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The missile was launched at 12:01 p.m. and carried a dummy warhead, according the official Xinhua News Agency.

LEGO Faces Backlash Over Pride-Themed Content Aimed At Kids

Via American Greatness,

The Denmark-based toy company LEGO is facing criticism after promoting Pride-themed content on social media and its website. Parents accused the company of introducing LGBT themes to a brand primarily marketed to children.

Although LEGO produces some building sets for adults, the company markets most of its products to children. Many young consumers follow the brand on social media.

In a recent Instagram post, LEGO celebrated Pride Month with the caption, “Pride moments built, brick by brick. Swipe to see more of our LEGO colleagues’ stories.”

LEGO goes all out for lgbtq pride

This is a toy brand for children!!

They just posted this video promoting gay marriage and marching in Pride parades.

THIS is what they’re pushing on kids.

Absolutely disgusting! @LEGO_Group

Parents, BEWARE! pic.twitter.com/TzqIN7V7eM

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 1, 2026

The accompanying slideshow featured LEGO minifigures recounting coming-out experiences, including one character attending a Pride parade and another depicting a male character proposing to his boyfriend.

Parents and social media users criticized the post, with several calling for a boycott of the company.

“LEGO is now openly pushing Pride parades, gay marriage, and rainbow ideology straight at children,” one commenter wrote on X.

“This isn’t ‘inclusion.’ It’s sexualizing childhood and grooming the next generation with adult themes.”

LEGO is now openly pushing Pride parades, gay marriage, and rainbow ideology straight at children.

This isn’t “inclusion.” It’s sexualizing childhood and grooming the next generation with adult themes.

Parents are waking up. Boycott time. Companies that target kids with this…

— ThePolarBear (@UnluckyIrishman) July 2, 2026

The commenter added, “Parents are waking up. Boycott time. Companies that target kids with this stuff deserve to lose customers… keep this garbage away from our children.”

In 2021, LEGO released a set titled “Everyone Is Awesome,” featuring 11 faceless minifigures displayed in the colors of the Progress Pride flag. The company labeled the set for ages 18 and older.

According to the information provided, the set’s designer, Matthew Ashton, said it was created with children in mind and reflected his own experience of coming out as a teenager.

“Children are our role models and they welcome everyone, no matter their background. Something we should all be aspiring to,” Ashton said.

“If I had been given this set by somebody at that point in my life, it would have been such a relief to know that somebody had my back. To know that I had somebody there to say ‘I love you, I believe in you. I’ll always be here for you.’ So, in a way, this set is not just for the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s for all of the allies — parents, siblings, friends, schoolmates, colleagues, etc. — out there as well.”

The company also promoted a Pride Month activity on its official website on June 1.

“It’s time to paint the town red, orange, yellow, green… basically a whole rainbow of color! That’s right, it’s Pride Month, and we’re celebrating the best way we know how: with LEGO® bricks!” the activity description states.

The page encouraged participants to create Pride-themed LEGO builds, stating, “This year, we want you to celebrate what makes you—and everyone you love—quite frankly, AWESOME.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 03:30

Dear Abby advises a husband who is unsatisfied with his marriage's sex life and a former next-door neighbor who wants to show their appreciation.

Soaring Imports Push India's Crude Stocks To Near 1-Year High

India’s strategic and commercial crude oil inventories have jumped to a nearly one-year high as the world’s third-largest crude oil buyer boosted its imports to a record high in June, OilPrice reported.

As at the end of June, India’s crude oil stocks held in strategic, commercial, and refinery storage had increased to 104 million barrels, up from 90.5 million barrels at the end of April, according to data from commodity intelligence provider Kpler cited by Indian outlet Economic Times. Before the Iran war began, India held 107 million in crude oil inventories as of the end of February—the highest end-month level for the previous 12 months.

The war depleted inventories in March and April, before Indian refiners started raising imports from Russia and turn to Venezuela—both sources of supply that doesn’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

By June, stocks were recovering and nearing the level from before the Iran war.

India imported a record high level of 5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in June, more than half of which - 2.6 million bpd - from Russia, thanks to the U.S. waiver (now expired) on sales of Russian oil already loaded on tankers.

Yet, India wants to lower its crude import bill, protect public finances, and become more resilient to supply shocks such as the Middle East conflict that crippled supply from the Strait of Hormuz. That’s why it is looking to boost energy security by diversifying import sources and expanding its strategic storage.

Currently, India’s underground Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage has a total capacity of 5.33 million metric tons of crude oil, equal to only 39 million barrels of crude oil, or eight days’ worth of India’s oil consumption.

India’s storage of just about a week of its roughly 5 million bpd of consumption, is well below the SPRs of many other large oil consumers, which exposes New Delhi’s vulnerability to sudden supply shocks.

Separately, in response to media reports that India is flipping Russian oil imports by exporting its products back to Russia, India’s Oil Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, said that the country's refiners are not directly exporting any refined petroleum products to fuel-starved Russia, although some supplies from traders are likely reaching Russia.

Reports emerged earlier this week that Russia had started importing fuel from India by sea in a bid to ease the fuel shortages triggered by Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries. In an exclusive Reuters report, industry sources revealed that an initial shipment of at least 60,000 metric tons (510,000 barrels) of gasoline has been dispatched from India via two tankers destined for Russian ports.

Hours after the report surfaced, India’s oil minister insisted that Indian refiners aren’t directly selling fuel to Russia.

“Indian companies are not selling fuels to Russia,” Puri said at a media briefing, but acknowledged that it is “possible that Indian-origin refined fuel is sold to Russia via traders.”

Gasoline from Indian refiner Nayara Energy, in which Russia’s top oil firm Rosneft holds a 49% stake, has been sold to Russia via traders, sources with direct knowledge of the deals told Reuters on Thursday. So it is likely that India-produced fuels are now reaching Russia via traders, as Moscow scrambles to alleviate a major fuel supply crisis.

Ukraine’s intensified drone strikes in recent months have now knocked offline an estimated 30% of Russia’s oil refining capacity. During peak summer demand, Russian refining throughput has sunk to a two-decade low.

In a rare public admission at the end of June, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia faces fuel shortages and a fuel crisis that needs further government intervention to solve.

The fuel shortages that emerged in some regions in May have now reached the capital city Moscow, too, after Ukrainian strikes last month hit and sent Moscow’s Kapotnya refinery offline. The refinery is unlikely to resume fuel production before 2027 after suffering extensive structural damage from multiple strikes by Ukraine’s long-range drones, industry sources told Reuters last month.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 02:45

Four people were shot in east Los Angeles near to where swarms of fans packed the streets for the England v. Mexico World Cup clash. 

The worst of the heavy rain and flash flooding is expected to slam Monday's morning commute between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m.

More Defense Spending, More Climate Redistribution: The EU Spins A $2.2 Trillion Wealth Transfer Machine

Submitted By Thomas Kolbe

Negotiations over the European Commission's next seven-year budget are entering their decisive phase. Should Ursula von der Leyen and her allies succeed with their plans, Germany will once again shoulder a substantial financial burden. By now, however, Germans have become accustomed to that reality.

Across the world, public debt levels are approaching dangerous flood marks. The global economy is effectively drowning in debt, with total public liabilities now exceeding 95% of global GDP. It is therefore only a matter of time before bond markets bring the debt party to an end, pushing interest rates—and with them debt-servicing costs—to levels governments can no longer afford. Such a reckoning would merely represent the logical consequence of political irresponsibility, contempt for taxpayers, and the megalomania of a political culture that continues expanding government on an ever-growing mountain of debt.

A four-decade bull market in sovereign bonds, characterized by steadily declining yields, came to an end roughly four years ago. Since then, interest rates have been rising as investors gradually lose confidence in both the political direction of Western governments and the relentless expansion of the administrative state. A turning point is approaching. Fiscal austerity is standing at the gates of an era defined by political extravagance.

For politicians like Ursula von der Leyen, however, austerity would amount to admitting that decades of debt-financed government expansion have led into a dead end. Few things are more alien to modern political elites than acknowledging failure. This is particularly true within Brussels, where the bureaucratic establishment and the ideological foundations of the European project remain firmly convinced that they are building a supranational European state on the right side of history.

Unsurprisingly, austerity is nowhere to be found in Brussels.

Instead, negotiations over the next seven-year EU budget are underway. The European Commission has floated a financial framework worth approximately €2 trillion. Funding for Ukraine-related military expenditures, broader European rearmament, and the enormous subsidy complex underpinning the Green Deal are all expected to come from higher member-state contributions and newly issued common debt. In doing so, Brussels continues to strengthen both its political authority and its influence over national governments.

Germany currently finances roughly one-quarter of the EU budget. Under the proposed framework, German taxpayers would ultimately contribute around €500 billion over the entire budget period. Last year alone Germany paid approximately €30 billion into the EU budget while receiving roughly €13 billion back, primarily in the form of agricultural subsidies and the ever-expanding subsidy machinery supporting Europe's green industrial policies and interventionist economic model.

Yet even a €2 trillion budget - already representing a leap into fiscal fantasy given the severe economic damage inflicted by years of excessive European regulation - is apparently no longer sufficient for Brussels.

Discussions are now underway to increase the budget by another €200 billion.

Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the European Commission itself: an insatiable bureaucracy working relentlessly to establish independent sources of taxation. Customs revenues, proceeds from emissions trading, plastic taxes—the imagination of Brussels appears limitless. At the same time, direct financial demands on member states continue expanding almost automatically, with ever-higher budget contributions treated as political routine despite growing conservative resistance across Europe.

Should the von der Leyen Commission succeed in making this fiscal leap, Germany's annual contribution to financing the European project would rise from roughly €30 billion today to approximately €78.6 billion.

For taxpayers, the implications are profound. An entirely new layer of government—complete with its own bureaucracy and increasingly its own taxation powers—has gradually positioned itself above existing national institutions. Since the joint borrowing undertaken during the pandemic and the issuance of the massive NextGenerationEU bonds, Brussels has steadily transformed itself into an independent borrower on international capital markets.

Officially, the German government still opposes granting the European Commission broader taxation powers and objects to dramatically expanding the EU budget. Yet all indications suggest that Berlin will ultimately shift the fiscal burden to Brussels itself, paving the way for larger common bond issuance—or some comparable mechanism—to finance the growing central apparatus.

Beginning in 2028, repayment of the €750 billion NextGenerationEU debt will commence. Those obligations, spread over subsequent years, must eventually be repaid to investors. Since these resources simply do not exist, Europe's capitals will almost certainly reach the same conclusion: refinance the liabilities through continuous new bond issuance, effectively burying what remains of the European Union's original prohibition against common sovereign debt.

In many respects, the transformation of Europe's financing structure resembles a financial evolution toward a European superstate. Ultimately, common liability for Brussels' debts appears virtually inevitable. The political and institutional path back has largely disappeared.

For German taxpayers, this strategy amounts to little more than witnessing another familiar fiscal shell game.

Brussels will almost certainly continue creating new revenue streams through customs duties, emissions trading, plastic taxes, and whatever additional levies policymakers may devise.

The remaining financing gap will inevitably be covered through Eurobonds issued on capital markets.

Such policies carry significant inflationary risks, as additional sovereign borrowing expands the money supply and places upward pressure on prices. At the same time, government borrowing increasingly crowds private investment out of credit markets, raising financing costs for productive businesses while strengthening the role of the public sector.

The consequences are already becoming visible. Europe's downward spiral of declining prosperity is accelerating. It is a tragic process of economic deterioration—one that is increasingly likely to culminate in a major sovereign debt crisis.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2026 - 02:00

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