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The gas corporation was to develop infrastructure to capture carbon dioxide from an oilfield power plant in Kern County and permanently trap it deep underground.

A resurfaced video of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed spoofing "Blue's Clues," which the Michigan Senate Democratic hopeful cut back in June, took the internet by storm, with many questioning how it could even be real.

He previously underwent the operation in 2019.

Earth Wind & Fire drummer John Paris uttered just a few heartbreaking words to his wife before doctors placed the critically ill man back into a coma, according to a new update from his supporters.

The actress was placed on life support after suffering an asthma attack last Friday.

The actress was placed on life support after suffering an asthma attack that left her with brain damage last Friday.

The University Of Michigan Is Now Hiding Grades From Fragile Freshmen

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanTinker.com,

In 2017, Macalester College, a pricey Midwestern college, ran an article in its glossy “Macalester Today” magazine titled “The Dog Is In.” Indeed, that was the cover story. In the article, Macalester boasted about having multiple therapy dogs roaming the campus to help students deal with homework stress—students who, as best as I could tell, had about 12 hours a week of class time, plus homework.

I was not impressed.

Little did I know, though, that worse was to come.

Nine years after Macalester boasted about its students being so fragile that they needed therapy dogs, the University of Michigan  has announced that it is hiding first-semester grades from freshmen, lest those same freshmen might be distressed if their grades didn’t meet their expectations:

The University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) will stop reporting traditional letter grades on first-semester transcripts for incoming freshmen beginning in Fall 2027, replacing them with “pass” or “no credit” designations as part of a pilot program aimed at reducing student stress and curbing a “mental health crisis”.

Students will still earn letter grades and receive instructor feedback in every course. However, those grades will remain internal, will not appear on official transcripts, and will not affect first-semester GPAs.

University officials say the policy is intended to help freshmen transition to college, support student well-being, and encourage students to take academically challenging courses without worrying that one difficult semester could permanently affect their records.

This is bat-fecal-matter crazy.

If the students aren’t given specific information about their academic progress, they cannot fix their mistakes and change their trajectory.

I had a couple of times in college and law school where I was either lazy or confused, resulting in bad grades. Maybe I was made of stronger stuff than the new freshmen, or maybe, just maybe, I lived in a time when we were less infantilized, but those bad grades didn’t cause me to have a mental collapse. Instead, I fixed the problem, either by being less lazy or by haunting my professors until I understood what I was doing wrong. Failure (well, not an actual “F” but, still, bad grades) was as important a lesson as anything the professor was actually teaching.

It would be lovely if life were just about going from success to success and pleasure to pleasure.

However, most of life is about dealing with harsh reality: The need to get good grades, a job, pay bills, deal with unpleasant people (including bosses or teachers), etc. Life is work.

Our ability to get the most out of life—to grow as a person and to be happy—comes not from gliding through the good times, but from learning when there are bad times: learning to change harmful behaviors, and learning to use reasonable optimism, not unreasoning, immature despair, as the engine powering you.

And one other thing: The grading system across academia has a profound flaw, and the way to fix it isn’t to hide information from students.

Grades should be weighted, with the grades at the beginning of the year, semester, or quarter having less value in the averaging than grades later in the quarter.

What matters isn’t where you start; it’s where you end.

If you struggle in the beginning but, through hard work, get better as you go, those early grades shouldn’t matter at all, or should matter minimally. In the same way, if you start slacking off after a fast start, that should be punished.

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/13/2026 - 14:40

A Navy veteran, diver and surfer reached a legal settlement with Newport Beach that secures him the right to teach paid surf lessons on city beaches.

Bio parents Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed have custody of the baby born to Texas surrogate McKenna West, who refused their abortion request.

Araghchi Mocks 'Fake Intelligence' Amid Skepticism Over Iranian Plot Against Trump In Turkey

US mainstream media has this week been dominated by claims that an Iranian assassination threat prompted President Donald Trump to secretly switch planes while flying out of Turkey last month, with Air Force One serving as a decoy while he flew out on a smaller military aircraft.

The details of the 'escape' from alleged danger are wild, and continue to be subject of widespread scrutiny and questioning, given the American president was actually covertly transferred into a catering container, which then ferried him to a small C-32A aircraft, according to reports in The Washington Post and The New York Times.

BBC: Donald Trump secretly switched planes when he was returning from a Nato meeting last month in order to avoid a threat to his life from Iran.

The claim was that Iranian covert forces could target Air Force One at the airport in Ankara using shoulder-fired rockets, or MANPADS, from perhaps just one kilometer away

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday while speaking of the broader war and the status of the Hormuz Strait appeared to gently mock the ordeal and controversy surrounding it. He referenced "fake intelligence" in the broad comments.

Importantly the words come as some like Turkey are accusing Israel of feeding Washington 'fabricated' intelligence, which then led to the dramatic Trump plane-switching escapade.

FM Araghchi asserted that the United States has "has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures," especially when launching its war on Iran.

But that's when he could be interpreted as mocking the Air Force One drama, continuing on X: "Worse than fake news is fake intelligence."

Some analysts have questioned why at this point in the conflict, when Iranian government and armed forces have clearly survived nearly six months of everything the US military has thrown at it, Iran would even see the need to assassinate a head of state.

Such an action would only invite a much greater military response than has been seen before, and the Islamic Republic seeks to keep its current leverage over Hormuz, wanting to keep things at a low-burn headed into US midterm elections.

The Washington Post’s @DanLamothe, who broke the news of Trump’s secret plane switch via a catering truck, joins OutFront to share new reporting that the CIA had “low confidence” in Israeli intel that Trump was facing a threat from Iran: “Given the seriousness of the issue… they… pic.twitter.com/CPROjMMFhG

— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 13, 2026

In the meantime there are fresh reports that the US intelligence community itself is skeptical of the assassination plot claims:

US intelligence officials were skeptical of an alleged Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump during his trip to Turkiye for the NATO summit, which prompted a secretive plan to fly him out of the country in an alternative military aircraft.

The assassination threat was relayed by the Israeli government to the CIA, where analysts did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials, Washington Post reported, quoting current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence said.

Another official called the reports of threats against Trump’s life “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” Washington Post added.

However, the Secret Service is trained to take basically every threat seriously and move fast, especially while the president is traveling through foreign countries, or in potentially hostile environments. 

More and more skepticism has emerged of late across the political spectrum related to official Washington claims related to the Iran conflict...

The story of Trump secretly switching airplanes is actually a great example of how we got into the war with Iran…

“Israeli-derived, not U.S.-generated, and viewed as low confidence” by our own intelligence agencies. pic.twitter.com/zWKkWxYBat

— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) August 13, 2026

"As the President has said, he has faced numerous threats on his life, including ones from Iran, and every measure is taken to ensure his safety," a US official said in a statement.

"The United States Secret Service’s core mission is protecting the President, which they achieved," the statement added.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, expect some of Iran's Lego videos to drop next...

Washington Post: Trump underwent an elaborate plan to hide his flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom last month using a catering food truck amid Iran threat. pic.twitter.com/ySqAT6No94

— IRI Embassy in Armenia (@iraninyerevan) August 11, 2026 Tyler Durden Thu, 08/13/2026 - 14:20

Forget the home theater. Forget the bowling alley. The new flex among Long Island’s wealthiest buyers is a dozen fresh eggs and a glass of wine you grew yourself. Across the East End, from the vineyards of the North Fork to the wellness compounds of the Hamptons, real estate agents describe a buyer pool that...

The one-time wedding DJ revealed that he figured out a creative way to get amped up about country music, his wife's genre of choice that typically isn't his "thing."

A woman is dead and a man is in critical condition after a shooting on Staten Island that police are investigating as an attempted murder-suicide, sources tell The Post.

The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians has sued the US Department of Interior after the feds dealt the tribe a stunning blow last month.

The latex lawsuit alleges seven counts of negligence and violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act.

The former Olympic skier suffered a collapsed lung after a failed front flip dive into the water while on a trip in France.

Just 11,018 BSA reports were filed in 2025 -- a 62% decline from the previous year.

Cyberattack Cripples California City's 911 System, Forces Emergency Shutdown

Via American Greatness,

A Northern California city of roughly 30,000 residents was forced to shut down its entire computer network Friday after a cyberattack knocked out its 911 system, the latest sign of how vulnerable American municipalities remain to digital assaults.

Suisun City, located about 45 miles from San Francisco, declared a state of emergency Saturday after malicious software infiltrated its network shortly before 6 p.m. Friday, the California Post reported.

“Officials shut down the entire network to stop the threat from spreading and protect evidence for a federal investigation,” the outlet reported.

City officials scrambled to prevent the outage from endangering residents, rerouting 911 calls through the Solano County dispatch center. Police and fire personnel remained active and able to respond to calls for service despite the loss of the city’s own systems.

The breach reached well beyond emergency dispatch.

City services including building permits and other municipal records were rendered inaccessible, and residents were unable to pay bills online while the network remained offline.

The Suisun City Council voted unanimously to pull the plug on the network and declare a state of emergency during a special meeting Saturday morning, an extraordinary step that underscores the severity of the threat local officials believed they were facing.

The incident lands amid heightened concern over foreign cyber threats to American infrastructure since the outbreak of the Iran war.

U.S. authorities issued an “urgent warning” in April that hackers linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were actively working to disrupt critical American computer networks, a threat national security officials have long cautioned could extend to local governments with limited cybersecurity resources.

It remains unclear whether the Suisun City attack is connected to Iran-backed hacking operations.

Investigators are still working to determine how the malicious software breached the network and who is responsible, according to news reports.

City officials have not said when full network functionality is expected to be restored.

Tyler Durden Thu, 08/13/2026 - 14:00

The stabbing suspect arrested for allegedly butchering an elderly man to death outside his Bay Area home a day after being released from jail has been identified as an illegal migrant from Venezuela.

An alligator attack victim's dying wish is being honored, her heartbroken boyfriend revealed in a heartwarming update.