Aggregator

Scorsese has drawn the ire of a major Hollywood guild over his involvement in an AI startup.

Kendrick Perkins isn't mincing words when it comes to LeBron James' agent, Rich Paul.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin managed Tuesday to agree on a budget for the year that starts July 1 with just hours to go.

Serena Williams drew ire for her surprising act following her first-round loss at Wimbledon on Tuesday.

The once-booming department store and anchor to malls across America, has been quietly closing down locations since 2020.

Swat cops with guns drawn swarmed the grimy Figueroa Corridor before dawn Wednesday.

It's time to skip the Starbucks line.

Zelensky's Secret Police Being Looked At By Investigators For Monaco Bomb Attack

The manhunt continues, chiefly focused in France or also nearby Italy, for the culprit who committed a Monday parcel bomb attack on an exiled Ukrainian oligarch and his family at their luxury apartment building in Monaco.

The victims - Vadym Iermolaiev, his 'partner' (or wife, according to contradictory reports) and his 13-year-old child, all survived the bombing, with Iermolaiev and his partner having sustained serious injuries and in critical condition. The suspected would-be assassin was seen fleeing to the French border, after which "Dozens of officers were deployed in Monaco, while two helicopters and some 30 gendarmes scoured neighboring France for a man who left a package in a residential building near the border, according to the police and gendarmerie."

Vadym Iermolaiev, via X

Given that Iermolaiev had long ago been declared an enemy of the Ukrainian state, and has been under sanctions for years for his extensive business dealings in Crimea, Ukrainian intelligence is coming under the spotlight for possible involvement in the Monaco bomb attack - a first of its kind in the small, wealthy principality.

Le Figaro is reporting that the investigation focuses on Zelensky's secret police (SBU) in the Monaco bomb attack: "According to several concurring sources at Le Figaro, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the attack was orchestrated by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service."

The report continues, "Vadim Ermolaev, a wealthy businessman residing in Monaco since 2021, as the magistrate specified, had distanced himself from his native country, exchanging his Ukrainian citizenship for a Cypriot passport in 2019, before being targeted by personal sanctions imposed by Kyiv in December 2023."

And Le Figaro notes further:

According to our information, the attack appears to have been more of a "warning" than a deliberate attempt at murder.

However, police did call it a "powerful explosion" - so significant that parts of Iermolaiev's partner (or wife's) legs were lost, reports said.

Wow! Le Figaro reports that investigation focuses on Zelensky's secret police (SBU) in Monaco bomb attack that injured exiled Ukrainian oligarch and his family:

"According to several concurring sources at Le Figaro, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the attack… https://t.co/Pk9BUBiBba pic.twitter.com/TFdHk9sJPb

— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) June 30, 2026

According to more background of the Ukrainian tycoon's past:

“Iermolaiev is a real estate developer who was born and raised in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. His company, the Alef Group, also has interests in agriculture and vodka production. In 2018 the oligarch gave up his Ukrainian passport and acquired EU citizenship from Cyprus. As well as Monaco, he is a frequent visitor to London and Paris.

In 2022, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda identified the oligarch as a member of the “Monaco battalion”, an ironic reference to wealthy Ukrainians who live in comfort abroad while their fellow citizens experience daily Russian drone and missile attacks. Iermolaiev enjoyed the high life and drove a £250,000 Bentley Flying Spur, it noted.

The following year, Ukraine imposed personal sanctions on Iermolaiev after an investigation by the country’s SBU security agency. It said the 58-year-old oligarch continued to trade alcohol in occupied Crimea and paid millions of dollars in taxes to the Russian treasury. His assets were frozen and he was prohibited from doing business.

While Russia has long been accused of deploying intelligence-linked assassin squads in Europe to hunt down political enemies, there's lately been increasingly acknowledgement that Ukraine has been engaged in its own 'dirty war' of assassination hits, both within and outside of Russia.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2026 - 09:25

Page Six can confirm the timeline for the couple's star-studded wedding, which will go until the early hours of July 4.

Page Six can confirm the timeline for the couple's star-studded wedding, which will go until the early hours of July 4.

The FBI investigated three ransom notes sent out after the 84-year-old went missing on Feb. 1.

The FBI investigated three ransom notes sent out after the 84-year-old went missing on Feb. 1.

A Coupang rep traveled to Shanghai on Dec. 17 to meet with the suspect and his lawyer, who handed over a desktop PC, four hard drives and copies, a graphics card and a signed confession. But the next day, the NIS told Coupang it was still required to recover the missing laptop.

Wedding bells go straight to hell in season 1, episode 7 of “In the City” as Yvonne Najor’s dinner party erupts. This episode was full of explosive moments, and our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, are here to unpack them all. Lindsay Hubbard addresses Danielle Olivera for not being forthright about her...

Wedding bells go straight to hell in season 1, episode 7 of “In the City” as Yvonne Najor’s dinner party erupts. This episode was full of explosive moments, and our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, are here to unpack them all. Lindsay Hubbard addresses Danielle Olivera for not being forthright about her...

The mom's car had inadvertently acted like a solar oven, causing the squishy toy to heat, weaken and expand.

Meanwhile In The UK, You Simply Will Not Believe This...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A convicted predator who helped destroy the lives of vulnerable girls as young as 13 is days away from freedom in Britain, while Pakistan refuses to take him and archaic rules shield him from removal.

Shabir Ahmed's case lays bare how legal technicalities, political cowardice, and a refusal to enforce borders have turned the country into a revolving door for the most dangerous offenders.

Ahmed, now 73, arrived in the UK long before 1973 as a Commonwealth citizen. He was convicted in 2012 at Liverpool Crown Court on multiple counts of rape, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault, and trafficking for sexual exploitation. He treated at least one victim as property, abusing her on an almost weekly basis. Part of a gang of nine men operating out of takeaways in the Heywood area of Rochdale, Ahmed and his associates targeted working-class girls from broken backgrounds.

A grooming gang leader cannot be deported back to Pakistan despite being stripped of his British citizenship due to a loophole in legislation. Shabir Ahmed is set to be released from prison on Thursday.

GB News National Reporter @CDP1882 has more. pic.twitter.com/Fdfv841Usm

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 30, 2026

He received lengthy sentences that later expanded. His British citizenship was stripped. Yet, ludicrously, he cannot be deported. The barrier is a provision in the Immigration Act 1971 that exempts Commonwealth citizens who arrived before 1973 and have long residence from removal.

On release, expected imminently, Ahmed faces lifelong sex offender registration, exclusion zones around Rochdale, bans on contacting any child, strict curfews, and electronic tagging. Breaches mean immediate return to prison. Taxpayers will foot the bill for round-the-clock monitoring and staffed accommodation.

Criminal Lawyer Marcus Johnstone, who has handled grooming gang cases for nearly two decades, pointed out that outdated laws combined with excessive human rights legislation have made Britain the destination of choice for international sex criminals. The gangs are sophisticated. The system that should remove them is not.

'When you think it can't get any worse, it does.'

Criminal Lawyer Marcus Johnstone, reacts to a grooming gang leader who cannot be deported back to Pakistan after being released from prison despite being stripped of his British citizenship, due to a loophole in legislation. pic.twitter.com/4TH0VnJ6ZC

— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 30, 2026

Home Office statements emphasise thoughts with victims and the "darkest moments" of the grooming gangs scandal, insisting the full force of the law will apply through these conditions.

Labour MP Paul Waugh, whose Rochdale constituency was ground zero for the abuse, called Ahmed a "depraved paedophile" who should have been removed years ago. He said the people of Rochdale want him gone and urged ministers to amend the Citizenship Act if necessary.

This case fits a wider, years-long scandal of institutional failure and political cowardice.

Separate recent investigations laid bare mini-mart operations where vulnerable children were plied with alcohol and cigarettes in exchange for sexual abuse.

Illegal shops were caught handing out free vapes to kids in return for sexual favours.

And the weary response from parts of the establishment often boiled down to telling victims and the public to simply "get over it."

The common thread is the same: authorities slow-walked or buried evidence, prioritised community relations over child safety, and treated any mention of ethnic or cultural patterns as radioactive.

Official files had ethnicity redacted. In two-thirds of cases, perpetrator background went unrecorded. Police in some areas told victims the Asian men who abused them were "probably not going to catch them."

A 2020 Home Office report, relying on hopelessly incomplete data, pushed the false narrative that most grooming perpetrators were white - a claim parroted in Parliament and by broadcasters even after it was exposed as statistical sleight-of-hand.

The motivation was always the same: fear of "racism" accusations, dread of community tension, and the overriding imperative to protect the narrative that mass immigration and multiculturalism have been an unalloyed success. Working-class girls, often from broken homes or care systems, paid the price while officials and media looked the other way or actively smeared whistleblowers.

While Ahmed prepares for supervised release, London Mayor Sadiq Khan faces renewed scrutiny over his past claims. In January 2025 he told the London Assembly there were "no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs" in the capital.

A Metropolitan Police review of roughly 12,000 potential child sexual exploitation reports since 2010 has since flagged more than 4,000 cases that may require reopening. Many had been closed without further action. These have been referred to the National Crime Agency under Operation Beaconport.

London's current review notes a broader mix of offender backgrounds than the classic Pakistani-heritage networks documented in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and elsewhere. That distinction does not erase the scale of what was ignored or the political class that spent years insisting the problem did not exist in the capital.

This London revelation drops just days after the release of Rupert Lowe's Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which documented a coordinated national campaign of rape, torture and abuse against up to 250,000 British girls by predominantly Muslim grooming gangs operating across 149 local authority districts.

Lowe's findings laid bare the same pattern of police warnings to rapists, political interference and deliberate suppression of evidence that protected predators for decades while treating working-class girls as disposable.

Britain does not lack the power to change this. Parliament can amend citizenship and immigration rules to close loopholes for serious offenders. It can assert sovereignty over international obligations that shield threats.

Other countries manage deportation of convicted criminals without descending into chaos. The question is whether the political class has the will to put the safety of British girls ahead of globalist pieties and domestic sensitivities.

Ahmed walking free under licence is not justice. It is the predictable result of a system that has spent years protecting itself from hard truths rather than protecting its children. British girls deserve a country that removes foreign criminals who rape its children and never looks back.

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, 07/01/2026 - 09:05

LeBron James is fueling the rumors of him joining forces with Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors after informing the Lakers on Monday that he will be departing from the team.

The John Deere Classic occupies one of the toughest spots on the PGA Tour calendar.

Preview And Watch Live: Kevin Warsh Speaks At Sintra ECB Forum

Watch live here:

Today’s main event takes place in Sintra, Portugal and the ECB’s annual symposium, where Warsh joins President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey at 9 a.m. New York time.  Bloomberg Economics expects Warsh to strike a carefully balanced tone after signaling different messages to hawks and doves at the June FOMC meeting

Courtesy of Newsquawk, here is a prime of what to expect at the Sintra panel featuring Fed’s Warsh, ECB’s Lagarde, BoE’s Bailey & BoC’s Macklem, at 14:00BST/09:00EDT.

The panel is a ‘policy panel", lasting for one hour from 14:00BST/09:00EDT, with CNBC’s Eisen as moderator. Text releases are not expected.

Fed

Warsh has already become notorious in not wanting to provide forward guidance, so while traders will be looking to his appearance for clues on future policy, some analysts suggest that traders may be left disappointed. At his first policy meeting as Fed Chair, the FOMC held the FFR target range unchanged at 3.50-3.75%, via a unanimous vote. Warsh described the labour market as keeping pace with workforce growth, with unemployment little changed, while inflation remains elevated due to energy-related supply shocks tied to the Iran conflict. On the 2% target, Warsh reaffirmed the Fed’s “capability and commitment" to deliver price stability, calling the commitment “strong, unanimous, and unambiguous". Notably, he declined to submit his own SEP projections (though nine of the other eighteen officials projected the FFR target will end 2026 above the current range, pointing to hike risk). On the balance sheet, the Committee reaffirmed its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system, with a dedicated task force reviewing the balance sheet tool’s transmission. Warsh also abandoned forward guidance, shortening the policy statement significantly, and launched task forces covering data, communications, and the inflation framework.

ECB

Lagarde has spoken extensively recently, and will have an opportunity to speak again during the closing Sintra remarks once the panel ends. Lagarde's remarks on the 22nd of June, alongside the post-MoU energy pullback, have driven much of the moderation in pricing seen in recent weeks, removing a back-to-back hike from the playbook ahead and instead placing focus almost entirely on September for the next potential move. To recap, Lagarde said they “see no evidence yet of de-anchoring of inflation expectations or second-round effects that would warrant a more forceful policy response at this stage” and, as it stood, the ‘current shock appears to be smaller in magnitude..." vs the last period of high inflation, i.e. when Russia’s war in Ukraine commenced. However, at the start of Sintra Lagarde was a touch more hawkish talking around inflation being “away" from target. Though, her commentary didn’t spark any real return towards a move in July. Since, the Flash EZ HICP for June came in cooler than expected, though Services remains above the April figure. While the PMIs are net-constructive, however, much uncertainty remains amid the Middle East situation.

BoE

Following the June meeting and despite the two hawkish dissenters, the narrative has shifted significantly to the BoE being on hold for the foreseeable future. Although Governor Bailey has expressed frustration that inflation is not back to target, he has continued to stick to the narrative that the BoE has time to judge the pass-through of higher energy prices onto the UK economy. There has not been anything to suggest that Bailey will deviate from this.

BoC

After the BoC's June meeting, Governor Macklem said any decision on possible rate hikes would depend on conditions, not a specific timeline. He noted that core inflation has ticked down, while inflation expectations will remain a key consideration. Economic weakness tends to put downward pressure on prices, adding that higher oil prices have not yet spread significantly into other goods and services, though food inflation remains a concern. He also said little had changed since the previous meeting, with no major data surprises, and that Canada's economy is not clearly in recession. On communications, Macklem warned that too much forward guidance can imply false precision and become confusing. Separately, speaking last week, he said widening global imbalances and rising non-bank lending increase the risk of economic disruption. He warned that large capital inflows into the US could be misallocated or reverse suddenly, spreading stress beyond US borders, and urged global officials to support higher US savings, Chinese consumption and European investment.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2026 - 08:54