Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,
The viral video of a woman stealing a trash can and dumping its contents after the Knicks' victory has led to her termination. Angie Baez, 40, was the "Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce" for JPMorgan Chase.
She was shown in a video dumping trash on the ground to steal a Knicks-colored trash can after the NBA Finals. JPMorgan apparently concluded that this was neither the publicity nor the type of Community Engagement they are seeking.
The videotape of the incident shocked many by Baez's cavalier attitude, not just in stealing the trash can but in dumping out the garbage.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by New York Post Sports (@nypostsports)
The New York Post later reported that the woman had been identified as Angie Baez. She previously served as "Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" at The Infatuation, a website that reviews restaurants and neighborhood activities.
Once she was identified, JPMorgan Chase issued a statement, "This employee is no longer with the company."
We have often discussed the difficult questions surrounding the termination of employees for speech in their private lives that is considered harmful to an employer. Whether it is conduct or speech, private companies often reserve the right to terminate any employee who brings negative attention to the company, even when they do not reference or display an association with the company. In today's web-savvy world, it does not take long for motivated individuals to learn the identity and associations of public figures.
We have seen companies fire employees for drunken displays and abusing others in viral videotapes. There is little recourse in such cases, particularly for at-will employees.
In the case of Baez, she falls into the same category as Adam Smith (not the economist), who made a fool out of himself at a Chick-fil-A.
Ultimately, Baez was not even allowed to keep the trash can. She was also given a $75 fine for littering and a $100 fine for impeding Department of Sanitation operations. That proved to be an expensive memento for the Knicks victory.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 14:40As expected, President Trump took the opportunity to chastise NATO for its lack of participation in the Iran war while hosting the alliance's Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House.
"We didn’t need help on this at all. We demolished them in literally the first week," Trump said of Iran before reporters, while seated across from Rutte. That's when the president said, "But it would have been nice if they would have said, ‘We’d like to help.’ We didn’t even need it, but it would have been nice if they said that."
via Associated PressThroughout the conflict Trump has openly mused about pulling the United States out of the military alliance - or also at least withholding significant defense funding, and suggested in the Wednesday meeting that he'd be discussing the issue with Rutte behind closed doors.
"We’re going to be discussing what took place, and we’ll see what happens," he said.
Despite general negativity heaped on NATO's lax response to the Hormuz crisis and Iran campaign, Trump still offered a little praise of Rutte - who has long been generally supportive of the Trump White House.
Rutte in turn hailed Trump as "the leader of the free world" and stressed "I really want to make clear how important it is what you are doing on Iran."
"This is, first of all, about the nuclear capability Iran was basically getting its hands on - and it would have been a threat to the region. It would’ve been a threat to the whole world. This is a country that is exporting chaos, is exporting terrorism," Rutte described, without providing evidence of these series of claims.
Rutte tried a bit of flattery, which didn't exactly calm Trump's verbal attacks on NATO:
"I know there have been isolated cases about which you are really disappointed, but generally speaking your European allies have been there," Rutte said.
Trump appeared unconvinced, at times interrupting Rutte to disagree with him, though he praised his leadership.
"You really have done a good job, and I think if anybody else were in that position, we wouldn't even be meeting today, to be honest with you, because we were let down," Trump said.
Trump looks like he's barely able to stay awake while Rutte tries to butter him up pic.twitter.com/pjEOjBgvWr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2026Trump wasn't willing to let Rutte dodge:
“I know there have been debates about whether your allies in Europe were with you enough. I just want to say one thing,” Rutte said.
“They weren’t,” Trump interjected with a two-word comeback.
“Let me say one thing,” Rutte pleaded. “I know you think that [and] your irritation about that, but when you look at the numbers, 4,000- 5,000 US planes [took] off from bases in Europe in the six weeks this war took place.”
With props in hand, Rutte unveiled what he's calling the "Trump trillion"...
WATCH: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte unveils what he calls the "Trump trillion" as he credits President Trump with helping push European allies to boost defense spending.
Rutte said Europe and Canada have added roughly $1.2 trillion in defense spending since Trump first… pic.twitter.com/IpS5RhNgEs
In a couple weeks, July 7, is when the big annual NATO summit is slated to begin in Ankara, Turkey. The timing of Turkey hosting the gathering is interesting, given the country has been opposed to the US attacks on Iran, and has become a top regional enemy of Israel, with the two sides having issued heated and threated rhetoric for months.
Turkey is another US ally which is not going to lift a finger to assist the US in the Gulf area, but in terms of the pending peace deal with Tehran, and the prior signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), there is broad support.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 14:20By Brian Martucci of UtilityDive
The United States added 3.3 GW/8.4 GWh of energy storage in the first quarter of 2026, according to the latest figures from Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power Association. All three segments — utility-scale, residential and commercial/community/industrial — notched records for the seasonally slow first quarter.
The London-based energy consultancy and U.S. clean energy trade association see cumulative installed U.S. energy storage capacity reaching 200 GW/655 GWh by 2031, a four-fold increase from today. The forecast is consistent with a separate outlook from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that sees U.S. energy storage capacity doubling by the end of 2027.
The quarterly update to Wood Mackenzie/ACP’s U.S. Energy Storage Monitor expects favorable tax policy and large-load demand for colocated and behind-the-meter storage to lift installation volumes over the next several years, as U.S. battery manufacturing capacity grows.
Both Wood Mackenzie/ACP’s Q1 2026 U.S. Energy Storage Monitor and the EIA’s June 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook hint at strong near- and medium-term fundamentals for the U.S. battery energy storage industry.
The EIA expects U.S. electricity consumption to rise by 76 billion kWh in 2026 and 126 billion kWh in 2027, driven largely by increased sales to commercial, industrial and transportation users.
A battery energy storage facility. The United States added 3.3 GW/8.4 GWh of energy storage in the first quarter of 2026, according to a June report from Wood Mackenzie and the American Clean Power AssociationIn 2026, above-average summer temperatures across much of the U.S. will boost electricity demand to the benefit of renewables, which the EIA expects to “almost entirely” meet the increase in demand. Solar generation could rise 19% and wind generation 10% this year, the EIA said.
Solar and battery deployments, often paired at the same site, continue to dominate new generation deployments in the U.S. Solar and storage accounted for 91% of nameplate generating capacity added in the first quarter of 2026, and nearly 50% of new residential solar systems were paired with batteries during the same period, according to a June 10 report from the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association.
One key factor behind the U.S. battery boom is the preservation of the federal investment tax credit for qualifying energy storage systems, Wood Mackenzie and ACP said. The Inflation Reduction Act first authorized those credits, which can offset 30% or more of deployment costs, in 2022. Last year, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserved the energy storage ITC even as it accelerated the expiration of corresponding investment and production tax credits for wind and solar systems.
WoodMac/ACP expect utility-scale storage to claim 85% of capacity additions through 2031 as large-load customers ink colocation and capacity contracts with energy storage providers.
The commercial/community/industrial segment will grow 26% through 2031 amid strong behind-the-meter demand in California and at least 215 MW of community-scale storage projects in the works nationally, WoodMac and ACP said. And after a shallow contraction in 2026 following a rush of installations ahead of the expiration of the Section 25D tax credit at the end of last year, the residential storage segment will expand at a 12% average annual pace over the next four years, the organizations said.
Spurred by tax-code changes that benefit energy storage systems with more U.S.-sourced content, domestic battery manufacturing is ramping up to meet expected demand.
The Energy Storage Coalition, an industry group, said in March that U.S. factories now have enough capacity to supply 100% of domestic demand. Some of that capacity is coming from manufacturers that previously planned to make electric vehicle batteries in the United States. Ford and General Motors, for example, both announced significant energy storage investments this year.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 14:00