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UK Mulls Military Support For Saudis Against Houthis After MbS Appeal

UK Mulls Military Support For Saudis Against Houthis After MbS Appeal

Amid ongoing Saudi humiliation as the Houthis have rapidly expanded their territory in Yemen, which involved a 36-hour period last week where the rebels took control of the country's entire Red Sea coast, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) is desperately seeking military help from key allies in the West and regionally.

Already rejected by the Trump administration (other than some few dozen American advisors being brought into the kingdom to help guide a response), Britain is weighing whether to step up.

According to Bloomberg, the Saudi government has issued a formal request to Andy Burnham's government for operational support in repelling the Iran-aligned rebels, given their threat over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and amid the increased attacks inside the kingdom on airbases and Aramco oil sites.

Like the meager US response, Burnham has agreed to send British military advisors, Bloomberg notes, while contemplating potentially bigger action - which has yet to be decided.

The key problem remains that after drones struck the kingdom's East-West oil pipeline, which is expected to be down for major repairs for a month or more, Riyadh is looking to increase its amount of oil shipments to offset the losses. Reuters has indicated at least five or six weeks for the pipeline to come back online.

And now it is both the Iranians and Houthis threatening its exports, and not to mention Shia militias out of Iraq (the latter believed responsible for the drone attack on the pipeline). Oil has soared since last week's Houthi blitz against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, allowing it to tighten its 'siege for siege' policy against Saudi Arabia.

Not only do the Saudis desperately want British help in Yemen, but MbS is flying to Cairo Tuesday, where he will likely also asked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for military support.

Reports also say he wants Turkish help, especially in light of the recently inked Mecca Defense Pact - which so far hasn't resulted in any kind of 'Article 5-style' response.

As for where things stand on the battlefield, and amid more overnight reports of Houthis ballistic missiles fired on Saudi Arabia, one pundit has offered a hilariously accurate assessment of Saudi Arabia's performance thus far. Bill Buppert of The Libertarian Institute writes:

I’m not sure there has been a more incompetent regional military power as the Saudis since Italy in WWII. They have the 8th largest military budget in the world. The Saudis pour billions into their military for the very best state-of-the-art equipment which makes the result even more comical.

Their whole army is designed for vibes and aura farming.

They’re the opposite of the Italians. Italy had terrible production, equipment and leadership, but actually fought bravely, whereas the Saudis are given all the equipment and advisors they could dream of and still fail.

Mind you, the current conflict is primarily between the Yemeni military and Houthi militants. Currently the Saudis only provide logistical support and airstrikes.

The whole first book of Dune revolves around underestimating the Fremen.

The commentator then concludes: "Money can’t buy competence" - after Washington and London have spent decades sinking billions into Saudi military readiness and base infrastructure.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 08:40

UK Mulls Military Support For Saudis Against Houthis After MbS Appeal

UK Mulls Military Support For Saudis Against Houthis After MbS Appeal

Amid ongoing Saudi humiliation as the Houthis have rapidly expanded their territory in Yemen, which involved a 36-hour period last week where the rebels took control of the country's entire Red Sea coast, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) is desperately seeking military help from key allies in the West and regionally.

Already rejected by the Trump administration (other than some few dozen American advisors being brought into the kingdom to help guide a response), Britain is weighing whether to step up.

According to Bloomberg, the Saudi government has issued a formal request to Andy Burnham's government for operational support in repelling the Iran-aligned rebels, given their threat over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and amid the increased attacks inside the kingdom on airbases and Aramco oil sites.

Like the meager US response, Burnham has agreed to send British military advisors, Bloomberg notes, while contemplating potentially bigger action - which has yet to be decided.

The key problem remains that after drones struck the kingdom's East-West oil pipeline, which is expected to be down for major repairs for a month or more, Riyadh is looking to increase its amount of oil shipments to offset the losses. Reuters has indicated at least five or six weeks for the pipeline to come back online.

And now it is both the Iranians and Houthis threatening its exports, and not to mention Shia militias out of Iraq (the latter believed responsible for the drone attack on the pipeline). Oil has soared since last week's Houthi blitz against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, allowing it to tighten its 'siege for siege' policy against Saudi Arabia.

Not only do the Saudis desperately want British help in Yemen, but MbS is flying to Cairo Tuesday, where he will likely also asked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for military support.

Reports also say he wants Turkish help, especially in light of the recently inked Mecca Defense Pact - which so far hasn't resulted in any kind of 'Article 5-style' response.

As for where things stand on the battlefield, and amid more overnight reports of Houthis ballistic missiles fired on Saudi Arabia, one pundit has offered a hilariously accurate assessment of Saudi Arabia's performance thus far. Bill Buppert of The Libertarian Institute writes:

I’m not sure there has been a more incompetent regional military power as the Saudis since Italy in WWII. They have the 8th largest military budget in the world. The Saudis pour billions into their military for the very best state-of-the-art equipment which makes the result even more comical.

Their whole army is designed for vibes and aura farming.

They’re the opposite of the Italians. Italy had terrible production, equipment and leadership, but actually fought bravely, whereas the Saudis are given all the equipment and advisors they could dream of and still fail.

Mind you, the current conflict is primarily between the Yemeni military and Houthi militants. Currently the Saudis only provide logistical support and airstrikes.

The whole first book of Dune revolves around underestimating the Fremen.

The commentator then concludes: "Money can’t buy competence" - after Washington and London have spent decades sinking billions into Saudi military readiness and base infrastructure.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 08:40

Futures Drop As Yields, Oil Prices Keep Rising

Futures Drop As Yields, Oil Prices Keep Rising

Futures are lower - but well off session lows thanks to some well-time oil sell orders just before US traders walked in to work - as bond yields continue to make new highs, with both Nasdaq and Russell lagging the S&P which feels like more de-risking into tomorrow's Fed release. AS of 8:15am ET, S&P and Nasdaq futures are down 0.1% amid premarket weakness in Mag7 with GOOG / META / MSFT all down at least 90bp but NVDA in the green helping Semis outperform on the move lower. Memory / Korea names are bid despite Kospi closing lower. Energy, Utils, and pockets of Healthcare are higher with the other sectors weaker pre-market. The yield curve is bear steepening as yields continue to march higher in response to oil/energy and growth. The 10Y rose as high as 5.04% before retracing back to around 5.0% USD is stronger. Crude is +2% as the UKR / RU détente on striking energy infra fails to materialize and growing chatter of UK aiding Saudis in fighting the Houthis. Ags are mixed and Metals are weaker, with Base outperforming Precious. Today’s macro data focus is on weekly ADP and Empire Mfg.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are mostly lower: Nvidia +0.5%, Tesla -0.1%, Amazon -0.2%, Meta -0.5%, Apple -0.6%, Alphabet -0.9%, Microsoft -0.9%

  • Cryptocurrency-linked stocks fall on waning optimism that a comprehensive US crypto regulatory bill will progress this week.
  • Dave & Buster’s (PLAY) drops 13% after the restaurant and arcade chain operator reported revenue for the second quarter that missed the average analyst estimate.
  • Eli Lilly (LLY) is up 1.3% after Berenberg upgraded the pharmaceutical giant, with analysts arguing it’s worthy of a more significant valuation premium due to its superior growth profile and the breadth of its pipeline.
  • Enova International (ENVA) falls 18% after the financial services company withdrew its applications with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve for the acquisition of Grasshopper Bancorp.
  • Etsy (ETSY) rises 3% after Oppenheimer upgraded the online retailer to outperform, citing improvements the company is making to its platform.
  • Forgent Power Solutions (FPS) gains 9% after the power equipment company reported fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted Ebitda above a guidance range given in May. The company’s backlog grew 256% year-over-year.
  • Vera Therapeutics (VERA) jumps 12% after the drugmaker gave updated results from a late-stage trial of its recently approved drug for a kidney disorder.
  • Waystar (WAY), which provides payment-related software to health-care organizations, rises 12% after a Reuters report that said the company is exploring options that include a sale. The report cited sources familiar with the matter.

In other corporate news, Enova International withdrew its bank regulatory applications for the acquisition of Grasshopper Bancorp. Dave & Buster’s shares fell in premarket trading after the restaurant and arcade chain operator reported second quarter results below expectations.

Elevated bond yields, which overnight hit a new 19 year high of 5.04% before reversing, are setting the tone for markets, placing surging energy costs and mounting debt firmly on traders’ radar. Enthusiasm for the AI trade, the major driver of equity gains this year, also remains tempered as debate rages over whether the technology may inflict catastrophic harm. A surprising note from Goldman found that the momentum trade is shifting notably under the surface. 

“Of course the bond selloff is weighing on tech and growth stocks,” said Louis Puga at Societe de Gestion Prevoir. “There are really two worlds at play here: on one side healthy corporate balance sheets and profits, and on the other side countries running big deficits and putting pressure on the bond market.”

The weakness in bonds raises the stakes ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision on Wednesday, for which money markets are pricing in more than a 90% chance of a hike. If officials hold off, or Chair Kevin Warsh signals a shallower-than-expected path of tightening, investors may demand even higher yields as protection against inflation.

“After years of inflation overshooting target, the Fed’s credibility is under scrutiny,” wrote Jenny Zeng at Allianz Global Investors. Warsh’s “recent comments leave little doubt that restoring price stability remains the priority. September is the meeting where that commitment is put to the test.”

A resilient economic backdrop and cautious investor positioning suggest the equity market can absorb more pressure before the rally comes under threat, Bloomberg proposes. “Being early is the same as being wrong, so I’d be careful not to declare the game over too soon,” Rowe says. Still, investors are keen to make protective moves: Hedging demand is ticking higher, with three of the four largest VIX trades this year all taking place in the last two weeks.

Underneath the AI rhetoric, the picture is more nuanced. Growth won’t suddenly change and adoption and token use remain high, while any move by leading AI developers to slow the frontier could hand an advantage to some of the hyperscalers. Still, investors are likely to become more selective about picking potential winners. 

Monday’s chip drawdown was also reflective of positioning: The latest BofA global fund manager survey revealed that long global semiconductor stocks is the single most crowded trade, according to more than half of respondents. The poll also showed fading exuberance around risk assets, with net 49% of managers now overweight global equities compared with 56% last month.

In politics, the Supreme Court refused to clear the Postal Service to enforce new restrictions on mail-in ballots for the midterm elections, rebuffing the Trump administration’s request to intervene. Gavin Newsom said he would not run for president in 2028 if Kamala Harris enters the race, ruling out a potential primary showdown between two of California’s most prominent Democrats.

Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell 0.2%. Deutsche Bank slipped more than 2%, echoing declines among US peers after Bank of America warned that trading revenue for the current quarter will be flat. Regional bonds were mixed. Here are the biggest movers Tuesday:

  • Kety shares rose as much as 9.7% after the Polish aluminum products and packaging maker agreed to buy Italy’s Metra from KPS Capital Partners
  • Shares in Acciona Energía and parent Acciona advanced after newspaper Expansión reported that EQT and Norges Bank Investment Management have joined forces to bid for the Spanish renewables company
  • Defense stocks outperformed a struggling broader market on Tuesday morning, with the sector boosted by US inventory shortfalls and news that Japan could raise defense spending
  • Wickes shares rose as much as 9.9%, the biggest intraday gain since May 2025, after the home improvement retailer reported a “significantly improved trend” in the third quarter and said it remains confident it can meet full-year expectations
  • Kier shares rose as much as 4.8%, the most since July, after the UK infrastructure contractor’s FY26 results showed continued growth in orders and the firm announced it would reallocate capital for property investment toward the balance sheet
  • Schott Pharma climbed as much as 5.5%, the most in almost a month, as JPMorgan initiates at overweight with a Street-high €27.1 price target, citing supportive structural trends and the German pharma packaging company’s market leading role
  • Trustpilot shares dropped as much as 20%, the most since December 2025, after the online review platform’s results were “noisier than usual” according to JPMorgan analysts, who noted one-off items that impacted the firm’s top-line and lack of a guidance upgrade
  • European lenders declined following US peers weakness after Bank of America’s CEO said trading revenue will be “relatively flat” compared with last year’s third quarter
  • Lundbeck shares slid as much as 5.9%, the most since February, after Deutsche Bank downgraded the pharmaceutical company to sell, noting headwinds including a patent cliff for Rexulti that are set to weigh on sales in the medium term
  • Deutz shares fell as much as 7% after the German engine manufacturer successfully completed a cash capital increase via accelerated bookbuilding
  • UniCredit shares fell as much as 2.9% after RBC Capital Markets initiated coverage at sector perform, saying there are few catalysts for a rerating of the Italian lender while earnings are clouded by its ongoing attempt to acquire Commerzbank

Asian stocks declined, dragged by financials, as headwinds mount for the market on higher oil prices and US 10-year Treasury yields breaching the 5% mark. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 1%, poised for a fourth-straight session of losses. Asian banks declined, following US peers lower after Bank of America said its trading revenue will be “relatively flat.” Singapore led broad losses across the region, while equities rose in Vietnam. Spiking bond yields and oil prices are weighing on the macro outlook ahead of expected monetary tightening this week in the US and Japan. The Asian benchmark has fallen 3.7% over four days. Asian banks may take some cue after JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley give some color on trading revenue at a conference in New York tonight, said Kieran Calder, head of Asia equity research at Union Bancaire Privee.

Meanwhile, Citigroup cautioned that bearish bets have increased across global markets, with Asia having the weakest positioning. On the other hand, BlackRock has returned to an overweight recommendation on emerging-market equities including South Korea and Taiwan, betting that access to scarce resources needed for the AI boom and strong earnings will drive outperformance.

“Rising yields and energy prices are creating a risk-off environment,” said Bilal Khan, head of international equity sales, at Arif Habib. “Chip-related stocks did show some resilience earlier in the session before adding to the selloff.”

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rises for a second day, with the yen underperforming.

In rates, bond markets continue to decline, with 10-year US Treasury yields hitting the highest since 2007. Yields are higher across the board in Europe too. Treasuries are mixed in early US session with long-end yields still about 2bp cheaper on the day after retreating from session highs as oil gains fade. Yields across tenors reached fresh YTD highs, the 10-year its highest level since 2007.  Front-end Treasury yields are little changed, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s curves by about 2bp; 10-year is back around 5% after peaking at 5.04% Gilts hold similar moves following Telegraph report that the Bank of England could soon stop selling long-dated bonds
$13 billion 20-year bond reopening has WI yield near 5.41%, about 21bp cheaper than last month’s new-issue auction, which tailed by half a basis point, IG dollar issuance slate includes a couple of deals. Ten offerings totaling almost $24 billion were priced Monday with issuers paying about 2bp in new issue concessions on deals that were 4.1 times covered. At least five borrowers stood down Monday, setting the stage for another heavy slate Tuesday. US session includes 20-year bond reopening at 1 p.m. New York time.

US stock futures are falling. European equities are sinking too, with a drag from financial services and banking stocks, the latter after downbeat comments from Bank of America’s CEO on trading revenue in the third quarter.

In commodities, oil prices are up, with Brent rising above $108/bbl as traders weigh ongoing disruptions to supplies, before sliding around the time US traders (but mostly Jane Street) walked into the room.  WTI crude has pared a 2.8% gain to about 1%.Gold is sinking further below $4,300/oz and base metal prices have also dipped.

US economic data slate includes weekly ADP employment change (8:15am) and September Empire manufacturing (8:30am); Fed speakers remain in external communications blackout period around the Sept. 15-16 FOMC meeting

Market Snapshot

Top Overnight News

  • Saudi Arabia has increasingly found itself caught in the middle of the war between the United States and Iran. Now, the kingdom’s leadership is assessing dwindling options on how to respond.  NYT
  • The Defense Department’s inspector general released its first report on the war with Iran on Monday, saying the conflict has resulted in a shortfall of U.S. munitions and “bottlenecks” in supply chains as the Trump administration works to replenish weaponry. NBC
  • Offering a grim assessment of Russia’s relations with the West, President Vladimir Putin pointedly warned European governments not to deploy any troops, including peacekeeping forces, to Ukraine, saying it would mean “war.” WaPo
  • Ukraine on Mon said it would end energy attacks if Russia did the same, but Kyiv is skeptical Moscow will agree to a halt. CNBC
  • Ukraine Strikes Russian Refinery, Drone Plant and Ozon Facility in Massive Overnight Attack: Kyiv Post
  • Japan is considering a new mid-term defense spending target of 3.5% of GDP in line with NATO and other US allies, a move that could send a shockwave through financial markets concerned about Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s spending plans. BBG
  • Japan Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s cabinet approved a plan to temporarily reduce the consumption tax on food, moving closer to delivering on a key election pledge to ease the burden on households from the soaring cost of living. BBG
  • The Bank of England ​is poised to announce this week that it will stop selling long-dated government bonds which ‌have been hit by a global selloff in debt markets, potentially freeing up some cash for finance minister John Healey: Telegraph 
  • China’s domestic economic indicators weakened further last month, piling pressure on policymakers to take more forceful measures to reinvigorate growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Retail sales grew 0.4% year-on-year in August, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday, down from 0.6% growth in July and falling short of a median forecast of 0.8% growth. FT
  • Industrial America is contending with a fresh wave of supply chain inflation as Donald Trump’s Iran war pushes up energy costs, tariffs raise import prices and the AI boom strains supplies of crucial electronics. FT
  • There is another factor that could add Treasury bonds volatility into the mix: hedge funds, a growing force in this market. Hedge funds held about $2 trillion of Treasurys at the start of this year, more than double their holdings five years earlier, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research, which said hedge funds controlled a record 7% of the market. Data released by the Federal Reserve on Friday suggests that funds’ Treasury holdings remain elevated. WSJ
  • US House Democrats will reportedly challenge US Treasury Secretary Bessent on rising costs at the Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, Semafor reported citing a memo, with questions also to include bonds, tariffs, Russia, Iran and crypto.
  • US Supreme Court rejected Trump administration mail ballot curbs for the Midterms.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded mostly lower following the recent tech selling that was triggered by calls from industry CEOs for a slowdown in AI development, which President Trump pushed back against, while participants digested mixed Chinese activity data and await major central bank meetings. ASX 200 underperformed amid weakness in the mining, materials, resources and financial sectors, while risk sentiment was also not helped by the rising yield environment. Nikkei 225 was choppy, while Kioxia benefited from reports that Kioxia is weighing a US listing next year. However, the index then stumbled and briefly turned negative before rebounding again. KOSPI saw two-way price action amid the choppy mood in the local tech giants. South Korea's main stock exchange saw its first after-hours trading session, trading between 16:00-20:00 KST. According to data cited by Bloomberg, volatility spikes in individual stocks triggered brief trading halts 1,637 times, over 4x the number during the regular session. This shows the lack of liquidity provided and will therefore remain risky until institutional traders provide more liquidity. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were indecisive following several data releases from China, including a continued contraction in House Prices and mixed activity data in which Industrial Production topped forecasts but Retail Sales disappointed, while Fixed Assets Investment weakened and the Urban Unemployment ticked higher.

Top Asian News

  • China's stats bureau said August economic activity was generally steady, though the impact of an unfavourable external environment is deepening. NBS stated residents' ability and willingness to spend should be enhanced, while it added the supply of high-quality goods and services should be improved.
  • Japan is said to mull raising defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, according to Bloomberg. However, Finance Minister Katayama stated that she is not aware of the report.
  • Japan Finance Minister Katayama said Japan will include that a food sales tax cut will be limited to two years in upcoming legislation and that Japan will assess tax revenue, review spending and aim to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio in the upcoming budgeting process. Katayama added that Japan will control new debt issuance through the combined initial and supplementary budgets. Furthermore, she said the government will maintain market credibility by reviewing spending and revenue and will not rely on deficit-financing bonds to fund tax cuts.
  • Japanese PM Takaichi is set to reshuffle LDP executives on Wednesday ahead of a cabinet reshuffle on Thursday

European bourses (STOXX 600 -0.8%) are entirely in the red, as higher energy prices and yields continue to weigh on equities. Not much in terms of geopolitics overnight, outside of the continued strikes on Saudi airbases by the Houthis. On the data front, the UK jobs report was mixed; payrolls fell more than expected while the unemployment rate held steady. Little reaction was seen in the FTSE 100. Sectors highlight the negative bias, with Retail the only sector printing modest gains. Financial Services is the clear sector laggard, with Basic Resources and Consumer Products & Services following closely behind.

Top European News

  • ECB’s Moulin said the current increase in long-term bond yields reflects higher supply and increased inflation expectations and added that the inflation outlook justified recent ECB rate rise. On government debt, he said member states must take steps to reduce budget deficits. Specifically for France, he said that France’s debt agency has no problem selling bonds, with no difficulty for the French Treasury in raising funds.
  • Worldpanel said UK Grocery inflation at 2.3% in 4 weeks to Sep (vs 2.1% in Aug).

FX

  • Snapshot: G10s are broadly lower against the USD, which continues to benefit from stronger energy prices and elevated yields. The JPY remains the underperformer on wider yield differentials, whilst high-beta Antipodeans have been pressured by the risk environment.
  • DXY is firmer this morning and trades at the upper end of a 99.47 to 99.68 range. Strength is facilitated by higher energy prices and elevated yields, with the US 10-year topping the 5.00% mark. Should geopols/yields remain stable heading into the FOMC on Wednesday, then the index will likely hover within recent ranges.
  • JPY continues to underperform, paring back a few weeks of strength. As mentioned previously, the next bout of strength for the JPY would likely require a hawkish BoJ this week - one which would see policymakers explicitly guide for a faster pace of rate hikes. Elsewhere, Finance Minister Katayama was on the wires earlier, where she stated that she was not aware of reports that the government plans to boost defence budget spending to 3.5% of GDP (vs current 1.9%).
  • GBP has been hampered by the broad USD strength. Earlier, markets saw the release of a mixed Jobs/Wages report, whereby Unemployment remained steady at 4.9% (exp. 5%), whilst the wages components were in-line. Overall, it will not do much to shift views at the BoE ahead of Thursday’s meeting, where expectations are for rates to remain on hold.

Fixed Income

  • Global fixed benchmarks are entirely in the red, and yields have risen to multi-decade/record highs. USTs (-14 ticks) are the clear underperformers, whilst Bunds (-20 ticks) and Gilts (-14 ticks) also remain in the red.
  • USTs are the clear underperformers today. It appears that an accumulation of a) higher energy prices, b) hawkish Fed repricing, c) fiscal stability woes have all caught up to the benchmark. Moreover, there may be some concession heading into the US 20-year auction later today; for reference, the Japanese outing for the same maturity was solid.
  • From a yield perspective, the US 10-year (5.02%) holds beyond the key 5.00% mark, after making a peak of 5.04% earlier this morning. This brings the yield to levels not seen since the GFC. The Fed policy decision on Wednesday should see yields edge off highs (at the long-end), however, a convincing breach below the 5% mark would also likely require a hawkish SEP/commentary. This, in theory, would help ease stability concerns at the long-end; but of course, other factors such as AI-issuance and the Middle East crisis will temper any moves lower.
  • Gilts are pressured alongside peers, given energy dynamics. Earlier, a mixed jobs/wages report had little impact on Gilts at the open; the Unemployment Rate remained at 4.9% (exp. 5%), whilst wages were in-line. On the supply side, The Telegraph reported that the BoE has reportedly written plans with the DMO to overhaul its money-printing programme, with plans to stop selling 20- and 30-year gilts.
  • Bunds follow the above. There was little move to WPI, which saw the M/M top expectations. Thereafter, the German ZEW Survey was released, where Economic Sentiment rose incrementally from the prior, whilst Current Conditions improved. No move was seen in Bunds following the data.
  • The Bank of England has reportedly written plans with the DMO to overhaul its money-printing programme, with plans to stop selling 20- and 30-year gilts, according to the Telegraph.
  • Germany sells EUR 3.817bln vs Exp. 5bln 2.70% 2028 Schatz: b/c 1.26x (prev. 1.49x), average yield 3.27% (prev. 2.85%), retention 23.66% (prev. 23.4%).
  • UK sells GBP 1.25bln 2029 Gilt via Tender: b/c 3.65x (prev. 3.61x), average yield 4.818% (prev. 4.062%).
  • Japan sells JPY 532.1bln 20-year JGBs: b/c 4.01x (prev. 3.98), average yield 3.856% (prev. 3.698%), Tail in price 0.15 (prev. 0.17).

Commodities

  • WTI Oct and Brent Nov futures remain firmer as the Middle East conflict continues to underpin the complex, with Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline still offline following attacks, Riyadh seeking to boost shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran reiterating that the Strait remains closed and under its control. WTI trades towards the bottom end of a USD 101.83-103.49/bbl range (vs yesterday’s USD 100.53-104.95/bbl range), while Brent resides close to the current intraday peak within a USD 106.25-107.86/bbl range (vs yesterday’s USD 104.80-109.80/bbl range).
  • Dutch TTF are currently flat and off earlier highs, trading around EUR 82.50/MWh within a EUR 81.76-83.42/MWh range (vs yesterday’s EUR 79.52-84.50/MWh range), with the increasing energy-supply risks continuing to underpin European gas ahead of winter.
  • Precious metals are softer as the firmer USD and high oil prices reinforce expectations of a Fed hike tomorrow. Spot gold has slipped back below USD 4,300/oz and trades within a USD 4,261-4,317/oz range (vs yesterday’s USD 4,253-4,355/oz range), with the 100 DMA at USD 4,328.90/oz).
  • Base metals are subdued amid the firmer USD, softer risk tone and mixed Chinese activity data, with weak retail sales and investment offset somewhat by stronger industrial production. Copper is also pressured by fresh deliveries into LME warehouses signalling easing supply tightness. 3M LME copper trades on either side of USD 14k/t in a USD 13,985.85-14,083.68/t range.
  • Half of Russia’s leading diesel-producing refineries have reduced output following drone strikes.
  • Libya's oil and gas minister said they plan to raise nat gas production to 4bln SCFD within 3-5 years.
  • EPA Administrator said the US is proposing to rescind all major greenhouse gas emission standards for all power plants.
  • Oman November OSP for November delivery set at USD 128.48/bbl.
  • China Steel Association said it condemns overproduction and urges controls and urges for supply-side remedies, and strictly enforces output controls.

Central Banks

  • ECB staff committee urged for clarification whether President Lagarde will leave before the end of the term, warning that prolonged uncertainty risks damaging trust in the institution, according to FT.
  • NBP's Zarzecki said there's minimal room for Polish rate changes until end-2026.

Geopolitics: Iran

  • Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf said Iranian forces have full control of the Strait of Hormuz and will prevent enemy vessels from crossing.
  • Iran's top security official Rezaei said don’t get distracted by the US President’s mixed signals from 'no negotiations' to 'we’re ready to talk', while he added that stakes around oil and the straits have changed, damage control won’t stop what’s coming, and there will be no talks until Iran's conditions are met, period!
  • Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi held a phone call with Lebanon's House of Representatives Speaker Berri and discussed the need to strengthen coordination to confront Israel's efforts to ignite wars against Lebanon and countries in the region. Araghchi stressed Iran's keenness to preserve Lebanon's national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Israeli aggression, while he affirmed Iran's full support for the proud Lebanese resistance in the face of Israeli occupation and aggression.
  • UKMTO said they received a delayed report of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz, stating that a vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile.
  • UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday regarding developments around the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, according to Fars News Agency.
  • Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi held talks with the leader of Iraq’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Geopolitics: Ukraine

  • Sources cited by Russian press said US President Trump's statement on an energy truce is "an impromptu move", and that no decision was made on an energy truce in the latest talks in Moscow between the US delegation and Russian President Putin.
  • Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the US has never offered concessions to Russia over the Ukraine conflict in exchange for Moscow’s assistance in resolving the Iranian issue, Interfax reported. Furthermore, Lavrov said Russia is ready for reasonable compromises on Ukraine.
  • Russia Foreign Minister Lavrov plans to meet US Secretary of State Rubio on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, RIA reported.
  • Ukraine President Zelensky said Ukrainian forces made new gains at the Syzran refinery and struck a UAV production facility in Taganrog, a UAV preparation and launch base in the Oryol region, and targets in the Black Sea
  • NATO military jets were scrambled in Lithuania due to a drone near Vilnius and a military fighter jet shot down the drone in Lithuanian airspace, according to the National Crisis Management Centre.
  • A Russian presidential aide warned that if Poland enters a war against Russia, Moscow would use its entire military arsenal.

US Event Calendar

  • 8:30 am: United States Sep Empire Manufacturing, est. 15, prior 20.6

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

As I continue to bravely soldier on through manflu, markets have started the week with a few notable coughs and splutters as inflationary fears and talk of an AI slowdown have led to a difficult 24 hours. Although the weekend talk was all about AI, the broader market driver was a fresh rise in energy prices, with Brent crude (+1.02%) closing at $105.68/bbl, and back above $107 this morning, while European natural gas futures (+3.83%) hit their highest since 2022. So that pushed bond yields to multi-year highs, and we even saw the 10yr Treasury yield (+2.0bps to 4.99%) move above 5% in trading for the first time since 2023. It's back above that level in Asia as I type. The 5% threshold alone would have been a newsworthy day, but we simultaneously saw a huge slump for chip stocks given the AI slowdown headlines, with the Philly semiconductor index (-5.86%) posting its worst day since July. So it was another session where September lived up to its reputation as the worst month of the year for asset performance, with bonds and equities continuing to struggle. Today we'll hear from US Treasury Secretary Bessent in his testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. It'll be interesting to see if he tries to lean in some credible way against the rising tide of bond yields.  

Before this, geopolitical headlines were the biggest factor behind yesterday’s selloff. In part, this followed Friday night's closure of Saudi Arabia’s east-west pipeline, which acts as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. There was hope this was largely precautionary, but the Associated Press reported officials yesterday who said the repairs could take 3-5 weeks. So with another supply route taken out, that added to fears about a lengthier period of disruption. In addition, as we discussed yesterday morning, the meeting between Iran and other Gulf nations about a temporary shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz scheduled for Monday was postponed on Sunday. We don’t have the exact details, but Bloomberg reported that a source had suggested this was partly because of Saudi Arabia’s frustration at Iran-backed groups continuing attacks on its territory. So that dampened hopes about traffic resuming through the Strait of Hormuz anytime soon. 

We did see a decent turnaround later in the session after President Trump posted that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt their strikes on energy targets and made a series of posts about Iran, including that it “wants to make a deal, quickly and badly”. It later appeared that any Russia-Ukraine deal on energy strikes was not actually agreed yet, with Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy acknowledging a “strong US proposal” while saying that Ukraine would suspend its strikes if Russia were to stop attacks on Ukraine’s “energy facilities, critical infrastructure and food supply routes”. Still, with Trump’s posts suggesting an increased sensitivity to higher energy prices, and with Iran’s ILNA citing Pakistani sources that the US was seeking a “step-by-step” agreement with Iran, the rise in oil lost some of its steam.

All that meant energy prices extended the large gains we saw last week but closed well off the day’s highs. For instance, Brent crude (+1.02%) settled at $105.68/bbl by the close, after trading as high as $109.80 at the start of the US session, while WTI was +1.34% higher to $101.39/bbl. Brent is another +1.54% higher this morning at $107.31, still comfortably off yesterday's highs but creeping back towards it. Over the other side of the pond, front-end European natural gas futures were up another +3.83% yesterday to a post-2022 high of €82.60/MWh.

That backdrop of building inflation meant investors priced in a growing chance of a full-blown hiking cycle for the months ahead. Indeed, the probability of a Fed hike tomorrow was up to 92% by the close last night, from 88% at the end of last week. And looking further out, 90bps of hikes are now priced by the June 2027 meeting, up +2.0bps on the previous day. That contributed to a fresh surge in Treasury yields across the curve, with the 10yr yield briefly moving above 5% for the first time since 2023. Yields did then turn lower, helped by Trump’s post on the energy strikes, but a late sell-off still saw yields end the day at their highest levels since autumn 2023. Ultimately, the 10yr yield (+2.0bps) closed at 4.99%, while the 2yr yield (+3.4bps) saw a larger rise to 4.66%. As mentioned at the top 10yr yields are now back above 5% in Asia, trading at 5.02% as I type. 

Over in Europe the fixed income sell-off was more consistent given the continent’s bigger exposure to higher energy prices. Moreover, a hawkish shift in ECB pricing drove a big selloff at the front end in particular. So among others, Germany’s 2yr yield (+6.8bps) jumped to 3.26%, the highest since September 2023, and the 10yr bund yield (+1.2bps) hit a post-2009 high of 3.51%. The larger front-end repricing came amid a larger rise in European inflation expectations, with the Euro 1yr inflation swap (+9.8bps) up to 3.60%, whilst the US 1yr inflation swap (+0.7bps) saw a marginal rise to 2.59%. Elsewhere in Europe, the 10yr OAT yield (+2.0bps) hit a post-2008 high of 4.47%, and here in the UK, the 10yr gilt yield (+2.4bps) hit a post-2007 high of 5.37%.

As all that was going on, there was a big selloff in chip stocks yesterday after the weekend calls for some kind of AI slowdown. So the Philly semiconductor index (-5.86%) had its worst daily performance since July. President Trump again pushed back against the prospect of an AI slowdown, as he had initially on Sunday, saying yesterday that the US already had “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” And then in a separate post, he said that “the United States is leading, by a lot, every other country. Don’t kill the Golden Goose!” While this helped chip stocks recover a bit, they were back near the day’s lows by the close. That slump helped to drag US equities down more broadly, with the S&P 500 (-0.48%) seeing a decent fall, despite a narrow majority of companies in the index rising on the day. In Europe, the STOXX 600 (-0.49%) registered a similar loss.

Markets are lower again in Asia, but losses are relatively contained. As I check my screens, the S&P/ASX 200 (-0.89%), the KOSPI (-0.71%), the Hang Seng (-0.23%) and the Nikkei (-0.16%) are all in negative territory with mainland Chinese stocks just on the negative side. US equity futures are down a couple of tenths of a percent with European futures flat.

Early morning data showed that China’s industrial production grew 5.2% year-on-year in August, surpassing market expectations of 4.8% and accelerating from the 4.5% growth seen in July. The stronger-than-expected performance was largely supported by robust external demand, which continued to bolster export-oriented manufacturing despite broader signs of economic weakness. However, industrial production remained the lone bright spot in an otherwise challenging economic landscape. Fixed asset investment for the January-August period contracted by -7.2%, slightly worse than the -7.1% expected decline and deteriorating further from the -6.7% contraction recorded in the previous month. As a key indicator of both public and private capital expenditure in China, the metric has remained firmly in negative territory since April, highlighting persistent weakness in investment activity. Meanwhile, retail sales increased just +0.4% year-on-year in August, falling short of +0.8% expectations and slowing from the 0.6% rise seen in July. The data suggests that consumer spending in the world's second-largest economy remains subdued despite a series of stimulus and support measures introduced by Beijing.

Separately, China’s property sector continued to weigh on economic activity, with new home prices declining by -0.17% in August, nearly matching July’s -0.18% drop. The continued fall in housing prices underscores the ongoing challenges posed by the country’s prolonged real estate downturn.

Finally, there was very little data yesterday, although we did get Canada’s CPI print for August. That was exactly as expected, with headline CPI remaining at +3.0%, and the various core measures also in line with expectations. Against that backdrop, there was little change in market pricing for the Bank of Canada’s next meeting in late-October, with a 75% chance of a hike priced in by the close.
Looking at the day ahead, data releases include UK unemployment for July, the German ZEW survey for September, and the US Empire State manufacturing survey for September. From central banks, we’ll hear from the ECB’s Escriva and Cipollone. Otherwise, US Treasury Secretary Bessent will be testifying before the House Financial Services Committee.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 08:31

Will Trump Accounts Make Every Kid A Millionaire?

Will Trump Accounts Make Every Kid A Millionaire?

Authored by Paul Mueller via The Daily Economy,

No - or at least, not by the time they finish high school.

Depending on how they're funded, a Trump Account could turn a child into a decamillionaire by retirement, or it might just be worth about $4,300 on their eighteenth birthday. As with any account, three variables dictate the outcome: contributions, rate of return, and time.

What might Trump Accounts actually be worth for children born this year? A thousand dollars takes a very long time to become a million dollars. That initial thousand dollars for children born during this administration could grow to be $4,342.45 (8.5 percent annual return), $5,122.17 (9.5 percent annual return), or $6,032.83 (10.5 percent annual return) by the time they turn 18. That's nice, but not life-changing.

Does this mean Trump Accounts won't materially benefit a lot of kids? No. The magic of the numbers really comes from the basic principles of compound interest over long periods of time, not anything special or magical about the Trump Accounts themselves.

Extending the time horizon to retirement, however, is a different story. These Trump Accounts could be worth a lot if funded aggressively and left to compound over a lifetime. By the time a child born today reaches retirement age in 2093, that $1,000 seed money could be worth: $236,478.93 (8.5 percent annual return), $437,266.28 (9.5 percent annual return), or a whopping $804,030.69 (10.5 percent annual return).

Currently, Trump Accounts are limited to $5,000 annually of individual contributions, but qualified general contributions do not count toward this. So Michael Dell's $6.25 billion gift of $250 per child toward 25 million accounts will not count against the $5,000 annual limit. The claim about Trump accounts creating millionaires only works if one assumes the money compounds at an above market rate until the kids retire at age 67, or that they receive thousands of dollars of contributions into their account while children.

Maxing out the annual contributions ($5000/year, $90,000 over 18 years), however, will deliver impressive results. By the time they turn 18, those children will have a substantial endowment of $200,957 (8.5 percent), $222,078 (9.5 percent), or $245,691 (10.5 percent) depending on their rate of return. Extend that another 50 years or so to retirement and we are talking real money: ~$11 million (8.5 percent), ~$19 million (9.5 percent), or ~$33 million (10.5 percent).*

These calculations don't account for inflation. Prices may be three and a half (2 percent annual inflation) to seven times (3 percent annual inflation) higher in 67 years. So that eye-popping number of $33 million (which will not be a common outcome) may only be worth the equivalent of $4 to $10 million in today's dollars. While 10.5 percent is the historical long-term average annual rate of return for the S&P 500, it can vary quite a bit year to year and even decade to decade. More importantly, most children will not see maxed-out annual contributions to their accounts every year.

Becoming a decamillionaire requires $5,000 contributions per child annually for 18 years - no small feat for most people. One of the architects of Trump Accounts, Brad Gerstner, however, believes that hundreds of billions of philanthropic dollars will flow into these accounts every year. Plus, these accounts may serve as a focal point for family and friends who want to contribute to children's long-term prosperity - much as grandparents of an older generation would give long-term Treasury bonds to their grandkids.

But there were already tax vehicles to invest money for your own kids, like 529 education savings accounts. Trump accounts were created to facilitate broad-based direct-transfer philanthropy. Billionaires now have a mechanism for giving money directly to millions of people without government officials or NGOs taking a big cut. The distribution of the Dells' gift just hit children's accounts this week.

Will there be widespread adoption of Trump accounts, and will people contribute to them regularly? Less than a month after the rollout, Secretary Bessent said over seven million children were enrolled - a promising start. Will billionaires contribute significant amounts of their wealth to millions of kids through Trump accounts? Michael and Susan Dell's $250 per child gift, matched by Gerstner in Indiana and Dalio in Connecticut, has become a reality. And will Trump accounts provide a viable alternative to currently unsustainable entitlement programs like Social Security? These are a few very important questions that will determine how much Trump accounts impact American society.

It's true that Trump accounts, should they be held until retirement, could be worth impressive amounts of money, especially if people contribute every year their child is a minor. But 2093 is a long way off. Saving and investing for the far future is great. Parents will still have to decide whether sacrificing thousands of dollars today is worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in future decades.

*The account projections do not incorporate the program's permitted fund fees, which may be as high as 0.10 percent annually, per this White House explanation. Even a small fee matters over 67 years.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 08:05

BYD's EU Invasion Deepens Germany's Auto Industry Crisis

BYD's EU Invasion Deepens Germany's Auto Industry Crisis

The rise of right-wing populism in Germany comes as globalist policies backfire and crush Europe's industrial powerhouse. The nation's auto industry is in shambles, with layoffs and production cuts, after European leaders had the brilliant idea of letting cheap Chinese EVs flood the struggling continent.

Bloomberg cites new data from Schmidt Automotive Research showing Chinese brands accounted for 10.7% of Western European car sales in the second quarter, up from 3.4% two years earlier, highlighting how BYD Motors's cheap $34,000 EV is quickly taking market share from domestic brands. 

Chinese EVs in the EU have seen quarterly registrations surpass those of Japanese brands. Citigroup analyst Harald Hendrikse estimates Chinese brands could capture 30% of the EU market by 2035 without additional protective measures. 

The immediate result of the flood of Chinese EVs on the continent has been restructuring news from Volkswagen that upwards of 100,000 jobs could be cut by the end of the decade. More recently, Jaguar Land Rover plans to cut 10% of its workforce. 

Beyond automakers, the ripple effect of layoffs is impacting parts supplier companies: 

European Auto Job Cuts

Auto Suppliers Job Cuts

Germany, previously resistant to tougher trade barriers, is preparing tariffs on Chinese hybrids as it watches its industrial base erode, stoking the rise of Alternative für Deutschland as German political elites betray working-class folks.

Protection could give domestic brands time to restructure. Still, China's dominance in batteries and rare earths gives Beijing potential means to retaliate, complicating Europe's effort to preserve its automotive industrial base.

The quick erosion of Europe's automotive industry is a national security risk for the continent because its factories, skilled workforce and supplier networks underpin the continent's capacity to produce weapons. At a time when the Russia-Ukraine war escalates and the Middle East conflict spreads, a diminished industrial base in Europe ahead of a much-needed rearmament supercycle is just bad news for EU defenses.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 07:45

Bloomberg Terminal Hikes Prices As Inflation Hits Wall Street's Data Bills

Bloomberg Terminal Hikes Prices As Inflation Hits Wall Street's Data Bills

Bloomberg Terminal subscriptions will see a price hike starting Jan. 1, 2027, according to an email Bloomberg sent out early Monday.

Monthly subscription prices will increase by $140 per Terminal at locations with multiple licenses and $155 at locations with a single license. That's about a 3% price hike, or an additional $1,680 and $1,860 annually per subscription - ​​which range from $28,320 to $31,990 per year respectively.

Email: 

Existing subscriptions that renew on or before December 31, 2026 (and new Bloomberg Terminal subscriptions installed on or before the same date) will not see a price increase until their renewal date, as it occurs, in the following two years. 

Starting January 1, 2027, Bloomberg Terminal subscriptions will see a price increase of $140 per month per subscription for client locations with multiple licenses, and a price increase of $155 per month for client locations with a single license. When these increases take effect, they stay in place for two years. The average annual increase for the two-year term is 2.97%

"As always, we continue to invest in technology and talent to ensure we provide our customers with the highest quality products, services and support in the industry while adding enhanced capabilities," the email read.

Latest innovation on the Terminal .... a chatbot:

Bloomberg's price hike shows inflation continuing to pass through into market-data costs. It also strengthens the need for cheaper alternatives.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 06:55

Judge To Begin Consideration Of Bayer's $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement

Judge To Begin Consideration Of Bayer's $7.25 Billion Roundup Settlement

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

A circuit judge in Missouri is set to begin weighing on Sept. 14 agrochemical giant Monsanto's proposal of a $7.25 billion settlement for tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging that the company's popular Roundup weedkiller causes cancer.

Bottles of Roundup weed killer on a shelf at a Lowe's Garden Center in Burbank, Calif., on June 25, 2026. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Judge Timothy Boyer of St. Louis is not expected to issue an immediate ruling at the hearing, but he will examine Monsanto's lawyers' justification of the settlement as they seek Boyer's final approval, while some plaintiffs' attorneys argue that their clients should not be strong-armed into accepting the company's proposal.

The settlement, which was announced in February, is meant as a way to contain litigation.

It aims to resolve nearly all of the roughly 65,000 claims still pending in federal and state courts, and it's meant to cover future Roundup claims as well. The settlement received preliminary approval from Boyer on March 4.

As part of the settlement, the company would offer payouts for individuals who were exposed to Roundup and developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The exact award amount for each person would depend on different factors, including the severity of their cancer, their age when they were diagnosed, and whether they were exposed to the chemical at work or at home.

For occupation claimants - meaning farmers, gardeners, maintenance workers, landscapers, and more - their payouts could range from $60,000 to $165,000.

The agreement would also award residential claimants, referring to homeowners who use Roundup for their gardens, yards, and driveways. Payouts for this group could range from $20,000 to $40,000.

"Monsanto remains confident that the class settlement, which is supported by plaintiffs' counsel representing tens of thousands of potential class members, is fair to all parties, the objections have no merit, and warrants final approval following the September 14th hearing," the company said in an Aug. 28 statement.

Supreme Court's Involvement

Litigation against Monsanto, acquired by Germany-based Bayer in 2018, has plagued it for years, leading to one case reaching the highest court in the United States.

Individuals across the country have claimed that exposure to Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller, which contains a key and controversial ingredient called glyphosate, causes cancer.

Although the company has repeatedly denied any link between its products and cancer, there have been multiple instances of juries throughout the country awarding plaintiffs millions of dollars.

One of those cases involved Missouri man John Durnell, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after exposure to Roundup.

He had previously won $1.25 million in his lawsuit against Monsanto, with a Missouri jury agreeing that the agrocompany failed to follow a Missouri state law requiring a warning for risks such as cancer.

But Monsanto appealed the decision, and eventually it came before the Supreme Court. The company called that prior verdict flawed because of a legal doctrine known as preemption, which holds that federal law overrides state law when the two are in conflict.

Monsanto said the federal government, through the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, had already regulated its Roundup product and glyphosate. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under that law, approved glyphosate's use and has never required additional labeling related to cancer risks.

The justices, in one of the most consequential decisions from its last term, ruled 7-2 on June 25 in favor of Monsanto, holding that federal law does indeed preempt Missouri's state law, thus throwing out the basis of the lower court's verdict for Durnell.

Following the ruling, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said the company would continue to pursue the $7.25 billion settlement.

Bayer already paid a $10 billion settlement in 2020 that resolved many Roundup cases but had left the company open to future claims.

Glyphosate Controversy

For years, health advocates have accused the key ingredient of Roundup - glyphosate - of being a cancer-causing chemical.

The EPA registered glyphosate as a pesticide in 1974, and it has since become one of the most widely used chemicals in the world for agriculture production.

As its use over time increased, so too did claims that exposure to glyphosate caused cancer.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer published a March 2015 review that found the chemical as "probably carcinogenic to humans."

The Trump administration backed Monsanto in the Supreme Court case, filing a brief that urged the justices to rule favorably for the company.

In a Feb. 18 executive order, President Donald Trump said glyphosate was critical to national defense and instructed his administration to ensure that there was an adequate supply.

"Lack of access to glyphosate-based herbicides would critically jeopardize agricultural productivity," the order read. "Glyphosate-based herbicides are a cornerstone of this Nation's agricultural productivity and rural economy."

This caused a rift among the Republican base, as proponents of the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement became increasingly frustrated with the federal government's support of glyphosate.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the movement's champions, had previously helped secure a $289 million award from Monsanto in 2018 for a client who alleged that Roundup caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

But following Trump's executive order, Kennedy released a statement that appeared to balance support for glyphosate in securing the country's food supply in the short term and the need to shift away from the chemical over time.

"Pesticides and herbicides are toxic by design," Kennedy wrote in a Feb. 22 post on X. "Unfortunately, our agricultural system depends heavily on these chemicals. ... I support President Trump's Executive Order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations."

He stressed that Trump did not build the current system - he inherited it - and that there are ongoing efforts to shift away from harmful agricultural methods.

Two months before the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Monsanto, Kennedy testified in Congress.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) asked the health secretary whether glyphosate caused cancer, and without hesitation, Kennedy responded, "Yes."

"I would say it's important to minimize consumption of glyphosate as much as possible," Kennedy said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 06:30

It's Time To Talk About The Shitting...

It's Time To Talk About The Shitting...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

The "enrichment" we were sold was cuisine, music and vibrant street life. What arrived, in town after town, is a sanitation standard the UN still spends billions trying to wipe out of third world nations.

Open defecation is not a Western urban myth. WHO and UNICEF still count hundreds of millions of people doing it in fields, ditches and open ground. Nigeria sits near the top of the league table. India, despite a national toilet-building drive, still records tens of millions.

When you import the people at scale and refuse to enforce the most basic public standards, you import the habit. The footage is now so routine it has become a genre.

A children's park is next. Nothing says community cohesion like a man treating a playground as an outdoor latrine and finishing the job by hand.

Truly, the contribution to British civic life is immeasurable.

Notting Hill Carnival has been doing this for years. A resident's doorbell captured carnival-goers treating her property as a trench for shitting and pissing all day. Some even apologised to the camera. Sadiq Khan's London treats the event as a celebration.

Susan Watts, 69, recorded dozens of people using the space by her front door after earlier carnivals and told the Daily Mail the stench left it "like being in a filthy toilet." The council quoted her £75 to jet-wash a private area. Dignity, it turns out, has a surcharge.

Oxford Street is London's main retail drag. When you have to put up signs telling adults not to defecate on it, the experiment has already failed.

Birmingham now has the same notices.

The NHS gets it too. An intoxicated man who has already fouled himself refuses to leave A&E. Staff time, corridor space, and public patience all redirected to a problem that starts with the same refusal to use a toilet.

Spain and Italy get the same treatment.

A drinking fountain in Spain with the tap used as an anal bidet, on a fixture children drink from.

Rome, once the capital of a vast empire, now the toilet of the world.

Canada is not spared.

Vancouver's own figures are not a vibe. City data and CTV reporting put faeces removals in the first two months of 2025 at 1,870. 2023 saw 19,900 collections. 2024 still logged 17,670.

Business groups run "Poop Fairy" patrols because the municipal programme is too slow.

The Nigerian government has spent years running campaigns begging its own citizens to stop doing this in public. Billboards, World Toilet Day speeches, a "Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet" drive. Vice President Kashim Shettima said access to toilets is "about dignity, health, and safety."

UNICEF has repeatedly placed Nigeria among the world's worst for open defecation, with tens of millions still practising it.

India remains in the same conversation even after Swachh Bharat. The habit did not vanish because a plane ticket was purchased.

The historic town of Cambridge in the UK has already taken the next logical step: if the arrivals prefer squatting and shitting all over the floor, the host city will install facilities to enable just that. Labour-run Cambridge City Council spent nearly £1 million on a Silver Street toilet block that includes squat-style cubicles "preferred by some international visitors," then charges £1 to use them.

Resident Heather Boyd told the BBC: "I certainly think if I'm going to spend £1, I'm not going to squat as well. That is absolutely crazy." Britain spent centuries perfecting the flush toilet. Now taxpayers are paying in order for the third world to squat into a hole.

How culturally enriching. How much these individuals are contributing. The GDP of public health risk, the tourism brochure of a high street that needs pictograms of a squatting figure with a red line through it.

If Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth is meant to reflect London and the UK as it really is, Here's the next statue:

Still, it could be worse. And it is.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 05:00

These Are The European Countries With The Newest Cars

These Are The European Countries With The Newest Cars

Europe’s roads reveal a striking divide between countries where drivers regularly replace their vehicles and those where aging, secondhand cars remain the norm, according to a new report from ecarstrade.com. 

New research from B2B automotive company eCarsTrade compared vehicle fleets across more than 30 European countries and found Luxembourg sitting comfortably at the top of the rankings for the continent’s newest cars.

Nearly 43% of Luxembourg’s registered vehicles are less than five years old, the highest proportion in the study. At the other end of the age spectrum, only about 6% of its cars have been on the road for 20 years or longer. The country also replaces vehicles unusually quickly, with its annual fleet renewal rate topping 10%. Roughly 7% of Luxembourg’s cars are now fully electric.

Belgium ranked second. More than one-third of its cars are less than five years old, while the country added roughly 456,000 new vehicles in 2024. Its fleet renewal rate is about 7.5%, among the strongest in Europe. Electrification is also becoming more prominent: roughly 5% of Belgium’s total fleet is electric, while EVs account for around 28% of new registrations.

Denmark placed third, with approximately 28% of its cars less than five years old and only around 6% at least 20 years old. But Denmark stands out even more when it comes to the transition toward electric vehicles. More than half of new vehicles sold there are fully electric, and battery-powered cars already account for roughly 12% of the country's entire fleet.

The United Kingdom came in fourth. Britain has an especially small population of very old cars, with fewer than 5% of vehicles aged 20 years or more, the lowest share measured in the study. Nearly 2 million new cars were registered in 2024, helping keep the country's annual fleet renewal rate near 6%. EVs represented about 19% of new registrations, although they still make up a relatively small share of all vehicles currently on British roads.

Norway rounded out the top five and remains Europe's standout when it comes to electrification. More than 27% of all Norwegian cars are fully electric, by far the highest share among the countries examined. Even more striking, roughly 88% of new vehicles purchased in Norway are electric. That means the country's existing fleet is rapidly being transformed as older gasoline and diesel vehicles are gradually replaced.

Behind the top five were Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Germany, for example, has roughly 30% of its fleet under five years old, while Switzerland is closer to 25%. The Netherlands has a somewhat older fleet overall, despite having a relatively healthy market for newer vehicles and EVs.

The report says that the opposite extreme can be found in Albania. According to the research, roughly nine out of every 10 vehicles there are at least a decade old, giving Albania the oldest fleet among the countries examined. The disparity highlights a broader economic divide in European car ownership: wealthier Western and Northern European countries generally replace vehicles more frequently, while parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe rely much more heavily on older vehicles and secondhand imports.

That distinction can also make registration statistics somewhat misleading. A vehicle being registered in a country for the first time does not necessarily mean it is a new car. Used cars exported from countries such as Germany and France frequently enter fleets elsewhere in Europe as newly registered vehicles despite already having years of driving behind them.

“There’s a very clear split across Europe when it comes to car ages,” an eCarsTrade auto industry expert said. “Western countries keep replacing their fleets regularly, partly because incomes are high enough to realistically afford new vehicles.”

The researchers pointed specifically to Romania, Poland and Albania as markets where imported secondhand vehicles play a much larger role. As a result, the underlying age of some national fleets may be even greater than headline registration figures initially suggest.

The study, conducted in August 2026, compared more than 30 European countries using three primary measures: the percentage of cars at least 20 years old, the percentage at least 10 years old, and the percentage less than five years old. Those variables were combined into a Fleet Age Score ranging up to 100, with lower scores indicating newer national fleets.

Luxembourg recorded a score of just 1.6, well ahead of Belgium at 13.1 and Denmark at 17.1. The UK scored 18.8 and Norway 18.9, followed by Liechtenstein at 19.6, Austria at 20.8, Germany at 20.9, Switzerland at 23.7 and the Netherlands at 24.1.

Taken together, the numbers show that Europe is not moving toward a newer or more electric vehicle fleet at anything close to a uniform pace. In Luxembourg, frequent vehicle replacement keeps the average car relatively young. In Norway and Denmark, electrification is rapidly reshaping what people drive. Meanwhile, countries that depend heavily on imported used vehicles continue to operate fleets that can be dramatically older than those found just a few hundred miles away.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 04:15

US Bombs Somalia For 81st Time This Year

US Bombs Somalia For 81st Time This Year

Authored by Dave DeCamp via Antiwar.com,

US Africa Command announced on Friday that its forces launched another airstrike in Somalia as the Trump administration continues a record-breaking bombing campaign in the country, which receives virtually no coverage in US media.

AFRICOM said the strike was launched on September 8 and targeted al-Shabaab in the vicinity of Quumbi, a village about 50 miles northeast of the southern port city of Kismayo,

As usual, AFRICOM offered no other details about the strike, and there were no statements from US-backed forces about military operations in the area that day.

"Specific details about units and assets will not be released to ensure continued operations security," AFRICOM said.

According to AFRICOM's numbers, the attack brings the total number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to 81, higher than any other year prior to 2025, when President Trump oversaw 124 AFRICOM airstrikes, breaking the previous annual record of 63 that he set in 2019.

The US has also been conducting an air war against an ISIS affiliate in Somalia's northeastern Puntland region, and Drop Site News recently reported that a US strike was carried out in the region on September 3, though it has not been claimed by AFRICOM, suggesting that not every US attack is being announced.

According to numbers from New America, an organization that tracks the air war and also counts airstrikes that are reported but not claimed by the US, the September 8 strike would bring the total number of US bombings in Somalia this year to 83.

The US has been involved in Somalia for decades and has been fighting al-Shabaab since the George W. Bush administration backed an Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that ousted the Islamic Courts Union, a Muslim coalition that briefly held power in Mogadishu after taking the city from CIA-backed warlords.

Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, and its first recorded attack was a suicide bombing in 2007 that targeted Ethiopian troops occupying Mogadishu. It wasn't until 2012 that the group pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. The ISIS affiliate in Puntland started as an offshoot of al-Shabaab and first emerged in 2015.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 03:30

Older Britons Are Working Longer As Youth Unemployment Rises

Older Britons Are Working Longer As Youth Unemployment Rises

Britain has a strange labor problem: the people who have spent decades working increasingly aren’t leaving, while the people trying to begin their careers increasingly can’t get in, according to Bloomberg.

More than 1.7 million people over 65 are now employed in the UK, the highest level on record. Meanwhile, youth unemployment is hovering near a decade-plus high, and nearly one million people between 16 and 24 are neither employed nor in school.

The demographic shift is dramatic. About two decades ago, there were roughly 10 working young people for every employed person over 65. Today there are only about two.

Some of this is simply good news: people are healthier, living longer and have more opportunities to work flexible schedules. But money is clearly part of the equation too. Rising living expenses have pushed some retirees back into the workforce and encouraged others to postpone retirement.

That becomes more consequential when companies aren’t creating many new positions. The Bank of England has described Britain as having a “low hire, low fire” labor market. Companies aren’t necessarily conducting massive layoffs, but they’re also reluctant to expand payrolls. When older employees remain in their jobs longer, fewer vacancies naturally work their way down the ladder.

Bloomberg writes that AI could amplify the problem. Graduate positions as a percentage of available jobs have reportedly been cut in half since 2022. Instead of building large teams of junior employees, companies can increasingly give experienced workers AI tools and ask them to produce more.

As one employment expert put it, some companies are effectively saying, “we just want to get rid of some junior staff and replace them with AIs.”

Working from home could be contributing as well. Junior employees require more training and supervision, something that becomes considerably more difficult when employees and managers aren’t regularly sitting together.

The end result is almost backwards from the traditional labor-market cycle. Britain has record numbers of retirement-age people still collecting paychecks at precisely the same time that an unusually large number of young people can’t find their first one.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 02:45

ISIS Fanatic Set To Walk Free From UK Prison In Weeks

ISIS Fanatic Set To Walk Free From UK Prison In Weeks

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

An ISIS fanatic who pledged allegiance to the caliphate, circulated execution videos, and blagged his way into an NHS heart unit with a fake degree is lining up for parole in November.

GB News host Patrick Christys broke the story this week and put it as plainly as it deserves: "What a country we are."

Full segment:

Ali Abdillahi, a Somali-born Dutch national who has lived in Britain since the age of seven, was jailed in March 2022 for eight years and ten months.

The Old Bailey heard he ran a private Telegram group called "Sons of Abdullah," pumped out recordings of preachers calling for armed jihad, and shared Islamic State films showing executions and graphic violence.

View counts on the material ran from 280 to 1,300. Officers found a pledge of allegiance to ISIS on his phone and notebooks that laid out the same mindset.

Mr Justice Sweeney called it one of the "more serious cases of its type." The judge told Abdillahi: "You had showed you committed these offences because of your support for Islamic extremism." Sweeney added that he supported the concept of "Armed Jihad" and viewed Islamic State as the "inheritor of Islam." No separate jail term was added for the fraud that got him through the hospital doors.

In July 2020, while he was spreading that material, Abdillahi forged a biomedical science degree from the University of Hertfordshire, stuffed the lie onto his CV, and applied through an agency.

Croydon University Hospital took him on as a cardiographer. He treated heart patients. The court was told no concerns were raised about his work before his arrest on 7 August 2020 at his home in Enfield.

He then tried to use the same fake qualifications to talk a court into granting him bail on the terrorism charges. That earned him the extra ten months for perverting the course of justice.

When police first asked about the degree, he offered this: "I believe I created a character for myself, and looking back, I do not know what is real and what is not... I was convinced I had a degree. My intention was not to lie or anything like that."

Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command's Commander Richard Smith said at the time: "Extremist propaganda online is extremely harmful and is a means by which terrorist groups seek to radicalise people all over the world. Abdillahi sent videos and recordings glorifying extremist violence to promote the hate-filled mindset he supported to others."

Christys noted the obvious: this was not a porter or a cleaner. "An ISIS fanatic managed to use a totally fake degree to get a real job in the NHS... he was examining people's hearts."

GB News has established he is listed for parole on 19 November. A three-year extended licence sits on top of the sentence. Whether the Home Office has even bothered to order his deportation is, according to the channel, still unclear.

This is not a one-off. In February, we reported the case of Zahid Iqbal, jailed in 2013 after plotting to bomb a Territorial Army centre in Luton with an IED strapped to a remote-controlled toy car, working from an al-Qaeda kitchen-bomb manual.

The parole board moved to free him years early despite warnings from prison and community offender managers, and despite a previous early release in 2021 that had to be revoked when he failed to comply.

Reform UK crime adviser Colin Sutton called that decision "baffling." "This wasn't a guy in his bedroom cooking something up. This was somebody who arranged training. He had links with al-Qaeda. He was a proper terrorist. And he was released early in 2021 and had to be called back in because he wasn't complying with the conditions."

Abdillahi's November date sits inside the same culture. Terrorists and fraudsters get calendars. Ordinary people who post the wrong opinion get cells.

Labour's answer to a prison system running at around 97 percent capacity has been to empty it. After public fury over plans that would have fast-tracked rapists, groomers and the killers of PC Andrew Harper, Prime Minister Andy Burnham narrowed the scheme. Rape, serious child sex offences, grooming and unlawful killing were carved out. The rest of the machine still runs.

Official figures published this month show about 700 eligible offenders due out on 1 October, with some 2,550 released by the end of the year and around 4,500 over the following months.

Prisoners who would once have served 40 percent of a standard sentence can now walk after a third. Others who would have served two-thirds can leave at halfway. Police chiefs have already said forces will need nearly £500 million extra just to chase licence breaches and fresh offending from the wave.

The exemptions do not rescue the principle. A man who pledged himself to ISIS, tried to radicalise others, and was allowed to put electrodes on British patients with a printed-off degree is still being processed toward the street. The Home Office cannot even say, on the record, whether it intends to put him on a plane.

Britain imported the ideology, waved the fake certificate through an agency, parked him in a heart department, and is now preparing the paperwork for his return to the community.

That is not a glitch. It is the system working as built: weak borders, weaker vetting, and a justice machine that treats jihadist propaganda as a manageable risk while it panics over tweets posted by those concerned about it.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 02:00

China's Biotech Stocks Emerging As Latest Ai Trade

China's Biotech Stocks Emerging As Latest Ai Trade

By Charlie Zhu, Bloomberg Markets live reporter and strategist

China’s biotech stocks are emerging as the latest AI trade, fueled by expectations the technology will accelerate drug development and boost returns.

The Hang Seng Biotech Index has risen nearly 22% this quarter, set to outperform the Hang Seng Tech gauge by the most on record in Bloomberg data going back to 2015, as investors bet artificial intelligence will reduce timelines and cost in pharmaceutical research and development. The prospect of AI-originated drugs generating licensing and royalty income in the longer run may give the rally staying power.

“AI-driven drug discovery (AIDD) is taking off in China and generating a lot of investor interest, owing to the speed and cost benefits that AI brings,” Citigroup Inc. analysts including John Yung wrote in a note this month. The sector’s low penetration of the projected $313 billion global pharmaceutical R&D market implies “significant room for growth.” 

Shares of Insilico Medicine Cayman TopCo have more than doubled since their debut in Hong Kong in end-December, while those of Shanghai-listed HitGen Inc. have gained nearly 40% this year following a 90% rally in 2025. Both companies have buy ratings from every analyst tracked by Bloomberg.

Unlike many US companies that remain loss-making, several Chinese leaders are already profitable and should see earnings accelerate as robust demand translates into stronger utilization and operating leverage, according to Citigroup. Strong growth in AI-related revenue from leading wet lab vendors — which test AI-designed drugs — in the first half and advances of drug candidates at companies such as Insilico have bolstered sentiment toward the sector.

Leading Chinese AIDD companies are also trading at steep discounts to their US peers despite broader exposure across the value chain, analysts said. Meanwhile, continued progress in clinical milestones and new partnerships offer catalysts for local players, Linda Shu, head of China healthcare research at HSBC Qianhai Securities, said in a note.

To be sure, competition remains a concern as contract research organizations, drugmakers and private platforms may expand into AIDD, while disruptive technologies could erode the advantages of existing platforms. Broader doubts about the sustainability of AI investment may also weigh on shares.

Still, “China has a strong combination of scientific talent, a large innovative-drug pipeline and extensive drug contract manufacturing infrastructure for synthesizing and testing AI-generated molecules,” said Victoria Mio, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Group Plc. Investors will be focused on “proprietary data, internal pipeline progress, pharmaceutical partnerships, licensing economics and cash runway,” she said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 01:10

When War Comes Home: A Constitutional Warning

When War Comes Home: A Constitutional Warning

Authored by Andrew P. Napolitano via Ron Paul Institute,

A failed war does not end when the drones stop flying. It creates a new danger: A government that refuses to admit defeat and a president who, having failed abroad, seeks muscular victories elsewhere.

The war against Iran is a case study in the limits of military power, the dangers of presidential overreach and the enduring wisdom of the Constitution's separation of powers. It was unauthorized, unconstitutional, illegal, strategically incoherent and - by the standards by which wars must be judged - a geopolitical failure.

The American people were told that force would achieve clear objectives. Iran would be compelled to surrender. Somehow, American security would be enhanced. The region would become more stable.

Instead, the United States expended enormous resources, consumed scarce munitions, deepened regional instability and failed to produce the political outcome President Donald Trump promised. Senior military officials just last week warned him that extending large-scale operations risked exhausting critical military capabilities and weakening America's ability to respond elsewhere.

The United States can destroy buildings, eliminate targets, deploy aircraft, ships, missiles, drones and troops anywhere on the planet. But war is not a video game in which the destruction of enemy assets automatically produces political surrender. War is a contest of wills, societies, culture and endurance.

And here is the constitutional question that should have been asked before the first bomb was dropped: Who gave the president the authority to begin this war? The Constitution did not.

Article I, Section 8 gives Congress - not the president - the power to declare war. The framers deliberately rejected the British model in which kings could drag nations into conflicts based upon personal judgment, ambition or political convenience. James Madison warned that the executive branch was "the branch of power most interested in war," and therefore the Constitution placed the decision to enter war outside the president's constitutional reach.

The president is commander in chief. He commands forces after lawful congressional decisions have been made. He does not possess the power to transform his title into a personal authority to begin wars.

That principle has been repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court. In cases such as Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Court rejected the idea that President Harry Truman had unlimited power simply because he claimed national security. Justice Robert Jackson's famous concurrence warned that executive power is most dangerous when it operates in a "zone of twilight" where presidents attempt to expand authority beyond constitutional boundaries and without congressional concurrence.

The Iran war belongs precisely in that twilight - where executive ambition collides with constitutional restraint.

The administration may argue that modern threats require flexibility. That argument has been made by presidents of both parties for decades. But flexibility is not the same as unlimited authority. The Constitution was written for difficult moments, not easy ones. It was designed to restrain presidents even when they believe they have compelling reasons to act.

The military failure abroad has created a political dilemma at home. A president who promised victory must now confront the reality that victory was never achieved.

The danger is what happens next.

History teaches that political leaders who suffer public humiliation abroad often seek demonstrations of strength elsewhere. Foreign-policy failure can produce domestic overreach. Leaders who cannot achieve the desired result overseas may attempt to prove their power through actions at home.

That is where the war comes home.

The president, frustrated by military limitations, may turn toward radical immigration enforcement, Supreme Court-prohibited tariffs, statutorily prohibited domestic deployments of military forces, stealing foreign-owned oil, and assertions of executive authority that collide with free speech and free association.

But the Constitution does not permit a president to substitute disappointment for law.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person - not just Americans - shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The Sixth Amendment guarantees all persons - not just Americans - from whom the government seeks life, liberty or property the right to a public trial before an impartial jury, and other constitutional protections. These protections apply not because accused persons are necessarily innocent but because government power is too dangerous to operate without restraints.

Evidence is not conviction. Accusation is not guilt. Presidential assertion is not judicial judgment.

The executive branch cannot simply identify alleged criminals in speedboats or elsewhere, declare them enemies and impose punishment without trial. That is a system the American Revolution rejected.

The same principle applies to the use of military force inside the United States. The founders were deeply suspicious of standing armies being used for law enforcement. That suspicion produced constitutional protections and later statutes prohibiting the military's role in civilian law enforcement.

The military exists to defend the nation from foreign threats. It is not a presidential police force.

Likewise, Congress - not the president - defines crimes and establishes punishments. A president cannot create new categories of enemies and decide their fate by executive command. The Constitution does not authorize a monarchy with aircraft carriers.

Every generation faces a temptation to exchange freedom for security. Every generation is told that normal rules cannot apply because a crisis is too serious, an enemy too dangerous and a moment too urgent.

The founders knew that argument well and they rejected it.

The Constitution was written precisely because government officials would sometimes believe that their objectives justified employing extraordinary power. The separation of powers, congressional war authority, judicial review and due process protections are not obstacles to effective government. They are safeguards against government becoming the threat it was created to prevent.

The ultimate question is not whether a president is strong enough to exercise power. The question is whether the president is restrained enough to obey the laws he has sworn to uphold.

That is the fear of a republic when the war comes home. To paraphrase the author Herman Melville, beware the president weeping when he bares an iron hand.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 23:25

The Deep State's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

The Deep State's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

Authored by Jay Rogers via American Greatness,

Last Wednesday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent FBI Director Kash Patel a letter demanding every document connected to an operation codenamed Round River.

If you haven't heard of it, that's understandable; it's the sequel nobody promoted, and I'll get to it. I've spent part of my career testifying as an expert witness on fiduciary duty, the branch of law that punishes people for betraying the trust placed in them.

Measured by that standard, Round River isn't merely disinformation; it's a breach of duty so complete that in my industry it would end a career and trigger a bar complaint.

In Washington, it's earned a strongly worded letter.

That's the whole scandal in one sentence: the deep state keeps getting caught, and nobody ever pays for it.

Start with what most people half remember. In October 2020, less than three weeks before the election, the New York Post published emails from a laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. Within 48 hours, 51 former intelligence officials, including two former CIA directors, signed an open letter declaring the story had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Twitter locked the Post out of its own account. Facebook throttled the link. The letter did exactly what it was built to do. By 2022, the Washington Post's own hired cryptography experts had authenticated thousands of the laptop's emails using the same digital signatures banks use to verify a wire transfer. Real disinformation, corrected two years too late to matter.

Here's the detail that should bother you more than the letter itself: the man who organized it told Congress, under oath, exactly why he did it. Michael Morell, former acting CIA director, testified that a call from Antony Blinken, then a senior Biden campaign adviser, "triggered" his decision to draft the statement. Asked why he wanted to help the vice president win, Morell didn't dress it up: "Because I wanted him to win the election," he said. He had no evidence of Russian involvement, he testified. Four of the 51 signers, including Morell, were active CIA contractors at the time, with badges granting access most Americans never get. They used their old authority to help a friend's campaign and called it a national security judgment. My brother spent his career in Army Special Forces guarding secrets that get people killed and signed papers promising decades of silence. These 51 men signed a letter to swing a presidential election and called it patriotism.

The paper trail keeps growing. In February, former senior intelligence officer Thomas Kuhns, who spent his career on the intelligence community's analytic standards committee under Obama, filed a formal complaint with the intelligence community's inspector general. His conclusion, built on line-by-line tradecraft analysis rather than partisan grievance, was that the letter's "planning, drafting, and dissemination" showed characteristics consistent with coordinated intelligence deception operations. Kuhns noted that none of the 51 signers, despite decades of FBI contacts, ever asked whether the laptop was real before declaring it Russian bait. In May, the inspector general referred his complaint to the Justice Department, and nobody there has said a word about it publicly since. A career analyst accusing his own former colleagues of running a deception operation against the electorate should be front-page news. It barely registered.

The FBI, we now know, was running a parallel operation of its own. Documents declassified this August show analysts on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force launched it around December 2019, sorting more than 70 Americans and organizations by political utility. Democrats, including Joe and Hunter Biden, were filed as "targets" of Russian disinformation; Republicans, including Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo, were filed as "conduits" spreading it. Of 53 confidential sources touching the case, at least 14 fed the bureau derogatory information on the Bidens dating to 2015. The FBI never investigated a single tip; it labeled them as disinformation anyway, then warned Congress that asking about Burisma made members unwitting tools of Moscow. Patel says he's disbanded the unit and opened a review, and that the bureau has identified "tens of thousands of responsive pages" and is "preparing... for disclosure." Six years later, we're still waiting on someone to flip the switch.

None of this worked without help. Newsrooms that spent 2020 calling the laptop Russian disinformation spent the next three years waving off Joe Biden's visible decline the same way, right up until special counsel Robert Hur described the sitting president as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," too frail to stand trial for mishandling documents. Then came the June 2024 debate, and the collective editorial memory of the press corps improved overnight. Convenient. The pattern repeats because it works: dismiss the inconvenient fact, discredit whoever raises it, and admit the truth once it's too late to change the outcome.

Defenders of the letter's signers claim these were private citizens exercising their First Amendment rights, not the CIA acting as an institution. But Morell asked the agency's own Publication Review Board to clear his draft the same week he recruited signatories, which means he leaned on his active clearance and his institutional relationship to lend the letter a credibility no private citizen carries on their own. You don't get to borrow the flag when it helps and hand it back once the subpoenas start.

None of this happens in a vacuum. The public reads Round River against a backdrop it already distrusts. A federal special counsel indicted Trump on 37 felony counts for retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago; a different special counsel investigated Biden's parallel documents problem and charged him with nothing because prosecutors doubted a jury would convict a man they called too forgetful to be culpable. Hunter Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges, then pardoned by his father before sentencing. The Durham report found the FBI opened a full investigation into the Trump campaign on raw, uncorroborated intelligence and never opened so much as an inquiry into similar intelligence about a Clinton campaign scheme to do the same in reverse. None of that proves coordination. It's enough to explain why voters call the asymmetry two-tiered before Round River even enters the conversation.

Here's the accountability scoreboard six years in: 51 security clearances revoked by executive order, a couple of internal reviews, one inspector general referral sitting at Justice since May, and not one indictment, deposition, or dollar of restitution from anyone who ran either operation. Compare that to a broker who mismarks risk tolerance: license gone, career over. The deep state gets a strongly worded congressional letter and a press release about an "ongoing review." Small wonder trust in the federal government sits near a five-decade low, with barely one in five Americans saying Washington does the right thing most of the time. That's not apathy. It's a verdict.

Congress can fix this without rewriting the Constitution: criminal exposure for clearance holders who abuse them and inspectors general free to act on their own timeline.

Until one of those 51 names sees the inside of a courtroom, the lesson every future intelligence officer will draw is the only one that matters: lie for the right team, and the worst that happens is you lose a parking pass at Langley.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 22:35

Teen Rescued From Frigid Alaskan Waters After Drifting For Days

Teen Rescued From Frigid Alaskan Waters After Drifting For Days

A 15-year-old boy from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, was rescued after spending two days on a capsized boat in the frigid Bering Sea.   The teen, identified by family as Derek Parker Aghnaanga, left Savoonga on Friday, September 4th, with his older brother and cousin in an 18-foot fishing skiff. They were expected back Sunday afternoon but the boat did not return.

Unfortunately, Derek's brother and his cousin died from drowning during the ordeal, leaving him to float alone on the vast Alaskan waters.  The U.S. Coast Guard began a search, though the chances of finding survivors was considered slim. On Monday morning, a Coast Guard aircrew spotted Derek sitting on top of the overturned boat 4 miles from St. Lawrence Island and 164 miles from the mainland coast.    

According to a relative, Darren Toolie-Noongwook, a fishing line got tangled in the motor. The crew tried to free it but failed, leaving the boat to drift. Later that night the weather worsened and the 18-foot skiff overturned.

Family members have say that Sidney Kulowiyi, the older brother and boat captain, was moving to get Derek a life jacket when he became tangled in the lines as the boat flipped. He was pulled under and did not make it out. Derek and their cousin, Barton Rookok, climbed onto the overturned hull. 

They spent the first night together on top of the skiff, but the next night Rookok panicked (possibly due to hypothermia), left the boat, and drowned.

A nearby fishing vessel pulled Derek to safety after he was located by the Coast Guard they later recovered the bodies of his two relatives. The rescuing captain said the boy had clung to the skiff through cold water of about 50°F (10°C) and mentioned that his brother was still under the boat and that his cousin had slipped away the night before.  

Surprisingly, there are only around 12 such incidents of boats capsizing per year in the Bearing Sea and larger ships have a high rate of crew survival.  However, the sinking of small skiffs like Derek's usually lead to death for those involved.   

Family members say Derek told them he believed he was going to make it - that he would be found and be safe.  He sat on his knees and prayed until the Coast Guard located him.  

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 22:10

BRICS Urges 'Maximum Restraint' As US-Iran War Tests Unity At New Delhi Summit

BRICS Urges 'Maximum Restraint' As US-Iran War Tests Unity At New Delhi Summit

Authored by News Desk via The Cradle,

The BRICS group of nations adopted a joint declaration on 12 September, expressing "deep concern" over the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran and urging "maximum restraint" as part of a "multilateral approach" that respects national viewpoints.

(Photo credit: BRICS)

The declaration was adopted on the first day of the BRICS leaders' annual summit in New Delhi.

"We express deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in Middle East/West Asia and, recalling our respective national positions, call for exercising maximum restraint, as well as avoiding actions that could further aggravate the situation," the declaration said.

BRICS leaders gathered at the summit to develop the bloc's common positions on international conflicts, sanctions and trade, reform of global institutions, finance, energy, technology, health and development.

BRICS leaders failed to reach a consensus condemning the US aggression against Iran, as the bloc includes both Iran and the UAE, which are on opposing sides of the conflict.

The UAE joined the war against the Islamic Republic on the side of its allies, the US and Israel.

Summit host India is also a close ally of Israel and one of its main weapons suppliers.

Other BRICS members include Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

In response to the unprovoked US-Israeli attack in February, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which Gulf energy exports to Asia flow.

The closure caused a surge in energy prices that has harmed the economies of BRICS nations, in particular in Asia.

The declaration affirmed the commitment of BRICS member states to a peaceful resolution of international disputes "through dialogue, consultation, and diplomacy."

It also expressed concern over "unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures" that distort trade, disrupt supply chains, and harm global economic development.

Since returning to office, US President Trump has used the threat of tariffs against China and India and imposed additional economic sanctions on Iran and Russia.

Trump has also issued secondary sanctions against nations and entities trading with Iran.

The joint statement expressed "serious concern" about deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities under full International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, saying such attacks violate international law and relevant IAEA resolutions.

Though the US and Israel have carried out attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities and civilian infrastructure, the statement did not name either country specifically regarding such attacks.

Regarding Israeli actions in Gaza, the statement calls for maintaining the ceasefire and facilitating unhindered humanitarian assistance; opposes the forced displacement of Palestinians and territorial/demographic changes to Gaza; and supports Palestinian self-determination and the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Regarding Lebanon, the statement calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanese territory and adhere to the Lebanon ceasefire and UNSC Resolution 1701.

On Syria, it calls for respect for Syria's sovereignty and an inclusive Syrian-led political process, warns of the risk posed by "foreign terrorist fighters" to Syria's and regional stability and security,and calls for the withdrawal of foreign occupying forces, an apparent reference to Israel.

It also encourages continued work on interoperable cross-border payment systems and greater use of BRICS members' local currencies rather than US dollars for trade and investment settlements.

The BRICS statement also stresses the importance of reliable energy supplies and stable markets and explicitly says fossil fuels will continue to play an important role, especially for emerging and developing economies.

It simultaneously backs a "just, orderly, equitable and inclusive" transition to renewable energy and emissions reductions according to countries' different circumstances, as outlined in the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) framework.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 21:45

Texas Still Dominates America's Natural Gas Production

Texas Still Dominates America's Natural Gas Production

U.S. gross natural gas withdrawals reached 47.7 trillion cubic feet in 2025, with a small group of states accounting for most of the total. Much of this output comes from prolific shale formations such as the Permian, Marcellus, Haynesville, and Eagle Ford.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows 2025 gross natural gas withdrawals by state and producing area using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with the latest available 2024 figures used for five states.

Gross withdrawals measure total well-stream production before processing, making them different from marketed or dry natural gas output.

Texas Produced Over a Quarter of U.S. Natural Gas

Texas led the country with 13,603 Bcf of gross withdrawals in 2025, equal to 28.5% of the national total. Pennsylvania followed at 7,676 Bcf, or 16.1%, meaning the two states together accounted for nearly 45% of U.S. withdrawals.

Their output is driven by some of North America’s most productive shale formations, including the Permian Basin in Texas and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

The table below ranks every state and producing area with at least 10 Bcf of gross withdrawals. States below that threshold, which together account for roughly 0.1% of the national total, are not shown:

Rank State or Producing Area Gross Natural Gas Withdrawals
(Billion Cubic Feet) Share U.S. Total
(%) 1 Texas 13603.5 28.5 2 Pennsylvania 7675.8 16.1 3 New Mexico 4150.5 8.7 4 Louisiana 3817.3 8.0 5 West Virginia 3600.0 7.5 6 Alaska 3546.1 7.4 7 Oklahoma 2877.7 6.0 8 Ohio 2100.7 4.4 9 Colorado 1869.8 3.9 10 North Dakota 1266.3 2.7 11 Wyoming 1197.5 2.5 12 Offshore Gulf of Mexico 721.5 1.5 13 Utah 338.7 0.7 14 Arkansas 323.3 0.7 15 Kansas 122.3 0.3 16 California 113.2 0.2 17 Virginia 80.9 0.2 18 Alabama 75.8 0.2 19 Michigan 64.1 0.1 20 Kentucky 58.8 0.1 21 Montana 50.5 0.1 22 Mississippi 25.8 0.1

New Mexico and Louisiana ranked third and fourth, producing 4,151 Bcf and 3,817 Bcf, respectively. Combined with Texas and Pennsylvania, the four states generated 61.3% of U.S. gross natural gas withdrawals in 2025.

Appalachia Forms America’s Second Major Gas Hub

Beyond Texas, the Appalachian Basin has become the country’s other major gas-producing hub.

Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio together produced 13,377 Bcf in 2025, equal to 28% of the U.S. total, largely from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.

Alaska ranked just behind West Virginia despite having no pipeline connection to the Lower 48, underscoring the scale of its resource base.

This production base helps explain the country’s leading position in global gas markets. See how U.S. dry natural gas production ranks against other major producing countries.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Natural Gas Withdrawals Across U.S. States (2023) on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 21:20

Air Force Secretary Admits US Has Weapons Deployed In Space

Air Force Secretary Admits US Has Weapons Deployed In Space

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

The Secretary of the Air Force said on Sept. 14 that the United States has weapons deployed in space.

"Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist," Secretary Troy Meink said at the Air & Space Forces Association's annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland. "This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary actions."

Meink's comment came during his keynote address, titled "Advancing Combat Power in Air and Space." However, no further details on the state or nature of those weapons were discussed at that time.

This is the first time the United States Armed Forces have confirmed the presence of weapons in space, a global point of debate and concern since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957.

Meink declined to elaborate further during a question-and-answer session immediately following his speech, stating "that phrase was very well thought out."

However, he did elaborate on what he saw as a necessity to maintain U.S. space capabilities and deter any threats to them from growing adversaries, who remained nameless.

"Our maintaining and being able to count on those space capabilities is important, and as everybody knows, there have been many who have developed capabilities to take those away from us, to threaten those things," he said. "So it is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space."

"So, we've had to take steps to make sure that when we're threatened, we can take care of that," he added.

The United States Space Force released a space warfighting framework in 2025. It defines "Space Control" as a core function to gain space superiority.

"Space control comprises the activities required to contest and control the space domain," the framework stated.

Those activities would include "counterspace operations," like offensive orbital strikes, terrestrial strikes, and Space Link Interdiction, which is defined as "actions taken to disrupt, deny, or degrade an enemy's critical space links," through non-kinetic action such as an electromagnetic attack or cyberattack.

Those operations would also include active and passive defensive actions like threat warning and counterattack.

Meink highlighted separately the Space-Based Interceptor Program, which is currently in development as part of President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defense system.

He said in his keynote address that he continued to stand by what he called the fundamental mission, which is to "Defend the homeland, deter all adversaries, and, if necessary, win in combat."

However, he also acknowledged the rapidly changing warfighting environment, from one-way attack drones to the deployment of artificial intelligence.

"Today we face a mix of rapidly changing technologies and adversaries moving aggressively to employ them," he said.

"If we expect to deter our adversaries, we must increase our combat power, innovate faster than anyone else, affordably. We need cost-effective combat power," he added.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 20:55

Supreme Court Block President Trump's Mail-In Ballot Order

Supreme Court Block President Trump's Mail-In Ballot Order

The nationwide injunction stands; the suspended rule would have required unique barcodes and scanner-ready envelopes...

The Supreme Court late on Sept. 14 declined to lift a nationwide injunction blocking a United States Postal Service (USPS) rule on federal ballot mail, leaving it on hold for the 2026 midterms.

The ruling in USPS v. California took the form of an unsigned order.

"The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction," the order said.

"And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion with fellow Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that "there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority" but that applying the proposed rules would be "arbitrary and capricious" for the midterm elections as state and local officials "do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule."

Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The decision is likely the final say on the rule during this election cycle, with even Talwani saying from the bench earlier this month that it was unclear how the government would implement the plans with November just around the corner.

Tyler Durden Mon, 09/14/2026 - 20:35

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