Zero Rss

Hormuz And The Law Of Diminishing Returns: When Leverage Burns

Authored by Tamuz Itai via The Epoch Times,

For months, the assumption that the Strait of Hormuz was Tehran's ultimate card dominated commentary on the war.

Vessels are seen in the Strait of Hormuz, off the port city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on Aug. 10, 2026. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images

As a narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and a substantial share of liquefied natural gas had historically passed, it appeared to be a chokepoint Iran could close or severely disrupt at will. It did not need to destroy every tanker. Hitting a small percentage with drones, cruise missiles, speedboats, or mines would spike insurance rates, deter crews and companies, and effectively shut the strait without continuous physical control.

This idea was not new for 2026. It had long been a feature of the Iranian strategic posture, treated as both a military instrument and a political myth-proof that even under pressure Tehran retained a decisive lever over the global energy system. Parts of the Western media and independent analysts amplified the same narrative.

Relying on incomplete open-source shipping data, especially once vessels began sailing dark, many concluded that the United States had been caught unprepared and lacked a realistic path to reopen the waterway. Hormuz, they argued, was effectively closed or closable at Iran's discretion. That framing was powerful, but also incomplete.

How the Threat Has Been Eroded

The assumption that Iran's detection and targeting system could not be dismantled without dramatic escalation proved wrong. Under the U.S. Central Command, also known as CENTCOM, and with significant involvement from the Fifth Fleet and Air Force components, the United States ran a sustained effort to degrade the sensors Iran needed to find and hit ships.

Iran relied on mobile truck-mounted radars, drones, cruise missiles, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) speedboats, and naval mines. Inside the narrow strait, ships move in relatively predictable lanes. Iran combined active radars with passive electro-optical and infrared cameras on elevated terrain and islands such as Qeshm, Larak, and Abu Musa.

Mobile radars would radiate briefly to locate shipping, then shut down and move before anti-radiation missiles could arrive. Once a ship's approximate position was known, strike systems could be sent to search.

The vulnerability was that every radar emission could be detected. American aircraft responded systematically with anti-radiation missiles while visual and intelligence efforts located the passive sensors. This was the core of what some involved called "draining the swamp."

Iran had redundancy, but the number of sensors was finite. Hundreds of precision strikes gradually reduced Iran's ability to see traffic in the strait. As the detection layer thinned, the effectiveness of the strike systems declined with it.

Parallel efforts neutralized mines with unmanned vessels and declared the southern lane near Oman largely clear. Convoys moved under escort, often at night with the automated information system (AIS) off. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis radars and standard missile (SM)-family interceptors formed the backbone; drones and Apache helicopters armed with laser-guided rockets provided additional cover. American ships also engaged IRGC speedboats that closed on the convoys.

On the commercial side, the United States addressed insurance barriers. In early March, President Donald Trump directed the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide political risk insurance and guarantees for maritime trade.

The DFC, working with the Treasury and CENTCOM, established a revolving reinsurance facility of roughly $20 billion-later expanded with private partners including Chubb-focused on hull, machinery, and cargo cover. Early uptake was limited. As Iranian success rates fell, more vessels joined.

Results have been significant. CENTCOM has reported assisting well over a thousand commercial vessels and moving hundreds of millions of barrels since the spring. Independent trackers often showed lower numbers because much of the traffic sailed dark. Pre-war throughput was 20 million to 21 million barrels per day.

Flows through Hormuz remain below that, but combined with the Abu Dhabi-Fujairah pipeline and Saudi Arabia's pipeline to Yanbu in the Red Sea, volumes recovered enough to keep oil prices in the $85 to $95 range-elevated, but far from the predicted catastrophe.

Not Seeing the True Picture

Public data lagged for both technical and psychological reasons. Ships that went dark during transit normally turned their AIS trackers back on afterward, so theoretically they could have been tracked and counted, yet matching was imperfect amid overlapping night movements, incomplete satellite reception, intermittent signals, and ship-to-ship transfers.

Commercial trackers attempt corrections using imagery and other data, but confidence thresholds still produce undercounts relative to what escorting forces could see.

There was also a narrative reason. The story of Iranian success and American failure fit expectations many already held. Contradictory evidence produced cognitive dissonance. The common response was to protect the original frame-by applying greater skepticism to inconvenient details and treating quieter progress as temporary.

In a contested information environment, narratives that confirm prior expectations often outlast those that require revision.

The General Principle

Hormuz illustrates a broader pattern. Leverage is often strongest while latent. The threat shapes behavior; the target hedges or hopes the card is never played. Once used at scale, incentives change. Real costs appear, and the value of neutralizing the threat rises sharply.

Adaptation follows: sensors are hunted, escorts are organized, alternative routes are accelerated, commercial workarounds are found. Over time, the original leverage delivers diminishing returns. The coercer frequently ends up weaker than before.

The pattern is not unique. In 1973, Arab oil producers cut exports and raised prices. The short-term shock was severe; the longer-term response included efficiency gains, strategic reserves, non-OPEC production, and the shale revolution.

Russia's gas cut-offs against Europe from 2021 to 2022 produced a similar arc: LNG expansion, storage, demand reduction, and alternative suppliers collapsed Moscow's share of the European market, forcing it to sell more of its supply with heavy discounts to China and others.

China's 2010 rare-earth restrictions against Japan spurred alternative mining, recycling, and substitution. In recent years, the United States has also accelerated the shift with CHIPS Act funding, Department of Defense equity stakes and loans, price-floor and offtake arrangements, and Project Vault, which includes equity stakes in key producers and a strategic minerals reserve, while expanding cooperation with partners such as Australia.

Remaining Levers and Their Limits

If the Hormuz card is already delivering diminishing returns, what options remain for Iran?

The most consequential underused lever is a more systematic campaign against Gulf energy production itself-fields, processing plants, refineries, and downstream industries. Iran has already struck these targets at a meaningful scale. What has not been fully attempted is a sustained multi-country effort at lasting destruction of capacity.

Other potential levers include intensified proxies, cyber operations, pressure on Bab el-Mandeb, residual nuclear signaling, and heavier strikes on U.S. bases or critical infrastructure. Each retains some potential.

Yet the same logic applies. Further large-scale use would accelerate the responses that reduce effectiveness. At the same time, the regime faces continuous economic pressure from the U.S. naval blockade, oil-export enforcement, and broader "Operation Economic Outcast" sanctions. Escalation under that siege significantly raises costs and shortens the runway.

Another option might be a distraction elsewhere, perhaps initiated by another country in the emerging axis of Chinese Communist Party-dependent countries, such as Russia, North Korea, or China itself.

The battle for the strait is not the entire war. It has, however, illustrated a recurring feature of strategy: geographic and resource levers look most formidable while they remain latent. Once put into continuous action, they often set in motion the forces that ultimately reduce their power.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 21:45

Pennsylvania Reports Two Deaths From Measles As US Cases Hit Highest Level Since 1991

Two people have died in connection with measles in Pennsylvania, state health officials announced on August 25.

A health worker prepares a measles vaccine at a government health center amid a vaccination campaign, in Nejapa, El Salvador, on April 10, 2026. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

The Pennsylvania Department of Health said the deaths were "related to measles." Both individuals lived in Lancaster County and had not received a measles vaccine. Officials declined to release further details, citing the need to protect the privacy of the deceased and their families.

Nationally, measles cases in 2026 have already surpassed the total recorded in 2025 and stand at the highest level since 1991. Pennsylvania has confirmed 393 cases so far this year. These are the first measles-related deaths reported in the United States in 2026, and Pennsylvania's first in 35 years, The Epoch Times reports.

In 2025, three people died from measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others have said medical records showed those patients died from unrelated conditions or from health problems that were worsened by measles. Texas health officials attributed both children's deaths to measles and said neither had underlying conditions.

Kennedy and health officials have encouraged people to receive the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. At the same time, Kennedy has stressed that vaccination should not be mandatory and that doctors should be prepared to treat measles cases.

Asked about the current measles situation earlier this month, Kennedy told reporters: "We've done better than any country in the world in controlling it." He also said that the outbreak has been almost entirely confined to religious communities that decline vaccination.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 21:20

Waste Of The Day: Deficit Could Surpass $2 Trillion

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

The federal deficit will be $2.1 trillion when fiscal year 2026 ends on Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office projected in its monthly budget review.

The deficit - the gap between what the government spends and what it collects from taxes and other revenue - has never surpassed $1.8 trillion, except during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key facts: Federal revenues are up 3% in 2026 compared to last year. Even though corporate income tax revenue has declined, income and payroll tax collections increased.

But federal spending is up 5%, according to the CBO. Interest on the national debt increased 14% compared to last year. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense are also facing increased costs.

The CBO originally projected this year's deficit would be $1.9 trillion. The estimate was changed "mostly because of smaller-than-expected collections of tariff duties" after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in February.

Though Trump later imposed new tariffs, the CBO still expects federal revenue to be $250 billion less than originally anticipated. About $100 billion has been refunded to companies so far, under an order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Critical quote: "We've borrowed an astounding $1.8 trillion this fiscal year, with $431 billion in the month of July alone, and equating to nearly $6 billion per day," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "We're on track to surpass $2 trillion in borrowing this fiscal year despite not being in a recession. That is not normal."

Background: The University of Pennsylvania recently estimated that under current policy, it will likely be mathematically impossible for the U.S. to pay off its debt by the year 2048.

That was before Trump asked Congress to increase discretionary spending by 19% next year, which would be the second-largest spending increase in at least 60 years.

Summary: America's affordability crisis is the most prominent political issue in the country, yet neither party has committed to reducing government deficits. Until then, the crisis is likely to only worsen.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at Open the Books. Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world's largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 20:55

US Officials Reveal Reason For CIA Chief's Surprise Moscow Visit

Update(2030ET): The Wall Street Journal has late in the day Wednesday revealed the reason for CIA John Ratcliffe's surprise visit to Moscow yesterday where he met with top Kremlin intelligence leaders, citing officials. It was to warn against attacking NATO countries, says the Journal:

The surprise visit by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to Moscow this week was to deliver a warning to Russia not to attack NATO countries, according to people briefed on the visit.

The trip was spy-agency chief John Ratcliffe’s first publicly known visit to the Russian capital. It followed new U.S. intelligence assessments, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, that Russian President Vladimir Putin could try to test the resolve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a limited assault on an allied country in the next few years.

U.S. officials are concerned that Putin, squeezed in Ukraine and under pressure at home, could launch an assault ranging from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, likely on a Baltic nation, the Journal reported. 

Some pundits have suggested a weaker Baltic nation like Estonia, which has long issued provocative anti-Moscow statements of its own, could come under some kind of limited attack.

The report further suggests Putin could be ready to seize on NATO's munitions supply weakness - given the drain amid the Iran war and after over four years of constantly supplying Ukraine.

"A shortfall in critical Western munitions, driven by expenditures in the Iran war, also could factor into Putin’s thinking," the report continues. "The U.S. has degraded its stockpile of certain weapons because of transfers to Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, as well as the Iran conflict."

CIA chief urgently flew to Moscow in the middle of America’s losing war against Russia’s ally Iran, and the reason had nothing to do with a desperate attempt to turn Russia against Iran, but rather “Putin could try…limited assault on an allied country in the next few years”? 🤔 https://t.co/WmNYnGstfo

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 26, 2026

But it also remains that for years Western officials have issued hyped statements claiming Russia wants to somehow invade or take over parts of Europe beyond Ukrainian territory, but there's as yet been no such action, nor any evidence of such intent.

I am sorry, but the Director of the CIA doesn't fly to Moscow unexpectedly to deliver a message telling Russia "Don't do what we think you were going to do".

Putin and Trump have a direct line. If Trump wanted to warn Putin not to do something, he would of just called him.… https://t.co/0Ian6CDLdJ

— Joshua Reid | Redpills.tv (@realjoshuareid) August 26, 2026

*  *  *

Update(1505ET): In the wake of yesterday's unusual visit by the Director of the CIA to Moscow for mystery 2-hour talks, Bloomberg says that President Putin is preparing for a major escalate against Ukraine:

Russia is preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after concluding that negotiations for a peace deal have reached a dead end, according to three people close to the Kremlin.

For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.

While the original Bloomberg TV reporting appears just speculation based on what already seemed the current trend on the ground, oil had climbed back on the news:

*  *  *

An IRGC spokesman has announced Wednesday that Iran and Oman have reached agreements on their share of the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, according toTasnim news agency. So essentially the "fee" scheme has been set. There's talk of reopening the strait on an "interim" basis, Bloomberg says.

"We entered into negotiations with Oman about a month ago and have reached results that have been accepted by both sides," the official said. "Agreements have been reached on the share of each country in the waters of the strait and the share of Iran and Oman in its revenues," the statement continued, while also alleging that negotiations were previously delayed only due to the US obstructing negotiations.

via Reuters

Tehran is still insisting on the United States lifting its naval blockade of the country's ports. However, it seems that for now at least Tehran is open to some level of negotiations, or at least seems content to see where this current period of rare calm leads.

This is evident in the latest words of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who argued Wednesday that any negotiations with the US don't equate to retreat from Iran's demands.

"Negotiation, in my view, has neither intrinsic value nor is it a taboo; it is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil," he wrote in a letter responding to more hardline critics, IRNA reports.

He insisted this does not mean abandoning resistance to US-Israeli aggression. "If necessary, dialogue, too, according to this logic, is the same arena of struggle and resistance; neither a replacement for it nor a sign of retreat from it," he said.

Ghaliban further suggested this is being done by the Islamic Republic from position of strength while holding on to the nation's "dignity, wisdom and interests."

Meanwhile, it seems Washington is also in no mood to rush back into military action, following the Monday announcement by Scott Bessent of the Economic D-Day action against Iran, which is to including secondary sanctions on any country found not complying.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told several foreign officials in recent days that "for the time being" the US is not planning to initiate any new strikes against Iran, but instead the focus is on other means of pressure, especially the sanctions initiative, Axios reports. According to more:

• The U.S. official said that while Rubio made clear that the U.S. isn't planning a return to major combat operations, he didn't rule out strikes if Iran attacks first.
• Another U.S. official said the clearing of mines from the Strait of Hormuz by the U.S. Navy is a watershed moment in the war, largely neutralizing one of Iran's main sources of leverage.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi confirmed their further work on the “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a joint statement.

State television has indicated Iran and Oman agreed that the new transit corridor would enter through Iranian territorial waters, with part of the exit route also passing through them. The corridor will span roughly seven miles.

On this and other headlines, oil prices continue to fall...

• Oil extends declines as Iran, Oman continue finalizing talks to reopen Hormuz
• Satellite image shows surge in Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil loadings

A busy day in the Gulf of Oman, where there are at least fifteen sets of STS transfer sessions taking place. We count 25 million barrels of crude oil; plus some refined products. The oil originates from almost every country in the region, minus Iran.#OOTT #IranWar #Tankers pic.twitter.com/TAba26mJiW

— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) August 25, 2026

The day prior, on Tuesday, President Trump hinted that military options are still on the table. While announcing the new claim that all mines had been detonated or removed from international waters of the Strait of Hormuz, he said the US Space Force was watching "every square inch" of the Strait, and that "There is ⁠a Zero Tolerance policy ‌on mine ‌placement in full force and ​effect." But Iran is still asserting that the strait remains "closed".

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 20:32

How Many $2,500 Foldable iPhones Will Apple Ship In Year One? IDC Has The Answer

Apple is set to unveil its first foldable iPhone at the company's September 9 product event at 1300 ET.

Ahead of what could be Apple's biggest handset launch in many years, technology market research firm International Data Corporation, better known as IDC, issued a new forecast estimating just how many foldable iPhones Apple could ship during the device's first year.

Bloomberg first reported IDC's estimate that the $2,500 foldable iPhone could generate more than 10 million shipments during its first year.

JUST IN: Apple sets September 9 for its next major launch event, where it is expected to unveil the first foldable iPhone.

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 26, 2026

Apple's entry into foldable smartphones, a segment of the handset industry first pioneered commercially by Chinese manufacturer Royole with the FlexPai nearly a decade ago, is forecast to help the foldable-phone market grow 12.6% this year, followed by an 18% increase next year. The iPhone maker could capture about 40% of global foldable shipments by 2027, IDC said.

Samsung Electronics launched the first mainstream foldable smartphone seven years ago. The complexity of these handsets commands premium pricing, making the category an attractive revenue stream.

Apple's foldable iPhone launch comes as IDC expects global smartphone shipments to decline by a record 16.7% this year. The industry is battling surging costs tied to a shortage of memory chips.

"The components that make AI possible are the same ones in short supply, and their cost is being passed straight through to the shelf," IDC's Francisco Jeronimo said.

Alleged Foldable iPhone Motherboard Photos Surface Online https://t.co/C9n3M48X4C pic.twitter.com/yd6E2jKKTc

— MacRumors.com (@MacRumors) August 26, 2026

Jeronimo added, "The era of the cheap smartphone has ended."

Polymarket: 

//--> //--> Will Apple release a foldable iPhone before 2027?
Yes 93% · No 8%
View full market & trade on Polymarket.

However, consumers have not necessarily shunned expensive handsets, in part because carrier financing now commonly spreads payments over 24 to 36 months.

A $2,500 foldable iPhone would cost about $104 per month over 24 months or $69 per month over 36 months, before trade-in credits.

Whether the expensive foldable iPhone becomes a smashing success will largely depend onconsumers'’ willingness to upgrade. Recent GSMA research found that consumers are keeping their smartphones for an average of three years.

For iPhones, research firm Counterpoint found that Pro model owners replace their devices after an average of 2.75 years, while buyers of standard models wait about a little more than 3 years. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 20:30

Japan Holds Off On New Oil Reserve Release Despite September Import Drop

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

Japan expects its oil imports next month to be lower than this month's but has no plans to release additional crude from storage, the country's economy minister said.

Oil imports next month are seen at 80% of the average monthly for 2025, Ryosei Akazawa said, as quoted by Reuters. The report noted that the August import rate had been 100% of the 2025 monthly total.

The change is prompted by the redirection of tanker traffic from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Suez Canal, as Yemeni Houthis threaten attacks on vessels in the Red Sea chokepoint. A tanker takes 23 days to reach Japan via the Bab el-Mandeb strait but more than twice that, at 55 days, via the Suez Canal, Akazawa told media.

"Of the national reserves for which a release has already been decided, there remains a portion that has not been utilised due to progress in securing alternative supplies. Using that portion would ensure (September) crude oil supply equivalent to an average month last year," the top official also said.

Japan in March announced a release of 80 million barrels of crude and fuels in response to the supply squeeze in the Middle East resulting from the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February that launched the latest war in the region. The amount was equal to 50 days of demand in one of the world's biggest energy importers.

Japan relied on Middle Eastern producers for as much as 95% of its oil imports, which made it especially vulnerable to conflict in the Persian Gulf. Since then, Japan has made an effort to diversify its sources of crude, buying from Canada, Azerbaijan, and African producer countries. This has come at a price, however, with the country's import bill running at record highs because of energy commodities. The import bill for July hit an all-time high of $89.46 billion.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 20:05

Iran Says Persian-Language Media Outlets 'Funded By CIA' Are Military Targets

One key tool Washington has long utilized for influence operations and covert regime change plotting abroad has long been the establishment of foreign media for political messaging.

The idea is that a foreign language satellite news channel gets presented as 'independent' while in reality it beams propaganda onto a unsuspecting population within a so-called 'rogue' state being targeted by the US.

For example, WikiLeaks previously revealed that US intelligence invested heavily in such projects to bolster anti-Assad forces and sentiment in the context of last decade's proxy war in Syria.

Currently, Iran says it is fully aware of several Persian-language media outlets which are subversive, given they have the backing of the US, UK, or Israeli governments, or others like Saudi Arabia.

Iran International TV claims to be a privately funded channel based in west London and was established in May 2017.

The AFP in a Wednesday report has said Iranian state media has newly called out the following as hostile propaganda media fronts:

• BBC Persian
• Iran International
• Radio Farda

An Iranian military spokesman has said these have been added to the armed forces' "military target bank" - putting the outlets on notice that their offices and infrastructure could come under attack.

"These hostile media outlets are the soldiers of Zionism and America and are included in our military target bank," military spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi announced.

He charged that they are "directly connected to Mossad, CIA and enemy intelligence organizations." He emphasized: "The Iranian Armed Forces do not view these news outlets as media."

And interestingly, per AFP: "Iran has designated Iran International as a terrorist organization since 2022 and has warned that cooperation with the channel is punishable under Iranian law."

Earlier in the Iran war, we featured analysis which pointed out that Iran International calls itself the "most popular Persian speaking foreign based news channel in Iran".It employs 700 people and broadcasts into Iran from London via satellite, radio and social media outlets.

Iran International has been accused by critics of promoting “regime change” in Iran and advancing the position of the former shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, for a return to power. The outlet has long denied links to Israel or Saudi Arabia. The outlet reported heavily on protests that struck Iran at the beginning of this year, sparked by a cost-of-living crisis brought on, in part, by US sanctions.

In January 2025, the news site reported that more than 36,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protests. Those numbers were significantly higher than those estimated by the US and other western-based human rights groups.

US President Donald Trump cited casualty numbers similar to those reported by Iran International days before launching a war on Iran on February 28, but did not disclose where he had gotten the death toll number.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 19:40

India's Crude Import Bill Surges As Hormuz Shipping Rates Soar

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

India's crude oil import bill has soared since the Iran war choked Middle Eastern oil supply, raised benchmark crude prices, quadrupled freight rates, and boosted insurance on a single Strait of Hormuz voyage to never-before-seen highs.

India has been paying elevated prices to import Middle Eastern crude not only because of the spike in oil prices, but also due to the surging costs to bring supply from the nearest region from which it can import crude.

The freight rates on the key route from Ras Tanura on Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf to India have soared by more than 400% since February 28, when the war began, and Iran closed off the Strait of Hormuz. The rate for shipping crude on a very large crude carrier (VLCC) from Ras Tanura to India surged by 411% to $4.34 a barrel in August, from just $0.85 per barrel before the war, according to data compiled by Indian outlet Financial Express.

The cost of shipping non-Middle Eastern cargoes has also soared amid a spike in demand for barrels not needing the Strait of Hormuz to reach India. The Corpus Christi-India freight rates have jumped by 150% to $15.86 a barrel from $6.35 a barrel pre-war, while the cost to transport crude oil from Russia's Ust-Luga port on the Baltic Sea on Suezmax tankers has more than doubled to $19.90 a barrel from $8.40 per barrel in February.

War-risk insurance has also jumped from a quarter of a million U.S. dollars for a Hormuz voyage before the war, to up to $10 million for a single passage through the chokepoint now.

The soaring shipping and war-risk insurance costs add to already high prices of India's imports as Brent Crude prices have risen by about 25% since the Iran war began, with spikes into the $100s on several occasions.

India paid 60% more for crude oil imports in the April-June quarter compared to the same period last year, as the surge in oil prices couldn't offset slightly lower import volumes.

The rise continued into the beginning of the third quarter, with the July import bill 41% higher from a year earlier.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 19:15

Activist Obama Judge Bends The Knee, Lifts Block On Trump's Mail-In Ballot Restrictions After USSC Ruling

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday lifted her own order blocking the postal service from implementing election integrity measures for mail-in ballots. 

US District Judge Indira Talwani issued the block after the League of Women Voters challenged proposed USPS rules that said states had to provide a list of voters who are eligible to receive mail-in ballots, and had to get their ballot designs pre-approved. Talwani's decision comes after the Supreme Court overturned a similar block by the same judge in a separate case brought by multiple states.  

According to the judge, although the plaintiffs have "substantial arguments that might persuade the Supreme Court to reach a different result," the USSC's decision on Monday "compelled" her to agree to the government's motion to reconsider the block. 

Ruling on Talwani's other case, the Supreme Court said she erred by blocking the USPS rules before they had been finalized, and before the states had sufficiently shown that they would be harmed by it. Days before the USSC issued that decision, however, the USPS issued finalized rules on Aug. 21, which led Talwani to declare that USPS had violated her order in the League of Women Voters case. 

An election worker moves mail-in ballots to be organized for tabulation at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center during California's state primary election in the City of Industry, Calif., on June 2, 2026. Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images

As the Epoch Times notes further, USPS officials said finalizing the rules didn’t violate Talwani’s order, because the agency promised not to implement it for the 2026 election unless the court orders were lifted.

“These arguments ignore the court’s explicit directive not to ‘initiat[e] or complet[e]’ rulemaking,” Talwani countered. “And Defendants cannot contend that they misunderstood the scope of the court’s order.”

The League of Women Voters asked Talwani to enforce her own order by declaring the new USPS policy “has no force or effect with respect to any federal election on or before November 3, 2026.”

Talwani declined to make such a declaration or to penalize the government. She noted in her ruling that USPS’s decision to finalize the new policy, despite her order, may end up helping the plaintiffs in the case.

Since the rules are finalized, she said, the plaintiffs can amend their lawsuit and file again. And this time, the government cannot argue that the new rule is only “hypothetical.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 18:50

Another Major Russian Refinery Up In Flames As Diesel Nears Historic Highs

On Wednesday Ukrainian forces struck a Wildberries facility deep inside of Russian territory for the second time this summer.

The warehouse in the central Tambov region city of Kotovsk was first targeted in July, but this time the large complex has been "completely" destroyed in the resulting fire, Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov confirmed.

Wildberries plant burns. @exilenova_plus/Telegram

The city's mayor, Alexey Plakhotnikov, wrote on social media that "A massive fire at the Wildberries warehouse complex, smoke and smog are quickly spreading throughout the city."

He urged residents to shelter in place as a massive black cloud of smoke has reached high into sky, and enveloped the city and its environs.

"To avoid carbon monoxide poisoning and combustion products, I strongly urge you to refrain from active movement around the city for the next two days. Keep your windows and balconies closed," he instructed.

Regional media recounts of the same site, "The Ukrainian Armed Forces previously attacked the Wildberries logistics center in Kotovsk. On July 18, seven employees were killed and 23 more were hospitalized."

At this point over a dozen key Wildberries logistics hubs have been hit. The online retailer is considered to be the Amazon of Russia, but Ukraine has argued it is assisting the Russian military with supplies and so is fair game for targeting. The latest overnight drone onslaught across Russia killed three people overnight.

Ukraine also struck Russia's NORSI oil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region in the overnight attack. It is a Lukoil refinery that is one of the most important in Russia, and Ukraine's military says it is now up in flames.

President Zelensky is vowing to keep up these punishing long-range drones strikes, but also as residents of the Ukrainian capital brace for potential Russian ballistic missiles.

Regional unconfirmed reports say the Norsi complex has suffered a forced shut down as diesel prices soar near all time highs. DropSite News reviews of the significance:

• Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck Lukoil’s Kstovo (NORSI) refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region about 250 miles east of Moscow.
• It is Russia’s 4th-largest oil refinery and 2nd-largest gasoline producer, and can process roughly 125 million barrels annually, or about 320,000–340,000 barrels per day. The strike sparked a fire and forced the refinery to suspend crude oil processing, according to Reuters.
• U.S. retail diesel prices meanwhile have surged near historic highs, reaching a national average of $5.62 to $5.65 per gallon. 
• Prices jumped by 20 cents per gallon this week alone, driven by a global supply crunch linked to the Middle East conflict and refinery disruptions there and in Russia. 
• Current diesel prices are nearly $2.00 per gallon higher than they were at this time last year. 

While there's still yet to be official Kremlin confirmation of the Norsi refinery attack and destruction, videos like the below have been spreading quickly online:

🔥 15 to 17 million metric tons.

That's the annual crude throughput at Lukoil's NORSI refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, which is now burning after local Telegram channels and residents reported an air raid alert, drones overhead, and then a drone strike overnight.… pic.twitter.com/t5kwRxEbGA

— Jack Prandelli (@jackprandelli) August 26, 2026

"The war must return to where it came from. Ukraine responds to Russian strikes, and we do so in a way that ensures the cost of the war for the aggressor inevitably rises." Zelensky wrote in a post on X.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 18:00

Israel Developing Offensive Space Capabilities

Authored by Ioannis Vlahos via Antiwar.com,

Israel is currently prepared to begin development of offensive space capabilities, including systems designed to defend Israeli satellites from hostile spacecraft, and weapons (including lasers) capable of striking targets from space.

It is part of the Defense Ministry's multiyear budget plan for the space sector, which will include upgrading and expanding IDF (Israel Defense Forces) intelligence and communications capabilities. The plan will also dedicate a budget to support offensive space operations, which will focus on weapons designed to protect Israeli satellites as well as weapons designed to strike targets on Earth.

Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke earlier this summer about Israel's commitment to becoming the world leader in space-attack capabilities, a realm of warfare that has experienced a surge in Israeli military interest given its extensive use for intelligence gathering in Iran.

"One of the central goals that the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and I set is that we are recruiting the best minds," he said. "As of today, no country has the ability to mount attacks in space. We must be the leading country in the world with this capability."

"If we achieve this, it will ensure the advantage of deterrence, of the ability to attack, destroy, and all of the other matters versus our enemies with large resources."

Global space warfare development has been on the rise in recent years, and some speculate that Israel's recent activity is an effort to catch up with China and Russia, who have been testing their own offensive space capabilities. US President Donald Trump has also expressed his desire for America to do the same, by signing Executive Order 14369, "Ensuring American Space Superiority."

However, experts warn that Israel and others' offensive space weapon programs have increased proliferation concerns. Satellite miniaturization, falling launch costs, and the commercialization of the space industry have also allowed more countries to create their own space programs, and not all of them are peaceful. Furthermore, space weaponry not only threatens satellites and other non-military technologies operating in space, but the growing prevalence of and reliance on the latter will make cyberattacks all the more dangerous.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 17:40

Chinese Hackers Broke Into NASA, Federal Reserve, DOJ & Senate: FBI Announces

The United States Department of Justice has on Wednesday announced US authorities thwarted a major state-sponsored hack which saw a temporary intrusion into NASA, the Federal Reserve, Senate, the DOJ, Department of Energy, and the Department of Health and Human services, along with four unnamed companies in the US and South Korea.

"Today we announced the disruption of a global botnet and hacking platform used by Chinese state-sponsored hackers to target U.S. critical infrastructure," said FBI Director Kash Patel.

"These tools were used by PRC cyber actors to hide the origin of their attacks. Thanks to the work of FBI San Diego, FBI Cyber Division, and DOJ partners, we seized adversary infrastructure and shut these platforms down," he added.

via Reuters

Domains utilized by two hacking platforms identified as "QScan" and "QTRouter" were seized by the DOJ in the large scale counter-cyberespionage operation.

Describing a pervasive botnet which was ultimately believed to be backed by Chinese state actors, The Wall Street Journal details that the "goal was to blend in with legitimate networking traffic, making the hacking activity hard to trace, federal officials say."

"The group exploited software vulnerabilities to launch cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, power companies and hospital systems, and operated a worldwide network of hacked devices—known as a botnet—to conduct its hacking campaigns, according to Brett Leatherman, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top cyber official," WSJ continues.

As for the specific allegation that this had state backing, the DOJ press release states:

People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored group known as “QTFY,” employed by China-based Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, created and operated QScan and QTRouter.

The DOJ announcement additionally outlines efforts at concealment and 'plausible deniability' in the following:

QTRouter consists of these compromised IoT devices, as well as commercial proxy service devices and leased virtual private servers. QTRouter then serves as an “obfuscation network” – meaning it allows QTFY and other malicious cyber actors to conceal the PRC-origin of their computer intrusion activities because the malicious communications appear to originate from computers (such as those compromised by QScan) that are outside of the PRC and may even be local to the targeted networks. Because the seized domains were hard-coded into both the QScan and QTRouter malware and used for essential tasks such as communication and authentication, the court-authorized seizures made QScan and QTRouter inoperable. 

Neither Beijing's foreign ministry nor the Chinese embassy in Washington have officially responded to the allegations, and as has been the pattern in the past is likely to reject the US charge altogether.

Earlier this year Google was among those warning of imminent stepped-up Chinese and Russian targeting of US defense companies. 

Google's prior report seemed to preview some of the techniques on display in this latest hack. The report cited observations of "more China-nexus cyber espionage missions directly targeting defense and aerospace industry than from any other state-sponsored actors over the last two years."

//--> //--> //--> US imposes new sanctions on China by September 30?
Yes 21% · No 80%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

"But the hallmark of many operations has been their exploitation of edge devices to gain initial access," it said, referring to hardware components positioned at the edge of a network. "We have also observed China-nexus threat groups leverage ORB networks for reconnaissance against defense industrial targets, which complicates detection and attribution."

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 17:20

You Know Things Are Bad When This Has To Be Referred To The DOJ...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is escalating the fight against what he calls discriminatory religious facilities at two of the state's busiest airports.

After DFW Airport scrapped plans for more Islamic ablution stations under pressure, Abbott has referred both Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport to the U.S. Department of Justice, demanding investigation and corrective action over existing foot-washing stations and an adjoining prayer room.

"These ablution stations single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion," Abbott said. "They are not interfaith chapels open to all. They exist to benefit the Muslim population alone. Government-owned airports cannot favor one religion over all others."

? JUST IN: TX Gov. Greg Abbott has referred Islamic foot washing stations at Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston Airports to the DOJ for INVESTIGATION and ENFORCEMENT

Abbott calls the wudu stations "DISCRIMINATORY"

"These ablution stations single out one subset of the population for... pic.twitter.com/YQAAtmEuWY

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 21, 2026

In his letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, Abbott noted that DFW has two such stations already operating and that IAH installed one facility plus an interconnecting prayer room stocked with copies of the Quran, prayer rugs, prayer beads, and a turbah.

He previously referred the airports to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, directed a review of state grants for possible revocation, and warned that if the facilities sit on city-owned property, Texas will pursue litigation for religious discrimination at taxpayer-funded sites.

"Airports can no more offer Muslim-only bathroom spaces than they can maintain white-only bathrooms," Abbott wrote. DFW abandoned plans for additional stations in Terminal D after the initial threat. Airport officials said they accelerated review due to public attention and determined the anticipated benefits might not materialize.

?Here Are The Ritual Muslim Foot Washing Stations Inside the Dallas Ft. Worth Airport...

Yes, they are real, this is not fake news.

I'm at DFW right now and went to the interfaith chapel near Gate D40. Two massive showers greet you when you enter the small chapel. But they're... pic.twitter.com/xkpXNaauOl

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 20, 2026

Houston Mayor John Whitmire defended the IAH facilities, saying they are open to all travelers regardless of faith and were funded by fees from international airlines rather than direct taxpayer grants.

Critics of Abbott's move, including the Texas chapter of CAIR, called it an anti-Muslim political stunt. Abbott and Texas leaders frame the issue differently: government-owned airports receiving public and federal funds cannot create spaces designed around one faith's ritual requirements while ignoring others.

This latest action fits a clear pattern of pushback against what many Texans see as the steady advance of parallel Islamic institutions and preferential accommodations across the state.

Residents in McKinney recently packed City Hall and voiced fierce opposition as the council approved a major expansion for the McKinney Islamic Association. The 5.5-acre site plan includes a large sanctuary, classroom building, and gym.

More than 150 speakers signed up for the marathon session that stretched past midnight. An Iranian Christian refugee told the council, "I'm a Sharia law survivor from Iran, and I'm here to tell you, this is a dangerous ideology you're allowing in the country."

U.S. Rep. Keith Self warned of risks including child marriage and honor killings under political Islam, stating the freedom to choose one's faith "does not exist in political Islam." The council still voted 7-0 to approve after staff confirmed the plan met zoning rules.

Public schools have also drawn outrage. Students from Humble ISD's Kingwood High School and Atascocita High School were bused to Centro Islamico, operated by IslamInSpanish in the Houston area, so they could "experience Islam."

The visit included a tour, halal lunch, observation of prayer, and presentations. Parents and online commentators noted the absence of similar taxpayer-funded trips to churches or other houses of worship, calling the episode one-sided indoctrination.

Congressman Keith Self has repeatedly highlighted existing Muslim-only enclaves operating as parallel societies. He pointed to the East Plano Islamic Center, which has functioned for years adjacent to police facilities, and a similar pattern in Irving.

"Sharia is alive, well, and operating in Plano, Texas," Self said. "This is not a hypothetical or future threat. It is here, now and operational."

NEW: 'Muslim City' in Texas gets legal win after a judge ordered that the state must comply with developers.

The East Plano Islamic Community (EPIC), which has now been rebranded to The Meadow, will feature 1,000 homes, a mosque, schools, and more.

Texas leaders are worried... pic.twitter.com/HoSvNeV307

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 30, 2026

He described these as de facto Sharia enclaves situated next to the law enforcement facilities meant to protect communities, calling the proximity a form of intimidation.

Texas authorities have also moved against unauthorized institutions. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, at Abbott's direction, issued a cease-and-desist order to Texas American Muslim University (TexAM) in the Dallas area.

The school was operating without required state approval, marketing degree programs that included mandatory Islamic studies courses, and using the term "university" illegally.

Abbott stated Texas will not allow illegal educational institutions to operate and that legal action would follow noncompliance.

Taxpayer-funded venues have faced similar scrutiny. Epic Waters Indoor Waterpark in Grand Prairie, built with public sales tax money, advertised a private Eid event initially promoted as "Muslim only," complete with modest dress codes, halal options, and a prayer room.

After backlash the language was softened, but the episode reinforced concerns that public facilities were being reserved for exclusive religious use.

Taken together, the airport ablution stations, school field trips, city council approvals, unauthorized schools, exclusive events, and residential developments form a consistent picture.

Abbott's referral of the airports to the DOJ is the latest concrete step to enforce the principle that government facilities and public money cannot favor one religion. Texas under Abbott continues to treat equal application of the law as non-negotiable, rejecting special privileges that create two-tier systems on public property.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 17:00

Don't Trust The Midterm Polls

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via The Epoch Times,

This is a lightly edited transcript of an Aug. 24 segment of the "Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words" podcast.

Let's have a periodic check on the status of the midterms that we're now less than 80 days away from. The Democrats are riding high. They feel that historical trends, i.e., 39 out of the last 41 midterms, the party in the White House loses seats, and there's not very many seats Republicans can afford to lose, and they may lose the House and Senate.

They're already, I guess you'd call it, measuring their drapes, but in the sense that they're already explaining how they're going to go after the Trump family, the Trump family associates, cryptocurrency concerns, any hangers-on, people going to the Middle East and investing. They're gonna open it wide open.

These are the people, of course, who never investigated the Biden family or Hunter Biden. That's no excuse if there's culpability, but nonetheless, you can count on a two-year investigation of Donald Trump and a never-ending impeachment inquiry, and the end of the MAGA agenda should he lose the House and the Senate.

Donald Trump is strangely confident. He now has finally hit on a strategy that he feels will work. Earlier, I called it the "Anaconda Strategy," the idea that he is squeezing a debilitated Iran. In other words, the kinetic 40 days of bombing have left the nuclear military-industrial complex in shambles.

And this time, he's not just blockading, he's not just having an embargo on goods. He is not just freezing the bank accounts of Iranian grandees. He's not just debanking the entire country. He's going to third parties and saying, "You and China and Russia and Europe have been trading with this country even while we were bearing the burden of defanging a potential nuclear renegade nation, and we're going to isolate you. We're not gonna do business with you if you do business with Iran."

And the Iranians now are crying foul. They're saying we're colonialists. But what I'm getting at, after all that military damage from Feb. 28 for the next 40 days, and after all the blockades, they're not able to withstand a renewed squeezing.

And so, time is actually on our side.

The second part of this strategy is Donald Trump has now put the war on the back burner. He is saying that we don't need to have ground troops. We might not even go in and bomb them again unless they egregiously attack an ally of ours or one of our carriers or ships.

We have managed it now. The strait is mostly open, and whatever the status of the nuclear stockpile or enriched uranium of the theocracy, it's pretty clear they can't get at it.

Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah don't seem to be getting money. They don't seem to have enough rockets to threaten the Gulf States or Israel, at least to get through their missile defenses.

And so, we're just going to concentrate, Trump thinks, on the economy.

So, what he is doing now is he and JD Vance are barnstorming the country, and they're starting to make headway. They're not worried about the polls that show a generic 7 percent Democratic advantage and betting odds and polls that say they're gonna lose the House because they looked at the recent primaries.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the Democratic senatorial seat in Michigan, was polling ahead 10 points, and he scarcely won by a point and a half.

Francesca Hong, the Wisconsin Democratic candidate for governor, was polling ahead 10 or 15 or 20 points. She lost and lost handily.

Mr. [Alexander] Vindman, who was running for Senate in Florida, was polling ahead. He lost to Ms. [Angie] Nixon, a democratic socialist.

So, what I'm getting at is the polls are worthless. And what we need to look at is what the status is right now.

The war is starting to wane. If it should end or if the Iranians crack in the next 60 to 70 days, that would be a spectacular achievement that Donald Trump - you know, we've tragically lost 17 Americans - but at a tolerable cost in blood and treasure, he ended a 50-year problem that seven presidents said was existential.

You could not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and the pressure that he's put on them and the damage he's inflicted would probably, in the next year or two, prompt a renewal of internal opposition against a theocracy that is bleeding.

The second thing to remember very carefully is, as I said earlier, the redistricting, the red state redistricting and the Supreme Court prohibition on racial gerrymandering might give him an additional four or five seats.

But the most important developments are money and the agenda of the new Democratic Party.

Very quickly, Donald Trump has got a war chest of about $400 million, and he's now going to use it.

He says he's going to use it all in his political action committees to help save the Republicans in the midterms.

Elon Musk said that he is going to match dollar for dollar the Democratic oligarchic class that if they start to donate in great amounts to Democratic candidates.

So, the money issue probably favors also, like, the redistricting and maybe the course of the Iran war that could wane and be not an issue.

But the most important thing to conclude is the Democratic Party. No one thought that the Democratic socialists would ever try to absorb and even seem to succeed in absorbing the Democratic Party. I mean, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, they've all said they have no problem with the Democratic socialists.

It's a big tent party, and they're going to help them win their seats.

But the problem is, once you have the money and the effort and the attention, and you show what the democratic socialists are, like, defunding the Pentagon, defunding the police, opening the border, mass amnesties, warring on fossil fuels, isolationist foreign policy, the transgender issue reopened with biological men now by statute free to compete in women's sports. I could go on and on.

They even want to destroy the Senate and the Electoral College, not to mention packing the Supreme Court, ending the filibuster, and bringing in new seats in the Senate by admitting new blue states such as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

And so, what I'm getting at is, the more we learn about the democratic socialists, and the more that the Democratic Party feels they've already taken over the apparatus of the party and they're going to join them, or at least they're not going to oppose them, they're gonna be culpable or responsible for what these people say.

And they're saying all sorts of stuff, not just anti-Semitic venom, not just anti-Israel venom, but questioning the very legitimacy of the United States government, the way that our Founders created a legislative, judicial, and executive branch, the Declaration of Independence. Our entire traditions, they're saying, are flawed at their origins.

They got worse during our maturity, and now they're god-awful right now. That's not a winning message.

So, the midterms are very much up in the air.

Contrary to historical precedent, there's still a chance that the Republicans can save both the Senate and the House.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 16:20

US Universities Had Extensive Ties With Chinese Defense Research Labs, Air Force Study Finds

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

Thirty U.S. academic institutions have until Aug. 31 to examine specified foreign research ties or risk losing eligibility for future federal research funding.

A model of a Chinese-made J-35A stealth fighter is displayed at an AVIC (China Aviation Industry Corporation) stand during the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, in southern China's Guangdong province on Nov. 14, 2024. Hector Retamal / AFP via Getty Images

Seven days after the Pentagon ordered the reviews, an Air Force-affiliated institute published a study cataloging 204 interactions involving U.S. institutions and laboratories at the center of China's defense research system.

The Aug. 24 study by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) found more U.S. institution-level interactions with China's Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories than those involving institutions from any other country.

CASI describes the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories as China's highest level national laboratory network for military research. The contacts it identified ranged from academic visits and conferences to coauthored technical research and formal joint laboratories in fields including aero-engines, underwater sensing, hyperspectral target detection, advanced communications, and aerospace materials.

CASI described interactions between Western researchers and Chinese military laboratories as "at the very least problematic," saying even seemingly benign exchanges could give Chinese defense researchers access to knowledge and technology useful to the People's Liberation Army.

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney told The Epoch Times that institutional collaborations-including joint laboratories, long-term partnerships, and mutual study or training agreements-were the most concerning because they represented sustained cooperation rather than one-off encounters.

The Pentagon's Aug. 17 order directs 30 U.S. institutions to review academic, financial, and research relationships with foreign entities of concern and report what action they have taken by Aug. 31.

The Pentagon did not publicly identify the schools. According to a list DefenseScoop obtained from a U.S. official, Harvard University, MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, Duke University, Penn State, the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and the University of Southern California are among institutions on that list that also appear in CASI's records.

The Pentagon has not said that the relationships identified by CASI prompted the Aug. 17 notices.

Purdue and Beihang Built Joint Research Labs

In 2011, Purdue and Beihang formally established the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Energy Systems and the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Low Emissions Combustion.

Then-Purdue President France Córdova and Beihang President Huai Jinpeng signed the agreements.

The energy laboratory paired Purdue's computational modeling with Beihang's experimental capabilities. The combustion laboratory focused on low emission gas turbine combustors used in aircraft and power generation.

Beihang records also describe the two laboratories as formal joint research arrangements and say the universities discussed broader scientific research, teaching, and faculty and student exchanges.

Beihang later described the combustion laboratory within a research program that also undertook Chinese National Defense 973 projects, a state-backed basic research program supporting its defense science and technology.

CASI identified Beihang's thermal engineering department-which oversees a Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory for aero-engine aerodynamics and thermodynamics-as having established a joint combustion research team with Purdue.

Beihang is now on the Pentagon's Section 1286 list of foreign institutions subject to tighter research security restrictions.

Harvard Listed by Chinese Defense University as Collaborator

The Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), one of China's leading defense linked universities, currently lists Harvard among the international collaborators of its Center for Composite Materials and Structure.

The center works on aerospace structures, smart and composite materials, sensors, structural health monitoring, multifunctional nanocomposites, and related technologies, according to its research description.

CASI also cites an earlier HIT description saying its composite materials research institute had established an overseas joint laboratory with Harvard and maintained long-term exchanges and cooperation with other foreign universities.

HIT has been on the Pentagon's Section 1286 research security list since at least fiscal 2022 and was added to the Commerce Department's Entity List in June 2020 over its alleged efforts to use U.S. technology for Chinese missile programs.

Research Reached Underwater and Missile Fields

The links also extended into published technical research.

In 2017, researchers affiliated with the University of Houston and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University joined researchers from Harbin Engineering University on a study of underwater wireless sensor networks.

The paper, published in Sensors, developed a method for accessing data through an underwater sensor network.

The authors included Houbing Song, then affiliated with Embry-Riddle; Albert M. K. Cheng of the University of Houston; and Xuefei Ma, who was affiliated with both Harbin Engineering University's College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering and its National Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Science and Technology.

The author-contribution statement credits the U.S.-based researchers with experimental, analytical, and research work. Funding listed in the paper came from Chinese sources, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, basic-research projects, and the China Scholarship Council.

CASI classified the work as research collaboration involving a Chinese defense laboratory in underwater acoustics.

Another collaboration reached into hyperspectral target detection.

A 2021 study coauthored by Ying Qu, listed with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a neural-network method for identifying anomalous targets in hyperspectral images.

One of Qu's coauthors was Xuemei Liu of Beijing's Space Vehicle Survival Technology and Effectiveness Evaluation Laboratory.

Researchers from that laboratory have separately published work on missile trajectory tracking, missile attack-and-defense simulations, and radar-seeker countermeasures.

CASI said the Beijing laboratory appears closely affiliated with a Chinese defense laboratory involved in ballistic-missile penetration technology.

Harbin Engineering University, like Beihang and HIT, is on the Pentagon's Section 1286 list.

Advanced Communications Contacts Continued Into 2025

Mulvaney said conference participation could also be consequential because of how common it is and how little scrutiny it has received compared with formal research collaboration.

Some contacts cataloged by CASI are more recent.

University of Houston professor Zhu Han delivered keynote speeches at the International Conference on Communication Software and Networks in China in both 2024 and 2025.

His 2024 keynote focused on federated learning and multi-access edge computing, technologies used to distribute artificial intelligence processing across communications networks and connected devices.

The conference listed China's National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Space Security among its technical sponsors.

Han returned as a keynote speaker at the 2025 conference, which again listed the laboratory among its sponsors.

CASI traces the laboratory to a predecessor known as the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Communications Countermeasures Technology.

The 2025 keynote roster also included Nian Fushun, identified by organizers as a chief scientist of test instruments at China Electronics Technology Group Corp. and its 41st Research Institute.

China Electronics Technology Group is a state-owned defense electronics conglomerate involved in radar, communications, electronic warfare, and other military technologies.

Han's University of Houston profile lists wireless networking, security, and data analysis among his research interests.

Pentagon Restrictions Take Effect

Beginning in fiscal 2026, Pentagon funds cannot be used for fundamental research involving collaboration with institutions on the department's Section 1286 list.

The restriction applies to grants, contracts, and other assistance to higher education institutions and bars Pentagon funded fundamental research from collaborating with, or using equipment from, listed entities. It also extends to employees of those institutions.

Beihang University, Harbin Engineering University, and Harbin Institute of Technology-the Chinese universities involved in several of the relationships identified by CASI-are on the list.

The 30 U.S. institutions notified this month must report their findings and any mitigation measures to the Pentagon by Aug. 31.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:45

Secret Service Aware Of Iranian Video Threat Against Barron Trump

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Secret Service confirmed on Aug. 25 it is aware of a video aired by Iranian state-run media that appears to threaten President Donald Trump's youngest son, Barron, and places a $10 million bounty on him.

"The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees," spokesman Nate Herring told The Epoch Times in an email. "Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence."

The three-minute video that first aired Aug. 24 alleges Trump's 20-year-old son is being monitored.

The video, titled "Where and how should we kill Barron Trump?" was produced by media entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and broadcast on Channel 3 of Iranian state television.

The clip shows the location of the university he attends, along with maps of the school. It also depicts security vehicles that drive him around. The clips also allege Barron Trump's movements have been monitored.

The Epoch Times reached out to the university about the video and didn't immediately receive a response about whether any additional security measures have been taken.

The video also claims Barron Trump communicates through voice-to-text on a gaming platform and mentions Trump Tower, where he is known to stay.

The broadcast also claims Barron Trump's gaming accounts have been located and allegedly names a couple of his friends.

Statements in the video appeared to taunt and intentionally terrorize Barron Trump and the president's family. The Epoch Times has not been able to verify whether claims made in it are legitimate.

This is the second broadcast by the Iranian regime to threaten Barron Trump.

An IRGC-affiliated news agency also broadcast a similar video in July threatening First Lady Melania Trump. It claimed to have information on her security detail, her movements and alleged security vulnerabilities.

President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and son Barron Trump make their way to board Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on Jan. 17, 2020, to travel to Palm Beach, Fla. MANDEL NGAN/Getty Images

At the end of the July video, the narrator says: "This is just the beginning. Barron Trump, wait for us."

The video that was broadcast this week ends with the same statement.

Since the start of the war against Iran, and the assassination of Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have issued several articles and statements threatening the lives of President Trump and his family members.

The White House referred questions about the threats against the Trump family to the Secret Service.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:25

Coinbase CEO Considers Joining California Exodus Over "Deeply Un-American" Wealth Tax Proposal

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong could be the next Silicon Valley billionaire to flee California over a union-backed, draconian wealth tax scheme that critics slam as a radical wealth grab.

“I think it’s deeply un-American to seize people’s assets. It might be unconstitutional,” Armstrong, who has an estimated net worth of $8.8 billion, said of the proposal during an interview on the “The Katie Miller Podcast.”

“It’s against my values, I would say. I think it’s bad for the state and for America. So we’re considering any and all options basically at this point to be, in terms of relocation,” the crypto executive added.

This week on the Katie Miller Podcast, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong breaks down crypto, meme coins, and the explosive future of AI in digital assets.

You will see a side of the CEO you have never seen before: his passion for longevity plus the incredible story of how he met his… pic.twitter.com/JxdDittltm

— The Katie Miller Podcast (@katiemillerpod) August 25, 2026

While Coinbase has maintained that it is a remote-first operation, it signed a lease for 150,000 square feet of San Francisco office space in May. That came just four years after it paid $25 million to break its previous office lease in the same city, the New York Post reports. 

If the wealth tax is approved by voters, the levy would hit anyone who lived in California as of Jan. 1 this year and holds a net worth of $1 billion or more by year’s end, excluding certain assets like directly owned real estate. 

The tax has split Democrat ranks wide open, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra both publicly opposing it. The measure originated with a major healthcare union, the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which claims it would raise $100 billion to offset what it calls deep healthcare funding cuts under the Trump administration. Unsurprisingly, far-left lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, have cheered it on.

The proposal has already reverberated through Silicon Valley, where several high-profile figures have established residency elsewhere. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have moved to Florida, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a $150 million mansion in Miami. Even Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, prominent Democrat donor, and longtime buddy of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has publicly criticized the proposal, describing California’s wealth tax as a “horrendous idea” that would hasten the departure of tech founders and executives from the state.

In May, one of the co-authors of California’s controversial tax appeared to suggest that the levy could extend beyond a single imposition. Marxist economics professor Emmanuel Saez, who hails from France, made the comment during a heated debate against economist Arthur Laffer at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax. Because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once,” Saez said. "Even then, maybe some of them were expecting something like this. So, it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 15:05

The Reason For The Tech Backlash

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The backlash against data centers has shocked political and financial elites. It's because it seems to stretch across the left-right divide. Indeed, it seems like the one thing most Americans can agree on: these centers need to be curbed and controlled. Part of this backlash is also targeting the Flock cameras taking over urban areas with new forms of police surveillance.

Looking at this without much on-the-ground knowledge, one might be quick to judge these movements as a revival of Luddism that came with industrialization two centuries ago. Is it always the case that people resist the new thing because they don't understand it and don't like the inevitable creative destruction always and everywhere wrought by free-market forces?

I don't believe this story. There is no reason why any real innovation adopted voluntarily on the market should engender a mass movement of revanchists who want to go back to the old ways. The key word in that sentence is voluntary.

When we look back at history, we can see that there are large dollops of public forces that have come with many industrial transformations, including data centers now.

Too often, large technological shocks have been inorganic. They have been imposed by aspirational cartels in league with state power who are looking for unfair advantage and power and portfolio aggrandizement.

Let's travel back in time 500 years to the Enclosure Acts of Britain that are often said (rightly or wrongly) to have kicked off the Industrial Revolution. Before widespread enclosure, much of rural England operated under the common-law, open-field system. Villages had large open fields divided into scattered strips cultivated by individual households, plus common pastures, meadows, and wasteland where villagers could graze animals, gather fuel, or forage under customary rights (such as pasture, pannage for pigs, or estovers for wood). These rights were tied to specific holdings or, in some cases, held more broadly by tenants. Land was managed with shared crop rotations and grazing.

Tradition was settled and it all worked. But starting in the 17th century and extending through the 19th century, Parliament pushed to privatize these lands based in part on access to power and royal privilege. The peasants were pushed out and grazing rights and farming rights long established by tradition came to an end. Make no mistake: this was an act of power, one that discredited the very idea of private property rights, which came to be seen in British culture as nothing but royal privilege.

This is what gave rise to popular resentment. It was no industrialization as such but the means chosen to force it upon an agricultural society and its settled ways. Had this been done by contact and agreement, popular opinion would have been very different.

Something very similar happened to the American South following the Civil War. The Reconstruction governments in league with Northern industrial interests forcibly industrialized large parts of the South, turning traditional agricultural lands into factories. This gave rise to a perception that industry was invasive and coercive, an imposition rather than a choice. An entire movement rose up in opposition, not because people hated progress but because they didn't want it to be rammed down their throats.

Another example came after the Second World War in the United States. The U.S. had the most sophisticated and well-developed system of passenger and cargo trains of any country in the world. But in Washington, D.C., lobbying pressure plus perceptions about an improved future essentially abandoned it all in favor of the automobile and interstate highways. Thousands of small towns were wrecked in the name of progress while historic train stations and the towns they supported were left to rot.

Even the digital revolution has been compromised by similar tactics. Benefiting mightily from pandemic-era lockdowns were the sellers of software, hardware, and online teaching platforms, paid for in substantial part by stimulus checks that later led to high inflation. Stay-at-home orders were not voluntary but another example of forced reset on behalf of industry.

Soon after, artificial intelligence engines came online but they have been greeted with great incredulity rather than excitement. A major reason for this was timing. The same industries that benefit from the lockdowns were now riding high with yet another toy, this one designed to replace human intelligence with machines. It's no wonder people have doubts.

This also figures into why there is such public opposition to the data centers springing up all over the country. The constant buzzing sounds they impose on a community are insufferable. They amount to what economists call a negative externality. Also, much of the land on which they are being built is being seized by eminent domain which amounts to stealing even when it is compensated.

This is not choice, it is not organic, and it is not voluntary. These centers feel like they are part of a central plan imposed upon settled communities nationwide. That they have engendered bipartisan resentment is hardly surprising.

It's the same with Flock surveillance cameras going up everywhere. We are told that they are for crime control but people know better. They are methods to keep tabs on the population generally speaking for purposes of control. That's the key: the building of the control grid. Something prevents people from embracing this and it comes down to one intuition: the desire to be free from impositions by a corporatized ruling class.

None of this feels like organic developments that are part of a normal market process. We see how technological revolution in history is often accompanied by grave acts of coercions. It's these acts that discredit what they are calling progress and give rise to populist movements that are too easily dismissed as reactionary. They are more likely rooted in a normal desire on the part of regular people to be left alone.

We can tick through other examples: rural electrification in the United States, collectivized agriculture in the Soviet Union, demographic scrambling in Mao's China, even the Green New Deal in the United States with its wind turbines and solar mandates. We could even put vaccine mandates in this list: they infuriate people even when the product works. No one likes to be forced into another man's definition of progress.

The free market is a wonderful thing but these examples are not rooted in normal market forces, much less the ideal of competition.

We are a long way from Adam Smith's utopia of butchers, bakers, and brewers.

This is the building of a control grid that seems to treat regular people with disdain, as rats in a laboratory experiment. It's hardly a surprise that it has again been greeted with public incredulity and even fierce opposition.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:45

Wheat Futs Surge To Three-Year High As JPMorgan, HSBC Warn Global Food Shock Is Brewing

Wheat futures surged to a three-year high on Wednesday morning as traders repriced a nasty convergence of supply risks across the global agricultural supply chain. Ongoing drone and missile attacks on critical Black Sea shipping and port infrastructure are constraining Russian and Ukrainian exports, while severe Northern Hemisphere heat waves and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are amplifying concerns that another food-inflation cycle could rear its ugly head next year.

Bloomberg reported that the most-active Chicago wheat contract jumped as much as 2.4% to $7.2025 a bushel, its highest level since July 2023. Futures have gained about 12% so far this month.

Russia and Ukraine, two of the world's most important breadbaskets, account for more than a quarter of global wheat exports and are also major suppliers of corn, barley, and sunflower oil. The Black Sea conflict has escalated since early July, with both sides targeting bulk carriers, ports, and other infrastructure critical to transporting grain and other agricultural products to the rest of the world.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow rejected Kyiv's proposal for a ceasefire covering ships carrying agricultural goods through the Black Sea. In return, Russia sought guarantees that Ukraine would stop attacking its energy infrastructure, including refineries.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv was prepared to discuss an energy truce, but only on a reciprocal basis. Reuters reported that the two sides remain divided.

Troubling new estimates suggest Ukraine's agricultural exports could collapse by 54% to about 29.6 million tons during the 2026-27 marketing year, down from an earlier estimate of 64.4 million tons. Wheat shipments alone could plunge by 53% to 8.3 million tons.

Meanwhile, Russian wheat exports in August are also expected to fall by more than 50% from a year earlier. Several terminals at Novorossiysk, Russia's largest Black Sea grain-export hub, suspended operations after sustaining damage in a Ukrainian one-way attack-drone strike. The two damaged facilities have a combined annual export capacity of more than 14 million tons, according to S&P Global.

Port bottlenecks are also growing. Bloomberg reported today that as many as 70 ships were queued near the Danube's Sulina Canal. Massive shipping delays have sent freight costs surging.

More broadly, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index, which tracks 10 major crop products, has also jumped to a three-year high. 

Wall Street warnings that a food crisis could erupt as soon as next year are growing louder.

The latest came from HSBC economist Jamie Culling, who covers Australia, New Zealand, and global commodities. In a Tuesday note titled "Food Prices Rising Due to the Weather and Wars," Culling warned that global agricultural "buffers are now starting to run down."

Last week, JPMorgan global economist Nora Szentivanyi issued a similar warning, saying the next global food crisis "won't be short-lived."

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:25

Trump Admin Defends Kennedy Center Name Plan, Warns Of Demolition Risk

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration told a federal judge that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington could face demolition without major renovations.

Lawyers for the Justice Department made the case in a late Monday filing in defense of a recent board resolution that would add language recognizing President Donald Trump on the building and rename the grounds.

The board of trustees for the center voted Aug. 13 to place the words "Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump" below the center's formal name. It also approved calling the physical site the "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), a board member, had asked U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper to block the move. Beatty's emergency motion seeks an injunction against the name recognition resolution.

In response, Justice Department attorney Brantley T. Mayers wrote that the center sits in a "financial and structural death spiral." The filing describes the building as "dangerously dilapidated, outdated, and decrepit."

"Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site," the filing states, pointing toward one long-discussed alternative in the form of a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River.

Mayers argued that blocking recognition of Trump would cause donors to flee, financial contributions to slow, and structural work to stop.

"The crisis is so acute that, without the Trump Administration, its people, and President Trump, the Center cannot survive, either structurally or financially," the filing says.

Cooper ruled in May that an earlier board decision to rename the institution the "Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" violated federal law. Only Congress can change the name, the judge found. Trump's name was removed from the facade in June.

The new resolution stops short of a complete rename. Administration lawyers contend it stays within the board's authority and does not violate the prior order.

A hearing is set for Thursday. The board has said it will not implement the inscriptions before Sept. 8 at the earliest.

The Kennedy Center opened in 1971 as a living memorial to the slain president. Its board, controlled by Trump appointees, has pushed renovations for months, with Trump describing the building as in poor shape and positioning the project as essential to its future.

The filing urges Cooper to deny Beatty's request, describing the recognition language as a necessary acknowledgment for the administration's role in any renovation and rescue effort.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/26/2026 - 14:05