts where access to prescription services is limited.

Queue aims to address these structural challenges by replacing labor-intensive prescription fulfillment with autonomous robotic infrastructure. By automating the physical dispensing process while maintaining built-in verification protocols, the company seeks to improve efficiency, reduce operating costs, and expand access to pharmacy services in underserved communities.

Rather than serving only as a pharmacy automation tool, it positions the platform as a new infrastructure layer for prescription fulfillment, enabling healthcare providers to establish smaller, automated pharmacy operations in locations where conventional pharmacies may no longer be economically viable. The company believes this approach could help reshape prescription delivery while improving scalability, consistency, and accessibility across the U.S. healthcare system.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 20:55

The Push For A Robotic Workforce: Chris Murphy Introduces Bill For Massive Minimum Wage Hike

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

Sen. Chris Murphy has finally found a constituency that truly gets him. Robots and automated systems around the country likely whirled and beeped with approval as he introduced the Senate version of the Living Wage for All Act. At a time when workers are being replaced at record numbers due to the cheaper labor of automated systems and AI programs, Murphy moved to price out millions of more workers by increasing their costs.

The bill would increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $25 per hour - a 245 percent increase - over 12 years. The far-left senator is following the lead of states like California, where Democrats dramatically cut jobs through such wage increases.

Murphy went on NBC to insist that he is "not a democratic socialist" but then attacked capitalism:

"[T]he Democratic Party has been historically way too timid in taking on corporate power. I think we have to understand that people do not believe that this version of capitalism has worked. And frankly, it hasn't worked. ... This version of capitalism isn't working. Now, I make the argument in the book that we should embrace, you know, what I call a common good capitalism."

He then added:

"And by the way, we can afford it. It's not like we can't pay a $25 minimum wage; we just choose not to because we've become okay with dozens and dozens of people in this country making hundreds of billions of dollars."

It is not clear who the "we" is. While securing a law degree, Murphy has never run a business and has spent his life as a politician, spending other people's money.

I previously wrote about wage hikes and the predictable loss of jobs that followed.

Democratic politicians from New York to California are pushing for a $30 minimum hourly wage for workers. Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and Democratic legislators in California herald their mandatory increases as providing a "living wage" for workers. In Los Angeles, a law requires hourly wages in the hotel and airport industries to rise by $2.50 each year until they reach $30 in 2028.

There is no question that workers are struggling with the high cost of living in California. But blindly raising taxes and minimum wages will exacerbate these problems, not eliminate them.

A recent report by researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz found evidence of precisely what many economists had warned about in the state's mandatory wage floors. Stephen Owen, an economics lecturer, explained that they found "a plethora of negative outcomes, such as higher menu prices for consumers, reductions in employee working hours, widespread elimination of overtime, and loss of benefits for employees."

In other words, faced with mandated higher labor costs, businesses shrank their labor forces and raised their prices.

None of this is a surprise. Yet even amid such findings, Democrats are doubling down. They believe that because they claim to be the champions of the working class, it does not matter how many people they put out of work.

It is not just workers feeling the brunt of such economically ill-considered measures. In California, a two-person meal can run about $30 due to higher labor costs being passed on to consumers. It is only a matter of time before robots replace these workers.

What is ironic is that the Democrats are hitting the most vulnerable members of the labor force with these minimum wage increases. In my book, "Rage and the Republic," I discussed not only the economic changes unfolding due to AI and robotics but also the expected political miscalculations that are most likely to fuel job losses and wasteful spending. This is one of them.

As discussed in the book, certain industries are already likely to convert to automation due to increasing labor costs:

"For any wealth-maximizing, rational actor in the marketplace, the choice is obvious and inescapable. There is little reason for a restaurant to employ workers to make Happy Meals when they can be done by robotics without healthcare, wage issues, or scheduling conflicts. The very premise of McDonald's is to produce the same meals in the exactly the same way from restaurant to restaurant. That is precisely what robotics do. They will make fries in exactly the same fashion over and over again without variation."

Faced with this threat to the labor force, Murphy and others are moving to do the one thing to accelerate and expand the job losses by increasing the cost of human labor.

Ironically, giving the advantage to the robotic workforce could still work in favor of the growing socialist movement in the party. With more workers out of jobs, more will look to the government for support and a guaranteed income. That will further increase the role of the state. Of course, to expand what Zohran Mamdani called "the warmth of collectivism," millions of human workers will have to be put out in the cold as an overpriced labor force. Citizens will then become what I have called a "kept population," which could have a disastrous impact on the role of citizens in our unique Republic.

What is clear is that Murphy will prove to be the greatest friend a robot has ever had in Congress.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 20:05

These Are The Countries With Lower GDP Than Elon Musk's Net Worth

Elon Musk recently became the world’s first trillionaire following SpaceX’s IPO earlier this month. At roughly $1 trillion, his personal fortune now exceeds the annual economic output of most countries around the world.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Jeffe Desjardins, highlights the countries with nominal GDP below Musk’s estimated net worth, using 2026 projections from the IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2026) and Forbes real-time estimates of Musk’s wealth.

Countries With Less Than $1 Trillion in GDP

Below is a list of countries with nominal GDP under $1 trillion, based on the IMF’s latest projections for 2026:

Country 2026 GDP ($B) 🇹🇼 Taiwan 977 🇮🇪 Ireland 779 🇧🇪 Belgium 777 🇸🇪 Sweden 760 🇮🇱 Israel 720 🇦🇷 Argentina 688 🇸🇬 Singapore 660 🇦🇹 Austria 624 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates 622 🇳🇴 Norway 599 🇹🇭 Thailand 580 🇨🇴 Colombia 540 🇻🇳 Vietnam 527 🇲🇾 Malaysia 516 🇵🇭 Philippines 512 🇧🇩 Bangladesh 511 🇩🇰 Denmark 504 🇷🇴 Romania 481 🇿🇦 South Africa 480 🇭🇰 Hong Kong 450 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 433 🇪🇬 Egypt 430 🇨🇱 Chile 408 🇵🇰 Pakistan 408 🇵🇪 Peru 381 🇵🇹 Portugal 381 🇳🇬 Nigeria 377 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan 360 🇫🇮 Finland 338 🇩🇿 Algeria 317 🇬🇷 Greece 308 🇮🇷 Iran 300 🇳🇿 New Zealand 279 🇭🇺 Hungary 271 🇮🇶 Iraq 265 🇺🇦 Ukraine 225 🇶🇦 Qatar 217 🇲🇦 Morocco 194 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan 182 🇰🇼 Kuwait 173 🇸🇰 Slovakia 169 🇦🇴 Angola 152 🇧🇬 Bulgaria 148 🇰🇪 Kenya 147 🇪🇨 Ecuador 138 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic 136 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico 129 🇬🇹 Guatemala 129 🇨🇩 Congo (DRC) 123 🇪🇹 Ethiopia 122 🇬🇭 Ghana 118 🇴🇲 Oman 117 🇭🇷 Croatia 117 🇨🇮 Côte d'Ivoire 112 🇷🇸 Serbia 112 🇻🇪 Venezuela 111 🇱🇺 Luxembourg 110 🇨🇷 Costa Rica 110 🇱🇹 Lithuania 106 🇧🇾 Belarus 102 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka 99 🇺🇾 Uruguay 96 🇵🇦 Panama 95 🇹🇿 Tanzania 95 🇸🇮 Slovenia 87 🇲🇲 Myanmar 84 🇹🇲 Turkmenistan 83 🇧🇴 Bolivia 81 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan 78 🇺🇬 Uganda 73 🇨🇲 Cameroon 65 🇯🇴 Jordan 65 🇹🇳 Tunisia 61 🇵🇾 Paraguay 61 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe 57 🇲🇴 Macao 54 🇱🇻 Latvia 54 🇱🇾 Libya 52 🇰🇭 Cambodia 52 🇪🇪 Estonia 52 🇧🇭 Bahrain 49 🇳🇵 Nepal 46 🇨🇾 Cyprus 45 🇸🇩 Sudan 45 🇮🇸 Iceland 44 🇬🇪 Georgia 43 🇭🇳 Honduras 42 🇿🇲 Zambia 41 🇸🇳 Senegal 40 🇸🇻 El Salvador 40 🇭🇹 Haiti 39 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina 37 🇱🇧 Lebanon 34 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea 34 🇬🇾 Guyana 34 🇲🇱 Mali 34 🇦🇱 Albania 33 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso 33 🇦🇲 Armenia 32 🇲🇹 Malta 31 🇬🇳 Guinea 30 🇲🇳 Mongolia 28 🇧🇯 Benin 28 🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago 27 🇹🇩 Chad 26 🇳🇪 Niger 25 🇳🇮 Nicaragua 24 🇰🇬 Kyrgyz Republic 24 🇬🇦 Gabon 23 🇲🇿 Mozambique 23 🇯🇲 Jamaica 23 🇧🇼 Botswana 22 🇲🇩 Moldova 22 🇲🇰 North Macedonia 22 🇲🇬 Madagascar 21 🇹🇯 Tajikistan 20 🇦🇫 Afghanistan 20 🇱🇦 Laos 19 🇲🇼 Malawi 18 🇷🇼 Rwanda 17 🇳🇦 Namibia 17 🇲🇺 Mauritius 17 🇧🇸 Bahamas, The 17 🇨🇬 Congo, Rep. of the 17 🇧🇳 Brunei 17 🇵🇸 West Bank and Gaza 16 🇲🇷 Mauritania 14 🇸🇴 Somalia 14 🇽🇰 Kosovo 14 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea 14 🇹🇬 Togo 13 🇲🇪 Montenegro 10 🇱🇮 Liechtenstein 9.4 🇧🇧 Barbados 8.5 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone 8.3 🇧🇮 Burundi 8.1 🇲🇻 Maldives 8.1 🇾🇪 Yemen 7.4 🇫🇯 Fiji 6.4 🇸🇸 South Sudan 6.1 🇸🇷 Suriname 5.9 🇸🇿 Eswatini 5.8 🇱🇷 Liberia 5.6 🇦🇩 Andorra 4.9 🇩🇯 Djibouti 4.7 🇦🇼 Aruba 4.7 🇧🇹 Bhutan 3.9 🇨🇫 Central African Republic 3.5 🇧🇿 Belize 3.5 🇨🇻 Cabo Verde 3.4 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau 3.0 🇱🇸 Lesotho 3.0 🇬🇲 Gambia, The 2.8 🇱🇨 Saint Lucia 2.8 🇸🇲 San Marino 2.4 🇦🇬 Antigua and Barbuda 2.4 🇸🇨 Seychelles 2.3 🇹🇱 Timor-Leste 2.2 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands 1.8 🇰🇲 Comoros 1.8 🇬🇩 Grenada 1.5 🇻🇺 Vanuatu 1.4 🇼🇸 Samoa 1.4 🇻🇨 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 1.2 🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe 1.2 🇰🇳 Saint Kitts and Nevis 1.1 🇩🇲 Dominica 0.8 🇹🇴 Tonga 0.7 🇫🇲 Micronesia 0.5 🇰🇮 Kiribati 0.4 🇵🇼 Palau 0.4 🇲🇭 Marshall Islands 0.3 🇳🇷 Nauru 0.2 🇹🇻 Tuvalu 0.1

Of the IMF’s 195 tracked economies, 174 are projected to produce less than $1 trillion in GDP during 2026.

Taiwan comes closest to the threshold at an estimated $977 billion, illustrating just how exclusive the trillion-dollar club has become.

The 21 Trillion-Dollar Economies

Just 21 countries are projected to generate more than $1 trillion in nominal GDP during 2026.

Rank City Family Income Needed to Live Comfortably (2026) 1 San Francisco, CA $407,597 2 San Jose, CA $402,771 3 Oakland, CA $371,488 4 Boston, MA $368,742 5 Arlington, VA $368,326 6 New York, NY $337,875 7 Seattle, WA $334,131 8 Irvine, CA $327,226 9 Honolulu, HI $321,069 10 Washington, DC $319,405 11 Portland, OR $313,747 12 San Diego, CA $312,915 13 Denver, CO $303,514 14 Jersey City, NJ $297,606 15 Minneapolis, MN $288,787 16 Anchorage, AK $285,210 17 Los Angeles, CA $281,466 18 Sacramento, CA $279,802 19 Newark, NJ $278,221 20 St. Paul, MN $278,221 21 Riverside, CA $270,566 22 Colorado Springs, CO $270,566 23 Tacoma, WA $264,742 24 Madison, WI $263,245 25 Philadelphia, PA $252,845 26 Reno, NV $251,264 27 Boise, ID $251,181 28 Raleigh, NC $249,434 29 Buffalo, NY $247,853 30 Indianapolis, IN $247,021 31 Phoenix, AZ $245,523 32 Chicago, IL $242,278 33 Charlotte, NC $241,446 34 Pittsburgh, PA $238,534 35 Columbus, OH $238,534 36 Durham, NC $237,619 37 Virginia Beach, VA $237,702 38 Atlanta, GA $232,378 39 Omaha, NE $232,294 40 Miami, FL $231,130 41 Kansas City, MO $230,131 42 Plano, TX $230,464 43 Austin, TX $229,050 44 Tampa, FL $226,720 45 Baltimore, MD $224,224 46 Richmond, VA $223,974 47 Fort Worth, TX $217,235 48 Tulsa, OK $215,238 49 Dallas, TX $214,490 50 Orlando, FL $214,157 51 Nashville, TN $213,408 52 Jacksonville, FL $211,578 53 Houston, TX $204,672 54 New Orleans, LA $197,766 55 Memphis, TN $193,939 56 San Antonio, TX $192,608

Switzerland and Poland round out the list at roughly $1.1 trillion, making them the smallest trillion-dollar economies Musk could pass next.

GDP vs. Wealth

Comparing GDP with personal wealth isn’t an apples-to-apples exercise. GDP measures the total value of goods and services produced within a country over a single year, while net worth reflects the accumulated value of assets after liabilities.

Even so, the comparison offers a striking sense of scale. Rather than suggesting Musk is “worth more than” a country, it shows that his estimated fortune now exceeds the value of everything many nations are expected to produce over the course of one year.

What is Elon Musk’s Fortune?

Elon Musk became a trillionaire with the SpaceX IPO earlier this month.

However, since the IPO, SpaceX’s stock price has been volatile. This means Musk’s net worth also fluctuates considerably, roughly within the range of $950 billion to $1.4 trillion. For this visualization, we used $1 trillion as the threshold for comparison purposes.

Learn about the biggest IPOs in history and where SpaceX fits in, in this infographic on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 19:40

Super El Niño Could Trigger Major Coal Boom In India

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The super El Niño weather phenomenon this year will significantly boost India's demand for coal-fired power generation over the next 12 months, as a generation gap could occur with higher temperatures, the Finland-based think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in a report on Monday.

The El Niño, the recurrent weather pattern driving global temperatures higher, would affect most energy systems globally, but none would be as affected as India's, according to CREA.

The El Niño, typically associated with lower wind speeds and less rainfall, could reduce India's power generation from wind and hydropower. This will open a gap in generation, CREA warns, adding that the gap will be mostly bridged by a surge in coal power generation.

"Combine the lost output from renewables and the increased demand for power, and India could face a generation gap of nearly 18 TWh," CREA's analysts said in the report.

"Super El Niño Could Trigger Major Coal Boom In India, which would release an estimated 17 million tonnes of CO2."

India, the world's second-biggest coal importer and user after China, continues to rely on coal despite a booming renewable energy sector. The Super El Niño could vindicate India's approach not to give up on coal.

Overall, coal-fired power generation and capacity installations in India continue to rise, and coal remains a key pillar of India's electricity mix, with about a 60% share of total power output.

Despite booming renewable capacity additions, India continues to rely on coal to meet most of its power demand as authorities also look to avoid blackouts in cases of severe heat waves.

Coal will still be a key part of India's power system for the next two decades, Rajnath Ram, adviser for energy at the government policy think tank, NITI Aayog, said at the end of last year.

"We cannot be subjective about coal. The question is how sustainably we can use it," the official noted.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 19:15

Japan's Keynesian Mirage: How Debt, Inflation, & A Collapsing Yen Expose A Failed Model

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Japan’s yen crisis exposes the long‑running failure of the Keynesian strategy that has dominated the country’s economic policy: chronic deficits, exploding public debt, and engineered inflation are now eroding Japan’s purchasing power, competitiveness, and monetary stability.

For decades, many mainstream analysts pointed to Japan as proof that a rich, “monetarily sovereign” country could keep an extremely high public debt without relevant consequences. The argument was simple: as long as the state can issue its currency, it can always print whatever is needed to cover deficits, refinance debt, and support public spending.

In reality, that has meant public debt soaring to around 250% of GDP, one of the highest levels in the developed world, while repeatedly increasing government expenditure and leaving large, persistent deficits. Even the IMF notes that, even after several years of moderate growth, prudence is “key to keep debt‑to‑GDP on a firmly downward path,” admitting that the current level is a structural vulnerability.

Japan’s apparent stability depended on a crucial external factor, the country’s enormous exporting capacity.

As a leading exporter of cars, technology, and capital goods, the country attracted a continuous inflow of US dollars and foreign capital that supported a stable currency and kept inflation low, despite fiscal excess. That protective layer is eroding fast. Headline inflation has edged up from 1.4% in April 2026 to 1.5% in May, while core inflation has held at 1.4%, still below the Bank of Japan’s 2% target but clearly positive after three decades of near‑zero price growth.

A key factor of the Japanese model was its export engine and the “golden goose” of capital inflows.

These two factors allowed the country to live with large debt and deficits without immediately triggering high inflation. However, that mirage is vanishing as external performance falters and inflation, though moderate, bites into real incomes.

Keynesianism did not spur growth or improve Japanese citizens’ lives. It just bloated an unsustainable government machine.

Recent data show that price increases are now broad‑based, not confined to a few categories. In May 2026, overall CPI inflation was 1.5% year-on-year. However, food prices rose 3.5% year-on-year, which is a heavy burden for households. Goods inflation stood at 2.0%, while services inflation was around 1.0%.

Underlying inflationary pressures, particularly in services and wage‑sensitive sectors, are now embedded in the system rather than an isolated energy shock. Meanwhile, real net wages are stagnant or declining. Japanese citizens face an affordability crisis.

The authorities, obsessed for years with the ludicrous “risk of deflation,” consciously tried to push inflation above zero, aiming to erode the real value of the public‑debt stock. They have achieved modest inflation, but at the cost of real wage erosion. Despite headline gains in nominal pay, inflation‑adjusted wages have fallen for four consecutive fiscal years, with a 0.5% decline in real wages in fiscal 2025 alone. Citizens are poorer, while the government is bigger, even as headline macro indicators show stability.

The most visible symptom of this model’s exhaustion is the yen. Despite repeated interventions by the Bank of Japan and a shift towards higher policy rates—the BOJ’s benchmark is now at its highest point since the mid‑1990s—the currency has slid to levels not seen in almost forty years. Each attempt to defend the yen produces a brief rebound, but the broader trend reflects markets’ concern about Japan’s long‑term fiscal and monetary sustainability.

Japan is not going bankrupt in strict terms; it is demolishing its currency, which is equivalent to an implicit default.

No one wants Japan to fail, but the model has delivered nothing in the past decade. The IMF talks about solid output growth, robust domestic demand, and low unemployment. However, domestic demand and GDP are disguised by constantly rising government spending, while low unemployment is a consequence of challenging demographic conditions. Japan’s population is aging and shrinking, and Keynesianism has made it harder for families to grow and have children.

If GDP and domestic demand were really strong, the country would have a strong currency. Instead, the yen weakness reveals investors’ skepticism regarding a model that combines very high debt, structurally positive inflation, and decades of real wage stagnation.

Japan has avoided a formal sovereign default and sudden stop in financing not because the Keynesian model is sound, but because the country still attracts a “gigantic” inflow of foreign capital and investment. Those inflows supply dollars, support asset prices, and help keep the system running despite its internal contradictions. A Bank Of Japan obsessed with raising asset prices by increasing ownership of ETFs shows it is more interested in headline figures than citizens’ cost of living.

On the surface, the wage picture in early 2026 looks encouraging. Average cash earnings grew 3.5% year‑on‑year in April 2026, marking the 52nd consecutive month of nominal wage gains and the fastest pace since late 2024. Base pay was up 3.4%, and nominal wages rose across sectors—from manufacturing and construction to information and communications and finance. Government data show that in March, nominal wages increased about 2.7%, while the consumer inflation rate used to calculate real wages stood at 1.6%, allowing real wages to rise roughly 1% in that month. However, these monthly improvements sit atop a longer‑term pattern where inflation has outpaced wage growth. Over fiscal 2025, real wages fell 0.5% and the small bounce may be short-lived as estimates show another negative real wage year for 2026. Japan’s real wages have stagnated for nearly 30 years since peaking in 1997. The inflation that policymakers wanted to generate is ultimately eroding the living standards of the citizens whose demand is supposed to sustain growth.

Against this backdrop, calls to raise taxes further to stabilize the public accounts risk pushing the system into another vicious circle. Higher taxation would likely weaken investment and capital inflows, undermine competitiveness, and intensify pressure on households. Immigration, often proposed as a demographic fix, may raise aggregate GDP but also increase fiscal strain when public finances are already deeply imbalanced, as seen in other advanced economies.

Japan’s situation is not a sudden accident; it is the culmination of policies that have been failing for decades. The country’s wealth, export capacity, and capital inflows allowed it to live with large imbalances for a long time. The difference today is that the traditional strengths have weakened, and the latest data make the structural problems clearer.

Japan shows the structural failure of a policy approach that “always seeks to expand public imbalances at the expense of citizens.” The Keynesian experiment in Japan aimed to prove that government is a key engine of growth but instead produced long‑term stagnation, high debt, and an erosion of real incomes. The yen’s weakness is simply the symptom of a larger disease: statism. And some want to repeat it in your country.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 18:25

International Olympic Committee Lifts Suspension, Russians To Compete At LA Games

In another sign of war fatigue in the West, and perhaps amid greater realization that 'punishing' the Russian people is having no real effect on the course of the Ukraine war, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has finally eased restrictions on Russian athletes ahead of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

"The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board (EB) has provisionally lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) that had been in effect since 12 October 2023," the Olympic body stated Tuesday.

"The decision was taken following a thorough analysis by the IOC’s Legal Affairs Commission, considering that the ROC no longer includes as its members any regional sports organizations in territories falling under the jurisdiction of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ukraine," it continued.

Still, it sought to assure 'solidarity' with Ukraine, stating additionally: "The IOC stands in solidarity with the Olympic community of Ukraine, which the Olympic movement has supported since the beginning of the war, and will continue to do so."

The past several yeas has seen Russian and Belarusian athletes compete only under 'neutral' status. The new policy change has yet to indicate whether Russia will be able to display its flag or colors, or play its anthem - but presumably so.

Russian athletes can now compete as long as they "meet relevant anti-doping requirements," the IOC made clear in announcing the status change.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry has started speaking some sense:

“We don’t want to hold athletes accountable for the actions of their government.”

“We made it clear that all athletes had the possibility to compete at the Olympic Games. This is what this decision speaks to. It allows Russian athletes to take part in sports competitions. We thought it was really important for athletes to have that possibility,” Coventry said.

Some pundits have for years been pointing out a glaring double standard: Israel's invasion of Gaza has by any estimate resulted in far more civilian deaths than the Ukraine war, yet the IOC has not considered banning Israeli athletes.

George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq resulted in - according to various estimates - between 500,000 and one million Iraqi civilian deaths. What's more is that it was only within years later the entire case the Neocons made for the invasion was proven an absolute fraudulent lie. Where were the IOC punitive actions against American athletes? It wasn't even a thought.

The IOC has lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee ahead of 2028 Olympic qualification events

Also, “The IOC will take a decision in relation to the display of the Russian flag, anthem, colours or any identifications [for the Olympics] at the appropriate time.” pic.twitter.com/oQWS2AdInB

— Jackie Wong (@rockerskating) July 7, 2026

Similarly, Washington's bombing and invasion of Afghanistan turned into a more than two-decade long quagmire full of civilian death and destruction for entire towns and villages. And not a peep from the IOC or any Olympic officials.

The clear pattern has been that only those enemies and rivals of the Western allies get banned from the games. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 18:00

China Test-Launches Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile In Pacific, Alarming Neighbors

Via The Cradle

The Chinese navy on Monday test-launched a strategic missile from a nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean in the framework of its annual military exercises.

"At 12.01pm on July 6, a strategic nuclear submarine of China's People's Liberation Army Navy successfully launched a... strategic missile carrying a training simulation warhead into the relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean," spokesperson Wang Xuemeng said in a statement posted on WeChat.

via Reuters

"This missile test launch is a routine arrangement of China's annual military training, and relevant countries were informed in advance," Wang stated, adding that the missile "accurately" landed in the designated area.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said that the test was a "routine arrangement" within the framework of China's annual military exercises.

Papua New Guinea's foreign minister and a New Zealand government source told AFP that China was preparing to test-fire a nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

"Yes, China has briefed me. I was personally called by the Chinese ambassador," Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko stated.

After Japan was notified, it strongly urged China to reconsider moving ahead with the test launch.

"We strongly requested a reconsideration of this test launch of the ballistic missile to ensure that it does not pose a threat to Japan's security, particularly by passing through its airspace," according to a joint statement issued before the launch by Japan's ministries of defense and foreign affairs.

The test launch came as China and Russia officially began their annual "Joint Sea-2026" naval exercises on Monday. The exercises are scheduled from 6 to 13 July and are taking place in the waters and airspace off the eastern Chinese port city of Qingdao.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army (#PLA) Navy's test launch of a strategic missile by a submarine was a routine military training exercise. It was not targeted at any specific country or target. China notified relevant countries in advance, which is in line with international… pic.twitter.com/Jo7u9ti5P5

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) July 6, 2026

The bilateral maneuvers aim to address regional security challenges and elevate military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.

Russian state media reported that a cruiser, a corvette, a diesel-electric submarine, and a rescue vessel from Russia's Pacific Fleet will participate in the drills. China's Northern Theater Command said that two destroyers, a frigate, a submarine, a supply ship, and a rescue vessel will participate.

During a visit to Beijing in May, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Chinese and Russian military and economic cooperation "demonstrate strong momentum."

Chinese President Xi Jinping praised the strong relationship between Beijing and Moscow.

China and Russia on Monday launched the "Joint Sea-2026" exercise at a military port in Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province. #XinhuaNews pic.twitter.com/l6t3PNk3iD

— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) July 6, 2026

"We have been able to continuously deepen our political mutual trust and strategic coordination with a resilience that remains unyielding despite trials and tribulations," Xi said.

Both leaders warned against a global return to the “law of the jungle,” referring to the unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 17:40

Anthropic Removes "Scary" Secret Claude Tracker After Developer Stumbles Across It

Anthropic has removed hidden detection code from its Claude Code tool after a developer reverse-engineered the binary and exposed how the company was subtly monitoring users in China.

The code, which Anthropic described as an experiment launched in March, used a form of prompt steganography to signal information about a user's environment back to Anthropic's servers. It was designed to help detect unauthorized resellers and attempts by other organizations to distill Claude's capabilities into their own models.

How The Detection Worked

The mechanism was first spotted by a Reddit user known as LegitMichel777, who stumbled on it while trying to restore a disabled feature in Claude Code. A separate developer known as Thereallo independently confirmed the finding the same day, June 30, publishing a technical breakdown of exactly how it worked.

The checks only ran in one specific situation: when a user pointed Claude Code at a different server instead of Anthropic's own - something companies commonly do when they route their traffic through internal systems or third-party gateways. From there, it checked two things:

• Whether the user's computer was set to a Chinese time zone (Shanghai or Urumqi).
• Whether the new server address matched a hidden list of Chinese AI companies (including well-known names like DeepSeek, Zhipu, and Moonshot) or known resale and proxy services.

If either check came back positive, Claude Code would quietly tweak a line of text called the "system prompt" - background instructions the app automatically sends to the AI model with every request, invisible to the person typing. Specifically, it changed how the date was written in that line:

• If the user was in a Chinese time zone, the date switched from using dashes to slashes (e.g., 2026/06/30 instead of 2026-06-30).
• The apostrophe in the phrase "Today's date is..." was swapped for one of three lookalike characters, each one a different signal, depending on which combination of checks the session had triggered.

None of this was visible to users, or likely even to the AI model itself in normal use - the characters look identical on screen. But Anthropic's servers could read the difference instantly. The lists of flagged domains and keywords were also scrambled inside the app's code using a basic encryption trick, so they wouldn't show up if someone just opened the file and searched for them.

Thereallo called the approach "prompt steganography" - hiding a signal inside ordinary-looking text - and noted it let Anthropic sort and flag sessions without needing any separate, visible tracking system.

Anthropic's Explanation

Last Tuesday, Anthropic engineer Thariq Shihipar, who works on the Claude Code team, confirmed the feature on X:

"This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation. The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we've actually been meaning to take this down for a while. We merged the PR and this should be fully rolled back in tomorrow's release."

Anthropic has stated that unauthorized resellers have been selling access to Claude accounts and subscriptions at steep discounts in certain markets. The company has also publicly documented large-scale efforts by Chinese AI labs to distill its models by querying them at high volume through proxies and fraudulent accounts.

Anthropic removed the detection logic shortly after it became public.

Alibaba Bans Claude Code For Employees

The disclosure prompted a swift response from Chinese technology giant Alibaba. According to internal documents reported by the South China Morning Post, Alibaba added Claude Code to its list of high-risk software and instructed employees to stop using it for work, effective around July 10. The memo cited "back-door risks" following the discovery of the hidden markers.

Alibaba has not publicly commented on Anthropic's earlier accusations that its Qwen models benefited from large-scale distillation of Claude.

The Wider Context: Distillation And Geopolitical Competition

Model distillation - training a new model on the outputs of a more capable one - is a common technique in AI development. However, Anthropic and other U.S. frontier labs argue that industrial-scale distillation campaigns by foreign entities, particularly Chinese labs, undermine export controls and intellectual property protections.

Anthropic has previously published details of what it described as distillation operations targeting its models by labs including DeepSeek, Moonshot, and MiniMax. Chinese researchers have also published work showing that many leading Chinese models carry detectable signatures consistent with distillation from U.S. systems.

In this environment, companies like Anthropic face pressure to protect their models while maintaining user trust - especially in tools like Claude Code, which are granted significant access to users' local machines, files, and command execution.

Thereallo's analysis raises obvious questions about transparency. While the feature wasn't designed to steal user data or take control of anyone's computer, hiding this kind of tracking inside the system prompt without telling anyone erodes the trust these coding tools depend on.

"Coding agents already live on the wrong side of a scary boundary," Thereallo wrote. "Hiding the signal in the system prompt makes every other privacy claim harder to believe."

Anthropic has not issued a detailed public postmortem on the experiment. The company has emphasized that distillation attacks and account abuse pose risks to model safety standards and U.S. technological leadership, and that it continues to work with government and industry partners on mitigation strategies.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 17:20

Activists Push California To Recognize 'Black English' In Preschool Classrooms

Via American Greatness,

Progressive California education activists are urging the state to recognize “black English” in preschool classrooms, claiming the approach would strengthen literacy development and affirm the language spoken by many black children.

Black Californians United for Early Care & Education (BlackECE), a nonprofit advocacy organization, is promoting what it describes as an effort to challenge “harmful language hierarchies and affirm black English as a legitimate, rule-governed language rooted in black history, culture, and community.”

The group also seeks to “address how language bias shows up in early learning spaces–and how it can be dismantled.”

Ashley Williams, a co-founder of BlackECE, said the initiative is intended to ensure children feel their voices are respected regardless of how they speak.

“I don’t want my son to walk into any room and feel like his voice is not valued or his perspective can’t be heard because he’s not saying it one way or the other,” Williams told PBS.

Williams also reflected on her own experiences, saying speaking black English came with embarrassment because of its slang and grammatical differences.

She said she often felt pressure to “talk white” instead of speaking in the way that felt most natural to her.

BlackECE has developed a 10-point policy agenda focused on black children, families and educators, including proposals related to reparations and early childhood education.

The organization’s campaign follows California’s 2020 plan encouraging early dual-language learning and support for bilingual children. BlackECE argues that black English should also be recognized as part of those efforts.

“We talk about multilinguals, but we don’t include black children who may be African-American English speakers,” Xigrid Soto-Boykin, director of the Children’s Equity Project, said.

According to research cited from the National Library of Medicine, about 20 percent of American children and 44 percent of California children ages 5 to 17 are bilingual. The information also states that 89 percent of African Americans speak only English at home.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 17:00

Federal Appeals Court Rules Sex Offenders Have Constitutional Right To Live With Their Children

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A federal appeals court ruled July 6 that convicted sex offenders retain a fundamental constitutional right to live with their own children.

The new ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit arises out of an Alabama case but could help reshape strict sex offender residency laws in the other two states in the circuit—Florida and Georgia—and serve as persuasive authority elsewhere.

At the heart of the case is the constitutional doctrine of substantive due process, which protects certain fundamental rights that are not explicitly listed in the U.S. Constitution but deeply rooted in U.S. history and tradition, including the right of parents to live with and raise their children.

The court ruled 8–5 in favor of the plaintiff, Bruce Henry, in the case known as Henry v. Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County.

The majority opinion was authored by Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum.

In 2013, Henry pleaded guilty to “knowingly possess[ing] ... any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography.”

The opinion recounts that the federal district court sentenced him to 70 months in prison and 60 months of supervised release.

He served five years before being released in March 2018.

He finished a qualified Sex Offender Treatment Program, along with individual and group counseling, and continues to attend weekly meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous. In addition, he has a steady job, attends church, and volunteers.

He violated the terms of supervised release twice by viewing pornography. He reported the violations to his sexual offender treatment provider but did not inform his probation officer. The officer filed a petition to revoke his supervised release, but the district court declined, choosing instead to extend the duration of the supervised release period through March of this year, according to the opinion.

Since the last incident in December 2019, Henry has followed the terms of his release. In August 2021, he and his wife had a son, but because he was a sex offender, the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act barred him from living with the child.

The Act prohibits a sex offender from residing with or conducting overnight visits with any minor, but it contains a family exception that allows the offender to live with or stay overnight with their own children, grandchildren, step-children, siblings, or step-siblings.

That protection is removed for any adult convicted of a sex offense involving a child or any offense involving child sexual abuse material, legally referred to as child pornography.

“Alabama law affords no offramp to Henry or anyone else: the Act contains no mechanism for offenders to challenge its prohibitions on residing or staying overnight with their own children,” the opinion said.

After Henry’s son was born, he sued officials in Alabama under federal law to block enforcement of the Act’s prohibition against him living with his son. The district court agreed that the prohibition was unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled largely for Henry, finding that the Act’s prohibition against a parent living with his own child interfered with Henry’s “fundamental right to live with and raise [his] child,” and vacated the district court’s injunction.

The full 11th Circuit then reheard the case and ruled for Henry.

The Supreme Court has recognized that parents have a fundamental right to live with their children, and this right is “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests” that the 14th Amendment protects, the opinion said.

By contrast, Alabama argued that not all parents enjoy this right and that entire categories of parents enjoy “no fundamental rights at all because they committed state-defined ‘misconduct’ years before their children were even born.” The Supreme Court has recognized that even a parent convicted of possessing “child pornography” still retains a fundamental right to live with his son, the opinion said.

“That does not mean that Alabama can’t regulate or even abrogate that right. But to do so, Alabama must show that its legislation is narrowly tailored to further its compelling interest in the safety of children,” the appeals court said. Abrogation is the act of formally annulling a law or legal provision.

The appeals court returned the case to the district court for reconsideration.

Chief Circuit Judge William Pryor filed a dissenting opinion, criticizing the majority for undermining Alabama’s child-protection efforts.

“All agree that parents generally enjoy a fundamental right to ‘make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,’” Pryor said.

“But this appeal presents a different question: whether the Due Process Clause [in the 14th Amendment] grants child-sex convicts, not parents generally, a fundamental right to reside with their children. Of course not.”

Pryor said that using the majority’s reasoning, a father who raped his young child still enjoys the fundamental right to live with that child unless he has been judicially determined to be dangerous.

Pryor also said the doctrine of substantive due process creates a “treacherous field,” and the Supreme Court has directed courts to “exercise the utmost care whenever ... asked to break new ground,” to avoid usurping the authority that the Constitution entrusts to elected legislatures.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 16:20

The View's Sunny Hostin Says American Flags Make Her Feel 'Unsafe'

Authored by Eric Utter via AmericanThinker.com,

The View’s preternaturally ignorant and repulsive Sunny Hostin recently stated:

There are times when I walk into a community and I see American flags all over the community and I suddenly feel unsafe because there's a section of this country that has coopted the American flag and they equate being an American or an American flag with white supremacy and that should never be the symbol of white supremacy, but they have weaponized [it].

No, Sunny, you have equated the American flag with white supremacy, and you have weaponized it to fit your false narrative. 

You have attempted to demean it, cheapen it, demonize it … and everyone who fought and died for it. All for cheap praise from morons and Marxists.

I’m guessing Sunny would feel far less safe if she were surrounded by a plethora of North Korean flags, Iranian flags, Russian flags, or perhaps even Antifa flags. If not, she’s even dumber than she appears, which would be truly miraculous.

I feel a bit uneasy, a tad concerned, when I am amongst a bunch of Palestinian flags, as I was at my daughter’s college graduation. Nor do I feel comfortable when mobs of misfits are waving the LGBTQ flag or trans flag in my face. The Satanic Flag/Baphomet Church of Satan flag gives me the creeps. Any communist flag makes me sick to my stomach.

Conversely, when I am surrounded by Old Glory, I get a sense of place, belonging, and peace. I know that the folks flying them likely recognize and appreciate freedom, history, sacrifice, and the unalienable rights granted to us by our Creator. How could any flag make one feel better than that?

So, “Sunny,” how do you think the American flag made slaves feel during the Civil War? Guessing the Union banner gave them hope and courage. (Say, didn’t one or more of Sunny’s ancestors own and trade slaves?)

The American flag has given more hope to more people around the world than any other.

That is inarguable. It has made more people feel “safe” and protected than any other. Perhaps if Sunny had been in France when American and allied troops liberated it, she would have known this. Maybe if she had been in Ohrdruf, Dachau, or Buchenwald when American troops liberated those still alive in these Nazi concentration camps, she would feel a bit differently.

The stupefying ignorance of the chattering class is almost impossible to comprehend.

It is akin to trying to rationally process the size of the universe. Worse yet, this ignorance is now paired with sheer, unadulterated evil.

Those who hate America, capitalism, entrepreneurship, excellence, decency, the Judeo-Christian work ethic, Christianity, the Founders, limited government, the rule of law, and the concept of unalienable rights granted by our Creator -- among other aspects of a successfully functioning democratic republic — actually despise “democracy,” liberty, tolerance, inclusion, and empathy.

Conversely, they worship themselves, and their own hatred of success and competence. And their desire to destroy all that has come before them. In their unique and misplaced attempt to trash history and elevate themselves to deity status, they reveal themselves to be some of the most contemptible and pathetic folks ever to trod the Earth.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 15:40

Beijing Weighs Restricting Foreign Access To China's Top AI Models

Up until now, the politicization of AI models generally ran in one direction with US "frontier" LLM providers such as Anthropic and ChatGPT complaining consistently that Chinese open-sourced models were "distilling" (i.e. reverse-engineering) their products. And whether true or not, China has certainly been able to catch up dramatically to the US, with China's latest open-model, GLM 5.2, viewed as just barely behind the latest comparable US offerings, while the average gap between US and Chinese models has shrunk to almost nothing.

As complaints on both sides have become more vocal (amid occasional bans of the latest Anthropic model by the White House admin), last week we reported that for the first time, China's tech giant Alibaba banned employees from using Anthropic's Claude ‌Code at work after the tool drew scrutiny for features that can help identify China-linked users, Reuters reported.

Fast forward to today when the Reuters reported that in the latest escalation, Beijing is preparing to fully flip the script on the US tech sector as Chinese authorities have held meetings with top tech firms over the past month about potentially restricting overseas access to China's most advanced AI models, including those yet to be released. 

The talks follow a number of steps by Beijing to keep homegrown ‌AI within the country and underscore how China, like the US, is now treating cutting-edge artificial intelligence as a critical national asset that needs controls. Companies present at the talks included ‌tech giants Alibaba and ByteDance as well as startup Z.ai, creator of the GLM-5.2 mode, said Reuters' sources. 

Since the emergence of DeepSeek's R1 model last year, Chinese AI models have made massive ​inroads globally thanks to their low costs and increasing capabilities. Any decision by Beijing to limit access to those products could ripple across AI markets as costs for many businesses would likely increase. It would be a boon to AI supplier stocks  which have plunged in recent days as a result of fears that US users of LLMs may gravitate to much cheaper, if just as capable, Chinese alternatives leading to huge revenue declines at US frontier companies. 

At the meetings, led by China's Ministry of Commerce, participants discussed putting limits on the most advanced AI models, both closed-source and more open versions, according to two of the sources.

Officials talked about making any leak or theft of proprietary AI technology an offense under China's stringent national security law. The officials also raised the possibility of implementing new measures to restrict who ‌can fund domestic AI startups, the source added.

The scope of the ⁠potential restrictions is still being discussed, two sources said, adding that they may only apply to future models. It was not immediately clear when or even if they would come into force.

All three leading Chinese AI companies - Alibaba, ByteDance and Z.ai - have a range of AI models, some closed-source while others are open-weight, meaning users can download, run and customise the underlying systems. Alibaba's Qwen and ByteDance's Doubao are two of the most widely used AI models in China. Z.ai has recently set Silicon Valley abuzz as the capabilities of its ​GLM-5.2 ​model come close to leading U.S. offerings but at a fraction of the cost. 

Trump's administration has also been deeply concerned about national security ‌implications of AI, in particular the potential for American AI products to be misused by military intelligence in China, Russia and other countries of concern. In June, it ordered that foreign nationals not have access to Anthropic's most advanced Fable and Mythos models, which prompted the company to disable the models for all users globally as nationality could not be verified in real time.

Export controls for Fable, which is designed for the general public, have since been lifted after new safeguards were put in place. But Mythos, designed for cybersecurity professionals, is still only available to some "trusted" U.S. organizations.

Some US AI experts have also said the US needs to regulate the use of Chinese AI models. According to two of the sources, Chinese authorities are deeply worried about the ‌potential for Mythos to exploit software vulnerabilities and that Washington might deploy the model against Chinese interests.

That echoes ​concerns publicly voiced by state media and Zhou Hongyi, founder of cybersecurity firm 360, a major vendor to government ​and enterprise clients, who has said China needs to develop its own Mythos.

Amid the rising techno-nationalism, China has implemented numerous measures to protect homegrown AI this year. In April, the country's state planner ordered Meta to unwind its $2 billion acquisition of Chinese-founded AI startup Manus. In ‌early June, authorities issued sweeping new rules, tightening control of overseas deals ​that involve Chinese investors, technology, data and national security.

China ​had also launched investigations this year into Manus and other local AI startups that had moved abroad, seeking to establish whether they have broken export control laws, according to two of the sources and a third person.

In its report, Reuters says that it was not able to learn how any potential new restrictions on overseas access to Chinese ​AI models might work. But some hints might be gleaned from a May ‌roundtable of Chinese legal experts on regulations governing open-source AI.

According to a summary of the discussions published in an official Supreme People's Court journal, participants proposed a ​tiered system: basic open-source tools subject to a simple filing, more advanced technologies facing security reviews, and the most sensitive frontier models barred from public release or restricted ​to domestic use. 

If indeed China is about to start its own AI "firewall", the question is what happens then? Recall, in blowback to the short-lived tokenmaxxing idiocy, a growing number of American enterprises are quietly gravitating toward cheaper Chinese models.

But if China itself limits access to US clients, does this mean that the balance of power shifts back to US LLMs which will then become the only available AI vendors to US corporations. If so, is Beijing making a big mistake depriving its nascent AI ecosystem of US client revenues, and instead allowing US models - which recently found themselves on the defensive in response to much cheaper Chinese alternative - to take an even bigger lead for round 2? 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 15:20

Key Dems Pull Out After Platner Campaign Rocked By Sexual Assault Allegations

Update: That didn't take long... key democrats including Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Rep. Ro Khanna have pulled their endorsements of Platner following the allegations, according to Fox News' Bill Melugin. 

BREAKING: Sen. Gallego (D-AZ) withdraws his Platner endorsement shortly after Rep. Khanna (D-CA) does the same.

The dam is breaking. https://t.co/4T5JEmc5kx

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 6, 2026

"These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement," Khanna wrote on X. 

I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) July 6, 2026

Looks like he's done?

//--> //--> Will Graham Platner drop out by July 31?
Yes 90% · No 10%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

* * * Extremely high quality (BMS 7+) Wagyu. The fat just melts like butter... 

Graham Platner's Senate campaign was thrown into turmoil Monday after a woman publicly accused him of sexual assault in a detailed report published by Politico.

Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine woman, told reporters Jessica Piper and Adam Wren that Platner sexually assaulted her in late 2021, near the end of an on-and-off consensual relationship that began after the two matched on Bumble in 2019. Before publishing the allegations, Politico interviewed Racicot three times over two weeks, spoke with a man she dated after Platner, and reviewed therapist emails and years-old Facebook messages.

Racicot said she texted Platner that night, telling him not to come over. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. Platner had let himself into her unlocked rural home, and by her account, he smelled of alcohol and hovered near blackout drunk. She said he climbed on top of her on the couch and kept grabbing her as she told him to stop, knocking over an antique sewing kit and scattering needles without pausing. When she tried to leave the room, he followed her into the bedroom and had sex with her against her will.

"I remember him grabbing my pelvis and being really forceful of me," she said. "I remember the specific moment where I thought to myself, like, 'This is no longer my choice.'"

He fell asleep in her bed. She said she considered forcing him out but feared a blackout-drunk driver on rural Maine roads might kill someone. The next morning, when he tried to put his arm around her, she pushed him away and asked if he remembered the night before. He said he did not. She told him to leave and never contact her again.

Racicot waited several weeks, making sure she was sure she was not pregnant from the assault, before sending Platner an Instagram message stating the encounter was not consensual. That message no longer exists because Racicot deleted her old texts and social media exchanges with him and could not recover them for Politico. Nor did she file a police report, citing shock, confusion, and fear of retaliation. Her therapist heard the account at the time, and emails Racicot shared with the paper show that she sought help to corroborate it. A man Racicot began dating in 2022 also said she described the incident in pieces before sharing the full account in 2023, and his version matched hers.

Politico also reviewed Facebook messages from 2023 in which Racicot warned an acquaintance against getting involved with Platner, telling her that he does not listen when he is drunk. A friend she confided in last summer recalled her describing him as very drunk and unwilling to accept no as an answer.

Platner's campaign called the allegations a coordinated hit by outside political operatives and noted the story landed about a week before Maine's ballot deadline, echoing the timing of allegations that surfaced before the primary. The problem is that Racicot's politics align with Platner's, and her hesitation to come forward stemmed from a conflict between supporting his platform and disapproving of him as a person; she wanted voters to have a full picture of who he is.

The New York Times contacted her in spring 2026, and she shared the assault claim off the record; the resulting article described his behavior in general terms while coverage centered on accuser Lyndsey Fifield, whose Republican ties gave Platner's allies an angle to deflect the accusations, which ultimately did not impact his campaign. His candidacy had already survived offensive online comments and earlier claims he mistreated women, which he denied while attributing past behavior to mental health struggles and alcohol abuse. Prior to the New York Times story, Platner had assured Senate Democrats that no more scandals would come out about him.

June 10 pic.twitter.com/oXp7ztcHRA

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 6, 2026

Despite the damning allegations in the New York Times story, Platner raised more than $200,000 after the story came out, his best fundraising day since Gov. Janet Mills exited the race. After seeing Fifield's account get minimized because of her politics, Racicot was convinced she had to come forward.

In a video statement posted on social media, Platner denied the allegations but said he was taking time off to reflect on the path forward.

"I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me," Platner said. "Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false." He thanked supporters for building "the largest volunteer base in the history of Maine politics" before arriving at the sentence that counts. "So regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality it will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins," he said. He closed with a vow that "you never turned your back on me, and I will not turn my back on you now," and the sign-off, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

pic.twitter.com/9itIt4Mw25

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026

Maine law gives Democrats until July 14 for Platner to drop out of the race and still legally replace him with another candidate.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 14:05

"I-Beams Bending Like Cigarettes": Former Pfizer HQ Tower In Midtown At Risk Of Collapse

Dramatic video from inside the former Pfizer headquarters tower in Midtown Manhattan shows large I-beams buckling, and officials are warning of a possible collapse.

The 33-story high-rise at 235 East 42nd Street is undergoing a major office-to-residential conversion, one of the largest projects of its kind in the New York City metro area.

WATCH: New York City's biggest office-to-residential conversion just hit an unexpected obstacle.
Buckling columns and falling bricks forced an evacuation at the former Pfizer headquarters. pic.twitter.com/anXDOmBSfw

— The Real Deal (@trdny) July 7, 2026

Local media outlet Pix 11 cited the FDNY, which said floors 21 through 26 have caved in, and major cracks and sagging floors were seen throughout the tower.

Video shows two columns buckled inside a Midtown building under construction. Dozens were evacuated and multiple streets were closed at the height of rush hour. See the full story : https://t.co/lgH632z6TN pic.twitter.com/7eYIZtJNPI

— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) July 7, 2026

A union member working on the site told local media that workers allegedly failed to add sufficient steel support columns to handle the additional load from a new structure being built atop the original building.

"What happened here is that this building was renovated. They were going to add another 16 stories to it. But at that point you need to add more steel. And obviously they did not add the right amount of steel - so the north side of the building is crumbling. The I-beams are bending like cigarettes," the union member said

NOW: "The North Side of that Building is CRUMBLING" -
Construction Worker speaks about the former Pfizer HQ building, which is in danger of COLLAPSE in Manhattan.

Licensing @FreedomNTV desk@freedomnews.tv pic.twitter.com/FNvDJpF5A1

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) July 7, 2026

The New York Times reported that the building is being converted by Metro Loft into a residential tower with more than 1,600 apartments. Architects have described it as the largest project of its kind in NYC history, and it is scheduled to be completed in 2027.

The former Pfizer tower is part of a larger push to convert underused Midtown office space into residential units as NYC seeks to ease its housing shortage.

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 13:40

Stellar 3Y Auction Stops Through Even As Yields Hit 1 Month High

With yields blowing out today as they followed the sharp increase in oil prices after Iran struck no less than 3 ships crossing the Hormuz Strait (with a Trump response sure to follow), we doubt there was much focus on today's 3Y auction. Which is unfortunate because despite the selloff in the secondary market, the auction itself was quite solid. 

The sale of $58BN in 3 Year paper, the week's first coupon auction, priced at a high yield of 4.179%, down modestly from 4.192% in June which was the highest since Feb 2025. It also stopped through the When Issued 4.185% by 0.6bps, and followed two tailing auctions.

The bid to cover was 2.600, down from 2.645 and below the recent average of 2.645 although as shown in the chart below, the BTC for the tenor appears to have flatlined between 2.5 and 2.7 over the past 6 years. 

The internals were stronger, with Indirects awarded 67.5% of the auction, up from 63.71% last month and the highest since April (also well above the recent average of 62.5%). And with Directs taking 7.7%, down notably from 15.3% a month ago, Dealers were left with 24.75% of the auction, the highest since February. 

Overall, this was a very strong 3Y auction which curiously comes in a very ugly day for the bond complex, which seemingly oblivious of the strong primary demand, has pushed 10Y yields to a session high of 4.523%, the highest since June 10, and rising fast. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 07/07/2026 - 13:23