ZeroHedge News

About 2,040 Pounds Of Cocaine, 5,800 Pounds Of Marijuana Seized At Sea

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:15:00 +0000

About 2,040 Pounds Of Cocaine, 5,800 Pounds Of Marijuana Seized At Sea

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

U.S. authorities have seized about 2,040 pounds of cocaine and almost 5,800 pounds of marijuana in three separate maritime interdictions carried out with international partners.

Action by JIATF-S and Costa Rican authorities led to the capture of a boat allegedly involved in drug smuggling. Courtesy of the JIATF-S

The most recent interdiction involved the Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) South and Panama's National Aeronaval Service intercepting a go-fast vessel following a rapid aerial and surface pursuit, JIATF South said in a July 10 post on X. The operation led to the seizure of roughly 2,010 pounds of cocaine.

JIATF South, based in Key West, Florida, is an international alliance that monitors and facilitates the interdiction of drug traffickers in maritime and air domains. Operating across a 42-million-square-mile area, JIATF South involves cooperation from 13 domestic and 20 international partners. The task force seeks to disrupt the flow of illegal drugs and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.

In a second interdiction, JIATF South and authorities from Costa Rica cooperated to intercept a drug smuggling vessel and capture a pick-up boat that was fleeing, according to a July 9 X post. The operation led to the seizure of 3,672 pounds of marijuana, with four suspects arrested.

The third interdiction was a joint operation between JIATF South, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Dominican Republic partners that intercepted a vessel in the Caribbean Sea attempting to transport illicit cargo, the task force said in a July 8 X post.

Authorities seized 2,124 pounds of marijuana and about 30 pounds of cocaine, and detained two smugglers in this incident. A smuggling route operated by a major transnational criminal organization was disrupted.

Drug seizures have risen under the Trump administration.

In a June 18 statement, the CBP said it had seized 56 percent more drugs in the current fiscal year through May than during the same period in fiscal year 2024 under the previous administration.

In the four months between February and May, marijuana seizures averaged 37,033 pounds per month, which is 61 percent higher than the same period in the 2024 fiscal year.

For the month of May, the nationwide seizure of cocaine, marijuana, fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine was 32 percent higher than in May 2024.

"CBP remains on the frontline against drug smuggling, seizing dangerous narcotics before they reach American communities," the agency said.

Northern Border Drug Trafficking

Last week, a Canadian national was sentenced to 240 months in prison for leading a criminal organization that trafficked hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine valued at up to $17 million from the United States into Canada, according to a July 9 statement from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The issue of drug trafficking at America's northern border was highlighted by Michael J. Krol, Homeland Security Investigations' assistant director for domestic operations, during a June 30 House committee hearing.

"Unique to the northern border, the flow of illicit drugs reflects both inbound and outbound dynamics," Krol said.

A key concern "is the drug flow moving through the United States into Canada. Cartel-owned cocaine and other controlled substances are routed north for domestic consumption and onward shipment to Europe," he added.

During fiscal year 2024-25, the Canada Border Services Agency reported seizing roughly 7,700 pounds of cocaine, compared to 2,700 pounds seized during fiscal year 2020-21, Krol said.

During a May 12 Senate committee hearing, DEA head Terry Cole and FBI Director Kash Patel said they were working to disrupt new drug production facilities in Canada.

"We see more precursors coming into the Port of Vancouver, coming into Canada," Cole said.

Patel said that drug traffickers have gotten "smart" with improved security at the U.S. southern border, shifting operations to Canada.

The FBI was working with Canadian authorities to disrupt the production facilities that criminals have moved north, according to Patel.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 19:15

China Builds Full-Scale Model Of US Destroyer In Remote Desert

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:50:00 +0000

China Builds Full-Scale Model Of US Destroyer In Remote Desert

Security analysts poring over satellite photos of China have shared a surreal image: There's a detailed, full-scale replica of a US Navy destroyer in the middle of a remote stretch of Chinese desert. It's a vivid indication of the seriousness with which the Chinese government takes preparations for a potential war with the United States, perhaps over Taiwan.

This highly-detailed, full-scale mockup of a US destroyer was recently assembled in the middle of a desert in northwest China (via Defense Security Asia)

Thousands of miles from the nearest ocean, the mockup sits amid the sands of a missile-testing range near Ruoqiang in Xinjiang Province. It's an exceedingly precise replica of a 510-foot-long US Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. That type of vessel is a core workhorse of the US Navy, and is involved in air defense, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare and attacks on land-targets. A main player in Trump's Israel-allied war on Iran, it was likely an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that fired the Tomahawk missiles on Feb 28 that devastated a girls' elementary school in Minab, killing 168 people, mostly schoolgirls. Here's video of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS Michael Murphy, in action:

Footage of the USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) launching five Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran tonight. pic.twitter.com/nlsAMNhFMF
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 11, 2026

Adding to the mockup's realism, analysts told CNN that that it's bristling with antennas that are used to reproduce the destroyer's radar signature. The same area of China is home to several flat, 2-D mockup of other US ships, portraying the outlines of destroyers and aircraft carriers as seen from above. Those mockups are mounted on tracks so they glide along the desert sea at the same speeds real US warships would use.

Weeks ago, the mockup was discovered while it was still under construction (via Defense Security Asia)

As with any well-resourced military, mockups have long been a part of Chinese readiness training, to include building fake airstrips, highway interchanges and even an Eiffel Tower in their desert. The country has also built a 3D mockup of central Taipei, to include Taiwan's presidential office. However, according to open source intelligence analyst Joseph Wen of the Taiwan Inspiration Association, this is the first known instance in which China has built a detailed, 3-D replica of a warship. Wen is credited with being the first to discover the new mockup several weeks ago, while it was still being built. "The message that they are sending is China is always preparing for war," Wen told CNN.

This mockup of central Taipei was discovered at the Zhurihe military training facility in Inner Mongolia in 2015 (via The Diplomat)

...just like the United States, which may see its already-enormous military budget grow 50% from about $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in FY 2027 -- if Congress makes Trump's fever-dreams a reality.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 18:50

War Returns: Pentagon Initiates 3rd Consecutive Night Of Iran Strikes As IRGC Targets More Vessels In Hormuz

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:30:00 +0000

War Returns: Pentagon Initiates 3rd Consecutive Night Of Iran Strikes As IRGC Targets More Vessels In Hormuz

Summary

Trump warns will hit Iran 'hard' tonight or tomorrow; Pentagon confirms 3rd night of strikes has begun
Reports of Houthi missiles launched on Saudi Arabia: oil extends gains near month-highs.
Trump says US blockade of Iran ports 'reinstated': states that US to be reimbursed at rate of 20% of cargo shipped for vessels wishing to transit. CENTCOM affirms with closure message.
Strikes escalated over weekend: US hit over 140 Iranian military targets; Iran attacks US-linked facilities across the Gulf.
Shipping tensions boil: Iran claims the strait is closed, but commercial vessels continue transiting under US protection.
Oil prices climb: on rising risk to global shipping & energy markets, as diplomacy clearly unraveling.

Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 16% · No 85%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Pentagon Announced 3rd Night of Major Strikes

In case anyone had doubts that the region has witnessed a return to full-scale US-Iran war, CENTCOM has announced that it has begun launching the third consecutive night of strikes on Iran in the overnight hours (local):

This as President Trump has claimed Monday that the US had a “deal with [Iran] two days ago” but that Tehran wanted “to negotiate it further”. However when asked by a reporter whether he thinks a negotiated settlement is no longer possible Trump responded: “I never reached that conclusion.”

He explained his beleif that the “most effective” way to put pressure on Iran is va a combination of a blockade and “hitting them”. Earlier he and the Pentagon announced that a full blockade of Iranian ports is back on.

JUST IN - US strikes against Iran begin pic.twitter.com/YWCvSepJp8
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) July 13, 2026

New deaths the the Strait of Hormuz being reported:

*UAE SAYS ATTACK KILLED ONE CREW MEMBER, INJURED 8

*UAE SAYS TANKERS WERE HIT IN SOUTHERN PATHWAY OF HORMUZ STRAIT https://t.co/Pj7g3cOG9Z
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 13, 2026

Fresh Trump statement, oil extends gains

The US is going to hit Iran hard on Monday night and Tuesday, Trump has previewed in remarks to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

When asked about the MoU, Trump said it was a "test" for Iran, which "they did not honor". The remarks came just as reports emerged of more IRGC attacks on vessels seeking to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

OIL PRICES EXTEND GAINS IN POST SETTLEMENT TRADE, RISES 10%

There's a rich irony in terms of the day this will be implemented, an anniversary of sorts:

The US has said it will reimpose its naval blockade of Iran on Tuesday, on what would have been the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The landmark nuclear was finalised in Vienna on July 14, 2015 after being agreed by Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

The negative return to full war headlines have come one after another on Monday

IRAN'S TASNIM SAYS SEVERAL 'VIOLATING' VESSELS WERE TARGETED IN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
TRUMP SAYS US WILL HIT IRAN 'HARD' TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
TRUMP: IRAN MOU WAS BUILT TO TEST
TRUMP NOTIFIES CONGRESS OF NEW WAR AGAINST IRAN: POLITICO
TRUMP ON IRAN: WE HAD A DEAL YESTERDAY, THEY BREAK DEALS
Iranian state media cites the army stating that it targeted US military facilities and equipment in Kuwait with drones, while it also targeted a 'hostile' US vessel with cruise missiles

Oil Surges To Month-Highs on Yemen Missile Attack on Saudi Arabia

Reports are emerging out of Saudi Arabia of inbound ballistic missile attacks on its air bases and/or an international airport. With Houthi potential involvement unfolding, there are fears that this war is now rapidly expanding. Oil is reacting to what is both the complete unraveling of the MoU and new signs of the Houthis joining the war on Iran's side:

US blockade encompasses entirety of Iranian coastline: RTRS
Saudi defenses dealing with Houthi missile attack: Alekhbariya
Tasnim reports of an attack on Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia
Yemeni war media identifies the coordinates of important airports and ports in Saudi Arabia that will likely be targeted by Houthi attacks, reports Tasnim
Explosions heard on Iran's Larak Island in Hormuz Strait: Tasnim
Several violating ships were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz, reports Tasnim

WTI climbs to near $78 around one month highs...

CENTCOM statement affirming Trump's blockade announcement:

At the Commander in Chief's direction, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will resume blockading maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on July 14 at 4 p.m. ET.

CENTCOM forces will enforce the blockade against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas. The U.S. military continues to support traffic flow through regional waters for all vessels not violating the blockade.

The resumption of the U.S. blockade against Iran follows the initial implementation from April 13 to June 18. CENTCOM forces redirected more than 140 compliant vessels, disabled nine non-compliant ships, and allowed over 50 commercial vessels supporting humanitarian aid to pass through the blockade during the two-month period.

All mariners are advised to monitor Notice to Mariners broadcasts and contact U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16 when operating in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches.

Iran Foreign Minister response:

POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service.

Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER.

20% is of course too much. We will be fair
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 13, 2026

Iran: Pay a 1% toll and you've got guaranteed safe passage through Hormuz.

Trump: Pay a 20% toll and get shot at while crossing.

Which transit scheme do you think the world would prefer? 🤔 https://t.co/gd5DNh5xL0
— Rosemary Kelanic (@RKelanic) July 13, 2026

Trump: Blockade Reinstated, US To Be 'Reimbursed' on 20% of Cargo

A stunning new Trump statement via Truth Social, proposing that the United States will collect an astounding rate of 20% of cargo shipped for vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz. He has declared the US military is "reinstating the Iranian blockade" due to the IRGC continuing to try and enforce Iran's own protocol. This could of course amount to a US 'fee' of tens of millions of dollars for each vessel, significantly more than what Iran was seeking to impose. Iran's retaliation continues? New reports of major incident in Saudi Arabia:

Oil extends gains, rise 7% to session highs:

Oil jumps this morning on the bellow succession of headlines...

IRAN'S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SPOKESPERSON: WE CONTINUE TO ASSERT OUR AUTHORITY AND CONTROL OVER THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
TRUMP: REINSTATING THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE
TRUMP: US WILL BE REIMBURSED 20% ON CARGO FROM HORMUZ

Trump: US to Take Over Strait & Get Paid For It

President Trump in surprising commentary issued to "Fox & Friends" has said the United States will probably take over the Strait of Hormuz and should be reimbursed for controlling it. His words have raised eyebrows given Washington's stance has been that no one can collect tolls for transit through the vital international waterway. He said once the US gains control of it, following a weekend bombing campaign on Iranian coastal sites, "we'll probably run it" and "we should be reimbursed for that."

"We’re going to keep the strait, and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll call it the guardian angel of the strait. And we should be reimbursed for that," he says in the Fox phone interview.

Again, US officials have throughout Operation Epic Fury voiced that it is an illegal outrage for Iran to suggest it would charge fees, but now...

Trump: "We're gonna keep the strait, and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the strait. We should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we're gonna be reimbursed. We're gonna get paid." pic.twitter.com/O4ckjB2FkK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 13, 2026

Below is a fuller transcript of the Monday morning exchange:

Fox: It looks like they're back to trying to take control of the Strait, what's your response?

Trump: Well, we're taking over the straight. They have nothing, they've got nothing. So.... something that nobody knows, yesterday they had an eleven hour meeting, everything's eleven hours with these guys you know you can't settle a one sentence in, one hour, in one minute... It should be one minute—But we had a deal, but nobody knows, we had a deal, it was a done deal, but then they broke it, they always break it. And so we're just going to hit them very hard. And we're gonna keep the uh Strait, and we'll probably run it, we'll become the guardian of the Strait, maybe we'll call it "The guardian angel of the Strait". And we should reimbursed for that, when we do that we're gonna be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they're on our side. We guarded the Strait for 50 years, more, and, we never got paid for it. They made all the money and the US was just, you know, not, it's just amazing. We guarded it for nothing.

The Iranians have been quick to respond, with its top military command asserting that Iran will not allow the US to intervene in the management of the strait. State-run IRNA also states:

Iran says we will not be forced to pay the 'enemy' for ship passage.

So this sets up the warring sides for further clashes in the Persian Gulf region, as absolutist demands continued to be adhered to, and red lines continue to be tested and blown past. Below is more from the Iranian Foreign Ministry articulating enforcement of its passage protocol:

Iran's FM Spox. Esmail Baghaei:

The United States bears direct responsibility for the recent developments in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Americans reneged from day one; they are trying to bypass the secure route coordinated with Iran. pic.twitter.com/zlkvM6EkUS
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 13, 2026

Overnight Attacks

The US and Iran exchanged another round of strikes overnight, extending a weeklong surge in fighting and casting dark clouds of uncertainty over whether the Strait of Hormuz remains open to commercial shipping.

US Central Command revealed US forces unleashed air-delivered munitions on dozens of Iranian air-defense systems, coastal radar systems, missile launch sites, and drone capabilities, bringing the weekend total to about 140 targets. This move aimed to degrade the IRGC's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Hormuz chokepoint, which it has done over the past week.

Iran responded with attacks on US-linked facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Oman, while also claiming it intercepted two vessels using what it called an "illegal route" through Hormuz.

IRGC Fires Warning Shots

Early Monday, Iranian state TV reported that IRGC forces fired "warning shots" at multiple ships attempting to transit the Hormuz chokepoint.

"This morning, two ships that were attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz illegally were targeted and stopped by warning shots fired by the navy of the Revolutionary Guards," said a correspondent on state TV.

Tehran has declared the strait closed until further notice, but the US military, President Trump, and maritime monitors say the southern route remains passable.

Bloomberg data shows the LNG tanker Al Hamra safely transited the Hormuz chokepoint over the weekend and is now full steam ahead in the Gulf of Oman. Axios noted earlier that 20 commercial ships managed to transit the Hormuz chokepoint in coordination with the US military.

Bloomberg data only tracks ships with transponders on.

Crude Climbs as War Back on Menu

Brent crude futures traded up 3.5% to the midpoint of $78 a barrel, while WTI futures are up around 3.4% to $73.85 amid increasingly heated tit-for-tat attacks.

Here is Deutsche Bank equity research analyst Chris Robertson's summary of developments last week and through the weekend:

Last week, Iran declared that the Strait of Hormuz is closed until further notice. Iran attacked a commercial container ship attempting to transit the region, causing a fire aboard the vessel.

The Joint Maritime Information Center (JIMC) said on Sunday that the southern Omani route remains available, but that the threat level is rated as "severe".

Regardless of any claims around the Strait being closed or open, what matters is that commercial ship owners are likely not willing to risk transit in an active war zone, putting ships and crews at risk of attack.

We reiterate our initial concerns that despite major destruction of traditional Iranian naval vessels and assets, the ongoing threat that shipowners face is asymmetric warfare technologies such as drones and missiles. These types of threats are much harder to predict or plan for, thereby maximizing uncertainty related to mitigating voyage risks.

We expect transit activity will slow, especially as it relates to vessels planning to enter the Gulf through the Strait which, unlike exiting activity, is the real sign that conditions are normalizing. We believe that an ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to downward pressure on shortterm tanker rates as ships remain in other regions, thereby increasing effective supply of those ships.

Diplomacy Unravels

As of Monday morning, it is clear that US-Iran diplomacy is unraveling, while US forces are systematically degrading the IRGC's ability to close the maritime chokepoint. Commercial ships continue to transit the waterway, undermining Tehran's claim that the critical waterway is effectively shut.

Tehran must also recognize the longer-term strategic risk: every disruption accelerates global investment in pipelines, export terminals, and other infrastructure designed to bypass Hormuz. Once those alternatives are operational (Read Here), Tehran's greatest source of geopolitical leverage will evaporate. Then what?

* * *

Overnight/Weekend Developments

US President Trump threatened that the US military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas” of Iran if its leaders attempted or carried out an assassination on him.
US forces said they struck 140 Iranian military targets on Saturday and were also reported to have carried out another round of strikes on Sunday, while Iran targeted at least five US allies across the Middle East in drone and missile assaults early on Sunday, as well as announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed until further notice. However, the Joint Maritime Information Centre said the path along the Omani coastline is still available for transit, while it was separately reported that a Chinese tanker transited through Hormuz via an Iran-designated route.
US official said around 20 commercial vessels transited through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the US military over the last 24 hours, in addition to several vessels without US coordination, according to Axios.
US military announced on Sunday evening that it began a new wave of strikes against Iran to continue degrading its ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian TV reported explosions in Qeshm, Jask, Bandar Abbas and Sirik.
US Central Command denied a claim by Iran that three US service members were killed in Kuwait, while it stated that there have been no reports of US casualties in the region, with all personnel accounted for and safe. CENTCOM later commented that it completed a new wave of offensive strikes on Iran, hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Kuwait’s military said three border posts were attacked and that a drilling platform owned by the Kuwait Oil Company was struck in a drone attack, while it was separately reported that US intelligence sources noted observations that Iran was preparing to carry out a massive attack on the UAE and Kuwait.
Iran said it caused heavy damage to Jordan’s Prince Hassan Airbase, as well as claimed it targeted the Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar and a US Navy logistics base in Dukm, Oman. Furthermore, Iran also targeted Kuwait and the US base in Bahrain.
Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a written statement, vowing to avenge the death of his father and said that it was the demand of the nation.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned US attacks on Iranian infrastructure, which it said were a violation of the ceasefire deal and the UN Charter, while it warned Gulf states over the use of territory for US attacks.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi said no action against Iran should go unanswered and called for a pre-set response to any attempt against Iran, its military, Supreme Leader and officials.
Iranian lawmaker and member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Kashkavi, said Iran prefers to manage the Strait of Hormuz through cooperation with regional states, particularly Oman, and stated that the clear official position is that future management of the Strait will be arranged by Iran.
Iran denied social media reports that claimed the Bushehr nuclear power plant had been attacked, while its nuclear agency said all units continue to operate normally and that the plant is in a safe and stable condition.
Iraq’s PM is to visit Washington on Monday, while oil and gas deals are expected to be announced, although the Islamic Resistance in Iraq warned the government against US economic deals and demanded a US troop withdrawal.
Yemen’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that Yemen would continue its support of Iran in the face of ongoing US and Israeli aggression.
Israeli artillery conducted further shelling in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
Explosions were heard around Iran’s Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island on Monday afternoon, Mehr News reported, while there is also the possibility of clashes in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Reported fire at Kharg Island appears to be a result of routine flaring, according to Nour News.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the US violated all clauses of the MoU in less than a month and stated that Iran will not execute commitments in the MoU as long as the US is not fulfilling its commitments. He added that the MoU is in "crisis" phase. Muscat talks with Oman were solely focused on the Strait of Hormuz. On the recent strikes, none of the US bases in any country in the region have been removed from the target list and that the defensive strikes of Iran are solely against the bases, facilities and positions used by the US to attack Iran, including their logistical and support facilities. In terms of further talks, mediators are still continuing their efforts to mediate between Iran and the US in recent days and Iran is in contact with mediators.
Iran's IRGC said only way to open the Strait of Hormuz is to end US military interventions and respect the sovereignty of the countries bordering it.
There is no clear timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from the experimental areas in southern Lebanon amid a policy of consolidation and non-compliance with the framework agreement, Al Araby reported citing sources.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 18:30

28.8 Million Queries: The AI Heist That Tripped No Alarms

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:25:00 +0000

28.8 Million Queries: The AI Heist That Tripped No Alarms

Authored by Joseph Hoefer via RealClearDefense,

When we picture intellectual property theft, we picture a break-in. A hacker slips past the firewall, copies the source code, and disappears. So, when an American AI company tells Congress that China just pulled off the largest extraction campaign it's ever recorded, the natural assumption is that someone cracked the vault.

Nobody broke in. And that's exactly what makes this threat so difficult for Washington to address.

Last week, Anthropic told the Senate Banking Committee that operators affiliated with the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba ran roughly 28.8 million queries with its Claude models through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April and June. According to the company, the goal was not to steal the model. It was to harvest its answers, then use those answers to train a competing Chinese system at a fraction of the cost.

This technique is called distillation, and not all of it is sinister. Training a smaller model on the outputs of a larger one is a routine and legitimate practice when a company does it with its own systems. What Anthropic alleges is something else: unauthorized extraction from a competitor's proprietary service, carried out at industrial scale through fake accounts that violated its terms of use. The line between ordinary engineering and a national-security problem runs right through that word "unauthorized."

The unsettling part is how ordinary the attack looks from the outside. The operators signed up, gained access, and asked questions, millions of them, aimed at the model's most valuable skills: writing software and reasoning through complex tasks step by step. The model did precisely what it was built to do. No alarm tripped, because from the system's perspective, nothing went wrong. A determined competitor simply walked through the front door, at enormous scale, to approximate years of American research by learning from the model's outputs.

That is a genuinely new kind of problem, and it scrambles the usual playbook.

The instinct in Washington has been to treat Chinese AI gains as a hardware story. Keep advanced chips out of Beijing's hands, the thinking goes, and you slow its progress. That instinct isn't wrong. Compute is a real chokepoint... China keeps trying to smuggle chips and route around the controls, and tightening those rules is sound policy.

But chip controls were designed to stop someone from building a powerful model. They do nothing to stop someone from quietly copying the behavior of a model that already exists.

You can wall off the foundry and leave the storefront wide open. That is the gap distillation walks through, and it is why a hardware-only strategy, however necessary, cannot be the whole answer.

The stakes are not only strategic. Every successful extraction campaign compresses years of research and billions of dollars of private investment into millions of automated queries, undermining the incentives that made American frontier AI leadership possible in the first place. This is what intellectual property theft looks like in the age of AI: not stolen code, but a copied teacher. Alibaba is simply the first vivid example, and it won't be the last.

The encouraging news is that the government has already named the problem. In April, the White House science office issued a memo warning that foreign entities, mostly based in China, are running "industrial-scale campaigns to distill U.S. frontier AI systems," and it committed the administration to better information sharing and defensive coordination with industry. The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a bill that would track these extraction attempts and authorize sanctions against the companies behind them. And in response to the Alibaba disclosure, Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) are pushing an amendment to this year's defense bill directing the Commerce Department to penalize Chinese firms caught doing it.

That bipartisan momentum is the right reflex. To work, the response must match the attack, and that means treating model extraction like any other strategic economic attack rather than a routine business dispute.

Two priorities follow. First, detection is a shared problem, yet companies fight it alone. The fake accounts and evasion patterns show up across multiple American labs, but legal uncertainty discourages competitors from comparing notes. Congress can give them clear permission to share threat signals with one another and with the government, the way banks already share intelligence on fraud. Second, deterrence must reach the storefront, not just the foundry. If a Chinese lab can lose access to American chips for smuggling them, it should face comparable consequences for systematically abusing American AI services to copy them.

America has spent years debating how to keep advanced AI out of China's hands. The harder question may be how to keep China's AI companies from quietly learning everything they can from the models we place online for the world to use. Last week's disclosure put a number on it: 28.8 million questions, asked through the front door. Washington has finally started looking at the right entry point. Now it needs to figure out how to lock it.

Joseph Hoefer is a principal and chief AI officer at Monument Advocacy, where he leads the firm's AI policy practice.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 18:25

Where It Costs The Most To Own A Car In America

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Where It Costs The Most To Own A Car In America

Buying a car is only the beginning. Every year afterward, drivers face a steady stream of expenses—from insurance and fuel to repairs and taxes—that can add up to thousands of dollars.

Using data from LendingTree, Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld created this map comparing average annual car ownership costs across every U.S. state and Washington D.C., excluding car payments, revealing where those ongoing expenses place the biggest burden on drivers.

The Annual Car Ownership Costs by State

Here’s how annual ownership costs compare across the country.

Rank	State or District	Average Annual Cost of Car Ownership 2025
1	Nevada	$6,119
2	Florida	$5,682
3	Louisiana	$5,663
4	Michigan	$5,350
5	Colorado	$5,151
6	Alabama	$5,099
7	Arizona	$5,060
8	Oklahoma	$5,021
9	Georgia	$5,014
10	Utah	$4,977
11	Arkansas	$4,947
12	California	$4,900
13	Kentucky	$4,862
14	Wyoming	$4,859
15	New Mexico	$4,855
16	Missouri	$4,819
17	Mississippi	$4,792
18	Indiana	$4,787
19	Rhode Island	$4,711
20	Texas	$4,636
21	Montana	$4,548
22	Kansas	$4,542
23	North Dakota	$4,540
24	Delaware	$4,538
25	Tennessee	$4,532
26	Illinois	$4,521
27	South Dakota	$4,493
28	Minnesota	$4,435
29	Connecticut	$4,419
30	New Jersey	$4,413
31	Oregon	$4,340
32	Nebraska	$4,307
33	Washington	$4,306
34	Maryland	$4,302
35	New York	$4,253
36	Pennsylvania	$4,181
37	South Carolina	$4,176
38	North Carolina	$4,157
39	Iowa	$4,146
40	Hawaii	$4,114
41	West Virginia	$4,102
42	Virginia	$4,061
43	Wisconsin	$3,963
44	District of Columbia	$3,925
45	Massachusetts	$3,834
46	Vermont	$3,829
47	Idaho	$3,781
48	Alaska	$3,682
49	Ohio	$3,544
50	Maine	$3,543
51	New Hampshire	$3,030
--	🇺🇸 U.S. Average	$4,507

Costs do not include car payments. Sales taxes combine state and local taxes, annualized over 6.5 years based on an average used car price of $27,177.

Annual ownership costs range from roughly $3,000 in New Hampshire to more than $6,100 in Nevada, meaning two drivers with the same vehicle could face a difference of more than $3,000 every year based solely on where they live.

Seven of the 15 most expensive states are in the South, largely because of elevated insurance premiums. Florida and Louisiana rank near the top for insurance costs, while California stands out for high fuel prices and repair expenses rather than insurance alone.

Why Some States Cost Thousands More Than Others

The price of a vehicle may be similar nationwide, but the cost of keeping it on the road can change significantly by state.

Insurance is often the biggest source of variation, ranging from over $3,400 annually in Nevada to around $1,200 in Maine. Premiums reflect everything from accident frequency and vehicle theft to repair costs, weather-related claims, and state insurance regulations. In 13 states, insurance alone accounts for at least half of total ownership costs.

Fuel prices, registration fees, and sales taxes add another layer. Drivers in states with longer average commutes or higher gasoline prices typically spend more each year, while repair costs can also differ depending on labor rates and vehicle demand.

Driving Is One of America’s Biggest Household Expenses

Transportation is one of the largest household expenses after housing, making recurring vehicle costs an important part of overall affordability. While consumers often focus on a car’s purchase price or monthly payment, insurance, fuel, repairs, and taxes can add thousands of dollars each year, and those costs depend heavily on where they live.

That burden is especially significant in communities where driving is a necessity rather than a choice. Beyond commuting, vehicles are essential for work, school, childcare, and everyday errands, making recurring ownership costs difficult to avoid.

As insurance premiums, repair bills, and maintenance costs continue to rise, the cost of keeping a car on the road remains a core part of the broader cost-of-living conversation alongside housing, healthcare, and utilities.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on America’s slowest depreciating cars.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 18:00

While The Political Circus Distracts Us, Flock Builds The Digital Police State

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:40:00 +0000

While The Political Circus Distracts Us, Flock Builds The Digital Police State

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rurtherford Institute,

“You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

- George Orwell, 1984

While Americans remain transfixed by the political circus - cheering for their preferred party, jeering at the opposition, obsessing over every manufactured outrage and waiting for the next spectacle - the Surveillance State continues its steady march forward.

The government is watching.

It watches where you go, whom you meet, where you worship, what medical offices you visit, what political rallies you attend, what protests you join, what books you read, what websites you visit and what causes you support.

It watches through your phone, your car, your doorbell, your appliances, your purchases, your social media accounts and the cameras positioned along the roads you travel every day.

This is how freedom dies in the digital police state: not always through dramatic declarations of martial law or soldiers stationed on every street corner, but through the gradual construction of a technological dragnet—an electronic concentration camp—so pervasive that privacy becomes impossible and anonymity becomes suspicious.

Enter Flock Safety, a private surveillance technology company whose automated license plate readers have spread throughout thousands of American communities.

These cameras, which do much more than photograph license plates, represent the next evolution of the government’s public-private surveillance partnership.

They document the time and location of every passing vehicle and record identifying characteristics such as its make, model, color, damage, roof racks, bumper stickers and other distinctive features. That information can then be placed in a searchable database and used to retrace a vehicle’s movements over time.

Yet the real power—and the real danger—of Flock does not come from the cameras alone.

It comes from artificial intelligence.

A camera can photograph a car. Flock’s AI-powered platform can identify and categorize a vehicle, compare an observation with stored records, generate alerts, identify connections and help police reconstruct where that vehicle has been.

AI is what transforms a photograph into the building blocks for a suspect society.

With AI, every driver becomes a data point. Every data point becomes a pattern. And every pattern becomes a suspicion.

This is how ordinary movements become potentially suspect and subject to government scrutiny. It allows law enforcement agencies to search not only for a complete license plate number but also for partial plates and physical descriptions such as vehicle color, make, model, damage, roof racks, bumper stickers and other identifying characteristics.

A police officer might ask the system to locate every red pickup truck with a ladder rack seen near a protest, every vehicle that repeatedly visited a particular address, or every car observed traveling between two locations.

The artificial intelligence does the sorting. The database supplies the history.

The government receives a list of potential suspects.

This is no longer surveillance conducted by individual officers following particular leads. It is surveillance conducted at machine speed, across entire populations, with algorithms deciding whose movements merit further scrutiny.

Consider the scale of what is taking place.

License plate cameras now log approximately 20 billion vehicle scans every month.

Twenty billion.

That is not targeted policing. That is mass collection.

The overwhelming majority of those scans do not involve stolen cars, wanted suspects, kidnappings or violent crimes. They document ordinary people carrying out the ordinary activities of daily life: driving to work, taking children to school, visiting friends, attending church, keeping medical appointments, participating in protests or simply going home.

Yet each of those innocent journeys becomes part of a searchable police database.

At 20 billion scans a month, Flock is not searching for particular suspects and then attempting to follow them. It is recording the movements of everyone so police can decide later whom they want to follow.

That is the digital equivalent of assigning a government agent to trail every driver in America—and preserving the agent’s notes in case the government someday finds them useful.

Yet mass collection is only the first stage of the AI surveillance state. The next is merging those billions of observations with everything else the government and its corporate partners know about us.

Flock is also part of a much larger shift toward AI-powered “data fusion,” in which license plate records are combined with facial recognition results, surveillance video, police reports, social media activity, commercially purchased information, gunshot-detection alerts and other government databases.

The danger is no longer merely that one system can track a car. It is the merger of previously separate streams of information into a single system capable of mapping a person’s movements, relationships, habits and associations.

These systems increasingly do more than provide officers with information to evaluate. They assign significance to associations, flag supposed threats and generate investigative leads—often through proprietary algorithms that neither the accused nor the public can examine.

Artificial intelligence does not eliminate human prejudice, institutional bias or bad information.

It industrializes them.

Feed a flawed system inaccurate data, biased arrest records or constitutionally suspect surveillance, and AI can reproduce those defects at a speed and scale no individual police officer could match.

Once the computer labels someone suspicious, moreover, officers may treat the algorithmic conclusion as objective fact.

The machine accuses. The police act. The citizen is left to prove that the machine was wrong.

Despite the extraordinary reach of this technology, Flock continues to portray its system as a limited, carefully controlled crime-fighting tool.

Flock insists that its cameras collect information about vehicles rather than people, that agencies control access to their own data, that searches are logged and that information is generally deleted after 30 days. Yet these assurances largely amount to distinctions without a difference.

Vehicles are extensions of the people who drive them.

Track a vehicle long enough, and you know where its owner sleeps, works, worships, shops, socializes, seeks medical treatment and participates in political activity.

You know when someone leaves home, when they return, whom they visit and how often.

You may not know the contents of their conversations, but you know enough to construct an intimate portrait of their life.

That is surveillance.

It does not become less invasive merely because the government has outsourced the cameras, databases and algorithms to a private corporation.

Nor does it cease to be surveillance because police claim that the information may someday be useful in solving a crime.

Indeed, that is the sleight of hand that has allowed the surveillance state to expand so rapidly.

The government no longer has to install every camera, maintain every database or directly collect every piece of information.

It merely encourages private companies, businesses, homeowners’ associations, schools and individual consumers to create an interconnected surveillance ecosystem—and then asks for access.

This public-private arrangement allows government agencies to acquire capabilities they might never receive public approval or sufficient funding to build on their own.

It also makes accountability almost impossible.

When abuses occur, local police blame the technology provider. The technology provider insists that local police control the data. Federal agencies claim they merely requested access. Local officials say they were unaware that information could be shared beyond their jurisdiction.

Everyone points elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the American people remain under observation.

Flock has become especially controversial because its network can transform what appears to be a collection of local cameras into something far more powerful: a searchable surveillance system that permits law enforcement agencies to look far beyond their own jurisdictions.

Flock says data sharing among agencies is optional and controlled by its customers. Yet the entire value of such a system lies in its interconnectedness.

A camera in one town is a traffic-monitoring device.

Thousands of cameras connected through searchable databases constitute a movement-tracking network.

The danger is not simply that police might search for a stolen car.

The danger is that the system permits government officials to begin with a location, a description or a fragment of information and work backward until someone emerges as a suspect.

That reverses the traditional order of constitutional policing.

Under the Fourth Amendment, police are supposed to develop individualized suspicion, establish probable cause and then apply for a warrant to search for evidence connected to a particular person or crime.

Mass surveillance systems begin by collecting information on everyone.

In the process, every innocent person is treated as a potential suspect whose movements must be recorded just in case the government someday decides they are relevant.

This is guilt by algorithm.

It is also the same constitutional inversion at the heart of geofence warrants, which allow police to demand information identifying every cellphone that happened to be near a particular location at a particular time.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chatrie v. United States may signal that constitutional scrutiny is finally beginning to catch up with the surveillance state.

The case involved a geofence warrant used to obtain Google location records for cellphones near the scene of a robbery. Rather than beginning with an identified suspect, police demanded information about devices that happened to be within a designated area during a particular period and then worked backward to identify their owners.

The Supreme Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain an individual’s cellphone location history from a technology company.

That conclusion matters.

It rejects the government’s increasingly convenient argument that intimate information loses constitutional protection merely because a private corporation collected, stored or analyzed it.

The Court did not rule on Flock cameras or automated license plate databases. Nor did it decide that every geofence demand is necessarily unconstitutional. The justices left it to the Fourth Circuit to determine whether the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s probable-cause and particularity requirements at each stage of the search.

Nevertheless, the constitutional principle at the heart of Chatrie extends far beyond cellphones.

The government should not be able to evade the Fourth Amendment by outsourcing mass surveillance to private technology companies.

It should not matter whether the location trail comes from Google, Flock, a cellphone provider, a data broker or an interconnected network of privately owned cameras.

A detailed record of a person’s movements does not become less revealing because it follows a vehicle rather than a phone. The government should not be permitted to accomplish through Flock what it could not constitutionally accomplish by assigning police officers to follow millions of Americans everywhere they drive.

Indeed, Flock may present an even more troubling inversion of constitutional policing.

Geofence searches generally begin with a particular crime, location and period. Flock continuously collects information on millions of vehicles before any crime has occurred and before any individual is suspected of wrongdoing.

Police can then reach backward into that stored history and reconstruct a person’s movements.

The surveillance comes first. Suspicion comes later.

A warrant, when one is sought at all, may arrive only after the government has already built the database it intends to search.

Chatrie may provide constitutional ammunition for challenging this arrangement, but no single court ruling will dismantle the machinery of mass surveillance.

The technology is already embedded in thousands of communities.

The databases are already being populated.

The agencies are already connected.

And the companies profiting from this infrastructure will fight to preserve it.

Unfortunately, constitutional protections have rarely kept pace with the government’s appetite for surveillance.

The dangers are no longer theoretical.

Flock data has reportedly been used in investigations far removed from the serious violent crimes routinely invoked to justify these systems.

This is the inevitable trajectory of every surveillance technology. First, it is introduced as an emergency measure. Then it is justified as a crime-fighting tool. Then it is expanded to lesser crimes. Then it is used for administrative enforcement, political monitoring, immigration investigations and personal purposes.

Eventually, it becomes part of the background machinery of government—a permanent feature of daily life that no longer attracts attention because everyone has become accustomed to being watched.

That is how mission creep works.

Surveillance powers created to find kidnappers and violent criminals do not remain limited to kidnappers and violent criminals.

Databases built to locate stolen vehicles do not remain limited to stolen vehicles.

Government agencies cannot resist the temptation to use whatever power is available to them, especially when the use of that power is cheap, easy and largely hidden from the public.

The technology’s potential for error makes this even more dangerous.

License plate readers can misread plates, rely on inaccurate hot lists or associate an innocent vehicle with a crime. Once the system issues an alert, officers may treat the computer-generated result as fact.

The individual on the receiving end may be pulled over, surrounded by armed police, handcuffed, searched or detained before anyone discovers that the machine was wrong.

This is not justice. It is automated suspicion.

Flock is only one component of a surveillance ecosystem that includes doorbell cameras, facial recognition, drones, cellphone tracking, biometric databases and real-time crime centers.

The result is 360-degree surveillance.

A person may leave a home monitored by a smart doorbell, drive past a network of license plate readers, enter a business equipped with facial recognition, carry a phone broadcasting location data and return home along streets monitored by police cameras and private security systems.

At no point does the government need to physically follow that individual, because the infrastructure does it automatically.

Algorithms sort the information. Databases preserve it. Private companies monetize it. Government agencies search it.

All of this is taking place while the country remains locked in an endless partisan cage match.

Both parties have contributed to the Surveillance State. Both parties have expanded it. Both parties have exploited fear to convince the public that freedom must be sacrificed for safety.

The targets may change depending on who is in power, but the machinery remains.

Once the infrastructure exists, there is no guarantee that it will be used only against people you dislike or with whom you disagree politically.

That is the lesson Americans repeatedly refuse to learn.

A surveillance tool created by one administration will be inherited by the next. A database assembled for one purpose will inevitably be used for another. A system established to monitor “them” will eventually be turned against “us.”

Communities across the country are finally beginning to recognize the danger.

Some cities have terminated or declined to renew their Flock contracts. Others have paused deployments or demanded stronger restrictions on data sharing, retention and federal access.

This resistance is long overdue.

We cannot afford to become so distracted by the theater of politics that we fail to notice the architecture of tyranny being assembled around us.

The surveillance state does not care which party you support. It does not care whom you voted for.

It does not care whether you believe you have nothing to hide.

The cameras are watching. The databases are growing. The networks are connecting.

And as I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, unless we act now, there may soon be nowhere left to go without the government knowing exactly where we have been.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 17:40

China's Memory-Chip Challenger Faces A Test Of How Far US Curbs Can Reach

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:20:00 +0000

China's Memory-Chip Challenger Faces A Test Of How Far US Curbs Can Reach

ChangXin Memory Technologies is approaching a turning point.

The Chinese memory-chip maker has advanced far enough to draw interest from some of the world's largest technology companies, including Apple Inc., which has considered using its chips. But the same growth that has raised CXMT's commercial standing has also made it a more prominent target in the widening technology confrontation between Washington and Beijing.

The Pentagon has blacklisted the state-backed company over alleged links to China's military. In South Korea, prosecutors have accused several former Samsung Electronics employees of leaking proprietary information to CXMT. The company's expansion is also being watched closely by US officials seeking to prevent Chinese semiconductor manufacturers from gaining access to advanced equipment and expertise.

CXMT's success will depend not only on whether it can narrow the technological gap with Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron Technology, but also on whether it can continue expanding without provoking restrictions severe enough to disrupt its supply chain.

That challenge has shaped the company from its earliest days.

CXMT broke ground on its first factory in Hefei in 2017, as another Chinese memory-chip project, sFujian Jinhua, was running into mounting pressure from the US. Washington's actions ultimately derailed Jinhua's rise, creating a cautionary example for Chinese semiconductor companies with global ambitions.

According to Taiwanese think tank DSET, cited by Bloomberg, Jinhua's collapse helped CXMT secure funding from both central government-linked and private investors. It also taught the company to proceed more carefully around the boundaries of US policy.

"This incident not only brought CXMT both central and private investment but also helped the company learn from Jinhua's downfall and carefully navigate around US red lines," DSET said.

That caution has become increasingly important as Washington has broadened its efforts to restrict China's access to advanced semiconductor technology.

In October 2022, the administration of President Joe Biden imposed sweeping export controls covering high-end chips, manufacturing equipment and technical expertise. The measures were intended to slow China's progress in artificial intelligence, supercomputing and other strategically sensitive fields.

CXMT remains unable to obtain the most advanced lithography systems used by its foreign competitors. Its access is largely limited to deep-ultraviolet equipment, which is less capable than the extreme-ultraviolet machines used by Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron to produce their most advanced memory chips.

CXMT's first 12-inch DRAM memory wafers displayed at the 2024 World Manufacturing Convention in Hefei.Source: Costfoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images

That constraint is particularly significant in high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a class of chips that has become critical to artificial-intelligence infrastructure. HBM allows advanced processors to move large quantities of data rapidly, making it essential to the systems used to train and operate generative AI models.

Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron dominate the global market for those products. CXMT is trying to close the gap without access to the same manufacturing tools, placing greater pressure on its engineering capabilities and domestic suppliers.

Its strategy has been to reduce exposure to Washington by building a supply chain increasingly centered on Chinese companies. A domestic network can make CXMT less vulnerable to direct US controls, while also supporting Beijing's broader campaign to replace foreign semiconductor technology with local alternatives.

The approach does not eliminate CXMT's dependence on overseas equipment and expertise. China still lacks domestic substitutes for some of the most sophisticated tools used in chip production. But CXMT's progress suggests that export controls have not stopped Chinese companies from improving less advanced manufacturing processes or expanding production at scale.

The company has climbed to fourth place in the global memory-chip market, behind Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. It remains substantially smaller and less technologically advanced than those rivals, but its emergence has begun to challenge an industry structure that has long been dominated by three companies.

CXMT is considering using about 30 billion yuan, or $4.4 billion, from a planned initial public offering to upgrade its technology and expand research and development, according to its listing application.

That investment would support Beijing's goal of securing a larger role in a sector increasingly treated as a foundation of economic and military power. Memory chips are essential to smartphones, computers and data centers, and the artificial-intelligence boom has made advanced products even more strategically valuable.

"Memory is a critical component in the AI infrastructure, and the US and China are the only two countries fueling the infrastructure boom," said He Hui, a Shanghai-based semiconductor research director at Omdia, in a comment to Bloomberg.

China's restrictions on Micron have also created a commercial opening for CXMT. With one of the three dominant global suppliers facing limits in the Chinese market, domestic customers have stronger incentives to consider a local alternative.

"There are only three players - Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron, and China sanctioned Micron years ago, so this provides a great opportunity for CXMT," He said.

The company's founder, Zhu Yiming, brought experience from both the American and Chinese technology sectors. He studied at Tsinghua University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook before leaving doctoral study to work in the chip industry.

In 2004, Zhu founded the company that would become GigaDevice in a garage in Milpitas, California, with $100,000 in angel investment. When the startup ran short of money, a manager at Tsinghua University's incubator offered funding on the condition that Zhu relocate it to China.

He moved to Beijing with slightly less than $1 million and formally launched GigaDevice in 2005. The company later became a major chip designer and listed in Shanghai in 2016.

By then, Zhu was preparing the venture that would become CXMT. His background helps explain the technical and commercial foundations of the company, but CXMT's current importance extends far beyond its founder.

The company is now a test of two competing strategies.

For Beijing, CXMT is evidence that sustained financing, domestic procurement and industrial policy can produce a viable alternative to foreign chip suppliers. For Washington, its rise raises questions about whether export controls are containing China's technological progress or merely encouraging Chinese companies to build around them.

CXMT's growing profile increases both its opportunities and its risks. Interest from customers such as Apple would validate its technology and give it greater international credibility. But deeper integration into global supply chains would also expose the company to more scrutiny over ownership, security and intellectual property.

The Pentagon blacklist and the South Korean leak allegations show how quickly commercial progress can become a geopolitical liability.

CXMT does not need to overtake Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron to alter the global market. Establishing a dependable Chinese source of memory chips would reduce Beijing's reliance on foreign manufacturers, strengthen domestic equipment suppliers and weaken one source of US leverage.

Zhu Yiming, second right, at GigaDevice’s listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Jan. 13, 2026.Photographer: Li Xukui/NBD/VCG/Getty Images

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 17:20

Mind Control: Duncan Trussell On How Social Media Algorithms Weaponize Trauma

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Mind Control: Duncan Trussell On How Social Media Algorithms Weaponize Trauma

Via VigilantFox.com,

Duncan Trussell tells Theo Von why the horrifying stuff the algorithm feeds you is not an accident, and explains what it does to your brain.

It starts with the phone in your hand.

Duncan Trussell tells Theo Von why the horrifying stuff the algorithm feeds you is not an accident, and explains what it does to your brain.

It starts with the phone in your hand.

TRUSSELL: "All of us are staring into these hypno-rectangles. The algorithm, at least my… pic.twitter.com/bPMgRdUReZ
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 11, 2026

TRUSSELL: “All of us are staring into these hypno-rectangles. The algorithm, at least my algorithm, it’s showing me horrible things, people in the midst of psychotic episodes, people in the forest drinking their period blood.”

VON: “It’s crazy dude. They’re definitely scrambling our brains. Because you’ll see like, genocidal killings of children, right?”

VON: “But then immediately it’s like 40% off these ASICS. It starts to confuse your brain, because your brain takes the depth of one that’s so deep and one that means nothing at all, and puts them all in the same plane.”

Then Trussell takes it somewhere darker:

TRUSSELL: “Public assassinations create trauma. Cultural trauma.”

TRUSSELL: “Did you notice, the Charlie Kirk assassination, everyone saw it before they shut it down. All of us had to watch that s**t happen. This produces trauma. The trauma response opens you up to conditioning. It’s the same thing kidnappers use. It’s the same thing people who torture you use.

“They freak you the f**k out so that you disassociate. You don’t want to be there. You go into a sad, foggy place. And then in that place, they show you the ASICS commercial. In that place, they give you some propaganda. In that place, they give you a solution so this will never happen again. This is a known technique for mind-controlling people.”

TRUSSELL: “It’s not just a power dynamic shift, it’s a cultural dynamic shift. Because they inject that moment with however they want to shift the tide.”

VON: “Wow…”

TRUSSELL: “So, Instagram, or any social media, is kind of doing this, but low-level.”

VON: “Microdosing it.”

TRUSSELL: “Yeah.”

Once you see the sequence, you can’t unsee it.

Full episode:

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 17:00

US Officials Say Iran's Ahmadinejad Was Mossad Asset, Met With Intel Chief In Hungary

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:40:00 +0000

US Officials Say Iran's Ahmadinejad Was Mossad Asset, Met With Intel Chief In Hungary

Iran's former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of all people?

The New York Times is out with a bombshell report on Monday which alleges that Israel's Mossad has for years sought to cultivate him as an Israeli intelligence asset.

Flash90

The apparent multi-year effort to recruit and re-install Ahmadinejad as leader of Iran has come to nothing, at a moment his status and fate remains unclear amid the fog of war, and after a prior US-Israeli strike on his house during the opening salvos of Operation Epic Fury resulted in him being whisked away from his Tehran neighborhood by his bodyguards.

The story, which cites US officials who are for whatever reason choosing this moment to 'leak' the insider info, begins in the following:

In early 2024, the rector of a university in Budapest received a startling request from a top Hungarian government official.

The official told the rector, Professor Gergely Deli, that Ludovika University of Public Service should hold a climate change conference and extend an invitation to an unlikely guest: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the widely reviled former president of Iran.

Even more shocking was the reason. The official told Mr. Deli that the conference was merely a front for Mr. Ahmadinejad to have secret discussions in Budapest with intelligence operatives from Israel, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s avowed enemy.

Back in early March, there were even some (premature) headlines of his death, saying he was 'assassinated' at a moment he was under house arrest at his residence. Supposedly this is what 'freed' him, and since then his whereabouts are unknown.

However, regional reports say he did attend the funeral of slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei earlier this month, and was briefly spotted surrounded by guards while wearing a mask and heavy coat.

The Mossad plot goes all the way back to 2022, NYT detailed based on the sources, and the suggestion is that he played along - seeing some kind of foreign intervention as his path back to leadership over the country. His house arrest sprung from the Iranian government being suspicious of contacts with the Israeli government.

He received Israeli financial support to cover travel and accommodation expenses while going to meet with Israeli operatives in Europe - which Israel prioritized to such an extent that even then-Mossad Director David Barnea personally met Ahmadinejad in the Hungarian capital in 2024. The NYT says that the CIA was eventually read in to the high-risk plan.

But upon the start of Operation Epic Fury and the bombing of his home, Ahmadinejad reportedly soured on the plan - becoming distrustful of the Israelis - and saw it as unrealistic.

From Mossad's point of view, he could emerge as a controllable puppet and new 'face' of the Islamic Republic regime, despite is prior well-documented rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel and advancement of Iran's nuclear program.

The more believable aspect to this whole alleged saga is that Ahmadinejad was top of the list of West-Israel 'favored' candidates to lead Iran after he personally praised President Trump in a 2019 interview, and argued for a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington.

"Mr Trump is a man of action," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying. "He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating cost-benefits and making a decision. We say to him, let’s calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be shortsighted."

If Ahmedinejad was a Mossad asset, then everyone could be one?

This is like straight out of a movie. Mind blowing. https://t.co/RU9glcEGyG
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) July 13, 2026

Apparently some of the aspects which made him a candidate, or potential future US-Israeli puppet in Tehran (Delcy Rodriguez-style), was that he had been barred three times from running for president by Iran's unelected 12-member Guardian Council (in 2017, 2021, and 2024). Following his 2017 disqualification, he apparently flipped, becoming a highly vocal critic of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

This isn't the first time the NY Times has floated this story, but the publication is now seeking to fill in more details, apparently.

Amid the ongoing fog of war and heavy propaganda coming from all sides, this could simply by mythology - Hollywood script style - in order to continue sowing fragmentation, distrust, and discord among Iranian ranks. It wouldn't be the first time such a tall tale was spun for such purposes, and the whole thing ultimately will remain unverifiable, for likely at least years to come.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 16:40

Believe All Women - Unless They're Inconvenient

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:20:00 +0000

Believe All Women - Unless They're Inconvenient

Authored by Frank Salvato via The American Spectator,

The political Left has spent years promoting the slogan "Believe All Women," using it as a powerful weapon against conservatives, especially during critical events like the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. But this mantra has never been about seeking justice or protecting victims; instead, it serves as a cynical tool for gaining power - a way to undermine opponents while conveniently overlooking the serial abusers, gropers, and predators within their own ranks.

When the alleged victims are conservative women, or when the accused belong to the "right" political party, the Left's proclaimed solidarity vanishes, replaced by silence, excuses, and even cover-ups. This hypocrisy is a fundamental aspect of a movement that prioritizes tribal loyalty over truth, power over principles, and narrative over the genuine suffering of women.

True protection for women requires consistency, evidence, and fairness - not selective blindness from those on the Left.

Take Joe Biden, the dilapidated standard-bearer of the Democrat Party. Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer, came forward with detailed allegations that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 by pinning her against a wall and digitally penetrating her. There was corroboration for her claims, including a friend she confided in at the time and a 1993 call to Larry King's show in which her mother referenced the incident.

However, the mainstream media, which claims to support the #BelieveWomen and the #MeToo movements, downplayed the story, questioned Reade's credibility, and defended Biden. The New York Times and the Washington Post published skeptical investigations that minimized Biden's pattern of "inappropriate touching" with multiple women. When Biden denied the allegations, the Left largely shrugged it off and continued to support him.

In contrast, any conservative accusation is met with immediate, intense scrutiny. Reade's claims posed a threat to the favorable image of their presidential candidate, so the media largely ignored them. Women only seem to matter when their stories align with the cause.

Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York who was once celebrated as "America's Governor" during the COVID-19 pandemic, faced credible allegations of sexual harassment from multiple women, including former staff members. These women described a troubling pattern of unwanted advances, groping, and a hostile work environment. Cuomo resigned amid the scandal; however, many Democrats rallied to his defense, with some downplaying the allegations as mere political attacks.

The media, which called for resignations in response to lesser offenses by conservatives, treated Cuomo's downfall as a reluctant necessity rather than a justified outrage. Where were the #BelieveAllWomen and #MeToo movements during this situation? Nowhere - because Cuomo was a powerful Democrat.

Al Franken, a comedian who later became a Senator, faced accusations from multiple women regarding inappropriate touching and forced kisses during his career in entertainment and politics. Photos surfaced of him mock-groping a sleeping colleague. Although Franken resigned from his position, many prominent voices on the Left, including some feminists, expressed regret over the loss of what they considered a "good man" and questioned whether the response was proportional. The urgency for judgment, typically directed at Republicans, was replaced by concerns about due process - only when it was convenient for their side.

Keith Ellison, a Congressman from Minnesota and former deputy chair of the Democrat National Committee, faced serious domestic abuse allegations from his ex-girlfriend, Karen Monahan. Her son claimed to have witnessed a video showing Ellison dragging her off a bed by her feet while shouting obscenities and making threats. Medical records and text messages supported aspects of her claims of abuse. Ellison denied all the allegations, and many on the left largely ignored the situation. As a rising star in progressive circles, his actions went overlooked.

There was no sustained outrage or calls for investigation from the usual advocates. In contrast, conservative women making similar allegations would likely have faced heavy scrutiny. Monahan, Ellison's alleged victim, faded into the background.

Eric Swalwell, the California Democrat, continues to face mounting scandals. Multiple women, including a former staffer, have accused him of sexual misconduct, ranging from sending naked, unsolicited messages to rape while the women were intoxicated or incapacitated. One woman provided a detailed account of being assaulted in a hotel room, which is corroborated by texts and eyewitnesses. Although Swalwell has denied these allegations, the consistent pattern raises serious concerns about entitlement.

Despite this troubling situation, the partisan machinery that typically amplifies accusations against conservatives has reacted sluggishly. Swalwell remains prominent in Leftist and Democrat circles, and his ambitions have only recently faced setbacks.

Even Graham Platner, the Democrat Senate nominee in Maine challenging Susan Collins, exposes the farce. Platner enjoyed robust support from the progressive apparatus, including Bernie Sanders allies, as a populist veteran and oysterman - until Jenny Racicot, a Maine woman from the Left who had dated him, came forward with a rape allegation. She detailed how in 2021, an intoxicated Platner entered her home uninvited, ignored her repeated objections, and forced himself on her despite her clear refusal. Only after this credible accusation from within their own camp - reported by outlets like Politico - did the Democrat establishment and mainstream media, including the New York Times, finally cease their backing, with calls for him to withdraw flooding in.

Prior controversies, including other troubling claims about their relationship, hadn't stopped them. But a Democrat woman's direct rape accusation? That finally pierced the protective bubble. The selective timing reveals everything: their #BelieveAllWomen and #MeToo piety is reserved for enemies, not inconvenient allies.

Conservative women, such as those who were criticized during the #MeToo movement or attacked for supporting America First policies, find little support from the Left. The Kavanaugh hearings demonstrated the strategy: use unproven allegations against those who threaten the agenda, and then discard principles when they implicate allies. The media-Democrat complex doesn't genuinely "believe all women"; rather, it selectively supports women at the right time for political gain; for the political "kill shot." Victims who do not fit this narrative - whether they are Republican, conservative, or simply inconvenient - are often dismissed as liars, opportunists, or fabricators; dragged through the mud into the public square.

This hypocrisy undermines trust in institutions - especially the media - and the experiences of genuine victims. Real abuse exists and deserves serious investigation with due process, rather than being used for partisan gain.

The Left's #BelieveAllWomen and #MeToo movements were never based on principles; instead, they served as a performative tactic to consolidate power. They overlook crimes against conservative women because acknowledging those victims would expose the underlying hypocrisy. This mandate only applies when it supports the Marxist, identity-focused agenda that reduces women to mere props in a cultural battle.

True protection for women requires consistency, evidence, and fairness - not selective blindness from those on the Left who preach empathy while practicing ruthless expediency.

Their silence regarding their own predators speaks volumes: power always trumps principle.

Frank Salvato is a 30-year independent journalist focused on constitutionalism and threats to the free West.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 16:20

Appeals Court Revives Tylenol Autism Lawsuits Against Kenvue

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:45:00 +0000

Appeals Court Revives Tylenol Autism Lawsuits Against Kenvue

A federal appeals court has breathed new life into litigation accusing Kenvue of failing to disclose alleged risks tied to taking Tylenol during pregnancy, reversing an earlier ruling that had effectively stopped hundreds of cases, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

On Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the trial judge went too far in throwing out testimony from three expert witnesses. The panel said the experts relied on recognized scientific approaches and that disagreements over how to interpret the available research should be weighed through the legal process rather than dismissed outright. The lawsuits will now return to the lower court.

The decision overturns a 2023 ruling that prevented roughly 500 claims from moving forward against Kenvue, the consumer health business that was spun off from Johnson & Johnson. Bloomberg Intelligence has previously estimated that the company could ultimately face thousands of similar lawsuits, creating the potential for billions of dollars in legal exposure.

Bloomberg notes that attorneys representing the plaintiffs said the appeals court recognized that their experts relied on legitimate scientific evidence. Kenvue countered that the ruling was procedural, not a finding that Tylenol causes autism or ADHD. The company continues to argue that the best available independent research has not established a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Recall back in September we noted when President Donald Trump advised pregnant women to avoid Tylenol, bringing renewed public attention to a debate that has divided researchers.Even so, many medical experts and large reviews of existing studies continue to say the evidence does not demonstrate that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes autism, ADHD, or similar developmental conditions.

"With Tylenol, don't take it, don't take it," Trump said last year, adding that the FDA would issue a notice to physicians over the risk of acetaminophen during pregnancy, and begin the process to make a safety label change. "I think we've found an answer to autism."

In October, we noted that in a Feb. 8, 2018, email obtained by The Epoch Times, Rachel Weinstein, director of epidemiology at Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen, wrote, “The weight of evidence is starting to feel heavy to me.”

Weinstein was emailing Jesse Berlin, Johnson & Johnson’s global head of epidemiology, about a review that concluded that nine studies suggested that use of acetaminophen—the active ingredient in Tylenol—by pregnant women was linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental issues in the women’s children.

The legal battle is unfolding while Kimberly-Clark works to complete its planned $40 billion purchase of Kenvue. The company has said it reviewed the potential litigation risks before agreeing to the acquisition.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 15:45

US Energy Efficiency: We Have Come A Long Way

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:25:00 +0000

US Energy Efficiency: We Have Come A Long Way

Via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The graph below paints a very interesting picture of US energy efficiency and a key structural economic change in this country.

For roughly 25 years after WWII, the US economy’s crude oil consumption nearly tripled. Feeding the growth were a booming post-war economy and strong population growth.

To put consumption in a different context, the graph shows consumption as a ratio to a dollar of real GDP, on a per capita basis.

It shows that consumption per dollar of GDP declined rapidly starting in the mid-1970s, suggesting an increase in US energy efficiency.

The US per capita energy efficiency is less pronounced but noticeable.

In addition to productivity gains and urbanization, there are a few reasons for the gains in efficiency.

The 1973 Arab oil embargo was a shock to the economy. During this time, a quadrupling of gas prices and long gas lines forced policymakers and consumers to treat oil as a strategic vulnerability rather than a cheap given.
Washington enacted numerous measures in response to persistently high oil prices in the 1970s. For instance, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 mandated US energy efficiency standards for appliances and introduced fuel-economy standards. Legislators also encouraged a shift from oil and natural gas to coal for power generation. Utilities largely stopped building oil-fired plants.
Structural change was equally important. The economy shifted from heavy manufacturing to services and technology, sectors that require far less energy per dollar of output.

Ironically, AI data centers are now driving a renewed focus on efficiency, this time with natural gas and renewables.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 15:25

Credit Card Chargebacks Surge As E-Commerce & Cashless Society Gets Messy For Consumers

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 19:05:00 +0000

Credit Card Chargebacks Surge As E-Commerce & Cashless Society Gets Messy For Consumers

US consumers are disputing card purchases at a record pace, as online fraud, confusing billing practices, and sneaky subscription charges drive a surge in chargebacks.

Bloomberg cites new data from research firm Juniper Research on consumers' aggressive use of chargebacks. Last year alone, US consumers filed 158 million transaction disputes, up 29% from 2021 and outpacing overall growth in card spending. Global disputes jumped 46% over the same period.

The increase may reflect not only more legitimate fraud but also subscription traps, unfamiliar merchant names, poor service, and "friendly fraud," in which shoppers mistakenly or knowingly challenge legitimate purchases.

The report continued:

Some of this growth in reported fraud is indeed a reflection of growth in real fraud. More people are getting scammed, especially online.

But according to Michael Greenwood, a senior research analyst at Juniper who focuses on digital payments, that's not the main source of dispute rates. Instead he points to two other phenomena responsible for the ballooning number of chargebacks: growing confusion among consumers over how the transactions on their monthly statements correspond to their actual purchases, as well as an increasing willingness, especially among younger shoppers, to engage in a little bit of fraud of their own.

Rising chargebacks may also signal growing consumer stress, as online fraud and distrust of merchants increase. This appears to be one of the drawbacks of going cashless for some people in the era of e-commerce. Some shoppers are struggling with subscription traps, unclear billing, and deteriorating service, while a growing share are also using disputes to reverse legitimate purchases.

The spike in chargebacks is also hurting retailers, resulting in higher fraud losses and processing costs.

Business revolt?

Meanwhile, consumers are carrying near-record credit card balances as inflation remains elevated. The average credit card interest rate is hovering near a record high of 22%.

The good news is that consumer credit figures in May fell for the first time since Nov. 2024 as interest rates spiked.

So one drawback of e-commerce and an increasingly cashless economy is the rise in chargebacks. Digital transactions create more opportunities for fraud, billing confusion, and subscription disputes.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 15:05

Mick Jagger Has Some Sage Advice For Trump-Hater Springsteen

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:45:00 +0000

Mick Jagger Has Some Sage Advice For Trump-Hater Springsteen

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Mick Jagger is pushing back against the trend of rock stars turning stages into campaign rallies, offering a refreshing contrast to Bruce Springsteen's repeated anti-Trump outbursts.

In a recent New York Times podcast interview, Jagger made his position crystal clear. While contrasting his approach with Springsteen's, he stated: "My job in the live music world is for those people that come to have the best time ... And you don't want to lecture them."

Mick Jagger Says It's Not His Job to Lecture Rolling Stones' Fans on Politics

NYT: "Bruce Springsteen clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth."

MICK JAGGER: "My job in the live music world is for those people that come to have the best time ... And you... pic.twitter.com/PmNaTgLjs7
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) July 11, 2026

This comes as Springsteen has made a habit of injecting leftist political commentary into his shows, often targeting President Trump and his administration.

From calling Trump "treasonous and corrupt" during his European tour to labeling America itself a "reckless, unpredictable, predatory, untrustworthy, rogue nation" in a DC concert, the so called Boss has turned performances into platforms for activism.

Grammy-winning musician Bruce Springsteen began his European tour by calling President Donald Trump a "treasonous and corrupt" leader.

Springsteen urged the crowd to rise up, speak out against authoritarianism, and "let freedom ring."

Springsteen has supported every Democratic... pic.twitter.com/eSRpQuFGQl
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) May 15, 2025

Bruce Springsteen goes on anti-Trump tirade mid-concert.

pic.twitter.com/6LKM0MuZXg
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 15, 2025

Leftist activist Bruce Springsteen went on an unhinged anti-Trump rant during his recent DC concert, calling America a "reckless, unpredictable, predatory, untrustworthy, rogue nation." pic.twitter.com/wkolcjuh5S
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 29, 2026

Springsteen has relied on a teleprompter for his anti-Trump and anti-billionaire rants, scripting attacks on the "richest men in America" and claims about a president who "cannot handle the truth."

Billionaire Bruce Springsteen uses a teleprompter to read a script bashing Trump and billionaires.

"The richest men in America have abandoned the world's poorest children to death and disease...We have a President who cannot handle the truth." pic.twitter.com/VJPm443zst
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 26, 2026

His latest efforts include an angry 'look at my serious playing face' anti-ICE music video titled "Streets Of Minneapolis," railing against the Trump administration.

JUST IN: Singer Bruce Springsteen releases angry, highly political new anti-ICE music video titled "Streets Of Minneapolis," which was uploaded to YouTube.

Springsteen raged against the Trump administration and called some out by name in the song.

The Hollywood clown... pic.twitter.com/wRGlqRccU9
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 29, 2026

Trump has continually clapped back at Springsteen's criticisms.

Trump goes off on Bruce Springsteen: pic.twitter.com/CQurpihfvZ
— johnny maga (@johnnymaga) April 2, 2026

Never forget that Springsteen was among those pushing strict COVID-era restrictions, endorsing concerts limited to the fully masked and vaccinated.

@springsteen is a pedantic tool of govt oppression pic.twitter.com/7k90sMYXZg
— David Dougherty (@Nahanchi7068) July 11, 2026

Fans and commentators have taken notice of Jagger's stance, with many applauding the decision to prioritize the audience's enjoyment over boring lefty sermons.

He gets it. pic.twitter.com/nQFv6sAqyL
— Dennis Michels (@lonecavalryman) July 11, 2026

Springsteen is not engaging in a meaningful back and forth, he's engaging in lies and propaganda.
— Matt Marsden (@matt_marsden123) July 12, 2026

Jagger's been around the block enough times to know how that sort of thing plays out. He's witnessed first hand what happens when musicians lose themselves in political messaging. Good on him for not stepping in it.
— ConquestBarbie (@DParadisio43137) July 12, 2026

Too bad more musicians and actors don't heed Jagger's advice. I have zero interest in supporting any entertainment personality who thinks they have some moral high ground obligation to tell me who I can support politically. It's none of their GD business.
— Sherry Kerdman (@sherry_kerdman) July 11, 2026

Mick knows. I was at a private event where U2 played and the entire show they used the monitors and interstitial comments to tell me to give all my money to Democrats and eradicate the evil that is Trump. Fuck them. pic.twitter.com/5WEhW5pcpU
— Todd Ensz (@EnszTodd) July 11, 2026

Jagger's comments strike a chord in an era where many entertainers seem more focused on pushing ideology than delivering the escapist joy fans pay for.

While Springsteen sees his role as political engagement, Jagger understands that most concertgoers want to rock out, not endure lectures - especially from multimillionaire performers far removed from everyday struggles.

This divide highlights a broader fatigue with celebrities who lecture from their bubbles while ignoring their own inconsistencies. America First means putting fans and freedom first, not turning every stage into a partisan soapbox. Jagger gets it. More should follow.

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 Mon, 07/13/2026 - 14:45

The Absurdity Of The Hunter Biden Defamation Case

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:05:00 +0000

The Absurdity Of The Hunter Biden Defamation Case

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

I have taught torts, including defamation for over 30 years, but I have never seen the like of the Hunter Biden defamation case.

The defendant made defamatory statements and then just refused to appear. That led to an equally bizarre $1.7 million award by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson of the Central District of California to Biden, consisting of just $1 in nominal damages and the rest in punitive damages.

Here is the most interesting line of the opinion: “the damage to Plaintiff’s reputation is difficult to calculate.”

It may be the single greatest understatement in the history of judicial opinions.

However, the court also noted “Plaintiff does not seek actual damages above a nominal amount.”

That means that Hunter Biden’s counsel, in a default case, elected not to argue for compensatory damages due to loss of reputation. Why would he do that?

It might be that he has little reputation to lose and that opening up that part of the case was fraught with perils. However, it also created a potential major appellate issue. His counsel was making it clear that they were litigating purely for punitives.

For Hunter Biden, this is a much-needed windfall. His art sales notably collapsed with the value of currying favor to the Bidens. He is reportedly being pursued by creditors, including former counsel.

The question is whether the award will stand.

For many critics, Hunter Biden is virtually ‘libel proof” as an individual who has no reputation to lose. However, as we have previously discussed, that status is reserved for the most reviled personalities who cannot be defamed due to the lack of any positive reputation.

Judge Wilson, a Reagan appointee, admits in his opinion that determining reputational harm to someone like Biden is difficult to do and further recognizes the argument that “prior tarnishing of Plaintiff’s reputation may reduce the reprehensibility of Defendant’s conduct.”

The case involves a claim by former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne that Biden took part in an $800 million bribery scheme involving Iran and failed to defend his claims in court.

Hunter Biden has long been accused of influence peddling that generated millions for him and his family. I have been one of his longest critics as part of a corrupt family enterprise.

However, this claim was not one of those that his critics, and Congress, focused on during the Biden years. There is no evidence that he took a bribe or payment in a quid pro quo for releasing the money to Iran.

The lawsuit was part of a flurry of such actions brought against Biden’s critics. Most were later dismissed, but played a part in the scorched-earth campaign of Biden. I was even threatened with such an action after criticizing his counsel and financial backer, Kevin Morris.

As Biden dropped the other lawsuits, this one continued to be litigated. It was an easy kill. Byrne simply did not defend himself and defaulted. That left the matter to Judge Wilson, who was clearly irate.

The opinion recounts an extraordinary pile-up as Byrne sought to replace lawyers:

“Defendant initially attempted to replace Mr. Murphy with three new lawyers: Eric Neff, Tom Yu, and Stefanie Lynn Lambert Junttila. ECF Nos. 290, 291, 292. Ms. Lambert was not a member of the California Bar, and her application to appear pro hac vice was denied2 due to her recent history of unethical conduct, which gave the Court reason to doubt she would abide by the Court’s rules and practices. ECF No. 295. When Defendant learned that Ms. Lambert was not qualified to represent him in this case, Defendant also instructed Mr. Neff and Mr. Yu to remove themselves.

Moreover, Defendant himself, now unrepresented, still failed to appear at trial. Accordingly, the Court issued an order to show cause why it should not enter default judgment against Defendant and ordered the parties to return the following day. At that hearing, on July 30, 2025, Defendant again failed to appear. Mr. Yu, who was not authorized to represent Defendant at trial, argued on Defendant’s behalf for a continuance, in lieu of default judgment.”

The defendant would miss a series of filing and appearance dates, including orders that he appear in person.

Wilson, 85, ruled in his opinion that Byrne acted with “intentional misrepresentation” and “conscious disregard” for Hunter’s rights. Making things worse, Byrne was found to have continued making the false claims after the lawsuit, and said Byrne continued to amplify the false allegations even after Hunter filed the lawsuit against him.

Accordingly, the court found that the “defamation went far beyond mere negligence,” and that Byrne actively sought to spread the false claim on social media and to make the story go viral.

The problem is that the actual compensatory damages are rather to gauge for a plaintiff who was found by Congress to have actively sought to use his influence or access to his father to shake down foreign figures and businesses.

In these well-documented dealings, there were gifts such as diamonds, lavish expense accounts, and a sports car, in addition to massive payments that Hunter claimed were “loans.” There are messages like the one to a Chinese businessman, openly threatening Joe Biden’s displeasure if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated:

“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

So, accusing Hunter Biden of influence peddling would hardly seem a material blow to his reputation.

Wilson awarded just $1 in nominal damages to Biden but then ordered $1.7 million in punitive damages. Byrne was also ordered to pay nearly $35,000 in previously imposed court sanctions within two weeks or face an additional $1,000 penalty for each day payment is delayed after the deadline.

That 1:1,700,000 ratio is a bit startling. The general rule is that a ratio of greater than 1:10 in compensatory to punitive damages can raise serious constitutional concerns. What makes this case different is the contempt and default elements.

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case, BMW of North America v. Gore, striking down a punitive damage award. The case involved the practice of the company to repair and repaint cars damaged in transit without telling the customers. The jury in the original trial awarded $4,000 in compensatory damages for the lost value to the car in not having a factory paint job and other damage; it then imposed $4 million in punitive damages for the company’s dishonesty.

The Court stated three factors in crafting punitive awards: (1) the degree of reprehensibility of the nondisclosure; (2) the disparity between the harm or potential harm suffered by plaintiff and the punitive damages award; (3) and the difference between this remedy and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.

Even though the Alabama Supreme Court previously reduced the punitive award by half, the U.S. Supreme Court still found that the award violated the Due Process Clause as “grossly excessive.”

The fact that this case involves nominal damages may allowed for greater leeway in the ratio. See Arizona v. ASARCO LLC, 773 F.3d 1050, 1058 (9th Cir. 2014). That is clearly a critical part of the decision of counsel to ask for only nominal damages while litigating for punitive damages. However, this ratio is astronomical.

Judge Wilson addresses BMW v. Gore but effectively untethers the ratio analysis from this case, precisely what Biden’s counsel had hoped in seeking only nominal damages. It is an approach that would effectively gut BMW v Gore. Any litigants with a bad reputation or insufficient reputational harm could simply ask for nominal damages and then ask for the moon in punitive damages.

However, it gets weirder. I was curious how, without any record on harm, the Court could come up with $1.7 million. It turns out that the Court used the damages awarded by a Canadian court against Byrne in a similar defamation case. That case in a foreign jurisdiction awarded $1.134 million. Wilson simply blithely declares that, since Byrne continues such conduct, “a $1.134 million award would be inadequate to deter this particular Defendant. The Court therefore calculates a punitive damages award of $1.7 million, approximately 50% greater than the total judgment in the prior case.”

That is it. The court simply used the damage award in a foreign torts case and elected to increase it by 50%. However, that earlier judgment only included $250,000 in punitive damages.

I think that the court is dead wrong on the punitive damages analysis. The only question is whether the extent of Byrne’s contempt and default will work to quiet the concerns of appellate judges.

It is a case worthy of appeal.

It is a fascinating car wreck of a case with a scandal-plagued plaintiff, a defaulting plaintiff, the use of a foreign judgment as the basis for a damages award, and a 1:1,700,000 ratio in damages. We will be watching if an appeal is filed by Byrne.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 14:05

Dubai's New East Coast Port Signals The Beginning Of End For Iran's Hormuz Leverage

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:45:00 +0000

Dubai's New East Coast Port Signals The Beginning Of End For Iran's Hormuz Leverage

Less than a week into the US-Iran conflict, specifically on March 3, we began to see the writing on the wall: Tehran's leverage over the Strait of Hormuz would eventually erode. That would happen not only because the US military could systematically destroy IRGC's radar sites, coastal missile batteries and drone launch sites along the maritime chokepoint, but also because Gulf states would eventually respond with a generational infrastructure buildout, from new pipelines to coastal ports, designed to entirely bypass Hormuz altogether.

Surprising Fujairah is not a bigger oil terminal: it bypasses the straits completely.

Expect major infrastructure push here after the war. https://t.co/Do1gK7KBDQ
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 3, 2026

The emerging theme gained momentum on Monday morning with a new Financial Times report stating that Dubai's state-owned ports and logistics giant, DP World, is considering a massive new port and container terminal on the UAE's east coast, in Fujairah, to bypass the Hormuz chokepoint.

Jebel Ali's port, which handled 15.6 million 20-foot containers last year, is located southwest of central Dubai, toward Abu Dhabi, and was battered over the last several months when Iran closed the strait, sending containerized volume down nearly 95%. That shipping shock, according to an FT source, was enough for DP's executives to begin looking for alternative routes.

Here's more from the report:

DP World was now discussing a term sheet with government officials, with the new project's structure and financing yet to be finalised, the people said. The new port could be completed as soon as within a year and a half, a senior company official said.

The Jebel Ali Port is DP's crown jewel, the largest port and the anchor of the Jafza free zone, which hosts about 12,000 companies.

"Jebel Ali will continue to be Jebel Ali," a senior DP official told the FT. "It will never be downsized."

"We do have our own plan, and we've been very active in terms of looking at the eastern coast as far as DP World is concerned," the senior official said. "It's defensive in case things go wrong," the senior DP official continued.

Shifting part of the port's capacity outside Dubai is a seismic change but not surprising given that UAE's Minister of Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi recently told Bloomberg in an exclusive interview, "We're moving toward having zero Hormuz dependency and that's regardless of whether it's open or not. It's going to open and we hope that will happen quickly, but we will not stop the new plan."

The plan includes major investments in pipelines, rail, and road links from UAE ports in the Persian Gulf to Dibba, Fujairah, Khor Fakkan and at least one new harbor on the Gulf of Oman coast.

In the early months of the conflict, Saudi Arabia's Hormuz-bypassing East-West pipeline was the prime example of being hedged for a Hormuz closure, able to shift 7 million barrels a day from Persian Gulf loading terminals to those at Yanbu on the Red Sea.

Gulf States Considering Network Of New Pipelines To Bypass Strait Of Hormuz

With US-aligned Gulf states in the process of shifting critical energy and container supply chains away from the Hormuz area, this will only accelerate the erosion of Tehran's geopolitical leverage over the chokepoint.

... and now with President Trump reinstating the Hormuz blockade...

... this will only supercharge the bypass theme.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 13:45

"Don't Let China Win": President Trump Presses Senate On CLARITY Act In Final Stretch

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:25:00 +0000

"Don't Let China Win": President Trump Presses Senate On CLARITY Act In Final Stretch

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

The Senate returns to Washington on July 13, with the clock running down on the most consequential piece of crypto legislation in years. Lawmakers now have roughly four weeks to schedule, debate, and pass the CLARITY Act before the August recess.

President Trump weighed in directly on Monday, posting on Truth Social that “in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter, the U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act” and warning that China and other countries “would like to take complete and total control of this major financial ‘happening,'” as well as A.I.

White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt amplified the urgency, noting the critical week coincides with the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act and cautioning, “We cannot afford to delay any longer.”

This is a window many policy watchers see as the last realistic chance to enact comprehensive digital-asset market structure legislation this Congress.

The CLARITY Act would draw a firm regulatory line between the SEC and the CFTC, granting the commodities regulator exclusive jurisdiction over spot markets for “digital commodities” while leaving the SEC to oversee investment-contract assets.

It cleared the House in July 2025 by a bipartisan 294–134 vote and advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 margin, with two Democrats joining all Republicans.

Those committee votes, however, came with warnings that floor support was not guaranteed.

This week’s milestone is the release of updated text merging the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee versions, the clearest signal yet of what survived negotiations and what remains unsettled.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 President Trump says "The U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act." 🚀 pic.twitter.com/9Y7VxKZ3ck
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 13, 2026

Clarity Act issues remain

The bill missed the July 4 signing ceremony that White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt had targeted, and while meetings ran through the recess, the thorniest issues remain unresolved, according to Crypto in America. Getting to 60 votes may prove harder than getting this far, and with the Republican conference shrinking, Democratic buy-in matters more than ever.

Chief among them is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, folded into the CLARITY Act as Section 604, which would shield non-custodial software developers from being treated as money transmitters.

Law enforcement groups argue the language, as written, would hamper investigations into on-chain crime, and Democratic support may hinge on revisions.

An ethics standoff

The more explosive fight is over ethics. Negotiators have yet to reach a CLARITY Act deal with the White House on guardrails around conflicts of interest tied to President Trump’s crypto ventures, after disclosures showed he earned more than $1 billion from crypto-related businesses last year.

House members have pressed the Senate to act while addressing those concerns, and a coalition of more than 200 companies has urged leadership to bring the bill to the floor. The coalition argued that the bill would establish a clear federal framework for digital assets and help keep innovation in the U.S.

Complicating the math, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the continued absence of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leave Republicans with almost no room for error in reaching 60 votes.

Sentiment is split. Solana Policy Institute President Kristin Smith says momentum is building and a floor vote before recess remains achievable, echoing CFTC leadership calling the bill “so close.”

Others are wary: Galaxy Digital cut its passage odds to 50-50, citing the shrinking calendar and competing priorities like the NDAA. The firm said the legislation still faces procedural hurdles, unresolved ethics and developer-protection disputes, and a crowded Senate agenda that could delay consideration until September. Galaxy said the odds would improve if Senate leaders commit to a July vote. Odds were as high as 70% earlier this year.

The next four weeks may be CLARITY’s last chance in the 119th Congress.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 13:25

This Chevrolet Suburban Is The Secret Service's New Anti-Drone Weapon

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:00:00 +0000

This Chevrolet Suburban Is The Secret Service's New Anti-Drone Weapon

For any indication of how seriously the federal government is taking the threat posed by one-way attack drones on the homeland, particularly against President Trump, look no further than the US Secret Service's new Chevrolet Suburban.

The Secret Service’s Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Branch operates a specially equipped Chevrolet Suburban Premier, known as “Hindsight,” to detect and mitigate suicide drones and other loitering munitions during National Special Security Events and other high-profile security operations, according to the Instagram account "dmvfireandpolice."

The Suburban is outfitted with an Axis Communications IP camera, radio-frequency antennas, and additional counter-UAS technology, and it appears to have a mobile command station inside.

Dmvfireandpolice reported that the latest sighting of the new anti-drone command center on wheels was at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, as it was departing.

The vehicle is likely outfitted with jamming equipment, yet new details this week of fiber optic drones in Mexico have sparked alarm bells with security experts because these drones - very similar to Ukrainian and Russian ones - are unjammable, which only suggests kinetic solutions are needed.

The drone threat against President Trump materialized last month when far-left revolutionaries were foiled by federal agents in their alleged plot to use suicide drones to target "capitalists" at the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House.

Trump made an odd statement on Friday: "I’ve been on their list for a long time. That’s what we’re dealing with." He then followed with: "The only thing is, I've left instructions—if anything happens—to just literally bomb them at levels that they've never seen before."

As we have detailed before, there are multiple ways to prepare for the asymmetric-warfare boom, as the US government and private firms race to harden the airspace above high-value assets, from airports and data centers to power grids, stadiums, and other critical infrastructure.

We may also be seeing the early stages of an M&A cycle across the drone and counter-UAS space. Ondas Holdings’ acquisition of DZYNE last week could be an early signal that larger defense and industrial technology firms are beginning to consolidate specialized firms before demand from the Department of War accelerates next year (read that report here).

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 13:00

Lindsey Graham's Eerie Last Words Revealed

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:20:00 +0000

Lindsey Graham's Eerie Last Words Revealed

The sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reverberated through the capital over the weekend, and some of the veteran interventionist's final remarks have lent the loss an unsettling poignancy.

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

In a telephone call with an unnamed individual, Mr. Graham, 71, said he intended to seek medical attention for feeling unwell, but only after his scheduled appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." On the same call, the senator joked about deferring his own mortality.

"I can't die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out and do Israeli-Saudi normalization," the senator said, according to Axios.

Graham's office announced his death early Sunday, hours after he returned from Ukraine, where he toured a secret military drone factory and held talks with Volodymyr Zelensky.

The senator also spoke Saturday evening with President Donald Trump about the Ukraine trip and the bipartisan Russia sanctions package he had been working to advance through Congress alongside Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the New York Post reports.

Preliminary findings released by the District of Columbia medical examiner's office indicated Graham died from "Aortic Dissection due to Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease." The condition, a tear in the body's main artery, predominantly affects older men.

Trump said Monday he has recommended that the senator's sister serve as his temporary replacement in the Senate. In a social-media post, the president urged Gov. Henry McMaster (R) to appoint Darline Graham Nordone to fill the remainder of Graham's term, which expires in January.

McMaster is expected to announce his selection later Monday. A special election is scheduled for next month to choose a new Republican nominee in the general election for the seat.

H/T CAPITAL News

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 12:20

Non-Citizen Voting Arrests Continue To Mount, State Officials Put On Notice

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Non-Citizen Voting Arrests Continue To Mount, State Officials Put On Notice

Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,

The Trump Justice Department has secured roughly two dozen non-citizens voting arrests, prosecutions or convictions in the last few months, with another nearly 90 more cases under investigation.

Just the News reports that the wave of prosecutions represents a growing number of individuals charged in the last year with illegally voting in U.S. federal elections as foreigners.

Department of Justice (DOJ) officials say all 50 states were sent notices this month that election officials can and will be prosecuted too if they allow non-citizens to vote.

🚨 TRUMP DOJ DROPPING BOMBS ON ELECTION CHEATERS

Congressman Jim Jordon just unloaded: While the Save America Act stalls thanks to Senate RINOs hiding behind the filibuster, the Trump Justice Department is WARNING election officials in ALL 50 states, criminal prosecution if you… pic.twitter.com/H6fMxI8KJm
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) July 11, 2026

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told the Just the News, “This is not some idle threat.”

The letters state that state election officers face potential criminal penalties for “aiding and abetting” non-citizen voting. This includes knowingly retaining non-citizens on voting registration lists or assisting them with obtaining and casting ballots.

State officials were given a strict 5-day deadline by the DOJ to submit explanations of how they are complying with federal voter eligibility laws.

Dhillon drew a clear line on non-citizen voting, saying:

It isn’t just bad policy to let non-citizens vote in federal elections, it’s a crime. And this Department of Justice will intend to prosecute that crime if these election officials, having been informed that they are non-citizens on the voter rolls, knowingly allow those people to vote, enable their enrollment on the voter rolls, are passive in the face of this knowledge, etc.

Dhillon believes the numbers of foreigners illicitly voting in elections is probably higher but has been frustrated that U.S. Attorney offices across the country haven’t made illegal voting a larger priority until just recently.

Federal law requires voters to be American citizens to vote on the federal level, but some states and cities allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.

The DOJ push comes as President Donald Trump tries to persuade a hesitant U.S. Senate to pass the Save America Act that would impose citizenship and voter ID on all federal election voters.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 12:00

Strategy Adds $467 Million In Cash, No Bitcoin As StanChart Warns Saylor Needs Clarity In Pivot Message To Convince Investors

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:20:00 +0000

Strategy Adds $467 Million In Cash, No Bitcoin As StanChart Warns Saylor Needs Clarity In Pivot Message To Convince Investors

Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, raised fresh capital by selling MSTR shares through its at-the-market (ATM) offering last week while leaving its BTC treasury unchanged.

As CoinTelegraph's Helen Partz reports, Strategy sold 4.8 million shares of its Class A common stock for $466.7 million between July 6 and July 12, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company did not buy or sell any Bitcoin during the period and reported holdings of 843,775 BTC at an average purchase price of $75,476 per BTC.

The update comes as investors continue to watch how Strategy balances equity issuance, Bitcoin accumulation and its growing preferred stock offerings as it expands its BTC-focused corporate strategy.

Ahead of Monday's Nasdaq open, MSTR shares were trading down roughly 3%, to $91.80 apiece, according to Yahoo Finance. Bitcoin was trading at about $62,580, down more than 2% in the past 24 hours.

Cash buffer grows to $3 billion

Strategy increased its US dollar reserve to $3 billion as of July 12, up from $2.55 billion a week earlier. The reserve is used to fund dividend payments on its preferred stock and interest payments on its outstanding debt.

The reserve includes expected proceeds from MSTR shares sold through the company's ATM offering that had not yet settled as of the reporting date.

Source: SEC

Strategy has $23.8 billion of remaining capacity under its MSTR ATM offering, including capacity from a new $21 billion offering the company announced on March 23. The company said it may begin selling shares under the additional capacity once the existing offering is substantially depleted.

Last week, Strategy announced it sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million to replenish its US dollar reserve and fund preferred stock dividend payments.

The transactions included the sale of 1,363 BTC at an average price of $59,256 between June 29 and June 30, followed by another 2,225 BTC at an average price of $60,773 between July 1 and July 5.

In the same June 29 8-K filing, Strategy also reported no BTC purchases, while disclosing the sale of 12.7 million MSTR shares through its ATM offering, generating $1.15 billion in net proceeds.

STRC moves to twice-monthly dividend schedule

Strategy is boosting its USD reserve as it readies its first semi-monthly dividend payment to its STRC preferred stock holders on Wednesday.

Under a new schedule announced on June 8, STRC will use record dates on the 15th and the last day of each month, with payments made on the following record date.

The first semi-monthly record date was June 30, 2026, with the first payment date scheduled for July 15.

Saylor

Additionally, CoinTelegraph's Robert Lakin notes that Strategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor again took to social media on Sunday to offer his latest signal to investors, even as one analyst said Saylor’s messaging needed more clarity to help Bitcoin regain its momentum.

“Orange dots tell only part of the story,” was Saylor’s message in a post that accompanied a chart from Saylortracker.com, similar to previous social media messages that have preceded news of Strategy's Bitcoin (BTC) purchases, typically announced the day after his posts.

Need clarity in BTC pivot message to convince investors: StanChart

Standard Charter’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, said Strategy’s recent actions - and Saylor's manner of communicating them - “are muddying the waters for BTC near-term.”

“We think effective communication of MSTR’s new strategy (using BTC to back STRC) is key to reassuring markets that wholesale selling is unlikely; this should in turn support BTC prices,” Kendrick wrote in a note to clients on Friday.

“Indeed, if this signalling proves effective, it should remove the need for MSTR to actually sell any BTC by supporting STRC’s price,” he said.

StanChart sees inconsistencies in “never sell” approach

Kendrick said that Strategy’s long-held “never sell” approach limited what the company could with its industry-biggest digital asset treasury.

“The problem with the ‘never sell’ approach is that it limits what MSTR’s BTC holdings can do — or, perhaps more importantly, what they are perceived to be doing,” the StanChart analyst said.

“MSTR has started to shift its communication strategy on this in recent months. It has sold BTC twice and recently announced a BTC monetization program.”

Source: Standard Chartered Bank

Still, he sees Strategy’s “market signaling” as potentially improving soon and bringing more clarity to the outlook for Bitcoin, on which StanChart maintains its $100,000 year-end forecast.

Shares struggle from year low ahead of earnings report

Investors who bought into the Strategy narrative have not had an easy time in the past 12 months. The STRC preferred shares were formulated to hold a price of $100 apiece. Shareholders saw that par value fall to the wayside last month, to the lowest value since the preferred stock was introduced a year ago.

The common shares, trading under the MSTR ticker, have lost more than 70% of their value since July 2025, closing at $94.64 per share on Friday, down from a 52-week high of $457.22.

The company is slated to report second-quarter earnings on July 30, with analysts consensus of $4.28 per share, according to Yahoo Finance data. Earnings have fallen short of analyst forecasts in six of the last eight quarters, according to Fintel.io data, including a 33.76% negative surprise in the first quarter of 2026.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 11:20

Mamdani's Affordability Agenda Flops As NYC Rents Surge To Record Highs

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:00:00 +0000

Mamdani's Affordability Agenda Flops As NYC Rents Surge To Record Highs

New York City's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and his radical-left lieutenants in City Hall promised voters free bus rides, government-run grocery stores, cheap housing, and much more. Yet the dream of a left-wing utopia has not materialized. In fact, rents in the NYC metro area just hit a record high.

New data from The Corcoran Group, a major residential real estate brokerage founded in NYC, shows that rents in the metro area have climbed to a new record high.

Manhattan's median rent rose 8% from a year earlier to $5,295, while Brooklyn reached $4,350, also up 8%, according to the report. Manhattan's vacancy rate narrowed to 1.49%. In Queens, Rego Park posted particularly sharp increases, with one-bedroom rents up 12% and studio rents up more than 20%.

"Manhattan renters are chasing a shrinking pool of available apartments, and the result has become predictable — record rents. Available listings dropped 16% year-over-year in June, while the borough's median rent climbed to a new high of $5,295 . Leasing activity clocked in 7% below last year's pace due to the lack of inventory, causing competition to remain fierce. Additionally, June marked one year since implementation of the FARE Act, a milestone that may still be influencing pricing trends, particularly within the non-doorman market. Across the board, quality apartments are commanding a premium, and renters have little room to negotiate," Corcoran COO Gary Malin wrote in the report.

Malin continued, "Brooklyn's rental market is also rewriting the record books. Median rent jumped 8% year-over-year to an all-time high of $4,350 and apartments spent 30% fewer days on the market. This steep annual decline underscores how tight the market has become, with flat inventory and strong demand strong causing available units to rent far faster than a year ago. While lease signings were lower on an annual basis, activity picked up from May as renters moved quickly to secure apartments ahead of the busiest stretch of the summer season. Throughout the borough, competition."

City Comptroller Mark Levine commented on the new report, saying, "NYC's housing affordability crisis is at DEFCON 1. We need to push harder on every front to address our housing shortage."

"Update zoning, invest more City $ in affordable units, lower the time & cost City bureaucracy imposes on construction, get 1000s of vacant regulated units back on the market. We need bold action. This is a crisis," Levine added.

Rents in NYC have just hit an all-time high.

Median market rate in June…

Manhattan: $5,295/mo (+8.2% year-over-year)

Brooklyn: $4,350 (+8.1%)

NYC’s housing affordability crisis is at DefCon 1. We need to push harder on every front to address our housing shortage.

Update…
— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) July 12, 2026

Yet, as Libs of TikTok on X pointed out, "We don't have a housing shortage. We have an illegal alien invasion," adding, "Forty percent of NYC rentals are occupied by people born outside the US."

We don’t have a housing shortage. We have an illegal alien invasion https://t.co/4JW59k17Uu
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 13, 2026

Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published a new report showing that the "unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration" sparked a nationwide housing demand shock in the presence of a relatively fixed short-run housing supply, accounting for 30% of home price growth and 20% of rent growth in the average local market during the boom period.

Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America bloc at City Hall will never acknowledge the illegal alien invasion has played a major role in tightening NYC's housing market. Instead, the response from far-left clowns is blaming "racist capitalism" and arguing that the existing system must be dismantled for one that actually has never worked anywhere in the world - look at Cuba.

That leaves a fundamental policy contradiction: Mamdani and his socialist allies claim they can solve the affordability crisis by building more housing, yet that will take years. The easiest solution would be to cooperate with ICE or support deportations, which could reduce pressure on housing, schools, and other public services almost immediately. Good luck reconciling those positions.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 11:00

Obama Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Anti-DEI Grant Conditions

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:40:00 +0000

Obama Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin's Anti-DEI Grant Conditions

Via American Greatness,

A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration’s push to attach anti-DEI strings to federal grant money. The court ruled this week that the executive branch overstepped its constitutional authority by imposing the conditions on a group of West Coast cities and counties.

Obama-nominated U.S. District Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction Thursday barring the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and the Interior from enforcing the contested conditions against 11 local governments, concluding in a 68-page order that the restrictions likely run afoul of both the separation-of-powers doctrine and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“What defendants seek to do likely violates the Constitution (separation of powers and Spending Clause) and the Administrative Procedures Act,” Orrick wrote.

The suit was filed by the cities of Fresno, Santa Clara, Redwood City, Santa Cruz, Stockton, Beaverton, Corvallis and Hillsboro, along with Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara counties, all of which argued the administration attached ideological requirements to grants Congress had already approved for public safety, disaster preparedness, policing, fire protection, water conservation and crime victim services.

Orrick sided with the localities, finding the new certification requirements “have nothing to do with or contradict the Congressional purpose” behind the underlying grant programs, and affirming that spending authority ultimately rests with Congress rather than the White House.

“Plaintiffs maintain that ‘[n]othing in the Constitution or federal statutes authorizes Defendants to impose the Challenged Conditions, or anything of the kind, on funds administered through congressional grant programs,'” Orrick wrote. “I agree.”

The conditions at issue required grant recipients to certify they were not running programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in violation of federal anti-discrimination law, along with separate provisions encouraging cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and compliance with related executive orders.

The administration has said such conditions are a legitimate use of executive authority to ensure federal dollars aren’t used to fund discriminatory practices, and the Justice Department is expected to appeal Thursday’s ruling.

Orrick found that letting the conditions stand while the case proceeds would jeopardize funding for programs including anti-terrorism initiatives, disaster mitigation, flood protection, wildfire preparedness, law enforcement training, forensic science, and human trafficking and crime-victim services — writing that the disruption would “irreparably injure plaintiffs and their ability to provide critical services, as well as would threaten public safety.”

The preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the underlying lawsuit moves forward, leaving the administration’s broader anti-DEI funding strategy in legal limbo pending the expected appeal.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 10:40

British MP Exposes Secret Society Behind UK's Lurch Toward Socialism

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

British MP Exposes Secret Society Behind UK's Lurch Toward Socialism

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

The stunning transformation of Great Britain in recent years - from a beacon of decorum and stiff upper lips to a cautionary tale of wokeness run amok - has been blamed on everything from socialism to satanism.

However, Rupert Lowe, a member of the British Parliament and founder of the organization Restore Britain, said the reality may be even more sinister.

In a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, he said a shadowy group of elites known as the Fabian Society was deliberately trying to wreck the country.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Fabian Society, but if you go and have a look at it, it was basically most of the Labour Party for many, many years,” Lowe said, referring to England’s leading left-wing party, the equivalent of U.S. Democrats.

The British people need to understand the powerful malign influence of the Fabian Society. pic.twitter.com/i3uY9sJfj8
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) July 11, 2026

America’s Left may be facing a similar identity crisis as it tries to shake off the subversive influence of the Justice Democrats, Democrat Socialists of America and other fringe elements that are pushing neo-Marxist ideas.

But the British version has been around for nearly 150 years. The club, founded in 1884, was a direct reaction to the philosophy of Karl Marx (who died a year earlier in London).

Rather than forcing a collectivist government as Marx suggested, through class struggle — which generally led to uncomfortable outcomes for aristocrats — the society advocated for a socialist society to take root slowly and incrementally.

It was the brainchild of intellectuals including the man who first created “My Fair Lady” heroine Eliza Doolittle — playwright George Bernard Shaw. Science-fiction visionary H.G. Wells also counted himself a member.

“It’s the most extraordinary organization,” Lowe told Rogan. “Their emblem is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as if that doesn’t tell you what they’re doing.”

Among the beliefs it endorsed was eugenics, the idea of breeding out unwanted attributes through various means, scientific and otherwise.

While the Nazis would go on to run with the idea — and ultimately help to effect its demise — the Fabian Society also was rumored to have inspired author George Orwell, whose dystopian 1984 (written in the late 1940s) was set exactly 100 years after the society’s founding.

The Fabian Society was created in 1884, & why George Orwells book is called 1984, as he figured the Fabian Society would have completed their mission within 100 years.

He was a bit off with the timing, but not with their evil agenda & what they are trying to achieve. pic.twitter.com/70LA5kyaHW
— NWO Dissident 1776. (@An89390Anglo) July 10, 2026

According to Lowe, not all of the society’s ideas have vanished entirely. Rather, some of them simply evolved into a modern political framework.

“Everyone should look at the Fabian Society, because that runs deep through the veins of Labour,” he said.

Writing for The Telegraph, former Fabian research director Stephen Pollard sought to dismantle the claims by attacking Lowe as a conspiracy theorist. However, his argument may have only helped to make the case for some that “basically what it wants to do is destroy all good and create a dependency culture.”

After defending ideas like eugenics as having been widely accepted in their time, Pollard insisted that the current society was more concerned with selling magazine subscriptions than world domination.

Many of its policy papers now deal with addressing the nation’s housing crisis.

“To take that and conclude that they are in fact part of a secret cabal dedicated to destroying Britain is not so much misguided as a sign that someone is truly away with the fairies,” he claimed.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 10:00

Key Events This Week: CPI, PPI, Retail Sales, Warsh Testifies, China Data, And Earnings Galore

Tyler Durden — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:47:03 +0000

Key Events This Week: CPI, PPI, Retail Sales, Warsh Testifies, China Data, And Earnings Galore

As well as two epic World Cup semi-finals before that, and the start of the Open golf it’s a packed week ahead in markets, writes DB's Jim Reid.

The headline events are tomorrow’s US CPI and Wednesday’s US PPI, alongside Fed Chair Warsh’s first Humphrey–Hawkins testimony before the House Financial Services Committee (tomorrow) and the Senate Banking Committee (Wednesday). Elsewhere, key data includes China’s Q2 GDP and their monthly data dump (Wednesday) and the UK’s May monthly GDP (Thursday) as well as the announcement of a new leader of the ruling UK Labour Party as a special conference on Friday.

Let's run through the key details of the week ahead.

Front and centre is tomorrow’s US CPI report. DB economists expect lower gas prices to pull headline CPI down by -0.16% (vs. +0.47% in May), with core at +0.23% (vs. +0.21% previously). On a year-over-year basis, headline inflation is projected to fall from 4.25% to 3.81%, while core eases only marginally by 2bps to 2.83%.

Wednesday’s PPI will help complete the picture for core PCE. DB economists’ forecast is for a +0.23% increase (vs. +0.32% last month), which would see the year-over-year rate decline by 3bps to 3.38%. Within the details, the price index for portfolio management and investment advice will be worth watching, particularly given the boost from May’s equity rally.

Turning to the rest of the data calendar, Thursday’s June US retail sales and Friday’s industrial production will feed into estimates for Q2 real GDP growth. The preliminary University of Michigan survey (52.0 expected at DB vs. 49.5) on Friday will also be in focus, particularly inflation expectations, which have started to moderate from a high level after recent energy-driven increases.

After a relatively quiet spell for Fed speakers, this week brings a wave of communication ahead of the blackout period starting at the end of the week. Governor Waller begins today with a speech at NYABE. Chair Warsh follows with his testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday, while additional commentary comes after the CPI release (Governor Cook on Wednesday, and Vice Chair Jefferson, Dallas Fed’s Logan, and Kansas City Fed’s Schmid on Friday). This week effectively represents the final window for policymakers to signal their thinking ahead of the July FOMC meeting. Reid expects Warsh to broadly stick to recent messaging and avoid firm guidance on near-term policy moves. In contrast, Waller has historically been more explicit about their reaction function, so today’s speech will be closely scrutinised for clues on their preferred policy path—even though it arrives before the CPI data.

Staying with the global theme, central bank decisions from the Bank of Canada (Wednesday, no change expected) and the Bank of Korea (Thursday, DB forecast a +25bp hike) will also be in focus. In China, growth is expected to slow to 4.4% YoY in Q2 (from 5% in Q1), with June activity data released alongside. More detail is available in our Chinese economists’ full week-ahead note here. Finally, the UK reports May monthly GDP on Thursday, the day before Andy Burnham is expected to be confirmed as Labour Party leader, ahead of him officially taking the PM reins a week today and tapping into the England World Cup winning celebrations. Oh wait this must be another major hallucination.

And just to keep everyone busy, Q2 US earnings season kicks off tomorrow with results from five major US banks. Q1 marked the strongest non-recessionary rebound since the late 1990s, so the bar is high. ASML (Wednesday) and TSMC (Thursday) should also provide an early read on global tech trends. On earnings, tomorrow features JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. Wednesday brings Morgan Stanley alongside ASML, Johnson & Johnson and BlackRock, offering a useful cross-sector snapshot. Thursday is especially busy, with TSMC, Netflix, General Electric and UnitedHealth reporting across tech, industrials and healthcare. By Friday, attention shifts to European names including Volvo, Sandvik and Saab, rounding out the global picture.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday July 13

Data: US June federal budget balance, Germany May current account balance
Central banks: Fed's Bowman and Waller speak, ECB's Schnabel speaks, BoE's Pill speaks

Tuesday July 14

Data: US June CPI, NFIB small business optimism, May total net TIC flows, China June trade balance, Japan May capacity utilisation, Germany June wholesale price index
Central banks: Fed Chair Warsh testimony before House Financial Services Committee, Fed's Barr, Cook, Bowman and Goolsbee speak, BoE's Bailey speaks
Earnings: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup

Wednesday July 15

Data: US July Empire manufacturing index, June PPI, China Q2 GDP, June retail sales, industrial production, home prices, investment, Japan May core machine orders, Eurozone May industrial production, Italy May general government debt, Canada June existing home sales, May manufacturing sales
Central banks: Bank of Canada decision, Fed Chair Warsh testimony before Senate Banking Committee, Fed’s Beige Book, Fed's Cook, Williams and Musalem speak, ECB's Nagel and Panetta speak
Earnings: ASML, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock, Progressive, Bank of New York Mellon

Thursday July 16

Data: US July NAHB housing market index, New York Fed services business activity, Philadelphia Fed business outlook, June retail sales, pending home sales, May business inventories, initial jobless claims, UK May monthly GDP, Italy May trade balance, Eurozone May trade balance
Central banks: Fed's Logan and Schmid speak, Bank of Korea decision
Earnings: TSMC, UnitedHealth, General Electric, Netflix, ABB, Abbott, Intuitive Surgical, Prologis, Atlas Copco, State Street, Publicis Groupe, Alcoa

Friday July 17

Data: US June industrial production, import price index, export price index, housing starts, building permits, capacity utilisation, July University of Michigan survey, Italy May current account balance, ECB May current account, Canada May international securities transactions
Central banks: Fed's Jefferson speaks, ECB's Cipollone speaks
Earnings: Volvo, Sandvik, Saab

Looking at just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are the CPI report on Tuesday and the retail sales report on Thursday. There are several speaking engagements with Fed officials this week including Chairman Warsh's semiannual Congressional testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Monday, July 13

There are no major economic data releases scheduled.
05:25 AM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will speak at a Bank Policy Institute roundtable on modernizing financial regulation. Speech text and Q&A are expected.
12:30 PM Fed Governor Waller speaks: Fed Governor Christopher Waller will speak at the New York Association of Business Economics. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On July 6, Waller said, "forward guidance can help speed up policy transmission, but if it is not flexible enough, it can hinder policy transmission."

Tuesday, July 14

08:30 AM CPI (MoM), June (GS -0.11%, consensus -0.1%, last +0.5%); Core CPI (MoM), June (GS +0.17%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.2%); CPI (YoY), June (GS +3.87%, consensus +3.8%, last +4.2%); Core CPI (YoY), June (GS +2.76%, consensus +2.9%, last +2.9%): We estimate a 0.17% increase in June core CPI (month-over-month SA), which would lower the year-over-year rate by 0.1pp to 2.8% on a rounded basis. We expect soft autos inflation, reflecting a 0.5% decline in used car prices, a 0.1% decline in new car prices, and a 0.1% decline in the car insurance category. We forecast benign readings for the shelter categories—a 0.23% increase in the OER category and a 0.17% increase in the rent category—reflecting the continued slowdown in their underlying trend. We expect more moderate increases in the travel services categories (airfares: +1.5%; hotels: +0.3%), reflecting signals from alternative price data. We expect downward pressure from potential residual seasonality on the communication and new cars categories. We estimate a 0.11% decline in headline CPI—reflecting lower energy prices (-4.4%)—which would lower the year-over-year rate to +3.87% from +4.25%. Our forecast is consistent with a 0.24% monthly increase in the core PCE price index in June. We expect another large increase in the financial services component—reflecting the increase in equity prices in May, which flow through to the component with a lag—to contribute to the larger increase in core PCE prices than the core CPI.
10:00 AM Fed Chairman Warsh speaks: Fed Chairman Warsh will testify before the House Financial Services Committee on the Federal Reserve's Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report. In a panel discussion at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal, Warsh said that “inflation expectations have come down, and inflation risks have come down,” and that if AI causes the supply side to expand, “that has huge implications for monetary policy.”
12:40 PM Fed Governor Barr speaks: Fed Governor Michael Barr will speak on artificial intelligence at Federal Reserve Board Annual Financial Inclusion Conference. Speech text and Q&A are expected.
01:00 PM Chicago Fed President Goolsbee (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will participate in a fireside chat at the Kenosha Area Business Alliance. Q&A is expected. On June 25, Goolsbee said, “You have seen now a little bit of improvement on this services inflation, and I’ve been identifying that as something that we would want to see. But right now, between the two sides of the Fed’s mandate, the inflation side and the job market side, clearly the problem’s on the inflation side.”
01:30 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will moderate a discussion on consumers, artificial intelligence, and financial inclusion at the Federal Reserve Board Annual Financial Inclusion Conference. Speech text and Q&A are expected.
02:55 PM Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Bowman speaks: Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will speak on responsible innovation and financial inclusion via a pre-recorded video at the Federal Reserve Board Annual Financial Inclusion Conference.

Wednesday, July 15

08:30 AM Empire State manufacturing survey, July (consensus 9.3, last 5.7)
08:30 AM PPI final demand, June (GS +0.2%, consensus flat, last +1.1%); PPI ex-food and energy, June (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.4%); PPI ex-food, energy, and trade, June (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.8%)
08:45 AM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will speak at an event organized by Partnership for New York City. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On July 9, Williams said, "The markets still expect oil prices to come down over the next six to 12 months. I think that's a pretty reasonable baseline. I still feel the fundamentals are that energy prices are likely to be around their peak and then to come down over time."
10:00 AM Fed Chairman Warsh speaks: Fed Chairman Warsh will testify before the Senate Banking Committee on the Federal Reserve's Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report. Speech text and Q&A are expected.
01:00 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will speak on the economic outlook at the Exchequer Club. Speech text and Q&A are expected.
02:00 PM Fed releases Beige Book, July meeting period: The Fed’s Beige Book is a summary of regional economic anecdotes from the 12 Federal Reserve districts. The Beige Book for the June FOMC meeting period noted that economic activity increased at a slight to moderate pace for ten of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts and that there were reports of increased credit card usage, fewer retail visits, and stronger demand for necessities. In this month’s Beige Book, we will mainly look for anecdotes related to how consumers and firms are responding to the increase in energy prices from the conflict in the Middle East.
06:30 PM St. Louis Fed President Musalem (FOMC non-voter) speaks: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem will deliver welcoming remarks in the 2026 Homer Jones Memorial Lecture at the St. Louis Fed. Speech text and Q&A are expected.

Thursday, July 16

08:30 AM Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index, July (GS 15.0, consensus 13.0, last 10.3)
08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended July 10 (GS 220k, consensus 217k, last 215k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended July 3 (consensus 1,815k, last 1,814k)
08:30 AM Retail sales, June (GS +0.1%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.9%); Retail sales ex-auto, June (GS -0.1%, consensus flat, last +0.8%); Retail sales ex-auto & gas, June (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.5%); Core retail sales, June (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.7%): We estimate nominal core retail sales increased 0.4% in June (ex-autos, gasoline, and building materials; month-over-month SA), reflecting a continued solid signal from alternative data. We estimate nominal headline retail sales increased 0.1%, reflecting lower gasoline prices.
10:00 AM Pending home sales, June (GS -0.5%, consensus flat, last +3.8%)
12:30 PM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will speak in a conversation at the Houston branch of the Dallas Fed. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On June 6, Logan said, "I am increasingly concerned that higher interest rates could be necessary later this year to fully restore price stability and appropriately balance both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate. However, these decisions call for thorough analysis and debate."
01:25 PM Kansas City Fed President Schmid (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid will speak at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Forum. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On June 4, Schmid said, "The big question now is do we stay patient? Our inflation numbers have probably crept up into the three and a half percent range, which nobody likes. Is it temporary...or do we act? Do we say, okay, now it’s time to raise rates a quarter or two and see if we can’t tamp this thing down?"
07:00 PM Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks: Federal Reserve Vice Chair Jefferson will speak on the economy and monetary policy at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Speech text and Q&A are expected.

Friday, July 17

08:30 AM Import price index, June (consensus -0.6%, last +1.9%); Export price index, June (consensus -0.4%, last +1.3%)
08:30 AM Housing starts, June (GS +12.5%, consensus +11.5%, last -15.4%)' Building permits, June (consensus -0.7%, last -0.9%)
09:15 AM Industrial production, June (GS +0.2%, consensus +0.2%, last +0.1%); Manufacturing production, June (GS +0.2%, consensus +0.1%, last flat);Capacity utilization, June (GS 76.2%, consensus 76.2%, last 76.2%): We estimate industrial production increased by 0.2% in June, reflecting strong auto and electricity production but weak natural gas production. We estimate capacity utilization was unchanged at 76.2%.
10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, July preliminary (GS 51.5, consensus 51.0, last 49.5); University of Michigan 5-10-year inflation expectations, July preliminary (GS 3.3%, consensus 3.3%, last 3.3%)

Source: DB; Goldman

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/13/2026 - 09:47