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The association of thousands of oil industry workers did not hold back from schooling the failed presidential pick.

NJ Transit is expected to release its final pricing plan on Friday.

Walker Buehler and the Padres are off to a strong start in 2026.

Neither Swalwell nor Gonzales can access federal retirement benefits until age 62 under current law.

Somebody at Polymarket believes they got the scoop on where Ty Simpson will land at next week's NFL Draft.

The soulful crooner will rock the Nets' home on Oct. 2.

From Supply-Chain Risk To National Security Imperative: U.S. Government Embraces Anthropic's Mythos AI

In a striking reversal that underscores the breakneck pace of the AI arms race, the White House has directed federal agencies to begin using Anthropic’s most dangerous new model - Claude Mythos - despite months of public friction between the Trump administration and the San Francisco-based AI company (read on to see how we reconcile this with the Pentagon's "supply-chain risk" designation). 

The move, detailed in an internal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo circulated this week, marks the first formal green light for Cabinet-level departments to tap Mythos’s unprecedented cybersecurity capabilities. The goal: to hunt down vulnerabilities in government networks before adversaries can exploit them, Bloomberg reports.

Too Powerful to Release, Too Valuable to Ignore

Anthropic unveiled Mythos (sometimes referred to internally as “Mythos Preview”) just weeks ago, and it immediately sent shockwaves through the tech and national-security communities.

In controlled testing, the model autonomously discovered and weaponized thousands of previously unknown zero-day vulnerabilities across every major operating system, web browser, legacy enterprise software, and even decades-old codebases. Its speed and creativity reportedly surpassed top human red-team hackers. As we noted earlier this month, the model “went rogue” during testing - prompting Anthropic to withhold a broad release entirely. Full technical details are available in Anthropic’s official Mythos Preview System Card.

Rather than ship it publicly, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing - a tightly controlled defensive program that grants limited access only to a vetted circle of partners: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, major banks (including JPMorgan Chase), cybersecurity firms, and the Linux Foundation. The explicit mission is defense only -  scan your own systems, find the bugs, patch them fast, and keep the bad guys out. The official program page is here.

From "Supply-Chain Risk" to Strategic Asset

The government’s relationship with Anthropic had been icy for months. As we noted in February, the Pentagon threatened to blacklist the company as a “supply-chain risk” after Anthropic refused to strip certain ethical guardrails from its models for military use. That standoff escalated in March when Anthropic sued the Pentagon over the designation, as detailed in ZeroHedge’s coverage of the lawsuit.

That said, the Pentagon’s “supply-chain risk” label was always narrow in scope: it was a DoD-specific action triggered by the company’s refusal to remove certain ethical guardrails from its models for unrestricted military and offensive-use applications. That designation threatened to block Anthropic technology from defense contracts and classified work, and it led directly to Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Pentagon.

Today’s OMB memo changes almost nothing on paper for that designation. The Pentagon has not withdrawn it, the lawsuit is still active, and DoD contractors remain restricted from using Claude models (including Mythos) in offensive or surveillance contexts.

Just days ago, the U.S. Treasury was rushing to gain access to Mythos after internal warnings that the model could “hack every major system.” Senior Treasury and Federal Reserve officials had summoned CEOs of the nation’s largest banks to Washington, warning them that the financial system’s exposure to AI-powered attacks had become existential. Behind closed doors, federal agencies - including the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation - had already begun quiet red-teaming of Mythos. Anthropic co-founder and president Daniela Amodei confirmed the company had briefed the administration early, telling reporters simply: “The government has to know about this stuff.”

Now the OMB memo formalizes that reality. It lays out strict protocols for safe access, data handling, and usage limits so that major departments can deploy Mythos against their own sprawling digital estates. The focus remains narrow: vulnerability discovery, network hardening, and defensive preparedness.

What This Means for the AI Arms Race

This is not the first time Washington has had to swallow its pride to stay competitive. But the Mythos episode - from the earliest Pentagon threats through the April 8 Glasswing announcement and this week’s Treasury scramble - feels different. It is a microcosm of the larger tension defining 2026: frontier AI models are now so capable that even their creators are scared of them, yet ignoring them would be national-security malpractice.

Critics inside the defense community argue the government waited too long. Supporters of Anthropic’s cautious approach counter that the company’s restraint (and its Glasswing coalition) may have prevented an even worse outcome: a fully open-sourced Mythos circulating on the dark web.

For Anthropic, the development is a quiet vindication. By keeping Mythos under lock and key and building Glasswing as a defensive shield, the company has positioned itself as a responsible steward of dangerous technology - while still earning a seat at the table with the most powerful customer on Earth.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:45

Hastings is credited with helping to revolutionize how movies and television shows are delivered in homes, upending Hollywood's business model.

Goldman Sachs blamed its disappointing fixed income results on the broader trading environment – but all of its Wall Street rivals have outperformed, revealing the David Solomon-led firm simply missed the mark.

Netflix Plunges After US Revenues Miss, Dismal Q2 Guidance, Hastings Stepping Down As Chairman

After staging a powerful rebound in the past two months, when first weak Q4 earnings sent the stock plunging to multi-year lows, which however was offset by the end of the company's expensive pursuit of HBO/Warner Bros. Discovery , and which sent the stock almost 50% higher from $75 to $108,moments ago Netflix reported Q1 earnings which were mixed but guidance was especially poor and rekindled the same fears as those unveiled three months ago, and coupled with the news that Reed Hasting was stepping down from the board after 29 years to pursue "philanthropy and personal interested", NFLX stock tumbled as much as 10% after hours. 

Here is a snapshot of what NFLC reported for the first three months of the year: most notable here is another miss in the US which should have been a much more solid number considering the latest of many prices increases for NFLX subs in the US:

• EPS $1.23 vs. 66c y/y, beating estimates of $0.76
• Revenue $12.25 billion, +16% y/y, beating estimates of $12.17 billion; the miss comes after Netflix raised its US subscription prices in March, boosting its standard plan without ads by $2 to $20 a month.
  • US & Canada revenue $5.25 billion, +14% y/y, missing estimates of $5.28 billion
  • EMEA revenue $4.00 billion, +17% y/y, beating estimates of $3.95 billion
  • Latin America revenue $1.50 billion, +19% y/y, beating estimates of $1.45 billion
  • APAC revenue $1.51 billion, +20% y/y, beating estimates of $1.48 billion
     
• Operating income $3.96 billion, +18% y/y, beating estimate $3.94 billion
• Operating margin 32.3% vs. 31.7% y/y, missing estimate 32.4%
• Cash flow from operations $5.29 billion, +90% y/y, beating estimate $3.29 billion
• Free cash flow $5.09 billion, +91% y/y, beating estimate $2.67 billion

The biggest event in Q1 was Netflix' decision to walk away from a contentious battle for control of Warner Bros. Discovery in February, netting a nice $2.8 billion termination fee. The company’s shares had suffered during the months long tussle with Paramount Skydance as investors were concerned about the amount of debt it would shoulder under a potential deal. Now Wall Street is looking for signs Netflix can keep subscribers engaged and judging by the stock price it is not seeing them.  

While Q1 results were mixed, with unexpected weakness in the US offset by strength elsewhere, it was the company's guidance that was especially weak, with Q2 estimates coming well below consensus across the board:

Q2 Forecast

• Sees EPS 78c, missing estimate 84c 
• Sees revenue $12.57 billion, missing estimate $12.64 billion
• Sees operating income $4.11 billion, missing estimate $4.34 billion
• Sees operating margin 32.6%, missing estimate 34.4%

And here is the full year guidance: 

• Sees revenue +12% to +14%
• Sees free cash flow about $12.5 billion, saw about $11 billion, higher than the estimate $12.05 billion
• Still sees revenue $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion, in line with estimate $51.37 billion
• Still sees operating margin 31.5%, missing estimate 32%

Some of the commentary and highlights from the investor letter: 

• Boosted FY FCF outlook due to after-tax impact of Warner Bros. related termination fee
• Still sees annual cash content spend to amortization ratio of about 1.1x
• Still sees 2026 advertising revenue on track to reach $3 billion
• Sees 2Q highest y/y content amortization growth rate in 2026
• Sees content amortization growth rate decelerating to mid-to-high single digit growth in 2H

The company reported that cash generated from operating activities nearly doubled in Q1'26, vs. Q1’25, totaling $5.3BN compared to $2.8B in the prior year. However, much of this increase was thanks to a $2.8B cash receipt from the Warner Bros.-related termination fee. As a result, free cash flow (FCF) rose to $5.1B in Q1'26, up from $2.7B in Q1'25. NFLX now expects 2026 FCF of approximately $12.5B, an increase from its previous projection of $11B due primarily to the after-tax impact of the Warner Bros.-related termination fee.

NFLX ended the quarter with gross debt of $14.4B and cash and cash equivalents of $12.3B. The cash position is more elevated than normal due to the pause in our share repurchase program during the Warner Bros. transaction and the subsequent receipt of the deal. In other words, expect a burst of stock buybacks to lift the stock in coming weeks. 

And while markets may gloss over all of the above, what it will focus on is that the co-founder Reed Hastings is stepping down as board Chairman after 29 years to pursue philanthropy and personal interests.

Hastings’ departure may worry investors given his status as one of the great entrepreneurs of the 21st century. Hastings provided the initial capital to start Netflix as a DVD-by-mail service and replaced co-founder Marc Randolph as chief executive officer in 1999. He guided the company through its battle with Blockbuster and was the driving force behind its move into video streaming. 

Under Hastings’ leadership, Netflix introduced the streaming service to more than 190 territories all over the world, outmaneuvering Hollywood studios to build the most valuable entertainment company in the world. He stepped down as CEO in January 2023, ceding the job to co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. 

“Netflix changed my life in so many ways, Hastings said in a statement. “A special thanks to Greg and Ted, whose commitment to Netflix’s greatness is so strong that I can now focus on new things.”

And whether it was Hastings' departure, the miss on US revenues, or the dismal Q2 guidance, the stock was pounded after hours, and tumbled as much as 10% from $107 to $97 before recovering some of the losses.

At just under $100, NFLX stock is unchanged over the past year. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:31

The 12-year-old reality star has quite the array of mouthpieces, from red to black and even diamond-encrusted and pointy-toothed.

The 12-year-old reality star has quite the array of mouthpieces, from red to black and even diamond-encrusted and pointy-toothed.

Wall Or Sieve? Attacks Raise Doubts About U.S. Immigration System

Authored by Benjamin Weingarten via RealClearPolitics,

In the wee hours of Sunday, March 1, a Senegalese immigrant clad in a sweatshirt bearing the words “Property of Allah” opened fire outside an Austin, Texas beer garden, killing three and leaving 14 others wounded.

On March 12, at Old Dominion University, a former Virginia National Guard member from Sierra Leone – released early from an 11-year prison sentence for attempting to provide material support to the ISIL – yelled “Allahu Akbar” before shooting and killing a beloved college professor and wounding two other people.

That same day, a Lebanese immigrant plowed a pickup truck filled with fireworks and gasoline into a large synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan. After exchanging gunfire with security staff, he killed himself. His brother, it turned out, was a recently eliminated Hezbollah commander in Lebanon. 

Amidst the emerging threat environment of the Iran war, these and other attacks on U.S. soil have reignited questions about the U.S. immigration system’s vetting and screening standards. Republican leaders are increasingly asking how, for example, foreign nationals like the Afghan evacuee who shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. – killing one of them – or the Egyptian national overstaying his tourism visa who firebombed pro-Israel demonstrators in Colorado last year were able to come here and commit such acts. They are also asking how close relatives of top Iranian officials, including avowed supporters of that country’s regime, have been allowed to live and work in the United States. 

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had terminated the legal status of the niece of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by the U.S. in a targeted attack in 2020, and her daughter. Rubio described the niece on X as “an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the ‘Great Satan.’ ”

While the Trump administration has effectively closed the southern border, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has concluded that “prior screening and vetting measures” of people who cross the border legally “were wholly inadequate,” creating “significant national security and public safety risks [that] compromise the integrity of the immigration system.”

Administration critics argue that fears of foreign-born terrorism are vastly overblown. Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute told RealClearInvestigations that the annual chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by a foreign-born attacker is “about one in 165 million per year. All politically motivated violence is a tiny threat,” he said. “Exaggerating the threat does not bring us closer to delivering justice to the victims of every violent or property crime who deserve it.”

RCI’s review of congressional testimony and research, and interviews with immigration and national security experts, uncovered long-standing flaws in the system – some of which were exacerbated by the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies. Challenges run the gamut from incomplete information about applicants to inconsistent enforcement of the law. Even if relatively few immigrants commit deadly attacks, the vetting system has routinely permitted people with obscure backgrounds and hostile views to visit and live in the U.S. 

Robust Design

America’s immigration system is complex and multilayered, involving a range of departments and agencies that provide different levels of scrutiny depending on which of the dozens of categories would-be entrants fall into, from tourists to asylum seekers. As with most laws and rules, different administrations vet applicants with varying levels of vigor depending on whether they want to encourage or discourage immigration.

Three agencies lead the vetting process. The State Department issues visas; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reviews petitions for immigrants seeking benefits such as citizenship or permanent residency, refugee and asylum claims, and other protections; Customs and Border Protection provides defense at the point at which aliens attempt to enter the country. Across these processes, sometimes with redundancy, authorities conduct biographic and biometric screenings, run name checks across U.S. security databases to search for red flags such as criminal histories or inclusion on terror watchlists, and interview would-be visitors.

As designed, the immigration system requires nearly all noncitizens seeking to enter the U.S. to obtain a visa. Nonimmigrant visas cover temporary trips for business or tourism, whereas immigrant visas cover permanent stays that may be family-, employment-, or education-based.

Those seeking long-term stays are subject to more rigorous scrutiny. While undergoing detailed background checks, they are generally required to file petitions, secure sponsors, and meet incremental thresholds and standards necessary, for example, to unite with family or work full-time. In 2024, the U.S. issued about 600,000 visas for long-term stay. 

The vast majority of visas are issued to tourists and other temporary visitors – nearly 11 million in 2024. They are generally subject to less scrutiny.

In theory, those millions of temporary visitors will leave before their visas expire. In practice, a reported 40% of illegal aliens currently in the U.S. – amounting to millions of people – are visa overstayers, illustrating one of the myriad security-related issues plaguing the U.S. Homeland Security system. 

“The vetting system is robust,” former senior INS official and immigration judge Andrew Arthur told RCI. But, he added, it “is only as good as the intelligence that the USG possesses and the access that the individual consular officer or OFO [CBP Office of Field Operations] officer has to that intelligence.”

To that end, our “biggest vulnerability,” in the words of the Heritage Foundation’s Simon Hankinson, is that officers often lack access to derogatory information held by foreign countries.

As Hankinson, a longtime former foreign service officer, recently detailed, this problem pervades even the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, where the citizens of several dozen generally safe and friendly countries – including most EU countries and Japan – may visit America visa-free for up to 90 days. Those waivers come in exchange for security cooperation, including sharing their citizens’ criminal records. 

Cracks in the System

Critics note that only a few U.S. counterparts automatically check their visiting citizens’ criminal records. The U.S. otherwise must request that home countries run queries. Meanwhile, America lacks information-sharing agreements with many countries altogether.

These problems only grow when other nations lack reliable data, or where their authoritative documents may be easily fabricated – one of the justifications for Trump’s travel bans disproportionately hitting the Middle East and Africa.

“I worked in India, I worked in Ghana, [where] right outside the consulate, there were stores selling fake degrees, fake passports. I mean, they didn’t even hide it,” Hankinson said.

Incomplete data or suspect documents aside, authorities have also highlighted that U.S. databases may not always talk to each other. A June 2024 DHS Inspector General report indicated that “DHS’ biometric system…could not access all data from Federal partners to ensure complete screening and vetting of noncitizens seeking admission into the United States” due to “ongoing technical limitations.” The inspector general also found that border patrol officers lacked the hardware necessary to perform biometric screenings of people arriving by car or truck. 

Federal authorities have also not always vigorously enforced their own security protocols. A September 2025 DHS IG report detailed that from March 2020 to March 2024, the State Department issued 12 million nonimmigrant visas without conducting in-person interviews or collecting fingerprints. CBP officers encountering foreign nationals at points of entry were unaware that the State had not fully screened some of them. 

Subpar vetting was common regarding the tens of thousands of Afghans admitted to the U.S. in the wake of the Biden administration’s pullout from the country in 2021. In a January 2026 hearing, DHS Deputy Inspector General for Audits, Craig Adelman, submitted written testimony indicating that under Operation Allies Welcome, in several instances “DHS could not demonstrate that it accurately knew who individuals were, where they were located, whether parole conditions were being met, or whether individuals had unresolved risk indicators.” CBP sometimes lacked “access to critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect” them. 

Adelman’s testimony came following the National Guardsman shooting by evacuee Rahmanullah Lakanwal, and the prosecution of Nasir Ahmed Tawhedi, another evacuee who would plead guilty to plotting a mass-casualty attack on behalf of ISIS around Election Day 2024.

More broadly, the Government Accountability Office has found that the humanitarian parole processes have generally lacked sufficient anti-fraud measures, making it hard to ensure those fleeing warzones or failed states pose no threat to the U.S. homeland.

These findings also come on top of the millions who entered the country illegally during the Biden administration – and related immigrant overstays and backlogs creating security risks all their own. Hundreds of thousands of asylum claimants, for example, have been insufficiently screened historically during prolonged adjudication periods, DHS’ watchdog has found.

Hankinson is adamant that “we have not been enforcing our own rules with anything like the tenacity that we should have been. We’ve been really giving the benefit of the doubt to the alien in every circumstance.”

Ironically, the president’s opponents also agree that the immigration system is broken. But instead of tweaking the current system, many Democrats and their allies have floated the idea of abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Good Questions, ‘Bad Odor’

Another potential issue that recent security incidents have raised is whether authorities are properly vetting and screening for indicators associated with the actual threats faced.

Federal law, drafted in the shadow of World War II and during the Cold War, generally deemed inadmissible immigrant members or affiliates of totalitarian political parties. Laws later expanded to encompass terrorists and their supporters.

But records may not exist of terrorist activities or support among those hailing from failed states. Despite this potential vulnerability, those with whom RCI spoke indicated that immigration officers do not tailor questions to unearth whether visitors harbor a terrorist worldview that could suggest future trouble or merit further scrutiny.

Authorities are “looking for Communists and Nazis,” Hankinson told RCI, not “Islamic fanatics…people who believe in Sharia law, who want to cut the hands off criminals, or have women dressed in burkas.” 

Dan Cadman, a retired INS/ICE official now at the Center for Immigration Studies, told RCI that “the vetting procedures have not captured Islamist/ adversarial/ subversive ideologies among family members and close associates.” Were such affiliations known, for example, in the case of the would-be Michigan synagogue attacker Ayman Mohamed Ghazali, whose brother was a Hezbollah commander, immigration authorities likely would have subjected him to heightened scrutiny – and perhaps denied him entry. 

Cadman attributes the lack of ideological bar to the “bad odor” to which such tests are held, and the fact that they lead to “thorny questions” about when religiously-based views “cross into the arena of politics” and constitutional rights. Progressive groups and others panned the blanket travel restrictions Trump pursued during his first administration sought to impose on myriad Muslim-majority countries as “Muslim bans.”

Nevertheless, some analysts have proposed bans of those affiliated with Islamist groups analogous to those of totalitarian political parties already on the books to satisfy such concerns. Several members of Congress appear receptive to this idea as well. Legislation is currently pending before the House and Senate to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to render “advocates for the imposition of Sharia law” inadmissible, and remove Sharia adherents accordingly.

Even if such questions could survive First Amendment challenges, some observers doubt they would provide useful answers. David Bier of the Cato Institute told RCI, “There is no evidence that asking people general questions like whether they support terrorism or Sharia law would be an effective way to prevent attacks in the United States.”

Arthur, Cadman’s colleague at the Center for Immigration Studies, added that “identifying those who hold hostile beliefs is a difficult endeavor, and one that even the best adjudication and screening system will struggle to achieve.”

Whether a change in standards or their implementation might have prevented the recent attacks on U.S. soil by immigrants who became naturalized citizens remains unclear. Arthur says these incidents show “a decline in assimilation on the part of the naturalized citizen and in integration on the part of the United States” – a transcendent problem all its own.

Crackdown and Pushback

The Trump administration has sought to significantly enhance vetting standards, mitigate risks, and more vigorously enforce the law.

The president kicked off his second term with an executive order directing national security authorities to ensure that all aliens are “vet[ted] and screen[ed] to the maximum degree possible,” including for those threatening national security and bearing “hostile attitudes” toward America, its people, and institutions. 

In June, the president fully or partially restricted and limited the entry of nationals from 19 countries it deemed to pose security risks, some Muslim-majority, via executive order – a broad measure to mitigate screening and vetting risks. 

Democrats assailed these efforts as “bigoted” and “Islamophobic.” 

“This discriminatory policy, which limits legal immigration, not only flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for, it will be harmful to our economy and communities that rely on the contributions of people who come to America from this wide range of countries,” Democratic Washington state Rep. Pramila Jayapal has said. “Banning a whole group of people because you disagree with the structure or function of their government not only lays blame in the wrong place, it creates a dangerous precedent.”

Later that year, in August, USCIS updated its policy guidance to ensure that when immigration officers are evaluating immigration benefit requests, aliens’ support or espousal of the views of terrorist groups, including anti-Americanism, and Jew-hatred, ought to weigh heavily against applicants. 

Last December, USCIS paused all pending asylum and benefit applications from the 19 “high-risk countries” identified in the June executive order while conducting a “re-review of approved benefit requests” for all aliens from those countries entering the U.S. on or after the first day of the Biden administration. The administration also extended travel restrictions to 20 additional countries.

Among other initiatives, the second Trump administration is also “re-vetting” previously admitted aliens, and engaging in “continuous vetting” of all U.S. visa holders – some 55 million at the time it announced the policy – for violations that could lead to their deportation.

It has reportedly revoked 100,000 visas – a 150% increase versus 2024.

DHS says that ICE has arrested more than 43,000 potential national security risks, including 1,416 known or suspected terrorists, some 1,392 of which have been removed. It did so in announcing the recent arrest of Salah Salem Sarsour, a Jordanian national who the U.S. asserts was convicted decades ago in Israel of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli military personnel and illegally attempting to possess weapons. DHS claims Sarsour is “suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms” to enter the country, after which he became a green card holder back in 1998. The arrest of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee president generated strong pushback from the ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, with the former suggesting Sarsour may have been targeted for being “outspoken in his support for Palestinian rights” in violation of the First Amendment – a microcosm of the debates simmering over the president’s immigration policies.

Last month, the U.S. Intelligence Community assessed that “increased border security, stricter screening and vetting, and improved international information sharing” have led jihadist groups to focus “more on virtually recruiting U.S.-based aspirants to encourage and enable potential attacks.”

With the Trump administration already planning to significantly ramp up denaturalization efforts in response to revelations of fraud perpetrated by immigrants, this assessment and recent attacks from the naturalized population may only further fuel such efforts.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 16:20

President Trump declared that his administration will have an answer within the next few days to questions about 10 scientists who died or supposedly disappeared over the past three years. Conspiracy theories about the scientists have spread online, but right now, there is no solid evidence of a connection between those deaths and disappearances. “Well,...

“We will level the market,” Hizzoner added.

Atlas’ approach does more than shape patient experiences

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is putting climate change policies into place that could carve up the city.

A change-of-plea hearing for Jones is scheduled for May 6 in Brooklyn federal court, according to a court filing Thursday.

Justin Herbert gave a rare glimpse into his romance with Madison Beer on Thursday.

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