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DOJ Reaches Settlement With Data Firm Over Meat Industry Competition Concerns

Zero Rss
3 months 1 week ago
DOJ Reaches Settlement With Data Firm Over Meat Industry Competition Concerns

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a proposed settlement with Agri Stats Inc., requiring the data and consulting company to stop distributing competitively sensitive information among the nation’s major meat processors, officials announced on May 7.

The agreement, which was filed in federal court in Minnesota, seeks to address longstanding government concerns that the firm’s practices allowed processors to coordinate production and pricing, increasing costs for consumers nationwide.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and antitrust division leaders said the proposed settlement was an effort to foster competition and ease pressures on household budgets.

“A stable and affordable food supply is critical to our country’s well-being,” Blanche said in a statement. “This Department of Justice is laser-focused on making everyday life affordable for all Americans.”

Agri Stats, headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, gathers detailed data on prices, output, costs, and other metrics from processors’ systems. It then standardizes and redistributes the information to participating companies through reports and meetings, according to the DOJ. Meat buyers such as grocers, restaurants, and distributors allegedly had no such access.

Agri Stats Inc. did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said that the American people do not have to tolerate business models that increase their cost of living.

“The Antitrust Division’s mission is to use the antitrust laws to protect American consumers from inflated prices,” Assefi said.

“This settlement delivers immediate relief in the meat section of grocery stores across our nation.

“When companies decide certain information is too sensitive to share with the broader market, but not too sensitive to share with their closest competitors, that is a significant red flag that competition is being harmed.”

The complaint argued that this one-sided exchange reduced rivalry and supported systematic price hikes and output decisions for decades, particularly in the broiler chicken sector, while also affecting the pork and turkey markets historically.

Under the settlement, Agri Stats must stop providing sales reports or non-public pricing information used by processors to identify opportunities for price increases. It also must cease sharing granular production, cost, and labor figures at the company or facility level. Most data distributed by the firm will now be required to be offered to all interested domestic purchasers on fair, nondiscriminatory terms to reduce information asymmetry.

Additional requirements include limits on the timeliness of the shared data, the appointment of a court-approved monitor to oversee compliance, and the establishment of an antitrust compliance program with data security, whistleblower protections, and mandatory violation reporting.

A subsidiary, Express Markets Inc., may continue its price reports, which are less detailed and available more broadly, according to officials.

The settlement partners with attorneys general from California, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. It follows broader scrutiny of meat industry practices.

Consumers have grappled with continuing rises in meat and poultry prices amid supply chain strains, regulatory pressures, and other factors affecting American families. For instance, analyses have cited significant increases in the prices of beef, chicken, and other proteins that take a bit out of household budgets. Broader cost-of-living challenges have also driven up grocery prices.

The proposed final judgment and competitive impact statement will be published in the Federal Register as required by the Tunney Act. The companies have 60 days to submit comments ahead of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota deciding whether to approve it as in the public interest.

Officials asked for tips on anticompetitive conduct in agriculture through the Antitrust Division or the joint USDA-DOJ agricultural markets partnership.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/08/2026 - 12:00
Tyler Durden

CIA Leak: Iran Can Survive Blockade Another 3 to 4 Months, Maybe Longer

Zero Rss
3 months 1 week ago
CIA Leak: Iran Can Survive Blockade Another 3 to 4 Months, Maybe Longer

Belying the Trump administration's claims that a US blockade on Iran's use of the Strait of Hormuz has the country on the ropes and its oil infrastructure in near-term peril, a confidential CIA analysis says Iran can persevere another three or four months, if not longer. In a second stark contradiction of White House narratives, US intelligence assesses that the bulk of Iran's pre-war missile inventory is still intact. The substance of the CIA analysis was first reported by the Washington Post, which attributed the insights to three current officials and one former one who've seen it. 

Over recent weeks, a particular narrative about the blockade has been gaining traction -- namely, that Iran's inability to freely export oil is putting its energy infrastructure in imminent danger of "shut-in" damage that would commence after Iran's capacity to store oil ran out. We were among the earliest to start focusing on that critical dimension of the conflict, and the shut-in-crisis scenario gained credibility on Wednesday when an oil-sector expert who serves on Iran's Chamber of Commerce candidly told the New York Times that "the sea blockade is a much more serious threat than even war, and the current stalemate must be broken because the export of our oil and energy and the fate of our refineries is now at risk.”

The “Team B” counterpoint here is whatever the FDD/Israel lobby says (“just a few more blockade days + a few more bombing sorties and the defeated regime is over”), and though they’re always wrong, presidents have a funny habit of going for the best-massaged Team B intelligence https://t.co/3OqU81ydK0

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) May 7, 2026

However, the officials who are familiar with the new CIA analysis told the Post that Iran is using various avenues to maximize storage and forestall shut-in damage, from storing oil on empty tankers to reducing the flow from wells. Summing up the oil infrastructure risks and broader economic impacts, one of them said, "It’s nowhere near as dire as some have claimed." One of the officials said the CIA estimate of three or four months of runway may even be underselling Iran's endurance, pointing to the potential for increasing exports via overland routes. “There’s a belief they could begin moving some oil via rail through Central Asia,” said an official. 

Meanwhile, the CIA has concluded that Iran's military is in far better shape than what Trump, Defense secretary Pete Hegseth and others have told the American people. On Wednesday, Trump claimed that Iran's missile inventory was a small shadow of what it was before the country was attacked by Israel and the United States:

Trump on Iran:

Their missiles are mostly decimated. They have probably 18–19% left, not a lot in comparison to what they had. pic.twitter.com/9r9W5iVd8o

— Clash Report (@clashreport) May 6, 2026

The confidential CIA analysis, however, allegedly paints an entirely different picture: 

Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles, a U.S. official said. The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began. -- Washington Post

Iran is likely in even better shape where drones are concerned, given their lower cost and the ease with which they can be assembled in small facilities. That points to Iran's ability to continue thwarting commerce out of the Persian Gulf. “All it takes is one drone to hit a ship and no one will give insurance" for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz,  Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told the Post.  

Some observers view this and other leaks as an attempt by Trump administration subordinates to steer America away from re-escalation of a war initiated by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. "The latest leak from US military and intelligence institutions rebuts the Fox News crowd and shows an American military and intelligence establishment desperate to prevent an American return to war against Iran," wrote Matthew Hoh, a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, an organization comprising former military service members, intelligence community alumni and diplomats. "I have never seen such a deliberate and coordinated effort by CIA, Pentagon and others to keep the US out of war in defiance of their political bosses."

To say that Trump underestimated Iran is an understatement. The Israelis sold him - and he ended up believing - a narrative that portrayed Iran as so weak that the war would be won within 4 days.

60 plus days later, Trump is still stuck in the mess Israel sold him. pic.twitter.com/gv4cLbtxBC

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 6, 2026

Asked for comment on the officials' leaks, a White House spokeswoman reiterated the administration's triumphalist rhetoric. "During Operation Epic Fury, Iran was crushed militarily. Now, they are being strangled economically," said Anna Kelly. "The Iranian regime knows full well their current reality is not sustainable, and President Trump holds all the cards as negotiators work to make a deal.”

Alongside the question of how long Iran can endure the status quo, the same question must be asked about not only the United States, but -- staring down a years-long economic catastrophe -- the entire world. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/08/2026 - 11:40
Tyler Durden

Buzz Aldrin described ‘unusual’ phenomena during Apollo 11 mission, UFO docs reveal

NY Post
3 months 1 week ago
Legendary Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin recalled several “unusual” phenomena he and the crew encountered during the first moon-landing mission, according to a trove of UFO-related documents released Friday. Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, explained three specific oddities he saw during a technical crew debriefing a week after they’d safely splashed...
Patrick Reilly

Cost Of California's High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again

Zero Rss
3 months 1 week ago
Cost Of California's High-Speed Rail Goes Up Again

Authored by Kerry Johnson via  Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy,

It was supposed to cost $33 billion when voters approved the train in 2008. It will now cost at least $126 billion.

It was also supposed to be carrying 65.5 million to 96.5 million intercity riders a year by 2030. Yet now 2040 is the date for “full service to start.” Skeptics don’t believe we’ll ever see the train run with paying customers aboard.

“In my judgment, the Draft 2026 Business Plan describes a project that has reached a dead end,” says Louis S. Thompson, a 15-year member of the California High Speed Rail Peer Review Group that was established by legislation.

In a letter to lawmakers, Thompson, who was also on the team that created Amtrak, said that after so many changes in the project—cost, design revisions, longer estimated trip times—it’s “not, not even remotely, the system the voters approved in Proposition 1A” in 2008.

Early last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom, that “Steel Driving Man,” promised there soon would be some visible manifestation of the train’s “progress.”

A few months later, HSRA CEO Ian Choudri promised, “We are going to be laying high speed tracks next year.”

The HSRA “expects to achieve several other procurement milestones in 2026,” but not track laying and there is no hard deadline for it to begin to be found in the plan. There is only a three-and-a-half-year timeline, which starts in July for the “Track & Systems Design & Construction” of the first section in the Central Valley.

In other words, the HSRA has provided itself cover should it fall short of its 2026 promise.

California’s perpetually unfolding mess has caught the attention of the editorial board of a newspaper one state over after a recent “60 Minutes” report “shined the spotlight on what has become the most embarrassing and costly government infrastructure boondoggle in US history.”

“Has there ever been a greater fraud perpetrated on the taxpayers than California’s high-speed rail travesty?” asked the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“Where are the folks at ‘American Greed’ when you need them?”

That is, of course, a reference to the CNBC documentary series “American Greed: Scams, Scoundrels and Scandals.”

It won’t happen, but it would be fitting, if the HSRA borrowed the program’s name for the subtitle of its 2027 business plan, which this year is shamelessly being called “Transforming California’s Future.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/08/2026 - 11:20
Tyler Durden

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