Update: (6:30pm ET): It appears that Trump's Operation Freedom is just the latest jawboning nothingburger. As the WSJ explains, Project Freedom "is a process through which countries, insurance companies and shipping organizations can coordinate moving traffic through the Strait, according to a senior U.S. official. It doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait, the official said." In other words, as we mused earlier, this is not the announcement of an escort mission just now, and is just filler for another post from Trump.
President Trump did not announce an escort mission just now, US officials say.
Project Freedom, earlier called the Maritime Freedom Construct, is a coordination cell.
It’ll tell US-flagged ships and others the safe lanes to navigate the Strait of Hormuz (aka no mines, etc.)
As for Iran's reply, one could have seen this coming:
"Any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire. The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts"
⚠ WARNING
Any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire.
The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts!
No one would believe Blame Game scenarios!
Finally, here is a statement from US Central Command which says... nothing:
U.S. Military Supports Launch of Project Freedom in Strait of Hormuz
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will begin supporting Project Freedom, May 4, to restore freedom of navigation for commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The mission, directed by the President, will support merchant vessels seeking to freely transit through the essential international trade corridor. A quarter of the world’s oil trade at sea and significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer products are transported through the strait.
“Our support for this defensive mission is essential to regional security and the global economy as we also maintain the naval blockade,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander.
Last week, the U.S. Department of State announced a new initiative, in partnership with the Department of War, to enhance coordination and information sharing among international partners in support of maritime security in the strait. The Maritime Freedom Construct aims to combine diplomatic action with military coordination, which will be critical during Project Freedom.
U.S. military support to Project Freedom will include guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members.
* * *
Update: (5:00pm ET): In response to the earlier notice from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which said that "Trump must choose between an impossible military operation or a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran," the US president has decided to take a third path: in a post on Truth Social Trump said the US will begin guiding some ships that aren’t involved in the Iran conflict out through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday.
“The Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance,” Trump, or rather his AI chatbot, wrote Sunday, although it was unclear just how the US will avoid the dozens of mines that line the Strait or evade the missiles that Iran has threatened it would shoot at US ships if they came too close to the Strait.
Trump called this extraction "Project Freedom", and said it will begin Monday morning, Middle East time. The US president also said that he is "fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all."
"This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran. Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner. I think it would go a long way in showing Goodwill on behalf of all of those who have been fighting so strenuously over the last number of months. If, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
And while Trump claims the move is "humanitarian," it is a clear U.S. challenge to Tehran's effort to control the strait, and as Axios notes, an Iranian military response could spark a confrontation or even an escalation back to war.
Furthermore, it was not immediately clear whether this move was coordinated with Iran in any way, although without any signaling from official and unofficial channels from Iran, it is most likely a unilateral approach by the White House.
Earlier, Trump suggested the Islamic Republic’s latest peace proposal might not be enough to satisfy him as efforts to put an end to the conflict have yet to show progress.
To that end, Trump wrote his representatives "are having very positive discussions" with Iran and stressed these discussions "could lead to something very positive for all." Axios adds that the US sent on Sunday another amended draft for an agreement to end the war in response to Iranian officials' latest proposal, so at least there is some token movement on behind the scenes negotiations.
Aside from a very strong sense of deja vu about all this (Trump said the US would help escort ships more than a month ago and nothing happened). as Jim Bianco notes there are a four of possible outcomes from "Project Freedom", two good, two bad:
Outcomes 1 and 2 would send stocks higher; 3 and 4 would lead to the opposite, although in the current reality where nothing matters, there is a possibility that all 4 outcomes sends stocks to even recorder highs.
* * *
Earlier
Iran is telling Washington that the ball is in its court as President Trump has affirmed over the weekend that he is reviewing the latest peace deal submitted via Pakistani mediators. Tehran is further saying the US is going from worse to worse as it must now choose between an "impossible" military operation or a "bad" deal.
The intelligence unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has newly stated that "Trump must choose between an impossible military operation or a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran," according to Al Jazeera referencing the official statement. The provocative words framing the dilemma came soon on the heels of the following Saturday Truth Social post from Trump:
As for the IRGC statement about an "impossible" miliary operation, it further indicated that Tehran sent the US military a deadline to end its blockade of Iranian ports. It highlighted that Europe, China and Russia are are increasingly taking a more critical toward Washington's war.
"The room for US decision-making has narrowed," the IRGC intelligence unit sad additionally, emphasizing "there is only one way to read this."
At the moment, the two-week ceasefire which was announced on April 8 through Pakistani mediation has been unilaterally extended by Trump, to now be indefinite. On Friday as the conflict reached 60-days, President Trump submitted a formal letter to Congress stressing Operation Epic Fury had already been 'terminated' due to the ceasefire.
The White House is arguing that this loophole - or the fact that there's currently no exchanges of fire between the US and Iranian sides - means that required Congressional review and authorization of use of American troops is essentially voided. In the meantime gas prices at the pump for Americans are steadily rising. The below is the full IRGC statement to the US side:
IRGC Intelligence Organization:
🔺 Iran sets Pentagon a blockade deadline
🔺 China, Russia, Europe shift tone against Washington Trump's passive letter to Congress
🔺 Acceptance of Iran's negotiating terms pic.twitter.com/e5wIH4ZbHv
The current Iran-submitted plan now being reviewed at the White House reportedly contains 14 points. A Russian correspondent has said that "Iran is seeking a decisive and permanent end to the conflict with the US, rather than a previously proposed two-month ceasefire" and that it seems a one-month window to end all hostilities.
"The plan includes a demand to resolve all issues and end the war within 30 days," said RT correspondent Saman Kojouri, adding that “"he space for compromise between Tehran and Washington is narrowing." Just by the close of last week Trump said he was 'not satisfied' with what he had seen so far.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 09:55Authored by Paul Birch via DailySceptic.org,
These people have never been in a life-or-death situation like the arresting officers
One would think that even when the police successfully detain a suspect who was alleged to have been conducting a marauding knife attack, the professional activists would have a day off.
But you would be wrong. Amid all the ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ cliché bingo, voices of criticism were heard. Among them, the blue-tick career race-baiter Shola Mos-Shogbamimu. She was quick to take to X following yesterday’s attack on the Jewish community in Golders Green, north London. The 45 year-old suspect, a British national of Somali origin, had reportedly stabbed two Jewish men at random. The suspect – depressingly, inevitably – had previously been referred to the Government’s counter radicalisation programme, Prevent.
Shola Mos-Shogbamimu criticised police officers who are shown kicking the suspect in the head while he is on the ground. She opined:
Contemptible abuse of police power. Why kick him in the head several times when he’s already Tasered and in your control? Should he not be alive to be brought to justice in a court of law for stabbing two Jews??!! Disgusting.
Also, Green Party leader Zack Polanski, still playing at politics, was quick to condemn the actions of the arresting officers, using a retweet to maintain that:
Essentially his (Commissioner Mark Rowley’s) officers were reportedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by taser.
What Shola, Zack and other commentators do not understand – because they have never been in a life-or-death situation – is that force is not judged by how it looks in a six-second clip. It is judged by necessity in the moment. These keyboard warriors have no idea what it’s like to face immediate and possibly lethal violence armed with often nothing more than some irritant spray and a stick. Your priority is to keep members of the public safe, followed by yourselves as much as possible.
These officers would have had no idea in such a fast moving situation whether the suspect was acting alone or as part of a cell. He needed to be neutralised as soon as possible in order to keep people safe. He wasn’t showing his hands; he was still holding a bloodied weapon that he had just used to attack Jewish members of the public; he had been moving rapidly towards them, and they would have had no idea if he was wearing an explosive vest (wearing a coat on a warm day is never a good sign).
Policing is not theatre. It is not performed for social media approval. It is messy, fast and often brutal. Because the people officers deal with are messy, fast and often brutal. A man armed with a knife who has already stabbed two people, who refuses repeated commands to disarm and who continues to pose a threat even after being tasered, is not “under control”. He is an active danger until the weapon is removed. That is the reality, no matter how uncomfortable it makes Left-leaning commentators feel.
The idea that officers should politely wait or somehow apply ‘gentler’ tactics while a suspect still has the capacity to kill is not just naïve in the extreme, it is dangerous. It puts officers’ lives at risk. It puts the public at risk. And it reveals a complete detachment from reality (I am reminded of the occasion when then Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, declared that Islamic State murderer Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi should have been arrested in war-torn Syria rather than killed.)
This is the gap at the heart of modern public debate on policing. One side deals in real-world consequences. The other deals in optics. The officers in Golders Green had seconds to act. Not minutes. Not the luxury of hindsight, slow-motion replays or viral commentary. Seconds. In those seconds they made unquestionably the right decision: remove the threat as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary short of lethal force. And that point matters. Because the same voices now condemning ‘excessive force’ would be the first to demand answers if those officers had hesitated and others had been stabbed.
There is also an uncomfortable truth that many would rather avoid: this attack was not just violent, it was targeted. Two visibly Jewish men were attacked in broad daylight in a part of London with a large Jewish community. That context matters. It should matter. It’s part of an ever growing pattern of antisemitic attacks carried out by people holding extreme Islamist ideologies.
Yet instead of sustained outrage about antisemitic violence, the conversation was almost immediately derailed, redirected toward the conduct of the officers who stopped it. That inversion of priorities is telling.
It reflects a culture where the instinct is no longer to back those who confront violence but to scrutinise them first, and often most harshly. Where the benefit of the doubt is extended to offenders, those enforcing the law are expected to meet an impossible standard of perfection under extreme pressure – often from their own senior management.
And it is precisely this culture that erodes effective policing. If every split-second decision is second guessed by people with no operational understanding, officers will become more hesitant. More risk-averse. Less pro-active. That is not compassion. It is a recipe for more victims.
None of this means police should be beyond scrutiny. Of course they shouldn’t be. But scrutiny requires context. It requires full evidence. It requires intellectual honesty. A selectively edited clip on social media is not scrutiny. It is propaganda. That is the real issue here.
Not just one commentator getting it wrong, but an entire ecosystem that rewards outrage over accuracy, speed over truth and narrative over fact. The Metropolitan Police, to their credit, did something increasingly necessary: they put out the full body-worn footage. They showed the public what actually happened. And when people saw the complete picture, the narrative collapsed. Because reality is stubborn like that.
In the end, strip away the noise and the incentives of social media and the situation becomes very simple. A violent attacker stabbed two innocent men. Two unarmed officers confronted him. They stopped him. They went home alive, and so did everyone else.
That is not a scandal. That is policing working exactly as it should.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 09:20Europe’s population is no longer replacing itself.
Across the continent, fertility rates have fallen below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain stable population levels, with no country meeting that threshold as of 2024.
The map below, via Visual Capitalist's Gabriel Cohen, shows the number of live births per woman across Europe using the most recent data from Eurostat, FRED, and the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
From Ukraine (0.99) to Spain (1.1), some of Europe’s largest countries now rank among those with the lowest birth rates, highlighting how widespread the decline has become.
Fertility Crisis in South and Eastern EuropeEurope’s lowest birth rates are concentrated in the east and south, where economic strain and geopolitical instability have accelerated long-term declines.
Ukraine has seen the sharpest drop. Its fertility rate, which last exceeded the replacement level in 1986, fell to 0.9 in 2022 before recovering slightly to 0.99 in 2024.
Among countries at peace, Malta has one of the lowest fertility rates at 1.01, followed by Spain (1.1) and Poland (1.14).
This data table lists European countries alongside their fertility rates as of 2024.
Lower fertility in countries like Spain and Poland reflects a mix of economic pressures, including lower wages and the rising cost of raising children, alongside broader trends seen across developed economies.
Aging populations are already reshaping national priorities. As Poland seeks to build a larger military, its shrinking population presents a strategic vulnerability.
Europe’s Fertility WoesThis trend extends across the continent. Europe’s largest economies, including Germany (1.36), the UK (1.41), France (1.61), and Italy (1.18), all remain well below replacement levels.
Even countries with relatively higher fertility rates, such as Bulgaria (1.72) and Montenegro (1.75), are not producing enough births to stabilize their populations.
One response has been increased immigration. In Germany, migration policy in the mid-2010s was shaped partly by the need to support the country’s labor system. However, this approach has also fueled political backlash and the rise of anti-immigration parties.
Family Incentives As A Solution?Some countries are attempting to boost birth rates through financial incentives. France, Hungary, and Poland have introduced tax credits, subsidies, and other programs aimed at encouraging larger families.
Hungary, for example, has spent over a decade expanding benefits for young couples, with the goal of reaching the 2.1 replacement rate by 2030.
So far, the results have been limited. Hungary’s fertility rate of 1.41 is similar to countries like the UK and Portugal, suggesting that financial incentives alone may not reverse the broader trend.
To learn more about this topic, check out the Which European Nations Have the Best Fertility Treatment Policies? on Voronoi.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 08:45Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
British kids as young as five are now being read picture books that paint small boat crossings in glowing terms and urge them to open the door to unlimited migration.
While record numbers of illegal arrivals strain housing, schools and public services, left-wing charities are using taxpayer-backed programmes to turn classrooms into recruitment centres for open borders ideology.
More than 1,100 schools and nurseries across the UK have signed up to the Schools of Sanctuary programme, run by the City of Sanctuary network. The scheme requires schools to complete a “rigorous” award process to prove they are “working collaboratively to strengthen community approaches to welcoming refugee children and families.” Once awarded, they pay a minimum donation of £75 to £300.
Children's books with pro-migrant messaging that teach pupils 'everybody's welcome' are being shared in scheme promoted at more than 1,000 schools https://t.co/0Yc556WpXS
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) April 30, 2026As part of the programme, schools are given a suggested reading list packed with pro-migrant messaging. One book, Kind by Alison Green, illustrated by renowned children’s illustrators such as Quentin Blake and Axel Scheffler, tells children: “Sometimes people have lived through very hard times. They’ve had to leave their homes and their countries because of danger. They are brave and amazing and have extraordinary stories to tell.”
It continues: “Sometimes people say there’s no room for anyone more. But maybe you can say ‘There’s plenty of room! Come on in!’ After all, if you don’t let people in, you’ll never know what you’re missing.”
Yeah, come on in! In fact, come on in and live in a hotel in a nice green village, all at taxpayer expense!
The book features a cartoon lion in a crowded boat with other animals and encourages pupils to share toys, draw pictures together and even learn words from a foreign child’s language.
Children told to welcome 'brave and amazing' illegal migrants - and even share their toys with themhttps://t.co/4Uz4uofgJF
— GB News (@GBNEWS) April 29, 2026Another title, Everybody’s Welcome by Patricia Hegarty, states plainly: “Everybody’s welcome, no matter who they are, wherever they may come from, whether near or far.”
No matter who they are. Never a truer word spoken.
The classic Elmer and the Hippos is also recommended. In it, elephants initially resent hippos arriving at their river because “there isn’t enough room for them and us.” By the end, the two groups work together and become friends after clearing a blockage.
Except of course, in this story none of the hippos go on a stabbing or raping spree. Something the UK is experiencing every single day now.
Schools are also encouraged to hold an annual “Day of Welcome” in June, complete with non-uniform days to raise funds for the scheme or local migrant-support groups. Secondary pupils can even meet real-life refugees promoted by the charity.
What could possibly go wrong?
Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott has demanded the books be withdrawn “immediately.” She told the Daily Mail: “Classrooms should be places of learning not promoting political ideology, schools have a very clear duty to stay out of politics.”
Trott added: “Portraying the arrival of small boats as a positive thing in books for children as young as five is indoctrination, this is an illegal practice. This organisation has already made clear its aim is to turn pupils into ‘ethically informed change makers’ and that crosses a very clear line.”
She concluded: “We must get a grip on these third party resources infiltrating our schools and peddling political agendas to young children.”
The City of Sanctuary UK defended the materials, saying it “works with schools to support a culture of welcome, inclusion and understanding for all members of the community.” It added: “Our suggested educational resources, including book recommendations, are designed to help children develop empathy, critical thinking, and awareness of the experiences of others.”
A Pattern of School IndoctrinationThis is not an isolated incident. It fits a clear pattern of using British schools to enforce mass-migration acceptance while cracking down on any pushback.
As we previously highlighted, the far left UK Green Party, which is about to become much more influential in Parliament with upcoming local elections, wants to teach children they have a “moral obligation” to accept unlimited immigration:
The current government has also urged schools to snitch on “anti-Muslim hostility” in an Orwellian crackdown:
Meanwhile, counter-terror police are running ads warning teenagers that sharing “funny content” online could amount to terrorism:
And a government-funded video game explicitly warned kids they could be flagged as terrorists for questioning mass migration:
Even primary school children are not exempt from the rampant indoctrination:
The message is relentless: British children must be conditioned to accept endless migration, share what little they have, and never question whether “there’s plenty of room.”
After all, we’re reliably told to expect the arrival of another 7 MILLION migrants in the coming years:
Seven million migrants will come to the UK in the next decade, pushing the nation’s population to a record high, according to official data.
🔗: https://t.co/MMfQoPCSMN pic.twitter.com/c4Sakfay43
Parents and politicians are right to push back. Schools exist to educate, not to manufacture “ethically informed change makers” for the open-borders lobby. Until third-party political materials are banned from the curriculum and real scrutiny is applied to groups like City of Sanctuary, Britain’s classrooms will continue serving as recruitment tools for the very policies destroying community cohesion and national identity.
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Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 08:10Ukraine has been demonstrating deeper targeting reach inside Russia, as several key oil sites have come under direct drone attack this week, resulting in significant destruction.
This as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday announced "a new stage in the use of Ukrainian weapons to limit the potential of Russia's war."
Satellite image of Perm attack aftermath, via Reuters.The massive Tuapse complex on Russia's Black Sea coast has been hit no less than three times in under a month, sparking a series of massive fires that in some cases took days for emergency crews to extinguish.
In some cases, targets in the Urals - nearly 1,000 miles away from the Ukraine border - have been hit.
Transneft’s oil pumping and distribution facility in the city of Perm was struck this week, which lies very far into Russian territory.
The Ukraine Security Service (SBU) owned up to it, boasting that the targeted facility is "a strategically important hub of the main oil transportation system." It further declared that "almost all oil storage tanks are on fire."
Amid the fresh Perm attack, Russia had said it downed nearly 100 Ukrainian drones across various regions, while Russia’s presidential envoy to the region, Artem Zhoga, conceded that "The Urals are now within reach, be vigilant."
Putin's office has also denounced these fresh assaults on oil facilities as "terrorist attacks". As for the prior Black Sea export and refining hub attacks of the last month, CNN reviews:
For the third time in 12 days, the Russian Black Sea town of Tuapse woke up Tuesday to apocalyptic scenes.
Thick toxic fumes, and flames rising up from the latest Ukrainian drone attack on the Rosneft-owned Tuapse oil refinery, almost reached the heights of the surrounding Caucasus mountains.
By Thursday morning, authorities said the fire had been extinguished. Fires from the two previous attacks, on April 16 and 20, also took days to put out, with toxic substances pouring down in black rain and blanketing cars and streets in oily grime, leading to what experts are dubbing the worst environmental disaster in the region in years.
Huge fireball at Perm oil site...
Ukrainian drone attacks have struck Perm (about 1,500 km from Ukraine), targeting oil infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/lCXo8Pb1tb
— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 30, 2026Currently, the globe's attention is largely focused on the Iran war and the Hormuz Strait blockade, and with that efforts to reach a political and peace settlement in Ukraine have faded as well. Earlier in the Ukraine war, these major refinery attacks would dominate world headlines, but at the moment they have remained in the background given the constant Iran-related news flow. President Putin has lately communicated to Trump that he's open to a 'Victory Day' ceasefire, a proposal the Kremlin said Washington has backed.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 07:35A new poll from the presitigous ifop polling firm shows that a large majority of French citizens believe in a core tenent of the Great Replacement.
Specifically, 60 percent of French people told ifop they believe we are witnessing “a replacement of the French population by non-European populations, mainly from the African continent.”
The poll also found that 66 percent see it as a bad development, compared to 9 percent who see it as a good thing.
Two weeks ago, Marion Maréchal, leader of Identité Libertés, posted to X: “60% of French people think that we are witnessing ‘a replacement of the French population by non-European populations mainly from Africa’ according to @IfopOpinion. To our greatest misfortune, our rulers are among the 40%.”
Analyst Paul Cébille, from the Hexagone Observatory, posted the same line.
💥📊 Chiffre choc passé inaperçu⤵️
🔸60% des Français pensent que l'on assiste à "un remplacement de la population française par des populations non-européennes principalement issues du continent africain."
🔸Et 66% y voient une mauvaise chose, contre 9% une bonne.
IFOP, 2026 pic.twitter.com/61AZT0XfUS
According to the data from IFOP, 7 percent are undecided.
According to the French Directorate General for Foreigners (DGEF), valid French residence permits in 2025 hit an unprecedented level of 4.5 million, an increase of approximately 3 percent, driven primarily by multi-year permits and long-term resident cards, writes Le Journal du Dimanche.
For 2025, one in three permits was issued for family reasons (1.5 million), while one in five was an automatic renewal. New permits also increased to 384,000, a jump of 11 percent, which was partly driven by a 65 percent increase in admissions for humanitarian reasons.
Foreigners with legal status now represent 8.1 percent of France’s adult population, with a high concentration of nationalities from the Maghreb. At the same time, regularizations have declined (-10%, to 28,610), while deportations have increased sharply (+15.7%, to 24,985), reaching their highest level in a decade, notes JDD.
Maréchal more recently posted a telling video of the number of illegals coming to the EU, blasting French leaders for their continuous stance of “above all, let’s do nothing!”
L’immigration illégale dans l’UE de 2008 à 2024. Chaque point représente 100 clandestins.
Réaction des gouvernements français successifs en voyant cela : « surtout ne faisons rien ! ». pic.twitter.com/0G78rKLeIy
Maréchal has also been a vocal critic of Spain’s Socialist PM Pedro Sánchez for his “irresponsible regularization of 500,000 undocumented immigrants,” a figure that some say is likely to skyrocket to over 1.5 million.
“Closing Schengen at the Spanish border is a vital act to deter and protect the French and Europeans,” she wrote. The National Rally’s Jordan Bardella has also sounded the alarm over what many consider an immediate threat to France. Bardella has made it clear that he feels the EU must alter current rules to disallow free movement within Schengen for those holding a resident permit.
Tyler Durden Sun, 05/03/2026 - 07:00