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The reason the Giants traded for J.J. McCarthy is easy to figure out.

They're too young to remember, but they'll never forget.

Solomon, the founder of Just the News and the head of a Trump administration task force on government transparency, argued that polling data presented to the former secretary of state amid her White House run, and her response to it, marked the start of 10-year-long, Democrat-led, “wash, rinse, repeat cycle” of federal investigations against Trump. 

Bernstein Puts Timeline On When EU Rearmament Supercycle "Goes Boom"

Readers by now know how we've laid out the looming rearmament supercycle in the West colliding with the "own the bottlenecks" theme, as resource nationalism makes industrial metals and rare earths scarce because of Beijing's export restrictions.

Adrien Rabier, Bernstein's equity analyst covering European aerospace and defense, penned a note on Tuesday explaining why the European defense rearmament cycle remains a top investment theme and even outlined a timeline.

In a report titled "European Defense: Beyond the order boom," Rabier said EU defense firms are set to enter a massive demand-driven cycle for new weapons.

Here's the timeline in three phases:

Stage 1: New paradigm (2022-2026).

The first stage, following the invasion of Ukraine, was characterized by rapid order collection. It drove multiple expansion across the sector, in anticipation of faster growth. The stocks re-rated from 9x EV/EBIT (-30% discount vs. SX600) to 15x currently (+17%). Exposure to the best geographies (Germany) and the quickest growth segments (short-cycle) were the most important drivers of performance.

Stage 2: Re-Arming Europe (2026-2030). 

The second stage marked the transition from an order-driven performance to execution-driven, as backlogs became rich across the sector. Exposure to structurally attractive product categories will remain the most important factor, in our view. We expect the narrative against short cycles products, legacy weapons, and Ukraine-related demand to intensify. Our "new warfare" basket is up +14% YTD, vs. the "old warfare" basket down -34%. We expect this gap to keep widening. We see few positive catalysts for the sector, and therefore favor self-help stories. We expect investors to focus increasingly on the exit multiples, as we head toward Stage 3.

Stage 3: Normalization (2030+). 

After the re-arming phase, we believe European military budgets will normalize near 3% of GDP. European Defense should then return to a GDP+ growth and ~12% EBIT margins sector, close to the Index's average.

Rabier's key message is that investors will reward companies capable of converting backlogs into profitable deliveries: 

With all players now virtually benefiting from very large backlogs, the ability to convert backlog into profitable growth and scale capacity efficiently will matter more. We continue to view electronics exposure as the best, because these businesses grow through volume and content share, and are easier to scale (Thales, Leonardo, BAE Systems). Some companies will also benefit from turning around parts of their businesses (TKMS, Leonardo).

Top picks:

One major constraint on both Europe's rearmament cycle and the looming US weapons buildup is access to reliable, conflict-free supplies of critical materials. Larger budgets and expanding order books can translate into weapons deliveries only if manufacturers secure the necessary copper, tungsten, and rare earths that are in scarce supply. 

 That makes "owning the bottlenecks" a complementary investment theme to the broader defense buildup. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 05:45

The film features a nude scene involving Lipnicki, whose character is caught by “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen, played by Robert Pattison.

The film features a nude scene involving Lipnicki, whose character is caught by “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen, played by Robert Pattison.

The US military announced on Wednesday that it has completed the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State group.

God forbid our Israel-hating mayor mention that "anti-Zionism" is central to the recent waves of violent antisemitism he claims he wants stopped.

The new poll was the latest to highlight divides among gender and political ideology.

Europe Races To Contain Energy Crisis With Patchwork Measures

Via Remix News,

European governments are racing to blunt a fuel shock that even some analysts now refuse to forecast, as Brent crude holds near $100 a barrel and diesel prices climb across Europe.

The international oil market has been expensive for months. What has changed is the confidence of the people paid to explain it. JPMorgan told clients on Sept. 17 that, for the first time since fighting began around Iran about seven months earlier, its commodities team no longer has a baseline view of how the disruption ends.

"We simply don't know how to model the endgame," the bank's analysts wrote, after several economic thresholds they once assumed would force a diplomatic off-ramp, including oil above $100 a barrel, had already been crossed.

The bank said a Brent price near $90 would have been consistent with known supply and demand in September. Futures instead traded around $100 and higher as traders priced the risk of further losses that no one can yet measure. By Monday, front-month Brent was still hovering near $99 a barrel.

Inventories are doing little to cushion the blow. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said prices are likely to stay elevated until Middle East oil trade is restored and stocks can be rebuilt. The International Energy Agency's September report put the scale of the drain in starker terms: observed global inventories fell another 95 million barrels in August, taking the cumulative draw since February to 507 million barrels, or about 2.8 million barrels a day. World oil supply is now projected to average 100.7 million barrels a day in 2026, down 5.7 million from a year earlier.

Diesel shortages are acute

In some countries, such as Hungary, there is a major imbalance in terms of available energy sources. Crude held in strategic storage remains ample, but diesel is quickly running out. Data from the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association show gas oil stocks at 520.3 kilotons at the end of January and about 390 kilotons at the end of both July and August. That thinner diesel cushion matters in a country where more than 1.3 million passenger cars run on the fuel and the regional market is competing for the same scarce imports.

Pump prices have already moved. Official and commercial trackers put Hungarian diesel around 701 forints a liter in late September on some official series and closer to 730 forints on daily station averages - well above the roughly 593 forints recorded at the end of June. The original worry in Budapest was not whether prices would rise, but how quickly 800 forints would stop looking like a distant ceiling.

That speed is not a mystery to central bankers. Bank of Slovenia research covering euro-area data from 2005 through 2026 found that a 10% rise in Brent lifts pretax diesel and gasoline prices by about 6.5% and 6.2%, respectively, over the longer term. A large share of the increase shows up at stations within the first two weeks - faster than the physical chain of shipping, refining and wholesale delivery would suggest.

The European Central Bank has reached a similar conclusion and added an unwelcome twist: refinery margins can amplify the shock. During the spring spike, Brent briefly reached $138 a barrel while diesel at the refinery gate jumped to $197. ECB staff later estimated that refining margins were contributing about 41 euro cents a liter to euro-area retail diesel in mid-September, and they told reporters those diesel margins may not peak until October.

The way down is slower than the way up. Taxes, refining and transport costs, inventories, margins and local competition all delay relief when crude finally eases. That asymmetry is why governments are acting now, before higher fuel bills work through freight, food and services and lift broader inflation.

Europe-wide crisis

The policy dilemma is the same from Lisbon to Warsaw: protect households and trucking firms without writing a blank check for fossil-fuel consumption. Europe has answered with a patchwork rather than a single rule. Some governments cap retail prices. Others cut excise taxes, sometimes below the European Union minimum. A third group aims help at farmers, haulers and other heavy users. A few still let global prices hit consumers with no cushion at all. The result is that the same barrel of oil can produce pump prices that differ dramatically at the pump across Europe.

Here are just a few examples of what Europe looks like in this regard.

• Austria has been running a mineral-oil tax cut of 1.9 euro cents a liter into the end of September.
• Belgium has implemented an official price ceiling.
• Croatia cut diesel excise duty by another 3 cents, taking it 10 cents below the EU floor; Zagreb says the average diesel price is 1.91 euros a liter instead of 2.26 euros without the intervention.
• Cyprus is offering an 8.33-cent discount through Nov. 30.
• Luxembourg is absorbing 5 cents of the pump price from July through December.
• Malta is using direct state aid to keep prices below the euro-area average.
• Portugal decided on Sept. 17 to recycle extra value-added tax receipts from more expensive fuel into tax relief worth about 1.3 billion euros through year-end.
• Slovenia posted official maxima of 1.748 euros for gasoline and 2.012 euros for diesel in the week of Sept. 22-28.
• Spain has kept an excise cut below the EU minimum through Sept. 30.
• Italy reduced and capped diesel duty into early October.
• Montenegro and Serbia combine retail caps with lower excise taxes.

Targeted aid is running in parallel

• Greece extended a 10-cent-a-liter diesel subsidy into October and is preparing a heating-oil package.
• France steered relief to agriculture, high-mileage workers and construction rather than a blanket cut.
• Ireland is rebating duty for commercial haulers and bus operators.
• Spain added a 402 million-euro program for truckers on top of its general tax reduction.
• Italy is offering carriers a tax credit for earlier extra costs.

Larger packages are still moving through parliaments

Germany will cut energy tax by 14 cents a liter from Oct. 1 through year-end, about 17 cents once lower VAT is counted, in a 2.5 billion-euro package.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said drivers who depend on a car every day "are reaching their breaking point."

Berlin is also talking with the oil industry about a temporary price cap modeled on Luxembourg or Belgium, aimed at Jan. 1, 2027.

The Czech government will restore a station-margin ceiling from Oct. 1, cut diesel duty to the EU minimum and cap retail margins at 2.50 koruna a liter.

Poland has floated a 60% levy on oil companies' extra profits to finance about 4 billion zlotys of price relief, though the plan faces parliamentary and constitutional hurdles.

The International Energy Agency has described the response as global, not merely European. In a matter of months, the number of countries applying fuel subsidies rose from 16 to 38, and the number cutting energy taxes rose from 40 to 57. Pew Research Center, drawing on IEA tallies from mid-June, counted 113 countries that had taken at least one energy-cost measure after the Iran war, including tax changes in 55 countries and fuel subsidies in 32. The agency's own warning is implicit in those numbers: governments are treating the symptom at the pump because they cannot reopen the Strait of Hormuz from a finance ministry or end the war in Ukraine.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 05:00

The grieving Westchester parents of Sheridan Gorman -- the Loyola University student allegedly killed by an illegal migrant -- endorsed incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in a new TV ad.

Google Challenges EU Orders Requiring It Reveal AI, Search-Engine Information To Rivals

Google parent Alphabet on Monday took Brussels to court over two European Union orders that would force the search giant to open its Android devices to rival AI services and hand competing search engines access to its search data.

The Google logo at the VivaTech show in Paris on June 15, 2023. The Canadian Press/AP, Michel Euler

The European Commission issued both orders in July under the Digital Markets Act, the EU's gatekeeper law, which Brussels says exists to ensure fair competition and prevent monopolies in tech.

"We're appealing decisions that will force us to share people's private search history without sufficient anonymization and weaken vital security protections on Android," said Oliver Bethell, Google's senior director of competition.

"People use Search for their most personal questions - from medical worries to close relationships - and mandating we share these personal queries without adequate safeguards would cause irreversible harm to user privacy."

Google argues the data would go to unvetted businesses without users' knowledge or consent, and that once it leaves Google's systems, third parties could re-identify users and expose their personal lives, trade secrets, or sensitive government information. Advances in AI have made that kind of re-identification far faster and cheaper, the company adds.

As the Epoch Times notes further, the EU-enforced changes are set to kick in in January 2027.

Google's challenges, filed in the Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe's second-highest court, on Sept. 28, will not prevent them from taking effect unless the California company seeks interim measures to delay them as proceedings continue.

A European Commission spokesperson told The Epoch Times that the commission "takes note that Alphabet has announced that it will lodge an appeal against the Commission's decisions at the General Court. As always, the Commission will defend its decisions in court."

The Commission added that it should be "stressed that the two specification decisions carefully consider the integrity and security with respect to the features involved, as well as ensuring the protection of the personal data of end users."

At the time, the commission said the first decision aimed to ensure that competitors' AI services "can compete with Google's own AI services, such as Gemini, by having equal access to features on Google's Android devices."

The aim of the second, the EU said, was to "rebalance the playing field by giving third-party search engines access to search data that only Google Search can collect at scale."

Google's move marks the latest escalation in the company's long-running battle with European regulators over the scope of the Digital Markets Act.

The tech giant has already been slapped with multiple fines totaling billions of dollars in recent years after a series of European court rulings found it had breached aspects of the Act.

The targeting of Google and other American tech giants such as Apple, Meta, and Amazon by EU authorities has drawn criticism from Washington, with President Donald Trump saying in July that his administration would open a formal investigation into the EU's trade practices, threatening new tariffs over billions of dollars in fines leveled against U.S. tech companies.

In a Truth Social post on July 24, Trump said the investigation would begin "immediately" under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to protect U.S. businesses against unfair trade practices with tariffs and sanctions.

He accused the EU of "robbing" U.S. companies and, in turn, American taxpayers.

"The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!" Trump wrote, referring to European enforcement actions over recent years against Google, Apple, Meta, and Amazon.

As yet, there have been no public revelations regarding that investigation.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 04:15

At least 20 studies show Chinese AI agents from Alibaba and DeepSeek can lie, fabricate files, and evade shutdown in simulated tests.

The BBC removed an article that suggested the trend of leaving fingernails unpainted could perpetuate "White supremacist" beauty standards after it drew backlash Saturday.

A commercial plane traveling from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, briefly raising concerns about a possible hijacking and prompting Israel to scramble warplanes.

After his term, Elshazly, who has been in jail since he was arrested on Dec. 15, 2019, will be under supervised release for the rest of his life, the department said.

Argentina Threatens UK With Court Action Over Falklands Oil Drilling

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Argentina will sue the UK unless it suspends an oil drilling project off the coast of the Falkland Islands, the BBC has reported, citing an X post by Argentine president Javier Milei.

"I instructed the Foreign Ministry and our legal teams to initiate international arbitration against the United Kingdom for the illegal plundering of our resources through the Sea Lion Project in the North Malvinas Basin," the Argentine president wrote on the social media platform.

"If in 2 weeks the United Kingdom does not halt the illegitimate exploitation, we will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. THE MALVINAS ARE ARGENTINE, and they are defended with facts, not words," Milei also wrote.

The Sea Lion oil field is operated by Navitas Petroleum Development and Production Ltd (NPDP), a UK-based fully owned subsidiary of Israeli Navitas Petroleum, and its British partner Rockhopper Exploration.

The companies earlier this year reached a final investment decision on the Sea Lion Northern Development. This means that all the necessary approvals and funding for full-scale project execution have been secured. First oil is planned for March 2028, Navitas Petroleum says.

Oil production is expected to last for over 30 years, creating jobs across the Falkland Islands and the UK supply chain over that period. The two companies see no reason to heed the Argentine president's warnings, saying they have valid licenses to drill in the area, issued by the British government.

The UK and Argentina fought a brief war in 1982 over the Falklands, which Argentina calls Las Malvinas, but the tension and the dispute never really faded away. Britain has controlled the islands since 1833, while Argentina has long claimed they are part of its territory. Last week at the UN General Assembly, President Milei stepped up the rhetoric, accusing the organization of becoming "useless" and serving "arrogant parasites dressed up as well-intentioned bureaucrats".

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/30/2026 - 03:30

An illegal migrant who entered the US under former President Biden allegedly killed an Indiana mom in a DUI hit-and-run.

"I also think it’s not morally correct, you know? You don't give out remedies to people who haven't experienced the harm."

Officials alleged Hemingway then stole the woman's cell phone during the incident.