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This Success Academy really lived up to its name.

He sought a raise from the $4.8 million salary he was due on the second year of a two-year deal.

A video posted to TikTok showed the men appearing to scale the walls before launching themselves off the building.

ASU Just Made 'Influencing' A College Major

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Arizona State University has decided the path to success runs straight through TikTok dances, personal branding, and "strategic storytelling."

The school's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is now offering a full Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation, explicitly designed to turn students into influencers who can "thrive in the rapidly evolving creator economy."

The program's description states that students will learn content planning, video and podcast production, global perspectives, and personal branding. They will analyze performance metrics, experiment with content strategies, and complete a capstone where they pick a platform - TikTok, Instagram, YouTube - and spend a semester growing an actual audience with measurable results.

Arizona State University is now offering a 'Content Creation' major for students wanting to become social media influencers.

Students in the program will learn how to "market themselves."

"The Bachelor of Arts program in content creation prepares you to become an influencer and... pic.twitter.com/wnqdeA2C7H

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 24, 2026

By graduation they are supposed to walk away with a real online following and "proof they've successfully built a digital brand."

Just an inkling, but Walter Cronkite would probably never have wanted to be associated with this.

Jessica Pucci, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School, insisted the curriculum goes far beyond ring lights and dance challenges. She told local media the program delivers "professional-level guidance from faculty dedicated to helping students succeed in the rapidly evolving creator economy."

It does just look like TikTok dancing though, lets be honest.

Students, she said, will leave with something more tangible than a diploma: a following, published content, and data-driven proof of brand-building.

Critics on social media were less impressed. One commenter noted they learned the same skills in their bedroom at 14 for free on YouTube.

Another fully supported parents who refuse to bankroll this particular "education."

A third accused the university of simply cashing in on a trend without teaching anything of lasting value. Even some who saw potential in the creator economy wanted the program to include basic adult skills - mortgages, savings, taxes - before handing out the degree.

This is the latest shiny product from a higher-education industry that has spent decades converting campuses into ideological finishing schools while loading students with debt for credentials the market treats as optional at best.

Clay Travis recently cut straight to the economic root of the resulting rage.

"These highly educated young far-left Democrats hate capitalism because they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on degrees the country DOES NOT value," Travis said. "They spent $200,000 on a women's studies degree [meanwhile] plumbers and electricians are driving better cars and making MORE money. They're furious the world is valuing other people's labor more than their own. They should take a lesson... GET USEFUL SKILLS."

An influencer major fits the pattern perfectly. Four years, six figures of tuition and living costs, and the graduate emerges prepared to compete in an attention economy already saturated with teenagers who figured out the algorithm without a single student-loan payment.

The university collects the money either way. The student is left holding the resentment when the market declines to subsidize their "brand".

That resentment does not stay private. It becomes the fuel for the radical politics that now dominate so many campuses. Universities have become propaganda factories that manufacture disturbed leftists who treat practical competence as suspect and identity politics as the highest form of knowledge.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a required first-year education course for future teachers pushed extreme ideology on immigration, race, and gender. Leaked slides urged "humanizing language," framed border enforcement as white supremacy, and trained students to resist ICE rather than master classroom fundamentals. A whistleblower reported the class spent its time on activism while ignoring how to actually teach math or reading.

Kent State University displayed student "art" depicting President Trump's severed head on a pike with the caption "We only have to get lucky once." Administrators initially defended it as protected expression before public pressure forced its removal.

Princeton hunger strikers camping for Gaza complained the university was not monitoring their vital signs and accused officials of deliberately weakening them. One insisted, "They are not keeping track of our vitals. They are not at all taking care of us," while another claimed the group was "literally shaking" and "immunocompromised."

Joe Rogan described the broader phenomenon without restraint. Universities, he said, have become "cult camps" where students get locked into identities and try to sound profound without life experience.

"If I was going to try to destroy the country, that's how I would do it... I would radicalize the kids, give them the stupidest ideas... Boys can be girls. Girls can be boys... 'Queers for Palestine.' Death to the Jews." He added: "You guys are doing nonsense. You go to cult camp. You're indoctrinating people."

At Columbia, occupiers who had broken into campus buildings demanded food and water as "basic humanitarian aid," comparing themselves to refugees. PhD student Johannah King-Slutzky asked, "Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you?" The performance collapsed under mockery once the NYPD cleared the building.

The ideological capture reaches the sciences. A survey of 200 UK university scientists found only 58 percent would say sex is binary; 42 percent refused. Nearly two-thirds said gender is fluid.

Language itself is rewritten. The University of the Arts London erased "woman" from maternity and menopause policies, declaring the processes apply "irrespective of gender" and that "not all pregnant people are women."

The University of North Carolina issued an inclusive language guide that discouraged "mother" and "father" in favor of "guardian" and purged words containing "man."

Stanford's "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" proposed adding "American" to its blacklist as too U.S.-centric, recommending "U.S. citizen" instead.

Stanford University has deemed the word "American" to be harmful language.

pic.twitter.com/gclBOoE8Sn

— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) December 21, 2022

These are not isolated excesses. They are the logical output of institutions that treat useful skills as secondary to political formation.

Students graduate with expensive credentials that signal ideological reliability rather than competence, then discover the economy does not share their self-assessment.

The resulting bitterness is redirected at capitalism, borders, biological reality, and anyone still willing to call a woman a woman.

ASU's content-creation major is simply the newest exhibit. It packages the attention economy as an academic discipline, charges premium tuition for skills freely available online, and sends graduates into a labor market that will judge them by results rather than feelings.

When those results disappoint, the university will have already collected its fees and moved on to the next cohort of future radicals. The rest of the country is left paying the social cost of an education system that prioritizes 'branding' over building anything of lasting value.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/26/2026 - 15:10

The Democratic National Committee chairman furiously threw his phone at the desk of an aide in a fit of rage earlier this month after scolding the individual as he deals with mounting pressure over the DNC's mounting financial woes, the New York Times reported.

Video shows that the netting stops just inches away from where his ride went haywire.

Nevada wildlife officials have found a fur-covered solution to Lake Tahoe’s growing black bear problem.

Horrific details surrounding the fatal stranglings of Massachusetts mom Lindsay Clancy’s three young children will begin pouring out in court this week. 

The singer died in a helicopter crash last month in Rio de Janiero at just 32 years old.

The singer died in a helicopter crash last month in Rio de Janiero at just 32 years old.

One lease was a 29,166 square-foot renewal and expansion for insurance firm Ryan Specialty LLC, while other was a new, 27,508 square-foot lease with property management firm Solil Management LLC.

One person was killed and seven were injured at a large party in Morgan Hill, according to the Santa Clara County Sherriff's Office.

Tower owner Korea International Trade Association is launching a $200 million redevelopment to bring the entire 22-story, Midcentury property into the modern age.

Receivers coming off of 1,000-yard seasons don’t grow on trees, but one is sitting on free agency as NFL training camps get underway.

The film showcases the classic monsters from Homer's epic, including a giant cyclops and the sea Sirens.

They're not loving it.

What began as a 5-cent snack sold during the Great Depression has grown into one of Little Debbie's best-selling treats more than 90 years later.

"Now Taking Reservations For 2031 Delivery": GE Vernova Gas Turbine Backlog Climbs To 116 GW

By Brian Martucci of UtilityDive

GE Vernova posted double-digit revenue and order growth in the second quarter, driven once again by continued strong performance in its Power and Electrification business segments. Those segments, respectively, produce and service gas, hydro and nuclear power generation equipment; and commercial electrical equipment such as transformers and switchgears.

GE Vernova’s beleaguered third segment, Wind, saw orders fall sharply amid persistent softness in U.S. demand for onshore wind turbines and blades.

“We remain focused on what we can control,” CEO Scott Strazik said on a Wednesday morning earnings call, alluding to the economic, regulatory and legal challenges facing its wind business.

By the numbers -- GE Vernova Q2 2026

• $176B: Order backlog across all three major business lines, up from $129 billion in Q2 2025
• 116 GW: Gas turbine order backlog, up from 100 GW in Q1 2026
• $41B: Order backlog in Electrification segment, up 69% year over year
• 40%: Year-over-year decline in wind equipment orders

Strazik said GE Vernova expects its combined backlog of gas turbine orders and slot reservations to reach 125 GW by the end of the year. The company shipped 3 GW of turbines and signed 20 GW of orders and slot reservations, more than half of which are for the hulking HA-class turbines that customers typically run at higher capacity factors, he said.

Strazik said those customers are increasingly diverse, spanning about 100 entities in 26 countries. About 80% are “traditional” customers like utilities and 20% are data center customers, he said. 

Like Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, its main competitors in heavy-duty gas turbine manufacturing, GE Vernova continues to book reservations four to five years out. 

GE Vernova is taking reservations for 2031 deliveries now and is on track to “be more than halfway contracted [for 2031] by the end of the year,” Strazik said. But despite “healthy discussions” with customers about potential 2032 bookings, “I would say we need more time before we can articulate the timing of contracting in ’32,” he added. 

Strazik alluded multiple times on the call to “strong” pricing for GE Vernova’s gas power equipment. Though he did not give specific figures for turbines sold in the second quarter, an analysis shared in a Wednesday note by Moses Sutton, senior analyst with BNP Paribas Equity Research, estimated about $790/kW for heavy-duty turbines, $950/kW for HA-class combined-cycle turbines and $1,800/kW for aeroderivative turbines.

Most investors would read Strazik’s 125-GW year-end backlog guidance as conservative “given management’s track record of under-guiding and over-delivering,” Sutton said. In December, Strazik said GE Vernova expected to end 2025 with an 80-GW gas turbine backlog; the actual figure was 83 GW.

For 2026, the market is likely looking for an actual year-end backlog of 130 GW to 140 GW, Sutton said.

As for GE Vernova’s plan to expand annual turbine manufacturing capacity to 30 GW by 2030, up from 20 GW today, Sutton said “the jury’s out.” Strazik’s suggestion that the company needs more time to firm up its 2032 pipeline may be a sign of “peak momentum emerging” in the company’s gas growth story, he said.

‘Early stages of a multi-decade growth opportunity’

Continuing a trend from recent GE Vernova earnings calls, Strazik sounded enthusiastic about the Electrification segment’s prospects amid what he called “this electricity investment supercycle.”

“The long-cycle electric power industry is in the early stages of a multi-decade growth opportunity and we are well positioned to create substantial value,” Strazik said.

Company figures show its overall Electrification backlog has broken above $40 billion, helped along by the completion of its acquisition of the remaining stake in GE Prolec, formerly a joint venture with Xignux, a Mexican industrial conglomerate. The merger was a factor in the company’s booking of around $800 million in U.S. transformer orders this quarter, Strazik said.

Broad-based load growth, utilities’ and data center customers’ increasing awareness of the need for grid-stabilizing equipment, and national security imperatives are all driving demand for GE Vernova’s electrical systems and components, Strazik said.

In a Wednesday investor note on GE Vernova, Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an equities analyst with investment bank Jefferies, said the company’s ongoing development of solid-state transformers and uninterruptible medium-voltage transformers set it up to benefit from anticipated data center demand for those cutting-edge electrical components.

But in a separate Wednesday note covering a range of companies in the power and electricity sector, Dumoulin-Smith cited community opposition and labor shortages as key dampeners of data center-related load growth that “place the integrity of the power supercycle into question.” Jefferies’s base case remains that data center energization accelerates in the coming years, “but not without hiccups,” he said.

Possible green shoots for wind despite ongoing industry troubles

Though the U.S. wind power industry remains under pressure from the Trump administration’s trade and energy policy, Strazik said the administration’s forthcoming guidance on Section 232 tariffs could provide more “order clarity” in the second half of 2026. At the moment, tariff-related uncertainty is impacting onshore wind development, Strazik said.

Independent energy analysts are cautiously optimistic that the sector will rebound in the years ahead. Wood Mackenzie boosted its five-year outlook for U.S. greenfield wind development by 5% this month as developers raced to capitalize on expiring federal tax credits and contracted corporate demand for clean energy surged.

“Large technology companies are turning to wind power as an additional energy source to meet their growing needs,” Wood Mackenzie said in a July 20 note.

Wood Mackenzie and Strazik both said a coming repowering cycle — owners of aging wind farms replacing older turbines with more powerful units — would support demand for wind power equipment well into the 2030s.

“In our install base in the U.S., there are approximately 10 gigawatts of units with repowering potential — projects that have already qualified for the new production tax credits,” Strazik said.

Strazik did not directly mention an ongoing legal dispute between his company and one of its wind customers, the 800-MW Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. 

GE Renewables, a GE Vernova subsidiary, threatened to walk away from the nearly-complete project after Vineyard Wind withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to offset what it called “catastrophic injury” stemming from a 2024 blade break. Vineyard Wind sued GE Vernova in April to block it from exiting its supply agreement.

In a regulatory filing this week, GE Vernova said it had “successfully completed the installation of all remaining wind turbines at the Vineyard Wind project” and has moved into the commissioning phase. 

“As we work through the final stages of the project, we are working with our customer to resolve outstanding claims and counterclaims,” the filing said.

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/26/2026 - 14:00

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William Ferrer was busted outside his home Sunday in the slaying of young Jacob Freytes, who was caught in the crossfire of what police believe may have been a gang-related shooting.