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Plus, Cole McBee and Kacie Adkison revealed whether Steve McBee Sr. is still dating Masha Petrova.

The news of Deandre Ayton exercising his $8.1 player option for the 2026-27 season to stay with the Lakers wasn’t surprising. Even with him outplaying the $8.1 salary he made from the Lakers in 2025-26 (he gave up $10 million of his $35.6 million contract in his buyout with the Trail Blazers last summer before...

Do they really need another pitcher?

Jail records obtained by KOLN also showed that the Cornhuskers' running back has been accused of aggravated battery involving a pregnant woman. 

The Supreme Court is set to wrap up its term with blockbuster rulings on birthright citizenship and transgender athletes after handing President Trump a series of major wins—and setbacks—earlier this week. Meanwhile, gas prices have dipped below four dollars a gallon, but a new government report warns the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest...

Maersk Lifts Outlook As Wall Street Questions Whether Freight Tailwinds Can Last

A.P. Moller-Maersk shares rose in Copenhagen trading after the world's second-largest container carrier surprised analysts by raising its full-year profit outlook, citing stronger-than-expected containerized demand, particularly across Asia. The upbeat guidance suggests the global container market has remained resilient despite earlier Hormuz-related chokepoint disruptions, with global shipping demand holding.

The Danish shipping and logistics giant now expects global container volumes to grow about 4% this year, up from its prior forecast of 2% to 4%. It also lifted guidance for EBITDA, EBIT, and free cash flow, with the new ranges coming in well above analyst expectations, as tracked by Bloomberg.

Here's a snapshot of the full-year guidance upgrade (courtesy of Bloomberg):

• Sees underlying Ebitda $8 billion to $10 billion, saw $4.5 billion to $7 billion, estimate $7.33 billion (Bloomberg Consensus)
• Sees underlying Ebit $2 billion to $4 billion, saw loss $1.5 billion to $1 billion, estimate $1.42 billion

Maersk's guidance matters because container shipping offers one of the clearest real-time reads on global demand for goods.

The stronger outlook reflects a recent surge in spot freight rates, resilient export volumes in Asian markets, and tighter effective capacity due to ongoing route disruptions. The key question for investors now is whether that momentum is strong enough to push Maersk shares back toward, or through, their 2021 highs.

Wolfe Research analyst Jacob Lacks noted:

Maersk is clearly benefitting from the recent surge in spot rates, and a key question in our minds for the stock is how long the current environment lasts. We continue to believe the recent tightness reflects at least some degree of a pull-forward and an early peak season. This is consistent with ocean freight futures which continue to show a meaningful normalization lower in ocean rates following July.

Deutsche Bank analyst Harishankar Ramamoorthy noted:

..but difficult to see rates momentum sustain over the medium-term.

We have revised our forecasts for 2026 to reflect the guidance above, but make little changes to estimates beyond 2026 (see Figure 2). Freight rates have been volatile in the past several months, given many "black swan" events, and it is difficult to argue that the current momentum in spot rates should continue structurally into the medium term. Nevertheless, as we noted in our monthly Transportation Leading Indicators note yesterday, markets are pricing in an easing in freight rates for Maersk driven by the peace deal in the Middle East (latest SCFI is still c. 140% higher than in end Feb); but they seem to be ignoring that bunker 380 has dropped c. 37% from its peak in March, now trading only 7% higher than at the end of Feb.

We have been arguing that the direction of travel for spot freight rates relative to bunker costs has been favourable for Maersk (see Figure 1), and it is indeed providing some near-term tail risk. Given the swing in EBITDA, FCF, and consequently net debt, while we haven't changed our valuation methodology or the multiples used, our price target stands revised from DKK 12,970 to DKK 14,030. Despite the near-term tailwinds to spot rates, the situation on overcapacity in the industry warrants caution over the medium term; retain HOLD.

Bernstein analyst Alex Irving noted:

This increase follows strong demand leading to strong freight rates. We see the increase in spot rates YTD as having two components. The initial rise in spot rates following the outbreak of war in the Middle East was likely largely, if not entirely, due to additional surcharges for higher fuel costs. However, rates continued to rise even as fuel prices started to decline as Q2 went on, reflecting strength in demand. What is not yet clear to us is how much is a pull-forward of demand, ahead of further surcharges and the risk of higher tariffs in Q3, vs genuinely greater demand. Maersk has increased its volume outlook for total container trade for the year from a range of 2-4% growth, to 4% growth. By implication, the answer is some of both.

The underlying threat to industry profitability of oversupply has not gone away, and in recent days we have seen reports of further mega orders (MSC just yesterday reported to be ordering up to 20 vessels of 20,000 TEU each, for delivery from 2029). Near term, the rate environment continues to support very strong earnings at container lines.

Last week, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc told Bloomberg: "It has been strong throughout the first half of the year, despite the war and the disruption to energy markets," adding, "For us, the expectation is that this in all likelihood, right now looks like it's set to continue into the rest of the

Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2026 - 07:45

You definitely don't want this Santa Claus sneaking down your chimney.

An ex-Alaskan town mayor once named “parent of the year” has been charged with child sex crimes, authorities revealed this week.

The 59-page order by Joe Biden-appointed US District Judge Jeanette Vargas makes permanent a temporary restraining order she granted Feb. 6, the same day construction came to a screeching halt due to lack of money.

Can We Have Our Humans Back? Companies Rethink AI

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times,

The artificial intelligence revolution may not be eliminating human jobs as quickly as some feared. Rising computing costs, operational headaches, and inconsistent results are prompting some companies to change course and bring workers back.

It’s a hard lesson learned in the throes of the early AI boom, in which bold claims of big savings have enticed many businesses to downsize their staff.

Many industry professionals now say that roles requiring sound judgment, creativity, customer interaction, and quality control need to keep humans in the driver’s seat.

A Careerminds survey of 600 human resources professionals who'd made layoffs in the previous 12 months revealed that nine out of 10 companies would rethink their AI-related terminations.

Three out of four human resources professionals who took the survey confirmed that their organization sacked employees because of technological advancements that replaced roles and responsibilities.

But only 8.4 percent of the survey pool said AI delivered the promised results.

“Over the past 12 months, we have seen a noticeable uptick in companies coming to us after pausing or scaling back AI tool rollouts,” James Calloway, chief operating officer at Stealth Agents, told The Epoch Times.

Calloway’s company provides executive-level virtual assistants, an area where the cost difference between human workers and AI agents is stark.

“One e-commerce client had budgeted for an AI customer service implementation and found the licensing, integration, and ongoing prompt engineering costs were two to three times their original estimate,” he said.

“They hired two of our [human virtual assistants] instead and cut their per-ticket resolution cost by nearly 40 [percent].

“Human employees remain more cost-effective in client-facing communications that require empathy and judgment, tasks that require reading between the lines of what a customer actually needs, work involving proprietary context that cannot safely be fed into third-party AI systems, and any workflow where a mistake has real reputational or legal consequences.”

Big tech companies have also found this to be true. In April, Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at Nvidia, told Axios, “For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees.”

Nickle LaMoreaux, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at IBM, argued that augmenting roles with AI is more essential to corporate growth than replacing human talent entirely, during a Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute summit in March.

LaMoreaux’s comments followed just weeks after IBM announced plans to triple its entry-level hires. When asked why so many companies aren’t taking a similar approach, he said, “It’s because they’re in this productivity mindset versus the growth mindset.”

A BCG analysis predicted that 50 percent to 55 percent of all jobs in the United States will be “reshaped” by AI within the next couple of years.

Visitors crowd an IBM exhibition stand at the 2026 Hannover Messe industrial trade fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 20, 2026. This year's trade fair included an increased emphasis on industrial AI. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Unforeseen Expenses

Jon Hill, CEO of The Energists, said there’s a misconception that generative AI is just “software with a subscription fee.” He has personally witnessed how AI buyer’s remorse can lead to staff rehires.

“Many of our clients aggressively pursued generative AI initiatives, thinking they would reduce labor costs,” Hill told The Epoch Times, “but we’re increasingly seeing those clients circling back to human employees after discovering the real-world costs of AI systems.”

Hill gave the example of one company that he worked with that planned to automate some of its compliance reporting and technical support. The company found that while the projected savings initially looked promising, those gains evaporated when taking into account the costs of cybersecurity, human oversight, and application programming interface usage.

The client chose to pause AI deployment because “human staff provided more predictable output at a lower long-term cost,” he said.

Hill said there are multiple costs that organizations can overlook. Cloud compute costs alone can be “a six- to seven-figure annual expense,” depending on usage, Hill said.

People visit an AI data center at SK Networks during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on March 3, 2025. A February survey of human resources professionals revealed that nine out of 10 companies would rethink AI-related terminations. Manaure Quinter/AFP via Getty Images

Matt Baharav, CEO of MKB Media Solutions, told The Epoch Times that the AI content assistant his team implemented ended up being both costly and inefficient.

“Last quarter, we decided to stop utilizing an [AI] automated content assistant for our outreach pitches. We realized the software was ineffective,” Baharav told The Epoch Times.

“The company we hired and paid thousands per month charged us licensing costs, as well as had my team spend countless hours rewriting generic paragraphs created by their tool.”

In this photo illustration, a screen shows the Deepseek app in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 31, 2026. After the rapid rise of AI implementation in industrial settings, a growing number of businesses are bringing human workers back to the workplace. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times

Baharav said he learned that “a good writer is less expensive than an expensive automated content assistant” when it comes to complex communications.

“We eliminated the software altogether and transferred the funds back into hiring competent, sharp writers,” he said.

Tech spending tracker Mavvrik, in its 2025 State of AI Cost Management report, observed that 80 percent to 85 percent of companies missed their AI infrastructure forecasts by more than 25 percent, while 84 percent reported “significant gross margin erosion” because of miscalculated AI costs.

The offices of Amazon Germany's new headquarters in Munich are pictured on April 16, 2026. The retail giant laid off 16,000 workers in January in its latest round of cuts, part of a multi-year wave of layoffs driven in part by the company's adoption of artificial intelligence. AFP via Getty Images

Luxury Component

Marcus Mossberger, chief market strategy officer at workforce intelligence platform LYTIQS, said he believes that AI could have its own niche within the workforce, so long as it’s not a situation that would be better served by human judgment.

“HR is a great example where AI can be used to field transaction questions like ‘what is the deductible on my health insurance plan,’ but not for more intimate requests, like ‘what should I do about a co-worker who is making me uncomfortable?’” Mossberger said.

He said some companies are likely to “over-rotate” toward AI and learn a hard lesson, but he thinks that there could be bigger consequences for companies than just having to hire new talent.

“I actually believe the biggest hidden ‘expense’ associated with implementing generative AI has been the disruption of trust between employee and employer. And let’s face it, this wasn’t exactly an area of strength to begin with,” Mossberger said.

A Microsoft AI booth is shown during the AI+Expo Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington on June 2, 2025. Many companies are feeling buyer's remorse, hiring industry insiders say, as they find that the cost of AI implementation is higher than anticipated. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

He pointed out that hard-working Americans are watching employers invest billions in AI infrastructure while laying off their co-workers and being asked to help train their own AI replacement.

“If you think these same individuals are giving you discretionary effort and taking innovative risks to improve your organization, you are badly mistaken,” Mossberger said.

He predicts that this will necessitate a need for companies to rebuild trust in their brand while training new hires. Mossberger said he thinks that many of the people laid off during the early days of the AI gold rush may refuse to come back.

The practice of a worker returning to the same company that initially laid them off has come to be known as a “boomerang employee.”

For Baharav, the decision to prioritize human talent has definitely paid off. “To date, we have actually ended up saving money,” he said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2026 - 07:20

The 22-year-old announced earlier this month that he has written a tell-all titled "In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood."

The 22-year-old announced earlier this month that he has written a tell-all titled "In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood."

The words of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln remind us: The joy of being an American also carries the pang of obligation to continue the American Experiment successfully.

Fashion isn’t mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, but its importance was certainly recognized by the Founding Fathers (and Mothers).

The KISS bassist started working hard almost as soon as he moved to the US as a kid — by hustling a fellow paper boy.

America’s entertainment industry benefited from something few other national cinemas could claim: It was built by people who came from somewhere else.

Next offseason is going to be tricky for every team, but particularly a club such as the Mets.

Celebrities can influence how millions of people think about health, medicine and wellness, but some famous claims have clashed with scientific evidence.

Israeli Defense Chief Lashes Out At Trump Policy For Preventing Destruction Of Hezbollah

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in a talk before reporters Monday ripped the Trump administration, blaming the US for giving into Iran's demands that a peace framework incorporate the Lebanon front.

Trump "exerted pressure" on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu within several telephone calls "in the run-up to the signing of the memorandum of understanding" - and ultimately prevented Israel from disarming and destroying Hezbollah, he asserted.

Katz expressed "regret" at the US linking up Iran and Lebanon, saying: "The connection between the Iran and Lebanon fronts is an American interest; if there had been no connection between the fronts, Hezbollah would have collapsed." 

Israeli Defense Ministry

Katz suggested the Israeli army was then forced to go to a "Plan B," which he outlined as "pushing deeper into the 'Yellow Line' zone in southern Lebanon" - which extends nearly 10 kilometers into Lebanon, and mainly constitutes what the IDF currently occupies.

The Times of Israel bluntly put it as follows:

Briefing reporters, Katz claimed that had it not been for American pressure on Israel, the IDF would have caused Hezbollah's collapse in Lebanon. He said the IDF had planned a “massive” aerial campaign that, he claimed, “would have dismantled Hezbollah,” and that the terror group was “begging the Iranians to save it.”

The defense minister blamed US President Donald Trump’s linking of the US-Iran talks with Lebanon for preventing Israel from doing so. According to Katz, when Trump “linked Iran and Lebanon,” Israel had to stop “bringing down buildings in Beirut,” but could carry out “surgical strikes” on Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital.

Katz emphasized, "I’m sorry about that linkage, but it was an American interest. They very much wanted to advance the possibility of negotiations with Iran."

He also noted of recently strained US-Israeli relations, "when you enter into a partnership, it has advantages, but it also comes with certain constraints."

"People should not hold their breath wondering where the next place will be from which Israel will withdraw in Lebanon, because it will not happen until Hezbollah is disarmed. We have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but until Hezbollah is disarmed, we will not withdraw a millimeter," Katz added.

He also said, "When it comes to defending ourselves, there are no compromises, not in Lebanon and not in Iran."

The defense chief then made clear that Israel is preparing to go it alone regarding Iran if need be:

"If Iran attacks, that is the third Iran war. The situation is very clear. There is no reality in which Israel will allow missile fire at its territory without responding with force. It could happen within two days. My directive to the IDF is to prepare for a blue-and-white operation in Iran."

🚨Three remarkable comments from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz today:

On the reported plan to topple the Iranian regime, originally prepared under former Mossad chief David Barnea:

"There were external actors who were supposed to join, but they did not allow it to…

— גיא עזריאל Guy Azriel (@GuyAz) June 29, 2026

The "blue-and-white" label is apparent reference to taking the war to Iran, but without external Washington help. However, it's also clear that the Iranians have in the past been able to inflict serious damage on Israel, even when it did have active and significant US military support.

The defense minister also again admitted that Israeli intelligence has had assets inside Iran all along, but that these ground elements were prevented from orchestrating full regime change in the Islamic Republic.

Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2026 - 06:55

Hamas leader in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya has taken a tougher line on disarmament in talks with senior Trump administration official Aryeh Lightstone, Kan News reported on Monday, citing Israeli sources.