Zero Rss

Hackers Launch 'Vishing' Cyberattacks Against Major Hedge Funds

Several major Wall Street firms have been hit with a wave of sophisticated cyberattacks using voice phishing, or 'vishing' to trick employees into revealing sensitive information or granting access, Bloomberg reports. 

Crash Override gets his ass handed to him by Acid Burn (Hackers)

The attacks targeted some of the world's largest hedge funds - including Citadel, Point72, and Two Sigma Investments, along with several private equity firms. 

Two Sigma, which manages $75 billion, says they were able to thwart the attacks.

"Our security team responded quickly to an attempted vishing campaign targeting Two Sigma and other investment managers, and we have no indication of any impact to our data or our systems," a spokesperson told BBG. "We continue to monitor the situation closely."

While we don't know if the hackers used AI, cybersecurity attacks targeting Wall Street firms have surged over the past year, as artificial intelligence tools allow for cheap, fast, and efficient attacks according to Align Managed Services president, Vinod Paul. 

"Before they could attack 50 entities in a targeted attack, now they can do 1,000," said Paul. "Hackers can also listen into a phone call and mimic the voice, tone and phrasings of the speakers to create fake calls."

In June, Google noted a wave of attacks this year against law firms and other professional service organizations - which also involved vishing, and people posing as IT workers to sneak into corporate offices. 

Finra is now involved...

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees broker dealers and securities professionals, has been in touch with member firms about recent attempted breaches, according to a separate person with knowledge of the matter.

Finra started the Financial Intelligence Fusion Center in March - a secure portal for Finra and its member firms to share intelligence about fraud threats and to help coordinate responses. That was in response to the increasingly sophisticated cyber and fraud threats that were being directed at financial services firms. -Bloomberg

"The terrifying thing about modern day AI systems is that they have commoditized this and made it possible to execute attacks at scale," said Will Wilson, the chief executive officer of Antithesis. "Everybody will have to seriously level up. Otherwise they are going to be in big trouble." 

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 15:25

Former LAPD Officer Gets Life Sentence For Kidnapping Teen In $350,000 Crypto Robbery

Authored by Brian Danga via TheBlock.co,

Former LAPD officer Eric Halem was sentenced to life plus 15 years in state prison on Tuesday for his role in the December 2024 armed robbery of a 17-year-old in Koreatown, who was robbed of a hard drive containing $350,000 worth of bitcoin.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo imposed the concurrent life terms for kidnapping and robbery after rejecting a last-ditch request by defense attorneys seeking a new trial, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

Halem had sought a new trial on grounds that his initial attorneys failed to call witnesses or examine key evidence.

However, Judge Escobedo denied that motion, noting that the evidence presented at trial showed Halem had acted out of "sheer and utter greed," adding that "there could've been no other conclusion."

During Tuesday’s sentencing, Escobedo noted Halem had preyed on individuals who “perhaps shouldn’t be seen as victims, because they were criminals themselves,” but that that didn’t excuse his actions.

To abuse his power, by masquerading as a police officer, “is heinous and egregious,” she said.

According to a district attorney's spokesperson, Halem must complete most of his 15-year sentence before serving the concurrent life terms and will be eligible for parole after seven years.

Halem was convicted in March following a two-week trial in which a jury found him guilty of kidnapping and robbery.

Prosecutors said Halem and three co-conspirators entered a high-rise apartment and forced the victim, identified in court as Daniel, to hand over the hard drive under threat of death.

Halem had left the LAPD nearly two years before the robbery but was still serving as a reserve officer at the time, according to the LA Times. 

He still faces pending charges in separate cases involving insurance fraud and another alleged crypto-related robbery, while his co-defendants have yet to stand trial, per the report.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 15:05

GTA VI Delay Fears Reignite As Ex-Rockstar Developer Says He "Would Not Be Shocked"

Speculation about a delay to Grand Theft Auto VI is spreading online after a former Rockstar Games developer said that, based on his experience working on previous installments, he "would not be shocked" if the game slips again. Another postponement would add to the previous delays and spark frustration among gamers who have waited more than 13 years for a fresh, updated version of the series.

Jake Brigstock of Indy100, a British digital news website, spoke with former Rockstar Games animator Mike York, via covers.com, about his confidence that Rockstar Games will be able to release GTA 6 by November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

York said he "would not be shocked at all" if there does end up being another GTA 6 release date delay.

"Personally after being there and working on GTA 5, I don't currently work there so I can't give a confidence based off that, but based on my previous experience, they could delay it again," said York.

"Straight up, they could delay it again. They can.

"They can do whatever they want and people will wait right now, it doesn't matter. If they need to do what they need to do, they'll do it.

"So if November comes around and they're thinking 'this final mission we have is still not looking very good, and there are still a few bugs in this final mission', they'll push it six more months if they have to.

"I would not be shocked at all. I don't think it would hurt them or anything."

Another delay would abosutely crush confidence in gamers whp've waited 13 year for another re-freshing of GTA.

Rockstar began taking GTA preorders on June 25. Take-Two Interactive Software, the owner of the gaming studio, has seen its stock meet heavy resistance at the $250 level since mid-2025.

Polymarket odds for "GTA 6 launch postponed again?" have yet to really move on Indy100's report that was posted on Tuesday.

//--> //--> GTA 6 launch postponed again?
Yes 11% · No 89%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Odds stand around 11%.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 14:45

At Least Ten Agitators Arrested In Madison As Filthy 'Autonomous Zone' Is Dismantled

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

Authorities in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday sent in crews to clean up and dismantle the filthy and violent “autonomous zone” that was set up by left-wing agitators to protest the shooting of an armed violent felon. At least ten occupiers were arrested as of Tuesday morning, Fox 6 reported.

Repeat offender Corey Ruiz, 38, was shot by police on July 22 after allegedly attacking an officer with a knife.

Public records show that Ruiz had eight convictions for “resisting, obstructing, threatening or injuring police officers between 2007 and 2024,” according to Fox 6.

Five of those prior cases reportedly involved conflicts with City of Madison police officers.

After the shooting, activists, including Black Lives Matter members, quickly set up barricades using furniture, spike strips, and wooden pallets to occupy downtown Madison.

The Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone (also known as CRAZE or “Corey Street”) was initially allowed by the woke mayor as a protest encampment.

The City of Madison even provided basic services, including portable restrooms and the use of salt trucks as street blockades. A homeless population quickly moved into the zone, creating a need for more services..

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway on Friday described the zone as “not sustainable or safe” but did not set a timeline for clearing it.

Meanwhile, Independent journalist Nick Sortor was threatened over the weekend by BLM agitators while reporting at the scene.

“Hurry up and leave before your life ends here,” an agitator told Sortor. “There’s a whole team of us.”

Cleaning crews were sent in early Tuesday morning after “CRAZE” had become a public health hazard. After the decision to remove the encampment was announced, the occupiers reportedly lit fires and threw rocks at the city workers.

The agitators clashed with city and state police who were sent to the scene to protect the crews.

The agitators blocked the streets near the encampment after it was cleared.

The occupiers eventually moved to the mayor’s decrepit house to wage a “noise protest” over her decision to shut down their “CRAZE.” They littered the mayor’s front yard with anti-police signs, deployed a megaphone siren and screamed at her through a bullhorn.

“The community ain’t get no sleep ’cause of you!” an agitator bellowed through the bullhorn. “We saw you sent your pigs out too!”

“You have blood on your hands!” the agitator cried.

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said in a video statement Tuesday that the decision to clear the encampment at Williamson and Baldwin Streets was “not made lightly” and occurred only after nearly two weeks of failed attempts to resolve the situation voluntarily.

She urged the community to focus on “sustainable change” and accountability through official investigations rather than occupation, stating, “Holding government accountable for progress should not mean harming the community we all share.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 14:25

Ethereum Researchers Want To Rein In Staking; Critics Warn It Could Backfire

Authored by Felix Ng via CoinTelegraph.com,

A group of six Ethereum researchers and developers, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake, has proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to cut validator rewards more sharply as the proportion of staked ETH rises. 

The draft, called the Tapered Issuance Burn and currently being assigned the provisional number EIP-8363, would burn an increasing fraction of validators’ consensus rewards as the amount of staked ETH approaches a fixed threshold of 60.25 million ETH (around 50% of the current ETH supply), at which point the deduction hits 100%. The changes would phase in over 18 months. 

Tapered Issuance Burn Ethereum Improvement Proposal. Source: Github

The proposal has triggered backlash from developers, stakers and DeFi founders, who warn that the reward cuts could force out solo validators before larger institutions are affected, weaken institutional demand for ETH and disrupt DeFi markets built around staking yield. 

One of the proposal’s authors, Jérôme de Tychey, said the changes are needed to address the rising share of Ether being staked, which passed 33% in April. The authors argue continued staking growth could concentrate ETH in large custodians and liquid staking providers, while unchecked issuance erodes Ether’s role as a neutral, trustless store of value. 

“Ever-growing issuance is a dilution tax on every holder: stake, or be diluted. At high ratios, LSTs and other staking derivatives displace raw ETH as the ecosystem’s working money, thus swapping the most neutral, trustless asset for intermediated claims on issuers,” he said.

Although EIP-8363 remains an early draft, its publication just two days before a deadline for proposals targeting Ethereum’s Hegotá upgrade has also raised concerns about whether there is enough time to consider the impacts on Ethereum’s tokenomics.

EIP-8363 authors’ argument to cut issuance 

The proposal’s authors argue that under the current curve, staking yield never drops below 1.5% even with all ETH in existence being staked. 

“The incentive to stake never switches off. Where does it stop? It doesn’t,” said de Tychey. 

With no changes, a worst-case scenario could see more than 55% of Ethereum supply locked in staking by 2028, he said. 

“Maximal neutrality & minimal dilution: those are the two fundamentals of a store of value. This EIP not only hardens both, it sets a bar no other blockchain clears.” 

🚨 New EIP: Tapered Issuance Burn
We just submitted an EIP to ethereum/EIPs: a minimal, market-driven fix to Ethereum's issuance policy removing the incentive for stake growth beyond 50% of ETH supply.
EIP-8361 by @pintail_xyz, @jdetychey, @dapplion, @pa7x1, @ladislaus0x &… pic.twitter.com/g1uzWPycQ4

— Jerome de Tychey 🦇🔊 (@jdetychey) August 4, 2026

The proposed policy would see issuance peak at 0.5% of ETH supply per year at its highest (around 20% of ETH is staked), declining to zero when the staking ratio of Ethereum hits the 60.25 million ETH threshold. 

“ETH supply growth will be bounded and more predictable. Combined with the EIP-1559 and Blob burn, the supply will more often decrease. Ethereum, the most mature of all the protocols, with a sustainable security budget, will also be the least dilutive of all protocols,” said de Tychey.

The proposal’s broader direction has also received support from Grayscale. In May, Grayscale’s head of research Zach Pandl said limiting staking incentives would be “positive for the price of Ether over time.”

Critics say it’s punishing Ethereum’s growth

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said reducing staking rewards would weaken institutional demand for ETH and borrowing activity across DeFi, arguing the proposal “doesn’t achieve the outcome it tries to achieve and is actually hurtful for Ethereum.” 

Another argument is that the proposal would impact solo validators as they have generally higher relative costs and are more susceptible to reward changes, leading to a more concentrated validator set. 

“This will self evidently push out solo stakers who aren’t subsidized by the EF or others,” said Mike Silagadze, CEO of Ether.Fi. 

“It will essentially guarantee that the only ones staking are large centralized entities with zero cost of capital where users passively hold their ETH.”

De Tychey disputed this point, saying on the Ethereum Magicians forum that users of large staking providers must pay fees, making those services less attractive as rewards fall, though he acknowledged the research on this is still contested. 

The proposed network update would lower ETH issuance and inflation. Source: Zach Pandl

Others pointed to the seemingly rushed timeline to consider the proposal, though this appears to be due to confusion over the forthcoming deadline on Thursday. 

“This clearly doesn’t leave adequate time for community review of a monetary policy change of this magnitude,” said Greg Koumoutsos, a co-author of EIP-8148 and EIP-8205.

Where the proposal currently stands

The Tapered Issuance Burn proposal has not been approved, scheduled or included in Hegotá.

While there is a Thursday deadline relating to this proposal, the deadline is for pull requests proposing additional EIPs for Hegotá, not a deadline for deciding which proposals will be included. 

Ethereum community organizer Trent Van Epps said the selection process could continue until Nov. 8, and that Hegotá is likely to reach mainnet in the second quarter of 2027.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 13:45

Copper Tops $14,000 As US Stockpiling Drains Global Supply Ahead Of Trump's Tariff Call

Copper strength has returned to the London Metal Exchange this week as futures top $14,000 a ton. Another leg higher could be imminent, pushing prices into blue-sky territory as traders weigh tightening global supplies against robust metal inflows into the US ahead of President Trump's expected tariff decision.

The Commerce Department was expected to deliver its tariff recommendation by June 30, but no decision has been announced. On national security grounds, the agency is expected to impose import levies of up to 50% on semi-finished and derivative copper products under Section 232. The policy aims to protect domestic manufacturing and reduce foreign reliance, addressing supply chain risks from major exporters like Chile, Peru, and Canada.

Bloomberg reports more than 200,000 tons of copper flowed into US ports in July, the largest ever monthly inflow in data going back to 2014. High US prices have kept the trade profitable.

As a result, this has added to a massive hoard in U.S. warehouses and ports, while supplies in the rest of the world are dwindling.

LME inventories sank to a five-month low, while a widening backwardation signaled increasing pressure on near-term supplies. LME copper settled 1.4% higher at $14,066.50 a ton, while Comex futures rose as much as 2.3% to approach May's record high.

The tightening is visible in the LME forward curve. Nearby contracts traded at a $99.50-a-ton premium to three-month futures, up from about $30 a week earlier - the widest backwardation since January. This structure suggests pressure on short-term supplies.

Jefferies analyst Christopher LaFemina told clients earlier this summer that his team "wasn't bullish enough on copper," adding, "We now have the highest copper price forecast on the Street as we see strong US industrial demand and still tight supply."

Beyond Jefferies, HSBC, and Goldman, JPMorgan analysts have also told clients that the copper upcycle is being driven by a tightening supply backdrop, accelerating power-grid investment, AI data center demand, and broader industrial electrification. Taken together, some of Wall Street's top metals desks have warned about a sustained break above $14,000 on the LME.

However, Bloomberg macro strategist Michael Ball recently pointed out that a tariff disappointment, stronger dollar, or AI-led selloff would expose the growing bullish speculative bets on copper (read here).

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 13:25

Citadel Soars 6% In July Thanks To Situational Awareness Firesale Liquidation

Some have speculated that one of the most proximal catalysts behind the collapse of Leopold Aschenbrenner's $45 billion and epically misnamed Situational Awareness hedge fund, besides his use of batshit insane Total Return Swap leverage that would make an average Korean momentum-chasing degen blush with envy, was Citadel's vocal warning early last week that the Fed would/should hike rates, a contrarian appeal which, while not taken seriously by any Fed watcher, may have spooked markets to the necessary and sufficient breaking point that forced the flood of margin calls that ultimately wiped out Leopold. 

While we doubt that Citadel was so tactically engaged as to crush the young and inexperienced Leopold and hear the lamentations of his soon to be wife with fringer notes, we are certain that his massive TRS leverage - as much as 4x on both side of a pair trade that had gone terribly wrong by being long chips and short software - and which we warned back in June was clearly in play and would lead to ruin for one or more funds, was more than sufficient to force the hedge fund's liquidation by bringing its assets under management from $45 billion at the start of July to just $10 billion at the end.  

More importantly, it led to a blowout month for none other than the flagship fund of Ken Griffin’s Citadel which jumped 5.9% in July, a month when most of its peers suffered major losses (look no further than Coatue's 8% drop) after it bought billions of dollars of AI stocks in a fire sale from Aschenbrenner’s now collapsed hedge fund Situational Awareness.

Citadel, which manages more than $71bn, has now seen its Wellington fund surge 12% so far in 2026 after a turbulent July which ultimately generated half the firm's YTD gains, the FT reported citing people who have seen the numbers.

After a huge rally in AI-related equities earlier in the year, hedge funds were smashed by a historic collapse in high beta momo stocks in July which nuked most popular holdings such as South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix which tumbled almost 50% from a peak in June. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 briefly veered into correction territory last week, shortly before the deal to sell Situational Awareness’s book.

More than a month after we warned that massive TRS leverage would lead to one or more Archegos-like casualties (with or without the criminal element)...

Has anyone done the analysis which funds have the most TRS on AI, aka Archegos 2.0

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 12, 2026

... that's precisely what happened when Aschenbrenner’s - which notched gains of more than 400% in the first half of the year with its highly leveraged bets on AI companies - became the most prominent casualty of the violent momentum reversal.

The sell-off crippled the fund, pushing it to sell the majority of its public equity positions to Griffin’s firm last week in a quick-fire process that took place over less than 24 hours. Citadel approached Situational Awareness late on July 29 and negotiated with the firm overnight. It signed a contract in less than 24 hours for the sale, which came with a 10% discount, Bloomberg has previously reported. 

Citadel’s own funds had struggled to generate big returns during the first weeks of July amid the sell-off in equities. As of July 24, Wellington was roughly flat month-to-date. In the three days prior to Citadel’s acquisition of Situational Awareness, stocks fell further.

Citadel competed with trading firm Jane Street and fellow multi-manager hedge fund giant Millennium for the purchase of Situational Awareness’s equities book last week, eventually winning the auction with about a 10% discount, FT sources reported. 

Separately, before the sale to Citadel, Silicon Valley venture capital firms Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital were approached about taking over the some of the privately held stakes in Situational Awareness’ portfolio. 

The troubled fund also had close links to some of the world’s biggest investment banks. Situational Awareness used prime brokers including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Bank of America according to filings.

In an exclusive report this morning, the WSJ wrote that Situational Awareness was backed by a wide lineup of Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors who put their faith in a 20-something founder with no prior professional investing experience.  Among the fund’s investors are Dan Sundheim, founder of the hedge fund D1 Capital Partners and a major SpaceX shareholder; Silicon Valley investor Neil Mehta, co-founder of venture-capital firm Greenoaks; the foundation of Gaurav Kapadia, founder of investment firm XN; and Feroz Dewan, the former head of public equities at Tiger Global Management, according to people familiar with the matter.

Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, and Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, who lead Meta Platforms’ AI efforts, are among Situational’s other investors. Some investors might have invested through their foundations, family offices or other entities.

Situational was also backed by foundations including the Laniakea Charitable Foundation and Good Forever Foundation, according to tax and regulatory filings reviewed by fund-data tracker Old Well Labs. The president and director of Laniakea is Matthew Wage, a Jane Street trader, tax filings show. Good Forever is a grant-making organization focused on AI safety and AI policy. 

Aksia, a research and advisory firm to institutions including pensions, family offices and sovereign-wealth funds, made note of Aschenbrenner’s intellect and network in a March 2025 assessment for clients after meeting with him. But it also wrote that prospective investors in Situational “may want to be wary of hubris leading to risk management issues, particularly if the use of leverage is indeed significant,” according to a copy of the note viewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

The last ditch rescue by Citadel was not only a brilliant distressed investment which helped generate billions in short-term profits, it also helped to stem a broader market rout because Situational Awareness’s forced selling had been exacerbating the sell-off in AI stocks. Many of Aschenbrenner’s biggest investments according to his last regulatory filing - including Bloom Energy and Sandisk - rallied the day after the sale. The latter has gained nearly 30% since last Wednesday.

“These are names that trade really aggressively,” said one hedge fund manager who had invested in similar positions to those of Situational Awareness. “They were highly volatile, but they were liquid. So Citadel made a killing.”

As the FT notes, Griffin is known to charge towards firms that run into trouble. The day Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, Griffin sent more than a dozen of his executives to Houston on a chartered Gulfstream jet to dig into its failure, and later poached several of the company’s top analysts. The hedge fund has also stepped in before to buy the remains of failed competitors. In 2006, Citadel bought the entire trading book of Amaranth Advisors alongside JPMorgan after the fund blew up from bad bets on natural gas. A year later, it pulled off a similar coup by snapping up the credit portfolio of Sowood Capital Management when it collapsed.

“It’s classic Ken,” said one former employee, who worked closely with the Citadel founder. “He has played that card many times . . . There are very few places in the world who can do what he did.”

As for Leopold, don't cry for the former OpenAI staffer. He may have blown up this time but after his stint working for SBF at FTX, he surely has learned how to survive blow ups such as this one, and as long as he has his freedom (unlike his former boss) he will emerge somewhere (assuming he has an ironclad prenup of course). 

The Dario curse:

SBF invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (SBF in prison)

Leopold invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (Leopold getting married)

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 30, 2026

As the WSJ notes, Aschenbrenner started his hedge fund in 2024. After a string of prescient stock picks, including memory-chip makers SK Hynix and Sandisk, his assets under management swelled, placing the firm among the fastest-growing hedge funds in years. The rapid rise earned him a reputation as a stock-picking wunderkind and the nickname “the Nostradamus of AI.” 

In retrospect, he was just a massively levered degen who, like the infamous Taleb turkey, was lucky for 99.9% of the ride... and then Thanksgiving happened.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 13:05

Google's Chief AI Scientist Jeff Dean Exits After 27 Years, Alphabet Shares Slide

Alphabet shares slid after The Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Dean, one of Google's earliest employees and a key figure in its AI strategy (co-founder of Google Brain), is departing after nearly three decades to launch his own AI company. The exit raises fresh concerns about Google's ability to retain top researchers as competition for AI experts intensifies. 

Dean was Google's 30th employee in 1999 and will serve as CEO of Discovery Loop, a public-benefit corporation initially targeting machine-learning research and engineering. The startup will then transition to hardware design, drug discovery, and clean energy by automating multistep scientific experiments.

WSJ spoke with Dean:

"The four of us have been chatting about this a little bit and we got excited," Dean said in an interview at his Palo Alto, Calif., home Tuesday.

"We think by automating many of the classical experimental-loop aspects with machine learning models, augmenting human scientists and engineers, we'll be able to make it possible to explore more space in broad science areas to accelerate discovery."

The scientific process, he said, is about coming up with an idea for an experiment, setting up and running the experiment and then evaluating the results.

"Particularly in a lot of domains, you can fully computerize that whole loop," he said -- the inspiration for the startup's name.

Alphabet will invest in Dean's startup and provide cloud and computing capacity, while Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures are co-leading a seed round. The valuation wasn't disclosed.

WSJ said that prominent Google researchers Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le and Sanjay Ghemawat will be joining Dean in the new startup.

Shares of Alphabet dropped 5% after the report hit:

Four minutes after the WSJ report hit, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, wrote on X: 

I've been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I'm stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease.

I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I’m stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including…

— Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis) August 5, 2026

Google CEO Sundar Pichai commented on the departures, saying Dean and Ghemawat helped engineer some of the company's most significant technology transitions over nearly three decades at the company and wished them the best.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:45

Second Foreign Vessel Attacked Off Yemen Within Hours, Amid Houthi 'Siege For Siege' Blockade

Update(1235ET): The Houthis have apparently attacked two vessels off Yemen's coast within a mere few hours on Tuesday, as clearly the assault on international shipping by the Iran-aligned group has grown.

The below alert from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre is the second one today. Just hours before, an initial vessel had been reported sunk, the crew rescued... and now this:

The incident took place 95 nautical miles (176km) south-east of Aden, Yemen, according to UKMTO, adding that all the vessel’s crew are “accounted for and safe”.

UKMTO WARNING 106-26

Click here to view the full warning⤵️https://t.co/iEt5aG0Mru#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/6QeQIOu6qd

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) August 5, 2026

And just the day prior: "The Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday condemned the attack on the India-flagged commercial vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, which sank in the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen on August 4, 2026."

This comes as the Saudis are desperately trying to put together a 'coalition of the willing' to defend against such attacks. While the Houthis have not declared Bab al-Mandab Strait closed to 'all' shipping, they have declared a 'siege for siege' blockade against Saudi shipping.

*  *  *

The Houthis have quickly made good on their earlier threat, with the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre having reported the following fresh attack off Yemen:

• UKMTO has received a time-late report of an incident 9NM southwest of Al Mukha, Yemen.
• The CSO of the vessel has reported that the vessel was attacked by an Uncrewed Surface Vessel which caused a fire onboard. The crew have been rescued by local authorities and are safe and well.
• The vessel has been reported as sunk.
• Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO while authorities are investigating.

The stricken vessel's crew has reportedly been rescued, after the fire on board and subsequent sinking.

Oil prices remain elevated also as over in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians insist that the Omani deal to reopen the strait has "nothing to do with the United States."

earlier

Brent crude bounced off the $78-a-barrel level early Wednesday after Iran-backed Houthi militants threatened to attack Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea, reviving fears that the regional conflict could spread to another critical shipping channel. The move came despite an overnight Axios report, citing two sources and a US official, that President Trump's negotiators and Tehran are nearing an Oman-brokered interim peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Bloomberg report cites Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, who said the threat is retaliation for Saudi Arabia diverting oil tankers away from the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint in the southern Red Sea.

Brent crude bounced from the $78 level to $80, clawing back some of its losses after tumbling from $86 to $78 on news that the US and Iran were closing in on an interim deal to reopen Hormuz.

WTI topped $76 this morning before fading modestly...

The latest shipping data from the Hormuz chokepoint show that transits through the critical waterway remain well below the levels seen during the first interim peace deal, which eventually fell apart one month later and resulted in the recent tit-for-tat strikes.

Last night, President Trump told reporters, "They had an all-day negotiation. The Strait of Hormuz is going to be open very soon," adding, "If they back out again, they are going to get hit really hard."

Trump has repeatedly threatened massive strikes if Tehran fails to reach a deal, only to later signal progress in negotiations.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:35

Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo That Killed At Least 21

According to a growing casualty count, a large barrage of ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Ukraine has killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more.

The overnight attack has raised the alarm for Ukraine's Western backers, given it is being widely reported that among the over two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles fired, not a single one was intercepted by Ukraine.

Huge overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital, via X

The attacks come on the heels of a record month: July saw over 380 missiles of all types launched on Ukraine, with government authorities citing the highest civilian casualties since 2022, with at least 377 civilians killed, and another 2,129 wounded for the month of July.

As Ukraine grapples with very low and limited missile interceptors, and amid reports that the Pentagon too is struggling to keep up supplies amid the Iran war, CNN also confirms that "as Russia fired more than two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles" and that "none" were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses.

President Zelensky again took to social media to urge partners to rapidly send more anti-air missiles: "It is crucial that our partners realize that delays in their delivery or a reluctance to provide anti-ballistic systems lead precisely to such horrific casualties and destruction," he said.

"Partners who are not ready to help more actively with the supply of interceptors right now can help by imposing new sanctions," he added.

Notably the Russian strikes have expanded to not just city infrastructure, energy cites, military bases, and ports - but now Russia appears to be going after prominent businesses.

This comes after Ukraine's repeat attacks on Wildberries facilities, the Russian online retailer giant comparable to Amazon:

​​​​​​The strikes also caused damage to prominent businesses in Ukraine, including the country’s largest e-commerce platform, Rozetka, and Epicentr, a retail chain comparable to IKEA.

In a statement, Epicentr said Russia launched a "devastating attack" on its manufacturing infrastructure, killing one of its male employees. “In a matter of minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had been building for decades,” the statement said.

FOZZY group, which is one of Ukraine’s largest retailers that operates supermarket chains, said Russian shelling caused fires at two of its distribution centers. It said that six of its employees had been killed, while more have been injured.

Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv.

At least 20 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles, 5 Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, and 2 Kn-23 ballistic missiles were launched from Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov Oblasts.

Every single missile impacted. Not a single Patriot… pic.twitter.com/vXUKsehk4s

— AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_) August 5, 2026

But on the flip side Ukraine has only expanded its own long-range drone attacks on Russian territory, including on the capital city.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has explained to TASS that "In recent months, the number of drones launched toward Moscow has increased significantly. And overall, of all the attacks carried out almost daily against Russian territory, two-thirds of the drones are heading toward Moscow."

Last month Zelensky had announced a 40-day "operation of influence" - describing a multi-pronged campaign of long-range drone strikes intent on forcing Moscow to halt the war and get to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Ukraine. The Russian military has all the while also been upping its response.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:10

Middle East War Triggers New Global Refining Boom

Submitted By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

For the second time this decade, a war has upended global oil markets and sent oil prices and refining margins to multi-year highs, benefiting the world’s biggest oil companies and top refiners.

The war in Iran has tightened fuel supply as crude oil has struggled to move through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering reduced refining throughput in Asia and a temporary Chinese ban on exports. The fuel markets tightened even more than the crude market to send refining margins to record highs.

And the biggest refiners benefited from the new refining boom, with Big Oil reporting their highest second-quarter earnings since the previous outbreak of a war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The bumper earnings were driven not only by the jump in oil prices between April and June—the contribution of the refining and trading divisions was also fundamental for fueling the high profits.

Record Refining Margins

Despite the slump in crude prices and the extreme volatility in the past five months, the refined product market continues to tighten with refining margins at record highs because the supply of petroleum products is much tighter than crude supply.

Refining margins held at record highs even as crude oil prices soared to $100 per barrel and above. That’s because global gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel supply is tightening and has been tightening for months amid a combination of factors, most stemming from the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Last month, refining margins for gasoline and diesel jumped to new record highs amid on-and-off escalation in the Middle East, Russia’s ban on diesel exports, and crumbling global fuel inventories.  

In a rare statement last month, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that “There is no room for complacency on oil security amid the escalation in hostilities and a continued drawdown of available commercial inventories.”

While assuring markets that IEA countries still hold more than 1 billion barrels of government-controlled stocks, Birol said that “Refinery activity and product supplies have not picked up as much as crude deliveries, meaning that markets for refined oil products, including diesel and gasoline, are considerably tighter than those for crude.”

Big Oil’s Bumper Profits

As a result of the tight fuel markets and soaring refining margins, the world’s biggest international oil companies reported their strongest earnings for the second quarter since at least 2022. They also expect refining to continue providing high earnings in the short term amid distorted fuel markets with restricted supply and refining capacity.

Shell, for example, more than doubled its second-quarter earnings from a year earlier, as higher oil and gas prices, record refinery utilization, and strong trading boosted profits to above analyst expectations.

Refinery utilization at Shell was 102% in April to June, compared with 99% in the first quarter of 2026, mainly due to lower planned and unplanned maintenance activities. Strong refining and chemical margins also boosted Shell’s earnings in the past quarter.

Shell’s global indicative refining margin rose to $24 from $17 per barrel in the first quarter, while the global indicative chemical margin doubled to $270 per ton, from $139 per ton.

“The operational performance of Refining has been excellent,” CEO Wael Sawan said on Shell’s earnings call.

TotalEnergies’ adjusted net income jumped by 68% from a year earlier to $6 billion for the second quarter of 2026 as the jump in oil prices and refining margins boosted earnings and cash flows.

The European Refining Margin Marker for the supermajor rose by 19% quarter-to-quarter and soared nearly threefold year-to-date compared to the first half of 2025, to $12.4 per barrel, up from $4.3 a barrel.

“Refining and Chemicals performed in an exceptional way leveraging market conditions, managing well the tensions on supply of refined products to maximize captured margins,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said on the earnings call.

The U.S. supermajors, ExxonMobil and Chevron, also reported their highest earnings in years, drawing criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who this week said they are making “too much money” and “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

Chevron had record refinery throughput of over 1 million barrels per day for the second quarter, CEO Mike Wirth said on the earnings call on Friday.

“Middle distillates are really the tight spot right now. Initially, it looked like jet, now diesel,” the executive noted, saying that European diesel demand could soon start rising from relatively weak levels in Q2 amid restocking of heating oil ahead of winter.

“That lands on top of the export ban from Russia, refinery outages in Russia, the obvious constraints that exist in the Strait,” Wirth added.

China and its demand is a big unknown for the market now, but Chevron doesn’t see a significant scale of demand destruction, said the executive, adding “I think we're going to see some upward pressure on product pricing here into the third quarter and perhaps beyond that.”

Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods said the supermajor expects continued “very robust refining market with very high margins.”

Even if supply disruptions are resolved by the end of the year and crude and fuels flows from the Middle East are restored, low global inventories and the need to restock could support the global refining complex for a few more quarters.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 11:50

Progressive El-Sayed Wins Michigan's Democratic Senate Primary

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated establishment candidate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) to win the Michigan Democratic Senate primary in a contentious race that became a proxy fight for the broader battle within the party over its direction.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks at a rally in Canton, Mich., on July 29, 2026. Jacob Burg/The Epoch Times

El-Sayed beat his centrist opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), 48.5 percent to 47.5 percent, with 99 percent of the votes tabulated. The Associated Press called the race at 9:54 a.m. ET on Aug. 5.

The progressive will take on Republican Mike Rogers in November in the race for Michigan's battleground Senate seat.

El-Sayed faced more than $60 million in outside spending in support of Stevens, compared to around $4.6 million spent to support his campaign.

The race became a flashpoint in a wider ideological battle taking place nationwide in the Democratic Party between progressives and establishment centrists.

A number of progressive leaders, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) endorsed El-Sayed ahead of the Aug. 4 primary.

Stevens received support from outgoing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

A Rhodes Scholar and epidemiologist, El-Sayed was the director of the Wayne County Health Department from 2023 to 2025. He ran on a platform supporting Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in favor of bringing back the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), passing a moratorium on U.S. data centers, and ending U.S. military support for Israel.

Stevens began her political career working on the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, before pivoting to President Barack Obama's campaign after he clinched the nomination that year. She then served as chief of staff for Obama's auto rescue program - experience she championed throughout her campaign for Senate.

Running on a broadly liberal platform of lowering costs, rebuilding the auto industry, and bringing back manufacturing to Michigan, Stevens faced criticism from progressives like El-Sayed for defending continued U.S. military support of Israel and for accepting record financial support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) this year.

AIPAC and its associated groups - which supported Stevens' successful primary battle against then-Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) in 2022 - had spent $30.6 million on the race by July 30, its largest election expenditure in history.

El-Sayed highlighted the record expenditures on the campaign trail over the past month, telling rallygoers that AIPAC was trying to "buy" the race away from Michiganders.

Asked about AIPAC's ongoing financial support for her during a July 27 debate, Stevens said her support for Israel was more nuanced but didn't address the record spending.

"I believe in a two-state solution. [El-Sayed] has attacked me for supporting that people in Palestine and Israel deserve to live side by side peacefully. And [Benjamin Netanyahu] has attacked me by name, and they both represent the extremes," Stevens said.

After a rally in a coffee shop in Canton Township on July 29, El-Sayed told reporters that he believes American taxpayer money is being wasted to support foreign militaries overseas.

"We pay more for all we have to buy. We pay less for the work we do. [We] watch as our tax dollars get misappropriated to drop bombs and buy tanks for foreign countries instead of building schools and healthcare for our own," El-Sayed said.

Electability Argument

The closing argument of Stevens' campaign was that she is more electable in a November matchup against Rogers, who lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) by less than 20,000 votes in 2024, when President Donald Trump won Michigan.

In a flurry of text messages sent out in the twilight hours of the primary race, Stevens claimed she was the only Democrat who could defeat a Republican in purple Michigan.

The congresswoman seized on a July 28 Glengariff Group poll that measured hypothetical matchups of Stevens vs. Rogers and El-Sayed vs. Rogers.

That poll gave Stevens a 0.8-point advantage over Rogers, while by contrast, the Republican led El-Sayed by more than 10 percentage points.

"Poll after poll shows I'm the strongest Democrat to beat Mike Rogers. But MAGA Republicans and their billionaire donors are trying to boost my opponent to shut down our momentum," Stevens wrote in a campaign text sent on Aug. 2.

However, a Mitchell Research poll released on July 31 found Rogers and El-Sayed tied in a hypothetical matchup, whereas Stevens trailed the Republican by 4 percentage points.

"Highly electable candidates don't usually need $60 million to come in to help them get elected. That is a historical amount of money," El-Sayed told The Epoch Times after his rally in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on July 30.

"If you can't get elected without $60 million, you're not electable," he added.

And of course, Trump has some thoughts about 'her':

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 11:15

WTI Maintains Losses After Another SPR Drain, Distillate Stocks At 30-Year Seasonal Lows

Oil prices have roller-coastered overnight - higher on new Houthie attacks in the Red Sea and now lower on reports that a draft deal approval in imminent.

Up...

A Houthi military spokesperson said the group would escalate attacks on Saudi vessels in the northern Red Sea — the latest workaround for the kingdom’s exports to avoid the perilous Bab al-Mandab Strait off Yemen’s coast to the south. Exports from the Red Sea have become a vital lifeline for Saudi Arabia since the Iran war choked off shipping from the Persian Gulf.

Down...

Axios reported the US, Iran and Oman were nearing an interim, 60-day accord to reopen the waterway, with Washington aiming for an announcement later Wednesday. The proposal would involve no tolls or fees, with inbound vessels using a northern lane, and outbound traffic a southern one.

But in the short-term, and especially in light of the recent decline in refined product prices, all eyes are on the official inventory and supply data (which API reported a crude build and diesel draw).

API

• Crude +2.7mm (-2.1mm exp)

• Cushing +2.4mm

• Gasoline +200k

• Distillates -1.2mm

DOE

• Crude +2.48mm (-2.1mm exp)

• Cushing +2.36mm - biggest build since March

• Gasoline -1.64mm

• Distillates -3.47mm

After last week's huge crude draw, this week saw a modest (2.48mm) build in inventories while Cushing stocks soared 2.36mm barrels (the most since March). Products saw sizable draws...

The Trump admin drained another 2.84mm barrels (smallest since the start of the war) from the SPR last week, making a total decline of 110mm barrels since the start of the war...

Cushing stocks rose very marginally off 'tank bottoms'...

Seasonally, distillate stockpiles are now at their lowest since 1996, driven by a 5.2 million barrel draw on the Gulf Coast. That’s the largest pull on stocks for the region since February 2021.

US Crude production ticked up modestly last week - just shy of record highs...

US refiners are importing the most crude since May of this year as refiners continue to run hard, churning through over 17 million barrels of oil each day.

Bloomberg reports that Gulf Coast crude refinery runs fell but remained at the highest levels for this time of the year. The drop can be partly explained by a blip in operations at the Marathon Garyville refinery. The Louisiana facility shut down its 283,000-barrel-a-day crude unit and a vacuum distillation unit last week. The units were restarted on Monday.

Meanwhile, crude exports are holding below 4 million barrels a day, far from the nearly 6.5 million daily barrels earlier this year as the Iran war disrupted global supply.

WTI is lower and maintaining the decline after the official inventory data...

Even if a short-term deal to normalize commercial shipping is reached, however, it might still fail to end the war or resolve Trump’s concerns about the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

“It’s still very unclear who is negotiating with whom and what could come out of this agreement,” said Hamad Hussain, a climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics.

“As we’ve seen before, these deals can very easily collapse. That’s obviously a risk we’ll see persist, even after a deal may be announced.”

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the Houthis remain a source of concern for shipowners. People familiar with the matter said this week that Saudi Arabia had held talks with the militants through Omani mediators in an effort to prevent the conflict from widening. They said the leading OPEC member is continuing to prepare military options should negotiations fail.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 10:38

We've Been Here Before

By Bas van Geffen, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

Phil Connors has woken up to another instance of the same day. The US, Iran and Oman are said to be close to a new deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Axios reports that the US aims for an announcement today. So, Brent futures dropped to $79/barrel and equity markets rallied further, for the S&P 500 to set a fresh record high.

The reported deal could just as well have been written a couple of weeks ago. Axios prints that the deal includes an inbound shipping route through Iranian waters and outbound shipping via the Oman side, while parties work to clear mines from the middle of the strait. No tolls or fees would be charged for the 60-day period covered by this deal. That all looks very similar to the previous deal – that was torpedoed by renewed attacks on ships.

That wasn’t the only “agreement” in recent weeks that proved untenable (or completely non-existent). Will the groundhog see its shadow again today, or will the deal really hold this time? 

Even if this deal isn’t immediately sunk by a drone or missile strike, there is a long and risky road ahead. Negotiations are currently clearly focused on preventing new escalation, and the temporary deal does not offer permanent solutions for the key sticking points. 

For example, Reuters sources report that disagreement over transit fees after these 60 days persists. But that’s not the surprising part. Regional outlets suggest that the disagreement is over the amount charged. They claim that Iran demands a 7% fee, with exemptions for Chinese and Russian ships, whereas the US proposed 5%.

If this is even remotely true, that would mark a big shift from the US’ original stance that freedom of navigation is incompatible with any fees. Geopolitically, it would mark an even bigger defeat for the US. If the US cannot restore the status of the Strait of Hormuz, then surely Washington cannot expect to extract concessions on Iran’s nuclear programme.

So, President Trump may have to pick between a deal on Iran’s terms or escalating. That, in turn, suggests it could be matter of time before Trump expresses his frustration with the negotiations again, and we may be in for another few weeks of winter.

As we note in our Monthly Outlook yesterday, the danger is not repeatedly reliving the same trading day – in fact, that would make life a lot easier. The danger is that the cycle eventually breaks and the script changes. I would add that it may in part be up to traders whether that happens. As Phil realizes that he is reliving the same day over and over, he changes his behaviour – some days to the point of recklessness. 

Notwithstanding the decline in Brent, diesel and petrol prices remain high enough for governments to extend support measures. The Italian government announced an extension of the diesel tax cut through August 25, and Prime Minister Meloni said that the country would consider further financial aid if fuel prices continue to rise. 

High electricity prices add to the cost burden. The hot weather drives up demand for electricity while the drought forces Italy to substitute gas generation for hydropower (and various European countries have also temporarily shutdown nuclear power plants due to high cooling water temperatures.)

Accordingly, the Italian government has requested Brussels for leeway for its budget deficit today. EU rules include escape clauses for spending on defence and energy. Rome has indicated that it intends to use the full 0.3% allowance for energy measures and has requested 0.9% leeway for defence spending.

Elsewhere, the White House is reportedly drafting an import ban on Chinese transceivers, which are used to transmit data between servers within datacentres. 

Slowing the ascent of Chinese AI and related sectors may be part of the rationale. Chinese manufacturers dominate the market for these fibre-optics transceivers; its AI models are competing with American models; and China’s chip manufacturing is also improving. 

On top of supply chain security and protection for the domestic industry, cybersecurity may be another reason for this ban. The news follows a report from the House Committee that Chinese telecommunications companies remain connected to US datacentres, even though the FCC banned these companies from connecting directly to US networks. Experts warn that these components could potentially allow China to exfiltrate data or disrupt services.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 10:15

US Services Surveys Signal Rebound In Growth In July, But...

Following the mixed picture from yesterday's Manufacturing surveys (ISM 4 year high, S&P Global 3 mo low driven by the bifurcated 'AI vs The Rest' economy), this morning's Services sector surveys were 'expected' to show the opposite (ISM down, S&P Global up) all in the face of fading hard data.

• S&P Global US Services PMI jumped from 51.2 (final June) to 53.6 (prelim July) to 54.6 (final July) - the highest since Oct 2025

• ISM US Services PMI rose from 54.0 to 54.1 (less than expected 54.5).

Source: Bloomberg

That was S&P Global's Services PMI's biggest monthly jump since May 2024...

Under the hood, S&P Global data shows that growth in new work strengthened to a 19-month high, while business confidence regarding activity over the coming 12 months was the strongest since last November.

Private sector employment rose for the first time since April.

But, input price inflation accelerated to the highest since November 2022, pushing composite selling prices up at the quickest pace in exactly one year.

But, the ISM Survey showed considerably differences with employment data tumbling back into contraction (below expectations), pries picking up (more than expected), but new orders rising more than expected...

• Prices Paid 70.3, Exp 65.0

• Employment 47.4, Exp. 51.2

• New Orders 57.2, Exp. 55.9

A somewhat stagflationary signal...

“The final July PMI has come in stronger than the earlier flash estimate, signaling an encouraging acceleration in economic growth at the start of the third quarter," according to Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The Composite PMI points to GDP rising at an annualized rate of 2.3%, following a 1.5% increase indicated for the second quarter.

Business optimism has meanwhile climbed to its highest since last November, but Williamson warns:

“Some caution is needed in interpreting these improvements, as the stronger performance partly reflected temporary factors. We note that the biggest improvement in demand in July was reported among consumer-facing service providers, spending on which surged at a rate not seen for over four years linked to the FIFA World Cup and US Independence Day events.

More importantly, businesses benefited in early July from a tailwind of reduced geopolitical uncertainty and lower oil prices."

But, with hostilities in the Gulf escalating as the month progressed, the geopolitical environment is now likely once again acting more as a headwind to growth again while exacerbating already elevated price pressures.

...unless, of course, an actual deal is reached.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 10:05

US Telecoms Slide On Starlink Mobile Threat; Bernstein Sees It As A "Jab, But No Knockout Yet"

U.S. telecom stocks fell in premarket trading after SpaceX, during its first earnings call as a publicly traded company on Tuesday evening, outlined its vision for Starlink to challenge Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T.

This was the market reaction to discussions surrounding @Starlink Mobile during the SpaceX Earnings Call.

The big three telecom giants fell. The same thing happened when SpaceX acquired spectrum last year. https://t.co/4FfvFQdOTB pic.twitter.com/tAG7ywTxY7

— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) August 4, 2026

SpaceX President & COO Gwynne Shotwell told investors about its future impact on big telecom: "Roughly, between them, $600 billion a year. I anticipate us to be able to acquire quite a few of their customers. Our service will be better. We will eliminate dead zones leveraging the satellites in orbit. It will be better during any natural disaster. I'm quite excited about Starlink Mobile."

For readers, the emergence of Starlink Mobile and Musk taking on the big three U.S. wireless operators- Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile - is nothing new.

Elon going for the phone after all

SpaceX Plans New Starlink Mobile Service for US Consumers: FT

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2026

One of the clearest signals was SpaceX's $17 billion deal for EchoStar wireless spectrum last year, followed by a recent trademark filing for "Starlink Mobile."

Our note from June:

• Musk's Starlink Plots To Become A Mobile Carrier; TD Cowen Sees Possible T-Mobile Buyout

For more color on Starlink Mobile and its implications for US telecom operators, Bernstein analysts titled their latest note "US Telecom: Starlink Jabs... No Knockout Yet," offering clients a clearer view of what may come next.

US Telecom stocks traded lower in after-hours trading following SpaceX's Q2 results and earnings call (covered by Harned), with Telecom investor attention focused on management's comments regarding Starlink's BB and wireless ambitions. While much of what was said was not new, the call offered clearer articulation of SpaceX's long-term vision and the various building blocks underpinning it. Management reiterated those ambitions at a time when Starlink is scaling subs, enterprise revenue, spectrum holdings, and satellite capacity simultaneously, making their comments more interesting.

To us, the incremental takeaway was not that Starlink is suddenly becoming a threat to broadband and wireless incumbents. Rather, it was a reminder that SpaceX continues to invest toward that outcome, and that the debate could remain an overhang on the sector for years rather than quarters.

What was said? More than a jab.

On broadband, management's central message remains unchanged: a major capacity and performance inflection is coming with V3 satellites. They are roughly an order of magnitude more capable than V2 satellites in orbit today and that SpaceX expects to launch roughly an order of magnitude more of them, implying a roughly 100x increase in delivered bandwidth over time. Management repeatedly described V3 as a step-function increase in Starlink's addressable opportunity and revenue potential.

The company also continued to emphasize the growing importance of enterprise and government customers. Management noted that the segment has the potential to eventually match or exceed the consumer business in terms of revenue, and highlighted continued traction in aviation, government contracts, and enterprise connectivity, areas that generally carry higher revenue quality and stronger economics.

On wireless, management outlined a vision that extends well beyond the D2D services currently being introduced with carrier partners. The strategy appears to consist of four components: (1) satellite-based D2D coverage; (2) recently acquired 65MHz of spectrum from EchoStar; (3) Some form of terrestrial radio infrastructure; and (4) a distributed small-cell architecture leveraging installed Starlink CPEs. While each component is insufficient, the collective strategy is... interesting.

Our view: BB, yes. Wireless? Not so fast.

We continue to view Starlink BB as a credible and growing long-term competitive threat to incumbent operators, particularly at the lower-end of the market where "good enough" BB is often sufficient. In our view, that risk remains higher for FWA and value-oriented BB subs, segments where Cable operators generally have greater exposure (vs. Fiber). We can debate the extent of the potential impact, but the overhang will continue as Starlink continues to expand its capacity and price their products more competitively. As capacity expands and operating leverage grows, the company should become increasingly capable of competing aggressively on price while simultaneously improving service quality. The rapid growth of higher-value enterprise and government revenues coupled with global scale only reinforces that advantage.

Wireless is where our view diverges somewhat from the market reaction. We continue to see D2D satellite service, whether offered by Starlink or others, primarily as a complementary service to incumbent nationwide cellular networks rather than a substitute for them in the foreseeable future. The fundamental use case remains coverage enhancement, not replacement. D2D has yet to solve the indoor unlink challenge. While additional spectrum may improve capacity and performance, it does not eliminate the fundamental physics associated with transmitting from a handheld device to a satellite, particularly indoors.

Likewise, the distributed small-cell concept described on the call is intriguing, but we remain skeptical regarding practical deployment. Such a network would require a dense concentration of Starlink installations in precisely the areas where consumers live, work, and travel: urban cores, suburbs, and major transportation corridors. In many respects, the concept resembles prior visions of a facilities-based wireless network leveraging a broad Wi-Fi APs. Interesting in theory, but considerably more difficult in practice.

For now, we continue to believe Starlink BB represents the more immediate and credible long-term competitive risk. While Starlink wireless ambitions will likely remain an overhang on the sector, we do not believe Starlink Mobile is poised to take meaningful share from incumbent wireless operators anytime soon.

Professional subscribers can read more on SpaceX, Starlink, and Musk here at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 10:00

Armed Man Named 'Jeanine' Arrested At Trump's California Golf Course Ahead Of President's Visit

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

A California man carrying ammunition and with a gun in his car was arrested Sunday at President Donald Trump’s Los Angeles-area golf course after authorities say he was observed walking through the grounds, taking photographs as well as video, and appearing to monitor security preparations two days before a scheduled fundraiser there that will feature the president.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest Tuesday as Trump prepared to land in Los Angeles for a Republican National Committee fundraising dinner at the Trump National Golf Course. The event will take place in the coastal suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes, just south of Los Angeles.

Deputies said Jeanine John Taele, 38, of Downey was carrying a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket when they contacted him. A loaded pistol was recovered from his car, which had been parked on the golf course’s property.

He was arrested on suspicion of carrying a concealed firearm and possessing prohibited ammunition. Authorities also said he had already been under investigation by the El Segundo Police Department in an unrelated robbery case from last year.

Taele’s bail has been set at $250,000. He faces possible charges related to a large-capacity magazine, short-barreled rifle/shotgun, and the 2025 robbery.

Detectives assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force obtained and executed a search warrant Monday at Taele’s residence, where they recovered a range of items that included firearms, magazines, ammunition, body armor and notebooks containing what the sheriff’s department called “concerning statements.”

The department highlighted that there is “no credible threat to our communities.”

Trump has owned the Rancho Palos Verdes property for years. The course has held political and private events in the past.

Plainclothes federal agents first reported the suspicious individual on the golf course Sunday afternoon, and deputies from the Lomita Station responded. They made contact with Taele, and discovered the ammunition and the loaded firearm.

The totality of the circumstances—the photography and video activity, and the weapons—led to the detention and charges.

According to the sheriff’s department, agents saw Taele walking through the property apparently focused on security-related activities taking place ahead of Trump’s visit. They have yet to describe the writings in the notebooks. They also have not revealed whether Taele knew of the president’s forthcoming visit. Trump is also scheduled to stop in Nevada on the trip.

Trump properties have in the past been the scene of at least one Trump assassination plot. In a separate 2025 case, a jury found a man guilty of attempting to assassinate Trump at his Florida country club.

A federal judge on Feb. 4 sentenced Ryan Routh to life in prison for attempting in 2024 to assassinate Trump, who was at the time running for president. Routh was also sentenced to seven years behind bars on a gun charge and ordered to pay a $500 fine.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 09:40

Abbott Orders Pause On Texas Data Center Approvals Pending Audit

Texas Governor Greg Abbott just ordered a pause on approving new data center projects via the state's grid interconnection process over concerns that a surge in electricity demand could threaten reliability amid growing opposition to the projects. 

The timing couldn't be worse - as Texas is on the cusp of becoming one of the world's largest hubs for data-centers, with Reuters citing industry forecasts that it could surpass Virginia by 2030 thanks to abundant land, energy, and a business-friendly environment. 

In a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and ​grid operator ERCOT sent Monday, Abbott directed the agencies to conduct an audit of all planned data centers seeking grid connections before any more facilities are allowed to move forward.

ERCOT is currently reviewing roughly 474 gigawatts of proposed new electricity demand, more than five times the state's record ​peak load, the governor said, adding that about 90% of the requests are from data centers. -Reuters

Under Abbott's directive, developers will now need to provide 'more info on power demand, water use, tax incentives, ownership, and efforts to mitigate local impacts'

As POWER Magazine noted earlier (serious inside baseball below)... 

Abbott has directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to conduct a comprehensive audit of every data center advancing through the state’s interconnection queue, warning that projects that fail to disclose ownership, financial, water, and community-impact information could be denied grid access.

The directive, issued in an Aug. 3 letter to PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson and ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas, arrives as the ERCOT large-load interconnection queue has surged to 474 GW—of which approximately 90% is data centers, according to testimony ERCOT delivered on July 29 to the Texas Senate.

“That is more than five times Texas’ record peak electricity demand for ERCOT,” Abbott wrote in his letter, referencing an all-time hourly peak of 91,089 MW that ERCOT set on July 22, 2026. “That unprecedented load growth could endanger the reliability and stability of the Texas electric grid.”

The audit is tied directly to non-compliance with existing state law, Abbott wrote. “The failure of some data centers to comply with the PUC’s survey measuring water and power usage under the General Appropriations Act makes this necessary,” he wrote. “Failure to fully comply with that law hinders your ability to make fully informed decisions.”

“Our top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life,” Abbott said. “Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid. Simply put, Texans must come first.”

Large-Load Interconnection Requests. ERCOT was tracking approximately 474.7 GW of large-load interconnection requests as of June 2026, including 420.8 GW, or 90.2% of the total, identified as data centers. The chart also distinguishes projects by development status, including requests with no studies submitted, projects under ERCOT review, and loads that have met more advanced interconnection requirements. Source: Electric Reliability Council of Texas, “ERCOT Update,” presentation by ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas to the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce, July 29, 2026.Second Intervention Amid SB 6 Rulemaking

Abbott’s directive arrives as the second intervention in less than two months, even as the PUCT is developing rulemaking to implement Senate Bill 6 (SB 6)—the statute Gov. Abbott signed in June 2025 that overhauls how large-load customers of 75 MW or more interconnect to the ERCOT grid.

Essentially, SB 6 amends the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA) to direct the PUCT to establish interconnection standards for large loads at a 75 MW threshold, requires each applicant to disclose whether it is pursuing substantially similar interconnection requests elsewhere in Texas and to disclose any on-site backup generation capable of serving at least 50% of the facility’s demand, and requires financial commitments and site control before ERCOT will study a project.

The statute also authorizes ERCOT, once the PUCT defines emergency criteria, to instruct qualifying large loads with dedicated behind-the-meter backup generation to curtail net consumption during grid emergencies after ERCOT has exhausted market services other than frequency response. Separately, SB 6 amends PURA to require transmission service providers to curtail non-critical new large loads energized after Dec. 31, 2025 during firm load-shed events, and to govern net-metering arrangements between new large loads and generation resources that were registered with ERCOT before Sept. 1, 2025. Finally, the law directs the PUCT to reexamine wholesale transmission cost allocation and to require new large loads to contribute to interconnection cost recovery. SB 6 took effect immediately on June 20, 2025, and requires PUCT implementation by Dec. 31, 2026.

The PUCT is executing SB 6 across five dedicated rulemakings, two of which are already complete. In February 2026, the commission adopted 16 TAC §25.370, which sets minimum standards for the information a utility must submit before ERCOT will include a proposed large load in its forecast. And in March 2026, the commission adopted 16 TAC §25.205, which requires PUCT approval before a new large load can be net-metered with any generation resource that was already registered with ERCOT before Sept. 1, 2025.

Then on June 10, 2026, Abbott issued his first intervention. In a letter to Gleeson and Vegas, the governor issued three directives to the two agencies: to ensure that data-center interconnections result in reduced residential electric bills, to require data centers to pay for all of their electric infrastructure costs so that no residential ratepayer is burdened by them, and to review existing PUCT and ERCOT authority to identify further consumer safeguards.

Abbott set two deadlines. The two agencies had to submit a joint memorandum by July 17 summarizing actions already taken, identifying statutory limitations, and recommending legislation for the 2027 session. In addition, the PUCT had to initiate action to reduce residential ratepayer transmission costs by July 31.

Abbott also pledged to pursue six items with the legislature next session: codifying that data centers pay their own infrastructure costs, requiring that data centers add to Texas’ electric capacity rather than only to its demand, mandating water-efficient technologies such as closed-loop cooling systems for new builds, requiring large data centers to annually report electricity and water usage to the PUCT, repealing sales-tax exemptions and other incentives for data centers, and requiring data centers to reduce impacts on neighbors through setbacks, noise-reduction technology, and similar measures. The directive, effectively, asked the PUCT to sharpen the rulemakings still in progress.

Eight days after Abbott’s letter, on June 18, the PUCT approved ERCOT’s Batch Study framework, built through Nodal Protocol Revision Request NPRR1325 and Planning Guide Revision Request PGRR145. The framework groups qualified large-load projects of 75 MW and above into a single interconnection study, and requires each applicant to post financial security of $50,000/MW by July 10, 2026, to remain eligible.

Testifying at a July 29 Texas Senate hearing, ERCOT’s Vegas said the framework is designed to deliver three outputs to each qualified project: an annual megawatt allocation from 2028 through 2032, transparency on interconnection and upgrade costs, and a coordinated transmission plan identifying the upgrades required to serve additional load. Approximately 205 GW of large-load requests are eligible for inclusion in Batch Zero based on existing studies, according to a preliminary ERCOT overview—65 GW as base load, 114 GW as allocated load, and 25 GW awaiting a final base-or-allocated determination.

For now, ERCOT plans to issue classifications by Aug. 7, complete the ensuing dispute, security-reconciliation, and data-correction process by Sept. 1, and begin the Batch Zero interconnection study no later than Sept. 2. Study results are scheduled for April 9, 2027, followed by interconnection agreements and final confirmation of capacity allocations by June 8, 2027. Projects excluded from Batch Zero—because they cannot post financial security or otherwise meet eligibility criteria—will be considered in a subsequent round that ERCOT and stakeholders have referred to as Batch One, though its start date and criteria are still being developed.

On July 17, Gleeson sent Abbott a written response developed in consultation with ERCOT, filed at the PUCT Interchange under Project 58317. The letter documents four actions the two agencies have already taken—the two adopted rules, the May 2026 transmission-cost evaluation, and the June 18 approval of PGRR 145—and identifies three rulemakings in progress: interconnection standards in Project 58481, a demand-management reliability service in Project 58482, and a follow-on transmission-cost recovery rulemaking in Project 58000. Gleeson told Abbott the commission will consider a final Project 58481 rule “later this summer.”

On July 24, Abbott released Gleeson’s letter along with three legislative recommendations for the 2027 session: expand the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act to cover large computational loads, require data centers to register with both the PUCT and ERCOT, and clarify the PUCT’s authority to impose reliability requirements - including direct ERCOT-to-load curtailment instructions - on large computational customers. On July 30, 2026, the PUCT advanced Project 58482 to Proposal for Publication, with a Sept. 4 comment deadline. The commission’s SB 6-mandated evaluation of transmission cost recovery had already produced a staff draft on May 4, 2026, before the June 10 directive; the follow-on Project 58000 rulemaking must be completed by the December 2026 statutory deadline.

The core interconnection-standards rulemaking in Project 58481—the rule that will set financial security, study fees, and site-control requirements for every large load requesting interconnection—remains in scoping.

Abbott’s Audit Goes Beyond Batch Zero Screening

Batch Zero, notably, already imposes several commercial-readiness gates. Applicants must submit qualifying studies, technical and dynamic models, commissioning plans, attestations, and financial security. ERCOT will also verify supporting evidence from a sample of applicants, including purchase orders for long-lead equipment, real-estate and land-use agreements, end-user agreements, and construction contracts. Projects that cannot demonstrate eligibility will be disqualified.

But Abbott’s Aug. 3 directive appears to extend that scrutiny by ordering a review of every large-load request and seeking disclosures covering ownership, water use, infrastructure needs, and community effects. Whereas Batch Zero is principally designed to determine whether projects are sufficiently advanced and technically prepared to enter the interconnection study, the new directive adds a broader examination of who is behind the projects and how they could affect surrounding communities.

During the July 29 Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce hearing, data center representatives generally supported stronger qualification and cost-recovery requirements, though they differed over whether Batch Zero’s existing screens would work as intended.

Chris Matos, who leads Google’s energy market development in Texas, said the hyperscaler had urged ERCOT and the PUCT to develop an interconnection process that is “both rigorous and fair,” including financial commitments calibrated to “hold existing ratepayers harmless for stranded costs.” He cautioned regulators, however, to “avoid retroactive financial penalties that could inadvertently stall mature and already advanced development.”

Matos noted Google had contracted for more than 7.8 GW of new grid-connected generation and capacity in ERCOT ahead of its energy needs. Matos said Google had committed “$30 million in energy impact funding to scale and accelerate energy efficiency initiatives.” Google operates established data center campuses in Midlothian and Red Oak and in November 2025 announced a $40 billion Texas investment program through 2027. As POWER reported in June, that buildout now includes the Meitner Energy Center in Gray and Roberts counties, a more-than-1-GW complex that will pair a Google data center with new wind, solar, battery storage, and on-site gas-fired generation. The facility will use air cooling instead of evaporative cooling, eliminating the cooling-tower water withdrawals typically associated with large data centers and limiting water use to domestic purposes.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) likewise endorsed requirements intended to keep large-load costs from shifting to other customers. Ray Fakhoury, an AWS energy policy manager, said the company wanted to ensure that the cost of developing its infrastructure “is not passed on to others” and committed to paying its “full cost of service.” AWS, which does not yet operate data centers in Texas but is evaluating investments in the state, also supported collateral that could be drawn when projects drop out after infrastructure has been planned or built. Fakhoury, notably, called for a broader package that includes capacity reallocation, exit fees, defined contract terms, and load-ramp requirements.

However, Compass Data Centers offered a sharper critique of the process. Cliff Pompe, the company’s vice president of power and emissions, said the queue was “being distorted from both directions,” with “ghost and transom loads being given allocation while real projects are kept out.” He also suggested “a lack of requisite criteria and inadequate prerequisite criteria” was allowing speculators to create false demand.

Compass operates a campus in Red Oak where it has invested more than $100 million in grid infrastructure, Pompe noted. In the weeks before the July 10 Batch Zero security deadline, Pompe said Compass was personally pitched more than 14 sites totaling over 15 GW by speculators who needed the company to front roughly $790 million in security deposits, which they could not post themselves. Some proposals claimed power densities two to four times the roughly 1.5 MW per acre that Pompe said legitimate hyperscale facilities rarely exceed. They were “basically impossible to construct,” he told state senators, because the available real estate could not physically accommodate the requested capacity.

Compass’s own second Red Oak project, filed with its transmission provider in May 2024, was excluded from Batch Zero. Pompe said the provider did not submit the project to ERCOT until March 2026, “nearly two years later,” even though Compass had engaged directly with ERCOT and participated in the stakeholder process throughout, supplying additional evidence of project maturity, including enhanced site-control documentation, site surveys, and $6.5 million in deposits. “We were told these requests were to demonstrate the seriousness of our project, which we were happy to do,” Pompe said. “We understood the rules proposed by ERCOT for Batch Zero were to ensure legitimate and mature projects were provided allocation. Unfortunately, as we sit today, that is not what ended up happening.”

Pompe said Compass learned the week before the July 29 hearing that the project had been excluded. Its transmission provider also told the company it was stopping work on the required dynamic-stability study while awaiting further ERCOT guidance for Batch One. ERCOT created a good-cause exemption that same day for projects that had substantially met Batch Zero’s requirements, but eligibility for the exemption required a completed transmission study. “That makes a lot of sense,” Pompe said. “But because our project had not had that study completed, we could not apply for this exemption.”

The problem, he stressed, was not the study requirement itself, but the absence of a firm deadline for the transmission provider to complete it. “The fact that our study isn’t complete does not make sense,” Pompe said. Without a firm completion date, Compass faces “real risk of this project finding itself in the same position next year during Batch One—excluded, having done everything we can and everything we were asked to do.”

Queue Scrutiny Carries Wider Power-Market Consequences

Determining which large-load projects are real is also central to decisions confronting the rest of the Texas power sector. The load that survives ERCOT’s screening will shape reliability assessments, scarcity pricing, transmission development, power-purchase negotiations, and decisions to build or retain generation. At the July 29 hearing, power-market participants warned that errors in either direction could prove costly.

Large-Load Interconnection Requests. ERCOT was tracking approximately 474.7 GW of large-load interconnection requests as of June 2026, including 420.8 GW—90.2% of the total—identified as data centers. The chart also distinguishes projects by development status, including requests with no studies submitted, projects under ERCOT review, and loads that have met more advanced interconnection requirements. Courtesy: Electric Reliability Council of Texas, “ERCOT Update,” presentation by ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas to the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce, July 29, 2026.

As Jeff McDonald, director of the ERCOT Independent Market Monitor and vice president at Potomac Economics, cautioned, even ERCOT’s revised midterm load forecast remains uncertain. McDonald credited ERCOT and the PUCT with bringing the forecast into “a much more reasonable range” by incorporating additional real-world constraints into the modeling. But some of its largest variables remain difficult to model.

“The AI business model and the AI revenue model in particular is still sort of in its infancy compared to other industries,” he told senators. He pointed to rising prices from major AI providers, public reports that some large users have directed employees to scale back AI use, local resistance to data-center development, and normal business cycles as factors that could suppress actual construction. ERCOT’s projection, he said, “could be considered an upper bound,” while the capacity ultimately installed and placed into commercial operation “might be considerably lower than that.”

Julia Harvey, representing Texas Electric Cooperatives, warned that even partial realization could alter ERCOT’s supply balance and wholesale prices. “Those dynamics could change quite significantly if even a fraction of the load currently forecast materializes,” she said. ERCOT could face a supply deficit in both its reliability assessments and actual operations, leaving the system dependent on large-load curtailments to preserve reliability.

While Senate Bill 6 provides mechanisms for those curtailments, Harvey warned that the associated price adjustments could produce high prices “with some frequency” if ERCOT adds more load than it can serve. She also cautioned against interpreting a modeled reliability deficiency as requiring enough new capacity to serve all projected large-load demand without curtailment. Large incremental additions “don’t fit as well in the conventional one-event-in-10-years framework,” she said, because “by design, the curtailments will happen more frequently than that.” Applying the conventional standard without accounting for those operating characteristics could impose unnecessary resource-adequacy costs on cooperative customers, she said.

The uncertainty also affects investment decisions. Walt Baum, representing Powering Texans and Texas Competitive Power Advocates, said greater clarity from Batch Zero would give generators more confidence that prospective customers are genuine. “When we get Batch Zero out there and know who it’s going to be, that is going to help spur new development because we’re going to know that these projects are real,” he said. That clarity, Baum added, could support new long-term power purchase agreements and new generation construction.

Bill Barnes, senior director of regulatory affairs at NRG Energy, said Batch Zero had already shown that financial security by itself was not enough to distinguish credible projects. The initial assumption, Barnes said, was that the queue contained applicants seeking a free option and that imposing financial requirements would clear them out. “And that is not what has happened,” he said. Instead, the process revealed a secondary market in interconnection positions and rewarded access to capital, Barnes said.

“The people with the most money are the ones that won,” he said, including applicants that partnered with other entities to secure a position. “There are going to have to be additional indicia of maturity besides just money going forward,” Barnes concluded, because money “did not have the culling effect that we thought it was going to.”

NRG also urged ERCOT to use the batch process to favor projects that improve system conditions. Barnes said transmission capacity should prioritize large loads that bring new generation or can operate flexibly as controllable resources.

Texas is already using public incentives to expand dispatchable supply through the Texas Energy Fund. Launched in 2024, the fund provides grants and low-interest loans for the construction, maintenance, and modernization of electric facilities. Its In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program offers 20-year loans at a fixed 3% interest rate for projects adding at least 100 MW of new dispatchable capacity, with financing capped at 60% of project costs. As of June 24, 2026, the program had committed $3.65 billion to eight projects totaling 4,994 MW, including three NRG plants and projects sponsored by Constellation, Competitive Power Ventures, Vistra, Rayburn Country Electric Cooperative, and the Kerrville Public Utility Board. Completion-bonus grants had brought total ERCOT-supported capacity to 5,516 MW.

Barnes said NRG is developing three gas-fired plants totaling 1,500 MW through the fund, including two combustion-turbine projects and one combined-cycle plant. The first of those projects, a peaker, was commissioned earlier this summer at NRG’s T.H. Wharton site in northwest Houston. Cedar Bayou and Greens Bayou are targeted for 2028. Barnes argued that the interconnection process could similarly reward large loads designed to support the grid.

“We have this opportunity here where we can provide a carrot, not a mandate, but a carrot and incentive,” he said. “If you want to build a large load in Texas, if you’re going to design your site in a way that is more reliable for the consumers of Texas, then you should have an incentive. That means maybe you get access to the transmission capacity before everyone else.”

—Sonal C. Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 09:15

Treasury Refunding: No Change To Auction Sizes As Bessent Deepens Reliance On Short-Term Debt

For yet another quarter, the Treasury's Quarterly Refunding offered no surprises, which considering the state of the US bond market is probably not a bad thing. 

In its 8:30am ET report, the US Treasury retained its previous guidance for future debt issuance, signaling no change in note and bond auction sizes well into 2027 even as federal borrowing needs balloon to stratospheric levels (and will explode once the AI bubble bursts leading to catastrophic consequences for corporate bonds). 

As for next week, the Treasury will hold $125 billion of refunding auctions, in line with estimates, which will be made up of:

• $58 billion of 3-year notes on Aug. 11
• $42 billion of 10-year notes on Aug. 12
• $25 billion of 30-year bonds on Aug. 13

The refunding will raise new cash of approximately $28.7 billion, the Treasury said.

Based on current projections, officials expect to maintain current sales amounts for nominal coupon securities and floating rate notes "for at least the next several quarters" - the same market-soothing language which the department has used in its quarterly debt-issuance strategy statement ever since the Janet Yellen "Activist Treasury Issuance" days of early 2024.

On bills, “based on current forecasts, Treasury expects to maintain current auction sizes in benchmark bills in the coming weeks”; and in "late-August, Treasury anticipates issuing a short-dated cash management bill."

The language and schedule is in line with the expectations of many dealers, who predicted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his team would refrain from tweaks given that longer-dated yields have climbed in recent months. Benchmark 10-year yields hit their highest since he took office last week, making them all the costlier for the government.

The Treasury also retained its suggestion from May that it’s biased toward the shorter end of the yield curve for any future increase in coupon auctions. It said it’s monitoring growing bill demand and continuing to evaluate the situation “with a focus on trends in structural demand and potential costs and risks of various issuance profiles.”

Of course, the lack of boosting coupon debt means that the Treasury’s reliance on Bills and other short-term securities that mature in up to a year, will deepen even more, in a strategy dealers have dubbed “T-bill and chill.”

The ratio of bills to outstanding debt is now historically high, however, running the risk of debt-servicing costs becoming sensitive to shocks — at a time traders are betting the Federal Reserve will be forced to tighten monetary policy in coming months.

The problem is that current auction sizes won’t leave the Treasury in position to raise fresh cash as time goes on, which means the T-bill share of debt will climb inexorably if issuance isn’t changed. Borrowing needs, meantime, continue to swell. The Treasury on Monday stepped up its estimate for borrowing for the current quarter to $739 billion, up $68 billion from May, mainly due to lower projected cash flows. Meanwhile, total US debt will hit $40 trillion in two weeks.

According to Bloomberg, some strategists have linked Bessent’s reluctance to alter forward guidance to the looming November congressional elections, and preferring to avoid any debt-issuance tweak that risked sending yields higher.

Of course, the longer the Treasury holds off on signaling a change, the more dramatic and sudden the shift will need to be when it happens. But for now there is a market meltup to engineer until the midterms, at which point all bets are off. 

The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee in the past has advised the Treasury to seek an average of 20% for the share of T-bills, but officials haven’t offered their own clear guidance on where their tolerance level may lie. For now, demand remains robust for bills, from money market funds to the Fed - which has been recycling maturing mortgage securities into bills.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 09:06

"This Is Going To Surprise Some People": Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces The Lab Leak Theory

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education.

Jha stated:

"This is going to surprise some people. You know, when I went into the White House, my view was, 'This was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.' Based on information I learned and based on information I've seen, I have come to conclude that it is more likely to have been a lab leak."

I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve.

Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, tells Dana Bash, "When I went into the White House, my view was this was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak. Based on information I learned and based on information I've seen, I have come to… pic.twitter.com/bovB2nUbq4

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) August 2, 2026

What should not evolve is the willingness of the scientists and academics to accept dissenting viewpoints. One of my long-standing complaints against figures like Anthony Fauci is that they held prominent positions during the pandemic, but said nothing about the cancel campaigns directed against those experts who disagreed with their views on issues like the origins of COVID-19.

As I discuss in my new book, "The Indispensable Right," the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the massive social and economic costs that resulted.

I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.

They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.

Others opposed Bhattacharya's right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as "a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation."

Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that "we're living in an upside-down world" because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled "The COVID lab leak claim isn't just an attack on science, but a threat to public health."

As recently as last year, Hiltzik continued to attack the lab theory.

Bhattacharya's experience is not unique. When scientists argued that the virus's origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan, they were mobbed by the media. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a "debunked" coronavirus "conspiracy theory."

The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) when he raised the theory for "repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China."

After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: "I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves."

The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory "racist."

At NPR, an endless stream of segments ran dismissing the lab leak notion, painting it as a debunked conspiracy theory of the far right, including one story titled "Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence."

I consider it valuable to have voices like Hultzik's that still challenge the lab theory - just as I thought it was valuable to have lab theorists voice their views. The difference is that critics of the lab theory are not being canceled, but continue to be celebrated for their prior work. To the contrary, figures like Scott Atlas have shown how those educators who helped lead the mob against dissenters still hold positions of power. These figures should not be canceled for holding opposing views, but their conduct in silencing others should be reviewed.

Despite the vindication of scientists on their opposition to policies on the use of surgical masks, the closure of schools, and other issues, there have not been any repercussions for those who enforced the orthodoxy and intolerance during the pandemic in higher education.

The fact is that most are now willing to admit that the lab theory is probably correct, but they are unwilling to forgive those who forced them into that admission.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 08:55