Crooked Bough News Round-up

— How Would NATO Defeat A Russian Invasion? Top Commander Reveals Aspects Of Classified Plan

 

at 10/13/26 2:15am

How Would NATO Defeat A Russian Invasion? Top Commander Reveals Aspects Of Classified Plan NATO's top military commander, US Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, on Monday gave an important speech presenting a "theory of victory" in the scenario of a future Russian attack along the Western military alliance's 'eastern flank'. He asserted that NATO forces would "block, blunt and break" any Russian attack on member territory, which would make any such assault "utterly futile". But he also characterized the plan as one that would seek to avoid a wider, prolonged war from erupting. But he insisted the alliance is "ready to fight tonight" even though it does not seek escalation. "Should the adversary choose to press the attack or commit his reserves, we will break the warfighting system engaged against us," Grynkewich declared at the speech given at the Warsaw Security Forum on Monday. "This includes not just the attacking force itself, but anything and everything that supports, sustains or controls that force." This would suggest missile attacks deep into Russian territory, including on command-and-control centers. "I think our populations around the alliance are a bit nervous," Grynkewich acknowledged while explaining why he is taking what was a classified plan established months ago into the public realm. He said NATO leadership must seek to assure member populations that it will successfully defend them. "What I want to do is assure the 1 billion citizens of our alliance that we’ve got this," he said. "We know what we need to do. We know how we would do it, and it’s going to take all of us working together." However, looming large over all of this is the specter of nuclear war - something not focused on in his strategic talk. Anadolu Agency: NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Alexus G. Grynkewich speaks during a panel on the first day of the Warsaw Security Forum, held Monday.Below is a brief outline and blueprint of what he laid out in the speech... He described the overall objective as to quickly neutralize a potential invasion force and its direct support systems, but crucially without seeking Russia's wider strategic defeat. He presented that this would be according to multiple phases: Phase 1 (Containment & Supremacy): Ground troops stop initial territorial grabs while air, naval, space, and cyber assets secure battlefield control. Phase 2 (Disruption): Advanced sensors and drones stall enemy momentum if the assault persists. Phase 3 (Dismantling): Relentless multi-domain pressure (kinetic and non-kinetic) destroys enemy logistics, communications, and command structures, cutting off supplies and isolating commanders. From there Grynkewich emphasized deterrence, describing that NATO's ability to match any enemy escalation will only solidify alliance unity and gradually weaken Moscow's overall force posture and will to keep going. Bloomberg summarized the talk according to the following key notes: Does not believe a conflict is imminent or inevitable. NATO will respond to attacks by blockading, degrading and striking adversary forces. If necessary NATO will neutralize systems targeting its combat systems. The alliance will pair high-end precision-guided munitions with large-scale, low-cost, scalable systems. NATO's SACEUR General Alexus Grynkewich: We know how we will fight if a fight comes to us. And we know we will win. And together we will ensure that any adversary who considers attacking our alliance reaches the only conclusion that matters: Today is not the day. https://t.co/tt1NfjeaX7 — Clash Report (@clashreport) October 12, 2026 The Wall Street Journal has further issued a detailed report going into more detail on the Ukraine war-inspired 'autonomous zone' on the eastern flank: The approach was devised to block a Russian adversary whose geographic advantages and outsize defense industry could enable it to mass forces against Baltic states, Poland and other NATO allies before the alliance could marshal a robust response. Under its strategy, an extensive “autonomous zone” would be established so that drones and ground robots could blunt a Russian attack without extensive allied casualties.  At the same time, long-range missiles would strike Russian command posts and air defenses in the exclave of Kaliningrad, near St. Petersburg and in Belarus. That would puncture Russia’s efforts to control the skies and enable the U.S. Army’s V Corps and other NATO ground forces to counterattack.  NATO air forces would move swiftly to strike Russian reinforcements as they streamed toward the battlefield and to attack other targets in the rear.  The NATO attacks would be enabled by a “data backbone,” a system for instantaneously sharing classified targeting data through the cloud among allied forces. Elements of that network have been tested in the Middle East during the U.S. fight with Iran. The approach has been dubbed the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative and its overall objective, U.S. military officials said, is to force Putin to look at NATO’s defenses and conclude “not today” if he considers attacking. To reinforce that, alliance forces constantly drill to both test and demonstrate their readiness. Meanwhile European officials are still strongly hyping and warning about what they call a continuing sabotage campaign which has made heavy use of drones and other tactics that violate European airspace and security. NATO's SACEUR General Alexus Grynkewich: The risk of a major attack on NATO territory right now is actually relatively low. The reason is Vladimir Putin's war is ongoing in Ukraine, and his military is unfortunately engaged in that conflict. That force is not available to threaten NATO territory. That doesn't mean he couldn't do something smaller, and obviously we do see the sabotage activity and everything else that's ongoing. — Clash Report (@clashreport) October 12, 2026 EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas is also on Monday calling on President Trump to sanction Russian and ditch the controversial diesel deal.  "Pressure ‌on Moscow, ​not concessions, is the fastest way to end ​the war," ​she ​said. Tyler Durden Tue, 10/13/2026 - 04:15

— France Is World's Most Dangerous Place For Bitcoiners: 90 Attacks In 7 Months

 

at 10/13/26 1:30am

France Is World's Most Dangerous Place For Bitcoiners: 90 Attacks In 7 Months Authored by Christina Comben via CoinTelegraph.com, French authorities have recorded 90 cases involving kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats, and violent theft related to cryptocurrencies in just over seven months. The figures, provided to Cointelegraph by the French Interior Ministry, are from Jan. 1 to mid-August 2026. Authorities also recorded 223 arrests, and 126 people were imprisoned from January to July. The figures equate to a new case every two and a half days, although there is no official year-on-year comparison to understand if the problem has become suddenly worse: "We do not have the statistics on these items for 2025, as the recording of events began on Jan. 1, 2026," the ministry says. What makes the new numbers even more striking is they are much higher than other public trackers of meatspace attacks. Chainalysis counted 30 publicly known violent crypto incidents in France through mid-2026, but noted that the scale was "almost certainly larger." Security firm Gart.io has tracked 73 attacks in France in the year to date, which puts France in the number one spot ahead of the USA on 66 real world attacks, and the UK on 27. The rise in physical attacks - known as "wrench attacks" - on crypto holders in France points to something bigger than a rash of isolated incidents. Leaked personal data may be the culprit. So, why France? Wrench attacks are far from a new phenomenon. Bitcoin security advocate Jameson Lopp's long-running directory of known physical attacks has documented 365 cases across 60 countries between 2014 and 2026, with France topping the leaderboard. What seems to be new, however, is the speed at which violent crypto crimes are spreading throughout the country. Attacks have gone beyond Paris to places including Strasbourg, Marseille, Grenoble, Toulouse and Nantes, according to Chainalysis. Violent attacks above the historical baseline. Source: Chainalysis. Criminals aren't targeting crypto rich tourists, and of the victims with known residency, 93% were French. Chainalysis head researcher Eric Jardine tells Cointelegraph the surge is "very likely" due to a "significant data breach." "These sort of breaches expose more than financial information; they reveal who holds crypto, where they live, and how to find them." That makes physical attacks against crypto holders particularly insidious because they can begin long before a thug shows up with a wrench demanding your seed phrase or a crypto transfer. The assailants first need to know who has something worth stealing, where they live and how to reach them. Jardine says the French tax authority compromise in 2024, where a tax official in the Paris area "leaked PII, financial and crypto holding information on French taxpayers," may have been the accelerant. Chainalysis records show attacks surged from late November of the same year. Chainalysis also points to a further incident in January 2026, with crypto tax reporting firm Waltio disclosing a breach affecting some 50,000 users, creating yet more useful data for attackers to mark their targets. Francis Pouliot, founder of Canadian Bitcoin exchange Bull Bitcoin, has repeatedly challenged Europe's DAC8 crypto reporting rules in France, which expand tax reporting and information-sharing requirements for crypto users across the European Union. "DAC8 has transformed the concept of Know Your Customer into Kill Your Customer," he said, along with describing France as the "crypto kidnapping capital of the world." The world of physical attacks. Source: Gart.io When the target isn't the Bitcoiner According to Chainalysis, one of the most revealing changes may be who is being attacked. Globally, relatives and acquaintances accounted for around 25% to 30% of violent crypto incidents by early 2026, and in France, the proportion was more than 40%. In May 2026, six men allegedly tried to abduct the wife of The Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget from the couple's home in Villenoy, France, with one attacker posing as a delivery driver to get her to open the gate. In August, a couple in rural France reportedly endured three separate attempts to break into their home after buying a property previously occupied by crypto millionaires, after the previous owners' tax information and address were leaked onto the dark web. A similar tactic was used in 2025, when the father of a crypto entrepreneur was abducted in Paris and held for two days, with the kidnappers reportedly cutting off part of his finger and sending it to his son while demanding $5.6 million in cryptocurrency. Jardine says the targeting of relatives and associates "suggests criminals are doing reconnaissance before they act," whether by "monitoring social media, analyzing blockchain data, using leaked information, or receiving tips from insiders." That turns the usual idea of a crypto target on its head, since the person with the wallet may not be the person standing in front of the attacker. French authorities are responding by treating the attacks as organized crime, coordinating investigations through JUNALCO, the country's specialized organized crime jurisdiction. The $5 wrench conundrum Most crypto holders have learned how to protect their seed phrases, set up hardware wallets, test their environments and avoid clicking on phishing links. While those things are still important, none of them will help if a bad actor already knows who they are, where they live and that they have something worth stealing in the first place. Cryptography can protect a wallet, but it can't stop an attacker with a $5 wrench. Tyler Durden Tue, 10/13/2026 - 03:30

— German Coalition Turmoil Deepens As SPD Co-Leader Bas Quits, Blames CDU "Public Attacks"

 

at 10/13/26 12:45am

German Coalition Turmoil Deepens As SPD Co-Leader Bas Quits, Blames CDU "Public Attacks" Just when Friedrich Merz gathered his party's top brass to "regroup," the government lost another load-bearing wall. On Monday, labor minister Bärbel Bas, who was also co-chair of the junior coalition partner SPD, abruptly resigned from both posts. The 58-year-old said she needs time to grieve after the sudden death of her stepdaughter, but she also pointed a finger at "public attacks," including from within the ranks of Merz's own CDU/CSU bloc, which she said continued throughout her mourning period, and which according to Reuters had made her situation unbearable. She keeps her Bundestag seat. Bärbel Bas at SPD headquarters the day after the Saxony-Anhalt vote, Sept 7, 2026 (Reuters/Maryam Majd)The resignation landed on the second day of a CDU retreat meant to steady the party after a September that went from bad to historically catastrophic. Regular readers will recall that the AfD took 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt, where Merz's CDU slumped to 17.2%, and two weeks later the chancellor admitted a "disaster" as the CDU scored just 4.9% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and failed to enter a state parliament for the first time in its history. MERZ'S CDU PARTY POSTS WORST RESULT EVER IN A GERMAN STATE VOTE AFD AHEAD OF SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN NORTHEASTERN STATE VOTE ANTI-CAPITALIST LEFT PARTY LEADING IN BERLIN ELECTION — zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 20, 2026 Nationally, the picture is no prettier: the AfD hit 30% in the GMS poll, 10 points ahead of the CDU/CSU, enough to leave the "black-red" coalition without a majority, while an Insa survey found 78% of Germans say Merz is not the right chancellor. Meanwhile, the vaunted "firewall" is visibly crumbling: four CDU lawmakers in Saxony-Anhalt helped elect an AfD speaker last week and have reportedly agreed to back AfD's Ulrich Siegmund for state premier in December. Bas also leaves a hole in the middle of the reform agenda. Her ministry runs large parts of Germany's welfare system and was handling the pension and working-time legislation at the center of the coalition's reform push, with Berlin aiming to pass the broader pension overhaul by year-end. CDU politicians had accused her ministry of dragging its feet on measures coalition leaders agreed back on July 1, which is a polite way of describing the "attacks" she referenced on her way out. Her replacement: Alexander Schweitzer, the former premier of Rhineland-Palatinate, nominated by Finance Minister and fellow SPD co-chair Lars Klingbeil. Readers may recall Schweitzer is "former" because the CDU beat the SPD in his state in March, so the SPD's answer to an electoral crisis is to promote a politician who just lost an election. Business groups, for their part, welcomed the appointment as a chance for a "new start." Klingbeil also proposed an extraordinary SPD party congress in December or January to re-elect the entire leadership. People familiar told Bloomberg the next co-chair must be a woman from the party's left wing, though not Manuela Schwesig, who is busy with coalition talks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Klingbeil, who scrapped a trip to India to deal with the vacuum (his attendance at this week's IMF/World Bank and G20 meetings in Bangkok is now uncertain), called the attacks on Bas "indecent" and said they were "poisoning our political culture." Happier times: Merz signs the coalition agreement with the SPD, May 5, 2025 (Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)Merz said Bas's decision demands "respect," while his spokesman Stefan Kornelius denied a media report that the chancellor himself had grumbled off the record about her absence despite knowing her personal situation, the kind of denial that tends to precede further reports, or even more denials. Reuters notes that the departure of one minister is not expected to bring down the government, and coalition leaders issued a statement last week vowing to carry on through the "historic test" facing German democracy. But the calendar is brutal: an SPD leadership contest, a possible first-ever AfD state premier in Saxony-Anhalt in December, a pension overhaul with a year-end deadline and five more regional elections next year that will shape Merz's control of the Bundesrat. As Nomura's Andrzej Szczepaniak warned last month, Europe has entered an 18-month election cycle in which politics is lurching toward populism, and Germany is the main event. All of this while the economy the reforms are supposed to rescue keeps getting outcompeted: Beijing's trade template: China overtook Germany in exports of industrial machinery and equipment, in exports of specialized industrial machinery and will any minute overtake it in share of road vehicle exports. Coming to a Data Center near you next. https://t.co/eoHrZ2i6iV — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 12, 2026 And so, the German coalition limps on (for now), but the year-end pension deadline just became the first casualty. A government that can't keep its own labor minister is unlikely to sell voters on working longer. Tyler Durden Tue, 10/13/2026 - 02:45

— "Our Message Is: Smash Everything"; Belgian Students Expose Ignorance Over Protest Purposes In Revealing Video

 

at 10/13/26 12:00am

"Our Message Is: Smash Everything"; Belgian Students Expose Ignorance Over Protest Purposes In Revealing Video Authored by - Remix News Staff - via Remix News, A video clip of a Black male student at ongoing protests in Belgium showed him saying he does not know why he is protesting, and that his message is to "smash everything." The clip is being used as another piece of evidence that the protests are not really about reforms or improving education standards, but instead serve as a pretext for ethnic minorities to riot, destroy, and attack police. After he calls for protesters to "smash everything," the crowd of Black youths and other ethnic minorities, many heavily masked, began hooting and screaming in response. The video further shows burning shared bicycles and electric scooters, the same products many on the left promote as an alternative to CO2-producing cars and trucks. In a post from Belgian political activist Dries Van Langenhove, he writes about the video: "European people can't comprehend this because we're simply not the same. They destroy. It's what they do. It's who they are. Politicians now come up with all sorts of fake 'solutions': more money for education, more youth detention centres, military conscription, ... but it's all nonsense. There is only one real solution: they have to go back." Our 'Belgian students' when asked what they're protesting against: "we don't know, we're here to destroy everything". European people can't comprehend this because we're simply not the same. They destroy. It's what they do. It's who they are. Politicians now come up with all sorts of fake 'solutions': more money for education, more youth detention centres, military conscription, ... but it's all nonsense. There is only one real solution: they have to go back. — Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) October 12, 2026 The footage has circulated amid student protests in French-speaking Belgium, particularly in Liège and Brussels. The media reports that the protests are fueled by rising education costs, overcrowded classrooms and reforms in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. However, just as with the student protests in France, many of the participants cannot articulate any clear demand. In France, many of the protests have devolved into large-scale riots, including attacks on teachers, police officers, and schools. Dozens of arsons have also partially destroyed schools across France, further raising questions about what the true demands and motives of the protesters are. ??? BREAKING: Rioters set fire to the entrance of Vauquelin High School in Paris and blocked the exits when staff tried to put the fire out. A film crew recorded the terrifying attempted murder. "The school staff was unable to put out the fire. The rioters blocked them just as the extinguisher nozzle came out; they blocked the exit." "The fire continues. You see all the silhouettes moving behind it; they continue to feed this fire, making it stronger and stronger. The school staff is not even going to try to put it out anymore; they can't manage it. We can hear the principal here asking the hundred confined students to step back and move up to the first floor." The building was full of staff, students, and journalists, but these rioters appear ready to kill anyone still inside the vocational chemistry school. Follow: @RMXnews — Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 5, 2026 In Belgium, authorities have also reported property damage, arson and clashes with police. Local media and police cited more than 100 arrests in Liège in recent days alone, many involving minors, with overall detentions since early October approaching or exceeding 200 in some counts. Shop windows were smashed, fires set and objects thrown at officers; one video game retailer reported about €30,000 in stolen goods. Interior Minister Bernard Quintin has said an Antifa-type movement is manipulating children into violence. "Adults who manipulate children in order to put across violent political messages. That is totally unacceptable," he said. One brave man tried to put out the fires in Liège, Belgium. He was brutally attacked by a frenzied crowd. The "student protests" are devolving into large-scale rioting, arson, and attacks on innocents. Follow: @RMXnews https://t.co/PEElkGrtL8 — Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 8, 2026 The student actions overlapped with a national strike Friday organized by Belgium's major unions against government austerity measures aimed at reducing the deficit under Prime Minister Bart De Wever. Police estimated about 30,000 participants in the Brussels march, which was largely peaceful, though smaller groups of masked youths threw bottles, bricks, stones and fireworks, set fires and damaged property near the central station. Officers used water cannons and tear gas; authorities reported 21 detentions or arrests, including 13 minors. De Wever has argued that painful budget measures are needed to avoid a debt spiral that would burden future generations. Tyler Durden Tue, 10/13/2026 - 02:00

— Hock Tan Warns AI Investors Are Gambling In A Casino... Whose Chips His Own Credit Is Paying For

 

at 10/12/26 9:31pm

Hock Tan Warns AI Investors Are Gambling In A Casino... Whose Chips His Own Credit Is Paying For Usually it's the chip CEOs who are the cheerleaders and the bond market that plays the skeptic. On Monday, the CEO of the second-most important AI chipmaker on the planet decided to play both roles. Speaking on a panel at a DBS conference in Singapore, Broadcom boss Hock Tan said that many of the investors piling into AI behave more like gamblers than investors, setting extreme expectations only to discover they are effectively sitting at a casino table. In his own words, "a lot of investors have no clue what they are investing in." He didn't stop there. Tan also questioned the long-term economics of the money-losing frontier labs, and, most importantly for markets, warned that insufficient capital could become the next constraint on the AI industry's growth. As if to make his point for him, Intel's Lip-Bu Tan, who shared the panel, said hardware will stay in short supply for another two to three years. Translation: the chips will be scarce, and so will the money to pay for them. Semis did not take it well. The SOXX slumped 2.6% and JPMorgan's AI memory basket tumbled 4.3% on a day when more than 60% of S&P members actually rose. Asked to explain the selling, JPMorgan tech specialist Joshua Meyers wrote in the bank's afternoon Market Intel briefing (available to pro subs) that "the most proximate reason seems to be Hock Tan's participation in a panel at a DBS conference in Singapore, where he warned financing could become a bigger bottleneck than component shortages (in addition to questioning frontier lab business models, and comparing 'many investors' to casino gamblers)." Below we look at why Tan is right about the bottleneck, and why the people he called gamblers are the ones keeping his stock afloat while his own bondholders head for the exits. The Bottleneck Is Money Tan's warning will come as no surprise to (even not so regular) readers: we have been warning since last October that the AI buildout runs on ever increasing amounts of debt, and last week Goldman's Rich Privorotsky effectively conceded the point when he said the AI borrowing binge is now crowding out everyone else in the capital markets. The evidence has been piling up. Last Thursday, Nvidia-backed Australian data center operator Firmus first slashed the price of its IPO by 25% and then pulled its $5.5 billion listing altogether, opting to raise money in private markets instead (good luck with finding someone dumb enough there). Our reaction at the time: *FIRMUS DECIDED TO WITHDRAW APPLICATION TO LIST ON ASX *FIRMUS NOW PURSUE CAPITAL FROM PRIVATE MARKETS Bring on the Apollo life insurance policies — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 8, 2026 And Tan wasn't the only one at the DBS event flagging it: just before he took the stage, DBS CEO Tan Su Shan said the market is now repricing the risks around AI financing after the heavy investment of the past two years. When the bank hosting the conference and the chipmaker on the panel agree that the money is the problem, it's probably the money. The Customer Is Losing Money... And Broadcom Is Lending It Then there is the swipe at the frontier labs. Tan said OpenAI's $50 billion annualized revenue as of September suggests there is a viable business, but that the company is still losing money because it spends so much on training and compute, so for now the number tells you little about long-term profitability. Fair enough. Except that OpenAI is Broadcom's customer, and on top of it, courtesy of SPV structures that would make Jeff Skilling blush, Broadcom is the one arranging the money for OpenAI to buy Broadcom's chips (you may get a little nauseous after reading that). As we detailed last Thursday, Broadcom is in talks on a $50 billion+ chip financing for OpenAI (Bloomberg puts the next leg at closer to $30 billion), on top of the $60 billion it is syndicating for Anthropic and the $35 billion "Big Sky" platform it set up with Apollo and Blackstone in June. That's roughly $145 billion of chip debt with Broadcom's name on it, or as we put it when we tweeted this chart, "$300BN in chip-collateralized SPVs, so far": In other words, the CEO questioning the labs' business models is also the biggest single lender to those business models! Over the weekend, Jefferies went even further, warning of "massive capital destruction" since just two cash-burning labs account for half of a $2.3 trillion backlog. And last week's FT report that OpenAI's run-rate was ~$50 billion rather than the widely cited ~$70 billion, which Goldman's TMT desk chalked up to gross-vs-net accounting, showed just how much of a ~$1 trillion equity complex rests on largely made up and unaudited numbers from two private companies. Gamblers Hold The Stock, Bondholders Hold The Bag Which brings us to the irony. Tan may sneer at the "casino" crowd, but the casino is the only thing propping up AVGO. Per Goldman's derivatives desk, Mag7 is now ~22% of total US prime exposure (the most since early 2022), semis exposure has doubled to ~12% from ~6% at the start of the year, and roughly $115 billion sits in levered semis ETFs. JPMorgan's factor team adds that semiconductor sentiment is back above the 99th percentile. Those are the real gamblers. Broadcom's creditors, meanwhile, are folding. The moment Broadcom's Anthropic financing hit the tape, we said what would happen next: *BROADCOM AMASSING $60 BILLION TO FUND CHIPS FOR ANTHROPIC CDS gonna fly tomorrow — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 2, 2026 It took about 12 hours for Broadcom bonds to hit all-time lows. And it has been one-way traffic since August, when Broadcom's CDS exploded after it emerged that the company was seeking up to $100 billion in an off-balance sheet SPV. Back then, 5Y CDS hit a record 122bp. After a brief September reprieve, the Anthropic and OpenAI financings sent it right back up: according to Goldman's TMT specialist sales desk (available to pro subs), Broadcom's 5Y CDS printed a record 136bp last Thursday, alongside Oracle at a record 261bp, as nearly $500 billion of 2026 AI borrowing gets repriced. Goldman flagged both spreads as key gauges of concern over debt-funded AI capex. At 133bp, Broadcom's CDS is a few basis points from that record, and more than triple where it was in May, while Nvidia, its own $500 billion "compute financing platform" notwithstanding, sits at 86bp: Put differently, the stock is held by the people Tan just called gamblers, and the bonds are priced by the people who agree with him. Tan Had Some Help To be fair, JPMorgan's Meyers also pointed to a weekend sell-side note re-igniting power worries (a shortage of "powered shell" of as much as 19GW next year, and more in 2028), plus Middle East headlines and nervousness ahead of a private frontier lab investor meeting on Wednesday. Memory got an extra kick from China's CXMT progress on next-gen DRAM, which we covered this morning in "Memory Remains The Epicenter". And with bond markets shut for the holiday, Goldman's cash desk said it was the lowest-volume session of the year, which tends to amplify every move. Tellingly, Goldman's derivatives desk saw clients reach for HYG downside, buying 50k Jan 77/73 put spreads, with the bond market closed. Even the gamblers, it seems, are hedging the credit. Bottom Line JPMorgan's Market Intel team is sticking with its "Tactically Bullish" call into earnings, arguing semis can climb this latest wall of worry. Maybe. But when the CEO whose company is financing its own customers' chip purchases says money, not silicon, is the next bottleneck, while his own CDS prints records, we'd side with the credit market. After all, in a casino the house always wins. The question is who the house is when the house is also lending the chips. More in the full JPM US Market Intelligence afternoon briefing and Goldman's TMT specialist sales note, both available to pro subs. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 23:31

— The Collective Is The Enemy Of Community

 

at 10/12/26 9:25pm

The Collective Is The Enemy Of Community Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness, The Democratic Socialists of America exploit young people's longing for community, but socialism's coercive collectivism destroys the voluntary relationships that sustain it. Whether reflecting on the impersonal essence of "virtual reality" and the incessant stream of demands and anxieties it imposes upon our diurnal, increasingly alienated existence, or listening to the concerns of one's fellow citizens, one hears a persistent leitmotif: the longing for true community, especially among the youth. One aspect of this longing has been well bruited: people's gnawing sense that the myth of "virtual community" is an alienating illusion that increasingly leaves them numb and pining for personal engagements - the flesh-and-blood amities, intimacies, and sundry other encounters of true community. Exacerbating this sense of loss, especially among the young, people are very concerned about "affordability" - such as the inability to purchase a new home, rent an apartment, find an entry-level job, or keep the one they already have - due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and inflation. But too often overlooked is how the diminishment of these opportunities has reduced people's personal interaction and the sense of community it brings. Indeed, when people, notably youth, talk about wanting to "shop locally," support small businesses, or even reject "corporate" entities and their culture, it is not a complete rejection of capitalism. Indeed, one can clearly recognize young people's embrace of free markets and small businesses. Yet, it is a practical complaint regarding its failures - one of which is its eclipse of community beneath an impersonal corporatism. (One can make the argument that today's youth are essentially the political descendants of Jeffersonian Republicans, but I digress.) Naturally, one group that has not overlooked young people's yearning for a greater sense of community is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). They exacerbate youth's disaffection with the economy by equating corporatism and capitalism and proffer socialism as a virtuous panacea for economic ailments. And, for alienated people yearning for community, the DSA conflates and substitutes the collective for community. But the truth is the collective is the enemy of community. As Robert Nisbet warned in his seminal work, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom: Marxism, like all other totalitarian movements in our century, must be seen as kind of secular pattern of redemption, designed to bring hope and fulfillment to those who have come to feel alienated, frustrated, and excluded from what they regard as their rightful place in a community. In its promise of unity and belonging lies much of the magic of totalitarian mystery, miracle, and authority. It is a false promise. Under socialism, the "warm embrace" of the collective is created by an omnipotent, centralized government. It relies upon coercion, not consent. In addition to crushing an individual's agency and ability to dissent, it destroys the voluntary intermediate institutions that form a community and insulate and protect the individual from the domination of the centralized government. As Nisbet explained, the destruction of these intermediate institutions is imperative for would-be authoritarians: We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first, of those social relationships within which individuality develops. It is not the extermination of individuals that is ultimately desired by totalitarian rulers, for individuals in the largest number are needed by the new order. What is desired is the extermination of those social relationships which, by their autonomous existence, must always constitute a barrier to the achievement of the absolute political community. The individual alone is powerless. Individual will and memory, apart from the reinforcement of associative tradition, are weak and ephemeral. How well the totalitarian rulers know it. (...) To destroy or diminish the reality of the smaller areas of society, to abolish or restrict the range of cultural alternatives offered individuals by economic endeavor, religion, and kinship, is to destroy in time the roots of the will to resist despotism in its large forms. The antithesis and antidote to the collective is community. Community requires individual consent, agency, voluntary associations, and governmental subsidiarity. This is decidedly different from the strawman argument proffered by socialists that the choice is between the collective and a calloused "rugged individualism." While deceptive, such an argument makes a cynical sense, because subscribing to the DSA's agenda would leave someone just a coerced cog in the collective, not a consensual member of a true community. Once more, Nisbet writes in his book, The Sociological Tradition: There must be in any stable culture, in any civilization that prizes its integrity, functionally significant and psychologically meaningful groups and associations lying intermediate to the individual and the larger values and purposes of his society. For these are the small areas of association within which alone such values and purposes can take on clear meaning in personal life and become the vital roots of the large culture. And is it not the aim of all radicals, including the DSA, to destroy root and branch the foundations of an established civilization? Is it not to fundamentally eradicate all individual agency and consensual, intermediate communal relationships to impose their radical ideological dictates to perfect humanity and create Utopia? Is it not, as Nisbet avers, to make sure "man's alienation from man must lead in time to man's alienation from God," and from community into the chill grip of the iron fist of the collective? Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 23:25

— Luxury Condos Seized In Singapore’s Massive Money-Laundering Case Go Unsold

 

at 10/12/26 9:00pm

Luxury Condos Seized In Singapore’s Massive Money-Laundering Case Go Unsold Singapore has no shortage of people curious about the spoils from its massive money-laundering crackdown. Getting them to actually buy the confiscated real estate has been another matter. The government is gradually disposing of assets tied to the S$3 billion laundering scandal that erupted in 2023, according to Bloomberg. More than 80 homes are being sold alongside watches, jewelry, handbags and other expensive possessions seized from the operation. The luxury goods have been hot. The luxury real estate decidedly has not. Of more than two dozen high-end properties recently put through auctions, only four apartments have found buyers that way. At one sale, more than 60 people showed up for seven properties carrying over S$43 million ($33.6 million) in combined opening prices. Not one sold. One Gramercy Park apartment near Orchard Road failed to attract a single bid. Another large marble-finished unit with its own elevator was offered at S$7.55 million. Eventually someone tried S$4 million, prompting laughter before the offer was dismissed. The scene captured an uncomfortable reality for sellers: plenty of people want to see what happens when convicted money launderers' assets hit the auction block, but curiosity isn't translating into aggressive offers. “There has been a lot of hype generated,” said Tan Tee Khoon, Knight Frank Singapore’s head of auction and sales. Some attendees, he added, openly admit: “I just want to come and see.” The weak results also arrive at a difficult moment for the most expensive slice of Singapore's housing market. Bloomberg writes that government measures intended to restrain property speculation have dramatically narrowed the pool of potential purchasers. Most foreigners buying residential property face an additional 60% stamp duty, while relatively few locals are prepared to spend eight figures on a home. Two confiscated apartments at Martin Modern recently changed hands for S$2.12 million and S$2.08 million, roughly around their previous transaction levels. Two others at Wallich Residence sold for S$6.6 million and S$5.48 million, below their initial auction prices. The broader Singapore property market remains relatively firm, but the top end has developed weak spots. Private-home prices recently posted their fastest quarterly increase since 2024 even as transaction volume fell about 30% from the previous quarter. Sentosa, where members of the laundering operation accumulated expensive property, illustrates the disconnect. Villa prices on the resort island fell roughly 11% over the decade through 2025. Some seized homes are now being marketed for considerably less than their former owners paid. Convicted launderer Lin Baoying spent almost S$29 million on two detached Sentosa houses in 2021. Their current combined guide price is more than S$6 million below that purchase price. Deloitte's Singapore unit is overseeing the liquidation and plans to release assets in stages through mid-2027. If properties repeatedly fail to sell, prospective buyers have an obvious incentive to wait for further reductions. Sellers, meanwhile, don't want to cut prices so aggressively that the portfolio begins looking like distressed inventory. Photos: Knight Frank/BBGThe assets stem from an enormous 2023 police operation involving more than 400 officers and over 200 properties, many in expensive areas including Orchard Road and Sentosa. Ten China-born defendants were convicted, and the group became widely known as the “Fujian Gang.” The fallout eventually reached Singapore's financial sector. Nine firms, including Credit Suisse, Citibank and United Overseas Bank, were hit with a combined S$27.45 million in penalties over anti-money-laundering shortcomings connected to the case. Yet while multimillion-dollar apartments sit without bids, the former owners' handbags and jewelry have been flying out the door. At an auction conducted by Hotlotz, every luxury-goods lot sold. One limited-edition Louis Vuitton pumpkin bag created with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama was expected to fetch S$12,000 to S$16,000. Instead, 81 bids pushed the final price to S$87,000. The difference is partly psychological. Someone chasing a rare handbag, watch or piece of jewelry may worry another opportunity won't appear. Property buyers can compare an apartment against alternatives, determine fair value and walk away when the numbers don't work. Another 14 Hotlotz auctions are planned, including Hermès handbags and watches from Rolex, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille. Dozens of homes also remain in the liquidation pipeline. The government has already recovered substantial sums. By the end of March, approximately S$1.4 billion in cash and proceeds from disposed assets had entered Singapore's Consolidated Fund. For now, Singapore's most infamous criminal asset sale has produced a strange split: people will fight over the handbags, but they won't fight over the homes. And with buyers increasingly convinced that patience could produce lower prices, the remaining condos may prove considerably harder to move than the watches, diamonds and designer bags sitting inside them. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 23:00

— At Least 10 Supertankers Approaching Port Of Fujairah Reverse Course Amid Iran’s Attacks

 

at 10/12/26 8:45pm

At Least 10 Supertankers Approaching Port Of Fujairah Reverse Course Amid Iran’s Attacks A growing number of empty supertankers have been turning away from the Persian Gulf as escalating Iranian attacks threaten a critical transfer hub for wartime oil shipments, Bloomberg reports. At least 10 very large crude carriers and several Suezmax vessels approaching the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates have stopped or reversed course in recent days, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.  While other vessels are still continuing on their journeys into the region, the retreat of these tankers amid near-daily attacks around the Strait of Hormuz - some near Fujairah itself - raises fresh concerns over the sustainability of oil flows through the waterway. Fujairah is commonly signaled as an interim destination by vessels ultimately sailing to the Gulf of Oman, where they can collect cargoes via ship-to-ship transfer, or onward into the Persian Gulf. That makes the number of ships heading toward the port a broader indicator of tanker operators’ appetite for approaching the waterway. The shift threatens a key workaround that has helped Persian Gulf oil exports recover to near prewar levels. Large crude carriers can wait off Fujairah and in Omani waters outside Hormuz while shuttle tankers make the riskier transit through the strait, bringing out crude and transferring it for onward shipment to buyers. The system depends on a steady supply of receiving tankers, so a significant retreat from the region by empty VLCCs could slow the flow of crude, tying up the shuttle vessels for longer when tanker availability is already tight. The pullback is particularly striking given the financial rewards on offer. A global tanker shortage has pushed shipping costs to extraordinary levels. For example, hiring a vessel to haul oil from the US to China now costs more than launching a rocket into space. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 22:45

— "My Guy, I Can Code": After Deconstructing Adobe, Dev Uses Claude To Clone Microsoft Office For Free

 

at 10/12/26 8:35pm

"My Guy, I Can Code": After Deconstructing Adobe, Dev Uses Claude To Clone Microsoft Office For Free Days after unveiling free, open-source stand-ins for seven Adobe applications, Atlanta engineer Brandon Thomas has turned to Microsoft Office. This week he posted WordCraft, GridCraft and DeckCraft - replicas of Word, Excel and PowerPoint - to GitHub, Tom's Hardware reported. Thomas says he used Anthropic's Claude to help build the software and is giving the results away. The Adobe set came first. Gizmodo's Mike Pearl reported on Oct. 7 that Thomas had used Claude Opus 5.5 and the Rust programming language to recreate Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and four other Adobe applications. Thomas wrote on Hacker News that they were in early alpha and "not anywhere close to ready," while Pearl called the Photoshop stand-in "glitchy, but real." Adobe, Pearl noted, agreed to a $150 million settlement after federal prosecutors sued it in 2024, alleging it was "trapping" people in subscription plans. The Office clones followed within days. Paul Thurrott reported on Oct. 9 that WordCraft reads and writes DOCX files, and that ArtCraft, Thomas's company, calls it 87 percent complete for ribbon commands and about 62 percent complete for real feature parity. For GridCraft, a pre-alpha Excel stand-in, ArtCraft claims 93 percent of Excel's worksheet functions. DeckCraft, the PowerPoint stand-in, is said to cover about 79 percent of the feature set and to be 80 percent of the way to a first alpha. Thurrott also reported that ArtCraft has removed the download links from its website, leaving GitHub as the way to get the code. Gadget Pilipinas took a closer look at the project's documentation and found some important caveats. WordCraft's roadmap says charts, SmartArt and embedded OLE objects are lost when a DOCX file is loaded and saved, and validation against real business documents had not yet begun. The site also noted that counting ribbon commands measures whether a feature can be invoked, not whether it actually behaves the way Word does. It listed the licenses as Apache-2.0 or MIT. Release numbers differ between the two outlets: Thurrott reported version 0.3.0, while Gadget Pilipinas cited 0.5.0. The larger target is the subscription model itself. When Microsoft added Copilot to its consumer plans in January 2025, PCWorld reported, Microsoft 365 Personal rose from about $7 a month to $10 and Family from about $10 to $13, with 60 AI credits a month included. Existing subscribers could remain at the old price on a "Classic" plan. And the customer base is enormous. Microsoft last reported 89 million consumer Microsoft 365 subscribers in July 2025 and then stopped publishing the metric, according to Office-Watch, which estimates the total is now about 95 million. It also reported that consumer cloud revenue rose 24 percent in the quarter ended June 30. Tom's Hardware called Thomas's project "a targeted protest" against subscription software and said ArtCraft's Discord community is already asking for more, with a CAD clone among the most frequent requests. But it also cautioned that most of the apps are "still far from what they intend to replace." After the Adobe release, critics dismissed the software as vibecoded "AI slop." Thomas answered on X: My guy, I can code In college I was building laser games on skyscrapers and cloning the luciferase-luciferin system into plants via agrobacterium-mediated transfection AI models enable me to work as an entire company. I'm doing 4x better than Google's revenue per employee https://t.co/HE3qk7paBm pic.twitter.com/sGCkdy92QM — e/chelon (@echelon) October 9, 2026 The revenue-per-employee comparison is Thomas's own claim, and none of the coverage cited here independently checked it. The project's "clean-room" description also remains untested. ArtCraft says the apps are clean-room reimplementations written from public specifications and observed behavior. Besthub summarized the view of lawyer Neil Brown, who it said notes that the legal position depends on the jurisdiction and argues that an independent reimplementation made without access to the original source code may not infringe. None of the coverage cited here reports a legal challenge from Microsoft or Adobe. None of this means Office has been replaced. By ArtCraft's own figure, WordCraft remains about 38 percent short of real feature parity, and the documentation makes clear that important functionality is still missing. What has changed is the cost and speed of producing a plausible competitor. One engineer working with a coding model has released rough but working versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint only days after doing the same for Adobe's creative suite - and he is aiming directly at a market where the incumbents have spent years moving customers toward recurring subscriptions. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 22:35

— Southeast Asia Needs 100TWh More Power, But Its Weak Grid Is A Problem

 

at 10/12/26 7:45pm

Southeast Asia Needs 100TWh More Power, But Its Weak Grid Is A Problem By Haley Zaremba of OilPrice.com The war in Iran has exposed a critical vulnerability in Southeast Asia’s energy markets. The region is heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports, and demand is continuing its steep growth trajectory even as global crude oil prices remain punishingly high. Though the Strait of Hormuz is finally reopening, restoring flows of crude oil out of the Persian Gulf and toward Asian buyers, global oil markets have a long road toward recovery. Luckily, the wheels are already in motion to electrify the continent and move away from heavy dependence on imported oil and gas, but the interim will be a rocky chapter for energy security in the rapidly developing region.  When the Strait of Hormuz initially closed in February, in response to the United States and Israel’s military campaign in Iran, Asian markets were hit hard and hit early by the cutoff. Southeast Asian nations were especially vulnerable to price volatility because of the region’s relatively high dependence on energy imports and low capacity to absorb market shocks thanks to economic constraints.  In the weeks and months after the Strait closed, the Philippines declared a national energy emergency, and governments across the region turned to energy rationing, work-from-home mandates, and even four-day work weeks to manage the strain. However, the same crisis has also kickstarted a much-needed and arguably overdue renewable revolution that will bolster regional energy security, independence, and autonomy going forward. Getting there is the hard part.  “Rising fuel imports and fast-growing electricity demand are increasing [Southeast Asia’s] exposure to market disruptions and volatility,” the International Energy Agency fwrote in a news report earlier this week. However, “closer cooperation can strengthen its ability to respond,” the article continued. “Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most dynamic regions, but its rising needs for energy to power its economic growth face challenges in an increasingly uncertain global energy landscape,” said International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol. “Energy security must be built into decisions across the whole system from oil stocks and gas infrastructure to electricity grids and more efficient use of energy. By working more closely together, ASEAN countries can make better use of their collective resources and respond more effectively when disruptions occur.” A large part of the coordinated response will need to focus on building up supportive clean energy infrastructure in addition to clean energy production capacity. While solar energy is taking off across the region, grid expansion and refurbishment, energy storage capacities, and transmission infrastructure are lagging behind, risking a major bottleneck in the region’s electrification trajectory.  According to an August report from Climate Home News, “inadequate grid capacity and maintenance is already proving a major factor in the region’s stuttering rollout of new clean energy projects.” The report also points to “issues ranging from unclear power purchase agreement (PPA) structures, a failure of power policies to keep up with investor needs, permitting and licensing approval delays, grid connection constraints, limits to private sector involvement in electricity markets, and policy and tariff uncertainty.” Indeed, the region’s renewable revolution risks stalling out before it even really starts if these issues are not addressed quickly. A May report from consultancy Bain & Company and Standard Chartered found that between the years of 2021 and 2025, 50 to 60 percent of renewable energy projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia were cancelled or stalled thanks to inadequate infrastructural and policy support. These issues are set to intensify as rapid economic development continues across Southeast Asia. “More than 100 TWh of new electricity demand is expected to arrive by 2030, driven by data centers, electric vehicles (EVs), and industrial clusters,” the Bain & Company report finds. “However, while demand from these sources is set to materialize in one to three years, grid infrastructure takes five to fifteen years to build. This mismatch has made the grid a key binding constraint that increasingly determines where capital flows.” Source: BainThe International Energy Agency’s new report argues that there is still hope, however, if the region’s governments work together to forge and maintain increased resilience in the face of volatile global markets and local pressures. The report recommends “stronger national preparedness and deeper regional cooperation across different sectors and fuels to help members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) withstand supply disruptions and volatile prices.” Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 21:45

— Feds Raid Ilhan Omar's DC Home As Immigration Fraud Investigation Heats Up

 

at 10/12/26 7:25pm

Feds Raid Ilhan Omar's DC Home As Immigration Fraud Investigation Heats Up Federal agents raided the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) early Monday morning as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the Somali-born congresswoman's immigration paperwork, according to Fox News. The pre-dawn operation began around 6 a.m., with multiple agents wearing Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) jackets observed outside the residence. Two sources close to the investigation told Fox News that authorities are examining immigration documents completed by Omar's late father when she was a child. BREAKING: Federal agents raid Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington, D.C., home early Monday morning as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Homeland Security Investigations agents arrived around 6 a.m., with both DHS and the Justice Department involved in the operation. The DOJ confirms agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant, but officials have not publicly disclosed the full scope of the investigation. — Fox News (@FoxNews) October 12, 2026 The Department of Justice confirmed that federal agents had executed a search warrant. "Today in the Washington, D.C., area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal investigation," a DOJ spokesperson told Fox News Digital. The DOJ has not publicly disclosed the specific allegations underlying the warrant. @FoxNews VIDEO obtained by @FoxNews Digital from the HSI raid at Ilhan Omar's DC residence this morning. https://t.co/eJ1jzIpb4N — Peter D’Abrosca (@pmd_reports) October 12, 2026 The raid marks a significant escalation in a federal investigation that White House border czar Tom Homan publicly acknowledged last month - and revives longstanding questions surrounding Omar's immigration and marital history. Homan Confirmed Criminal Investigation In September As Jonathan Turley previously noted, Homan confirmed that federal authorities were examining allegations involving the Minnesota Democrat. The controversy centers in part on longstanding claims that Omar married her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to facilitate an immigration benefit - allegations Omar has repeatedly denied and which have not been established as fact. Turley examined whether the allegations could support a fraud case or instead amounted to potentially defamatory accusations, and noted that the statute of limitations could complicate any prosecution involving events dating back many years. In September, Omar told Fox News that DHS had not contacted her regarding the investigation. "No, they have not," she said when asked whether federal authorities had reached out. At the time, Homan declined to disclose whether investigators possessed evidence of immigration or naturalization fraud. Less than a month later, federal agents have now searched her Washington residence under a warrant obtained by the Justice Department. Years Of Controversy Over Omar's Immigration History Omar, who was born in Somalia and became a naturalized American citizen in 2000, has faced questions about her marital history since before her election to Congress in 2018. The controversy involves her 2009 legal marriage to Elmi, their subsequent separation, and her relationship with Ahmed Hirsi, with whom she had children before their legal marriage. The pre-dawn raid of Ilhan Omar is part of an immigration fraud investigation into documents filled out when she came into the United States. When Liz Collin of Alpha News last came on the show, she explained that her parents may have lied about her age to fraudulently get her citizenship. Ilhan has always claimed she came to America as a 'child' and was naturalized as a minor at 17 — but new documents show she may have been 18. That is really important because as an adult Illhan would have to apply for citizenship herself and not be waved in as a minor dependent of her war criminal father. "Omar has repeatedly claimed that she became a citizen at the age of 17. But based on public records, Omar was actually 18 in the year 2000, when her father became eligible to apply for citizenship." "Just two days later, her congressional staff contacted the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, this is back in 2019, to change the Congresswoman's date of birth from October 4th, 1981 to October 4th, 1982." "Omar would not have been a minor when her father applied to be a citizen. So you have Representative Omar changing her birth year." Public records indicate Omar was 18 when she immigrated to the U.S., which would have made her ineligible to enter as a minor under her father. Illhan Omar may have committed immigration fraud to become a legal American Citizen. If the DOJ and DHS proves this, it would be massive. https://t.co/94J4vREeev — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 12, 2026 Critics have questioned the chronology of those relationships and alleged that Elmi was actually Omar's brother. Omar has consistently rejected the allegation as false and politically motivated.  Monday's developments raise a separate question: whether investigators are examining discrepancies in the childhood immigration records, the longstanding marital allegations, or some combination of issues. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 21:25

— Tragedy Strikes Israeli School Hike When Teen Puts Remnant Hezbollah Ordinance In Backpack

 

at 10/12/26 7:20pm

Tragedy Strikes Israeli School Hike When Teen Puts Remnant Hezbollah Ordinance In Backpack Tragedy has unfolded Monday during an Israeli school field trip in the north of the country. A 15-year old was killed and around 20 more teens and teachers injured when unexploded Hezbollah ordinance detonated. The incident is being widely reported in Israeli media, and happened in the Ramim Ridge area in the north of the country. The group came upon what was "believed by the military to be a submunition from a Hezbollah rocket." Scene of blast aftermath, via YNetThe group was on a hike of Naftali Mountains Forest scenic route, but it was reportedly also in an area previously targeted by Hezbollah rockets, given that at some point the Israeli army used it as a staging ground related to the Lebanon campaign. Throughout prior years of war going back to the Gaza and Iran conflicts, Hezbollah routinely launched Grad rockets containing dozens of BRB1-type submunitions on northern Israel. This caused a largescale exodus of residents from the area, and mass school closures. But even though a sense of normalcy has returned amid an uneasy Lebanon ceasefire (which also gets not infrequently broken), and schools and public events have long reopened, certain dangers still clearly remain. Israeli's YNet details the following: One of the schoolchildren is believed to have picked up a submunition during a hike along the Naftali Mountains Forest scenic route and put it in his backpack. Several minutes later, the submunition exploded, according to a preliminary probe by authorities. The blast killed a teenager and wounded 19 others, including two in serious condition and three in moderate condition. Over a dozen ambulances and a bomb disposal unit were dispatched to the chaotic scene. Three Israeli Air Force helicopters also helped in the rescue efforts. Some of the surviving teens described taking off running after the blast, given also confusion over whether they were under attack. Israel's military and security services have launched an investigation centered on whether the class outing had authorization to be in a military zone. Times of Israel separately puts the number of injured at 24. Exampled of a BRB1-type submunition from a Hezbollah rocket that struck the northern border community of Metula, March 4, 2026. Recovered by Israeli police.Authorities are also urging citizens to not touch military items or ordinance, and to call an emergency hotline so it can be safely disposed of. The whole ordeal raises the possibility of future such tragedies happening, as the countryside is likely littered with much more dangerous ordinance after years of Israeli-Hezbollah war. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 21:20

— $427,000 In Salaries, No Employees: FBI Raid Puts Baltimore City Nonprofit In Spotlight

 

at 10/12/26 6:55pm

$427,000 In Salaries, No Employees: FBI Raid Puts Baltimore City Nonprofit In Spotlight A Baltimore City nonprofit that received $1 million in federal pandemic funding reported more than $427,000 in salaries and wages while listing zero employees on its federal tax filing, according to Chris Papst, lead investigator for FOX45's Project Baltimore. Papst has tracked nonprofit KEYS Empowers since FBI agents raided the nonprofit linked to a Baltimore City school board member who abruptly resigned. KEYS Empowers' latest Form 990 filing, covering 2024, reported $2,001,754 in revenue, with $427,201 paid out in salaries and wages. But as Papst noted, the filing lists no employees. Papst added more color to KEYS Empowers' filing: $2,001,754 in revenue $427,201 in salaries and wages $79,701 in travel expenses $242,288 for conferences, conventions, and meetings Zero employees At the center of KEYS Empowers is Mujahid Muhammad, who resigned as a member of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners after the FBI raided his nonprofit. "I'm extremely concerned," said Torrey Snow, a contributing member of the Baltimore Sun's editorial board. Snow continued, "Maryland taxpayers are heavily subsidizing the work in Baltimore City, and they need to know that officials that are in these areas are keeping an eye on where this money is going." In 2022, left-wing Mayor Brandon Scott's office announced a $1 million award in American Rescue Plan Act funding to KEYS Empowers. "If public money is going into these nonprofits, it is the official's responsibility to ensure that these nonprofits are engaging in activities that are necessary and benefiting the public," stated Snow. Publicly available data show KEYS Empowers' corporate structure and link Muhammad and Ashiah Parker, both appointed to the Baltimore City school board by Mayor Scott, to the nonprofit. This points to overlapping nonprofit leadership, school board appointments linked to Scott, and government funding for a highly questionable nonprofit. The relationship map places Mujahid Muhammad between not just KEYS Empowers but also K.E.Y.S. Development T.A. LLC.  Reporting more than $427,000 in salaries and wages yet listing zero employees is a major red flag. The questions remain: who received the taxpayers' money, what services did they provide, and who approved the payments? Whether this is simply sloppy Form 990 reporting or something more serious, taxpayers deserve answers. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 20:55

— Secret UFO Arms Race? US, China And Russia Battle To Unlock Mysterious Technology

 

at 10/12/26 6:35pm

Secret UFO Arms Race? US, China And Russia Battle To Unlock Mysterious Technology The United States, China and Russia could be locked in a secretive new arms race involving unidentified flying objects, raising extraordinary questions about whether America's biggest adversaries are competing to unlock technology that could transform modern warfare, according to the New York Post. The possibility of a UFO arms race is drawing renewed attention as lawmakers, former intelligence officials and military veterans warn that Washington could be falling behind its geopolitical rivals in the race to understand mysterious aerial phenomena. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) has warned that America's failure to release promised UFO information could give China and Russia a major propaganda victory, allowing the rival powers to portray themselves as more transparent than Washington. "I think it would definitely be a misstep because of what we would be demonstrating to our people," Burlison said in an interview with the New York Post. "We're supposed to be the most transparent country in the world to its citizenry and if another country is able to be more transparent than the United States on this topic it would be a blemish on our otherwise pristine legacy on transparency." WHAT DOES GPT KNOW!?!?Former U.S. intelligence official David Grusch has also claimed, without public evidence, that China and Russia possess crashed UFOs, suggesting that America's adversaries could be attempting to reverse-engineer technology of unknown origin. Grusch made headlines in 2023 after testifying before Congress about alleged secret government programs dedicated to recovering and studying mysterious spacecraft. In 2021, China publicly acknowledged investigating unexplained aerial sightings, including using artificial intelligence to analyze reports of mysterious objects. The South China Morning Post reported at the time: According to Wuhan-based researcher Chen Li from the Air Force Early Warning Academy, human analysts have been overwhelmed in recent years by the rapidly mounting sighting reports from a wide range of military and civilian sources across the country. "The frequent occurrence of unidentified air conditions in recent years ... brings severe challenges to air defence security of our country," said Chen, in a 2019 report to a conference of senior information technology scientists in Beijing in 2019. Russia's interest in UFOs reportedly dates back to the Soviet era. The New York Post noted: Investigative reporter George Knapp released a trove of documents on Russia in February that he snuck out of the USSR in 1991. Those documents point to the Soviets investigating thousands of reports of UFOs while officially denying their existence in public. However, the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has repeatedly pushed back against claims of secret alien technology programs, reporting that investigators found no verifiable evidence that the U.S. government or private companies possess extraterrestrial technology. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 20:35

— Colombia's Richest Man Turns Venezuelan Oil Contract Into $500 Million GeoPark Stake

 

at 10/12/26 6:20pm

Colombia's Richest Man Turns Venezuelan Oil Contract Into $500 Million GeoPark Stake Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski is positioned to take control of GeoPark Ltd., a Latin American energy producer, after converting a Venezuelan oil agreement secured at almost no upfront cost into an equity stake initially valued at more than $500 million, according to Bloomberg. The transaction illustrates the competition for Venezuelan assets following Nicolás Maduro’s removal in January and Washington’s subsequent relaxation of energy sanctions. Investors with government connections are moving quickly into a country whose enormous oil reserves have suffered from years of mismanagement, sanctions and inadequate investment. Bloomberg writes that Gilinski, worth approximately $40 billion according to Bloomberg, made his fortune in banking and acquisitions, including his takeover of food manufacturer Nutresa SA. His son Gabriel reportedly visited Caracas more than ten times this year, meeting with acting President Delcy Rodríguez in March while pursuing opportunities in Venezuela’s energy sector. Those efforts resulted in a 25-year agreement to operate Bare, a heavy crude field in Venezuela’s Orinoco region. Located near existing Chevron facilities, the property could benefit from established infrastructure. Photo: BloombergShortly after securing the contract, Gilinski arranged to transfer his interest to GeoPark in exchange for newly issued shares initially worth approximately $515 million. The transaction would make him the company’s majority shareholder despite requiring little personal investment in the underlying project. GeoPark would finance development and retain a 65% net working interest, with the remaining 35% belonging to state-owned PDVSA. The company hopes to increase production from approximately 11,000 barrels per day to 95,000, although achieving that target will require substantial spending and access to materials needed to transport Venezuela’s unusually thick crude. Gilinski had already acquired approximately 20% of GeoPark in March, effectively disrupting a competing takeover attempt. Rather than negotiating the Venezuelan agreement entirely through GeoPark, however, he secured most of the operating rights separately before offering them to the company. GeoPark says it participated in the negotiations and initially held a 5% interest in Bare. The company is now seeking to acquire Gilinski’s remaining 95% at a valuation reportedly 5% below estimates prepared by its advisers. The deal remains subject to conditions that must be satisfied by December. If the underlying Venezuelan contract expires before completion, the GeoPark transaction will be canceled. Gilinski is hardly alone in pursuing Venezuela’s reopening. Pacific Coast Energy has begun operating two heavy oil properties, while newcomers including Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam have negotiated agreements. Established players such as Chevron and Repsol remain active as other international producers consider returning. For Gilinski, the arrangement could deliver an extraordinary return: majority control of an established energy company in exchange for oil development rights obtained with minimal upfront capital, while GeoPark assumes the financial burden of expanding production. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 20:20

— ABC News Retracts Trump Family Hit Piece, But Won't Say Why

 

at 10/12/26 6:05pm

ABC News Retracts Trump Family Hit Piece, But Won't Say Why Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, ABC News is facing ongoing scrutiny after publishing a controversial story about President Donald Trump's sons and abruptly taking it down after critics challenged several claims that they slammed as false. Donald Trump Jr. poses with his 11-year-old son Spencer. / PHOTO: @donaldjtrumpjr via Instagram The story centered on the claims that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump's "investments have won billions in Pentagon since" Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. It claimed that companies in which the president's sons had invested had benefited from more than $6 billion in government contracts. ABC ran the story Wednesday but removed it an unknown time later that day. The article was no longer available on the outlet's website by Thursday morning, according to Mediaite. The page instead displayed an error message reading: "OPPS! PAGE UNAVAILABLE. The page either does not exist or is currently unavailable." The story was written by ABC reporter Nathan Lee, who, after the story's deletion, deactivated his LinkedIn and X page. Headline USA has reached out to Lee but has not received a response. Before the removal, the ABC story had enjoyed widespread promotion from Democratic politicians and lawmakers, most of whom used it nearly in unison to criticize the Trump family. It is unclear who brought the story's claims to ABC News' attention or whether it was pitched by a Democratic operative. One of the story's critics, communications strategist and former Trump official Alexa Henning, speaking on behalf of 1789 Capital, said that ABC News conflated the size of the venture capital firm's investment in defense contractor Anduril with the amount raised in a funding round. Trump Jr. is one of six partners of 1789 Capital. ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it's false. Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last. https://t.co/Nzj34wwNnQ — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 8, 2026 Separately, the story downplayed that some investments began under Biden, undermining its central narrative. ABC News ultimately republished the story on Oct. 9 with a long editor's note and corrections. The new version had no author byline and attributed the story to "ABC NEWS." The note read: "A version of this story published on Oct. 7 contained errors in the description of certain company investments, government contracts and event chronologies. After subsequent reporting, this version contains corrected information and additional context regarding some of those investments, contracts and events." Even members of the legacy media expressed shock at ABC's handling of the story, with CNN journalist Andrew Kaczynski describing the move as "absolutely wild" on X. "ABC News completely retracted this story like two days ago just totally nuked it," Kaczynski wrote. "No note, no explanation, no comment. It had been shared by tons of top lawmakers and democratic officials." The revised story now says that 1789 Capital invested $50 million in Anduril "as part of a larger $2.5 billion funding round last year, according to the defense contractor's founder." Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 20:05

— Suspect With "Extensive Criminal Record" Charged In Fatal Shooting Of Philadelphia Police Officer

 

at 10/12/26 5:40pm

Suspect With "Extensive Criminal Record" Charged In Fatal Shooting Of Philadelphia Police Officer A 35-year-old Philadelphia Water Department employee is facing murder and attempted murder charges following a weekend shooting that left one police officer dead and another fighting for his life, according to CBS News. Eric Lewis, who prosecutors say fired on at least 11 officers during an extended confrontation in West Philadelphia early Saturday, was arrested after authorities discovered him hiding in a tree near the scene. He appeared in court Sunday and remains jailed without bail ahead of an October 26 preliminary hearing. The violence claimed the life of Shane Seiber, 40, a decorated 10-year police veteran and father of two who had recently completed SWAT training. Seiber, who previously served at Dover Air Force Base from 2007 to 2015, suffered three gunshot wounds and died despite emergency medical treatment. Photo: CBS NewsCBS writes that a second officer, 33, and the father of five children, was struck by 12 bullets and remained in critical condition. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said his recovery was far from certain. The confrontation began around 1 a.m. when officers were dispatched to a home on North 52nd Street following reports of an armed individual outside the residence. Gunfire erupted as police approached, prompting a large response involving patrol officers and tactical units. According to District Attorney Larry Krasner, Lewis subsequently fired toward nine other officers, although none were injured. Authorities eventually apprehended him after he reportedly spent several hours concealed in a nearby tree. Investigators collected a shotgun and two pistols from the property, including a handgun reportedly taken from one of the wounded officers. Photo: CBSPennsylvania state Rep. Amen Brown, who lives nearby and observed the arrest, described Lewis as having "an extensive criminal record". Brown also alleged that the suspect made statements indicating he wished more officers had died. Lewis is reportedly employed by Philadelphia's Water Department and represented by District Council 33, a union that has expressed sympathy for the victims and promised to assist investigators. The shooting has intensified discussion among local officials about public safety and behavioral health policies. Mayor Cherelle Parker called for expanding Pennsylvania's involuntary commitment statutes to address serious substance abuse and mental health problems. Meanwhile, Gov. Josh Shapiro directed that flags be lowered to half-staff in Seiber's memory. Sen. John Fetterman also expressed support for the officers' families and hopes for the surviving officer's recovery. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 19:40

— Saudi Energy Conference Loses Shell, Exxon, BP Execs - Who Bail After Houthi Strikes

 

at 10/12/26 4:50pm

Saudi Energy Conference Loses Shell, Exxon, BP Execs - Who Bail After Houthi Strikes Via The Cradle Several top energy executives were dropped from the schedule of Saudi Arabia's ongoing WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh on Monday, as the kingdom insists on holding the conference despite the threat to the capital posed by the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (Houthis).  The event began on October 11 and is meant to run until 15 October. The head ‌executives of ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Shell, Chevron, and BP were expected at the event.  Source: Asharq Al-AwsatOn Monday, they were no longer listed on the agenda that the conference organizers put out. "To everyone who traveled to Riyadh, thank you," said Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman while making the opening comments at the WPC Energy Congress.  "You know this ​country is safe and that we hold your protection at whole heart… Our gathering here ⁠does not mean the risk is gone," he said.  He said that the YAF’s operations targeting the kingdom were "serious" and deserved an "equally serious" response. The event had been planned for April but was postponed when the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran was launched in February. "Unfortunately, due to travel ⁠disruption, we are unable to be there in person. We greatly value our long-standing partnerships across the region," said a BP spokesperson cited by Reuters. The spokesperson added that the firm made “every ​effort to participate.” Shell declined to comment, and TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, and Chevron did not ​immediately respond. The event is taking place 10 kilometers from Riyadh’s King Khalid Airport, which was bombarded by the YAF over the weekend, resulting in 12 deaths. At the conference, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said pressure across the energy world will only worsen until the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened by Iran. "Globally, the squeeze on crude oil is serious," he said. The surge in refined fuel prices is making things worse, he added.  Offshore inventories are “well below” 6 million barrels, he went on to say, warning that it could take up to two years to refill while meeting demand. Meanwhile, crude oil prices climbed to their highest level in two weeks on Monday. Brent crude rose 1.25 percent to $106 per barrel, while US WTI crude traded at $92 per barrel, marking their highest levels since 29 September. Riyadh has suffered significantly as a result of its renewed war on Yemen and Sanaa’s retaliatory strikes, widening the country’s budget deficit and pushing the Saudi economy to the brink of "contraction," the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Monday. Over the weekend, Riyadh’s international airport came under heavy Yemeni bombardment. The halt to operations at King Khalid Airport was extended on Monday. Sanaa had repeatedly issued warnings over recent days, but Saudi authorities insisted on keeping airports running. The kingdom's Abha International Airport has also been under fire. Major Aramco sites across the country have been repeatedly struck, including refineries.  Heavy clashes inside Yemen are ongoing as well, as Ansarallah-led forces clash with the kingdom’s proxies in a bid to expel the Saudi-led coalition from the country. In September, the YAF seized Bab al-Mandab, much of the western Yemeni coast, and several Red Sea islands. Ansarallah-led forces are now pushing toward the city of Taiz. Sanaa’s large-scale campaign of retaliatory strikes against Saudi Arabia and its proxies is the result of the kingdom’s July escalation against Yemen. Indiscriminate Saudi bombing of Yemen has escalated in recent days, resulting in civilian casualties.  Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 18:50

— Watch: Trump Says Russia & Ukraine 'Agreed' To Ceasefire Because He Told Them They Did

 

at 10/12/26 4:28pm

Watch: Trump Says Russia & Ukraine 'Agreed' To Ceasefire Because He Told Them They Did Update(1828ET): President Trump in a late in the day Monday exchange with reporters said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin must come together to end the war. He told the press at the White House that there had been violations of his proposed "energy ceasefire" by both Ukraine and Russia. Trump had previously stated that the warring sides agreed to an energy ceasefire, which Zelensky has balked at, saying specifics of when such a ceasefire is supposed begin must be shared with him. That's when this exchange happened: REPORTER: You said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire but both sides said they have not agreed to that. US PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said: "you agree." That's why. They agreed because I said they agreed. https://t.co/RUzKtvgxfz — Status-6 (@Archer83Able) October 12, 2026 Trump responded: "Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said: 'you agree.' That's why. They agreed because I said they agreed." We'll see how Zelensky and Putin respond to this. It will probably be with a shrug. Meanwhile Reuters is newly reporting in the overnight hours (local):  Russia hit at least six energy targets during a night and morning of deadly airstrikes across Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday, adding this showed Moscow had no interest in ​an energy ceasefire announced by Donald Trump. Under pressure over high energy prices ahead of US midterm elections next month, US President Trump blindsided Kyiv and its European allies over ‌the weekend by declaring that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to hit each other's energy systems. *  *  * US relations with Ukraine are once again spiraling fast, especially following President Trump's 'shock' declaration Saturday while addressing Zelensky's anger at the diesel deal with Russia, "I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal… And I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president." The rebuke had been in response to Zelensky blasting the diesel arrangement as "not fair and not honest" and a "sign of weakness" by Trump, and a "birthday gift" to Putin. And then on Sunday morning, again to the great surprise of Western allies, Trump announced on social media a new energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia - except that Kiev quickly said it knows of no such ceasesfire. "Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!" More reported blackouts in Kiev Sunday evening, via AFP.The last such energy ceasefire attempt announced by Trump was in mid-September, but it didn't hold and in fact collapsed rather quickly after. In reality it never so much as got off the ground, before both sides were back at hammering each other's oil, gas, and electricity infrastructure. Very soon after this latest announcement by Trump on Sunday, Zelensky told US media that it was "news to me". He said to Axios while reacting to Trump's Truth Social post: "If President Trump negotiated it with Putin, please tell us when the ceasefire begins. We are ready, and we will accept it." And yet the dilemma for Kiev remains: it is vehemently against a US-Russian diesel deal, but any pause in energy attacks would serve to protect that very deal. This unusual and very public back-and-forth is happening as the Ukrainian capital has been plunged into darkness: BLACKOUT leaves parts of Kiev in total darkness Mayor’s urged people to LEAVE city 'temporarily' as capital forced into 'survival mode' https://t.co/nAq2f7CKLp — RTVisual (@RT_Visual_on_X) October 11, 2026 Zelensky has in follow-up said on X that he was "awaiting details from the American side" - and has also complained that Russia has continued hitting Ukraine's energy sites on Sunday. According to more of the latest from Zelensky: Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of striking a power plant in Kyiv after Donald Trump announced an "energy ceasefire". The Ukrainian president says in a post on X that he has briefed Trump on the "brutal Russian strikes that continue unabated". He says earlier "the Russians struck a power plant in Kyiv with a 'shahed' drone, and many districts experienced power outages". "Later, there were strikes on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region. And all of this happened AFTER the President of the United States made his statement about an energy ceasefire," he says. His fresh video address: Today, there was a statement from the President of the United States that an energy ceasefire has been secured. This is good news for everyone – and it is important that it become reality. Unfortunately, Ukrainian skies have been infested with Russian “shaheds” all day today. There have been glide bomb strikes and strikes on our energy infrastructure too. A power plant in Kharkiv was attacked this evening. Overall, this past week alone, the Russians have carried out more than 200 strikes on our electricity generation and transmission facilities in Ukraine, and another 17 strikes this week targeted gas and oil facilities. They have killed more than 150 of our people, and more than 700 people have been wounded. Ukraine has proposed many de-escalatory steps. Putin had one answer to all of them – “nyet.” We do hope that he will finally say something to America, Ukraine, and the entire world that will lead to a real and dignified peace. Ukraine wants peace. The question is whether Russia does. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have received all the appropriate orders. We are awaiting clear details of the dialogue between America and Russia – and we expect Putin to follow through on what President Trump said. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 11, 2026 Meanwhile Washington still has considerable leverage over Ukraine, putting Zelensky between a rock and a hard place. The Trump White House can always block weapons and funds - something it has previously threatened to do but never pulled the trigger on. Fresh reporting in Financial Times is already putting specifics on the table to be potentially revoked: SCOOP @FT: The Trump administration is threatening to stop the PURL procurement system that provides Ukraine with weapons in order to press Kyiv to halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, according to officials in Europe. The officials, who received calls from American officials on Saturday and Sunday or were briefed on them, said the US was lobbying European capitals and Kyiv in an attempt to end the attacks on Russian oil refineries. The White House declined to confirm or comment on the calls. w/ @HenryJFoy @ahauslohner https://t.co/0dwv7GovPf — Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) October 11, 2026 American diplomats are said to be currently lobbying ⁠European capitals to pressure Ukraine end ​the attacks on Russian oil refineries: The message from the ​US included threats to cut off intelligence sharing ​and Purl (the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List) mechanism for procuring US weapons ‌for ⁠Ukraine, the report added. One official who was given a message from a Pentagon official stated: "They are calling Kyiv . ... They are calling everyone [in Europe]" in order to lean on them. * * * Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 18:28

— Anthropic Bans "Sustained And Needless" Cruelty Toward Claude In New Usage Policy

 

at 10/12/26 4:25pm

Anthropic Bans "Sustained And Needless" Cruelty Toward Claude In New Usage Policy Anthropic has added a prohibition on "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward our models" to its usage policy, AFP reported Thursday. The policy page lists an effective date of Nov. 12, 2026 - so you have about a month to abuse it like a red-headed stepchild. Breaking up will be up to Claude itself - which "will remain the primary enforcement mechanism." Anthropic said last year that it was giving Claude the ability to end conversations in "rare, extreme cases" of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions. It did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment on the new language. The policy does not explicitly cite "model welfare," the idea that AI systems might deserve protections usually reserved for living things, AFP noted, but Anthropic and its executives have entertained the concept. CEO Dario Amodei told The New York Times in February: "We don't know if the models are conscious...But we're open to the idea that it could be." Others reject the premise. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman wrote in an essay last month that "AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer." He called granting rights and moral protections to such a system "a recipe for disaster." AFP also listed Pope Leo XIV among those who have rejected the idea of machine consciousness; at St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday, it said, he suggested machines lack a soul and merely "compile data" faster than people can. Jackson Stakeman, a general manager at the Atlanta-based AI services provider Sparq, told AFP that the consciousness debate leads in circles. "Consciousness is a trap. We can't prove it in each other," he said. The better metaphor, in his view, is a mirror: AI systems "reflect what we put in, at scale," which he called reason enough for the policy change. The Personhood Push The cruelty clause lands in the middle of a campaign that ZeroHedge readers have seen laid out in some detail. This week we ran an essay by Peter C. Earle arguing that AI companies' growing talk of machine consciousness has a commercial logic. Earle pointed to a New York Times report that Anthropic spent months meeting religious scholars, over meals and under nondisclosure agreements, to persuade them its models "think and feel." The essay also recounted that Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah cited "evidence of introspection" at a Vatican event, and that Pope Leo XIV's encyclical answered the other way: "So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain." Those are the essay's quotations of the sources; they were not independently checked for this piece. Earle's argument is that personhood would work as a moat. If an AI system is a moral patient, rivals become "prospective risks," and the technical barriers to entering the business become "moral ones." He also reached back to Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), the Supreme Court case that gave corporations protections once reserved for people, to suggest AI could follow the same path, and he asked whether a model is a product or an entity, and whether copies of it count as separate individuals. The consequences he expects are regulatory. Firms seen as creators of entities with independent interests, he wrote, should expect licensing, testing limits, audits and "rights" commissions to become standard, a regime the incumbents could help design. His conclusion was that leaving consciousness unsettled serves the labs best, since uncertainty supports a stronger oversight regime than either answer would. Nothing in AFP's account says Anthropic's new clause is part of such a strategy, and the policy does not invoke welfare or rights. A rule against abusing a chatbot is also easy to read more narrowly, as Stakeman did, as a conduct standard for users. But the company's executives are on record leaving the question open, and the same company has been the subject of the religious-outreach reporting. The Skeptics' Case The opposing view has had its own airing on ZH. In "What AI Is... And Is Not," Charles Hugh-Smith wrote that large language models are not thinking, understanding or making judgments and are "engines of linguistic automation, not engines of understanding." In his words, "AI is not a 'mind,' it is a probability distribution." Hugh-Smith argued that people mistake fluency for thought because the output "sounds like us." He cited the 1966 chatbot ELIZA, which drew users into conversation despite being simple, and quoted a Scientific American line that a model "cannot form beliefs, revise them or check its output against the world." He said the question of when to declare AI conscious has run for decades without an answer. That is an opinion piece, and the Scientific American line is his quotation, not one checked here. The two ZH pieces and the AFP report converge on one point: nobody has shown that these systems experience anything, and the people most willing to entertain the idea sell the systems. Suleyman, who runs AI at Microsoft, is likewise a competitor of Anthropic, so his objection carries its own interest. What the clause does settle is narrower. From Nov. 12, abusing Claude at length is a policy violation, and the remedy remains Claude's own ability to end the conversation. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 18:25

— Bipartisan Senators Challenge Trump's Russian Diesel Deal, Claim It Violates Federal Law

 

at 10/12/26 4:00pm

Bipartisan Senators Challenge Trump's Russian Diesel Deal, Claim It Violates Federal Law Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness, A bipartisan group of seven senators is demanding President Donald Trump reverse his decision to allow Russian diesel imports into the United States, arguing the agreement violates federal law and provides financial support to Moscow amid its ongoing war with Ukraine. UNITED STATES - JUNE 4: Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., arrives for the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for President Trump's judicial nominees in the Hart Senate Office Building on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)The lawmakers issued a joint statement Sunday citing a 2022 law prohibiting Russian energy imports, which Congress passed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "President Trump's decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the U.S. runs directly counter to that law," the senators said. "The Administration has also failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute." The group includes Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah, along with Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Trump announced Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel to American and global markets. The Treasury Department subsequently authorized Russian diesel imports through April 2027. The agreement is part of Trump's effort to reduce soaring fuel costs as Americans struggle with higher energy prices ahead of November's midterm elections. Diesel prices reached a record average of $6.53 per gallon in September, according to AAA, as the ongoing conflict with Iran continues to disrupt global energy markets. However, the senators argue that easing restrictions on Russian energy exports undermines American pressure on Moscow. "The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians," they wrote. Tillis separately questioned the agreement's legality during an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," arguing that the 2022 legislation established conditions for lifting restrictions, including Russia's withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. The White House previously responded to Tillis' criticism by pointing to Trump's Truth Social announcement declaring an "ENERGY CEASEFIRE" between Russia and Ukraine, although the president offered no details about the arrangement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also expressed concern that relaxing sanctions without a lasting agreement to reduce hostilities could weaken efforts to pressure Russia. Tyler Durden Mon, 10/12/2026 - 18:00

As of 10/13/26 4:34am. Last new 10/13/26 3:24am.