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Trump Floats Making Venezuela The 51st State

First Canada, then Greenland… and now Venezuela?

President Donald Trump said Monday he is seriously considering annexing the South American nation as the 51st U.S. state, citing the country’s vast oil reserves and what he described as strong local support for his leadership.

In a telephone interview with Fox News anchor John Roberts, Trump mused that he is weighing the move for a nation that holds an estimated $40 trillion in oil resources.

NEW: President Trump tells @FoxNews colleague @johnrobertsFox in a phone call just now that he is “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state”, adding that there is $40 trillion in oil there and “Venezuela loves Trump”.

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) May 11, 2026

“Venezuela loves Trump,” the president told the reporter.

The suggestion comes months after U.S. forces conducted a military operation in Venezuela in January that resulted in the capture of longtime President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple was extradited to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism and weapons charges, effectively ending more than a decade of socialist rule that had transformed one of Latin America’s richest economies into an economic disaster marked by hyperinflation, mass emigration and the breakdown of public services.

Rather than installing opposition figure María Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, as the new leader, the Trump administration supported the installation of Delcy Rodríguez—Maduro’s former vice president—as interim president. Trump has described the arrangement as “spectacular” and predicted a rapid economic turnaround.

Rodríguez’s government has moved swiftly on economic reforms. Within weeks of taking power, it enacted legislation opening the oil sector to privatization, dismantling core elements of the Chavista model that had dominated for more than two decades.

Meanwhile, commercial activity has accelerated thanks to Chevron, which signed two agreements expanding its participation in a joint venture with state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Reuters reported at the time.

Venezuelan oil output is already rising.

PDVSA reported production of 1.095 million barrels a day last month, up 75,000 barrels a day from February, with Oil Minister Paula Henao setting a target of 1.3 million barrels a day by year-end.
Trump administration officials have been candid about the financial stakes.

A White House spokesman called the first $500 million portion of an approximately $2 billion oil-supply agreement a “historic energy deal,” CBS News reported at the time. Trump has said the U.S. would rebuild Venezuela “in a very profitable way,” adding, “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2026 - 18:50

US To Develop Small Modular Nuclear Reactors For Commercial Shipping

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

The United States is seeking to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) for commercial vessels that would potentially bring down shipping costs, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a May 7 statement.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks at a press conference at LaGuardia Airport in New York City on Oct. 28, 2025. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The initiative, launched by DOT Secretary Sean P. Duffy and the Maritime Administration (MARAD), has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for this purpose. An RFI is a formal document to gather preliminary information regarding a good or service from suppliers. In this specific case, the purpose of the RFI is to investigate whether the advancements in SMR technology and other developments are “usable, scalable, and can be made commercially viable,” according to the RFI published in the Federal Register on May 7.

SMRs have a power generation capacity of up to 300 megawatts, which is roughly a third of the traditionally larger nuclear power reactors. While the big reactors are typically custom-designed for a specific location, SMRs can be manufactured as pre-fabricated units and then transported and installed at any location.

MARAD is calling on industry stakeholders and innovators to help in the development of an SMR model that would revitalize the U.S. shipping industry, cut down transportation costs, and secure energy dominance, the DOT statement said.

“To successfully introduce SMRs, we must view this through a system-transition lens rather than just as a technology demonstration,” MARAD Administrator Stephen M. Carmel said.

“We are seeking critical insights on how the government can help reduce systemic uncertainty, align regulatory structures, and enable the market conditions necessary for private capital and operators to scale these groundbreaking technologies.”

The federal government is seeking inputs from the industry to advance the development of SMRs that would mostly eliminate fuel costs and minimize maintenance requirements, identify streamlined methods to deploy nuclear power across the nation’s fleets and logistical networks, integrate SMR production into American shipyards, and set up liability, inspection, and insurance frameworks on this matter.

MARAD is collaborating with the DOT, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the U.S. Coast Guard to support the development of SMRs.

According to the DOT, the SMR initiative advances two of President Donald Trump’s executive orders—Unleashing American Energy issued on Jan. 20, 2025, and Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance issued on April 9, 2025.

The Jan. 20 order instructed the heads of all agencies to review regulations, policies, and orders that impose “undue burden” on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources, including nuclear power.

The April 9 order said it is the policy of the United States to rebuild and revitalize America’s maritime industries and workforce to ensure economic prosperity and safeguard national security.

Commenting on the SMR initiative, Duffy said that “under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. is reclaiming its rightful place as a global sea power.”

“To secure this future for America’s shipbuilding industry, we need to innovate. By partnering with industry experts and outside-the-box thinkers to develop a strong SMR model, we will deliver a state-of-the-art energy source that cuts costs and bolsters national security—all at the Speed of Trump,” the DOT secretary said.

SMR Concerns

Despite the potential of SMRs, there are concerns about deploying the technology.

A December 2025 study published in the Energy Research and Social Science journal highlighted that the high upfront costs of deploying SMRs could require injecting public subsidies into such programs.

“Diverting public investment into new small-scale nuclear projects may deprive communities of funding for other urgent priorities such as healthcare, education, and renewable energy alternatives,” the study said.

As for employment opportunities, “although construction and initial operation phases generate employment, these opportunities diminish over time as SMR plants typically require fewer personnel for ongoing maintenance and operation. This raises questions about whether the socio-economic benefits such projects are purported to bring are equitably distributed,” it said.

Meanwhile, big tech companies, such as Amazon and Google, have announced plans regarding the construction of SMRs or buying nuclear power from such facilities.

The U.S. military is looking at deploying microreactors, a subset of SMRs that can typically generate 20 megawatts or less of electricity, according to an April 27 statement from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

For instance, the Army launched the Janus Program in October 2025, aimed at building microreactors, and has already selected nine potential bases to house them.

The Air Force is planning to set up its first microreactor at Alaska’s Eielson Air Force Base, while the Navy is soliciting offers to power its installations with SMRs and microreactors, the EIA said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2026 - 18:25

Modi Urges Indians To Conserve Fuel As Oil Shock Spreads

India’s Prime Minister called on the nation to work from home, travel less, and conserve fuel to help the government save foreign exchange, OilPrice reported.

“In the current situation, we must place great emphasis on saving foreign exchange,” Narendra Modi said, as quoted by Reuters. The prime minister also urged Indians to stop buying gold, again to conserve foreign exchange. Modi also called on farmers to reduce their fertilizer use by as much as 50%.

CNBC recalls that India spent $174.9 billion on crude oil and refined product imports in the financial year that ended on March 31, as its import bill swelled amid the oil price jump prompted by the war in the Middle East. Another $72 billion was spent on gold imports over the period.

Since then, oil prices have risen further, with Brent crude topping $105 per barrel again earlier today, after President Donal Trump rejected Iran’s response to a peace plan he proposed last week. Trump called Iran’s version of the peace deal “totally unacceptable”, dampening hopes of a swift resolution of the war. West Texas Intermediate was trading at $100 per barrel at the time of writing.

More than 40 India-bound vessels, nearly half of which carry energy products, are still trapped in the Persian Gulf, unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, officials told India last week. The ships are laden with crude oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and LNG, as well as fertilizer and other products. A total of 13 ships flagged to India are still stuck west of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Indian government.

India relies on the Middle East for as much as 50% of its crude oil imports and 60% of its liquefied natural gas imports.

Dependence is the heaviest in liquefied petroleum gas, however, which Indians use for cooking. In LPG, India is almost entirely dependent on the Middle East.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2026 - 18:00

The "Pitch Perfect" star and the quarterback announced they welcomed their daughter last month.

The "Pitch Perfect" star and the quarterback announced they welcomed their daughter last month.

Chef James Dalton—the longtime private chef to Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts—quietly opened Table 504 last week, a low-key sandwich shop that's already drawing buzz.

Leave it to the jury to decide, a judge ruled.

No, AI Won't Make Money Obsolete

Authored by Peter Earle via the American Institute for Economic Research,

The notion that artificial intelligence (AI) at full bloom might eliminate the need for money reflects a deep confusion about what money is and does. Money is not merely a barter-avoiding convenience layered onto an otherwise frictionless world. It is a solution to fundamental problems of exchange, profound difficulties in coordination, and comparison of alternatives under scarcity. Even in a hypothetical future defined by extraordinary productivity gains and broadly collapsing prices, those underlying problems do not disappear. Instead, they change form, and for as long as scarcity, tradeoffs, and uncertainty persist in any domain, so too will the need for money.

To begin with, the most basic point: Scarcity is not abolished by abundance. It is displaced. AI may dramatically reduce the cost of producing many goods and services, particularly those that are digital or easily replicable. But large swaths of economic life remain governed by constraints vastly beyond the power of computation. Land is fixed. Location is inherently scarce. Prime real estate in places like New York City or Tokyo will not become abundant simply because construction costs fall precipitously. The same holds for proximity to infrastructure, culture, or social networks. These are rival, excludable goods, and in such conditions, exchange requires a mechanism for allocating access. Money remains the most efficient one yet developed.

Time is another irreducible constraint. Human attention, especially in its highest-value forms, cannot and will not scale infinitely. The time of a skilled surgeon, an experienced trial lawyer, or a sought-after performer remains finite, tentative, and rivalrous. Even if AI were to augment a person’s capabilities, it does not eliminate the fact that the person’s attention must be allocated among competing uses. The same applies to live experiences: concerts, events, one-on-one advisory relationships, and so on, where presence itself is scarce. In such contexts, prices are not a relic—they are a reflection of incontrovertible limitations.

In fact, abundance often amplifies the importance of scarcity. As mass-produced goods become ever cheaper, a premium will shift toward what cannot be easily replicated. Consider status goods, fixed positional assets, and signals of taste. Luxury brands, rare collectibles, and authenticated works derive value precisely from their limited supply and provenance. If AI floods the world with high-quality substitutes, the value of the original or source item may increase, not decrease. Money, in this sense, becomes a way of expressing relative preference over increasingly differentiated manifestations of scarcity.

Physical systems themselves impose limits. Energy, for example, may become cheaper on average, but it inexorably faces capacity constraints, especially during peak demand periods. The same is true of certain materials, bandwidth, and computational resources in periods of congestion. Even highly advanced systems must allocate finite capacity across competing uses, and money prices remain an extraordinarily efficient, indeed elegant way of doing so. Without them, the hallmarks of rationing—queues, quotas, and administrative fiat—appear, none of which eliminate, but rather contend with and obscure, scarcity.

The unavoidable force of uncertainty is perhaps the most decisive argument against the obsolescence of money. Risk does not vanish amid colossal gains in productivity and output; if anything, complex, tightly coupled systems generate new forms of it. An explosion of goods and services will tax resources, time, and human capital, which will in turn generate new forms of insurance, hedging, and credit to transfer and price risk. Those functions require not just a medium of exchange but a unit of account to operate effectively. The idea that AI could eliminate uncertainty is as implausible as the idea that it could eliminate time.

Institutional realities reinforce the former point. Anywhere one finds government or governance, excludability inevitably follows. Property rights, regulatory approvals, access to bespoke networks, and enforcement mechanisms all create domains in which access is controlled. Money is readily suited to become (or, in fact, continue to be) the means by which access is negotiated, transferred, or prioritized. In a world inundated by output, trust and verification become more valuable. Certification, auditing, and reputation systems all rely on mechanisms of exchange that presuppose some form of monetary unit.

Money also plays a central role in coordinating urgency and priority. When resources are scarce in time versus in quantity (faster service, guaranteed delivery, and dedicated capacity), money allows individuals to signal how much they value immediacy relative to others. Absent money, such decisions do not disappear; they are made through other, often less transparent means.

An AI-driven deflationary boom would likely compress the prices of many goods and services. Perhaps dramatically so. But that would not—and could not—eliminate the need for money. It would shift the domain in which prices and calculations operate toward the nonreplicable, capacity-limited, and institutionally governed.

Money does not disappear in the face of abundance; it instead follows scarcity wherever it emerges.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2026 - 17:40

The suspect was allegedly still wearing his wrist band from the psych ward at Bellevue Hospital when he fatally pushed the elderly victim.

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If the Trump administration is serious about restoring the free flow of international commerce illegally strangled by the Tehran regime since the start of hostilities, it should resume Project Freedom.

Mike Brown stressed that while he has final authority over the Knicks, he planned on reaching those conclusions based on consensus.

Billionaire Bucks Co-Owner Alleges $1 Billion Blackmail Plot After Affair With China-Born Entrepreneur

Wesley Edens, billionaire investor and co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, replied to a 2022 LinkedIn message from Changli Sophia Luo, a China-born founder of a small Manhattan nonprofit that produced interview videos. Their exchanges turned personal; by June 2023 they met at her apartment and had sex, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing prosectuors.  

What followed, authorities say, became an extortion case. Luo was indicted for allegedly trying to extract over $1 billion by threatening to release explicit images and videos. Prosecutors claim she repeatedly contacted Edens’s relatives, warned she would approach investors, and vowed to ruin him. She faces four charges, including blackmail and evidence destruction, and has pleaded not guilty. Released on $500,000 bond, she awaits trial.

Edens was not initially named, but a spokesman confirmed he is “Victim-1.” He reported the matter over safety concerns and is expected to testify. His side declined further comment: “Mr. Edens will be making no comment on the case as the indictment speaks for itself with respect to the charges against the defendant.”

The WSJ writes that Luo’s attorneys argue she sought accountability for what they describe as “an inappropriate and aggressive sexual encounter,” asking the court to dismiss the case. Federal prosecutors have not commented.

The dispute highlights reputational risks when personal relationships involving high-profile figures unravel. Victims often hesitate to involve authorities, partly because cases can expose private details.

“Extortion victims usually don’t want to cooperate, and don’t want to go to the government—for the very reasons that extortion or blackmail work,” said defense lawyer Scott R. Wilson.

Investigators began looking into Luo in early 2025 after Edens’s lawyer contacted the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office. After their encounter, Luo sent Edens a message: “I never told you I love you, and tonight I want to tell you that, I have been restraining my feeling for you, as I do love you from the bottom of my heart!” He didn’t reply.

Months later, prosecutors say her tone shifted. She allegedly contacted Edens’s then-girlfriend (now wife), his ex-wife, and claimed the encounter was nonconsensual due to mental incapacity. She warned him: “I am sure your family and business partners will learn about you and your misdeeds from these interviews and will provide exposure that will taint your record forever.”

Seeking to stop further contact and avoid publicity, Edens agreed to mediation. Luo negotiated with his lawyers and, according to her side, a $6.5 million settlement was reached, with $1 million upfront. Later, she said she had contracted HPV-16 and sought far more money—prosecutors say up to $1.215 billion.

After hiring attorney Tyrone Blackburn, she allegedly escalated threats, including releasing images and “destroying” Edens. Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala argued those statements were aggressive negotiation, not extortion, and said prior counsel should have warned her.

Blackburn denied encouraging any threats: “To ever say that I in any way encouraged her to engage in acts of extortion…that is a baldfaced lie.”

In May, the FBI searched Luo’s apartment and found hidden phones, including one containing manipulated explicit material featuring Edens, prosecutors said. She was arrested June 14 at JFK Airport while attempting to fly to China.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/11/2026 - 17:20

The reality star has "intentionally avoided" attending the Met Gala with the "Marty Supreme" actor over concerns the infamous superstition could jinx their romance.

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