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The new Insidious movie will likely be on Netflix before the end of the year.

Bowen described the claims, which allegedly in the 80s, as a "total fabrication" and "the workings of a fantasy."

A firefighter’s bodycam captures a dramatic rescue operation from inside a fast-moving wildfire near Omis, Croatia.

The FTC and five states were ready to argue at trial scheduled to start Monday that the Zillow-Redfin partnership drove up costs for landlords and decreased listing quality for renters.

A “traumatized” Queens couple discovered a stranger lounging in their apartment while they were on vacation — thanks, they claim, to the luxury building’s doorman who handed the intruder the keys. Bill and Yelim Kim were away from their posh Purves Street Long Island City apartment on July 24 when they got a ping from...

Located in St. Pete Beach near St. Petersburg, the three-bedroom dwelling listed for $2.59 million earlier in the year.

More than 60 shell casings were recovered at the scene, according to the sources.

San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York, now ensnared in an embarrassing $140 prostitution sting involving an online ad and trailer park, had long painted himself as a devoted family man to the team’s fanbase. The 49ers’ CEO and controlling owner was arrested Sunday on suspicion of engaging in prostitution near his northeastern Ohio hometown. He...

The Marlins begin a three-game set with the Red Sox on Monday in Miami.

Victor Elizade, 19, was busted by a Southampton town cop who stumbled on the seamy sight while on patrol at the David Sarnoff nature preserve in Riverside on Suffolk County’s East End just after 9 p.m. Saturday, according to police.

Two Southern California businesses were burglarized Sunday night as large crowds gathered for separate street takeovers, police said.

Logan O’Hoppe’s MLB dream turned into a nightmare with the Angels. O’Hoppe, who was promoted after just 29 games for Double-A Rocket City in 2022, and was viewed as one of baseball’s top young catchers. However, after spending parts of five seasons with the Angels, O’Hoppe believes his time with the club was detrimental. “Whether...

"I Hope It Gives A Really Good Lesson Going Forward": 'Pollster' Prakash's License To Lie

Authored by Jonathan Turley via Jonathan Turley,

In this political season, there is one question that needs no poll: Rahil Prakash is a liar. The other thing we know is that he will likely get away with spreading fake polling results. Lies can be protected speech under the First Amendment and, while Prakash would not likely want to take a popularity poll, he is unlikely to face legal consequences for his "short-term social experiment."

We still do not know much about the twenty-one-year-old college graduate who reportedly admitted to releasing fake polling in the last election cycle.

What we do know is that he succeeded and such polls can influence critical campaign decisions. For example, his poll put the Democratic Socialist up by 23 points in Wisconsin and she surprised many by spending the final days campaigning in rural areas where she was expected to do worse. (She would lose by less than one percent of the vote). It is unclear where, had Hong known how close the race was, she would have spent the final days in higher-yield urban districts.

The story laid bare the vulnerability of modern polling, which was again wildly wrong in predictions in various races during the primaries. However, it also highlights a novel question of potential liability for knowingly spreading falsehoods. In this case, Prakash wanted the lie to spread and likely succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.

He told The Guardian that "I wanted to see if fake polls could really penetrate the ecosystem that easily. And as it turned out, it could." He created a website called Median Strategies and released fake polls in Democrat primaries in the Wisconsin governor's race, the Los Angeles mayoral race, and two statewide Nevada races. The polls were quickly picked up and spread throughout the "ecosystem."

He explained to the Guardian how easy it was: "I think my overall takeaway was that if you just make it look a bit pretty, it's rather easy for it to spread."

We do not know if Prakash had a political motive in showing certain candidates dominating in certain races.

He reportedly denied using his fake polls to play betting sites as part of the prediction market. He also denied being compensated or directed by any campaign to run the hoax.

That matters because using lies for financial gain can be a form of fraud. However, just being a liar is protected.

In United States v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act and held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies.

The case shows the dividing line. Xavier Alvarez was protected in claiming to have won the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as marrying a Mexican movie star, playing for the Detroit Red Wings, and rescuing the ambassador in the Iranian hostage crisis. However, if he had used those claims to receive veteran benefits or donations, he could have been prosecuted.

Many of us in the free speech community supported that decision and still oppose censorship systems that target what governments decide is disinformation, misinformation, or malinformation. Anti-free speech figures have long justified censorship by declaring views as false or dangerous.

While apologizing to a few campaigns for misleading them, Prakash still seems perfectly clueless about the ethics and impact of lying in elections. Indeed, he seems to entirely remove himself from the problem of spreading lies: "I hope it gives a really good lesson going forward in that we need to be very serious about these things and very serious in how, if one person can do this, what can a serious operation do in the future - a real, you know, operation for an organization, country, whatever."

Yeah, whatever.

The most revealing aspect of this controversy is not that some polling seems to lack any factual foundation for its predictions, but that some people lack any moral foundation for their actions. We have seen similar sites put out fake stories. Some do so for political ends, while others want to laugh at those gullible enough to trust them.

As with anonymous positions, the Internet gives people a certain license to say and do things that they would not do in their own name. Unlike Prakash, most are not exposed. They spread vicious, false stories and relish their sense of twisted power. While lacking the courage to speak in their own names (often in attacking those who have the courage to do so), they yield to their darkest or cruelest inclinations.

Prakash created a fake site to make it seem like this was not an anonymous, unreliable source. He found his chumps in the media who wanted to report the results without looking into the source. However, the "really good lesson" was missed by him: he was neither noble nor particularly clever, just another liar among the Internet's sad voyeurs and vagabonds.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution."

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/24/2026 - 14:30

Framber Valdez will lead the Tigers to victory over the Rays on Monday evening, Stitches predicts.

The 49ers released a statement following the news that team owner Jed York had been arrested.

Voting is now open for Page Six’s second-annual Virtual Reali-Tea’s Awards! You can vote on each category, including “Best Reunion Performance,” and “Hot-Tea of the Year,” among others, as the full list of nominees has been revealed. Tickets to the VRT Awards, sponsored by Kahlúa and Tri-State Cadillac, are available to purchase now. Vote now for the reality stars...

Voting is now open for Page Six’s second-annual Virtual Reali-Tea’s Awards, hosted by Evan Real and Danny Murphy! You can vote on each category, including “Best Reunion Performance,” and “Hot-Tea of the Year,” among others, as the full list of nominees has been revealed. Tickets to the VRT Awards, sponsored by Kahlúa and Tri-State Cadillac, are available to purchase...

The Great Walkback: Sam Altman Admits He Was Wrong On AI's Economic Timeline

For three years, Sam Altman has pitched the imminent, wholesale disruption of the global economy. This week, staring down the barrel of an IPO - based on a business model that's actively being 'wholesale disrupted' by China - the OpenAI chief executive quietly admitted he got the timing wrong. Appearing on David Senra's Founders podcast, Altman conceded that the economic upheaval he forecast following GPT-4 simply hasn't materialized - and that society is adapting far more sluggishly than he anticipated.

In an interview with @davidsenra, @sama conceded what few technologists ever will. He believed GPT-4 meant every software business was immediately up for grabs. Three years later the customers are still renewing with the same vendors.

The lesson is not that the technology… pic.twitter.com/tEZWoldxyC

— Patrick F. Feeley (@PFFeeley) August 24, 2026

"I thought when we got to GPT-4, which was back in 2023, that very quickly after that there was going to be much more disruption, software businesses up for grabs right away, than it turned out to be," Altman admitted.

Of course, the technology isn't to blame... The problem, he said, is that human routine simply doesn't move that fast. "I think I was wrong about a few things, but one in terms of the speed: the economy just has so much inertia," said the guy who suggested letting AI entertain your kid in the car instead of talking to them. "People keep doing the same things, buying from the same company, wanting to use their tools the same way." Altman even admitted that he himself resists the AI coding tools his own company builds, defaulting to familiar workflows.

Sam Altman admits he was wrong on AI's timeline and says society and the economy will adapt more slowly

"I thought when we got to GPT-4, which was back in 2023, that very quickly after that there was going to be much more disruption, software businesses up for grabs right away,… https://t.co/5oNHTky7fK pic.twitter.com/AIA5gpJwFB

— Fireside Alpha (@firesidealpha) August 23, 2026

According to Altman, this is good news - since a slower ramp will cushion the economic and societal hit from rapid job losses. "I think this is actually a positive in many ways, and it's going to make this big transition go smoother and slower. I'm grateful for it," he said. Yet the concession itself remains unequivocal: "We've all been too ambitious on timelines. Even with this incredible technology, society and the economy will adapt more slowly."

For macro-skeptics and market analysts who have been warning that explosive capex has outstripped real-world adoption, Altman's well-spun answers are validation. Hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed into data centers, power infrastructure, and silicon on the premise of an economy remade overnight. Now, boy kavalier admits the broader economy has too much structural friction to cooperate. Put simply: you cannot re-engineer human behavior to accommodate an IPO roadmap - even as OpenAI reportedly lays the groundwork for a public offering with valuations floated as high as $1 trillion.

Turns out you can't change human behavior and decades of habit to suit your IPO timeline https://t.co/S7KAvRTUKO

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 23, 2026

What could go wrong?

According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), AI bubble investment now exceeds:

• Canal mania of the 1830s
• UK railway mania of the 1840s
• US railway mania of 1873
• Electrification mania of the 1920s
• Dot-com mania of the 1990s https://t.co/B6rbbu0cJi pic.twitter.com/TAfsED2Asp

— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) August 22, 2026 The Hardware Hedging: Nvidia as "Buyer of Last Resort"

Upstream suppliers are already positioning themselves for a cooling enterprise trajectory. A recent Wccftech report highlights how Nvidia is effectively serving as the "buyer of last resort" for its own GPUs. The chipmaker has earmarked roughly $7 billion for AI startup Poolside - allocating $6 billion to license its IP and acqui-hire its engineering team, alongside a $1 billion direct equity investment at a $12 billion valuation.

The deal establishes a massive internal demand sink to bolster Nvidia's proprietary open-weight Nemotron models. Should downstream enterprise demand taper off - precisely as Altman's observations on inertia suggest - Nvidia can simply re-route its silicon internally rather than letting excess inventory idle or margins collapse.

Altman also went on the offensive against the doomsday marketing of safety-centric competitors - most visibly Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Altman blasted the industry's "countdown to destruction" rhetoric as "the language of anti-human dictators," taking direct aim at what he termed the "benevolent dictator" narrative.

Under this framing, Altman argued, tech elites ask the public to surrender their autonomy and let a handful of "unelected" companies "make decisions for the world" in exchange for promised utopias like curing cancer and generating limitless wealth. To Altman, consolidating unchecked authority under the guise of existential risk is a far greater hazard than any rogue model.

It is a convenient pivot. Having conceded that his own timelines were oversold, Altman steers the conversation away from the capital cycle and toward Darioooo.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/24/2026 - 14:00

Gold: From DC's "Enemy" To Its Last Hope?

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

As headlines from the Iranian “conflict” continue to leave the world guessing as to what, if any, military, political and financial solutions lie ahead, we can at least know this much: The approaching autumn looks a bit scary.

A Market Fall in the Fall?

The macro setting for our collective transition from summer to fall in 2026 is marked by rising yields across the western yield curve, from Paris to DC.

These rising yields, which represent the cost of servicing debt for nations and enterprises (i.e. stocks) already in debt beyond the sustainability mark, are nothing less than flashing warnings of Uh-Oh ahead.

As of this writing, for example, the yield on the 10Y UST has climbed past the Rubicon of sanity to a dangerous 4.7% at the same time trillions of outstanding USTs face a re-finance at much higher rates.

Needless to say, U.S. tax receipts and GDP will not be enough to pay for the same.

More Non-QE-QE…

This means we can expect more “Non-QE-QE” from a debt-trapped and fork-tongued Fed which will need to create trillions in more back-door liquidity (i.e. synthetic dollars) off the Fed’s balance sheet to avoid having to say the embarrassing “QE” word out loud.

Toward this desperate end, Warsh has familiar tricks up his sleeve to keep the TBTF banks (the Fed’s real mandate) temporarily liquid at the expense of Main Street inflation and employment stresses (which are the Fed’s pretended mandates).

In addition to draining liquidity from the Treasury General Account, bailing out the Repo markets or issuing more unwanted IOUs from the short end of the yield-curve,Warsh, talking like a hawk, will be dovishly adding a trillion dollars of levered capital to the big banks by simple non-compliance with the Basel III rules, a maze so complicated that no one on Main Street is expected to notice.

Meanwhile, as Japan, formerly America’s largest buyer of USTs, has become a massive seller of the same, this latest threat to Uncle Sam’s unloved IOUs is being “solved” by more indirect QE conveniently described as “repurchase agreements.”

But in plain English, all these “repurchase agreements” boil down to is this: The moment Japan dumps USTs, the Fed is buying them at volume in a near-term attempt to keep bond prices (and hence yields) under control with printed dollar demand for otherwise unloved USTs.

This is just a diet-Coke version of Yield Curve Control and hidden QE by another name.

America’s Check-Mate Moment

In short, as the world foreseeably dumps weaponized and over-indebted USTs at a record pace in favor of gold-stacking at an equally record pace (driven primarily by the Chinese), the writing on the U.S. debt wall couldn’t be more clear: American debt management has reached its checkmate moment.

There are no good moves left.

If the Fed allows rates to go higher to “fight inflation,” this will crush everything but the USD in its wake—from stocks and bonds to BTC and yes, even gold–temporarily.

But eventually, higher rates just hit a wall of Fiscal Dominance wherein the rates become too high for even Uncle Sam to pay its own debt.

As a result, more dollar debasing QE inevitably follows, as we saw in the wake of Powell’s attempt at Higher-for-Longer in 2022 and 2023, after which gold ripped to all-time-highs in the years (and liquidity) that followed.

Alternatively, if the Fed uses extreme liquidity for extreme YCC (which it always ends up doing), this just “saves” its bond market at the direct expense of its currency, which leads, once again, to yet another tailwind for gold.

The Dollar (and Gold’s) End-Game is Clear

What all of these broad strokes ultimately point to is this: The dollar’s mathematical end-game is weaker not stronger; which means gold’s end-game is stronger not weaker.

This is not only a consequence of the hard math of debt, it is the very goal of a now desperate DC which is increasingly in favor of a weaker rather than stronger dollar to achieve its “Hamiltonian” new direction of allegedly making America “great again.”

As for this new direction, Treasury Secretary Bessent all but confessed this in a recent WSJ op-ed, and even Trump, knowingly or unknowingly, said the “Hamiltonian” part out loud when bragging about returning to the “policies of 1870 to 1913.”

But just what is this “Hamiltonian” new direction?

Going Hamiltonian

In a nutshell, it boils down to Hamilton’s 1790 version of building a then emerging American productivity base via extreme protectionism and hence otherwise unfair tariff practices.

This effectively meant that foreigners rather than Americans would pay for America’s own growth (or post-civil war re-growth).

Such protectionism made sense when America was an emerging nation in the 1790’s, or seeking to re-build its economy after the U.S. civil war ended in 1865.

But as America celebrates its 250th national birthday in 2026, this return to Hamiltonian thinking looks a tad more desperate than innovative.

Since the U.S. outsourced American manufacturing to China under the WTO deals of 2000 and 2001 (nod to Clinton), a country once known for manufacturing became an outsourced nation of factory lay-offs and extreme financialization rather than domestic manufacturing.

This was a disaster.

Rather than open China’s market as a great “purchaser” of American widgets, the WTO deal, with the complicit support of American CEO’s seeking cheaper labor and higher personal incomes/margins, simply opened China up as the greater manufacturer of American widgets.

Now the Trump white house seeks to reshore American manufacturing and labor, which on its face, is more than reasonable and very much needed.

Hamilton in 2026?

But here’s the rub: Reshoring is expensive. And the U.S. under Trump, unlike Hamilton’s 18th-century America, is staring down the fatal barrel of $40T in public debt.

This is a debt figure which must surely have Alexander Hamilton rolling in his Manhattan grave.

In order for DC to re-shore American manufacturing in such a debt backdrop, it will need a weaker dollar to both inject the needed capital as well as compete in a trade war which requires a weaker rather than stronger dollar for its export advantages.

On the other side of the Hamiltonian (i.e., protectionist) camp in DC are the classic neo-liberalist or globalist policy makers who prefer free flows and free trade to get the lowest prices on goods for American citizens.

Naturally, cheaper TV’s made in China or Japan are nice for American shoppers at Walmart, but it’s hardly much of a trade-off to haver cheaper TVs in American living rooms at the expense of millions of laid off workers in the U.S. rust-belt.

Make the Dollar Weak Again

Thus, for Trump and/or Bessent to make American manufacturing “great again,” a weaker dollar is not just a debate, it’s essential policy.

The problem is a weaker dollar helps DC, but the dollar debasement and inflation required to re-shore and re-build American productivity will hit Main Street hard in the gut via a dollar so diluted (and unsupported by equivalent wage hikes) that not even a comically bogus CPI scale will be able to hide the inflation metastasizing throughout America.

This means DC will need another way to pay for its Hamiltonian schemes than just protectionism and dollar-debasement gone wild.

The Golden Option

They will need another asset to monetize this ambitious project of American re-shoring. As Bessent himself hinted, it’s time to “monetize the asset side of the American balance sheet.”

To me, at least, this means it’s time to monetize the 260 million ounces of allegedly U.S.-held gold still priced at roughly $42.00/oz.

Such a revaluation of U.S. gold holdings (aided by the Venezuelan gold handed to Uncle Sam via the Bank of England) to market price would remove the embarrassment of more “QE” headlines and a too-rapid dollar debasement.

In short, such a gold revaluation would buy the USA something it desperately needs: Time and money.

From “Enemy” to Asset of Last Resort

But any re-valuation of U.S.-held gold would certainly do a lot more for the U.S. balance sheet if gold were marked to market at a higher rather than lower market price.

This places the U.S. at not only an historical decision point, but also an historical turning point as to its traditional view on gold.

Ever since the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971, gold was, as Volcker famously said, “America’s enemy.” After all, rising gold was an open middle finger to a post-71, nothing-backed dollar.

This early need to fight the golden “enemy” explains why the COMEX and CME tricks to legally price fix gold and silver began in earnest (along with the Petrodollar scheme) directly after the dollar decoupled from gold in August of 1971.

It was essential that rising gold be controlled to avoid humiliating the Greenback.

But 55 years later, the “exorbitant privilege” of the USD’s global hegemony is now stumbling under the self-inflicted wound of too much debt, a distrusted and weaponized IOU and a petrodollar in open shift in the wake of the Iranian fiasco.

As a result of these changing facts, and after decades of exporting US inflation to the rest of the world, the increasingly diluted and unloved dollar is no longer just the world’s problem, it’s America’s problem as well.

Which means that what Bessent and Trump (as well as Judy Shelton) are subtly suggesting is that gold is no longer our “enemy.”

Instead, and quite ironically, gold is now one of America’s last options to de-deficit at least a portion of its fiscal nightmare.

Rather than Repress Gold, Let It Run

Or stated even more simply, it is now in the USA’s best interest to let gold run rather than to price fix it lower on a COMEX which has lost both its gold and credibility as China and Hong Kong move from paper-based exchanges to physical precious metal exchanges.

Gold at $4,000/oz., for example, won’t help the USA de-deficit nearly as much as it could if gold were at $17,000/oz., $20,000/oz or higher (in fact much higher) in the years to come.

And if you are wondering why central banks are stacking more gold than USTs today, it’s partly because that is precisely where they see gold heading: Much higher…

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/24/2026 - 13:40

The endorsements come as the Clarity Act, the crypto industry's top policy priority, stalls in the Senate amid opposition from some lawmakers.