Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• An oligarch’s dystopian scheme to discredit journalism with AI: Judd Legum on a coordinated, AI-powered campaign to flood the zone with fake reporting and erode trust in the real thing. Disinformation industrialized. Peter Thiel goes full super villain, funding a startup launched this month will use an “AI jury” to “subject the media’s claims to systematic investigation and judgment.” That same system of AI adjudication assigns a numerical value — the so-called “Honor Index” score — grading the trustworthiness of individual reporters. And for a starting price of $2,000, anyone can pay for the company to review and adjudicate complaints they may have about a news outlet or reporter.  (Popular Information)

• Your Power Tools Got Worse on Purpose: How a Hong Kong conglomerate bought Milwaukee, DeWalt, and Craftsman — and what happened to quality after the acquisitions. (Worse on Purpose) see also Your Glasses Got Worse on Purpose: The consolidation playbook comes for eyewear too. (Worse on Purpose)

• Has De-Dollarization Begun?: US President Donald Trump’s military adventures, attacks on long-standing allies, and dismantling of institutions like USAID are eroding the trust on which the dollar’s global primacy ultimately rests. The world’s reserve currency may have already begun its long, slow decline. Kaushik Basu argues the dollar’s reserve status is more vulnerable than the consensus assumes — and Washington is doing its best to test the thesis. A worthwhile contrarian read. (Project Syndicate)

• A Vital System of Atlantic Ocean Currents Is Weakening and Closer to Collapse Than Thought: New research moves up the timeline on AMOC’s potential breakdown. (CNN)

• New Lawsuit: Do We Have a Right to Know We’re Being Surveilled? Scarsdale, New York didn’t want to share its plans for Flock surveillance cameras. A new lawsuit brought by NYCLU goes after Flock’s license-plate camera dragnet. The basic civil-liberties question — can a public agency hide where it’s watching from? — is overdue for a court answer. (Drop Site News) see also Your ISP Is Watching You. Here’s How a VPN Can Help: A practical primer on what your internet provider sees and what a VPN actually fixes (and doesn’t). Useful if your privacy hygiene is overdue. (PC Magazine)

• New disclosures reveal how DOGE actually worked: Depositions offer insight into what Elon Musk’s group was up to, including its heavy use of ChatGPT. Members describe a club-like atmosphere in which they pushed for grant and contract cancellations across the government with little oversight. (Washington Post)

• Bad Connection: Uncovering Global Telecom Exploitation by Covert Surveillance Actors. Two sophisticated telecom surveillance campaigns for the first time, links real-world attack traffic to mobile operator signalling infrastructure. The findings expose how suspected commercial surveillance vendors (CSVs) exploit the global telecom interconnect ecosystem, leverage private operator networks, and conduct covert location tracking operations that can persist undetected for years. (Citizen Lab) see also They Built a Legendary Privacy Tool. Now They’re Sworn Enemies: There’s a lot of love all over the world for GrapheneOS, the gold standard of mobile security. There’s very little love between the two guys at the center of its history. (Wired)

• How Did the U.S. Run Out of Missiles in Iran?: $800B a year in defense spending, and the stockpile still came up short. (Doomsday Scenario)

• The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court: Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine “shadow docket” rulings on presidential power. Adam Liptak reconstructs the emergence of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket. (New York Times) see also Two justices, one quest: push to gut Voting Rights Act reaches final act: Latest ruling is culmination of Justices Roberts and Alito’s campaign to slowly but surely strangle efforts to protect democratic rights of Black and other minority Americans The Guardian traces a decade-long Roberts/Alito project to dismantle Section 2. The arc was never accidental. The latest ruling is culmination of Justices Roberts and Alito’s campaign to slowly but surely strangle efforts to protect democratic rights of Black and other minority Americans (The Guardian)

• The Mind of a Minotaur Displaying Picasso’s dark side: If Picasso were alive today, I have to imagine he would have been canceled by now. Some tried to do it post-hoc, on the heels of 2018’s #MeToo reckoning, and failed. The Brooklyn Museum’s 2023 exhibition It’s Pablo-matic, curated by comedian Hannah Gadsby, notoriously attempted a grand reappraisal of the man in light of his mistreatment of women, urging other museums to reconsider how they present him. (The Point)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Lawrence Calcano, CEO and Chairman of iCapital, The firm is a fintech platform built to be the OS for alternative investments and complex products for financial advisors, wealth managers, and banks. The firm has over $1.2 trillion in active global assets on platform, across 2,455 funds used by 123,ooo financial professionals.

 

Oil Hits Wartime High Above $120 a Barrel 

Source: New York Times

 

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The post 10 Sunday Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

The Cheap Foreign Labor Regime Blocking Agricultural Intelligence

Authored by RJ Hauman via American Intelligence,

I grew up in Camarillo, California: fertile soil, Mediterranean climate, strawberries, avocados, lemons, citrus, and family farms passed down through generations. The kind of place that sells itself, and does.

Read the city’s own description of its agricultural economy and you will find every word you would expect: rich agricultural legacy, farming passed down, agricultural education, sustainability, drip irrigation, precision sensors, AI-driven robotics, research partnerships, and a North American AgTech market projected to reach $16 billion by 2027.

Read it again and notice what is missing.

The workforce.

Not wages. Not labor. Not who picks the strawberries, cuts the lemons, or brings in the harvest. The fields produce. The technology advances. The legacy continues. The workers disappear.

Every agricultural economy has a legacy. The question is which part is being preserved. The fertile soil is a legacy. The family farms are a legacy. The harvest is a legacy. So is the labor model that brings it in. And across American agriculture, that model has for forty years depended heavily on foreign labor, illegal hiring, and a political class determined not to disturb either.

When a city brochure pairs “legacy” with AI robotics in the same breath, it is not just describing the future. It is making a quiet promise: the technology will advance, but the labor model will not.

America is preparing for the AI age everywhere except the place that feeds the country.

In Washington, the debate tends to revolve around foundation models, export controls, chips, data centers, defense contracts, and the ideological capture of Silicon Valley. Those fights matter. But the next frontier of artificial intelligence will not stay confined to server farms or federal procurement offices. It will also play out in fields, dairies, orchards, irrigation networks, greenhouses, and the rural labor markets that underpin America’s food supply.

That frontier is no longer theoretical. Autonomous tractors already plant, till, and spray without a driver. Computer-vision systems can scout crops plant by plant. Machine-learning models can optimize water, fertilizer, pest control, and yield down to the meter. Robotic harvesters can pick faster, cleaner, and longer than hand crews. Precision irrigation can be guided by satellite analytics. AI-assisted breeding can compress decades of plant selection into months.

The question is no longer whether American agriculture can automate. It is whether Washington will stop subsidizing the cheap labor model that makes automation a losing bet.

America should be leading this revolution. It builds the software, funds the research, trains the engineers, and talks constantly about technological dominance. Yet federal policy still props up an agricultural labor model built on cheap imported labor, illegal hiring, and guestworker expansion. That bargain has kept human labor cheaper than machines, delayed mechanization, and now risks leaving the United States on the sidelines of a revolution it should own.

This is not a speculative warning. It is already underway. Syngenta’s Cropwise platform now spans more than 70 million hectares across 30 countries. The World Economic Forum projects that AI-amplified digital agriculture could increase agricultural GDP in developing economies by more than $450 billion annually. The Netherlands, Israel, and Australia are moving quickly to capture that ground.

American firms built much of the underlying technology. American universities produced the foundational research. American workers could be trained to operate it.

But the United States will not lead unless it dismantles the cheap labor regime that has allowed agriculture to skip the last revolution while pretending it is ready for the next.

You cannot leapfrog to autonomous agriculture over an industry that has barely mechanized. Software runs on hardware. AI runs on physical capital. The autonomous tractor still requires the tractor. The computer-vision yield system still needs the machine it is guiding. The machine-learning dairy platform still depends on the milking robot it is reading from. Farms that have not mechanized cannot become intelligent by press release.

The capital does not move. The infrastructure does not get built. The workforce does not get trained. The frontier goes to whoever did the prior work first.

Why has American agriculture failed to do that work?

Not because of technology. The tools have been available for decades.

The answer is policy. Washington has spent forty years making cheap foreign labor cheaper than the machine.

The Twin Pillars of the Cheap Labor Regime

American agriculture runs on a labor system Washington built, tolerated, subsidized, and now refuses to dismantle. It rests on two pillars.

The first is illegal hiring. Federal surveys show that roughly 40 to 45 percent of crop farmworkers lack legal work authorization. In California, the share is closer to 60 percent. Another large portion are foreign nationals who entered illegally or came on a temporary basis. The U.S.-born legal workforce in the fields is the minority.

This is not a system failure. It is the system. And it has been propped up by both parties.

The second pillar is H-2A, the federal guestworker program designed in 1986 as a narrow tool for seasonal shortages. It has since grown into one of the largest labor pipelines in the immigration system.

The Department of Labor certified roughly 385,000 H-2A jobs in FY 2024, nearly an eightfold increase since 2005. The program remains uncapped by statute. Recent rulemaking is projected to transfer tens of billions in wage value over the next decade, in some cases lowering effective labor costs by several dollars per hour.

Washington is making imported labor cheaper at the exact moment it should be forcing capital toward machines.

These pillars are not separate problems. They are the same subsidy delivered through different channels, defended by the same interests, and sustaining the same method.

When enforcement targets illegal hiring, employers demand H-2A expansion. When H-2A reform is proposed, they revive amnesty proposals like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would grant Certified Agricultural Worker status and eventual green cards to up to 2.1 million illegal alien farmworkers while simultaneously opening H-2A to year-round industries.

The lobby’s actual position is not legal labor or illegal labor. It is permanent access to cheap foreign labor by whatever channel Washington will tolerate.

Illegal hiring supplies the shadow workforce. H-2A provides the legal release valve. Amnesty converts one into the other while preserving the pipeline behind it.

This is not stagnation by accident. It is by design.

The result is a labor-intensive production model with little incentive to mechanize, little reason to invest in agricultural intelligence, and no pressure to train American workers to operate either.

That helps explain why the United States lags Northern Europe in robotic milking, Israel in precision irrigation, and Australia in autonomous platforms.

Those countries did not discover secret technologies unavailable to American farmers. They built the workforce and mechanized base the United States has chosen to avoid.

We chose decades of cheap, and often illegal, foreign labor instead.

The Myth of the Impossible Crop

Big Agriculture’s most persistent claim is that American farming cannot be mechanized. The crops are too delicate. The terrain too uneven. The seasons too unpredictable. The farms are too diverse. The margins are too thin. The labor is supposedly too specialized.

Some of these objections contain fragments of truth. None justify a permanent federal subsidy for cheap foreign labor.

The “impossible crop” argument collapses the moment policy forces capital to solve the problem.

Commercial cabbage harvesters have existed for decades. Autonomous systems are now being developed for uneven terrain. Apple harvesting robots can pick roughly 10,000 apples an hour, about 30 to 50 times human speed, with less bruising than human crews.

Harvest CROO’s strawberry robots replaced crews of 30 migrant pickers with a small team of engineers and technicians and reached commercial viability in 2025. Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeder uses AI-guided precision lasers to eliminate up to 5,000 weeds a minute, replacing the work of a hand crew of 75 people. Monarch Tractor’s MK-V is a fully electric, driver-optional tractor now operating on hundreds of farms. Bear Flag Robotics, now a John Deere subsidiary, retrofits existing tractors for autonomous tillage at scale.

Even crops long considered unmechanizable are starting to be mechanized.

The constraint is not engineering. It is incentive. And when the incentive shifts, capital tends to follow.

Dale Hemminger, an upstate New York dairy farmer, installed his first milking robots in 2007 after immigration authorities arrested one of his workers. Before mechanization, his farm produced about 800,000 pounds of milk per worker per year. Today it produces 2.5 million. About a dozen workers manage a herd of more than 2,000 cows. They earn more than typical farmworkers and work shorter hours.

That is what one enforcement event did on one farm.

Now imagine that incentive applied across the entire sector.

Bracero Proved the Point

America has already run this experiment.

From 1942 to 1964, the Bracero program admitted more than 4.6 million Mexican guestworkers. At its peak, it brought in more workers annually than today’s entire H-2A system.

The same arguments were made then: crops would rot, Americans would not work, mechanization was not ready.

Congress and President Lyndon Johnson ended the Bracero program in 1964.

The result was not collapse. It was modernization.

Tomato harvesters, developed at the University of California with public funds, were commercially deployed within five years. California processing tomato yields rose 300 percent while labor requirements fell by more than 80 percent. Real wages for remaining domestic farmworkers rose substantially. Crop losses were short-lived and concentrated in the first two seasons. Total production soon exceeded pre-termination levels.

The lesson is straightforward.

The technology was already there. Modernization was obstructed by outdated policy.

That lesson applies directly today.

End the federal guarantee of imported labor. Mandate E-Verify. Phase down H-2A on a real timeline. Reject amnesty that converts the existing illegal workforce into a permanent labor base while expanding future inflows.

No carve-outs. No indefinite delays.

Transition should be statutory, not chaotic. Enforcement must be paired with date-certain phase-downs, mechanization credit, and accelerated expensing. The point is not to create a harvest shock. It is to deny agribusiness the one thing that has defeated every reform for forty years: indefinite delay. Put serious public investment behind mechanization and agricultural intelligence in tandem, on the model of the semiconductor and energy industrial policies of the past five years. Pair the phase-down with targeted USDA credit for mechanization, accelerated expensing for qualifying capital investments, shared-ownership equipment consortia that put commercial-grade robotics within reach of smaller farms, and scale-tiered timelines that give family operations more runway than consolidated agribusiness.

Capital should move toward modernization, not toward Capitol Hill.

The Constituency This Is For

The Right often talks about building a worker-centered coalition. Agriculture is where that idea could actually take shape.

It is composed of the small dairy operator competing against a contractor-driven megafarm that lobbies for both illegal labor and H-2A expansion. It harbors the rural mechanic who could be trained as a robotics technician on a precision orchard. It uplifts the recent graduate of a community college agronomy program who could work in autonomous-equipment maintenance, computer-vision crop scouting, or precision-irrigation management. It represents the American worker who lost the field job a generation ago and never got the engineering job that should have replaced it, because the engineering job was never built.

Cheap, and oftentimes illegal, foreign labor does not just displace today’s American worker. It prevents tomorrow’s worker from emerging.

It blocks the investment that would create better jobs. It keeps rural America trapped in a low-wage equilibrium, and then frames that outcome as a necessary tradeoff.

It is not.

The Sovereignty of Food

The global agricultural intelligence revolution will not wait for American policy to catch up. It is happening now, on Dutch dairies, Israeli irrigation networks, Australian autonomous platforms, and in the orchards and greenhouses of countries that did the prior work, built the prior infrastructure, and trained the prior workforce.

But it does not have to be this way. American startups are building the machines. The United States can deploy them at scale, or watch other countries integrate the technology American firms invented.

The AI age is not just about who builds the model. It is about who controls the systems the model governs.

A country that imports foreign labor to prop up its food system, neglects the machines that should replace it, and fails to train its own workforce is not leading. It is stepping aside.

If “America First” means anything in the AI age, it means that the commanding systems of national life are built, operated, and controlled by Americans. Food is one of those systems.

The United States has the advantages: land, capital, universities, manufacturers, and workers.

What it lacks is the political will to end the old bargain.

For forty years, Washington has kept imported labor cheaper than machines. That decision has lowered wages, slowed mechanization, weakened the rural workforce, and delayed the productivity gains other countries have already captured.

Now the next revolution is here.

The choice is straightforward: a preindustrial labor system sustained by outdated and poor policy, or an industrial strategy worthy of a sovereign nation.

We should end the cheap foreign labor regime. Mandate E-Verify. Phase out H-2A. Restore wage discipline. Invest in mechanization and agricultural intelligence at scale.

America cannot shape the future of food while importing a labor model of the past.

There is no third option.

Coming soon from NICE: Phasing Out H-2A: How to Force American Agriculture into the 21st Century. A national mechanization and agricultural intelligence initiative built for American workers and American farms. The full case for ending Big Agriculture’s cheap labor racket and forcing the modernization that should have come a generation ago.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 15:10

Exiled MAGA Dissidents Consult With Ron Paul On Iran War

Authored by former Congressman Ron Paul

Last weekend my Institute for Peace and Prosperity hosted another conference here on the Texas Gulf Coast. Not only did we have a full house attending the conference – which is in a way the most important thing – but in this era of profound disappointment and disillusionment, we struck a note of optimism thankfully due to our wonderful line-up of speakers.

The main topic of the conference, titled "War is Back on the Menu," was of course the disastrous decision by the Trump Administration to launch an unprovoked war against Iran – both last June and again on February 28th.

Trump's former director of Counterterrorism at the Office of National Intelligence, Joe Kent, listens intently as Ron Paul offers thoughts on the Iran War & current crisis facing America in his home south of Houston, TX.

Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago offered a compelling blueprint to break free of some of the neocon chains that bind us to the Middle East to our own detriment. Let the states in the region manage their own security, he argued. It is not our job to be their policemen.

Very importantly, we were fortunate to have had as speakers two individuals who stood up for their principles when putting them aside for expediency – and personal gain – would have been so much easier.

Former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was, in her own words, “a General in the MAGA Army.” She dedicated her life and plenty of her own money to the cause of electing Donald Trump because she believed he would put America first, as he had promised. She watched that cause betrayed, first with the President’s support for tyrannical central bank digital currency and then with his refusal to release the Epstein files.

Finally, she explained, after he had dubbed her a “traitor” for disagreeing with him on these issues, constant death threats forced her to resign her seat in the House.

Source: MTG on X

She could have gone along to get along – as most do in Congress. Instead, she stood up for what was right.

Likewise Joe Kent, who was serving as director of Counterterrorism at the Office of National Intelligence, could have kept quiet as he watched another war being launched on a mountain of lies pushed by special interests. He was a highly decorated US combat veteran who held a Senate-confirmed position in the Administration.

That would have been a golden ticket to any number of future profitable opportunities if he “played his cards right.” Instead, he did what was right. He resigned, writing in a statement that the war was not justified and that it was being fought for Israeli rather than American interests.

As could be predicted, Joe suffered the same demonization that Marjorie suffered for standing up for his values and principles. Their courage in making this sacrifice for truth should inspire all of us. It should give us hope.

What an honor.

Thank you @RonPaul ! pic.twitter.com/V4EZRFFMQK

— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) April 25, 2026

My words of encouragement were simple: we don’t need a majority to change things. A purposeful minority dedicated to the principles of peace and liberty can move mountains.

We must stay strong and, importantly, stick together and work together across all party and ideological lines. We must be the big coalition that refuses to sacrifice our principles just as Joe and Marjorie refused to sacrifice theirs.

Currently: a joy to see MTG at @RonPaulInstitut telling @RonPaul he was right about all the wars & “MAGA is dead” #IranWar‌ pic.twitter.com/6j95yO4jDO

— Brad Hoff (@BradRHoff) April 25, 2026

We will be in Dulles, VA, on Labor Day weekend for our tenth annual DC conference. Mark your calendars and be a part of our movement!

* * *

Kent, who is a decorated Special Forces and CIA Ground Branch veteran, has responded to the media smear campaign that was triggered at the moment of his public resignation in protest of Trump launching another war of choice in the Middle East...

Joe Kent, who is currently under investigation for “leaking classified information,” told Tucker Carlson that he knows they are going to come after him for what he’s openly talking about.

He said he expects to be called a traitor and says he doesn’t care because America is… pic.twitter.com/ra5EpgqAA5

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) March 19, 2026

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 14:00

Unexploded Ordnance Accident Kills 14 IRGC Members: State Media

Trump's operation Epic Fury saw a combined number of US-Israeli strikes in the many thousands unleashed on Iran. The common high estimates suggest over 13,000 strikes by the American side, and possibly 10,000 by the Israelis - which are staggering figures.

While the severe damage to Iranian cities, bases, missile sites, and infrastructure has been abundantly clear - the hidden reality is the apparently persistent danger of unexploded ordnance still littering the country. On Friday state media reported a mass casualty event involving Iranian military members due to unexploded bombs.

"An explosion of leftover bombs from strikes during the war against Iran killed 14 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian media reports," AFP reports based on state media.

Example of large unexploded bomb in Gaza, Getty Images

"A report by the Nour news website, believed to be close to Iran’s security, says the explosion happened near the northern city of Zanjan, which is northwest of Tehran," AFP continues.

And notably, "It is the largest number of IRGC members reported to be killed since the ceasefire began on April 7," it continues, describing that cluster bombs and 'air mines' which had been dropped during prior US and Israeli aids caused the deadly blasts.

The major blast could have been the result of an IRGC operation to recover the bombs, given that the last week has seen reports that the IRGC had recovered a fully intact GBU-57 Bunker Buster bomb.

While unconfirmed, one defense source said as follows:

The reported recovery by Iran of more than 15 unexploded American precision-guided munitions, including at least one fully intact GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, may prove to be one of the most strategically consequential intelligence gains in Tehran’s military history.

If confirmed, the transfer of these weapons to Iranian “technical and research units” for reverse engineering would transform a failed deep-strike campaign against hardened nuclear facilities into a long-term technology compromise for both Washington and Tel Aviv.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), through statements linked to the Imam Sajjad Corps in Hormozgan province and state-linked outlets including Press TV, IRNA, and Tasnim News, framed the recovered ordnance not as battlefield debris but as a strategic opportunity capable of accelerating deterrence, bunker survivability, and indigenous precision-strike development.

As for this new mass casualty event, another source adds the following further details: "The IRGC's Ansar al-Mahdi unit in Zanjan said demolition teams had entered a contaminated area to identify and neutralize unexploded munitions left from recent airstrikes when the deadly explosion happened on Friday."

Illustrative via Popular Mechanics 

The Friday incident strongly suggests there are other extreme danger zones, and given that thousands of bombs rained down all over Iran during the height of US-Israeli war, there could be more such deadly accidents to come.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 13:25

Trump Says Medicare Will Soon Cover Weight-Loss Drugs

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump announced on May 1 that Medicare patients will soon be able to obtain coverage for weight-loss drugs for $50 per month.

Speaking at an event in Florida, Trump said the coverage for the weight-loss and diabetes medications will begin in July, referencing drugs that contain semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist.

“Today, I’m thrilled to announce that starting on July 1, we will also provide Medicare patients with the coverage for weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Zepbound, Wegovy. Will be available for $50 a month,” he said.

In December, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a voluntary model known as Better Approaches to Lifestyle and Nutrition for Comprehensive Health to expand access to GLP-1 medications for weight management and metabolic health, allowing Medicare Part D plans and state Medicaid agencies to cover the drugs while negotiating lower prices.

The model features CMS negotiating directly with manufacturers for reduced net prices, out-of-pocket caps, standardized coverage criteria, and lifestyle support programs.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 12:50

US Coast Guard Offloads More Than $72 Million Worth Of Cocaine

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

More than $72 million worth of cocaine was offloaded by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) after it was seized in multiple operations.

A crew member aboard USCGC Escanaba carries a bale of cocaine during a drug offload at Port Everglades, Fla., on April 27, 2026. U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric Rodriguez

On Monday, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba’s crew offloaded roughly 7,050 pounds of cocaine valued at over $53 million at Port Everglades, Florida, according to an April 27 statement. The seizures were made following interdictions in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific. In addition to Escanaba, other USCG assets and the Joint Interagency Task Force South were involved in the operations.

“The crew’s achievements on this patrol reflect the very best of our service—courage, vigilance, and an unshakeable commitment to protecting the American people,” Escanaba Commander Nicholas Seniuk said.

“Every pound of narcotics kept off our streets represents lives changed, violence prevented, and communities made safer. We couldn’t be prouder of their extraordinary work.”

In an April 23 statement, USCG announced that its Cutter Resolute crew offloaded roughly 2,570 pounds of cocaine valued at more than $19.3 million at Base Miami Beach, Florida, and also transferred six individuals suspected of drug smuggling to authorities.

The seizures were the result of three interdictions in the Caribbean by the crews of USS Billings and Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma, together with other partners.

Combined, the two offloading events involved the seizure of 9,620 pounds of cocaine worth more than $72.3 million.

According to the USCG, more than 511,000 pounds of cocaine were seized last year, which is more than three times the service’s annual average. The agency has also sped up its counter-drug operations in the Eastern Pacific region through Operation Pacific Viper.

“Since launching this operation in early August, the Coast Guard has seized over 215,000 pounds of cocaine and apprehended 160 suspected narco-traffickers. The Coast Guard’s persistent operations and rapid response have denied criminal organizations billions in illicit revenue and prevented the flow of dangerous drugs into American communities,” USCG said.

“Eighty percent of interdictions of U.S.-bound drugs occur at sea. This underscores the importance of maritime interdiction in combatting the flow of illegal narcotics and protecting American communities from this deadly threat.”

Cocaine use is a major issue in the United States. According to an August 2025 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cocaine overdose death rates jumped from 4.5 individuals per 100,000 people in 2018 to 8.6 in 2023. Between 2011 and 2023, the number of overdose deaths involving cocaine rose from 4,681 to 29,449 individuals.

Around 2.8 million adults used cocaine in 2021, out of which almost half had a cocaine use disorder, according to a January 22 study published at the National Library of Medicine. Cocaine use has been linked to cardiovascular risk factors.

Military Strikes

The United States has also conducted numerous recent strikes against suspected drug trafficking vessels.

In an April 26 post on X, the U.S. Southern Command said the military conducted a kinetic strike against a boat in the Eastern Pacific, which it said was ferrying drugs. The strike ended up killing three male narco-terrorists.

Earlier, the Southern Command announced a strike on a drug trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific on April 24, which resulted in the deaths of two individuals.

Such military strikes have come under criticism. On March 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) testified against these strikes at a hearing held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

At the hearing, Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program, said that the United States had launched 45 armed attacks as part of the strikes in international waters as of March 12, killing an estimated 157 individuals.

“The United States has not conducted these strikes pursuant to any congressional authorization, as required under domestic law. Instead, the government has acted unilaterally and in violation of international law on the use of force,” Dakwar said.

In a March 13 statement, Thomas Pigott, a spokesperson for the Department of State, criticized the hearing, saying the IACHR “strayed far outside its mandate and acted beyond its competence” in holding the event.

The United States called on the IACHR to focus on its statutes and rules of procedure rather than inserting itself in matters that fall “outside the human rights sphere.”

“The IACHR allowed the ACLU to exploit the hearing to try to force the United States to prematurely disclose arguments and evidence in two cases pending before U.S. federal courts,” Pigott said.

In December, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters that the strikes have been thoroughly vetted by the proper authorities.

Each strike against a drug vessel operated by designated terror organizations is taken to protect the United States and to defend vital American interests, Wilson said.

“Our operations in the Southcom region are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict. These actions have also been approved by the best military and civilian lawyers up and down the chain of command,” the press secretary said.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 11:40

ZeroHedge Fertilizer Debate: Hormuz Closure Could Usher In New Arab Spring 

On Friday, ZeroHedge, in partnership with the Macro Dirt Podcast, hosted a debate focused on the implications for agriculture, inflation, and global supply chains given the current situation in Iran. The discussion was illuminating and worth a rewatch if you missed it. 

The discussion featured former Bridgewater head of commodities Alex Campbell, Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital, and was hosted by Tony Greer and Jared Dillian.

The Damage Has Been Done

Even in a best case scenario where shipping lanes reopen immediately, Santiago Capital’s Brent Johnson says the damage is already embedded in the system.

“If everything opens tomorrow in the strait and goes back 100% to normal, there’s a five to six week open spot where ships are not arriving where they typically arrived.”

The warning came during last night’s ZH deep dive into a potential fertilizer and farming crisis, with possible Arab Spring-level disruptions in the Third World, but as Johnson said “the U.S. is not immune”.

Johnson joined Tony Greer and Jared Dillian of the Macro Dirt Podcast and former Bridgewater head of commodities Alex Campbell who now writes at campbellramble.ai. Here were the key moments for those short on time:

“Perfect Storm”

The five to six week wartime-gap (assuming that’s all) is colliding directly with the agricultural calendar.

Johnson: “The planting season is largely already over. And the fertilizers that would have normally been available were not. And those that were available were higher priced… You look at the number of bankruptcies that are being filed by farmers in the United States and it’s spiked.”

At the same time, weather risk is rising. “This is an El Niño year… and that throws all kinds of havoc with weather patterns.” The combination, he says, raises the probability of a delayed but meaningful shock.

“You could have a perfect storm six to nine months from now.”

Johnson points to prior episodes where similar conditions led to sharp price moves. “In 2007 and 2008, there was a food crisis… there was a supply disruption, a bad harvest, and policy decisions that diverted supply.” The result was significant inflation in staple commodities: “In 2007 and ‘08, rice spiked almost 200%. In 2010 and 11, wheat price went up 130%.”

“In all of these cases, you started to have social unrest” a la Arab Spring.

“When people are full and warm, they don’t typically protest. But when they’re cold and hungry, that’s when they start taking to the streets.”

pic.twitter.com/gHcRNn3pGh

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) May 2, 2026

Arab Spring 2.0

“When I was looking at prior food crisis… 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011… they were bad, but one of the reasons I think they could be worse now… at the time, those emerging markets and those developing countries were a lot more agrarian-based because that’s what they could afford.”

According to Johnson, over the past two decades, that standard of living… and importantly the expectation of a standard of living. “As they have moved into the middle class in places like China and India… they’ve gotten accustomed to having meat once in a while.”

Meat = more resource intensive. “People don’t really consume corn, but it’s a big part of the food stock that goes into poultry or beef… to grow the animal protein that people have gotten accustomed to eating.”

In developing countries, this could mean a reversion to poverty they’d expected was over:

“Now, if I have to suddenly start going back to just eating rice and I’m no longer having meat… I’m going to be pissed off.”

pic.twitter.com/1OlPUdrUEA

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) May 2, 2026

To listen the full discussion where Brent, Tony, Jared, and Alex go deep into the weeds for how investors can hedge against this scenario, watch the full debate below or listen on Spotify.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 11:05



 

 

This week, I speak with Lawrence Calcano, chairman and CEO of iCapital, about how he helped build the company into one of the globe’s leading platforms for alternative investments for wealth managers, advisors, bankers, and other financial professionals.

On iCapital’s fintech platform is over a $1 trillion in client funds across 2,100 funds managed on behalf of 118,000 financial professionals.

A transcript of our conversation is available here Sunday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Joe McLean, Managing Partner at MAI Capital Management, where he leads firm’s Sports & Entertainment division, serving 100s of pro athletes/entertainers across NBA, NFL, MLB, PGA + NASCAR. His path to finance runs directly through the locker room as a 4-year NCAA Division 1 player at U of Arizona. Dubbed the athlete’s “Money Whisperer” by the New York Times, he is known for his non-negotiable 60% savings mandate for clients.

 

 

 

Current Reading/Favorite Books

 

 

 

The post MiB: Lawrence Calcano, iCapital CEO appeared first on The Big Picture.

The post Purdue Pharma Bites the Dust: Can We Learn Anything? appeared first on CEPR.

USSS Chief Says Hilton Site Was 'Set Up Perfectly,' Critics Disagree

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

The head of the U.S. Secret Service is defending security arrangements at last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, saying he would not change a thing about the security plan, even as questions continue to swirl around the shooting and his leadership of the agency.

“The site was set up perfectly, I will tell you I would not change the site again,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran told Fox News host Will Cain Thursday.

Curran said one agent was shot at “point-blank range” by suspect Cole Tomas Allen as he dashed through a security checkpoint inside the Washington Hilton hotel, where President Donald Trump and thousands of guests had gathered for the annual dinner.

“Our officer heroically returned fire while being shot [at] point blank range in the chest with a shotgun,” Curran asserted. “[The officer] was able to get off five shots. It’s great training.”

The suspect was not struck by the agent’s return fire, Curran explained, alleging that Allen, 31, fell after hitting his knee and was subdued by other federal agents near the top of the stairs from the ballroom where Trump, the first lady, and top administration officials were dining.

Curran tried to stress that the actual place where Allen fell and was subdued was nearly 120 yards away from the podium where Trump and Vice President JD Vance were seated, along with top officers of the White House Press Corps Association. Curran argued that 120 yards is “a long distance to get to.” But Allen was just yards away from a short stairwell leading to a jam-packed ballroom filled with 2,600 guests, including numerous congressional leaders and Cabinet officials.

“If he had gotten through those ballroom doors, it would have been a catastrophic,” Rich Staropoli, a former Secret Service agent who protected four presidents and served as a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, told RealClearPolitics.

Former agents and other sources in the Secret Service community also noted that Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin who nearly killed Trump in July 2024 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was shooting from a distance of roughly 130 to 150 yards away from Trump and managed to strike his ear before a Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed him.

Curran also pushed back on reports that the officer who was shot and saved by his bullet-proof vest may have been hit by friendly fire. He pointedly added that agents “who weren’t in the game when they were agents” were criticizing the security plan and execution.

On Thursday Trump said Secret Service leadership has relayed the same message to him.

“They said it wasn’t friendly fire. It wasn’t us,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Curran also repeated the same assertion – that this was not a friendly-fire incident – to a lawmaker in response to questions during a congressional briefing convened by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a source familiar with the briefing told RCP.

His account, however, differs in some respects from court documents filed Wednesday by prosecutors. Those filings reference an officer firing five times but make no mention of that officer or any other being shot, and do not accuse the suspect of aiming at or striking a Secret Service officer.

Released Video Raises New Questions, Criticism

Newly released surveillance footage from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro shows Allen methodically casing the Washington Hilton in the hours before the attack – strolling hallways, peering into doorways, and scoping potential escape routes the day before the shooting.

On Friday, Allen appeared unhurried, even relaxed. He wandered through the hotel, at one point stopping to chat and smile with a Hilton staffer and later spending time in the hotel gym.

Saturday night's video, however, reveals a more sinister story. Allen is seen lurking behind a doorway in the upper left of the frame – and in what may be one of the most striking images in the footage, a Secret Service dog appears to zero in on him. The handler, however, pulls the animal back.

Moments later, Allen emerges with a shotgun, fires at least one round, and sprints past agents, apparently tripping and falling directly into the hands of responding officers – somehow escaping the hail of gunfire directed at him unscathed.

The video has revived concerns about the night’s security and whether the Secret Service was up to the task of preventing an attack. Critics maintain that the agency was simply lucky that Allen was working alone and that the security team seemed unprepared for a more professional organized threat with multiple assailants.

After viewing the video, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham also questioned Curran’s “set-up perfectly” narrative.

“Perimeter maintenance? Officers standing around, a few seemingly run away and falling into each other, K-9 sense not followed, officers only noticing Allen holding long gun when he was already through the magnetometer,” she said. “Thank God only one shooter and no bombs.”

Conservative commentator Clay Travis was equally unsparing.

“10 of the 11 guards weren’t paying attention when the guy with the gun came running at them attempting to kill the president,” he remarked on X.com. “And the one guy who was watching fired multiple shots from this close without hitting the would be assassin.”

Three federal officers lined up against the back wall appear to be Transportation Security Administration employees who likely helped with bag screening, according to federal law enforcement sources. When they saw Allen running with a shotgun, the trio crunched down and crawled around the corner.

Earlier in the day, reporters asked Trump if he believed he needs to wear a bulletproof vest to protect himself. Trump appeared reluctant. “I don’t know if I can handle looking 20 pounds heavier,” he quipped, adding more seriously: “I guess it’s something you consider. In one way you don’t like to do it because you’re giving in to a bad element.”

Trump has stood by the Secret Service leadership, even praising the agents who subdued Allen for doing an “outstanding job.” But the White House also released a statement Monday stating that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles would meet with Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security leaders this week to review security protocols for major events involving Trump.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve security,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “I think if you just sit here and say everything is perfect all the time, â??that’s not a good way to operate.”

Several former and current Secret Service agents contacted for this article said suggestions that Trump should be forced to take the extreme measure of wearing a bullet-proof vest are only being considered because the agency failed in securing the White House Correspondents’ dinner. The security plan appeared very similar to past dinners when then-Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama attended, but was completely outdated for the obvious high threat-level Trump currently faces after two assassination attempts and explicit threats from Iranian officials, the sources argued.

“The Secret Service got incredibly lucky again, and luck isn’t a security strategy,” Staropoli said. “What if it had been multiple attackers or an explosive device, so how do you counter that? The obvious nature of the deficiencies here is ridiculous.”

Staropoli argues that Curran took a “big gamble unnecessarily” in allowing Trump, Vance, and many other Cabinet secretaries to attend the dinner.

He and other sources in the Secret Service community interviewed for this article argued that Curran should have informed Trump that the Washington Hilton was not a suitable venue. Instead, the agents in charge of devising the security plan for the night left many aspects of the hotel unsecured, including the staircase Allen used to access the checkpoint.

The close call that terrorized the entire ballroom is spurring more questions about Curran’s leadership, including whether his decisions to remove experienced senior leaders from both the Presidential Protective Division and its counterpart that secures the vice president contributed to poor planning for the dinner.

For decades, leadership of the Presidential Protective Division and Vice Presidential Protective Division was the capstone of a career trajectory that ran through the Senior Executive Service – the federal government’s elite management corps. Agents who rose to Special Agent in Charge or Deputy Special Agent in Charge of these divisions had typically accumulated years of varied leadership assignments, accumulated SES credentials, and been vetted through a rigorous internal pipeline.

Under Curran, multiple sources say, that pipeline has been dismantled. The director changed internal requirements so that SES experience is no longer mandatory for those top leadership roles – clearing the way for the promotion of agents who had not gone through the SES pipeline.

The starkest example, sources say, is the forced departure of David Yamin, who served as the last SES-credentialed Deputy Special Agent in Charge on PPD. Sources describe Yamin’s exit as effectively engineered by Curran to open the position for Matt Piant, a Curran loyalist, and others in the director’s trusted circle.

“David Yamin was exactly the kind of person you want in that role,” said one veteran agent. “SES, deep experience, knows how to run a detail. He didn’t leave voluntarily.”

The concern is not merely bureaucratic. Senior agents say the leadership gaps may have contributed to operational missteps, including the reported use of an outdated security model for the WHCA event at the Washington Hilton.

Curran Gave Himself and His Friends ‘Valor Awards’

In late March, Curran made waves across the agency by giving himself and several of his friends and senior Secret Service officials he placed in key leadership roles “valor awards,” announced through email to all employees of the Secret Service. The valor awards are just some of those the director designates each year while others include a Life-Saving Award for agents and officers who perform heroic actions on or off duty.

Agency employees are nominated for the awards by peers and supervisors, but the director has the final say. A source familiar with this year’s process said Piant nominated Curran for the award. Despite the failures that nearly resulted in Trump’s assassination at the Butler rally, Curran also gave Piant the award, along with all of the agents who helped Trump off the stage after he was shot in the ear, along with two counter-assault team members who worked the event.

Butler, the Iranian Threat, and a Junior Staffer’s Demand

Another illustration of what critics describe as a leadership culture afraid to say no to Trump’s team dates back to the Butler rally.

According to multiple Secret Service sources familiar with the security planning for Butler, a junior Trump campaign official raised an objection: The campaign did not want farm equipment visible in the camera shot behind the stage. The Secret Service, these sources say, had positioned that equipment in part because of intelligence indicating the potential of a long-range shooter, possibly of Iranian origin, in Butler.

Curran, sources say, agreed to remove the farm equipment – eliminating a line-of-sight barrier – at the request of a campaign aide, despite having been briefed on the threat.

“A director who will tell the president what he needs to hear, who will hold the line on a security call, is the whole job,” said one former senior DHS official. “That moment in Butler should have been a line in the sand. It wasn’t.”

The gunman at Butler fired from an unsecured rooftop with a direct line of sight to the stage.

Two months after Trump was nearly killed at Butler, a Secret Service agent discovered would-be assassin Ryan Routh armed and hiding in the bushes on the perimeter of a Florida golf course with his rifle pointing at Trump. The agent fired several rounds that didn’t hit Routh, who was later stopped and arrested while driving on the interstate.

Neither Curran nor Piant or any other GS-15 level agent was assigned to lead the detail that day. (GS-15 is the highest rung of the federal government’s pay scale before an employee enters the SES level.

“Curran has a pattern of being complacent and taking care of his buddies instead of doing the right thing,” a source in the Secret Service community told RCP.

The Secret Service did not respond to a repeated queries from RCP this week.

No Accountability After Two Attempts

Despite two assassination attempts on Trump – Butler in July and his golf course in September – no one in the Secret Service has been held accountable for the security lapses. Those involved in failures received 11- to 42-day suspensions. As the detail leader, Curran himself signed off on the flawed security plan, according to multiple Secret Service sources.

Meanwhile, Curran promoted two supervisors who oversaw the Butler detail, Nick Menster and Nick Olszerski. Menster was a supervisor for the Butler rally on the Donald Trump detail, while Olszewski was an inspector acting in a supervisory role.

After Butler, Menster became the No. 2 on the Lara and Eric Trump detail, and Olszewski was put in charge of the Inspections Division, which falls under the Office of Professional Responsibility and is charged with maintaining accountability and integrity for all Secret Service operations. Earlier this year, Olszewski was promoted to the leadership post of assistant director of the Office of Professional Responsibility, sources told RCP.

Some rank-and-file agents have been incensed over the decision not to hold these supervisors accountable, further sinking already low morale and exacerbating retention problems throughout the agency.

A Recruitment Crisis – and a Standards Crisis

Behind the leadership turmoil is a broader personnel crisis. Recruitment bonuses, which once ranged from $45,000 to $50,000, have been increased to $75,000 in an attempt to hasten recruitment and hiring. The agency also utilizes retention bonuses, often up to 10%-25% of base salary, but senior agents are still leaving in significant numbers, sources say, exhausted by the dysfunction and diminished by an agency culture in free fall.

The Secret Service’s use of TSA agents to supplement screening is a telltale sign that the agency is undermanned, according to a Secret Service agent who recently left. In the past, TSA screeners only joined Secret Service security screenings during times that required extreme manpower needs, such as during the campaign conventions. 

The rush to fill the ranks, some say, has come with an erosion of standards – a dangerous combination for an agency whose core mission is protecting the most targeted person on earth.

A Cascade of Misconduct

Curran’s leadership tenure has coincided with a striking accumulation of scandals, mishaps, and security lapses, many of which RCP first reported.

• In recent weeks, Secret Service agent Tristan William Hale was charged criminally with sending explicit material to a 16-year-old Pennsylvania girl.
• Two agents became ensnared in separate sex-related scandals within the span of two months, including one involving an OnlyFans account and another in a recorded honey-pot sting operation organized by James O'Keefe.
• In late March, a U.S. Secret Service special agent assigned to former first lady Jill Biden’s protective detail accidentally shot himself in the leg at Philadelphia International Airport. 
• Special Agent Miyo Perez – who was responsible for Butler site security – secretly married a foreign national suspected of being an undocumented immigrant, without informing the agency until January.
• In January, a man allegedly broke windows at Vance’s Ohio home while Vance and his family were in D.C., but his parents were on the property. Secret Service agents were parked outside when it occurred and didn’t stop him.
• Two female Uniformed Division officers were recorded in a physical altercation outside former President Obama’s Washington, D.C., residence last year.
• Last autumn, an overweight male agent fell asleep at a public security post at the United Nations, then left his M4 rifle in a folding chair while he went to the restroom.
• Uniformed Division officers failed to detect a Glock handgun during a screening at Trump’s Virginia golf course.
• A Secret Service agent publicly celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Facebook, writing on Facebook that it was “karma.”
• Richard Giuditta,the agency’s chief counsel, was forced to resign following a road rage incident in which he impersonated a federal officer.
• Chief of Staff Tyler McQuiston admitted an unauthorized visitor – a former Citigroup colleague – to the White House for a meeting the visitor had not been cleared to attend. In an unprecedented response, the White House urged the Secret Service to ensure it never happened again. A top official decided to revoke the security badges of numerous top Secret Service officials to limit their own agency’s access to the building they are charged with protecting.
• Secret Service agents failed to prevent Code Pink protesters from aggressively confronting Trump and senior Cabinet members at a Washington restaurant.
• The FBI late last year raided a Secret Service agent’s home in connection with an alleged large-scale tax fraud scheme, potentially involving dozens of additional agents.
• A newly sworn Secret Service agent was charged with killing his brother over the Christmas holiday.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 09:20

Spirit Airlines 'Bites The Dust' As All Flights Canceled; Trump Admin To Provide 'Relief' To Customers, Workers

The collapse of bankrupt Spirit Airlines is now official.

After several failed attempts by the Trump administration to engineer a rescue package, including a proposed $500 million financing deal that could have left the U.S. government with control of up to 90% of the budget carrier, negotiations broke down late this week.

By Saturday morning, Spirit had begun winding down operations, with all flights canceled and the carrier entering liquidation mode.

The outcome marks the final flight for the budget airline, crushed by years of operational stress, failed merger attempts, mounting debt, and a brutal jet-fuel price shock that derailed its efforts to emerge from bankruptcy this summer.

Well… oops https://t.co/Ahv3e2M8vU

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 1, 2026

The Trump administration was willing to explore an extraordinary state-backed rescue to save nearly 7,500 jobs.

Now, however, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has announced "ACTION to bring relief to Spirit customers and its workforce." This will include other airlines (United, Delta, JetBlue & Southwest) agreeing to cap ticket prices for Spirit customers who have been left in the lurch, reduced fares on 'high-volume Spirit routes", while American Airlines and United "are creating microsites for Spirit employees looking to continue a career in aviation."

In coordination with our airline partners, we’re taking ACTION to bring relief to Spirit customers and its workforce.

From capped ticket prices for flyers who need to rebook to employees looking for job opportunities, there’s a lot of information you should be aware of.…

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) May 2, 2026

Spirit's statement about winding down operations:

It is with great disappointment that Spirit Airlines has started winding down its global operations, effective immediately. All flights have been cancelled, and customer service is no longer available. While we are not able to help rebook your flight on another airline, we will automatically process refunds for any flights purchased through Spirit with a credit or debit card to the original form of payment. We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry for the last 33 years and had hoped to serve our Guests for many years to come.

pic.twitter.com/Wz3ilRHD2z

— Spirit Airlines (@SpiritAirlines) May 2, 2026

Polymarket odds:

US takes a stake in Spirit Airlines by May 31?

//--> //--> US takes a stake in Spirit Airlines by May 31?
Yes 16% · No 84%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Spirit Airlines shutdown/liquidation by May 31?

Very easy money

SPIRIT AIRLINES STARTS ORDERLY WIND-DOWN OF OPERATIONS https://t.co/PAtaxmG5gv

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 2, 2026

Even as Spirit begins winding down operations, President Trump said Friday that he will "have something on Spirit today or tomorrow."

What that means at this stage is anyone's guess, especially with rescue talks reportedly dead and the airline already moving into full shutdown mode.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 08:45

China's Foreign Minister To Rubio: Taiwan Is 'Biggest Risk Factor' In US-China Relations

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him that the issue of Taiwan is the"biggest risk factor" in relations between Washington and Beijing, Chinese media has reported.

"The Taiwan issue concerns China’s core interests and is the biggest risk factor in China-US relations," Wang said, according to The South China Morning Post, which cited China’s CCTV broadcaster.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (Chinese Foreign Ministry photo)

"The US side should honor its commitments, make the right choice, open up new avenues for China-US cooperation, and do its part to promote world peace," Wang added.

The call comes after Taiwan’s government announced it had signed contracts with the US for about $6.6 billion in arms, including a nearly $4 billion sale of HIMARS rocket systems.

The contracts are a partial fulfillment of a massive $11 billion weapons package that the Trump administration approved in December, a number that represents more arms deals than were approved during the entire Biden administration.

Taipei Times has noted that "The HIMARS can be equipped with either a pod of six 227mm rockets or a single Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which has a range of up to 300km (186 miles)."

China reacted strongly when the US approved the series of weapons deals, launching major military drills around Taiwan simulating a blockade. Beijing first launched such drills in August 2022 in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.

Wang’s warning to Rubio reflects a position China has repeatedly stated to the US in recent years, that Taiwan is the first "red line" in US-China relations.

The two diplomats also discussed President Trump’s upcoming visit to Beijing for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, scheduled for mid-May.

Wang said that the US and China "must safeguard the hard-won stability and make thorough preparations for the coming high-level engagements."

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 08:10

Ferrari Hybrid Values Sink As Buyers Chase V8s And V12s

Goldman's Ferrari Residual Value Index shows that used Ferrari listing prices remained under pressure in April, down 3.4% year over year. However, analysts noted signs of "stabilization and partial improvements" after a weak second half of 2025.

One notable takeaway from analyst Christian Frenes: Ferrari hybrids are depreciating far faster than their petrol-powered counterparts, suggesting buyers still prefer V-8s and V-12s combustion-engine models. In other words, the used market is sending a very clear signal to Ferrari that its wealthy customer base is not sold on the hybrid era.

The chart below shows a clear divide in the Ferrari market: older, combustion models are holding their value much better than newer hybrid models.

The biggest winners versus the original retail price are:

• 812 GTS: up about 29.8%

• F8 Spider: up about 25.5%

• 488 Spider: up about 15.7%

• Ferrari Roma Spider: up about 14.3%

• SF90 Spider: up about 2.8%

The laggards are mostly newer hybrid or less-favored models:

• 296 GTS: down about 1.4%

• 296 GTB: down about 7.0%

• Ferrari Roma: down about 9.8%

• Ferrari Portofino: down about 11.2%

• SF90 Stradale: down about 12.2%

The next chart shows that values deteriorated across most model lines over the past year, even for models still trading at a premium to retail. The best-performing cars, like the 812 GTS and F8 Spider, have come off their highs but remain well above their original sticker prices. Meanwhile, hybrid models such as the 296 GTB/GTS and SF90 Stradale have slipped below their original retail prices.

The big takeaway from Goldman is that Ferrari's used-car market is stabilizing, but wealthy customers still prefer V8 and V12 combustion models and continue to shun new hybrids.

Professional subscribers can read the full GS Ferrari Tracker note at our new Marketdesk.ai portal

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 07:35

Syrian Gets Just Six Months In Jail For Raping 13-Year-Old Girl After Court Cites His Low IQ

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

A 21-year-old Syrian man convicted of raping a 13-year-old Norwegian girl in a bike shed will serve just six months in prison after a court cited his low IQ, limited development, and a recent change in Norwegian sentencing law.

Abdelmonem Abdelrazak Al-Yousef was found guilty by Nord-Troms and Senja District Court on March 31 in relation to the rape that occurred during the night of Sept. 7, 2024, near the Harbour Terminal in Tromso.

As reported by Norwegian news outlet Document, the teen victim had left her home during the night and gone into the city center. At the Harbour Terminal, she encountered Al-Yousef and another man. The court said there was little conversation because the defendant spoke only Arabic.

The court found that Al-Yousef first assaulted the girl on a bench near the Edge Hotel before the abuse continued in a covered bicycle parking area belonging to the Harbour Terminal. He also attempted vaginal intercourse, but the judgment said he did not succeed because the victim did not want to.

Al-Yousef, who arrived in Norway from Syria in 2023, initially denied ever meeting the girl and denied being the person seen in surveillance images. He later admitted meeting and kissing her, but continued to deny sexual activity or entering the bicycle area.

Police found semen on the asphalt at the scene, and DNA testing linked it to Al-Yousef. The court rejected his defense, noting it was entirely lacking in credibility.

The court also found that Al-Yousef should have understood the girl was underage. The victim had said she was born in 2008, while a witness said she appeared visibly young and childlike. In a police interview, Al-Yousef himself said she looked small and around the same age as his younger sister, who was born in 2010.

However, the sentence was reduced after forensic psychiatric experts found that he had a mild intellectual disability. One assessment estimated his IQ at 41, although a later report put it in the range of 64 to 75.

The court treated his condition as a mitigating factor and said that, despite being 19 years and 8 months old at the time of the offense, his developmental level could be considered comparable to that of the 13-year-old victim.

The judgment, cited by Utenfilter, said, “In mitigation, the court finds that it must be emphasized that the defendant is most likely no further along in development than the victim, and that he appears to have a reduced understanding of reality.”

The case was also affected by a Norwegian legal change that entered into force last July, when the minimum sentence for rape of children under 14 was repealed. Previously, such cases carried a minimum sentence of three years in prison.

The court described the abuse as degrading and clearly exploitative, noting that it took place outdoors in public after the defendant and victim had met only a short time earlier. It nevertheless set a starting point of two years in prison before reducing the effective sentence.

After deductions for Al-Yousef’s low level of development and the age of the case, one year and six months of the sentence was made conditional with a three-year probation period. As a result, he will serve six months in prison.

The victim was awarded 280,000 Norwegian kroner (€25,700) in compensation for damages. The court said that although the girl had reportedly not described the incident as especially burdensome, she was young and such events could affect her later in life.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/02/2026 - 07:00

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• The Un-Fuckening: Stop talking about AI like this: Stop it with the rageposting. Stop it with the performative fearmongering. Stop behaving like little brats getting a high from scaring each other in the locker room, desperate to prove they belong. There is no shortage of voices predicting some version of social collapse. Their vision of the future somehow always involves most people getting left behind. (Dadalogue)

•  The Strait of Hormuz is today’s energy chokepoint. China is tomorrow’s.: A Big Think piece arguing the geographic chokepoints that matter for energy security are shifting east. As the global economy moves beyond oil, the strategic importance of the world’s most critical hydrocarbon chokepoint is likely to decline rapidly. (Big Think)

• The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters: The NYT Magazine’s definitive ranking — guaranteed to start arguments, end friendships, and generate more heat than light. That’s the point. (New York Times)

• The Old Guard: Confronting America’s gerontocratic crisis: Between 1960 and 1990, the median age of members of Congress was in the early fifties. In the three decades that followed, the median surpassed sixty. Among the effects of this trend has been the on-­the-­job senility or death (or both) of those who govern us. (Harper’s Magazine)

• 11 Discoveries That Changed My Worldview: Have you ever taken a pause and considered the events, learnings, and forks in the road that have constructed and built your current worldview? (The Great Simplification)

• The Social Edge of Intelligence: An argument that what we call ‘intelligence’ is mostly social cognition wearing a lab coat. Worth a read if you think IQ debates miss the point. AI doesn’t really “think.” Rather, it remembers how we thought together. And we’re about to stop giving it anything worth remembering. (The Ideas Letter)

•  U.S. Mint Buys Drug Cartel Gold and Sells It as ‘American’: A jaw-dropping investigation into how cartel-laundered Colombian gold ends up in U.S. coins. The supply chain rinses cleaner than the money. As prices for the precious metal soar, the industry’s guardrails have broken down. (New York Times)

•  What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?: Mathematicians are quietly exploring physics without infinities — and finding the framework holds up. A satisfying primer on a deep idea. Ultrafinitism, a philosophy that rejects the infinite, has long been dismissed as mathematical heresy. But it is also producing new insights in math and beyond. (Quanta Magazine)

•  An Oral History of the Harvard Lampoon, the College Magazine That Remade Comedy: A look back at the 150-year-old college humor magazine whose alums went on to write Conan, SNL, The Simpsons, and a generation’s worth of American comedy. (Washington Post)

• What to Watch For at the 2026 Kentucky Derby: We found the 5 most important rules of thumb when trying to figure out which horse will wear the roses. (Neil’s Substack)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Lawrence Calcano, CEO and Chairman of iCapital, The firm is a fintech platform built to be the OS for alternative investments and complex products for financial advisors, wealth managers, and banks. The firm has over $1.2 trillion in active global assets on platform,  across 2,455 funds used by 123,ooo financial professionals.

 

SpaceX Is Going Public. Why a Tesla Merger Could Be Musk’s Real Endgame

Source: Barron’s

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

~~~

To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.

 

The post 10 Weekend Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Mills Drops Out In Maine Governor's Race As Oysterman With Nazi Tattoo Becomes Democratic Frontrunner

Maine Gov. Janet Mills suspended her U.S. Senate campaign Thursday morning, citing a lack of financial resources. That's the official explanation. The more accurate one is that the polls showed her trailing badly to Graham Platner, an oysterman from coastal Maine with no electoral experience. 

Mills had every structural advantage working for her: she’d already won a statewide election, had name identification, and the support of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The writing was on the wall for weeks, but Mills’s exit from the race was her concession that all the momentum on the Democratic side was for Platner. 

Platner had long lapped Mills in polling and fundraising, and she'd stopped running television ads weeks earlier. Which means Platner will be the party's nominee against Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most consequential Senate races of the 2026 cycle.

In 2007, Graham Platner got a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest. He kept it there for roughly 18 years. He claims he didn't know what the symbol meant for nearly two decades. But there is significant evidence that he did, and that it was intentional. Platner amplified a social media post from Stew Peters, a neo-Nazi radio host the Anti-Defamation League has called "a prolific antisemite" who blames "'the Jews' for everything he believes is wrong with society" and who has openly called for a "final solution" to mass-deport American Jews. Platner deleted the post, but only after it got attention, not before. He also sat for a lengthy interview with antisemitic conspiracy theorist Nate Cornacchia, describing himself as a longtime fan. He has called the U.S.-Israel relationship "shameful" and praised a violent Hamas attack on Israel in 2014.

"In November Susan Collins, a proven leader with an indisputable record of delivering for Maine, will face a Nazi sympathizing self-proclaimed communist with a record of hate-mongering and dishonesty," said RNC spokesperson Kristen Cianci. "It's safe to say we are confident going into Election Day."

There’s no denying that a candidate with this profile would have been a liability the party ran from not all that long ago. Now he's the frontrunner with enough momentum that he forced the sitting governor - recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer himself - to drop out of the race.

This didn't materialize overnight. The Democratic Party's tolerance for anti-Israel sentiment has been building for decades. 

The trajectory is traceable. 

Barack Obama won the presidency despite his two-decade relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a pastor whose hostility toward Israel and Jews was a matter of public record. Once in office, Obama systematically manufactured distance between Washington and Jerusalem, signaling that cool skepticism toward Israel was not just acceptable but arguably sophisticated Democratic foreign policy. 

Obama’s administration was the most anti-Israel administration since Jimmy Carter, and it frequently undermined our democratic ally in the Middle East. Obama exposed classified information about Israel's nuclear capabilities - an alarming breach of trust. His IRS targeted pro-Israel organizations, and his administration declined to enforce anti-BDS provisions, effectively offering a federal green light to a movement whose stated purpose is the economic strangulation of the Jewish state. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, delegates initially refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital — a true sign that the party was becoming more openly antisemitic.

Joe Biden accelerated the trend by allowing the antisemitic wing of his party to set the terms of the Israel debate rather than confronting it. Last year, polling showed Democrats favoring Palestinians over Israelis by a staggering 59–21 percent margin, and overall American sympathy for Israel reached a 25-year low. 

The line from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama to Graham Platner is unmistakable. It also helps explain how anti-Israel sentiment found a foothold inside the Democratic Party. Each step made the next one easier to accept, and party leadership either accepted it each time or chose not to push back.

Ironically, Democrats spent years calling their Republican opponents Nazis. The charge was deployed so casually and so broadly that it became almost ambient noise in American political life. Now the same party is on the verge of nominating a man who wore a Nazi symbol on his chest for two decades as its nominee for the United States Senate in Maine. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 22:55

Ex-CIA Analyst Warns Hegseth's Claim Of "Ironclad" Hormuz Blockade Deeply Misleading 

Authored by former CIA officer Larry Johnson

Pete Hegseth is lying about the US blockade of Iranian ports. On April 12, after JD Vance announced that talks with Iran had failed, Trump declared a naval blockade of Iranian ports and coastal areas. CENTCOM clarified that the blockade would be enforced against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports, but would not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.

Now, after more than two weeks, Pete Hegseth has been saying the US blockade is working and getting stronger, describing it as “ironclad,” “tightening by the hour,” and even “going global.” He said the Navy had turned back 34 ships, that transit through the Strait of Hormuz is now “much more limited,” and that the blockade will last “as long as it takes.”

He also framed the blockade as coercive leverage on Iran, saying it is meant to cut off shipping pressure until Tehran abandons its nuclear ambitions. In the same remarks, he warned the US would “shoot to destroy” any Iranian boats laying mines or otherwise threatening commercial shipping.

Here’s what the available data tells us about Strait of Hormuz transits since April 15:

Daily volumes (around April 15): On April 15 alone, there were 19 transits — 5 inbound and 14 outbound — according to Windward. Around that same period, April 11 saw 17 transits, April 12 saw 21, and April 13 saw 17. United Against Nuclear IranWindward

Overall picture since April 15: A precise cumulative total from April 15 through today (April 30) isn’t publicly available in a single figure, but based on the data points above, daily transits have been running roughly in the range of 6–21 ships per day. Recent data from Windward and AIS trackers confirm persistent low volumes of 6–13 vessels daily.

That would put a rough estimate somewhere in the ballpark of 100–200 total transits over the 15-day stretch since April 15 — though the true number could be higher due to GPS spoofing. I can’t comment on GPS spoofing, but I can say with certainty that Pete Hegseth is spoofing the American public about the effectiveness of the blockade.

In order to understand Hegseth’s perfidy, you need to understand the US Navy doctrine for handling a blockade. The US Navy’s approach to taking control of a ship seized during a blockade centers on Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) operations, governed primarily by the Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (NWP 1-14M/MCTP 11-10B, March 2022) and aligned with the law of armed conflict (LOAC), including customary rules on blockades.

Standard Procedure for Seizure & Control

1. Interception and Warnings: US forces (Navy warships, often with Marine or Coast Guard support) issue radio warnings, visual signals, or warning shots to order the vessel to stop. Non-compliance can lead to disabling fire (e.g., targeting engines) to halt the ship without sinking it.
2. Boarding (VBSS): A specialized boarding party—typically from the Navy, Marines (e.g., 31st MEU), or Coast Guard—approaches via small boats, helicopters, or fast-roping. The team secures the bridge, engine room, and key areas to establish control. Teams train for both compliant and non-compliant (opposed) boardings, using tactics for close-quarters battle, searches, and restraint of crew.
3. Taking Control:
   • The boarding party assumes operational command of the vessel.
   • In a formal wartime blockade or armed conflict context, a prize crew (detachment of US personnel) may be placed aboard to sail the seized ship to a friendly port for adjudication. The original crew can be detained, removed, or (for neutrals) sometimes allowed limited continued presence under guard.
   • The ship and cargo become subject to inspection for contraband, sanctions violations, or blockade breach. Under prize law (revivable in armed conflict), a prize court may condemn the vessel/cargo as lawful prize.
4. Post-Seizure: Here is the key point: the vessel is typically escorted to a US or allied port for further inspection, potential forfeiture, or release if the capture is deemed unlawful. Crew handling follows LOAC (e.g., humane treatment; possible internment for belligerents).

Blockades are acts of war requiring effective enforcement (impartial, declared, and maintained by force). Violators (enemy or neutral ships breaching or attempting to breach) are subject to capture

Now that you understand the procedure, let’s look at the US Navy's constraints. As I discussed in my last article, the US Navy is keeping its ships 200 miles off the coast of Iran. If the venture any closer to shore they are vulnerable to missile and drone attacks. The Iranian ships — when they leave port — normally stay within 50 miles of the Iranian coast, which means they are outside the reach of the US Navy.

Fifty two Iranian vessels have crossed a US-imposed blockade of Iranian waters within a 72-hour period...
https://t.co/mZrwK5qijI

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) April 29, 2026

Next, let’s look at the current US Navy order of battle (this is based on publicly available information). As of late April 2026, the US Navy has at least 14 actively operating or supporting in the broader region (Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, and relevant Indian Ocean areas). This includes three Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs); at least eight multiple guided-missile destroyers; six ships attached to the Amphibious Ready Groups (ARG) for the 31st and 11th MEUs, and two additional escorts (not part of the core ARG but often operate with it): the Cruiser USS Robert Smalls (CG-62) and the destroyer USS Rafael Peralta (DDG-115), forming a broader Expeditionary Strike Group. In other words, the US Navy only as 11 ships that could be used in a VBSS operation.

Do you see the math problem? The current US deployment means that the US Navy could do VBSS operations on 11 vessels… Tops! But that would mean that US destroyers, which have the mission of protecting the US carriers from air attacks, would have to be pulled off of their primary mission leaving the carriers to fend for themselves. If we assume that all 11 US ships carried out successful VBSS operations since 15 April, that means between 89% and 96% of all Iranian ships out of the Strait of Hormuz have evaded the blockade. Hegseth is lying.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 22:25

This Is The Salary Needed To Live Comfortably In US Cities

How much do you need to earn to live comfortably in a major American city? Increasingly, the answer is a six-figure salary.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, shows the income required for a comfortable lifestyle across 56 U.S. cities, factoring in housing, food, transportation, savings, and discretionary spending.

The data comes from SmartAsset, using the MIT Living Wage Calculator and updated in February 2026.

The Highest-Cost Cities Now Require Nearly $160K

New York tops the list at $158,954, narrowly ahead of San Jose at $158,080.

California accounts for many of the highest-cost cities overall, with Irvine, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and Sacramento all ranking near the top.

Rank City Salary to live comfortably 1 New York, NY $158,954 2 San Jose, CA $158,080 3 Irvine, CA $151,965 4 Boston, MA $139,776 5 San Diego, CA $136,781 6 San Francisco, CA $134,950 7 Oakland, CA $134,410 8 Honolulu, HI $128,253 9 Seattle, WA $127,296 10 Jersey City, NJ $127,005 11 Arlington, VA $125,882 12 Los Angeles, CA $120,307 13 Riverside, CA $119,974 14 Sacramento, CA $117,021 15 Portland, OR $116,106 16 Washington, DC $111,155 17 Denver, CO $110,781 18 Raleigh, NC $110,490 19 Virginia Beach, VA $110,448 20 Plano, TX $109,242 21 Atlanta, GA $108,451 22 Miami, FL $108,077 23 Charlotte, NC $106,205 24 Phoenix, AZ $106,122 25 Chicago, IL $105,830 26 Tacoma, WA $105,290 27 Newark, NJ $104,125 28 Boise, ID $104,000 29 Tampa, FL $102,710 30 Nashville, TN $102,502 31 Reno, NV $102,419 32 Minneapolis, MN $102,045 33 Anchorage, AK $101,795 34 Madison, WI $101,754 35 Durham, NC $101,296 36 Colorado Springs, CO $100,464 37 Austin, TX $98,550 38 Fort Worth, TX $97,552 39 Richmond, VA $97,178 40 Philadelphia, PA $97,094 41 Dallas, TX $96,970 42 Buffalo, NY $96,221 43 St. Paul, MN $96,054 44 Pittsburgh, PA $95,472 45 Omaha, NE $94,765 46 Orlando, FL $93,475 47 Columbus, OH $92,810 48 Jacksonville, FL $92,518 49 Kansas City, MO $92,144 50 Indianapolis, IN $90,896 51 Houston, TX $89,981 52 Tulsa, OK $88,317 53 Baltimore, MD $87,485 54 Memphis, TN $86,320 55 New Orleans, LA $84,406 56 San Antonio, TX $83,242

Taken together, the top of the ranking highlights how concentrated the highest costs are in a handful of major metros, particularly in California and the Northeast.

Boston, Honolulu, Seattle, and Jersey City also stand out, showing that the highest salary thresholds extend well beyond just a handful of coastal hubs.

Six-Figure Salaries Are Becoming the Norm

A key shift in the data is how quickly six-figure income requirements have spread beyond the most expensive cities.

Beyond the usual high-cost leaders, cities such as Denver, Atlanta, Nashville, Charlotte, and Boise now require roughly $100K or more for a comfortable lifestyle. That shift suggests higher living costs are no longer confined to the country’s most expensive coastal markets.

Lower-Cost Cities Still Require Substantial Income

At the lower end of the ranking, the salary needed to live comfortably still remains substantial. San Antonio has the lowest threshold at $83,069, followed by Memphis at $86,444 and Tulsa at $87,690.

Even in the most affordable cities on the map, the income needed for a comfortable lifestyle is far above what many households earn, highlighting how even the most “affordable” major cities now require incomes that were once considered high.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Where Americans Pay the Most Income Tax on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 21:55

DOJ Probes 36 Illinois School Districts Over Sexual Orientation Content In Pre-K–12 Classes

Authored by Naveen Anthrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division has launched multiple investigations into 36 Illinois public school districts to assess whether sexual orientation and gender ideology content is being taught in pre-K-12 grade classes.

If the districts are determined to be teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology-related content, “the investigations will examine whether the schools have notified parents of their right to opt their children out of such instruction,” the DOJ said in an April 30 statement.

“The investigation will also assess whether the Illinois School Districts limit access to single-sex intimate spaces (such as bathrooms and locker rooms) and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex.”

The probe will cover whether the districts violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. The districts are “recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funding,” the DOJ said.

The investigations will also look into whether the school districts adhere to the U.S. Supreme Court’s “extensive precedents on parental rights” as affirmed in Mirabelli v. Bonta and Mahmoud v. Taylor cases.

In the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Supreme Court blocked a California policy on March 2 that prohibited school personnel from informing parents when their children requested changing their preferred gender identity at schools.

“The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy,” the court wrote in its decision. “But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.”

In the Mahmoud v. Taylor lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Maryland parents, who, for religious reasons, wanted to opt their children out from getting exposed to school storybooks promoting LGBT lifestyles.

Commenting on the DOJ’s probe into 36 Illinois school districts, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the department’s Civil Rights Division said, “This Department of Justice is determined to put an end to local school authorities keeping parents in the dark about how sexuality and gender ideology are being pushed in classrooms.”

“Supreme Court precedent leaves no doubt: parents have the fundamental right and primary authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children,” he said. “This includes exempting their children from ideological instruction that contradicts their values or decisions about their children’s health and best interests.”

The Illinois school districts under investigation include Bloomington Public Schools District, Lick Creek Community Consolidated School District, O’Fallon Community Consolidated School District, and Pembroke Community Consolidated School District.

The Epoch Times reached out to these school districts for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

The full list of school districts being probed was posted on the DOJ website.

Gender Ideology Investigations

On April 17, the Department of Education said it found four school districts in Kansas to have violated Title IX and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

These districts had policies “that were likely to prevent schools from notifying parents of their child’s so-called ‘gender transition,’ even if the parent requested their child’s records,” the department said.

In August 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asked 46 states and territories to remove gender identity references from teaching materials, failing which they would face penalties, including the termination or suspension of federal funding.

This was met with a legal challenge by a coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia, which filed a lawsuit in September 2025, arguing that terminating funding would harm “the very populations Congress intended to help.” The plaintiffs said complying with the order would conflict with their own laws and policies that require “inclusive” sex education curricula.

“The federal government’s far-reaching efforts to erase people who don’t fit one of two gender labels is illegal and wrong—and would deny services to millions more in the process,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. The case is still ongoing in the court.

The HHS justified its order by citing a Jan. 29, 2025, executive order signed by President Donald Trump—Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling—which said that no federal dollars should go towards indoctrinating children in “radical, anti-American ideologies.”

At the time of the HHS order, Andrew Gradison, acting assistant secretary for the department’s Administration for Children and Families, said that “federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 21:25

Hawaii Has America's Highest Life Expectancy, West Virginia The Lowest

Life expectancy varies widely across the U.S., with clear regional patterns emerging in the latest data.

States in the Northeast and on the West Coast tend to have higher life expectancies, while many in the South and Appalachia rank lower.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows these differences using data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, based on 2022 life tables published in December 2025, the latest publicly available state-level figures as of March 2026.

The CDC’s report uses period life tables, which estimate how long a hypothetical group would live if it experienced the death rates observed in 2022 at every age. In other words, the measure captures current mortality conditions in each state, not a forecast for babies born there today.

Where Americans Live the Longest, and the Shortest

Among the 50 states and D.C., Hawaii had the highest life expectancy at birth in 2022 at 80.0 years. Massachusetts followed at 79.8, with New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut close behind.

The data table below shows the life expectancy of every U.S. state and D.C.:

Rank State Life Expectancy (Years) 1 Hawaii 80.0 2 Massachusetts 79.8 3 New Jersey 79.6 4 New York 79.5 5 Connecticut 79.4 6 California 79.3 7 Minnesota 79.3 8 Rhode Island 79.2 9 Utah 79.0 10 New Hampshire 78.7 11 Colorado 78.5 12 Idaho 78.4 13 Washington 78.4 14 Nebraska 78.3 15 Vermont 78.3 16 Wisconsin 78.1 17 North Dakota 77.9 18 Iowa 77.9 19 Florida 77.9 20 Maryland 77.8 21 Oregon 77.7 22 Illinois 77.5 23 Virginia 77.5 24 Pennsylvania 77.3 25 South Dakota 77.3 26 Montana 77.3 27 Texas 77.1 28 Wyoming 76.8 29 Michigan 76.8 30 Arizona 76.7 31 Maine 76.6 32 District of Columbia 76.6 33 Delaware 76.5 34 Kansas 76.5 35 Nevada 76.4 36 Georgia 75.9 37 North Carolina 75.9 38 Alaska 75.8 39 Ohio 75.6 40 Indiana 75.4 41 Missouri 75.2 42 South Carolina 75.1 43 New Mexico 74.5 44 Arkansas 73.9 45 Oklahoma 73.8 46 Tennessee 73.8 47 Alabama 73.8 48 Louisiana 73.8 49 Kentucky 73.6 50 Mississippi 72.6 51 West Virginia 72.2

On the other end of the ranking, West Virginia came in last at 72.2 years, behind Mississippi at 72.6 and Kentucky at 73.6.

The broad pattern is regional: the Northeast and West Coast have higher life expectancies, while many Southern and Appalachian states cluster at the bottom.

Why the National Average Misses the State Divide

While the national average is 77.5 years, only 21 states cleared that mark. Illinois and Virginia matched it exactly, and the remaining 28 states came in below it.

The CDC also found that females had higher life expectancy than males in every state and D.C., but the size of that gender gap varied widely. States on the lower end of life expectancy tended to have larger divides, while higher-ranked states had smaller gaps.

For example, New Mexico (ninth-lowest life expectancy at 74.5) recorded the largest female-male gap at 6.9 years, while Utah (ninth-highest at 79 years) had the smallest at 3.6 years.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Why Living Longer Isn’t Always Living Healthier on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Fri, 05/01/2026 - 20:55