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The nation's largest food distributor has stopped carrying the nation’s scariest plant.

Respondents reported that a grocery budget of $100 should cover almost two more meals than it actually does.

The supermodel shed her sundress on a sunny vacation with husband Tom Kaulitz.

The supermodel shed her sundress on a sunny vacation with husband Tom Kaulitz.

The Apple TV series paid homage to the pop star's legendary Eras Tour.

The Apple TV series paid homage to the pop star's legendary Eras Tour.

Citadel Soars 6% In July Thanks To Situational Awareness Firesale Liquidation

Some have speculated that one of the most proximal catalysts behind the collapse of Leopold Aschenbrenner's $45 billion and epically misnamed Situational Awareness hedge fund, besides his use of batshit insane Total Return Swap leverage that would make an average Korean momentum-chasing degen blush with envy, was Citadel's vocal warning early last week that the Fed would/should hike rates, a contrarian appeal which, while not taken seriously by any Fed watcher, may have spooked markets to the necessary and sufficient breaking point that forced the flood of margin calls that ultimately wiped out Leopold. 

While we doubt that Citadel was so tactically engaged as to crush the young and inexperienced Leopold and hear the lamentations of his soon to be wife with fringer notes, we are certain that his massive TRS leverage - as much as 4x on both side of a pair trade that had gone terribly wrong by being long chips and short software - and which we warned back in June was clearly in play and would lead to ruin for one or more funds, was more than sufficient to force the hedge fund's liquidation by bringing its assets under management from $45 billion at the start of July to just $10 billion at the end.  

More importantly, it led to a blowout month for none other than the flagship fund of Ken Griffin’s Citadel which jumped 5.9% in July, a month when most of its peers suffered major losses (look no further than Coatue's 8% drop) after it bought billions of dollars of AI stocks in a fire sale from Aschenbrenner’s now collapsed hedge fund Situational Awareness.

Citadel, which manages more than $71bn, has now seen its Wellington fund surge 12% so far in 2026 after a turbulent July which ultimately generated half the firm's YTD gains, the FT reported citing people who have seen the numbers.

After a huge rally in AI-related equities earlier in the year, hedge funds were smashed by a historic collapse in high beta momo stocks in July which nuked most popular holdings such as South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix which tumbled almost 50% from a peak in June. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 briefly veered into correction territory last week, shortly before the deal to sell Situational Awareness’s book.

More than a month after we warned that massive TRS leverage would lead to one or more Archegos-like casualties (with or without the criminal element)...

Has anyone done the analysis which funds have the most TRS on AI, aka Archegos 2.0

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 12, 2026

... that's precisely what happened when Aschenbrenner’s - which notched gains of more than 400% in the first half of the year with its highly leveraged bets on AI companies - became the most prominent casualty of the violent momentum reversal.

The sell-off crippled the fund, pushing it to sell the majority of its public equity positions to Griffin’s firm last week in a quick-fire process that took place over less than 24 hours. Citadel approached Situational Awareness late on July 29 and negotiated with the firm overnight. It signed a contract in less than 24 hours for the sale, which came with a 10% discount, Bloomberg has previously reported. 

Citadel’s own funds had struggled to generate big returns during the first weeks of July amid the sell-off in equities. As of July 24, Wellington was roughly flat month-to-date. In the three days prior to Citadel’s acquisition of Situational Awareness, stocks fell further.

Citadel competed with trading firm Jane Street and fellow multi-manager hedge fund giant Millennium for the purchase of Situational Awareness’s equities book last week, eventually winning the auction with about a 10% discount, FT sources reported. 

Separately, before the sale to Citadel, Silicon Valley venture capital firms Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital were approached about taking over the some of the privately held stakes in Situational Awareness’ portfolio. 

The troubled fund also had close links to some of the world’s biggest investment banks. Situational Awareness used prime brokers including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Bank of America according to filings.

In an exclusive report this morning, the WSJ wrote that Situational Awareness was backed by a wide lineup of Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors who put their faith in a 20-something founder with no prior professional investing experience.  Among the fund’s investors are Dan Sundheim, founder of the hedge fund D1 Capital Partners and a major SpaceX shareholder; Silicon Valley investor Neil Mehta, co-founder of venture-capital firm Greenoaks; the foundation of Gaurav Kapadia, founder of investment firm XN; and Feroz Dewan, the former head of public equities at Tiger Global Management, according to people familiar with the matter.

Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, and Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, who lead Meta Platforms’ AI efforts, are among Situational’s other investors. Some investors might have invested through their foundations, family offices or other entities.

Situational was also backed by foundations including the Laniakea Charitable Foundation and Good Forever Foundation, according to tax and regulatory filings reviewed by fund-data tracker Old Well Labs. The president and director of Laniakea is Matthew Wage, a Jane Street trader, tax filings show. Good Forever is a grant-making organization focused on AI safety and AI policy. 

Aksia, a research and advisory firm to institutions including pensions, family offices and sovereign-wealth funds, made note of Aschenbrenner’s intellect and network in a March 2025 assessment for clients after meeting with him. But it also wrote that prospective investors in Situational “may want to be wary of hubris leading to risk management issues, particularly if the use of leverage is indeed significant,” according to a copy of the note viewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

The last ditch rescue by Citadel was not only a brilliant distressed investment which helped generate billions in short-term profits, it also helped to stem a broader market rout because Situational Awareness’s forced selling had been exacerbating the sell-off in AI stocks. Many of Aschenbrenner’s biggest investments according to his last regulatory filing - including Bloom Energy and Sandisk - rallied the day after the sale. The latter has gained nearly 30% since last Wednesday.

“These are names that trade really aggressively,” said one hedge fund manager who had invested in similar positions to those of Situational Awareness. “They were highly volatile, but they were liquid. So Citadel made a killing.”

As the FT notes, Griffin is known to charge towards firms that run into trouble. The day Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, Griffin sent more than a dozen of his executives to Houston on a chartered Gulfstream jet to dig into its failure, and later poached several of the company’s top analysts. The hedge fund has also stepped in before to buy the remains of failed competitors. In 2006, Citadel bought the entire trading book of Amaranth Advisors alongside JPMorgan after the fund blew up from bad bets on natural gas. A year later, it pulled off a similar coup by snapping up the credit portfolio of Sowood Capital Management when it collapsed.

“It’s classic Ken,” said one former employee, who worked closely with the Citadel founder. “He has played that card many times . . . There are very few places in the world who can do what he did.”

As for Leopold, don't cry for the former OpenAI staffer. He may have blown up this time but after his stint working for SBF at FTX, he surely has learned how to survive blow ups such as this one, and as long as he has his freedom (unlike his former boss) he will emerge somewhere (assuming he has an ironclad prenup of course). 

The Dario curse:

SBF invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (SBF in prison)

Leopold invested in Anthropic. Stake now worth billions, but fund blows up (Leopold getting married)

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 30, 2026

As the WSJ notes, Aschenbrenner started his hedge fund in 2024. After a string of prescient stock picks, including memory-chip makers SK Hynix and Sandisk, his assets under management swelled, placing the firm among the fastest-growing hedge funds in years. The rapid rise earned him a reputation as a stock-picking wunderkind and the nickname “the Nostradamus of AI.” 

In retrospect, he was just a massively levered degen who, like the infamous Taleb turkey, was lucky for 99.9% of the ride... and then Thanksgiving happened.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 13:05

Is it his killer scheme? Masterful motivation? Cutting-edge recovery program? None of the above, actually. As he prepares to make his debut in the big-time of the Big Ten, Bob Chesney said there’s no special formula that’s sparked his swift rise. His best ability might be adaptability. The UCLA football coach who was working at...

Post Readers can trade $25 to get $500 on MLB World Series trade markets with the Kalshi promo code NYPMAX.

The FAA is investigating a safety lapse at Reagan National Airport after flights weren't halted during the takeoff of Trump's Marine One.

The footage, shot during an undisclosed performance at the Chicago-based music festival over the weekend, shows guests passing around a cardboard box filled with a plastic urine sack.

He was concerned about his job security in the leadup to Monday’s trade deadline, acknowledging his severe struggles at the plate this season.

Jeanine John Taele faces federal firearms charges after allegedly scouting security ahead of President Trump's Southern California visit.

According to court documents obtained by Page Six, the "Vanderpump Rules" alum claimed Victoria Lee Robinson "physically assaulted" him while he was on tour.

According to court documents obtained by Page Six, the "Vanderpump Rules" alum claimed Victoria Lee Robinson "physically assaulted" him while he was on tour.

"It was horrific. Even during the January protests, I did not hate the regime this much," a witness said.

Google's Chief AI Scientist Jeff Dean Exits After 27 Years, Alphabet Shares Slide

Alphabet shares slid after The Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Dean, one of Google's earliest employees and a key figure in its AI strategy (co-founder of Google Brain), is departing after nearly three decades to launch his own AI company. The exit raises fresh concerns about Google's ability to retain top researchers as competition for AI experts intensifies. 

Dean was Google's 30th employee in 1999 and will serve as CEO of Discovery Loop, a public-benefit corporation initially targeting machine-learning research and engineering. The startup will then transition to hardware design, drug discovery, and clean energy by automating multistep scientific experiments.

WSJ spoke with Dean:

"The four of us have been chatting about this a little bit and we got excited," Dean said in an interview at his Palo Alto, Calif., home Tuesday.

"We think by automating many of the classical experimental-loop aspects with machine learning models, augmenting human scientists and engineers, we'll be able to make it possible to explore more space in broad science areas to accelerate discovery."

The scientific process, he said, is about coming up with an idea for an experiment, setting up and running the experiment and then evaluating the results.

"Particularly in a lot of domains, you can fully computerize that whole loop," he said -- the inspiration for the startup's name.

Alphabet will invest in Dean's startup and provide cloud and computing capacity, while Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures are co-leading a seed round. The valuation wasn't disclosed.

WSJ said that prominent Google researchers Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le and Sanjay Ghemawat will be joining Dean in the new startup.

Shares of Alphabet dropped 5% after the report hit:

Four minutes after the WSJ report hit, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, wrote on X: 

I've been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I'm stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease.

I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I’m stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including…

— Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis) August 5, 2026

Google CEO Sundar Pichai commented on the departures, saying Dean and Ghemawat helped engineer some of the company's most significant technology transitions over nearly three decades at the company and wished them the best.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:45

Second Foreign Vessel Attacked Off Yemen Within Hours, Amid Houthi 'Siege For Siege' Blockade

Update(1235ET): The Houthis have apparently attacked two vessels off Yemen's coast within a mere few hours on Tuesday, as clearly the assault on international shipping by the Iran-aligned group has grown.

The below alert from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre is the second one today. Just hours before, an initial vessel had been reported sunk, the crew rescued... and now this:

The incident took place 95 nautical miles (176km) south-east of Aden, Yemen, according to UKMTO, adding that all the vessel’s crew are “accounted for and safe”.

UKMTO WARNING 106-26

Click here to view the full warning⤵️https://t.co/iEt5aG0Mru#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/6QeQIOu6qd

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) August 5, 2026

And just the day prior: "The Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday condemned the attack on the India-flagged commercial vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, which sank in the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen on August 4, 2026."

This comes as the Saudis are desperately trying to put together a 'coalition of the willing' to defend against such attacks. While the Houthis have not declared Bab al-Mandab Strait closed to 'all' shipping, they have declared a 'siege for siege' blockade against Saudi shipping.

*  *  *

The Houthis have quickly made good on their earlier threat, with the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre having reported the following fresh attack off Yemen:

• UKMTO has received a time-late report of an incident 9NM southwest of Al Mukha, Yemen.
• The CSO of the vessel has reported that the vessel was attacked by an Uncrewed Surface Vessel which caused a fire onboard. The crew have been rescued by local authorities and are safe and well.
• The vessel has been reported as sunk.
• Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to UKMTO while authorities are investigating.

The stricken vessel's crew has reportedly been rescued, after the fire on board and subsequent sinking.

Oil prices remain elevated also as over in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians insist that the Omani deal to reopen the strait has "nothing to do with the United States."

earlier

Brent crude bounced off the $78-a-barrel level early Wednesday after Iran-backed Houthi militants threatened to attack Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea, reviving fears that the regional conflict could spread to another critical shipping channel. The move came despite an overnight Axios report, citing two sources and a US official, that President Trump's negotiators and Tehran are nearing an Oman-brokered interim peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Bloomberg report cites Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, who said the threat is retaliation for Saudi Arabia diverting oil tankers away from the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint in the southern Red Sea.

Brent crude bounced from the $78 level to $80, clawing back some of its losses after tumbling from $86 to $78 on news that the US and Iran were closing in on an interim deal to reopen Hormuz.

WTI topped $76 this morning before fading modestly...

The latest shipping data from the Hormuz chokepoint show that transits through the critical waterway remain well below the levels seen during the first interim peace deal, which eventually fell apart one month later and resulted in the recent tit-for-tat strikes.

Last night, President Trump told reporters, "They had an all-day negotiation. The Strait of Hormuz is going to be open very soon," adding, "If they back out again, they are going to get hit really hard."

Trump has repeatedly threatened massive strikes if Tehran fails to reach a deal, only to later signal progress in negotiations.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:35

Meet the program helping people become certified personal trainers in just 3 months.

The group bought newspaper ads more than 2,000 miles away in South Carolina and Nevada.