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The "Jolene" singer, who passed away on Aug. 25, said in a pre-recorded video that she was "so honored" to receive the coveted award on Wednesday.

The "Jolene" singer, who passed away on Aug. 25, said in a pre-recorded video that she was "so honored" to receive the coveted award on Wednesday.

Trump To Meet With Gulf Leaders - US Met With Houthis, Opts Against Intervention In Yemen

With assorted economic and military crises boiling all across the Middle East in the wake of his disastrous decision to launch a war on Iran, President Trump will meet with Persian Gulf leaders in New York next week, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. This diplomacy news came on the same day we learned US officials met over the weekend with representatives of Yemen's Ansar Allah. The group, which is often called "the Houthis," committed against targeting US interests, and the United States opted not to militarily intervene on Saudi Arabia's behalf in Yemen. 

First reported by Axios' Barak Ravid, Trump's meeting with Gulf leaders will supposedly center on American ideas for postwar strategy in the region. With no end of the war in sight, the "postwar" framing seems almost comically premature. On Wednesday Trump told reporters, "Hopefully, we are toward the end of the war. [Iran] wants to make a deal very badly."

Iranian officials have said they are disinterested in renewed negotiations "until Iran's conditions are met." It's unclear precisely what those conditions are, but they seemingly encompass the provisions of the June memorandum of understanding, The MOU briefly halted the war and opened shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, before Trump proceeded to violate multiple MOU requirements and the hot war was back on.  

The charred ruins of major pumping station on Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline after an attack by an Iraqi militia

From periodic volleys of Iranian missile fire to deeply diminished export revenue and an investment environment marred by soaring business risk, Persian Gulf states are all feeling the ill effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran. US bases in their states, rather than serving as a defensive shield, have instead served as magnets for Iranian missiles and drones. Hopes for an exit to the war took a hit with the postponement of what was going to be a Monday, Sept 14 meeting between several Gulf nations and Iran. Iran and Oman were poised to present their proposed arrangement for managing the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.  

Ravid also reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asking for his 5th in-person meeting of the year with Trump next week, but no meeting has yet been scheduled. Ravid, an Israeli citizen and veteran of IDF intelligence, is seen by some as a conduit for narratives that serve the US-Israel relationship, with an emphasis on "scoops" about supposed disagreements between Trump and Netanyahu that never amount to anything. 

Trump Disinterested In Battling Yemen's Ansar Allah

On another diplomatic front, Reuters reported that US officials met with an Ansar Allah delegation in Oman over the weekend, in the American embassy in Muscat. Ansar Allah assured their US counterparts that they would continue adhering to an Oman-brokered 2025 ceasefire with the US, and only intended to target Saudi forces and Saudi-shipping that attempted to enter the Red Sea. The meeting was said to have influenced the Trump administration's decision not to heed Saudi pleas for US military involvement in Yemen.  

Some 80% of Yemen's population lives in territory controlled by Ansar Allah, but Saudi Arabia has long backed other forces in Yemen that seek to defeat the group. A four-year truce between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah ended on July 13 when Saudi Arabia bombed an airport in Yemen's Ansar Allah-controlled capital of Sanaa, to prevent an Iranian airliner from landing there with a delegation of Yemenis who'd attended the funeral of Iran's ayatollah. Ansar Allah retaliated, declared a blockade on Saudi traffic entering the Red Sea, and then achieved an enormous strategic victory by suddenly capturing the remainder of Yemen's western coastline, positioning its forces on the critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Saudi Arabia asked Trump to intervene, and was rebuffed.  

Members of Ansar Allah (aka "The Houthis") celebrate their downing of what OSINT observers say was $110 million Saudi F-15SA 

On a Wednesday episode of Daniel Davis Deep Dive, Robert Barnes, who claims to have knowledgeable sources inside the Trump White House, said Trump egged Saudi Arabia into attacking the airport:

"MBS [Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] feels betrayed...it was Trump's idea to start that back up. He said, 'you know, I bet you can take them out. This would be a good way to get back at Iran is to finally conquer the Houthis. You've always wanted to.'  You know, instigating MBS. And then of course it backfired terribly....When it went sideways, Trump pretended he had nothing to do with it. 'Sorry, good luck! I'll send you some advisors'." 

Fighting between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah has only intensified in recent days, with Saudi jets pounding Ansar Allah and the Yemeni group lashing out at Saudi military installations and the Saudi Red Sea oil hub at Yanbu. The kingdom's military posture is weakened by a shortage of missile interceptors, and it has reportedly asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to deploy air-defense assets in Saudi Arabia. The US military has seen its own supply of interceptors dramatically shrink over the course of its war on Iran. In one engagement last week in Jordan, the US blew through about 60 to 80 interceptors at a cost of around half a billion dollars. 

With shipping through the Strait of Hormuz hugely diminished, and with Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline closed after an Iran-allied Iraqi militia attacked it at multiple locations, the kingdom is facing an economic crisis. Earlier this month, it was gauging interest in an $8 billion loan from commercial lenders. On a more optimistic note, it was reported on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia could restore roughly half the East-West pipeline's capacity within days.

However, even that glass-half-full scenario assumes no subsequent strikes on the pipeline. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 09:35

“Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” season 7, episode one, kicks off on a somber note as Mary Cosby’s son passed away weeks into filming. Although the ladies gathered to support Mary in her time of mourning, the drama still brews beneath the surface. Our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real unpack the...

“Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” season 7, episode one, kicks off on a somber note as Mary Cosby’s son passed away weeks into filming. Although the ladies gathered to support Mary in her time of mourning, the drama still brews beneath the surface. Our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real unpack the...

Residents were woken up by “extremely loud” howling on Sept. 13, after a pack of wild coyotes decided to make their presence known in a San Diego neighborhood. Ashley King, who captured the wild occurrence on her security footage, told Storyful that the howling “was so loud, we weren’t even sure what it was.”

Take me down to Raccoon City... but how? Let's look at the 2002, 2021, and 2026 versions of Resident Evil and figure it out.

A garbage truck caught fire on Queensland’s Gold Coast on September 10, forcing the driver to make an emergency stop at a parking lot and unload the burning trash. Footage showed smoke pouring from the truck as flaming waste was dumped onto the pavement before firefighters arrived and extinguished the blaze.

The "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" star is locked in a custody dispute with ex-husband Tate Paul and ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen over her three children.

The "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" star is locked in a custody dispute with ex-husband Tate Paul and ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen over her three children.

"There’s a period of time with Todd that I really loved. We’re just not in that period of time anymore,” Newport confessed during the Season 7 premiere.

"There’s a period of time with Todd that I really loved. We’re just not in that period of time anymore,” Newport confessed during the Season 7 premiere.

Steve Cohen probably gets better returns on his billion-dollar investments with Point72.

Trade $25, get $25 with the Kalshi promo code NYPMAX for "Thursday Night Football."

Jeffrey Springs will lead the visiting A's past the Rays on Thursday afternoon, Stitches predicts.

Yes & Baby & Easter eggs.

Forget coffee. The internet's latest biohack is getting a tiny fix in a discreet way — but what happens when the benefits wear off?

They Don't Believe In God... They Believe They've Created One

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

The same crowd that spent years sneering at faith now wants America to treat a computer program like the Almighty - and hand the keys to a global watchdog while Beijing keeps building unhindered.

Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale told Jesse Watters the panic over AI is not some spontaneous outbreak of civic caution. It is a coordinated campaign to scare the public into slowing the one industry that still gives the United States a decisive edge.

Lonsdale's diagnosis was blunt. The loudest doomers, he said, have already discarded Christianity. What they put in its place is a machine.

? BREAKING: Palantir Co-Founder @JTLonsdale says there is a "COORDINATED CAMPAIGN" to SCARE AMERICANS about A.I. ?

"These guys don't believe in God. They're ATHEISTS, but they've created something they believe is God."

"This is their Messiah, and this is their END OF THE... pic.twitter.com/UlMFxzFsWX

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) September 16, 2026

"These guys don't believe in God. They're atheists, but they've created something they believe is God," Watters said, laying out Lonsdale's point. "This is their Messiah, and this is their end of the world."

Lonsdale argued the fear campaign is doing exactly what it was built to do: stampede Washington into rules that favor the biggest labs and the most political operators.

"There is a coordinated campaign to make the American people afraid," he said.

He tied the theology of the panic to the culture that produced it. San Francisco, he said, has largely given up Christianity. When a civilization drops its old faith, it still wants a messiah and an apocalypse.

"If you give up religion, you want some kind of messianic complex, some kind of big thing to believe in," Lonsdale said. "These effective altruists - this is their Messiah, this is their end of the world, this is their obsession."

Watters asked the obvious follow-up: so these people don't believe in God, they're atheists, but they've built something they treat as God?

"I think that's a big part of what's happening," Lonsdale replied. AI is real, he added. An industrial revolution is coming that would be "amazing for America if we get it right." The people trying to stop it, he said, "hate America."

That is the frame the doomer class never wants discussed. Not safety as engineering. Not narrow, targeted rules for the handful of systems that can actually do damage. A substitute church, complete with prophets, end-times charts, and a demand that the state enforce the creed.

Watters had already mocked the surrounding media script, calling it a diet of "fantasies from a bunch of sci-fi freaks."

Lonsdale has been saying the same thing off-camera. After an Anthropic researcher quit and warned that frontier labs were "gambling with our lives," Lonsdale posted: "The world is going to be alright, guys. Leaders have big responsibilities and challenges ahead, but it doesn't help to scare everyone. We are on top of it."

Scare everyone, then regulate everyone. That is the play.

Scott Jennings spotted the pattern immediately. Climate. Covid. Now silicon.

"It's always the same apocalyptic crowd moving from one issue to the next," he notes. "Responsible guardrails are one thing, but handicapping American innovation while China speeds ahead with zero regulation isn't sound policy - it's just foolish."

It's always the same apocalyptic crowd moving from one issue to the next.

Responsible guardrails are one thing, but handicapping American innovation while China speeds ahead with zero regulation isn't sound policy — it's just foolish. pic.twitter.com/zDXyTv33rf

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 16, 2026

Beijing is not holding a pause-and-pray summit. Chinese firms have been accused by U.S. officials of stripping American models "at an industrial scale." China's spy chief, Chen Yixin, has called AI a threat to "political security, institutional security, and ideological security" and demanded tighter Party control - which is another way of saying the CCP wants the weapon, not a shared conscience.

President Trump has already rejected the slowdown. "We're leading China in AI," he said. "Whoever wins AI, wins." He added that a lot of the horror stories being shopped around "won't happen," and later wrote that a "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers has one obvious beneficiary: China.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the same point when Rep. Maxine Waters tried to bounce Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Anthropic off him as if their press tours were holy writ. "They could stop any time they want to," Bessent said.

They could. They haven't. They want Congress to do it for them.

The political demand behind the theology landed this week from Bill Gates. The Microsoft co-founder is back on the emergency circuit, this time calling AI an "alien intelligence" that no government is ready for - and insisting the answer is an international organization to police it.

Bill Gates Calls For GLOBALIST Crackdown On AI

In a Reuters interview, Gates said, "I don't think any government is nearly as deep on this as they have to be." Then: "Governments are way behind on this one." He reached for the Hollywood script. "There's all sorts of movies where some aliens are coming, and magically the US and China and everybody comes together to solve the problem," he said. "AI is kind of like this alien intelligence. It's here, and we better do like it shows in those movies."

On a podcast, he went further: "It's not the role of the industry to self-regulate or understand the whole-of-society impact that comes out of AI." In an August essay he called the transition "one of the most turbulent times in human history" and floated a permanent cross-border watchdog built from pieces of nuclear inspections, aviation rules, and ozone treaties. He has pitched the idea to Trump's team and says he wants a meeting with Xi Jinping later this year.

Left to the market, Gates warned, "AI will be designed by and for the richest people in the world." The good outcome, he said, "won't happen by accident." His foundation then pledged $1 billion over two years to spread AI through education, health, and agriculture - a reminder that the man selling the panic is also buying the pipeline.

The chorus around him is familiar. Barack Obama told Democrats to get "on top of" a technology "moving very fast in private hands." Bernie Sanders called a runaway system "humanity's problem" and again demanded a pause-and-ban deal at the coming Trump - Xi meeting. House Democrats rushed to agree. The Netflix circuit is already warming up the next Inconvenient Truth.

None of that is a safety protocol. It is a bid to internationalize control of a technology American labs still lead.

Narrow rules for real dangers - bioterror tools, open-weight models that hack at scale, systems that should not ship to the CCP - are not the same thing as a global pause designed in Davos and enforced by inspectors wandering through American labs. One protects the country. The other kneecaps it.

Lonsdale's point cuts through. A class of people who no longer believe in God have built a machine they talk about as if it were God, then demanded that Washington and a new Globalist body kneel with them.

Whoever wins AI, wins. The people treating the code as their Messiah are asking America to lose on purpose.

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Tyler Durden Thu, 09/17/2026 - 08:57

Collins led the Texans in targets, receptions and receiving yards in Week 1.