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It's been a while, but Red Sox fans have seen this before.

Linda Cohn isn't on ESPN's airwaves anymore and she isn't a fan of what her former employer is becoming.

David Bailey gave everyone a glimpse Friday night of what the Jets have seen all summer.

A potential record-setting fish that measured in at over 11 feet in length was caught off the coast of Massachusetts on Wednesday.

The 50% tariff will apply to some $20 billion worth of Canadian products, including wine, hockey sticks, and cement. 

Democratic power broker Terry Schanz is expected to face consequences for his behavior.

Sean Manaea played into the Elvis Night theme here Friday by turning the ballpark into Heartbreak Hotel for the Mets.

Andy Pages didn’t show any pain initially.

Bayonne, NJ beat West Chester, PA 3-1 in the Little League World Series behind Mason Rincon's home run and Chase Klimkowski's stellar pitching.

Who Really Drives Global Terrorism? Internal US Govt Data Offers A Surprising Answer

Authored by Larry Johnson via Sonar21.com

Every administration reaches for the same line. Iran, we are told, is the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism — a claim now central to the case for war. It carries the weight of an official designation: Iran has sat on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since January 19, 1984, the longest-running designation currently on the books, alongside Cuba, North Korea, and Syria. The supporting figures get repeated as settled fact — more than a billion dollars a year in terror financing, and somewhere between 140,000 and 185,000 IRGC-Quds Force partner fighters spread across Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen.

The problem is that the government's own record doesn't back the headline. The place to test the claim is the data the State Department itself publishes — the statistical annex to Country Reports on Terrorism, and before it Patterns of Global Terrorism, the congressionally mandated series that has catalogued international terrorist incidents year by year since 1990. When you actually read those tables, a different picture emerges from the one sold on cable news.

Who commits the attacks

The annex doesn’t sort attacks by sect, but it doesn’t need to. The identity of the top perpetrator groups tells the story on its own. Year after year across 2004–2023, the most active and lethal groups are Sunni: the Taliban, ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and its affiliates, al-Shabaab, the TTP. On the order of nine in ten attacks in the reporting trace back to Sunni extremist actors operating out of the Salafi-jihadist tradition. None of them answer to Tehran. Most regard Shia Muslims — Iran very much included — as heretics, and target them accordingly. ISIS has spent years at open war with Iran and its allies.

A separate French dataset, compiled by FONDAPOL over a longer 1979–April 2024 window, lands in the same place. The five deadliest Islamist groups over that period account for better than 80 percent of all victims of Islamist terrorism — and every one of the five is Sunni: the Taliban, ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda.

Where are the Iran-linked groups in all this? Largely absent from the top of the tables. Hezbollah and the Iran-aligned militias tend not to appear, in part because their operations are directed mainly at military forces rather than civilians, which places them outside the working definition of terrorism the reports use. The Houthis are the main Shia-linked group to surface in recent editions, and only as a small share of the total.

It is only in 2023 that three groups in Iran’s orbit — the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah — break into the top ten at all. They do so because of their attacks on Israel, and those attacks were aimed primarily at military targets. Before 2023, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah ranked among the groups responsible for the most attacks worldwide. That is a remarkable fact for two organizations routinely described as among the planet’s most prolific terrorists.

The Israeli numbers

Take the definition of terrorism that Benjamin Netanyahu himself uses — violence against civilians for political ends — and apply it to Israel’s own government data, drawn from the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s record of victims of Palestinian violence covering 2000 through April 2024. (That dataset predates and excludes the October 7, 2023 attack.)

Two things stand out. First, Palestinian attacks have trended downward since 2003. The peak sits in the 2000–2005 window — the Second Intifada. Across the full 24 years, 1,552 Israelis were killed and 5,595 wounded, and the violence is heavily concentrated in that early-2000s spike: roughly 76 percent of the deaths and 92 percent of the wounded fall within the Second Intifada years. Second, Hamas is not the terrorist engine the public imagination makes it out to be. Only about 15 percent of attacks over the 24-year span are attributed to Hamas, acting alone or with another faction. None of this makes Hamas a peace movement — it isn’t — but it is not an organization waging ceaseless slaughter either.

The rocket fire is the clearest case of rhetoric outrunning arithmetic. Hamas and Hezbollah have launched thousands of rockets at Israel over 25 years. The death toll specifically from those rockets across 2001–2025 is on the order of 50 to 75 people — not the “thousands” the coverage implies. The gap between the two numbers is the whole point.

Set against this is the asymmetry no honest accounting can skip. Israel killed an estimated 11,200–11,500 Palestinians between 2000 and October 6, 2023. Since October 7, the figure in Gaza has climbed past 73,000 by the Gaza Health Ministry’s count — a number an Israeli military official effectively conceded in January 2026, accepting more than 71,000 killed by direct Israeli fire.

Who actually funds the perpetrators

If the metric is real, it points somewhere other than Tehran. The Sunni groups that dominate the casualty tables have drawn financial support from the Gulf Arab states — and, more awkwardly, from the United States itself.

The paper trail runs through Syria: US and allied money reaching outfits spun off from ISIS, including the al-Nusra lineage that produced Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, whose leader Washington once had a $10 million bounty on before quietly retiring it. The same government that brands Iran the foremost sponsor of terrorism has, at various points, been a facilitator of the very groups doing the most killing.

The bottom line

The designation is doing political work, not analytical work. Iran is not, by the government’s own incident data, the major driver of global terrorism; the perpetrators overwhelmingly belong to a Sunni jihadist current that is hostile to Iran and financed from elsewhere.

A serious campaign against the sponsors of terrorism would start with the Gulf states, not with Tehran. Instead, a charge the data won’t support is being used as the pretext for an unprovoked war. A country living in a glass house should think twice before throwing rocks.

Anticipated objections — and the answers

“But Hamas and Hezbollah entered the top ten in 2023, so Iran’s proxies are major terrorists.” They entered in a single year, and only because of a war with Israel in which their fire was directed mainly at military targets — soldiers, bases, the IDF in the field. The State Department’s own definition turns on violence against civilians for political ends. A spike driven by attacks on an army during an active war is not evidence of sustained civilian-directed terrorism; it’s evidence of a shooting war. For the two prior decades of the reporting, neither group cracked the list of the world’s most active perpetrators. One year inside the top ten, produced by combat with a state military, does not overturn twenty outside it.

“You’re leaning on data that excludes October 7, 2023 — the deadliest single day in the whole record.” The exclusion is stated plainly, not smuggled: the Israeli Foreign Ministry dataset runs through the period before that attack, and October 7 is the largest single event on the Israeli side of the ledger. Grant it in full. It changes the total for one day; it does not change the structure of the twenty-year record, in which Palestinian violence trends downward after 2003 and Hamas accounts for roughly 15 percent of attacks. Nor does a single mass-casualty event convert Iran into the foremost global sponsor of terrorism, when the groups filling the casualty tables every other year — ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab — remain Sunni, anti-Shia, and unconnected to Tehran. October 7 is a real and terrible data point. It is not the trend, and it is not the sponsorship question.

“Body counts don’t measure sponsorship — the designation is about the support a state provides, not how many its proxies kill.” This is the fairest objection, and it’s worth meeting directly rather than dodging. Concede the distinction: state sponsorship is measured by money, weapons, and training, not by proxy casualty totals. But the “foremost sponsor” claim is almost never used that narrowly in practice. It is deployed to characterize the threat — to argue that Iran is the principal engine of the terrorism Americans should fear. Measured against the actual distribution of terrorist violence, that characterization collapses: the threat is overwhelmingly Sunni jihadist. And on the sponsorship axis itself, the framework is applied selectively. The Gulf states that financed Sunni networks, and the U.S. and allied money that reached groups spun off from ISIS in Syria, never draw the “number one sponsor” label. A designation that is consistent only when it points at Iran is a political instrument, not an analytical finding.

“Calling Hezbollah’s targets ‘primarily military’ whitewashes real atrocities.” The claim is about the pattern the reporting captures, not a denial that Hezbollah has ever killed civilians — it plainly has, from the 1980s bombings to attacks abroad. The point stands at the level of the aggregate data: across the reporting period, the group’s operations register mainly against military forces, which is precisely why it sits outside the top perpetrator tables that are built on civilian-directed attacks. Acknowledging the exceptions doesn’t move the aggregate.

*  *  *

Sources: U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism (statistical annex, 2004–2023) and Patterns of Global Terrorism; FONDAPOL, dataset on Islamist terrorism 1979–2024; Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, victims of Palestinian violence and terrorism 2000–2024; Gaza Health Ministry casualty figures. I have synthesized this from my previously published Sonar21 essays.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/21/2026 - 23:25

You might want to ghost alfalfa sprouts for a bit — unless you enjoy spending quality time with your bathroom tiles.

Smith missed last week's preseason opener with a sore ankle but he looked 100 percent healthy and ready for the regular season in his brief appearance against the Steelers.

Three takeaways from the Jets’ 17-0 preseason win over the Steelers on Friday night in Pittsburgh.

"Fibermaxxing" Craze Forces Big Food Into Reformulation Cycle

BNP Paribas analysts say Gen Z's growing awareness of healthy, high-protein, high-fiber diets is accelerating a reformulation cycle across the Big Food industrial complex, as manufacturers race to make products more appealing to the youth and those on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. 

In a report titled "Fiber Is the New Protein,” BNP analyst Joan Lim said the protein craze ignited by GLP-1 adoption has been coined "fibermaxxing," as younger consumers seek food products promising satiety, digestive health and weight-management benefits.

Consumer research firm Nielsen shows protein-rich categories have seen stronger volumes versus junk food categories. 

The global dietary fiber market was valued at roughly $9.6 billion in 2025 and is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 9.6% through 2034, as the fiber-maxxing trend gains even more momentum.

Fibermaxxing is already visible, according to Lim. Only 20% of people globally consume the recommended daily amount of fiber, yet social media posts using the #fibermaxxing hashtag attracted more than 150 million views on TikTok in 2025.

Food and beverage research firm Datassential found that 52% of US consumers are interested in trying fibermaxxing and 42% consider products labeled "high fiber" healthier.

Fiber has also overtaken probiotics in digestive-health marketing. Some 38% of products carrying a digestive-health claim now advertise high fiber, compared with 19% featuring probiotics. PepsiCo and Nestlé are among the big food companies that are placing fiber claims more prominently on their packaging.

About 35% of US consumers increased their protein intake between 2024 and 2025, while 75% said they would pay more for protein-rich foods and beverages. The global market for protein-rich products is estimated at $65 billion and growing at 6%-8% annually.

With GLP-1 penetration at 12% in the US and in the low single digits globally, adoption is expected to increase as the drugs become widely available in oral form and more affordable. Lim pointed out that "GLP-1 users need to consume more protein to mitigate the effects of muscle loss."

BNP identified Tate & Lyle and Ingredion as best positioned to benefit from fibermaxxing. 

Kerry Group, DSM-Firmenich, IFF, Givaudan and Novonesis could benefit from demand for flavors, enzymes, cultures and texture solutions.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/21/2026 - 23:00

Bronny James has finally broken his silence on his father, LeBron James' departure from the Los Angeles Lakers.

11 people were busted for possession and distribution of kiddie porn aboard two different cruise ships in Boston on Friday — the third takedown of an allegedly pedophile-infected cruise ship this year. 

He has been the Dodgers’ least-productive, most-disappointing and highest-scrutinized player all season long. He has previously been booed both at home and on the road. He has been criticized, chastised and critiqued endlessly, especially during a career-worst hitless streak recently. But on Friday night, amid what has been the lowest stretch of his dismal debut...

Former Compton native and USC Trojans basketball star DeMar DeRozan is set to start his next journey. A member of the Denver Nuggets. According to reports from NBA insider Chris Haynes, DeRozan plans on signing a deal with the Nuggets. ESPN NBA Insider Sham Charania added that the deal will be for one year and...

The Yankees have won five straight mostly through continued pitching excellence but also with the beginnings of life from their offense.

Trained On 53 Million Pages: US Supercomputer-Backed Tool To Search Nuclear Reactor Data

Authored by Aman Tripathi via Interesting Engineering,

Nuclear power stations across North America have begun using a dedicated virtual system called NIVA. The software was created by Atomic Canyon in collaboration with the Electric Power Research Institute, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Atomic Canyon collaborated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to train the FERMI models. (Representational image)

It provides engineers and technicians across the commercial reactor fleet with an automated method to query vast archives of technical, operational, and regulatory records.

"The U.S. nuclear sector sits on decades of invaluable technical and operational knowledge, but too much of that knowledge remains difficult to access at the speed modern deployments require," said Trey Lauderdale, Founder & CEO, Atomic Canyon.

"The fleetwide availability of NIVA shows that AI in nuclear power is real, operational, and ready to be deployed responsibly at a fleetwide scale."

Technical architecture for model training

The technological foundation of the platform rests on a specialized model family named FERMI. Standard, general-purpose language systems frequently fail to parse the dense technical terminology, precise abbreviations, and domain-specific syntax common in nuclear engineering. FERMI was built to resolve this issue by interpreting technical meaning rather than simply scanning for exact keyword occurrences.

Atomic Canyon collaborated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to train the models on the Frontier exascale supercomputer. The training dataset included more than 53 million pages of documentation from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The completed model weights are publicly available on the Hugging Face repository.

FERMI functions within an operational software interface called Neutron. While NIVA applies the retrieval models across broader sector archives, the Neutron environment links those capabilities directly to an individual station's private network. This structure lets local engineering departments run searches across their own licensing bases, routine maintenance logs, technical drawings, and operating procedures.

The current rollout provides plant personnel with two functional modules, alongside a third tool scheduled for future release.

Functional modules with commercial expansion plan

The first component is the Knowledge Assistant. Plant staff can enter queries in conversational phrasing to obtain direct answers extracted from verified technical repositories. The system sources information from NRC Regulatory Guides, NUREG reports, NEI guidelines, INPO standards, and EPRI research publications. Every output includes direct citations in the text, allowing engineers to verify statements against the original source documents.

The second component is the Operating Experience Assistant. This tool reviews historical plant performance logs and previous event reports. It evaluates the underlying context of a query instead of looking for surface-level word matches, and engineers can interact with the returned records through a conversational query window to investigate past equipment behavior. A third tool focused on diagnostic and troubleshooting tasks is undergoing software development, with plant trials planned for later this year.

The commercial deployment follows a six-month pilot evaluation period at several operating utilities, including Constellation Energy, which operates 21 reactors across 12 station sites.

Atomic Canyon previously tested its generative tools on-site at the Diablo Canyon facility managed by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

To finance the expansion of the software across additional commercial sites, Atomic Canyon secured an investment round. Backers include NVIDIA, Plug and Play Ventures, and former Vanguard Group chairman Mortimer Buckley. The funds will support ongoing software engineering and integration across operating facilities.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/21/2026 - 22:35