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The families in the unincorporated town of Altadena don’t want political theater. They just want results.

The academy that controls the Oscars on Friday issued new award eligibility requirements around the use of artificial intelligence in film.

Trump Pulling 5,000 US Troops From Germany In Punitive Move Amid Merz Spat

In a huge late in the day Friday development, the Trump administration plans to pull some 5,000 troops from NATO member Germany, CBS is reporting. Citing senior defense officials, the Pentagon expects the troop draw down will happen over a six to twelve month period, Reuters has also separately reported, in what clearly appears a punitive measure aimed at Berlin by the Trump White House.

Over several years, and stretching back decades, the US has maintained the most number of troops on the European continent in Germany - currently estimated at over 36,000 active duty personnel. So the 5,000 - while significant - is still somewhat of a symbolic move and number.

Source: DPA

The large US presence hearkens back to the post WWII division of Germany and post-war order, and is also a legacy of the Cold War. Ironically at this very moment European leaders have hyped a 'new Cold War' with Russia, as the Ukraine war continues raging.

"The officials characterized the move as a signal of President Trump's discontent with the level of assistance that European allies have offered in the U.S.-Iran war," CBS writes.

The significance of the planned move also lies in the fact that America's German bases serve as headquarters of US European Command and Africa Command - with the historic Ramstein Air Base being the key hub.

The announcement via US reporting comes just a day after Trump again lambasted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz:

"The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Merz had in a rare moment torched US foreign policy and the Trump administration's Iran war gambit in Monday remarks given at a local event in Germany.

Included in that very head-on critique of Operation Epic Fury came in the following: "An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible."

Merz had also claimed, "If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told ​him even more emphatically." ​

Trump blasts Merz:

Germany—he is doing a terrible job. He has got immigration problems, he has got energy problems, he has got problems of all kinds, and he has a big problem with Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/qq2sk0aA5p

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 30, 2026

Yet the reality is that criticisms from EU leaders in the opening days were somewhat muted, meager, and weak. Indeed, where was Merz during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury as it was bombs away?

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 18:30

The actor portrays former steel worker turned boxing trainer, Brendan Ingle, in the upcoming sports film, "Giant."

The actor portrays former steel worker turned boxing trainer, Brendan Ingle, in the upcoming sports film, "Giant."

GameStop has been quietly building a stake in eBay's shares ahead of a potential offer.

The co-director's golden prize vanished after security agents allegedly told him the Oscar “could be used as a weapon,” forcing him to check the coveted statuette while flying from New York to Frankfurt.

The grief-stricken father of cheerleader Anna Kepner, who was allegedly killed by her stepbrother, will not attend the June murder trial – revealing he can’t possibly “relive” the tragic moment he discovered his slain daughter on a family vacation. “Unless they ask for me to be there, neither my wife or I will be attending,”...

The fitness legend died in 2024 after a fall.

The fitness legend died in 2024 after a fall.

As far back as last year’s MLB playoffs, veteran Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas said he planned to retire at the end of the 2026 season.

The Liberty’s valuation has tripled over the last two years as momentum around women’s sports continues to soar. 

"High heels shouldn’t be inherently uncomfortable," the brand's founder told Page Six Style.

"High heels shouldn’t be inherently uncomfortable," the brand's founder told Page Six Style.

In Charts: Communist Cuba's Lights Dim Amid US Oil Blockade

Authored by Sylvia Xu, Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Blackouts, shortages, fuel rationing, and empty streets now define daily life in Cuba.

People wait to fill their water containers during a nationwide blackout in Havana on March 22, 2026. Cuban authorities scrambled on March 22 to restore power to the island after the second nationwide blackout in less than a week, as the grid struggles due to an aging infrastructure and a U.S. oil blockade. Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

Although the norm for decades, these hardships have reached catastrophic proportions as the island nation suffers its worst energy and economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Cuba’s energy infrastructure is collapsing amid restrictions on oil imports from its key ally Venezuela, along with a U.S. military operation that has further disrupted Venezuela’s production and shipping.

With the country’s main supplier impaired, Havana is without the energy needed to keep its grid stable, leading to rolling blackouts and widespread shortages of everything from medicines to food.

The White House aims to push the communist-led nation into talks and concessions. A combination of indirect pressure through increased tariffs on Cuba’s oil suppliers and direct intervention by the U.S. Coast Guard in the region has amounted to an effective blockade of the island.

A tugboat guides a Russian oil tanker as it arrives at the oil terminal in the port of Matanzas, Cuba, on March 31, 2026. The shipment of 730,000 barrels marked Cuba’s first crude import in three months as the White House aims to push the communist-led nation into talks and concessions. Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

In February, the United States made a key exception: the sale of fuel directly to private businesses in Cuba. The shipments are small, however, totaling an estimated 30,000 barrels so far this year.

The Trump administration is showing some signs of easing pressure, allowing a Russia-flagged tanker to deliver 730,000 barrels of oil to Cuba on March 31—the island’s first sizable import of crude in three months. Given Cuba’s daily needs of nearly 80,000 barrels per day in 2025, the shipment provided less than 10 days of supply.

A gas station remains closed due to a lack of fuel in Havana on March 24, 2026. Cuba’s government confirmed on April 20 it had returned to the table to meet with U.S. officials, seeking to ease tensions and address energy restrictions. Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images Risky Reliance on Imported Oil

Imported oil is the lifeblood of Cuba’s energy infrastructure; net crude oil imports accounted for nearly 60 percent of the country’s total supply as of 2023, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

For more than 25 years, those imports primarily came from Venezuela, under a bilateral agreement based on bartering products and services instead of cash payment.

Alternative suppliers have included Mexico (25 percent), Russia (10 percent), and Algeria (4 percent), according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data.

Even before the current blockade, imports from Venezuela and Mexico were jeopardized by those countries’ struggles to maintain fuel production.

Venezuela’s once-thriving petroleum industry has been crippled by years of mismanagement and sanctions, although the United States is now working with the interim government to rebuild its crumbling energy infrastructure.

Mexico’s state-owned company Pemex ended 2025 with its lowest level of production in 46 years amid operational and financial constraints on the country’s oil sector.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs a proclamation at the Shield of the Americas Summit at Trump National Doral in Miami on March 7, 2026. Trump said the United States is “looking forward to the great change” coming to Cuba following what he called a Energy Blockade

Now, U.S. foreign policy is making it even more difficult for Cuba to navigate global energy markets.

Following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3, President Donald Trump persuaded interim leader Delcy Rodríguez to halt oil and gas exports to Cuba.

A small shipment of oil from Mexico—86,000 barrels—arrived in Cuba on Jan. 9.

But crude oil flowing from Mexico dried up after Trump ramped up pressure on Jan. 29 with an executive order imposing tariffs on any country that “directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba.” On Feb. 2, Trump announced that Mexico would cease oil shipments to Cuba.

On March 7, Trump told the Shield of the Americas summit: “As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba. 

“Cuba is at the end of the line. ... They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time. And they used to get the money from Venezuela.”

Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel announced March 13 that the regime had opened talks with the United States, and on April 20, U.S. diplomats set foot on Cuban soil for the first time since 2016. 

Alejandro García del Toro, deputy director general in charge of U.S. affairs at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that “the elimination of the energy embargo against the country was a top priority” for the meetings.

Senate Republicans on April 28 rejected Democratic legislation that would stop the energy blockade of Cuba without congressional approval.

Energy Sources

Over the past two decades, Cuba has attempted to somewhat emulate its neighbors Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which have managed to offset their petroleum needs with coal, natural gas, and renewables.

The Castro regime in 2005 launched an “energy revolution”—introducing solar and wind, bolstering bioenergy consumption, and expanding distributed generation—in an attempt to diversify the country’s energy portfolio. 

However, the leadership failed to address fundamental problems, such as aging Soviet-era infrastructure, underinvestment, reliance on subsidized crude, failure to finance new technologies, and lack of long-term planning and maintenance.

As of 2024, Cuba still relied on oil for 87 percent of its energy, exceeding the Central and South American average of 54 percent, according to a Reuters analysis.

The island nation dedicates more than 80 percent of its oil to electricity generation, according to 2023 data from the IEA. In fact, utilities consume more than double the oil of all other sectors combined, underscoring Cuba’s reliance on petroleum.

Cuba’s thermoelectric infrastructure, loaded with high-sulfur oil, is “old, tired, and highly inefficient,” Jorge Piñon, senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute, said in a 2023 interview with the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas.

To revive its power system, Cuba “must decentralize its economic model and resolve its political differences with the United States.”

“Cuba has to abandon its failed Soviet-style centralized command economic model based on state ownership of all means of production and industrial transformation,” Piñon said.

“It should welcome a market economic system in which the decisions regarding investments and production are guided by supply and demand market forces.”

More than 1 million individuals have fled Cuba since 2021. Analysts compare the exodus to that seen during 1994’s Special Period—a time of food scarcity, energy shortages, and agricultural decimation after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 18:05

Josh Hart’s pride was kicking in. It was that competitive spirit we see play out with each loose ball Hart collects.

Vanessa Bryant shared several tributes to her late daughter, Gianna, on Friday — and each was quite emotional.

Chuck Park was part of a movement blocking the entrances to Wall Street.

USAF Tests Interceptor Drone To Hunt Iranian Shahed-Style Threat

Defense Blog's Dylan Malyasov reports that U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Airmen tested a counter-drone interceptor in Arizona, designed as a low-cost solution against one-way attack drones, such as Iran's Shahed drone. 

Malyasov said the Guardian-1 Interceptor from defense startup Powerus was recently tested at the Arizona Army National Guard's Florence Military Reservation and involved Airmen from the 48th Rescue Squadron, 7th Air Support Operations Squadron, and 316th Civil Engineer Squadron EOD.

The field training exercise allowed the Guardian-1 Interceptor to intercept a Shahed-style drone, which is widely used by Russia in Ukraine and has become a major nuisance for US airbases in the region amid the ongoing US-Iran conflict.

Malyasov explained:

The exercise integrated a commercial kinetic interceptor with an expeditionary counter-small UAS capability to address what the Air Force describes as critical capability gaps for small teams operating outside the wire — forward-deployed elements that lack access to the fixed-site air defense systems that protect larger bases and installations.

"A beautiful sight. Our interceptor drone locking onto a target drone high above a U.S. military base. Clean skies, pure precision. This is next-gen air defense in action," Powerus founder Brett Velicovich told the defense media outlet.

The Guardian-1 weighs around 6.6 pounds with its battery and can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph, with a maximum range of about 9.3 miles. The interceptor can reach altitudes of up to 16,400 feet.

US Air Force tested a Powerus commercial drone killer in Arizona against a simulated Shahed-type target — the same one-way attack drone used in Ukraine and the Gulf. Weighs 2.65 kg, costs a fraction of what it kills.

Read more: https://t.co/qIbZ9JHnT0 pic.twitter.com/Zy4vhbOCtZ

— Dylan Malyasov | 🧐 (@DylanMalyasov) April 30, 2026

Interceptor drones are a low-cost solution for the U.S. against Shahed-style drones, especially after the draining of critical missile stockpiles, which cost millions of dollars per unit. Meanwhile, Shahed-style drones cost around $20,000, if not less.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently launched a sales pitch to the world, claiming that his military-industrial base is ready to produce millions of interceptors and autonomous weapons to the highest bidder. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 17:40

It's not uncommon for emotions to run hot when high school athletes are battling for a league title.