From J.D. Power: August New-Vehicle Sales Climb 8.2% as Consumer Spending Reaches Record $54.6 Billion; EV Share Hits All-Time High Brief excerpt:

The seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) for total new-vehicle sales is expected to be 16.1 million units, up 1.0 million units from August 2024.
...
“August new-vehicle sales are expected to climb 8.2% from a year ago, including a 7.8% increase in retail volume. A strong result, although the results should be viewed in the context of several unusual factors that are distorting typical monthly sales trends.

“First, federal credits of up to $7,500 on EVs will expire on Sept. 30, prompting many EV shoppers to accelerate purchases that otherwise would have occurred later this year. As a result, EV retail share in August is expected to reach an all-time high of 12.0%, compared with 9.5% a year ago.

“Second, Labor Day lands in the August sales reporting period this year. The Labor Day weekend is typically one of the highest sales volume weekends of the year, powered by elevated manufacturer promotional activity and elevated discounts. This year, manufacturers have kept incentives restrained due to tariffs. Normally, incentives as a percentage of MSRP increase by about half a point from January through late summer, but this year they’ve slipped to 6.2% in August from 6.3% in January, underscoring the effect of tariff-related cost pressures.

“Third, lease returns remain at historically low levels following the reduced leasing activity during the 2022 supply shortages. With fewer lease customers cycling back into the market, new-vehicle sales are facing added pressure compared with typical seasonal patterns.

“Finally, from a total sales perspective, fleet deliveries are expected to reach 199,854 units in August, up 11.2% primarily due to the low baseline recorded in August 2024. Fleet volume is forecast to represent 13.5% of total light-vehicle sales, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year over year.

“In sum, August’s retail sales results point to solid new vehicle demand. The results are unquestionably inflated by shoppers accelerating their electric vehicle purchases to take advantage of Federal EV credits—but the sales pace for non-EVs remains robust, especially given the modest discounts available on those vehicles.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and J.D. Power's forecast for August (Red).

On a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis, the J.D. Power forecast of 16.1 million SAAR would be down 1.9% from last month, and up 6.4% from a year ago.

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

• The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America: The chief justice of the US has painted himself as a modern institutionalist over the past 20 years. Experts say he’s emboldening Trump’s drive toward authoritarianism  (The Guardian)

• Private Equity Is Headed for Your 401(k). The Industry Is Celebrating. Should You? The Trump administration is taking the handcuffs off the private-market industry. The outcome for retirement savers will be complicated. (Barron’s) see also The Ivy League Keeps Failing This Basic Investing Test: Elite universities are again stuck with illiquid assets just when they badly need cash. (WSJ)

• Firing BLS Director Over Weak Jobs Report Is ‘Banana Republic’ Behavior: If a Democratic president tried to so directly politicize an independent agency, Republicans would be screaming about the coming tyranny. (Reason)

• How The Internet Died: Dissecting a tragedy of the commons: “The Internet feels empty and devoid of people. It is also devoid of content. Compared to the Internet of say 2007 (and beyond) the Internet of today is entirely sterile. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do, see, read or experience anymore… Yes, the Internet may seem gigantic, but it’s like a hot air balloon with nothing inside.” (What We Lost)

• The Playbook Used to ‘Prove’ Vaccines Cause Autism. In the scientific community, Mr. Geier is infamous for the deeply flawed studies he conducted with his father, Mark Geier, claiming that vaccines cause autism. Researchers have long called attention to the serious methodological and ethical defects in their work.  (New York Times)

• America Is Abandoning One of the Greatest Medical Breakthroughs: The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced it would wind down 22 mRNA vaccine development projects under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, halting nearly $500 million in investments. This decision undercuts one of the most significant medical advances in decades, technology that could protect millions more people from the threats ahead. (New York Times)

• Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news: A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation — and they’re spoofing reputable news outlets to do it. (Politico)

• American Nazis: The Aryan Freedom Network is riding high in Trump era: With Donald Trump’s return to power, a neo-Nazi group buoyed by his rhetoric is expanding its reach and changing the face of white extremism in America. Its leaders: a Texas couple, both born to Ku Klux Klan leaders. (Reuters)  see also Inside the ‘Whites Only’ Community in Arkansas: Members have espoused racist and antisemitic views and repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. They’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their movement is growing. (Wired)

• Trump wants NASA to burn a crucial satellite to cinders, killing research into climate change: By any reasonable metric, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory has been a spectacular success. Originally designed to support a two-year pilot project, it has been operating continuously in space for more than 10 years and could continue doing so for three decades more. The data it produces “are of exceptionally high quality,” NASA stated in a 2023 review, when it labeled the project “the flagship mission for space-borne measurements” of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. (Los Angeles Times)

• How Fast Should Your 12-Year-Old Throw? It’s a paradox that parents of talented kids face. Their children could become really good at something they love. They could also get hurt. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Ellen Zentner, Chief Economic Strategist and Global Head of Thematic and Macro Investing for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. The firm manages over $7 trillion in assets.

 

What is the US poverty rate?

Source: USA Facts

 

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

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 4.01 million SAAR in July; Up 0.8% YoY

• Housing Starts Increased to 1.428 million Annual Rate in July

• California Home Sales Down Year-over-year for 4th Straight Month

• 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in July

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

The post Trump Has the Grain of a Good Idea with His Intel Extortion appeared first on CEPR.

"I Have No Idea": Justice Department Official Raised Objections To Ill-Defined Biden Pardons

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The House Oversight Committee is investigating the use of the autopen by Biden officials as allegations grow that President Joe Biden had little idea of some of the actions taken under his name, from executive orders to pardons. Now, the Committee has disclosed that at least one senior official warned that he had “no idea” what the parameters were for Biden’s blanket pardons and that the public was being misled about the pardons only applying to non-violent individuals.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Brad Weinsheimer told the Office of White House Counsel they needed an additional statement from the President as to his intent and the scope of the pardon:

“I think the language ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice’ in the warrant is highly problematic and in order to resolve its meaning appropriately, and consistent with the President’s intent, we will need a statement or direction from the President as to how to interpret the language…I have no idea what interpretation the incoming Administration will give to the warrant, but they may find this interpretation attractive, as it gives effect to the language but does not go beyond the four corners of the warrant.”

So, at least for this senior Justice Department official, it was not just Biden who may have had little idea of what pardons were being issued under his name. The confusion was shared by implementing attorneys. That is a serious problem in the use of this presidential power by unseen, unnamed staff members.

Weinsheimer also flagged how even the stated intent of Biden in barring violent individuals was being disregarded due to the ill-defined criteria:

“One other important note – in communication about the commutations, the White House has described those who received commutations as people convicted of non-violent drug offenses. I think you should stop saying that because it is untrue or at least misleading… As you know, even with the exceedingly limited review we were permitted to do of the individuals we believed you might be considering for commutation action, we initially identified 19 that were highly problematic.”

House Oversight Chairman James Comer is pursuing this investigation despite opposition from Democratic members and, of course, many in the media. Yet, there is mounting evidence that Biden was clueless on major decisions made in his Administration, including signing a major executive order on natural gas exports. In this latest controversy, a veteran Justice official did not have a clue about the scope of the pardons as staff members just compiled lists of people whom they wanted to include in the presidential order.

What is particularly disconcerting is how accountability for any abuse is made more difficult by the large number of staff contributing to these lists and lack of clearly defined decision makers.  With Biden abdicating his own responsibility, staffers were allowed to effectively add names to a signed blank page, exercising a presidential power with the level of circumspection of an inter-office memo.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/23/2025 - 11:40

Canada's Refusal To Cooperate With DEA On Fentanyl "Superlab" Investigation Fueled Cross-Border Tariffs  

President Trump's new hemispheric defense strategy, stretching across North, Central, and South America, now includes the deployment of 4,000 troops and three guided-missile destroyers positioned in international waters off Venezuela, as part of a broader campaign to dismantle command-and-control hubs of narco-terrorists and purge Chinese-linked drug and money-laundering networks from the region. 

Last week, the Pentagon positioned three Aegis guided-missile destroyers (the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson) directly off the coast of Venezuela as new force posturing takes hold in the region, with the Pentagon's crosshairs focused on narco-terrorists fueling America's drug death crisis that claims 100,000 lives per year. 

Simultaneously, attention turns to Canada, which, like Mexico and other surrounding countries, remains a very weak partner in the region as the Trump administration advances its hemispheric defense strategy to clean up the Americas ahead of the 2030s. Trump's cleanup of the Western hemisphere is almost comparable to his micro efforts to restore law and order in crime-ridden Washington, D.C. - and soon, in many other cities nationwide left in ruins by failed Democratic leadership that allowed violent crime and open-air drug markets to flourish. 

Sam Cooper of the investigative outlet The Bureau has uncovered in recent years that North America's fentanyl crisis is not just a drug death crisis wiping out military-aged men and women by the hundreds of thousands - it's also a sprawling international money-laundering machine, run through Chinese Triads, Mexican cartels, and Canadian financial networks in a massive transnational crime web that fuels the crisis. Some view this operation to subvert Washington as Chinese irregular warfare, explained here.

Cooper's work, as we've covered in recent years, spans Chinese narcos using laundering networks via TD bank and other Canadian financial institutions to "Breaking Bad-style" superlabs in Canada to all things China subverting the Americas... 

• Chinese Narcos In Toronto Run "Command & Control" Fentanyl Laundering Network Used In TD Bank Case: U.S. Investigator

• Canadian Banks Linked To Chinese Fentanyl Laundering Risk U.S. Treasury Sanctions After Cartel Terror Designation

• Busted Fentanyl Super Lab In Canada Makes "Breaking Bad Look Minor League": Former Trump Official

• Chinese Intel-Linked Bankers Reportedly Fundraised For L.A. Mayor Karen Bass

• Brookfield's Deep Ties To Chinese Land, Loans & Green Deals

Cooper's latest report focuses on how Canada's federal police (RCMP) refused to cooperate with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2022 on a probe into a British Columbia fentanyl "superlab" tied to Chinese precursor shipments. It was only after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iranian-Canadian businessman Bahman Djebelibak and his Health Canada–licensed Valerian Labs that the RCMP belatedly launched its own investigation, without sharing critical information with the U.S. Gov't. 

The superlab in Falkland, B.C. was eventually raided and dismantled, with investigations suggesting the lab was able to produce drugs on an industrial scale:

• Drugs: 54kg fentanyl (95 million lethal doses), 390kg meth, 35kg cocaine, 15kg MDMA.

Last year, Derek Maltz, Acting DEA Administrator, commented on the botched RCMP investigation, blasting the RCMP: "The way they conducted business was disgusting, honestly. We can't have that kind of activity when our countries are being attacked at levels we've never seen."

Former current and senior U.S. officials told Cooper that Ottawa's problem isn't just incompetence - it's structural. Weak, antiquated laws. It appears politics paralyze leadership, and corruption runs all the way to the top.

* * *

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Meanwhile, the investigation into the Falkland raid was a dark reality: Chinese underground bankers in Vancouver and Toronto move hundreds of millions through Canadian and U.S. banks, laundering cartel money and financing fentanyl labs. None of this is new, but what is, in the era of Trump, will all be dismantled.

Source: Heritage Foundation

Fast forward today, Ottawa has learned the hard way with a tariff war with Trump, following years of inaction and botched investigations into fentanyl superlabs in its country that fuel America's drug death crisis. 

Here's an excerpt of Cooper's latest report:

Canada’s federal police refused to investigate or cooperate with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration on a British Columbia fentanyl superlab probe tied to chemical-precursor shipments from China into Vancouver in late 2022, according to senior U.S. officials. More than a year later — only after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iranian-Canadian businessman Bahman Djebelibak and his Health Canada–licensed company Valerian Labs, naming them as part of a Chinese fentanyl trafficking syndicate that Washington sought to disrupt — did the RCMP finally open a siloed investigation. The force continued to refuse coordination or information sharing with the American agents who had initiated the case. In an exclusive interview, Derek Maltz, DEA Acting Administrator in 2025 with oversight of the matter, called the B.C. superlab case a “major disaster.”

This explosive information, confirmed to The Bureau by current and former senior U.S. officials, has never before been reported in the Falkland, B.C., superlab case, which was covered internationally by outlets including The New York Times. It amounts to a rare public rebuke that elevates the matter from a Canadian policing failure into a high-consequence geopolitical dispute.

It also helps explain Washington’s decision on July 31 to impose 35 percent tariffs on Canada, reinforcing President Donald Trump’s claim that senior officials had warned him Ottawa failed to cooperate or devote sufficient resources to interdictions against Chinese- and Mexican-linked drug trafficking networks blamed for killing hundreds of thousands of North Americans. Three weeks ago, in a statement underscoring intelligence tied to the Falkland lab case, the White House said: “Mexican cartels are increasingly operating fentanyl labs in Canada.” It added: “Canada-based drug trafficking organizations maintain robust ‘super labs,’ mostly in rural and dense areas in western Canada, some of which can produce 44 to 66 pounds of fentanyl weekly.”

‘A major disaster on that big lab in British Columbia’

In multiple interviews with senior officials — including Derek Maltz, who retired this year after Mexico carried out an unprecedented wave of extraditions of dozens of cartel leaders to the United States — The Bureau confirmed devastating details of the Falkland superlab in British Columbia, hidden in mountainous terrain between Vancouver and Calgary. The case became public only in October 2024 — to the surprise of DEA investigators — when the RCMP announced it had dismantled what it called the most sophisticated drug laboratory ever uncovered in Canada, capable of producing up to 95 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. Investigators seized a staggering half-ton of narcotics: 54 kilograms of fentanyl, 390 kilos of methamphetamine, 35 kilos of cocaine, 15 kilos of MDMA, smaller amounts of cannabis, and large quantities of precursor chemicals from China. Police estimated the street value at about $500 million.

The raid also exposed the militarized posture of Mexican cartel–style operations, with 89 firearms — including handguns, AR-15-style rifles and submachine guns, many loaded — along with explosive devices, ammunition, silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armor, and roughly $500,000 in cash. So far, only a man named Gaganpreet Singh Randhawa, believed to be a lower level suspect, has been charged after the RCMP’s raid on the Falkland lab and related Vancouver-area properties. What Ottawa failed to share with Canadians, U.S. sources say, is that the DEA’s Newark, New Jersey office had already delivered the case to Canadian authorities through the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa nearly two years earlier — warning of precursor shipments tied to Djebelibak’s company, Valerian Labs. Canadian police, the officials said, not only declined to cooperate but also delayed launching their own siloed probe until after Washington imposed sanctions on Djebelibak in October 2023.

“The way they conducted business was disgusting, honestly,” Maltz said in an August 2025 interview. “And we can’t have that kind of activity when our countries are being attacked at levels that we’ve never seen in the history of our countries.”

Maltz, who limited his remarks to high-level confirmations, agreed with numerous other U.S. officials interviewed by The Bureau that the Falkland breakdown was neither isolated nor new — but part of a recurring pattern of refusal and delay in Ottawa’s dealings with American law enforcement.

“Over the years, we’ve had historical issues with the RCMP not sharing properly, and most recently there was a major disaster that happened on that big lab in British Columbia,” Maltz confirmed.

“The superlab was part of some ongoing stuff going on with DEA New Jersey. There was a major frustration with the DEA agents in the United States that had investigative equity and investigative knowledge on this particular case. And we were trying to share and cooperate. And it was a major problem.”

Like other senior U.S. experts interviewed by The Bureau this year regarding Canada’s increasing exploitation by Chinese and Mexican fentanyl networks, Maltz said Ottawa’s repeated inability to investigate and prosecute major drug trafficking and money laundering networks — and its frequent refusal to cooperate with international allies — stems from a combination of weak, outdated laws and ineffective leadership.

Other U.S. and Canadian police experts also warned they believe the RCMP and relevant Canadian agencies such as Canada Border Services suffer from significant corruption concerns.

“It goes down to the basic information sharing, the antiquated laws, that people are not stepping up and not leading the efforts,” Maltz said of the Falkland lab case. “When I was Acting Administrator, I met with the current leadership and it was actually sad because these guys came to see me and they want to do the right thing. They say all the right things, but they’re so far behind and the laws are so antiquated and so archaic.”

In an interview, Donald Im, who retired in 2022 after a long career as a senior DEA official, described the synthetic narcotics overdose crisis in North America — fueled by Chinese Communist Party chemical suppliers and cartel distribution networks — as a “slow motion, weapons of mass destruction that exposes the vulnerability of whole nations and regions.”

As part of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, Im oversaw sprawling investigations into global Chinese money laundering systems and fentanyl precursor supply chains. He said he provided support to the New Jersey DEA probes that became a linchpin of the agency’s strategy and indirectly tied into the Falkland superlab case. These investigations exposed how Chinese underground bankers — often operating from Vancouver and Toronto — were moving staggering nine-figure flows — in some cases, hundreds of millions within months — through U.S. and Canadian financial institutions, as well as through international trade routes between China, Mexico, Canada, and South America, to sustain the fentanyl trade.

Those innovative cases, Im said, connected Chinese laundering networks across North America to an extraordinarily wide array of actors, demonstrating that seemingly local probes connected to the same global syndicates moving precursors from China, laundering through Canadian and U.S. banks, and producing fentanyl on an industrial scale in hidden labs across Canada.

Im added, in his opinion: “If only one person was arrested in that sophisticated Falkland laboratory? It is either the RCMP is incompetent or, politically, they’ve been neutered.”

That assessment is supported by previous case studies. Another source for this story — deeply troubled by the RCMP and Canadian prosecutors’ decisions not to pursue major targets uncovered in probes of drug-laundering networks tied to Chinese, Iranian, and Mexican syndicates — said they learned the RCMP, while conducting a major investigation into Iranian state-linked drug launderers in Toronto and Montreal, stumbled onto a Chinese suspect moving $600 million in just six months. Yet when briefed, the DEA was told the RCMP would not pursue the case, citing a different investigative focus.

We reached out to the RCMP. They said “No”

While Derek Maltz spoke only at a high level about Washington’s concerns with Ottawa’s handling of the Falkland case, another U.S. official provided a more detailed account of the behind-the-scenes drama between American and Canadian agencies.

The U.S. government source, who had direct knowledge of the case and requested anonymity due to ongoing investigations, said that in late 2022 the DEA’s Newark, New Jersey office alerted colleagues at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to precursor shipments from China bound for Valerian Labs, Inc., a Port Coquitlam–based company owned by Bahman Djebelibak, publicly known as “Bobby Shah" ... 

The rest of the report can be viewed on The Bureau's Substack... 

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/23/2025 - 11:05

How Great Powers Fall Apart

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We're humoring our self-delusion.

How do great powers come undone? We can start with a destructive force without equal: self-delusion.

Emperor Norton comes to mind in this context. In 1859, in the Gold Rush-enriched city of San Francisco, Joshua Norton, a bankrupt businessman, declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I, Emperor of the United States."

This grandiosity played well in the rough and tumble "get rich quick, then lose it all" zeitgeist of San Francisco, and rather than be abused or disabused, Norton was "treated deferentially in San Francisco and elsewhere in California, and currency issued in his name was honored in some of the establishments he frequented."

In other words, his self-delusion was humored. On a grand scale, the same can be said of Great Powers: they humor their own self-delusion.

The progression of a Great Power from self-delusion to collapse was insightfully traced out by Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik in the late 1960s, when Amalrik predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lone voice to make such a bold prediction at the apex of Soviet power.

Amalrik's analysis was nuanced, drawing upon the human weaknesses that blind us to our own self-deception and rosy assumptions. Chief among these is the comforting belief that "it will all work out because it's always worked out before," an assumption that blinds us to the extraordinary nature of the crisis and the decay that we avoid recognizing beneath the surface of normal life.

Amalrik noted that the primary motivation of the various classes and interest groups was self-preservation, seeking to maintain whatever each faction currently held in terms of wealth and power. The misguided assumption made by all was that the system was so stable and powerful that they didn't need to concern themselves with anything beyond securing their position in the system.

As the system destabilizes, nobody notices because they're focused solely on the infighting borne of self-preservation.

He was also alert to the government's role in mediating the forces seeking to suppress reforms as dangers to the status quo and those seeking to force reforms on a sclerotic systems, and how seemingly small policy decisions can grease the skids to rapidly unfolding crises few imagined were even possible.

One of Amalrik's analytic techniques is both novel and insightful. This excerpt from How a Great Power Falls Apart: Decline Is Invisible From the Inside explains the concept of working backward from whatever outcome seems unlikely or even impossible:

Amalrik also provided a kind of blueprint for analytic alienation. It is actually possible, he suggested, to think your way through the end of days. The method is to practice living with the most unlikely outcome you can fathom and then to work backward, systematically and carefully, from the what-if to the 'here's-why.' The point isn't to pick one's evidence to fit a particular conclusion. It is rather to jolt oneself out of the assumption of linear change--to consider, for a moment, how some future historian might recast implausible concerns as inevitable ones."

Catastrophic outcomes are considered impossible because the status quo views itself as already having the means to handle any crisis. There's nothing to be learned from others and no reason to even ponder unlikely outcomes, and this creates a toxic blend of hubris and blindness.

"Society was becoming more complicated, more riven with difference, more demanding of the state but less convinced that the state could deliver. What was left was a political system far weaker than anyone--even those committed to its renewal--was able to recognize."

Those in power reckon they have the means to deal with any problem. Suppress dissent, buy off a troublesome constituency, print more money, etc. This confidence reflects the dominant political mythologies of the Great Power and its people. Reformers believe the status quo is capable of systemic reform, those resisting reform believe the system will endure without any reforms, and both are disconnected from reality: the status quo is no longer capable of real reforms, and left on autopilot, it is heading off a cliff.

"Amalrik offered a technique for suspending one's deepest political mythologies and posing questions that might seem, here and now, to lie at the frontier of crankery.

The powerful aren't accustomed to thinking this way. But in the lesser places, among the dissidents and the displaced, people have had to be skilled in the art of self-inquiry. How much longer should we stay? What do we put in the suitcase? Here or there, how can I be of use? In life, as in politics, the antidote to hopelessness isn't hope. It's planning."

I often refer to author Ray Huang's summary of how the mighty Ming Dynasty fell apart:

"The year 1587 may seem to be insignificant; nevertheless, it is evident by that time the limit for the Ming dynasty had already been reached. It no longer mattered whether the ruler was conscientious or irresponsible, whether his chief counselor was enterprising or conformist, whether the generals were resourceful or incompetent, whether the civil officials were honest or corrupt, or whether the leading thinkers were radicals or conservatives--in the end they all failed to reach fulfillment."

Nothing is as it seems. As correspondent Ray W. so presciently observed some years ago, "It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically."

Put another way, we're humoring our self-delusion.

*  *  *

Check out my new book Ultra-Processed Life and my updated Books and Films. Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/23/2025 - 10:30

Big Tech Could Soon Use Brain Chips To Read Your Innermost Thoughts: Study

A new study out of Stanford University reveals that neural implants, also known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), might not just help paralyzed individuals communicate - they could potentially lay bare your innermost thoughts to Big Tech.

Published in the medical journal Cell, the research shows these devices can decode brain signals to produce synthesized speech faster and with less effort.

BCIs work by using tiny electrode arrays to monitor activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the region controlling speech-related muscles. Until now, the tech relied on signals from paralyzed individuals actively trying to speak. The Stanford team, however, discovered that even imagined speech generates similar, though weaker, signals in the motor cortex. With the help of artificial intelligence, they translated those faint signals into words with up to 74% accuracy from a 125,000-word vocabulary.

“We’re recording the signals as they’re attempting to speak and translating those neural signals into the words that they’re trying to say,” said Erin Kunz, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory.

But this technological leap has raised red flags among critics who warn of a dystopian future where your private thoughts could be exposed.

Nita Farahany, a Duke University law and philosophy professor and author of The Battle for Your Brain, sounded the alarm telling NPR, “The more we push this research forward, the more transparent our brains become.”

Farahany expressed concern that tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta could exploit BCIs to access consumers’ minds without consent, urging safeguards like passwords to protect thoughts meant to stay private.

“We have to recognize that this new era of brain transparency really is an entirely new frontier for us,” Farahany said.

While the world fixates on artificial intelligence, some of the tech industry’s heaviest hitters are pouring billions into BCIs. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has raised $1.2 billion for his Neuralink venture, which is now conducting clinical trials with top institutions like the Barrow Neurological Institute, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.

Now, another tech titan is entering the fray.

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman is launching Merge Labs to challenge Musk’s Neuralink. Backed by OpenAI’s venture arm and valued at $850 million, Merge Labs is seeking $250 million in funding, according to the Financial Times. While Altman will serve as a co-founder alongside Alex Blania of the iris-scanning World project, sources say he won’t take an operational role.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/23/2025 - 09:55

Which Western Security Guarantees For Ukraine Might Be Acceptable To Putin?

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

He might hypothetically agree that the resumption of NATO’s present support for Ukraine (arms, intelligence, logistics, etc.) in the event of another conflict wouldn’t cross Russia’s red lines but he’s unlikely to compromise on the issue of Western troops in Ukraine once the present conflict ends.

Steve Witkoff’s claim that Putin allegedly agreed to the US offering Ukraine “Article 5-like protection” during the Anchorage Summit, which Trump repeated during his White House Summit with Zelensky and a handful of European leaders, raises the question of what form this could hypothetically take if true. Assuming for the sake of analysis that he did indeed agree to this, it’s important to clarify exactly what Article 5 entails. For starters, it doesn’t obligate allies to dispatch troops if one of them is attacked.

Per the North Atlantic Treaty, each member only has to take “such action as it deems necessary”, which could include “the use of armed forces” but doesn’t have to. As was explained earlier this year here, “Ukraine has arguably enjoyed the benefits of this principle for the past three years despite not being a NATO member since it’s received everything other than troops from the alliance.” Arms, intelligence, logistical, and other forms of support have already been provided to Ukraine in the spirit of Article 5.

It might therefore be the case that Putin agreed that such “Article 5-like protection” could be resumed in the event of another conflict without crossing Russia’s red lines. Although Russia objects to Ukraine’s remilitarization after the present conflict ends, it’s possible that it could agree to this too as part of a grand compromise in exchange for some of its other goals being met as explained here. What Russia doesn’t agree to, however, is the dispatch of Western troops to Ukraine after the present conflict ends.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared on the day of the White House Summit that “We reiterate our long-standing position of unequivocally rejecting any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine”. This position isn’t expected to change since one of the reasons behind the special operation is to stop NATO’s expansion inside Ukraine. Western boots on the ground there afterwards would therefore amount to the perceived failure of Russia’s primary goal.

This would especially be the case if they’re deployed along the Line of Contact, but their deployment west of the Dnieper in parallel with the creation of a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers as proposed here could hypothetically be a compromise. That said, Russia would prefer for there to only be non-Western peacekeepers, if any at all. The deployment of foreign military forces, regardless of the country, could embolden Ukraine to stage false-flag provocations.

To summarize, in the order of the most hypothetically acceptable Western security guarantees to Ukraine to the least hypothetically acceptable from Russia’s perspective, these are:

1) the resumption of Western support for Ukraine only if another conflict erupts and without any peacekeepers at all;

2) continued Western support but with non-Western peacekeepers;  and

3) continued Western support, Western troops west of the Dnieper, and non-Western troops in a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region.

The scope of Ukraine’s demilitarization and the extent of Western security guarantees to it after the present conflict ends are of the utmost importance for Russia in order to prevent Ukraine from once again being weaponized as a launchpad for Western aggression. It’s therefore highly unlikely that Russia will compromise much on this issue, especially the scenario of Western troops in Ukraine. Russia might be more flexible on other issues, but on this one, it might prove unwavering.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/23/2025 - 09:20

The key indicators this week include July New Home Sales, the second estimate of Q2 GDP, Personal Income and Outlays for July, and Case-Shiller house prices for June.

----- Monday, August 25th -----
8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for July. This is a composite index of other data.

10:00 AM: New Home Sales for July from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows New Home Sales since 1963. The dashed line is the sales rate for last month.

The consensus is for 630 thousand SAAR, up from 627 thousand in June.

10:30 AM: Dallas Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for August.

----- Tuesday, August 26th -----
8:30 AM: Durable Goods Orders for July from the Census Bureau.  The consensus is for a 4.0% decrease in orders.

9:00 AM: S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index for June.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in the seasonally adjusted National Index, Composite 10 and Composite 20 indexes through the most recent report (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).

The National index was up 2.3% in May and is expected to slower further in June.

9:00 AM: FHFA House Price Index for June. This was originally a GSE only repeat sales, however there is also an expanded index.

10:00 AM: Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for August.

----- Wednesday, August 27th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

----- Thursday, August 28th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims to increase to 236 thousand from 235 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: Gross Domestic Product, 2nd Quarter 2025 (Second Estimate) and Corporate Profits (Preliminary). The consensus is that real GDP increased 3.0% annualized in Q1, unchanged from the advance estimate.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for July.  The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in this index.

11:00 AM: the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey for August. This is the last of the regional Fed manufacturing surveys for August.

----- Friday, August 29th -----
8:30 AM: Personal Income and Outlays, July 2025. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.5% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.3%.  PCE prices are expected to be up 2.6% YoY, and core PCE prices up 2.9% YoY.

9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for August.

10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for August).

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• Monetary Policy and the Fed’s Framework Review Chair Jerome H. Powell: “Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy,” an economic symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)

• Taylor Sheridan’s Extreme Productivity: The prolific mind behind “Sicario” and “Yellowstone” only started his writing career at 40. The realest deadlines (a young family, a $350m ranch) have pushed him to grind at an unbelievable pace. (SatPost by Trung Phan)

• Lisa Su Runs AMD—and Is Out for Nvidia’s Blood: While everyone else has been talking about Nvidia’s GPUs, Lisa Su has discreetly turned AMD into a chipmaking phenom. And as the US-China tech war rages, she’s at the center of it all. (Wired)

• Brain Food: Alzheimer’s breakthroughs of mice and men, the stranger-than-fiction phenomenon of comb jelly intelligence, RIP Dobby, and three recommendations. (The Garden of the Forking Paths)

• How America Got Its Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back: Chili’s was once a relic of the ’90s. Then it blew past its competitors—and conquered casual American dining. In its Texas test kitchen, I saw how. (Slate)

• The West is bored to death: Our nihilistic politics are a product of the crushing ennui and spiritual vacancy of modern life. (New Statesman)

• The heir’s property: one man’s journey to reclaim family land in the American South: An in-depth look at the issue of land passed down through generations, told through the lens of one man’s struggle to retain land purchased a century ago by his great-grandfather, who was born into slavery during the Confederacy. (USA Today)

• The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis: The party is bleeding support beyond the ballot box, a new analysis shows. (New York Times) see also How the Democrats Became the Party That Brings Pencils to a Knife Fight: Will the battle over Texas’ gerrymandering lead to a new era for the party? (New York Times)

• Getting to the Moon or Mars? Musk and Bezos Tackle Space Travel’s Refueling Problem: Spacecraft that could fuel up in orbit would be less weighted down at liftoff and fly deeper into space. (Wall Street Journal)

• 50 Years After ‘Born to Run,’ We Took a Trip to Springsteen Country: Few albums capture a time and place the way Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ evokes 1970s New Jersey. A pair of superfans hit the road to see how much of that world remains. (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Ellen Zentner, Chief Economic Strategist and Global Head of Thematic and Macro Investing for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. The firm manages over $7 trillion in assets.

Consumer spending is under downward pressure from slowing job growth, student loan payments restarting and deportations lowering the number of consumers

Source: Apollo

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~~~

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

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

To Afford Seattle Rent, You Need Nearly $91,000 A Year

Renting in Seattle now requires a much higher income than just a few years ago, according to new Zillow data sourced by Axios.. To afford the typical monthly rent in the metro area, a household must earn nearly $91,000 annually — about 23% more than five years ago.

Zillow uses the standard guideline that rent should take up no more than 30% of household income. Based on that, the typical Seattle-area rent of $2,271 in April would require an annual income of $90,840, the 11th-highest threshold among major U.S. metros.

Seattle’s relatively high household incomes help cushion the blow for many families: the region’s median household income reached $110,744 in 2023, well above Zillow’s affordability mark. But single earners face tighter constraints. Census data show Seattle’s per capita income was $82,508 last year — leaving many individuals below the level needed to comfortably pay average rent.

Axios writes that nationally, typical rents stood at $2,024 per month in April, requiring about $80,949 in annual income — roughly $10,000 less than in Seattle.

“Housing costs have surged since pre-pandemic, with rents growing quite a bit faster than wages,” said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow. “This often leaves little room for other expenses, making it particularly difficult for those hoping to save for a down payment on a future home.”

The findings highlight the widening gap between housing costs and wages across the country, even in regions with relatively strong incomes like Seattle.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 23:00

When Smartphones Get Smarter, Do We Get Dumber?

Authored by Makai Allbert via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As Mohamed Elmasry, emeritus professor of computer engineering at the University of Waterloo, watched his 11- and 10-year-old grandchildren tapping away on their smartphones, he posed a simple question: “What’s one-third of nine?”

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Freepik, Getty Images

Instead of taking a moment to think, they immediately opened their calculator apps, he wrote in his book “iMind Artificial and Real Intelligence.”

Later, fresh from a family vacation in Cuba, he asked them to name the island’s capital. Once again, their fingers flew to their devices, Googling the answer rather than recalling their recent experience.

With 60 percent of the global population—and 97 percent of those younger than 30—using smartphones, technology has inadvertently become an extension of our thinking process.

However, everything comes at a cost. Cognitive outsourcing, which involves relying on external systems to collect or process information, may increase one’s risk of cognitive decline.

Habitual GPS (global positioning system) use, for example, has been linked to a significant decrease in spatial memory, reducing one’s ability to navigate independently. As AI applications such as ChatGPT become a household norm—with 55 percent of Americans reporting regular AI use—recent studies found that it is resulting in impaired critical thinking skills, dependency, loss of decision-making, and laziness.

Experts emphasize cultivating and prioritizing innate human skills that technology cannot replicate.

Neglected Real Intelligence

Referring to his grandkids and their overreliance on technology, Elmasry explained that they are far from “stupid.”

The problem is that they are not using their real intelligence.

They—and the rest of their generation—have grown accustomed to using apps and digital devices—unconsciously defaulting to internet search engines such as Google rather than thinking something through.

Just as physical muscles atrophy without use, so too do our cognitive abilities weaken when we let technology think for us.

A telling case is now called the “Google effect,” or digital amnesia, as shown in a 2011 study from Columbia University.

The current generation has grown accustomed to using apps and digital devices. hughhan/unsplash, Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Betsy Sparrow and colleagues at Columbia found that individuals tend to easily forget information that is readily available on the internet.

Their findings show that people are more likely to remember things they think are not available online. They are also better at recalling where to find information on the internet than recalling the information itself.

A 2021 study further tested the effects of Googling and found that participants who relied on search engines such as Google performed worse on learning assessments and memory recall than those who did not search online.

The study also shows that Googlers often had higher confidence that they had “mastered” the study material, indicating an overestimation in learning and ignorance of their learning deficit. Their overconfidence might be the result of having an “illusion of knowledge” bias—accessing information through search engines creates a false sense of personal expertise and diminishes people’s effort to learn.

Overreliance on technology is part of the problem, but having it around may be just as harmful. A study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research discovered that “the mere presence” of a smartphone reduced “available cognitive capacity”—even if the phone was off or placed in a bag.

This “brain drain” effect likely occurs because the presence of a smartphone taps into our cognitive resources, subtly allocating our attention and making it harder to concentrate fully on the task at hand, researchers say. Not only does excessive tech use impair our cognition, but also, clinicians and researchers have noticed that it is linked to impaired social intelligence—the innate aspects that make us human.

Becoming Machine-Like

In the United States, children ages 8 to 12 typically spend four to six hours per day looking at screens, while teenagers may spend up to nine hours daily looking at screens. Further, 44 percent of teenagers feel anxious, and 39 percent feel lonely without their phones.

Excessive screen time reduces social interactions and emotional intelligence and has been linked to autistic-like symptoms, with longer durations of screen use correlated with more severe symptoms.

Dr. Jason Liu, a medical doctor who also has a doctorate in neuroscience, is a research scientist and founding president of the Mind-Body Science Institute International. Liu told The Epoch Times that he is particularly concerned about children’s use of digital media.

He said he has observed irregularities in his young patients who spend excessive time in the digital world—noticing their mechanical speech, lack of emotional expression, poor eye contact, and difficulty forming genuine human connections. Many exhibit attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, responding with detachment and struggling with emotional fragility.

“We should not let technology replace our human nature,” Liu said.

Corroborating Liu’s observations, a JAMA study followed about 3,000 adolescents with no prior ADHD symptoms over 24 months and found that a higher frequency of modern digital media use was associated with significantly higher odds of developing ADHD symptoms.

As early as 1998, scientists introduced the concept of the “Internet Paradox,” which is that the internet, despite being a “social tool,” leads to antisocial behavior.

Observing 73 households during their first years online, researchers noted that increased internet use was associated with reduced communication with family members, smaller social circles, and heightened depression and loneliness.

However, a three-year follow-up found that most of the adverse effects dissipated. The researcher explained this through a “rich get richer” model; introverts experienced more negative effects from the internet, while extroverts, with stronger social networks, benefited more and became more engaged in online communities, mitigating negative effects.

Manuel Garcia-Garcia, global lead of neuroscience at Ipsos, who holds a doctorate in neuroscience, told The Epoch Times that human-to-human connections are vital for building deeper connections and that while digital communication tools facilitate connectivity, they can lead to superficial interactions and impede social cues.

Supporting Liu’s observation of patients becoming “machine-like,” a Facebook emotional contagion experiment, conducted on nearly 700,000 users, manipulated news feeds to show more positive or negative posts. Users exposed to more positive content posted more positive updates, while those seeing more negative content posted more negative updates.

This demonstrated that technology can nudge human behavior in subtle yet systematic ways. This nudging, according to experts, can make our actions and emotions predictable, similar to programmed responses.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 22:35

HHS Rolls Out 'MAHA In Action' To Spotlight Health Reforms

Early in his tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to make transparency a key element of the department under his leadership.

This week, HHS announced the debut of MAHA in Action, an online platform highlighting federal initiatives and state-led reforms implementing the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda.

MAHA in Action offers visibility into how health care reforms are working in communities across the country, according to a HHS press release.

“Make America Healthy Again isn’t just a slogan—it’s a mission statement, and we’re delivering results, fast,” Kennedy said.

“The MAHA in Action tracker puts the wins on the map. It gives the public, the press, and policymakers real-time visibility into how we’re restoring health, integrity, and accountability to every corner of our public health agency.”

As Jeff Louderbeck reports for The Epoch Times, MAHA in Action features updates on federal reforms underway across multiple HHS agencies. Among them are removing petroleum-based dyes and harmful additives from the U.S. food supply, restoring public trust in vaccine safety and scientific transparency, closing the GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) loophole that allows chemicals into food with unknown safety data, and finding the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic, including autism.

One transparency-centered tool on MAHA in Action involves the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Conflicts of Interest.

In recent months, HHS has dismissed all 17 members of the ACIP panel, ended the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children, and ordered the removal of mercury from influenza vaccines.

After it voted to advise officials to stop recommending influenza shots that have mercury, the remade ACIP said it plans to look at multiple other vaccines.

The ACIP conflicts of interest section on MAHA in Action includes declarations disclosed by voting members during ACIP public meetings since 2000.

“ACIP members are required to declare any potential or perceived conflicts of interest that arise in the course of ACIP tenure and any relevant business interests, positions of authority or other connections with organizations relevant to the work of the ACIP,” according to MAHA in Action.

MAHA in Action also includes an interactive map that follows Kennedy’s MAHA tours and a list of state policies that align with the MAHA agenda.

Among the key “victories” since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House include 12 states with USDA-approved SNAP waivers restricting candy and sugary drinks, eight states banning synthetic dyes or select additives from school meals, two states requiring warning labels on products with unsafe ingredients, 22 states limiting cell phone use in schools, and states restricting lab-grown meat, expanding access to Ivermectin, and removing fluoride from municipal water supplies among other initiatives, MAHA in Action reported.

“Americans are tired of toxic food, failed science, and chronic disease becoming the norm,” Kennedy said.

“We’re turning the tide through bold federal action at HHS and state-driven reforms. The momentum is real, and we’re just getting started,” he added.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Washington on May 22, 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The MAHA Commission, chaired by Kennedy and established by Trump, “was on track to submit its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy report to the president on August 12th,” Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House, told The Epoch Times in an email on Aug. 11.

“The report will be unveiled to the public shortly thereafter as we coordinate the schedules of the President and the various cabinet members who are a part of the commission,” he added.

The commission’s first report was released in May. It largely details problems with the health of Americans and attributes the rise of chronic diseases among children to a poor diet full of ultraprocessed foods, exposure to chemicals, a lack of physical activity, and the overprescription of medications.

Trump established the commission in February and said that the commission should “study the scope of the childhood chronic disease crisis and any potential contributing causes, including the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, Government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism.”

Per the order, the commission was required to submit its first report to the president within 100 days. It was also required to present a strategy to Trump on how to address chronic diseases, including obesity, within 180 days. That deadline was Aug. 12.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 22:10

Microsoft Failed To Disclose Key Details About Use Of China-Based Engineers In U.S. Defense Work, Record Shows

Authored by Renee Dudley with research by Doris Burke via ProPublica,

Microsoft, as a provider of cloud services to the U.S. government, is required to regularly submit security plans to officials describing how the company will protect federal computer systems.

Yet in a 2025 submission to the Defense Department, the tech giant left out key details, including its use of employees based in China, the top cyber adversary of the U.S., to work on highly sensitive department systems, according to a copy obtained by ProPublica. In fact, the Microsoft plan viewed by ProPublica makes no reference to the company’s China-based operations or foreign engineers at all.

The document belies Microsoft’s repeated assertions that it disclosed the arrangement to the federal government, showing exactly what was left out as it sold its security plan to the Defense Department. The Pentagon has been investigating the use of foreign personnel by IT contractors in the wake of reporting by ProPublica last month that exposed Microsoft’s practice.

Our work detailed how Microsoft relies on “digital escorts” — U.S. personnel with security clearances — to supervise the foreign engineers who maintain the Defense Department’s cloud systems. The department requires that people handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Microsoft’s security plan, dated Feb. 28 and submitted to the department’s IT agency, distinguishes between personnel who have undergone and passed background screenings to access its Azure Government cloud platform and those who have not. But it omits the fact that workers who have not been screened include non-U.S. citizens based in foreign countries. “Whenever non-screened personnel request access to Azure Government, an operator who has been screened and has access to Azure Government provides escorted access,” the company said in its plan.

The document also fails to disclose that the screened digital escorts can be contractors hired by a staffing company, not Microsoft employees. ProPublica found that escorts, in many cases former military personnel selected because they possess active security clearances, often lack the expertise needed to supervise engineers with far more advanced technical skills. Microsoft has told ProPublica that escorts “are provided specific training on protecting sensitive data” and preventing harm.

Microsoft’s reference to the escort model comes two-thirds of the way into the 125-page document, known as a “System Security Plan,” in several paragraphs under the heading “Escorted Access.” Government officials are supposed to evaluate these plans to determine whether the security measures disclosed in them are acceptable.

In interviews with ProPublica, Microsoft has maintained that it disclosed the digital escorting arrangement in the plan, and that the government approved it. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other government officials have expressed shock and outrage over the model, raising questions about what, exactly, the company disclosed as it sought to win and keep government cloud computing contracts.

None of the parties involved, including Microsoft and the Defense Department, commented on the omissions in this year’s security plan. But former federal officials now say that the obliqueness of the disclosure, which ProPublica is reporting for the first time, may explain that disconnect and likely contributed to the government’s acceptance of the practice. Microsoft previously told ProPublica that its security documentation to the government, going back years, contained similar wording regarding escorts.

Former Defense Department Chief Information Officer John Sherman, who said he was unfamiliar with the digital escorting process before ProPublica’s reporting, called it a “case of not asking the perfect question to the vendor, with every conceivable prohibited condition spelled out.”

In a LinkedIn post about ProPublica’s investigation, Sherman said such a question “would’ve smoked out this crazy practice of ‘digital escorts.’” His post continued: “The DoD can’t be exposed in this way. The company needs to admit this was wrong and commit to not doing things that don’t pass a common sense test.”

Experts have said allowing China-based personnel to perform technical support and maintenance on U.S. government computer systems poses major security risks. Laws in China grant the country’s officials broad authority to collect data, and experts say it is difficult for any Chinese citizen or company to meaningfully resist a direct request from security forces or law enforcement. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has deemed China the “most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private-sector, and critical infrastructure networks.”

Following ProPublica’s reporting last month, Microsoft said that it had stopped using China-based engineers to support Defense Department cloud computing systems. The company did not respond directly to questions from ProPublica about the security plan and instead issued a statement defending the escort practice.

“Escorted sessions were tightly monitored and supplemented by layers of security mitigations,” the statement said. “Based on the feedback we’ve received, however, we have updated our processes to prevent any involvement of China based engineers.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to Hegseth last month suggesting that the Defense Department needed to strengthen oversight of its contractors and that current processes “fail to account for the growing Chinese threat.”

“As we learn more about these ‘digital escorts’ and other unwise — and outrageous — practices used by some DoD partners, it is clear the Department and Congress will need to take further action,” Cotton wrote. He continued: “We must put in place the protocols and processes to adopt innovative technology quickly, effectively, and safely.”

Since 2011, the government has used the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as FedRAMP, to evaluate the security practices of commercial companies that want to sell cloud services to the federal government. The Defense Department also has its own guidelines, which include the citizenship requirement for people handling sensitive data.

Both FedRAMP and the Defense Department rely on “third party assessment organizations” to evaluate whether vendors meet the government’s cloud security requirements. While the government considers these organizations “independent,” they are hired and paid directly by the company being assessed. Microsoft, for example, told ProPublica that it enlisted a company called Kratos to shepherd it through the initial FedRAMP and Defense Department authorization processes and to handle annual assessments after winning federal contracts.

On its website, Kratos calls itself the “guiding light” for organizations seeking to win government cloud contracts and said it “boasts a history of performing successful security assessments.”

In a statement to ProPublica, Kratos said its work determines “if security controls are documented accurately,” but the company did not say whether Microsoft had done so in the security plan it submitted to the Defense Department’s IT agency.

Microsoft told ProPublica that it has given demonstrations of the escort process to Kratos but not directly to federal officials. The security plan makes no reference to any such demonstration. Kratos did not respond to questions about whether its assessors were aware that non-screened personnel could include foreign workers.

A former Microsoft employee who worked with Kratos through several FedRAMP accreditations compared Microsoft’s role in the process to “leading the witness” to the desired outcome. “The government approved what we paid Kratos to tell the government to approve. You’re paying for the outcome you want,” said the former employee, who requested anonymity to discuss the confidential proceeding.

Kratos said it “vehemently denies the characterization from an unnamed source that Kratos’ services are pay for play.” In its statement, Kratos said that it has been “accredited and audited by an independent, non-profit industry group” for factors that “include impartiality, competence and independence.”

“Kratos hires and retains the most technically sophisticated, certified security and technology experts,” the company said, adding that its personnel “are beyond reproach in their work.”

For its part, Microsoft said hiring Kratos was simply part of following the government’s cloud assessment process. “As required by FedRAMP, Microsoft relies on this certified assessor to conduct independent assessments on our behalf under FedRAMP’s supervision,” Microsoft said in its statement.

Still, critics take issue with the FedRAMP process itself, saying that the arrangement of a company paying its auditor presents an inherent conflict of interest. One former official from the U.S. General Services Administration, which houses FedRAMP, likened it to a restaurant hiring and paying for its own health inspector rather than the city doing so.

The GSA did not respond to requests for comment.

The Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Department’s IT agency, reviewed and accepted Microsoft’s security plan. Among those involved were senior DISA officials Roger Greenwell and Jackie Snouffer, according to people familiar with the situation. Neither responded to phone messages seeking comment, and DISA and Defense Department spokespeople did not respond to ProPublica’s request to interview them.

A DISA spokesperson declined to comment for this article, saying “any responses will come from Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs.”

The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not respond to questions about whether Greenwell and Snouffer, or anyone at DISA, understood that Microsoft’s China-based employees would be supporting the Defense Department’s cloud. A spokesperson also did not directly respond to questions about Microsoft’s System Security Plan but in an emailed statement said the information in such plans is considered proprietary. The spokesperson noted that “any process that fails to comply with” department restrictions barring foreigners from accessing sensitive department systems “poses unacceptable risk to the DOD infrastructure.”

That said, the office left open the door to the continued use of foreign-based engineers with digital escorts for “infrastructure support,” saying that it “may be deemed an acceptable risk,” depending on factors that include “the country of origin of the foreign national” being escorted. The department said in such scenarios foreign workers would have “view-only” capabilities, not “hands-on” access. In addition to China, Microsoft has operations in India, the European Union and elsewhere across the globe.

In a statement to ProPublica on Friday, Hegseth’s office said the Pentagon’s investigation into tech companies’ use of foreign personnel “is complete and we have identified a series of possible actions the Department could take.” A spokesperson declined to describe those actions or say whether the department would follow through with them. It’s unclear whether Microsoft’s security plan or DISA’s role in approving it was a part of the review.

“As with all contracted relationships, the Department works directly with the vendor to address concerns, to include those that have come to light with the Microsoft digital escort process,” Hegseth’s office said in the statement.

h/t Capital.news

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 21:45

These Are The US Cities Where Groceries Are The Most Expensive

Grocery bills vary dramatically across the U.S., and some cities are feeling the pinch more than others.

Adding to the strain are record meat prices, driving up up food price inflation 3% compared to June of last year. Meanwhile, vegetable prices are spiking as farmers struggle with labor shortages amid rising deportations.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, ranks the top 20 American cities with the highest cost of groceries, based on data from Numbeo.

America’s Top 20 Cities by Cost of Groceries

For the rankings, each city’s grocery index is compared against New York City, which is used as a baseline of 100:

Rank City Groceries Index
Mid-Year 2025 1 Honolulu, HI 120.2 2 San Francisco, CA 100.1 3 New York, NY 100 4 Seattle, WA 95.3 5 Boston, MA 90.5 6 San Jose, CA 89.8 7 Washington, DC 87.2 8 Philadelphia, PA 85.7 9 Pittsburgh, PA 83.1 10 Sacramento, CA 81.8 11 Los Angeles, CA 81.7 12 Minneapolis, MN 81.1 13 Chicago, IL 80.4 14 Atlanta, GA 79.9 15 Baltimore, MD 77.7 16 Charlotte, NC 77.3 17 Denver, CO 77 18 Spokane, WA 76.5 19 Miami, FL 75.8 20 Raleigh, NC 74.9

Honolulu, Hawaii ranks far above all other U.S. cities with a groceries index of 120.2. That’s over 20% more than in New York City, the benchmark.

As an island state, Hawaii faces higher import and transportation costs, driving up the price of food staples. The state’s geographic isolation continues to make everyday goods, including groceries, particularly expensive.

Meanwhile, California and Washington state are well-represented in the top 20. San Francisco (100.1), San Jose (89.8), Sacramento (81.8), and Los Angeles (81.7) all make the list, as does Seattle (95.3) and Spokane (76.5).

These cities are known for higher costs of living in general, and groceries are no exception. Limited space for agriculture and strong demand from dense populations contribute to elevated food prices.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out this graphic on the top 10 states with the highest cost of living on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 21:20

Atlas Robot Moves Spot Parts From One Place To Another As Humans Keep Playing Tricks On It

Authored by Daniel Patrascu via autoevolution,

Thanks to the many ongoing projects in this field, we're used by now to seeing humanoid robots performing all sorts of impressive, almost human-like tasks and movements. But it's not until you see one performing something as mundane as moving things from one box to another, or arranging stuff on a shelf, that you realize just how far things have gone.

Boston Dynamics, one of the most important names in robotics on this planet, has been working on a humanoid robot ever since 2013. It calls it the Atlas, and it April last year the most recent version of the machine made its way under the spotlight.

As it presents itself today, the Atlas is made of titanium and aluminum 3D printed parts and stands five feet (1.5 meters) tall. Tipping the scales at 196 pounds (89 kg), it has hands, legs, and a head that move thanks to no less than 28 electrically powered joints.

The previous versions were powered by hydraulics, and that kind of limited the range of motions the robot was able to perform, but also its strength, to some degree. Now that the switch to electricity has been made, the sky is the limit.

Like all other robots of its kind, the Atlas can lift and maneuver loads, including irregular objects, and can navigate unstructured, difficult terrain, without any prior knowledge of it. And it looks amazing doing all of that, thanks to the light ring head propped on the torso.

But a robot, no matter how spectacular its body is, is as good and effective as the software that powers it. In its current form, the Atlas uses the same software that powered the previous versions, but there were plans to deploy the Orbit, a solution that already powers the Spot dog-like robot.

In the fall of last year Japanese carmaker Toyota got involved in the Atlas project. Through the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), the company got in bed with Boston Dynamics (which, by the way, is owned by South Korean carmaker Hyundai) to gift the Atlas with one of its Large Behavior Models (LBM) solutions.

The basic idea about LBM is that it can be used to improve the robot's dexterous manipulation skills, allowing it to perform a multitude of tasks, including simultaneously. Above all, such a system allows robots to gain skills by simply watching demonstrations from humans, requiring no complex code to be written.

It's been months since the partnership between Boston Dynamics and TRI was announced, and to be fair, I kind of forgot all about it. Then the two partners published a stunning video of the Atlas (attached below this text) performing all sorts of tasks in a room somewhere, all while humans tried to play tricks on it.

The Atlas, powered by the TRI LBM, is seen at first repeatedly crouching to pick up some what appear to be the body parts of its sibling robot, the Spot, from inside a box. It then rises up and deposits them in another container.

It sounds like a pretty simple task, and it is, at least for a human. Present-day robots find it extremely difficult to coordinate hands and legs to such a degree, combining object manipulation with locomotion, especially when nearby humans "interject unexpected physical challenges mid-task."

What it means is that, from time to time, a human closes the lids of the box that contains Spot parts using a hockey stick, or simply pulls the box away from Atlas. The robot doesn't seem to mind, and patiently reopens the box or pulls it back close to it to continue its work.

The second part of the video shows the Atlas picking up Spot components from a table and depositing them on nearby shelves, including in boxes. In doing so, the robot shows real skill in performing packing, sorting, and organizing tasks.

According to the two partners in this research, the incredible coordination of the robot's actions is owed to the fact that a single LBM controls the entire machine, "treating the hands and the feet almost identically."

It's unclear what the next step in the project is, but we now hope the next update on the Atlas will come our way much sooner than a few months.

Just like the Spot, the Atlas was imagined by Boston Dynamics as a tool to be used in industrial settings. Among the first companies to adopt it for real-world applications is Hyundai, which plans to incorporate it into its carmaking operations. When will that happen is anybody's guess…

The Atlas is not the only humanoid robot currently in the works, and not even the only one that will be deployed in the automotive industry. The Sanctuary AI Phoenix has already been tested on the floor of the Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC) and European auto supplier Magna, the Apptronik Apollo is expected to work for Mercedes-Benz, the  Figure 02 is on team BMW, and the Tesla Optimus, well, you know where that one is going…

h/t Capital.news

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 20:05

Washington D.C. Has The Highest Unemployment Rate In The Nation

The U.S. labor market remains resilient in 2025, but unemployment figures vary widely by state.

While the national unemployment rate stood at 4.1% in June, some regions are experiencing far higher (or far lower) joblessness.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, highlights the unemployment rate by state using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for June 2025.

Washington D.C. Tops Unemployment by State

Washington D.C. tops the list with the highest unemployment rate at 5.9%, as seen in the data table below with the unemployment rate of every U.S. state (and D.C.).

The capital’s high rate marks a significant jump from 5.0% in early 2024, suggesting rising challenges in the capital’s job market amidst Trump’s layoffs across federal agencies.

Nevada (5.4%) and California (5.4%) follow closely behind, reflecting persistent difficulties in sectors like tourism, entertainment, and technology.

Michigan (5.3%) also ranks among the hardest hit, driven by weakness in manufacturing.

The States with the Lowest Unemployment Rates

At the other end of the spectrum, South Dakota recorded the lowest unemployment rate at just 1.8%.

North Dakota (2.5%) and Vermont (2.6%) also reported very low levels of unemployment, underscoring the relative strength of smaller state economies.

Montana and Hawaii, both at 2.8%, round out the bottom five, showing stability even in some tourism-driven markets.

While the U.S. national unemployment rate of 4.1% is slightly above the lows seen during the post-pandemic recovery, the range between the highest and lowest states—more than four percentage points—illustrates the uneven nature of the labor market in America.

To learn more about the challenges Americans are facing, check out the graphic on the cost of the American dream on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 19:40

How Managers Are Using AI To Hire And Fire People

Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace is evolving rapidly, and some are warning that using AI to make executive decisions without careful consideration could backfire.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images

AI is being used more and more in recruitment, hiring, and performance evaluations that could lead to a promotion or termination.

Researchers, legal experts, legislators, and groups such as Human Rights Watch have expressed concern over the potential that AI algorithms are a gateway to ethical quagmires, including marginalization and discrimination in the workplace.

This warning bell isn’t new, but with more managers using AI to assist with important staff decisions, the risk of reducing employees to numbers and graphs also grows.

A Resume Builder survey released in June found that among a group of 1,342 managers in the United States, 78 percent use AI tools to determine raises, 77 percent use it for promotions, 66 percent use it for layoffs, and 64 percent use it for terminations.

The use of AI as a human resource tool is already a cautionary tale. In an unprecedented 2023 workplace discrimination case, digital labor platform iTutorGroup paid $365,000 to settle a federal lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The English language tutoring service was forced to pay damages to job applicants who were filtered out by its AI algorithm. The company used an AI algorithm that automatically rejected more than 200 applicants based on their age. The candidates were automatically disqualified if, in the case of women, they were older than 55 years old. Male applicants 60 years and older were also rejected.

“Hundreds of applicants lost out on employment during a difficult time for job seekers,” Timothy Riera, acting director of the EEOC’s New York District, said in a statement.

Avoiding Dehumanization

Civil regulations and government legislation are being put forward as a guardrail against the use of AI to evaluate and monitor employee performance.

In March, the California Civil Rights Council finalized its regulations surrounding AI decision-making systems in the workplace, which go into effect on Oct. 1. The regulations include protections for employees against the use of AI systems to increase company efficiency. This encompasses actions such as hiring assistance, firing, and promotions.

At the federal level, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced the AI Whistle Blower Protection Act in May. If passed, the bill will offer employment compensation and protection from retaliation to those working directly with AI who choose to disclose issues with these systems.

“Today, too many people working in AI feel they’re unable to speak up when they see something wrong. Whistleblowers are one of the best ways to ensure Congress keeps pace as the AI industry rapidly develops,” Grassley said.

Additionally, the states of Illinois, California, and New York have proposed, introduced, or passed legislation aimed at protecting workers from AI algorithmic discrimination in areas including recruitment, hiring, promotion, employment renewal, discipline, and training.

Business owners, AI experts, and managers using these digital tools to make decisions affecting employees have stressed the need for human oversight.

“I’ve used AI in recruitment. Tools like ChatGPT-powered screening systems and resume parsers have been game-changers,” AI expert and consultant Peter Swain told The Epoch Times.

Swain is the CEO of a namesake company that focuses on helping entrepreneurs strike a balance between AI systems and their human workforce. He illustrated the pros and cons of using AI systems to handle executive tasks.

“Advantages? Speed and scalability—AI can process 1,000 resumes in the time it takes a human to read 10. It also reduces bias if trained properly,” Swain said.

“Disadvantages? Garbage in, garbage out. If the AI is trained on biased data, it perpetuates those biases. Plus, it lacks the human touch—cultural fit and soft skills can’t be fully assessed by an algorithm.”

Data-driven tasks are where AI tools tend to shine, Swain said, but using them for actions such as raises, promotions, and layoffs is “tricky territory.”

“I’ve dabbled with AI-driven performance analytics—tracking [key performance indicators], productivity ... but I’d never let it make the final call,” he said. “It’s a tool, not a decision-maker. The risk is dehumanization, reducing people to data points.”

Swain also called AI’s use in managerial decisions an ethical “minefield.”

“AI can amplify biases if not carefully monitored—think gender, race, or age discrimination baked into training data,” he said. “Transparency is key. Employees need to know how decisions are made and have recourse to challenge them. Accountability matters—if AI screws up, who’s responsible? You can’t just blame the machine.”

A software company’s booth during the AI+Expo Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington on June 2, 2025. As AI technology advances, its use in company administrative work has become more common. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times Volumes of Data

Stephen Engel, CEO of Sanative Recovery and Wellness, told The Epoch Times that he recently used the AI chatbot ChatGPT to assist with deciding whether to fire an employee.

He said that although AI didn’t make the final decision, its ability to handle volumes of data quickly allows managers to think more clearly and “step back from the emotion of the situation” and analyze situations more objectively.

“To me, that’s the real value of AI in this context. ... It allowed me to think through the situation, weigh options more rationally, and ultimately decide on the best course of action,” Engel said.

“I also used ChatGPT afterward to help guide my thinking about what qualities and strengths to prioritize for my next hire. Again, not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a tool to focus my thinking.”

Some business owners use AI tools to identify employees who need help.

“Our AI voice simulations let new employees engage in realistic mock calls from day one. These interactions are scored automatically and paired with coaching opportunities. It’s a way to see quickly who’s progressing and who might need more support,” Lonnie Johnston, CEO of the training platform WizeCamel, told The Epoch Times.

“Our platform helps surface employees who are struggling early and tracks whether they are improving on an acceptable schedule.”

He gave a recent example of how AI evaluations provided data to help supervisors make decisions.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 19:15

India, Russia Set $100BN Trade Target, Rejecting US Pushback

Via The Cradle

India and Russia plan to increase their annual trade to $100 billion over the next five years – an increase of 50% – despite US opposition to the growing cooperation between New Delhi and Moscow, a top Indian minister announced on Thursday.

During the first day of a three-day visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar emphasized the need for India and Russia to broaden their trade ties, foster additional joint ventures between their companies, and hold more frequent meetings to resolve issues such as payment systems. Russia ranks as India’s fourth-largest trade partner, while India holds the position of Russia’s second-largest.

Via Associated Press

"We are all acutely aware that we are meeting in the backdrop of a complex geopolitical situation. Our leaders remain closely and regularly engaged," he said while speaking at the India–Russia Business Forum in the Russian capital.

Jaishankar added that rising global uncertainty puts the emphasis back on "dependable and steady partners."

Economic uncertainty has come from recent actions taken by US President Donald Trump to punish India for its ongoing purchases of Russian oil.

New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude skyrocketed after the start of the war with Ukraine in 2022. After its oil exports to Europe collapsed in the wake of the war, Russia turned to India, offering steep discounts.

In response, Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods, saying the oil purchases help fund Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine.” Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on India further, to 50 percent, a rate high enough to ensure Indian exports to the US will not be competitive.

In response, India has said it has the right to buy oil from the cheapest source, calling the tariffs "unreasonable."

Following Trump’s threats, India’s state refiners began last week to buy large volumes of non-Russian crude. Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. have purchased oil from multiple alternate suppliers in recent weeks, including suppliers in the US, Brazil, and Gulf states, for October delivery.

Private Indian refiners are expected to continue purchasing Russian oil per the long-term contracts they have previously signed. Earlier this month, India halted plans to purchase US weapons and military aircraft in response to President Trump’s tariffs on New Delhi’s exports.

“India had been planning to send Defense Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington in the coming weeks for an announcement on some of the purchases, but that trip has been cancelled,” two sources speaking with Reuters said. 

Before the war in Ukraine, less than 1% of India’s oil came from Russia. Now it is 42%.

The system is allowing India to profiteer by buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it, and pocketing $16B in excess profits.

This opportunistic arbitrage is unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/zp4FuKs9vJ

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) August 19, 2025

In February this year, Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced plans for the procurement and joint production of Stryker combat vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

The sources told Reuters that India’s defense minister was also planning to announce the purchase of six Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft and support systems for the Indian Navy during the trip to Washington, which has now been canceled. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/22/2025 - 18:50