US Prohibits Unauthorized Drones Along US-Mexico Border

Authored by Timothy Frudd via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration banned unauthorized drone activity along the U.S.-Mexico border on Oct. 16 to increase airspace security as it cracks down on drug cartel drone operations.

The ban, established through a temporary flight restriction for drones, was announced in a joint statement by the Department of War, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Transportation. Friday's announcement comes as U.S. officials have warned that the United States faces thousands of drone incursions at the southern border each month.

The new temporary flight restriction took effect Friday and prohibits any unauthorized drones from operating up to 400 feet above ground level. The restriction extends one nautical mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"The United States government will maintain 100% operational control of our border: land, air, and sea," Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a statement. "For too long, cartels have taken advantage of gaps along our southern border. Thanks to President Donald J. Trump, those days are over."

Friday's joint announcement said the flight restriction for drones along the southern border builds upon the administration's previous efforts to secure the border and defend against national security threats, such as illegal cartel operations. The departments said the restriction will reduce risks to continued border security operations.

Hegseth said that the Trump administration's decision to restrict unauthorized drone activity will give U.S. commanders more awareness, increased decision space, and additional options to defend the country.

"Equipped with cutting-edge technology - including Directed Energy Weapons - our warfighters will shoot down any cartel drone that threatens America's sovereignty," he added.

In March 2024, Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there were likely more than 1,000 drone incursions along the southern border each month. He described the number as "alarming."

In August, Joint Task Force-Southern Border used the Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser to shoot down three drones linked to Mexican drug cartels, U.S. Northern Command said. The command said the drones were determined to be directly supporting activities that posed a physical threat to U.S. military personnel and U.S. Customs and Border Protection partners.

U.S. Northern Command later said in September the task force had taken down more than 300 unmanned aircraft systems since the start of this year by using both kinetic and non-kinetic systems.

Last month, Hegseth directed the Pentagon to take steps to accelerate the development and use of anti-drone systems across the U.S. military. He warned that American adversaries are quickly producing low-cost unmanned systems and are using them to conduct surveillance, cause disruptions, and carry out attacks.

The Trump administration also previously directed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to expedite its rule-making process for establishing drone flight restrictions over sensitive locations.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Friday's temporary flight restriction showed that the administration was doubling down on its promise to secure the U.S.-Mexico border by protecting U.S. airspace from threats posed by cartel drones and other illegal operations.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said, "This action will help counter cartel drone threats, protect our personnel, and strengthen security in the airspace above the border."

An official notice for airmen advisory will be published by the FAA. It will include links to the domestic notice and the FAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Data Delivery System.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 20:55

Supreme Showdown: Investigative Reporter And Accused Chinese Operative Face Off In Press Freedom Case

Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org,

Below is my column in The Hill on an important case currently before the Supreme Court on the free press and the ability to protect confidential sources. The underlying facts may seem like something out of The Onion: an accused Chinese operative and PLA Colonel who was viewed as a national security risk is successfully using the Privacy Act to get a respected journalist to reveal her confidential sources. However, it is very serious and, unless the Court reviews the case, investigative journalism in the United States could suffer a debilitating blow with little more than a shrug from the courts.

Here is the column:

This month, journalist Catherine Herridge is in the fight of her life - and the stakes for the country could not be higher. The former Fox and CBS reporter has long been one of the most prominent investigative journalists in the U.S., particularly on national security stories. She is now on her last appeal to the Supreme Court, attempting to protect the most vital prerequisite of the free press: confidentiality of sources.

At issue is a 2017 story that aired on Fox News concerning a Virginia-based training firm patronized by Pentagon officials. Herridge exposed ties of the University of Management and Technology to the Chinese military. It was the kind of difficult, complex story that made Herridge such a respected figure in her profession. The subject of the story, University of Management and Technology founder Yanping Chen, sued, claiming that the exposure had led to her loss of employment.

Such lawsuits are usually brought against journalists by disgruntled subjects under defamation or other grounds that are quickly dismissed by courts. But Chen brought a novel claim against various officials under the Privacy Act. She alleges that they disclosed to Herridge protected information about an FBI investigation. Rather than sue Herridge directly, Chen subpoenaed her to disclose the names of her sources. Herridge sat for a deposition but refused to breach confidentiality.

This is not Herridge's first rodeo in fighting for journalistic values. Years ago, CBS News forced her out and seized her files containing confidential source information. Despite considerable costs, Herridge eventually stared down the network and forced it to return the files.

Notably, much of the Fox News story about Chen was available in the public domain. For example, a whistleblower and FBI informant had said publicly that Chen had admitted to him that she had been a colonel in China's People's Liberation Army. He also alleged that she told him to lie about that fact when called to testify before a federal grand jury.

Because Herridge refuses to disclose her sources, we do not know how much she actually relied on non-public information. This puts her in an impossible position: She would have to reveal sources in order to show that Chen's claims are meritless.

In making her Privacy Act claim, Chen cited the disclosure of many facts already available publicly, including contradictions of her denials on being part of the Chinese military. The only information that had not already appeared in the public domain appears to be photographic, including a picture of Chen in a Chinese colonel's uniform.

In this case, Herridge had the misfortune of seeking relief in Washington, D.C., where judges have been relatively permissive in allowing such disputes to go to trial. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, tossed aside protections that other circuit courts recognize under the First Amendment. He ordered Herridge to identify her confidential sources, then held her in contempt when she refused, imposing a crippling $800-a-day fine. Even that was not enough for Chen, who tried to have the penalties increased to $5,000 a day.

Before the fines were paused in August pending appeal, Herridge had to write a check every day from her two children's college funds. "These fines are designed to break you emotionally and professionally," she told me. "I would walk every day to the mailbox with our oldest son for emotional and moral support."

Unfortunately, a panel of three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Cooper's ruling. Herridge therefore went to the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction against the daily fine. The court refused to intervene immediately, although Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he wanted to grant the relief.

Herridge is now back before the Supreme Court, which will have a final opportunity to take the case and prevent a catastrophic blow to press freedoms. If the court again punts, then any aggrieved subject of a news story could effectively strip journalistic sources of confidentiality by alleging a Privacy Act violation.

The cause of this pileup is the highly permissive standard adopted by the D.C. Circuit for the single most important jurisdiction for investigative reporting. To compel disclosure, Chen needs only to show that the source is central to her case and that she has exhausted other avenues of discovery. This test exposes every reporter who breaks a story in Washington involving government abuse or waste. Imagine if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had been sued under the Privacy Act by Nixon administration officials and forced to disclose the identity of Deep Throat.

Other circuits have a balancing test that allows for a more contextual resolution of such disputes. Another approach would be to deny such compelled disclosures when the case (as here) would not likely survive a motion for summary judgment. Chen, who lost her position because of information already in the public domain, cannot possibly show meaningful injuries from these photographs.

The irony in the case is crushing. Chen is an alleged former colonel in the People's Liberation Army, using the U.S. Privacy Act to gut a Constitutional right not recognized in China. Of course she still has rights in this country, but the question is not whether she can sue under the Privacy Act - it is what standard she must meet before the courts make a journalist betray confidential sources.

Herridge got the story right and did the right thing in protecting her sources at great personal cost. The justices now have a chance to protect her. They should take her case. Not only has it created a split among the circuit courts, but it also has a compelling record to reconsider the confusing 1972 decision in Branzburg v. Hayes, which one appellate judge ridiculed for being "about as clear as mud."

Herridge is not seeking immunity or a favor. She is a tough reporter who just wants to do her job and protect her sources under a fair legal standard. The question is whether four justices will agree and grant review in Herridge v. Chen.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution." He previously worked for CBS News and currently works at Fox News as a legal analyst. His views do not necessarily reflect those of those networks.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 20:05

Brookfield, NextEra To Build $100 Billion AI Hub On Cold War Nuclear Site

Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice,

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has announced a landmark $100-billion private investment to turn the former uranium enrichment site in Western Kentucky into the new Paducah American Energy Hub, marking one of the largest economic development projects in Kentucky's history.

Led by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, the initiative will bring together a private-sector coalition to build a massive artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) innovation campus powered by new energy infrastructure. The phased buildout is targeted for 2032, and is expected to create roughly 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent operations jobs. Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE:BAM) has been selected to build the 1.8-gigawatt (GW) AI and HPC data center campus while NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE) will develop 2 GW of natural gas-fired generation coupled with 2.6 GW of battery energy storage. The project is designed to operate on dedicated power supplies capable of feeding excess energy back to the regional grid to avoid raising utility bills for local families and businesses. The campus will also deploy a modern closed-loop cooling system to continuously recirculate water and minimize external consumption. The project leaders emphasize that this design is vastly more resource-efficient compared to the site's previous tenant, the Cold War-era Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which was originally designed to pull up to 30 million gallons of water per day from the Ohio River.

Still, the Paducah project comes at a time when the market is souring on heavy AI infrastructure spending.

Last year, Trump, alongside Oracle's Larry Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, unveiled Stargate, a private-sector joint venture intended to invest up to $500 billion over four years to build hyper-scale AI data centers and energy infrastructure across the United States. Billed by Trump as the "largest AI infrastructure project in history," Stargate is designed to secure American dominance in AI over foreign competitors like China. Oracle serves as the core cloud and infrastructure provider for the venture. Initial development of the project began in Abilene, Texas, consisting of multiple 500,000-square-foot data center buildings to house the immense computing power needed for next-generation AI models.

Unfortunately, the ambitious AI infrastructure project found itself on the ropes just months after its grand launch.

Back in January, Business Insider reported that JPMorgan Chase was having trouble syndicating the $38 billion in construction debt it underwrote for the Stargate AI data center initiative as institutional investors grow increasingly cautious regarding concentrated tech sector exposure. Banks spent more than six months attempting to distribute the multi-billion-dollar debt packages for the Stargate campuses located in Texas and Wisconsin; however, buyers appeared uninterested in taking on massive piles of debt tied heavily to single-tenant AI operations. Oracle leases the facilities, and S&P cut Oracle in July to BBB-, one notch above junk, over its data center spending. Investors demanded a higher return to hold the debt, and the banks had to sell it at a discount.

In April, OpenAI officially paused its Stargate UK data center project, citing high industrial electricity prices and regulatory uncertainty. Stargate UK was planned in partnership with hardware firms Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Nscale, aiming to deploy thousands of advanced AI chips (starting with 8,000 GPUs and scaling up to 31,000) across sites in North-East England, including Cobalt Park near Newcastle and Blyth.

Whereas OpenAI did not cancel the project outright, the AI giant says it will only resume development only when the "right conditions" allow for long-term infrastructure investment. The pause dealt a major blow to UK infrastructure partner Nscale (founded by Josh Payne), which had been scaling up operations and weighing a potential stock market IPO, as well as Britain's push to emerge as a sovereign AI superpower.

The UK pause is the second blow to OpenAI's planned capacity in a month.

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Oracle's pivotal $18-billion Project Jupiter, a massive 1,400-acre data center campus in New Mexico critical to supporting the broader AI infrastructure goals, has stalled. Oracle issued a force majeure notice to lender Blue Owl Capital regarding the 2.45-gigawatt hyperscale data center in southern New Mexico after the tech giant failed to secure vital state and federal land-use permits for a planned natural gas plant. Instead, Oracle announced plans to shift over to solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), an experimental stopgap that has never been deployed on a scale this large.

Public resistance to data centers has been growing rapidly across the United States, Europe and Asia as communities push back against the massive environmental and economic footprint of AI infrastructure. A recent Gallup poll shows that roughly 71% of Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their localities. Pushback in the U.S. has resulted in projects worth over $130 billion blocked or delayed, with reports indicating more than 500 active data center bans or moratoriums have popped up nationwide.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 19:15

'Once He Leaves, The Case Is Over': Judge Jails OpenAI Bugging Suspect After Saudi Consulate Offers 'Blank-Check' Bail

When a foreign government volunteers to bankroll your release from federal custody, it may be time to reconsider the "no ties to a foreign state" defense.

On Monday, a San Francisco federal magistrate ordered Abdulrahman Alfozan, the 35-year-old Saudi national accused of bugging an executive conference room at OpenAI's headquarters, detained without bail pending trial, saying there is a "significant" risk he would flee. The ruling came after Judge Alex Tse grilled the defense over an offer by the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles to pay Alfozan's full bail, which CNBC reports that the judge called "problematic".

In other words, the Kingdom offered to post bail for the man accused of bugging the room where OpenAI meets government officials, and the judge decided that was not, in fact, reassuring.

But, there's a lot more going on here...

"Problematic"

Alfozan's lawyer, William Pernik, had asked for release on home detention with GPS monitoring and a co-signed bond, backed by a written undertaking from the Saudi Consulate General. In court, the defense said Alfozan would also put up $1 million in assets on top of the consulate's offer. The defense package also came with dozens of support letters and a commitment from the consulate not to issue him travel documents.

Tse wasn't buying it. The judge noted that OpenAI had already fired Alfozan, so there is no job keeping him in the Bay Area, and ordered him back in court next month.

Courtroom accounts had the judge likening Riyadh's open-ended support to a "blank check", which is roughly the opposite of what you want a federal judge saying about your sureties.

“Even if I set it at $10 million, they are going to pay the entire bond," the judge reportedly said, adding that "there is a real threat here that once he leaves, the case is over."

Prosecutors from the Northern District of California had argued that Alfozan's alleged conduct could pose "a danger to the national security of the United States" and that he enjoyed "considerable support" from the Saudi government.

The defense countered that nationality is not evidence of flight and that the planned trip was for family and immigration reasons. According to CBS, Alfozan has been a US permanent resident since September 2020 and had applied for citizenship,

"Saudi Needs You More Then The U.S.!"

The government's case for detention, filed Sunday, is where things got colorful. Prosecutors said Alfozan was in frequent WhatsApp contact with a member of the Saudi Royal Family throughout 2025 and 2026, as recently as Oct. 5, four days before his arrest. The royal (unnamed in the filing) told him about a new Saudi AI program and repeatedly pressed him on when he'd leave OpenAI. The May 2026 exchange is worth quoting from the filing directly:

"Saudi needs you more then [sic] the U.S.!"

Alfozan's reply: "100"

Translation: agreed. According to CBS, Alfozan added he wouldn't leave until his stock vested, which, in fairness, is the most relatable thing anyone in this story has said.

To be clear (and the defense will make this point at every opportunity), the filing does not allege the royal directed Alfozan to plant the device or steal anything from OpenAI. It also doesn't say how the two knew each other. But it does describe internal searches concerning meetings between OpenAI and Saudi officials: reports say Alfozan accessed an internal folder labeled "Saudi Gov Docs" and searched for a meeting tagged "HUMAIN x MCIT @OpenAI", a reference to the PIF-backed AI champion and the Kingdom's communications and IT ministry. Prosecutors also flagged that further charges could follow.

Regular readers will recall that HUMAIN is the vehicle through which Riyadh has been hoovering up US AI chips (May 14, 2025), with Washington signing off on advanced chip exports (Nov 20, 2025) as part of what we described as American AI imperialism's reliance on the Middle East (Jan 6, 2026). Turns out the reliance may run both ways.

Meanwhile, after his arrest derailed a family trip, prosecutors say the Saudi government and a Saudi military official each arranged flights out of the US for his wife, Lujain Alassaf, and their three-month-old son. That trip, recall, was a one-way booking to Saudi Arabia via Istanbul for Oct. 12, three days after the FBI picked him up, as first disclosed last week. Alfozan is also listed as a venture partner at Riyadh's Raed Ventures, whose partners include a member of the royal family; one former CIA official told CNBC the firm is basically an arm of the state.

Toilet Paper Tradecraft

As a reminder, the underlying case is one we covered when it broke last week. According to the DOJ complaint, OpenAI staff found an encrypted audio recorder wrapped in toilet paper and plugged into a USB port on the back of a TV in an executive conference room on Sept. 30; it had been installed around Sept. 28.

OpenAI then added a camera, which on Oct. 5 caught Alfozan entering and checking behind the TV. The same day, security found a second recorder from the same Chinese manufacturer in a bag he'd left in a printer room - along with his wallet and ID.

The complaint also cited AI prompts about building, obfuscating, and remotely accessing a recorder, and says he used an internal productivity tool to map executive meeting rooms and leadership schedules. The room in question routinely hosted meetings between OpenAI executives and government officials, including on days close to when the device was allegedly planted. OpenAI said it has no indication that model weights, source code or customer data were accessed.

The charge itself - using or trying to use a device to intercept oral communications - carries a maximum of five years and a $250,000 fine (which, as prosecutors seem to appreciate, is a much smaller number than what a one-way ticket to Riyadh is worth).

Same Consulate, Same Offer, Different Ending

Why would a judge balk at a foreign consulate guaranteeing bail? Because this particular consulate has done it before.

In 2016, the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles posted $100,000 in bail for Abdulrahman Sameer Noorah, a Portland Community College student charged with manslaughter in the hit-and-run death of 15-year-old Fallon Smart. His passport was confiscated and he wore a GPS ankle monitor. Two weeks before trial in June 2017, he cut it off and vanished, turning up in Saudi Arabia a week later, reportedly on a Saudi-issued passport under another name.

The Oregonian later tallied more than two dozen Saudi suspects who fled US charges, in several cases after Riyadh posted bail. And since there is no US-Saudi extradition treaty, Noorah has never been back.

Passport surrender, GPS monitoring, a consular guarantee: the exact package Alfozan's lawyers offered on Monday. We suspect Judge Tse has read The Oregonian.

Bottom Line

The timing is not lost on Washington. Late last week, DNI Jay Clayton - who called the OpenAI incident a "serious situation" - warned that the administration and US companies "need to be wary" of AI espionage, singling out China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Trump Admin, US Businesses 'Need To Be Wary' Of AI Espionage, Intelligence Chief Warns https://t.co/7pwqpqNiLd

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 19, 2026

Notably absent from that list: the close US ally that just offered to bail out the accused. Officially, nobody has alleged state direction, and Alfozan is presumed innocent. But between the royal WhatsApps, the "Saudi Gov Docs" searches, the military-arranged flights for his family, and a consulate eager to cut a check, prosecutors don't need to prove motive to win a detention hearing - and they didn't.

The bigger question is what this does to the Gulf AI trade. Washington has spent two years waving through chip exports to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi on the premise that 'Gulf capital' is a partner in the US AI buildout, not a collector of its secrets. One alleged toilet-paper bug won't unwind those deals, but it hands every export-control hawk in Congress a brand-new exhibit - or, more likely, gets quietly filed under "isolated incident" the next time a HUMAIN megadeal needs a signature.

Alfozan is due back in court next month. We'll be watching whether "further charges" arrive before he does.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 18:50

'Operation Protect The Vote': Feds Arrest 28 Foreign Nationals In California Monday For Illegal Voting

Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

Federal agents arrested more than two dozen foreign nationals across California on Monday, for fraudulently registering and voting in U.S. elections.

Specifically, the 28 suspects are being charged with a combination of illegal voting, making a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to vote, and "knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process," Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announced at a news conference in Los Angeles.

The statewide sweep was executed by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other federal law enforcement agencies as part of "Operation Protect the Vote."

"This operation marks an important step in ongoing efforts to investigate election-related crimes. HSI will continue to investigate alleged voter fraud and hold those responsible accountable under the law," HSI stated on X.

Operation Protect the Vote spans all four federal judicial districts in the state, with Homeland Security Investigations leading the coordinated arrests. One prominent case involves Alexander Muñoz, a 72-year-old Belizean national in Commerce, CA, who allegedly claimed U.S. citizenship in 2019 to register and subsequently voted in 2020, 2022, and 2024.

The crackdown follows a DOJ lawsuit filed against California on October 15 after state officials refused to review a list of over 20,000 suspected noncitizens on voter rolls within a 48-hour deadline. While federal prosecutors assert these arrests confirm widespread noncitizen voting, California Governor Gavin Newsom and state election officials dispute the scale of the issue, characterizing the federal intervention as an attempt to bully and suppress voters ahead of the November 3 midterm election.

Bill Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, warned last week that California election workers could face criminal liability under federal aiding-and-abetting laws if they knowingly process unlawful ballots, asserting that the state would be facilitating a violation of federal law.

President Donald Trump issued his own warning on Friday, advising California election officials they could face lengthy prison sentences if they count ballots cast by suspected illegal aliens and noncitizens in the upcoming midterm elections.

"They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!" Trump declared Friday on Truth Social, sharing a DOJ letter warning to Los Angeles County officials.

During the press conference Monday, McCotter announced that that the Justice Department had just filed a motion for emergency relief in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, asking  the Court to grant its motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction and set aside and segregate the ballots of the 20,000+ individuals until it can be determined that they are U.S. citizens.

"They are on California's voter roll, and therefore already have, or soon will receive a mail-in ballot," McCotter told reporters.

Essayli stated that Monday's arrests confirm federal suspicions that noncitizens are voting in California elections, which he noted is  "unconstitutional and illegal.

"In the last seven weeks alone, the Department of Justice has charged 113 aliens across twenty states with illegal voting and registration offenses," Essayli said. "Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the DOJ has charged 156 people with voter fraud-related offenses."

Essayli said the Justice Department is "investigating thousands more similar cases throughout the nation."

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 17:40

Trump Favorable On Trilateral Meeting With Xi, Putin: "I Would Do It" Zelensky Should Get Out of the Way, Trump Suggests

President Trump has once again put Zelensky in his place, in a Monday afternoon exchange with reporters he actually again suggested that the Ukrainian leader needs to be booted from leadership, and cut out of negotiations in an effort to find peace in the war with Russia.

"Zelensky is a man that should've had this war settled a long time ago. If he would've listened to me, he would've made a much better deal a long time ago and he'd have a million people living... I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine," Trump said bluntly when engaging with a reporter's question.

Reporter: Zelensky says you're on the wrong side of history. Trump: Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about. I think it's time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine https://t.co/P2dskwE2h1

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 19, 2026

"I'm supporting stopping the war between Russia and Ukraine... Frankly, Zelensky is not helping matters much. I think he doesn't want to stop it. I want to see people not die," the US President also said.

This was in response to Zelensky earlier hitting back at Trump over some serious changes in US policy on Ukraine, including an apparent halt or at least throttling of intelligence-sharing: "you're on the wrong side of history" - Zelensky had said.

In Trump's own fresh comments, he hit back hard, saying: "Zelensky doesn't know what he's talking about."

Trump Favorable To Trilateral Summit (Sans Zelensky)

In the wake of prior late Sunday reports, Trump has also newly declared that he is indeed open to participating in a trilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin (but without Zelensky's involvement). Trump also offered that could be focused on denuclearization.

"I would do it" - Trump stated multiple times, stipulating that he'd like to see it happen if President Xi were on board, and saying it would likely be in China (since Xi just recently visited the US).

Watch the crucial moment below:

Trump: If Putin and Xi want a trilateral meeting in China, I would like to have it. https://t.co/AEZ6T0PvBh

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 19, 2026

We detailed Sunday that Putin reportedly first floated the idea of a trilateral meeting in an Oct. 9 phone call with Trump. That conversation also produced a deal for the US to buy Russian diesel fuel and facilitate its sale on the global market. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that discussions were taking place over a potential meeting. 

After Putin Floated Summit Idea, It's Still at 'Hypothetical' Stage

“There is no clear understanding yet regarding the meeting itself or its potential agenda, although all three parties acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

A senior US official earlier said that while Trump hadn’t agreed to such a summit, he said that the president could be receptive to the idea, given his desire to fulfill a campaign promise to settle the war. Trump had said it would be finished on “day one” of his new term, but he is now approaching nearly two years in office. 

The Kremlin has suggested holding the trilateral dialogue on the sidelines of the coming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the people familiar with discussions said. That gathering takes place on Nov. 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, the southern Chinese tech hub. 

Asked whether he has agreed to a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the war in Ukraine, President Trump says he has not, but would be open to such a meeting focused on nuclear disarmament instead. “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven't been doing much. And the same thing with China,” Trump says.

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 19, 2026

A potential three-way dialogue on Chinese soil would mark a big step for Xi in his efforts to elevate China’s role as a diplomatic power broker, said analysts who study China. Russian officials proposed the idea to Beijing through diplomatic channels and the Chinese side has indicated it wouldn’t object if Trump is on board. 

And now Trump is declaring that he is indeed on board.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 17:20

Intifada For All...

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via kunstler.com,

"The Dems are a total mess of cluster B psychopathology. They will continue to humiliate themselves & alienate the normal population."

- JD Haltigan on X

Looks like the punishments will continue across the pond until morale improves. France on fire in the "mostly peaceful" riots - according to the BBC - this past weekend could yet ignite a final, furious, Globalist-Jacobin bid to wreck Western Civ as populist nationalism looms ever larger to defeat them. That is, whatever the demonic coalition of desperate Euro elites backed by the Soros NGO empire, the WEF, the UN bureaucracy, possibly the British Crown, and the EU, can induce their Lefty-left useful idiots to act out intifada-style against the people and their culture.

A Nice Bordeaux with Your Intifada?

President Macron stepped up Sunday to ask, "How can French people do this to France?" as the ancient tower of the Limoges city hall collapsed in flames. Somebody please inform him that the parties responsible for all the fiery chaos are not necessarily French people. Any way you cut it, this has got to be the end-of-pretend that flooding Europe with jihadis for two decades was a grand and noble idea. Where's that whiff of grapeshot when you really need it?

You also must wonder whether the American Lefty-left has riot-envy. Their handlers in the Democratic Party and its dark entourage of "resistance" foundations, billionaire NGO-funders, and Deep State seditionists must be itching to unleash similar punishments across the USA, as they managed to do in 2020 to honor the saintly George Floyd. Of course, they don't have the same resources they enjoyed back then. The US president - know who that is? - has choked off a good deal of their money-laundered cash-flow.

The main question seems to be: will any street-fighting commence here before or after the mid-term election? Before Nov. 3, let's face it, would not be such a good look for the Dems. Flash mobs of "teens" looting the sneaker stores and burning down 7-Eleven shops might only prompt the Trump-weary Republican hold-outs to show up at the polls bigly in swing states. Certainly, big, violent street demonstrations full of jihadi and communist iconography won't reflect well on Mamdani wannabe Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan or Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who assisted Tim Walz in covering-up the Somali fraud operations for years and years, and ran the Signal comms network during the Minneapolis ICE riots of last winter.

Of course, if the Euroland riots keep going, the American Lefties just might bust out anyway. "Solidarity," and all that. Comically, the "No Kings" demos of Saturday were hamstrung when Mark Zuckerberg's Meta company (formerly Facebook) suspended the No Kings Instagram account around the peak time of scheduled events around the country (starting at 1:30 p.m. ET) and for nearly two hours after. Meta later explained something about an automated security system triggered by a high volume of bot postings linked to an Anthropic AI tool. The No Kings organizers lost their action coordination platform. Fizzle fizzle. . . Boo-hoo.

After the election, however, you might consider that the same Lefty-left minions in America will take to the streets whether they win or lose the big contest over who gets to run Congress. For one thing, do not underestimate the degree of scrutiny that the federal government will give to balloting in previously sketchy corners of the land such as Michigan, Arizona, Minnesota, California, and many other places.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, sent letters to fifty states last summer warning officials they could face criminal liability for allowing or enabling non-citizens to vote. This ain't no fool' around. The DOJ is also sending attorneys by the hundreds to "observe" election proceedings. The Department of Homeland Security announced and is taking multiple actions framed as "protecting election integrity and addressing voter fraud."

The Democratic Party is already royally pissed-off at the prospect that their manifold cheating operations might be stifled this time around. You can bet that a failure to win the House and Senate will produce a vigorous reaction, easily turning violent, along with a massive effort led by lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen and Marc Elias to foul up all efforts at certifying the vote in a thousand frivolous lawsuits. Is it not time to recognize that as a form of seditious conspiracy and prosecute it accordingly?

The last big question, then, is how the president might respond to post-election shenanigans. Well, for one thing, and whatever the outcome, Mr. Trump will no longer be constrained by the need to avoid the appearance of election interference. My guess is that he will finally go medieval on these vile seditionists, even if it requires declaring some sort of national emergency or invoking the Insurrection Act. He is not going to allow a replay of anything like the 2020 mayhem.

Whatever the Europeans choose to do, it would be a shame if they lose their countries. We won't lose ours, and we are not coming to rescue them this time.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 17:00

Houthis Target More Saudi Airports, Aramco Sites As US Issues Urgent Alert For 12 Mideast States

Embassies in the Middle East - and broadly the State Department - have issued warnings that the Iran and Yemen conflicts may soon escalate unpredictably, including a blanket new travel alert covering for no less than a dozen regional countries.

More missiles were launched on Saudi Arabia Monday: "Yemen’s Houthis said on Monday they carried out attacks on Saudi energy, airport, and military targets including an Aramco facility ‌in Yanbu, the Shaybah oilfield, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, and Abha airport," reports Al Jazeera. The Saudi government has yet to confirm that there were strikes on these locations, however.

AFP/Getty Images

Also, active fighting between Iranian and US forces could erupt once again at any moment. An Iranian official has freshly put US allied states across the region on notice.

According to an update in regional media:

An adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says Iran will respond with attacks against numerous US allies in the Middle East if it’s attacked again.

Conservative politician Mohammad Mokhber said Iran would strike “nine countries” if Iranian military bases or “petrochemical” facilities are struck again. His recorded comments posted by Tasnim, a semi-official news agency close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, did not name the countries.

As for the newest US State Dept. alert that went out to Americans in the region, this high threat standard indicates that severe or life-threatening risks and dangers are present - also with the potential for getting trapped in a country, with possible flight cancellations, airspace closures and travel disruptions. Much of Saudi airspace has been closed for over a week at this point.

The fresh warning covering a dozen countries states that "the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area" and to "develop contingency plans in advance."

"Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other US interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including US businesses and other institutions," the alert said. The below countries are listed:

• Saudi Arabia
• Yemen
• Israel
• Iraq
• Lebanon
• Jordan
• Qatar
• Bahrain
• Kuwait
• UAE
• Oman
• Iran 

One obvious highly dangerous place of travel remains Saudi Arabia, where the Houthis have been targeting major airports - including Riyadh's main international hub - as well as Aramco oil infrastructure, almost on a daily basis. Already at the start renewed Yemen fighting, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia warned its diplomats against unauthorized travel through King Khalid International Airport.

Americans currently in the Middle East should exercise heightened vigilance due to the complex security environment. Be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions. Iranian-supported Houthis have engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions. The hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area. Americans traveling to or from the Middle East should monitor information about airport and airline operations and develop contingency plans in advance. Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other U.S. interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including U.S. businesses and other institutions. Read the latest country-specific alerts at: https://t.co/ouQakQV9oV

— TravelGov (@TravelGov) October 19, 2026

At this point the international hub remains closed for an indefinite amount of time, with the Houthis again on Monday announcing the airport was targeted by a ballistic missile.

There's some speculation that the new heighted State Dept. alert could be a precursor to potential renewed US bombing raids against Iran, despite White House statements indicating this likely won't happen until after the November midterm elections.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 16:40

This Is Perhaps The Most Dystopian Thing Ever...

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

France's streets burned, shops were looted and stripped bare and a historic town hall collapsed under arson. Yet the most striking images from Saturday night were not the fires. They were the people who carried on as if nothing was happening.

One woman jogged straight through thick black smoke past a burning barricade, treating the chaos like an outdoor treadmill session.

Groups of French boomers kept dancing while buildings were torched around them, and a tour guide was filmed continuing her routine for visitors, smiling and pointing out landmarks while flames literally engulfed the city right in front of tourists.

?French locals prefer to keep dancing while watching their country being fully destroyed… ??

meanwhile! French President Macron joins a Celine Dion concert ..

?FRANCE IS DONE !?#France #Macron #NotreDame pic.twitter.com/sQw9zr81Ku

— TruthTrencherX (@TruthTrencher) October 18, 2026

Meanwhile, the so called leader of France President Emmanuel Macron was filmed at a Celine Dion concert.

The most dystopian fitness video on the internet just dropped. ??

Paris is literally burning, protesters are shutting down the streets, and this woman is casually jogging past a burning barricade like it’s a treadmill session. She is literally running through thick black smoke… pic.twitter.com/KBhFmkRsVV

— Atulya (@DesiMemesTweets) October 18, 2026

La guide touristique qui fait semblant que tout va bien alors que Paris est en feu ??????? pic.twitter.com/ZWyjjgfQyh

— Nasss?? (@NassimMTL) October 18, 2026

This is the backdrop to the worst night of rioting and unrest in years. Authorities reported roughly 550,000 people on the streets (others claimed 800,000). The day produced between 1,200 and 1,800 arrests and more than 500 injured police, gendarmes and firefighters. One person died of cardiac arrest in Paris.

Riots across France today.

Looting, fires, vandalism and attacks against policemen and firefighters reported from cities across the country. pic.twitter.com/ZpVnuXTvC3

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026

This isn’t St Petersburg or Belgorod in Russia. And it isn’t Kiev in Ukraine…

This is Paris.

But at the moment it’s pretty hard to tell the difference.

Video: Media BBG pic.twitter.com/U6y09Cfwdv

— Mor Edge Insight (@MorEdge_Insight) October 18, 2026

In Limoges the 143-year-old city hall was deliberately set alight; its spire and roof collapsed. Prefect Maurice Barate called the attackers "a wild horde."

BREAKING:

The town hall of Limoges, built in 1873, didn’t survive today’s riots.

The building’s spire has now collapsed pic.twitter.com/yleJx8MKCo

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026

Mayor Guillaume Guérin said those who entered threatened staff, telling them they would be killed. The building had survived two world wars.

In Lyon the tourist office, described as a heritage building in the heart of the city, was set ablaze, with officials calling the loss a tragedy.

?? | URGENTE: Oficina de turismo incendiada en Lyon: "Es un edificio patrimonial en pleno corazón de la ciudad (…) perder de esta manera esta oficina, para nosotros, verdaderamente, es una tragedia". pic.twitter.com/oPr71UdrwX

— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) October 17, 2026

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the government would not be "intimidated" and blamed the "ultra-left" and criminals. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez pointed to "far-left" protesters joined by "criminals who looted and ransacked."

Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire stated that "whole streets have been devastated." Macron, while still claiming there were legitimate protesters who should not be ignored, later said those who broke into buildings, attacked prefectures and looted town halls "will be prosecuted and punished."

In Marseille, rioters forced their way into city hall, toppled a bust of Marianne and raised Palestinian flags.

Marseille city hall has fallen & they have put up Palestinian flags inside
pic.twitter.com/VzqM0em2Wo

— Shai Goldman (@shaig) October 17, 2026

Rolex, Hermès, Louis Vuitton and other stores were emptied in daylight.

A Rolex store was looted in Marseille, France amid the violent protests. pic.twitter.com/RafKsK9Qdr

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 18, 2026

? UPDATE: Rioters in France just raided LOUIS VUITTON

They're looting businesses, attacking cops and BURNING DOWN TOWN HALLS

"Student protests" MY A*S!

The media is REFUSING to acknowledge that this is a leftist-Islamist allied riot meant SOLELY to cause destruction and…

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 17, 2026

Looters also broke into the Centre Bourse shopping mall and began taking everything they could carry.

BREAKING:

The looters have managed to break into Centre Bourse shopping mall in Marseille and are now stealing everything they can pic.twitter.com/OpQxn63nir

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 17, 2026

Prefect Jacques Witkowski said the people involved "ne sont pas venus pour manifester, mais piller" - they did not come to demonstrate, they came to loot.

In Paris a woman who had joined the marches was filmed shouting "This isn't the cause" as others began looting; she was pushed aside and told they had "urgent shopping" to do.

Cultural relativism playing out here again. They don’t give a crap what “the cause” is. https://t.co/oS4zF7E90q

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) October 18, 2026

Restaurant owner Aline of La Barrique was beaten, her face bruised, her place sacked and burned.

??? ????? ???? — En pleurs et le visage tuméfié, Aline, gérante du restaurant La Barrique à Paris, raconte avoir été tabassée par des émeutiers.

Son établissement a été saccagé et entièrement calciné : elle a tout perdu. pic.twitter.com/ZmvlUVZip2

— Bastion (@BastionMediaFR) October 18, 2026

A phone-shop owner sat among the shattered remains of his business.

??? Dude, all of this is genuinely INFURIATING.

A phone shop owner sits with his head in his hands, surrounded by shattered glass and debris after rioters LOOTED and DESTROYED his store in France.

Just look at him… trying to process what happened.

How can anyone watch this…

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 17, 2026

In Nice a person connected to an attacked store was assaulted after confronting the rioters.

Nice, France (Oct. 17) — France is experiencing similar mass leftist violence and looting like the U.S. did after George Floyd.

A person associated with a store that was attacked gets assaulted after going outside to yell at the rioters. pic.twitter.com/jUqYlA0suw

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) October 18, 2026

Groups also hijacked tourist train cars.

It's complete anarchy on the streets of France

They're now hijacking tourist traincars and joyriding them pic.twitter.com/iiJjzyglH7

— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) October 17, 2026

Another clip shows supposed student protesters pausing to loot a jewellery store.

French students protest but take a well deserved break to loot a local jewellery store. pic.twitter.com/lVtj1oswpz

— HJB News (@HJB_News__) October 18, 2026

Footage of the looting and street chaos has been widely shared as the direct outcome of left-wing policies and education that prioritised ideology over basic order.

This mob are not ‘protesters’ and they’re not ‘French’. pic.twitter.com/MEQfgtb57h

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) October 18, 2026

“Protesters” https://t.co/A3ttaDOKv5

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) October 17, 2026

“Protesters” pic.twitter.com/5ImdOCEzvg

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) October 17, 2026

WILD SCENES: Chaos erupts at Place de la République in Paris. pic.twitter.com/LfztwshXTW

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 17, 2026

This is the result of left wing politics and left wing education in schools .. it’s time for people to wake the Fk up and go back to conservatism.. which stands for common sense and law and order pic.twitter.com/50Nuz2nUdb

— WeGotitBack ??????????? (@NotFarLeftAtAll) October 18, 2026

Footage from multiple cities shows few French flags among the most violent crowds. Islamic and Palestinian flags dominate.

Ni una sola bandera de Francia en las "protestas" "estudiantiles". Solo banderas de entidades islámicas. pic.twitter.com/ejwj7J7Rdw

— Kalina Ann? (@KalinaAnnGG) October 17, 2026

One clip shows men pausing the looting and violence in a Paris street to pray, then continuing.

? UPDATE: Muslim rioters STOP their violence and looting to pray to allah in the streets of Paris, France, before they keep going ?

And so there it is. WAKE UP!

Don't the people of France see what this is about?

The media for WEEKS told us this was "STUDENT PROTESTS" when…

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 17, 2026

A Spanish journalist was confronted by two men making throat-slitting gestures; reports described them as second- and third-generation migrants.

? NEWS ALERT: A Spanish journalist reporting from the riots in Paris was confronted by two men who heckled her and made throat-slitting gestures toward the camera.

The men were described in circulating reports as second- and third-generation migrants.#France #Paris #Protests…

— Today’s News (@TodaysNewsco) October 18, 2026

An image of a Joan of Arc figure in a hijab holding a Palestinian flag circulated widely.

Eén foto, duizend woorden.

Jeanne d'Arc met hijab en Palestijnse vlag.#Frankrijk #Frankrijk #Frankrijk #Frankrijk pic.twitter.com/aJTkH9o3zn

— widtvoet (@widtvoet) October 17, 2026

A circulating account from journalist Paul Amar claimed groups arrived with addresses of town halls and Jewish-owned shops and that, on one Marseille street, businesses owned by Jews were burned while those run by Muslims were not.

French journalist Paul Amar:

“They came prepared. They had the addresses of town halls. They had addresses of Jewish shop owners.

In a street in Marseille, all businesses owned by Jews were set on fire. Businesses run by Muslims weren’t” pic.twitter.com/zudahbmw7p

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) October 18, 2026

Organised Networks, Not Spontaneous Students

This is not a spontaneous student protest that got out of hand.

A Fox News Digital investigation found that of roughly 50 organisations active around the unrest, only about one-third were actual student or youth groups. The rest included labour unions, communist and socialist organisations, the French Communist Party, La France Insoumise and a Palestinian advocacy group.

The same reporting traced funding and amplification to networks linked to Shanghai-based tycoon Neville Roy Singham, including outlets such as BreakThrough News.

The violence is being amplified by a red-green alliance of communists, socialists and Islamists using "student" grievances as cover for broader disruption.

? NOW: Communist, socialist and Islamist-linked dollars are ORGANIZING and AMPLIFYING the major riots in France, falsely called "student protests" by the fake news

"There are organizations with names like Breakthrough News sounds very innocuous, People's Forum, the Party for… pic.twitter.com/CvtCzOVaW0

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) October 17, 2026

A clip circulating on X shows pallets of bottles appearing on the street as if staged in advance, suggesting the chaos was organised and rioters were being equipped rather than acting spontaneously.

Well well well… https://t.co/FzLWMvyL5F

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) October 18, 2026

The original complaints about teacher shortages and ageing school buildings are now just a footnote.

France spends above the EU average on upper-secondary education. None of that explains why luxury stores were emptied, why a 19th-century town hall was torched, why people are being beaten in the streets or their own places of business, or why large sections of the crowds waved foreign flags and paused to pray in the street.

The media continues to centre "education reform" and cost-of-living framing. The videos show something else entirely: organised destruction enabled by decades of open borders, with first-, second- and third-generation migrants doing the smashing and burning.

While the country was being looted and set alight, people danced, jogged through the smoke, gave guided tours and the president attended a concert. That is the clearest picture of how detached the official story has become from what is actually happening on the ground.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 16:30

44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities As Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Tops $5 Million

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse Blog,

How did we get to a point where nearly half of the entire population is struggling to even pay for the most basic necessities? A lot of people talk about "economic collapse" as something that will occur someday in the future. The truth is that "economic collapse" has been slowly happening for decades as the middle class has been systematically eviscerated. It now takes 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime. Who can afford that? Most Americans aren't even going to come close to making 5.3 million dollars during their working years. Of course in this economic environment, much of the population is just concerned with trying to survive from month to month. The cost of living crisis that has been raging for this entire decade is absolutely crushing millions upon millions of U.S. households, and now we just learned that the official inflation rate has gone up again.

If financial stress has become a major theme in your life, I want you to know that you are not alone.

According to a shocking new survey just released by the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Americans struggle to even pay for the most basic necessities...

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) indicate they have had trouble paying for at least one of these basic necessities in the past year

We aren't talking about having difficulty paying the phone bill.

The survey found that an alarmingly high percentage of the population can't even afford to pay for housing, food and medical care.

It also discovered that a whopping 27 percent of Americans can't pay their monthly bills in full...

• 60% say they do not currently have enough income to lead the kind of life they want.
• 53% say they do not have emergency funds that would cover their expenses for three months.
• 27% cannot pay some of their monthly bills or can only make partial payments.
• 32% say they worry every day or almost every day about the cost of healthcare and the amount of debt they have.

More than a quarter of the population is getting behind on their debts.

That is what you call a crisis.

And there is no end in sight.

Most Americans don't want to be rich.

Most Americans just want to live a middle class lifestyle like their parents did.

Unfortunately, it now costs 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime...

The cost of the American dream is rising at a faster pace than household earnings, driven by notable increases in the cost of homeownership, raising children and paying for college, according to a new report.

An analysis by Investopedia finds that the lifetime cost of the American dream rose 4.1% from 2025 to 2026, with the cost increasing by more than $208,000 from $5.11 million a year ago to $5.32 million this year.

Are you going to make more than 5 million dollars during your working years?

If not, you are out of luck.

Housing costs have been eroding the middle class faster than just about anything else...

Homeownership costs rose the most in dollar terms, with the lifetime cost rising by over $91,000 from $1.184 million in 2025 to $1.275 million in 2026. That rise amounts to a 7.7% increase year over year.

That figure includes a 20% down payment on a median-priced single-family home of $420,000, with a 6.32% 30-year mortgage that brings the total cost with interest to about $837,000, as well as $3,057 a year in insurance costs, property taxes and 30 years of upkeep and utilities which adds another $438,000 to the price tag.

Of course the figures quoted above no longer apply, because the average rate on a 30 year mortgage is now well over 7 percent.

So now homeownership is even more unaffordable.

And just about everything else is becoming more expensive too.

Today we learned that the official rate of inflation just went up again...

September brought little relief to the accelerating cost of living, as consumer prices increased again and kept the inflation rate well above the Federal Reserve's goal.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the 12-month rate at 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected respective gains of 0.6% and 3.6%.

The formula that is used to calculate the official rate of inflation has been changed dozens of times since the Jimmy Carter era, and at this stage it doesn't even come close to accurately reflecting how quickly prices are actually going up.

But the fact that even the government is admitting that inflation is rising is not good.

Soaring energy costs were the primary reason for the spike in the inflation rate...

Energy costs drove inflation in September, and high retail prices in October suggest pain at the pump will continue. Prices have soared since the Iran conflict started at the end of February.

Gasoline prices last month rose 9.1% from the prior month - a faster pace than August's 3.9% increase - and are up 34% over the past year. Fuel-oil prices, meanwhile, are up 74% since last September.

When this inflation report was released, it really spooked investors, and bond yields spiked dramatically...

The 10-year Treasury note yield rose on Wednesday following the latest U.S. inflation print.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note - the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt - jumped more than 7 basis points to 5.289% and reached the highest level since Oct. 8.

The longer-dated 30-year U.S. Treasury yield - which tends to react most to geopolitical events - was up more than 3 basis points to 5.602%.

The U.S. Treasury has been working really hard to keep bond yields under control.

I think that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is going to need a bigger boat.

During most economic downturns, normally we are either facing an inflation crisis or an unemployment crisis.

This time around, it appears that we will have both.

Mass layoffs have been occurring all over the nation, and on Wednesday we learned that Netflix is joining the party...

Netflix is reportedly laying off 1,000 workers - the streaming giant's biggest cuts since 2022.

Staff were told Wednesday that about 6% of the workforce - within product, tech, legal, and human resources teams - was being slashed, according to a memo obtained by the Post.

I thought that Netflix was doing well.

I guess not.

Kroger is another company that was once thriving, but now they have decided to give the axe to about 3,000 highly-paid corporate workers...

Kroger is planning to eliminate approximately 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years as the grocery giant expands its use of artificial intelligence and looks to cut costs, according to a report.

The planned cuts would affect roughly 37% of Kroger's approximately 8,200 corporate employees, Reuters reported Monday, citing an internal memo from CEO Greg Foran.

The restructuring comes as Kroger faces pressure to improve sales, keep grocery prices competitive and streamline operations through increased use of AI.

Every time more highly-paid jobs are wiped out, the middle class gets even smaller.

If you still have your seat in the middle class, you should be very thankful, because more chairs are being pulled out of the game with each passing day.

The top 10 percent of all income earners are still thriving, but for almost everyone else life is a struggle.

It didn't have to turn out this way.

Decades of insanely bad decisions have brought us to this point, and now the cost of living is the number one political issue during this campaign season by a very wide margin.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 16:20

Trump Admin, US Businesses 'Need To Be Wary' Of AI Espionage, Intelligence Chief Warns

Authored by Timothy Frudd via The Epoch Times,

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton warned that both the Trump administration and American companies "need to be wary" of foreign espionage with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which the government now refers to as super intelligence.

Clayton, who leads the Trump administration's Super Intelligence Force, told CNBC in a Friday interview that maintaining U.S. leadership in the AI race is critical in the face of potential foreign espionage. He noted that while AI platforms and capabilities can be used for "very good purposes," they can also be used for "nefarious purposes."

The intelligence chief's comments came after President Donald Trump's Super Intelligence Force held its first meeting at the White House on Thursday. Clayton told CNBC that the meeting was "very good" and that it built on the voluntary accord signed by Trump and multiple technology industry leaders at the White House on Sept. 29.

Asked whether Americans should be concerned about foreign espionage with AI companies, Clayton said Friday that both commercial and state-sponsored espionage are a reality facing the United States.

"It's something that our private-sector companies need to be wary of, we as a government need to be wary of," he said.

Clayton told CNBC that it was important for the United States to "stay on the cutting edge" of AI capabilities in order to address concerns regarding AI advances by U.S. adversaries.

"We're not the only ones developing it. There are vectors in this technology that are coming from some of our known adversaries and competitors," he said. "The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans all have significant technical capability. We need to stay ahead of them."

Many of the risks posed by AI are linked to cybersecurity and digital infrastructure, Clayton told CNBC. He described the U.S. digital infrastructure as critical infrastructure, covering everything from public utilities, such as water and electricity, to national defense.

While cybersecurity risks are not new, the rise of AI "amplifies" those risks, Clayton said. To address the risks, he said the United States is "focused on hardening those systems" and is committed to staying ahead of "nefarious actors" in the AI race.

Clayton's warning regarding foreign espionage attempts linked to AI came after prosecutors and company officials said on Oct. 13 that Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national and software engineer working for OpenAI, was arrested on allegations that he concealed a sophisticated recording device in an OpenAI office.

According to a court complaint, the office Alfozan allegedly planted a recording device in was frequently used to hold meetings involving highly confidential information, including government engagements, commercial relationships, product plans, and strategic decisions.

In a Tuesday press release, Clayton described the incident as a "serious situation [that] underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative."

During Friday's interview on CNBC, Clayton added that the incident involving the Saudi software engineer at OpenAI "shows the lengths that people will go to try and supplant our leadership in this, or at least stay close to us, in this emerging technology."

The intelligence chief's warning also followed a series of AI swarm breaches, which has led some industry leaders to suggest that the pace of AI development needs to be slowed down and the technology needs additional oversight.

A report released last month by Anthropic found that the Iranian regime used the company's AI models to track and target U.S. Navy ships in the Middle East. The report also said that a Chinese-linked operation used Claude to track and attempt to recruit Uyghurs who joined the Syrian army to become spies.

In addition, Anthropic's report found that individuals affiliated with the Chinese regime used Claude and supporting Chinese AI systems to surveil groups targeted by the regime. Those targeted by the China-linked individuals included members of the Tibetan Buddhist civil society, practitioners of Falun Gong, Catholic cardinals, Presbyterian Church leaders, the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts, and NTD, The Epoch Times' sister media outlet.

Trump announced the formation of the Super Intelligence Force earlier this month to oversee U.S. AI policies. Clayton told CNBC that the White House task force took a number of actions during its inaugural meeting on Thursday.

Those actions included outlining a plan to implement the accords signed by technology leaders, tasking the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology with conducting a risk study, establishing committees covering different AI issues, and developing a system for the Department of Labor to regularly report on the impacts of AI on the U.S. workforce and economy.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 15:40

Geothermal Just Undercut Solar-Plus-Storage In Sunny Nevada

Geothermal has long been the clean, firm power source that was always a few breakthroughs away from being cheap enough to matter. Numbers buried in a Nevada utility filing suggest that day may have arrived.

Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of geothermal developer Zanskar, put it bluntly earlier this month: "to all the geothermal believers out there, the flippening has come."

to all the geothermal believers out there, the flippening has come in NV Energy’s 2026 filing, 3 geothermal offers came in at $105–107/MWh, below the ~$114/MWh capacity-weighted average for 11 solar + bess offers in Nevada, of all the sunny places the 3 solar + bess projects NV Energy put forward in 2024 averaged ~$94/MWh, but this 2026 slate is pricier, e.g., Boulder Solar III’s levelized price jumped from ~$85/MWh to ~$125/MWh after permitting delays, land carrying costs, higher financing costs, and, of course, big, bad tariffs. could geothermal pull off a solar + wind circa 2010 move and scale faster to come down the cost curve? it now has a much longer tax-credit runway than new solar + wind projects (oh how the tables have turned), plus firm output and higher energy density (all true for nuclear too) and for the 24/7 solar crowd: the ~$114/MWh average covers solar paired mostly with 4-hour batteries, and we all know 12+ hours of storage would cost more and still wouldn’t cover multi-day gaps it might be time for more geothermal, people

— Joel Edwards (@joelhedwards) October 7, 2026

In NV Energy's 2026 resource plan, three geothermal offers came in at $105 to $107 per megawatt-hour. That's below the roughly $114/MWh capacity-weighted average for the 11 solar+battery projects in the same filing.

Using the filing's corrected prices, the three geothermal deals total 180 MW at a weighted $105.56/MWh, versus 4,370 MW of solar-plus-storage at $113.89/MWh.

Geothermal just barely comes in about 7% cheaper.

Part of the story is solar getting pricier. Edwards notes the three solar-plus-storage projects NV Energy put forward in 2024 averaged about $94/MWh.

This time, Boulder Solar III's levelized price jumped from about $85/MWh to $125/MWh after "permitting delays, land carrying costs, higher financing costs, and, of course, big, bad tariffs."

The bigger point is what each megawatt-hour buys. A geothermal plant pulls heat from underground and runs day and night, whatever the weather. We said the same thing back in April, that it's "firm 24/7 power that intermittent renewables struggle to match."

The solar average, meanwhile, "covers solar paired mostly with 4-hour batteries," Edwards wrote, "and we all know 12+ hours of storage would cost more and still wouldn't cover multi-day gaps."

That's why data centers are signing up for geothermal. Google is backing up to 150 MW of new Ormat geothermal through NV Energy, and Amazon is backing 100 MW from Zanskar. 

To be fair, geothermal beat the average, not every bid. Sleepy Orange came in at $89.80/MWh and White Pine Solar at $101.92. Two of the three geothermal deals (and two of the solar ones) are also "sleeved" contracts tied to specific big customers rather than open bids.

A longer runway

Edwards asks whether geothermal could "pull off a solar + wind circa 2010 move and scale faster to come down the cost curve."

Under last year's One Big Beautiful Bill, wind and solar projects that didn't begin construction by July 4 of this year must be in service by the end of 2027 to claim federal tax credits. But geothermal, like battery storage, keeps the full credit for projects that start construction through 2033.

The drilling learning curve is already compounding. In July, we noted that Fervo's third-generation well design boosted drilling rates 143%, with its latest Cape Station well finished in 21 days. Last month, Big Oil backed Mazama's $135 million bet on superhot geothermal, whose second well hit 10,350 feet about 80% faster than its first. And as we noted in August, the Trump administration increasingly sees geothermal as an AI power source.

DOE's "Enhanced Geothermal Shot" aims to bring next-generation geothermal down to $45/MWh by 2035, well under half of what Nevada was just offered.

Public geothermal is getting crushed

Ormat (ORA), one of the only pure-play publicly traded geothermal companies, is down 19% year to date. Fervo (FRVO), which priced its IPO at $27 in May and closed its first day at $36, finished Friday at just over $9, a record closing low and 64% below its IPO price.

Fervo warned in August of transmission curtailment at Cape Station, and on Oct. 6 short seller Morpheus Research alleged thermal decline, water loss and seismicity problems at its sites.

All this came days after Cape Station's first 33 MW block began commercial operation a day ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, the market is still up over 10% this year, and the energy ETF XLE has soared 51% as the US-Iran war drags on.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 15:25

Musk Pledges A SpaceX Share To "Every Kid In America" After Anthropic Unveils Murky Public Benefit Fund

Elon Musk said Monday that he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in the United States next year. "Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America," he wrote in an Oct. 19 post on X, adding, "This will be the first of many," the Epoch Times reported.

Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.

This will be the first of many.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026

Close to 73 million children under 18 lived in the US as of July 2025 - so at around $147 a share, that comes to close to $11 billion of stock, about 1.5 percent of the roughly 4.8 billion SpaceX shares Musk owns, or 6.4 billion counting options and unvested awards, by the outlet's count.

Musk did not say how the shares would be distributed or whether every child would be eligible. SpaceX, which went public in June, is valued at about $2 trillion, according to the Epoch Times. The Treasury automatically enrolled tens of millions of children in Trump Accounts earlier this month and now allows donors to put stock into them, though Musk did not say he would use the program.

The pledge came a day after Anthropic said it would commit 5 percent of its shares, subject to stockholder approval, to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, with 2 percent more at the board's discretion for each 50 percent rise in the company's value above a set baseline. Counting its co-founders' pledge to donate 80 percent of their equity and an employee donation match, Anthropic says roughly 20 percent of its shares are now committed to the public good.

We're committing a portion of Anthropic's shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit.

It will start off with 5% of our shares. For every 50% increase in the company's value over a set baseline, we can...

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) October 18, 2026

The fund, a wholly owned LLC, might make large donations to nonprofits or "direct distributions to specific populations," with AI's effect on jobs one example. Anthropic has not said who will run it and plans to share its structure and governance "in the coming months."

"I recommend giving the shares directly to the public," Musk replied on X about two hours after Anthropic posted the plan on Sunday. Hours later he added, "This is what I will be doing."

I recommend giving the shares directly to the public

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2026

This is what I will be doing

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026

Musk is hardly a neutral critic. SpaceX absorbed his xAI startup in February and now competes directly with Anthropic, which confidentially filed for an IPO in June and has been opening its books to Wall Street ahead of a listing.

In July, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and her husband pledged one share each for more than 2 million children through the Trump Accounts savings program, focused on lower-income children aged 11 to 17. At the $160.42 close on the day the gift was announced, more than 2 million shares came to at least $320 million. 

President Trump told CNBC on July 3 that he expected Musk to contribute SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts as well, saying, "I think that he will do that," according to Jang. Neither Musk nor SpaceX had confirmed it at the time.

In its first earnings report as a public company, on Aug. 4, SpaceX posted $7.8 billion in revenue, but Fortune reported capital spending of $18.4 billion, about $16 billion of it on AI computing, against the $13.2 billion analysts expected. The stock fell more than 5 percent.

The company reports second-quarter results after the close on Oct. 20. Market watchers project revenue of $12.74 billion to $12.89 billion, driven mainly by AI and Starlink, and earnings per share of $0.14 to $0.23, the Epoch Times said. SpaceX is also seeking to raise $40 billion to buy advanced Nvidia AI chips, which the Epoch Times said signals that Musk wants to turn it into an AI computing company.

That spending has been a worry for credit markets. We reported earlier this month that SpaceX credit risk had hit a new high on fears about its AI debt.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 13:40

Secret Service Deputy Director Quits Amid Questions Over Ties To Drone-Defense Maker Fortem

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced his resignation from the Secret Service in an internal agency email Friday amid questions about his conflicts of interest over the agency's counter-drone technology.

Quinn served 23 years as a Secret Service agent before retiring in 2021. He then went to work at drone-manufacturer Fortem Technologies, which sells the DroneHunter product, as a senior vice president for three years before returning to the agency last year to serve as deputy director. His last day will be Nov. 7.

As RealClearPolitics first reported, Quinn was criticized by several current and former Secret Service agents for admitting during a mostly softball Sunday CBS News "60 Minutes" interview that the Secret Service was not prepared for an attack by a drone swarm.

The piece featured a DroneHunter demonstration without mentioning several technical problems the platform has experienced. RealClearPolitics over the last 48 hours submitted detailed questions to the Secret Service about some of the statements made during the "60 Minutes" interview about the drone technology, its effectiveness, whether the DroneHunter's purchases were competitively bid, and the agency's track record in taking out drones.

The "60 Minutes" report did not mention Quinn's prior work for Fortem. The Secret Service did not respond to RCP's questions.

Even before Quinn's announced departure, several Secret Service sources were questioning a report in a recent CBS "60 Minutes" segment that the agency used electronic jamming equipment to take down a drone at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December. The game was attended by the president and several members of Congress.

The sources suggest that the Secret Service is not providing the proper context about the downed drone, while raising concerns that it was most likely a friendly-fire incident.

CBS News correspondent Norah O'Donnell sat down with Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Quinn in a joint interview that aired Sunday night, Oct. 11. The three discussed this year's surge in threats to President Trump and his Cabinet and how the agency is trying to adapt to dangers posed by autonomous attack drones, not just lone gunmen.

The 13-minute report features scenes of Curran and Quinn at the agency's Rowley Training Center demonstrating counter-drone systems. The segment featured drone-fighting technology, including the DroneHunter, a weapon that uses AI and radar to disable what O'Donnell referred to as "enemy drones." When it's working properly, the DroneHunter captures targeted unmanned aerial vehicles in a net.

At one point, Quinn, who concedes during the interview that the agency doesn't have the capability to stop a swarm of drones, narrates as a DroneHunter hexacopter captures an unmanned aerial vehicle in a training demonstration.

"Whoa," O'Donnell remarks while watching the capture starting to take place.

"What you see is the drone hanging from the drone hunter," Quinn explains. "So, the bad guy drone is now captured. It's gonna take it to a predetermined safe area."

Near the end of the segment, O'Donnell states without citing a source: "60 Minutes has learned the Secret Service took down a drone using electronic jamming equipment at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December where the president and members of Congress were in attendance."

It was just one line in the segment, and there was no explanation of whether the drone posed a genuine threat to Trump and everyone else gathered in the stadium for the annual military academy football rivalry. The report also didn't indicate whether the drone was associated with a foreign actor or was simply a hobbyist's drone that posed no threat at all.

Active and retired Secret Service agents are now calling on agency leaders to explain more fully what happened. Their biggest question is whether it was a case of friendly fire. Instead of intercepting an alien drone that may or may not have posed a threat, a Secret Service officer or agent used a handheld drone-jamming gun to disable and take out one of its own surveillance drones monitoring the stadium, the sources tell RealClearPolitics.

Trigger-happy

A Secret Service source said the Specialized Rifle Unit, a tactical element within the Secret Service's Uniformed Division, got "trigger happy" and took out an agency surveillance drone without communicating with others to find out whether it was an agency asset.

"SRU was, to my knowledge, the drone hunter team, and [they] failed to deconflict," the source told RealClearPolitics. The SRU officers were celebrating until they realized it was a "blue-on-blue" incident, the source added.

Two sources told RCP that the downed Secret Service drone fell either onto or just to the side of Interstate 395, where the agency recovered it. Several sources also said the DroneHunter failed to operate as planned on the day O'Donnell was scheduled to appear at the training center for the demonstration. Since Quinn returned to the Secret Service, several agents have questioned whether he should have recused himself from any decisions on DroneHunter purchases because of his ties to the manufacturer.

The Secret Service didn't respond to a set of emailed questions RCP posed about the Army-Navy game drone downing.

Such a friendly-fire incident would not be the first time this year that a federal law enforcement agency was involved in shooting down a U.S. government drone.

The U.S. military accidentally shot down a U.S. Customs and Border Protection drone using a high-energy anti-drone laser system near Fort Hancock, Texas, in February. Reports on the incident said the CBP didn't coordinate the flight with the military task force assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Still, the agency's silence around the Army-Navy incident is once again stoking internal agency concern that Secret Service leaders have yet to fix all siloed communications between agency assets that are supposed to be working in tandem to protect President Trump.

Another case of siloed communications?

The friendly-fire accusations cite a disconnect between the Secret Service's drone surveillance operators and a team dedicated to disrupting drones that may pose a threat to Trump. The sources say they are raising concerns about the incident because they are deeply worried that the agency has yet to fix the communications confusion that contributed to the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The shooting wounded Trump, killed retired fireman Corey Comperatore, and seriously injured two other men, James Copenhaver and David Dutch.

Congressional investigators found that on July 13, 2024, information about shooter Thomas Crooks moved through two largely separate channels - local police and the Secret Service - and also failed to spread within the Secret Service's own network.

'Nothing changes here'

A Biden administration Department of Homeland Security official moved quickly after former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation in 2024 to reassure Rowe, the incoming acting director at the time, that operations would continue unchanged under his new leadership - even as the agency struggled to defend itself to Congress and the public over Trump's near-assassination.

Newly released documents obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America, a conservative watchdog organization, through ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation reveal new internal reactions to the Butler shooting. The files also provide new detail about the fallout after Cheatle's resignation as Secret Service director days later.

Then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued an agency-wide email at 1:08 p.m. on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, on his statement regarding Cheatle's resignation, under pressure from lawmakers after her testimony to Congress and Rowe's appointment.

In the statement, Mayorkas commended Cheatle for what he cast as her "tireless dedication," "honor," and "integrity" over nearly three decades in the Secret Service.

"Over the past two years, she has led the Secret Service with skill, honor, integrity and tireless dedication," he said.

Six minutes later, at 1:14 p.m., a DHS official forwarded that same statement - this time to Rowe alone - with a personal note attached: "Nothing changes here, Ron, I have your back."

"Thank you," Rowe replied.

The identity of the person who forwarded the email to Rowe was redacted in the first version CASA received. CASA Director James Fitzpatrick says the DHS and the Secret Service withheld the name, citing personal privacy and a concern that disclosure could interfere with law enforcement proceedings.

CASA appealed the redaction, and a judge agreed to overturn it, revealing that Patrick "PJ" Lechleitner, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from July 2023 to January 2025, sent the note to Rowe.

CASA Director James Fitzpatrick interpreted Lechleitner's "nothing changes" remark as an endorsement of the status quo at both DHS and the Secret Service after a disgraceful breakdown in security.

"Through aggressive FOIA litigation, CASA uncovered documents from the Biden [DHS] showing that an official reassured Ron Rowe just hours after Cheatle resigned that 'nothing changes here' after one of the biggest security breakdowns in the history of the country in Butler, PA," he told RCP.

Contacted by RealClearPolitics, Lechleitner said the comments he made to Rowe at the time were from one "cop to another" that "nothing changes" - "everything is good between ICE and the Secret Service."

"Honestly, I had worked with Ron, and we were all career people before [our political appointments]," he said.

The message was simply one of support, Leichleitner explained.

"It was just [that the] relationship remains regardless of the leadership that moves around," he said.

Lechleitner also said his career background before heading ICE was in DHS's Homeland Security Investigations department, which often works directly with the Secret Service to provide additional federal agents to assist with security at events. In fact, several HSI agents had augmented security for the Butler rally.

Trump removed Lechleitner along with other key Biden immigration enforcement officials on his first day in office.

DEI and a lack of training 'had nothing to do with' Butler failures

A second document provided to CASA through the FOIA process provides details of the "murder board" prep sheet - mock question-and-answer exercise agencies use to prepare officials for hostile congressional questioning - used to ready Rowe for his July 30, 2024, appearance before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.

Talking points in the document, as described by CASA, include assertions that a forthcoming investigation would show a "thorough security plan" had been in place, that "DEI issues had nothing to do with" the security breakdown, that there was "not a lack of USSS training," and that there had merely been "an unwanted outcome" in Thomas Crooks' near-killing of Trump.

The document also states the agency would "take steps to ensure an unwanted outcome like this does not occur again."

Six weeks later, in September 2024, a second near-miss attempt was made on Trump's life at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. During that incident, a Secret Service agent shot and missed Ryan Routh, who was hiding in the shrubs near the sixth hole while pointing a rifle at Trump and his security team.

Congressional investigations and a GAO report have concluded that inadequate preparation and training contributed to the near-killing of Trump at the July 13, 2024, Butler rally.

Fitzpatrick argues the prep materials show Rowe working to shield the Biden administration's DEI mandates and the Secret Service's training problems from scrutiny rather than fully reckoning with the agency's failures.

"Not only that, but during Rowe's preparation for this July 30, 2024, testimony to a joint Senate committee, he attempts to mask the various downfalls of the Secret Service and goes out of his way to try to protect the Biden DEI initiatives that the agency was obsessed with at the time," Fitzpatrick said.

CASA says the FOIA litigation is ongoing and that it expects additional records to surface as the redaction appeal proceeds.

The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.

A dissenting voice from inside the agency

Rowe's Senate testimony contradicts assertions by numerous former senior Secret Service agents and at least one current agent who has spoken out against the agency's DEI policies, which he asserts directly contributed to the Butler shooting.

Rashid Ellis, a 13-year veteran of the agency who has served in an elite unit and on top protective assignments, last year sat down for an interview with the Independent Women's Forum, a Virginia-based conservative nonprofit.

"My initial thoughts when seeing the Butler assassination attempt was dread," Ellis says in a video. "My stomach was in knots watching it because we had known for years that this was coming."

Ellis went further in the interview, saying he believes internal DEI agendas at the agency had long taken precedence over its protective mission, and that this dynamic is directly connected to what happened in Butler.

A graduate of The Citadel military college in South Carolina, Ellis has held a string of high-level assignments over his 13-year career, including a stint on the agency's Counter Assault Team, an elite tactical unit, and a posting on the Presidential Protective Detail. He has also taught counter-surveillance as an instructor at the Secret Service's training center.

Ellis, who is African American, argued in his lawsuit that the agency's diversity-based hiring and promotion practices have damaged morale and fueled a wave of departures among senior agents.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 13:25

Communism, Berlin Edition: Adler Bonds Crash To Record Low As Left Coalition Plans To Socialize 152,000 Apartments

Five years after Berliners voted to expropriate their landlords, the German capital finally has a government willing to do it.

On Saturday, Die Linke, the Greens and the SPD presented the 30-page exploratory paper that will underpin their coalition agreement for the next Berlin Senate, and buried among the usual promises sits a plan to socialize, under Article 15 of the German constitution, every apartment a private landlord owns in Berlin above the first 10,000. The compensation for this act of municipal generosity: a hard cap of €16 billion which works out to about €105K per unit, or 58% of book value... and even that cap is conditional on "fiscal sustainability."

The bond market did the rest: Adler Group's 10% notes due 2029 plunged 20 points on Monday to a record low around 59 cents on the euro (they dropped as 53 earlier in the session), as creditors scrambled to price in the possibility that 43% of Adler's yielding Berlin portfolio is about to be bought by the state at a 42% to 48% discount to book.

Regular readers will recall we flagged the direction of travel back in January, when we noted that the German capital had become a testing ground where socialism was on the rise in Berlin's real estate market. And on election night, September 20, when the results first came in, we tweeted the punchline:

MERZ'S CDU PARTY POSTS WORST RESULT EVER IN A GERMAN STATE VOTE AFD AHEAD OF SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IN NORTHEASTERN STATE VOTE ANTI-CAPITALIST LEFT PARTY LEADING IN BERLIN ELECTION

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 20, 2026

Four weeks later, the anti-capitalist party is about to run the city and the plan is on paper. So let's look at who is on the list, what Berlin is offering, and why the people most likely to stop this sit in Karlsruhe and in the Chancellery.

From "Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen" To "Vonovia, Mostly"

Some background first. In September 2021, Berliners voted 59.1% in favor of a non-binding referendum to expropriate landlords owning more than 3,000 apartments, about 240,000 units in total. The CDU-SPD Senate that followed sat on it, an expert commission concluded in 2023 that it was possible under Article 15 (an article which, for what it's worth, has never been used in the 77-year history of the Federal Republic), and that was that.

Then on September 20, Die Linke, whose roots lie in the East German communist party, won 25.7% of the vote, its best result ever, displacing Merz's CDU from the mayor's office. Its lead candidate Elif Eralp, who told Reuters that Zohran Mamdani's win in New York was "a big example for us", campaigned on expropriating more than 200,000 units. And in case anyone thought it was just rhetoric, the party's Berlin deputy chair Martha Kleedörfer helpfully told investors on Instagram that the Left would have no problem if they "finally go home".

The SPD, whose lead candidate Steffen Krach had categorically ruled out expropriations during the campaign, folded in the exploratory talks; the price of power, it turns out, was about 152,000 apartments.

What the three parties agreed:

• Threshold of 10,000 units per company (vs. 3,000 in the referendum), with each landlord allowed to keep the first 10,000; apartments built after January 1, 2021, cooperatives and non-profits are exempt
• Compensation capped at €16 billion, conditional on fiscal sustainability, meaning it can fall if financing conditions worsen
• A financing concept in 2027 which leaves open whether owners get cash or 100-year bonds, a bill in the Berlin parliament by mid-2028, and transfers taking effect one year after promulgation, i.e. mid-2029 at the earliest

Based on documented holdings, that means roughly 152,000 apartments (the Left's own spokesperson puts it at about 160,000 from five companies, adding the DVI Group): Vonovia 128K, Heimstaden 10K, Adler 7.4K and Covivio 7K. In other words, this is overwhelmingly a Vonovia story, as the 10,000 allowance shields almost all of the smaller landlords and leaves Germany's biggest landlord holding the bag on 93% of its Berlin stock.

Buy High, Expropriate Low

Now the fun part: the price. At €16 billion for ~152,000 units, Berlin is offering about €105K per apartment, roughly 58% of book value on a pro rata basis. That alone is a remarkable number, but it becomes even more remarkable when you recall that Berlin has bought these very same apartments before.

Back in September 2021, nine days before the referendum, Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen sold almost 15,000 apartments to the city's municipal housing companies for €2.46 billion, or about €165K per unit. At the time, the expropriation campaigners slammed the deal as a "backdoor" purchase at "speculative prices". Five years, one property crash and one election later, the city wants the next batch for 36% less... and this time it won't be asking nicely.

Even at those prices, the math is probably not as easy as the Left thinks. Berlin's debt is already close to €70 billion, and the State Audit Office estimated in 2024 that paying market value could cost as much as €40 billion. Which is presumably why the €16 billion cap is "conditional" and why the 100-year bond idea is still floating around (an earlier Left draft talked about paying 40% to 60% of market value in century bonds). Paying for apartments with paper that matures in 2129 is one way to keep the deficit looking fine for a while. Or as Chancellor Merz put it after the election, "They'll never be able to pay for it all."

He may well be right, but that is little comfort for anyone holding the paper in the meantime. It also makes this morning's sibling piece on how Germany's rent control is backfiring especially timely: Berlin has spent a decade "fixing" its housing shortage with price controls, and now proposes to fix the result of those price controls with... confiscation.

Adler: The Weakest Link Gets Named (Twice)

Why did Adler's bonds crash while Vonovia's stock slid "only" about 2.6%? Because for Adler, this is an existential question for creditors. According to the Special Situations Research Newsletter, Adler's 7.4K exposed units represent roughly 43% of its yielding portfolio. At the cap, Adler would receive €105K per unit on a flat split, or closer to €115K pro rata to book, i.e. €777 million to €860 million against €1.49 billion of book: a 42% to 48% discount, which implies a gross rental yield of about 7% at the cap.

And it gets worse. Beyond Article 15, the exploratory paper goes out of its way to name Adler's Steglitzer Kreisel tower as its example of a "speculative construction ruin" (Bauspekulations-Ruine). The coalition says it will sanction inactivity on such sites, expects completion "often only after insolvency proceedings", and plans to use "transfer of ownership" to get there. Being singled out by name in a governing coalition's founding document is rarely a good sign for a twice-restructured issuer, which is maybe why the 2029s went from 78 to the high 50s in one session, after already sliding from par since mid-September.

Heimstaden is next in line with more than 20K Berlin units, meaning roughly 10K are exposed, about 6% of the group total (and a bit more by value, since German units carry higher book values than the group average). Heimstaden is already in the news after Goldman flagged last month that Vonovia could be a potential winner of a €10 billion third-party mandate linked to Alecta's reported separation from Heimstaden.

Vonovia: "Unconstitutional"

As for Vonovia, which has the most to lose with roughly 128K exposed units, the response was swift. The company told dpa that the exploratory result "changes nothing" about its stance and that it is convinced socialization in the planned form is unconstitutional and would not survive the courts. The company also pointed out that the average rent in its Berlin portfolio is €8.26 per square meter (hardly the stuff of rapacious landlords) and that it has about 1,000 units under construction in the city; CEO Luka Mucic had already noted after the election that socialization doesn't create any new housing.

The stock fell more than 2% on Monday morning to around €16.40, near its lowest since 2023 and down more than 40% YTD. Some on the sell side are taking it in stride: Baader's Christian Auzanneau, who still has a Buy and a €30.30 target on the stock (set before the coalition paper), argued that there is no broad political majority for expropriation and that federal law stands in the way. Which brings us to Goldman.

In a note published this morning (available to pro subs), Goldman's European real estate team writes that the latest Berlin proposal "moves a step forward, but scope reduced":

Following the September Berlin election, where Germany's Die Linke (the Left) party took first place, the Left, Greens and SPD have now concluded exploratory talks and will each vote to enter formal coalition negotiations. They have reaffirmed plans to pursue the socialisation of large residential portfolios, but the latest proposal is narrower than both the original 2021 referendum proposal and earlier campaign proposals. It focuses on landlords with at least 10,000 units instead of 3,000 units, and landlords would be allowed to keep 10,000 units, in practice implying the coalition would target c. 160,000 units for nationalisation at a proposed maximum compensation of [€]16bn (i.e. €100k / unit).

Goldman then points to the federal backstop: Merz's CDU/CSU-SPD government has called for an acceleration of a federal law to veto the nationalisation of private housing companies through state-level socialisation laws, with first drafts already prepared and coordinated between the Justice and Interior Ministries. Still, the bank's conclusion is hardly a ringing all-clear:

We continue to see Berlin housing policy uncertainty as an overhang for residential landlords with exposure to the city, pending greater clarity on coalition formation and the resulting policy framework.

Translation: nobody knows if this will survive the Constitutional Court or a federal veto, but nobody wants to own the stock while they find out.

The Fine Print Nobody Is Talking About

Even if Article 15 never gets used, the paper contains plenty that will apply to every landlord in the city, not just the four big ones:

• A new rent regulator (Mietenaufsicht) starting in 2027, policing rents more than 20% above the local reference rent
• A rent and housing register from 2028
• A dedicated rent-usury (Mietwucher) unit at the public prosecutor's office

Put differently, Berlin is about to make it a matter for the prosecutor if you charge too much rent, at the same time as it is about to pay 58% of book for the apartments of those who didn't. Capital tends to notice this sort of thing. Berlin also has company: earlier this month Spain's government revived its rent cap decrees ahead of its snap election, the same election that added Madrid to Europe's "Red October" bond crisis. Europe's answer to a housing shortage made worse by record immigration appears to be, well, more controls.

Market Already Pricing In Communism

The timeline matters here: the Left votes on entering coalition talks at its party conference on October 31, formal talks start in November, the financing concept follows in 2027, the bill in mid-2028, and no apartment changes hands before mid-2029. Between now and then, there is a federal veto law in the works, a constitutional challenge from Vonovia that is all but certain, and a €16 billion check that Berlin, with nearly €70 billion in debt already and German cities on the verge of bankruptcy, probably can't write.

So maybe the expropriation never happens. But that misses the point: the damage is done the moment a German state government puts a 42% haircut on private property in writing, and the market is already pricing it, from Adler's bonds to Vonovia's equity to whatever cost of capital the next investor in Berlin housing demands. As Goldman put it, the uncertainty is an "overhang", and overhangs in German real estate have a way of lasting years.

The irony: today and tomorrow, Berlin is hosting the Invest in Germany Summit, where policymakers will explain to foreign capital why it should finance the country's AI, defense and infrastructure buildout. The punchline writes itself.

Much more in the full Goldman note "Germany Real Estate: Residential: Berlin socialisation proposals move a step forward, but scope reduced", available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 13:10

Cook Case Tests The Limits Of Fed Independence

Authored by Alexander W. Salter via The Daily Economy,

President Trump has renewed his effort to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board.

Whether he has a legitimate reason to fire her is another matter. The White House announced a three-person "committee of inquiry" to investigate whether Cook made false statements on mortgage applications, and whether that is sufficient cause to remove her from her post. Next month, the committee will question her at a White House hearing.

This is Trump's second attempt. In June, the Supreme Court blocked the first one. As I wrote at the time, the ruling carved out a special exemption for the Fed. That same morning, the justices ruled in Trump v. Slaughter that agency heads who wield executive power answer to the president. Then immediately, they shielded the most powerful agency of all from the impact of that ruling.

But the June decision was narrow: Cook was entitled to notice and an opportunity to respond before removal for cause. The White House is now complying with both requirements. Cook's lawyers maintain that the alleged infraction - designating two properties as her "primary residence" - was just an "inadvertent error," pointing out that the president's and Treasury Secretary Bessent's own property filings contain the same discrepancy.

Whether the allegations around mortgage documents are proven or not, the real stakes are much bigger. President Trump's attempt to unseat Cook ultimately tests central bank independence. The conventional defense of central bank independence, reinforced by the high court's treatment established in Slaughter, holds that the Fed should be insulated from political accountability to do its job well. That doctrine deserves far more scrutiny than it usually gets.

Central bank independence rests on two claims.

The first is empirical: independent central banks supposedly deliver lower inflation. But the evidence for that is decidedly mixed, and varies with the sample and the estimation method. There's a simpler explanation that also fits the data: countries that respect the rule of law also tend to keep prices stable. Sound money comes from sound institutions, not from insulated technocrats.

The second claim is constitutional: the Fed's insulation supposedly fits within our system of separated powers. But it does not. Congress holds the power to coin money and regulate its value, and has delegated substantial power to the Fed. Many of the Fed's activities, particularly bank supervision and enforcement actions, involve the exercise of executive power. The Constitution vests the executive power in a president, who answers to voters. If central bankers who exercise that power are shielded from discipline and removal, then they answer to no one.

Milton Friedman made the fundamental argument more than 60 years ago in Capitalism and Freedom:

Mistakes, excusable or not, cannot be avoided in a system which disperses responsibility yet gives a few men great power, and which thereby makes important policy actions highly dependent on accidents of personality. This is the key technical argument against an 'independent' central bank.

An independent central bank concentrates power while diffusing responsibility. When policy fails, no one is answerable for the failure.

The Fed's recent record bears Friedman out. Following COVID-19, the central bank delivered the worst inflation in four decades. Five years later, inflation still runs above target. No one was fired, demoted, or made to face any meaningful consequence. While failing at its price stability mandate, the Fed took up projects Congress never authorized, issuing climate-risk guidance for large banks and building out DEI programming. This is what bureaucracies do when nobody can discipline them.

Cook is not a bystander here. She has served on the Board since May 2022, with inflation at 40-year highs. She attributed the Fed's inflation failures to supply constraints rather than monetary policy. And when the Board rescinded its climate guidance last fall, she formally objected. None of this constitutes "cause" in the White House's sense, and Trump's motives are doubtless partisan. But it does illustrate the deeper problem: Fed officials operate in a system where poor performance carries no penalty.

The president's committee will likely recommend firing Cook. If the president follows through, another round of litigation is likely. Remember, the problem is not a specific monetary policymaker's alleged wrongdoing. It's central bank independence itself. The solution is accountability of the ordinary kind: a limited mandate simple enough for citizens to evaluate, with meaningful consequences for poor performance. Eventually, a monetary rule could further limit officials' discretion. As Friedman put it:

The only way that has yet been suggested that offers promise is to try to achieve government of law instead of men by legislating rules for the conduct of monetary policy that will have the effect of enabling the public to exercise control over monetary policy through its political authorities, while at the same time...[preventing] monetary policy from being subject to the day-to-day whim of political authorities.

The case for central bank independence rests on a straw man. Neither Congress nor the President will set interest rates. What matters is who's ultimately in charge, especially with inflation above the Fed's target for more than five years. The American public can't afford the Fed's simultaneous concentration of power and exemption from accountability.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 11:10

Zelensky Knows Peace Deal Would End Him, Lavrov Says

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is currently in the Gulf region. On Sunday he visited Bahrain, which was hit frequently by Iranian drone and missile attacks earlier in the US-Iran war.

On Monday, the top Russian diplomat is meeting with senior Iranian officials in Tehran, where top of the agenda is the ongoing conflict with the US as well Iran-Russia relations. This marks Lavrov's first visit to the Islamic Republic since February 2025, and so is very significant. But he also issued stern comments related to Russia's own 'special military operation'.

Getty Images

In Bahrain, Lavrov gave some remarks before a press conference in which some interesting things were said about the Ukraine war. He reiterated the familiar Kremlin refrain that the Zelensky government and its backers are not actually interested in peace, and are actually trying to derail Trump-led efforts.

That's when he said that Ukrainian President Zelensky knows that a comprehensive peace deal with Moscow would spell the end of his regime, according to Russian state media.

"It is obvious that Zelensky has no desire to even move toward reaching agreements," Lavrov said.

"Presumably, this is because he understands that any agreement acceptable to both Russia and the US would spell the end of his regime – and his own personal end as well," he emphasized.

He further lambasted EU leaders for encouraging Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, even as Washington tries to impose a ban on these to stave off a deepening global diesel crisis.

"I am confident that decisions will be made there [at the meeting of gas-exporting countries to be held in Moscow on October 28-29] aimed at stabilizing global markets, rather than collapsing these markets in order to save Zelensky's regime, which is what our European colleagues are currently doing, including by encouraging the aforementioned strikes on civilian infrastructure," Lavrov added.

Days prior to the Gulf visit, Lavrov said: "Zelensky is not interested in holding elections in Ukraine, he 'made it very clear'." The foreign ministers added: "He has fenced it with terms that are unacceptable for us."

NEW: Volodymyr Zelenskyy Bloomberg interview by @DarynaKrasno and our Kyiv team + Says Trump is pushing Ukraine to capitulate to Russia. “I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate” + Says he’s offered to stop striking Russian oil refineries if the US provides Patriot air defences. “My latest model was: We don’t target Russian diesel, you give us missiles for Patriot systems to protect our facilities” + Says the US is threatening to cut off support if Ukraine doesn’t stop its refinery strikes. “They just want us to stop attacking diesel. And if we strike that, they will disconnect us from something” + Says the US is slowing deliveries of Patriots already paid for via the PURL scheme. “We have paid for the weapons. A part of the supplies has been authorized, while the rest haven’t been. And this is not a technical issue” + Says he thinks the US situation may improve after the mid-terms. “Politics is very aggressive during election time. I think it is agony now, but after elections, life will continue and I believe it will be calmer” https://t.co/CQTndkgUIu

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) October 18, 2026

As for the comments on the 'end' of Zelensky's rule, many independent observers have in the past noted that if Zelensky were to make significant territorial compromises with Russia, hardline right elements within Ukraine's security establishment could overthrow him (or worse, assassinate him).

President Trump is meanwhile calling on Kiev to urgently hold elections, coupling this with serious cuts to what Washington has been supplying over prior years, especially intelligence-sharing. Trump has also just signed a major sanctions waiver for Russia, coming on the heals of the diesel deal he did with Putin.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 10:40

Brent Flirts With $110 Before Reversing As Wright Declares Pump Prices Have "Peaked"

Brent crude futures briefly tagged $109.99 a barrel in overnight trading before retreating from five-month highs during the Asian session and into European trading, as signs of recovering Middle Eastern supply offset renewed attacks on energy infrastructure and critical maritime shipping lanes.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright reinforced expectations of easing fuel prices at the pump, with ABC News quoting him on Sunday as saying gasoline and diesel prices had "peaked."

"Both gasoline and diesel prices peaked a few weeks ago," Wright said, adding that the US wants them to "pull back a lot more than they have."

He said he understands the mounting frustrations at the pump, which have soured consumer sentiment, but said the administration is "working in all different avenues" to address the problem.

The latest data from AAA show the national average for diesel prices at the pump on Sunday stood at around $6.319 a gallon, down from the previous record high of $6.50.

AAA pump data also show regular gasoline prices sliding from the $4.50 level to $4.295 by Sunday, still above the politically sensitive $4 level.

Wright said Gulf oil flows had recovered to about 80% of pre-conflict levels, although refined-product shipments remained heavily constrained amid a global refining crisis compounded by Ukraine's persistent attacks on Russian refineries.

Separately, Wright told Fox News that Trump administration officials were discussing releases of diesel stockpiles in coordination with European allies.

June Goh, a senior oil market analyst at Sparta Commodities SA, told Bloomberg, "The markets seem unwilling to absorb the higher prices with the rest of the economy not looking rosy," adding that Brent crude is likely to remain around $100.

The Wall Street Journal reported overnight that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed talks next month with President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Moscow confirmed discussions were underway.

Last week, the International Energy Agency reinforced Goldman Sachs energy analyst Nikhil Bhandari's warning that there is no quick relief at the pump, as the refining crisis, particularly in diesel, will persist well into next year.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 07:45

Struggling Volkswagen Plans Pay Freeze Through 2030 As Job Cuts Loom: Report

In another episode of the "death of Europe," a new report from Germany brings more troubling news for struggling automaker Volkswagen, suggesting to us that globalists in the bloc have squandered not just their inheritance but their economic future through a failing progressive experiment that has neutered Europe's industrial base.

German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports that Volkswagen plans to freeze salaries through the end of the decade as it expands its cost-cutting push after lowering its outlook and doubling its job-reduction target.

"Internal documents reveal that hundreds of thousands of employees are to forgo pay raises. These latest plans represent a further escalation in the conflict between management and employee representatives," SZ wrote in the article.

The proposed freeze is part of a broader restructuring plan the executive board approved, SZ said, citing internal documents. It added that all regions and plants are expected to make an "appropriate" contribution to Volkswagen's "Group Target Picture," a turnaround strategy aimed at rescuing the automaker.

The plans follow Volkswagen's September decision to slash its outlook and double its job-cut target to 100,000 positions.

More context:

• The Future Of Volkswagen?
• VW Supervisory Board Recommends Another 4,100 Job Cuts At Porsche
• Death Of Europe's Industrial Base: VW CEO Set To Announce 50,000 Job Cuts

Why Europe allowed a flood of Chinese EVs and hybrids to undercut its own automakers is a question for the history books.

Brussels has at least begun to respond, agreeing earlier this month to cap Chinese hybrid imports at 350,000 vehicles a year, with restrictions expected to take effect in December. It's a start.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 07:20

Europe Braces For A Winter Energy Crisis As Gas Reserves Run Low

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice,

• Europe faces another expensive winter as low gas reserves and Middle East disruptions drive up energy prices.

• Rising fuel costs threaten household budgets, industrial production, and employment across Europe.

• Increased U.S. LNG supplies could provide some relief, but continued geopolitical risks leave energy markets vulnerable.

After months of elevated energy prices, Europe can expect fuel costs to continue rising through the winter months as demand grows. Ongoing energy trade constraints and threats to energy infrastructure across the Middle East are expected to limit global energy supplies and continue to drive up prices, hitting consumers hard unless governments intervene.

The European Union (EU) is thought to have paid an additional €100 billion on oil and gas so far this year, prompting EU ministers to seek ways to manage the impact of high fuel prices. Since 2022, the extra costs of energy have surpassed €900 billion, even as total demand has fallen. The price of natural gas in Europe has more than doubled since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli-led war in Iran. This winter could be the most challenging in terms of energy supplies and prices since the start of Russia's war on Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Russian energy.

Meanwhile, EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen has warned that the winter months could be challenging amid "very high" oil and gas prices, although he reassured consumers that no supply issues are expected. Jorgensen also proposed postponing the introduction of rules to reduce methane emissions on energy imports to help ease pressure on European energy markets.

Gas storage has fallen to its lowest level since 2022. In September, across Europe, gas storage stood at around 67 per cent full, compared with a seasonal average of around 80 per cent. Germany, which has the largest storage capacity in Europe, is roughly half full, and is expected to miss its official 80 per cent storage target this year.

Meanwhile, constrained supplies due to strict limits on energy trade through the Strait of Hormuz have sharply driven up energy prices. Oil prices increased by 65 per cent, diesel by 45 per cent, and jet fuel by 112 per cent between September 25, 2025 and 2026. This has led the European Commission to call for consumers to reduce their demand throughout the year to manage supplies.

As Europe heads into its high-demand winter months, there is no end to the war in Iran in sight. In addition, the El Niño weather cycle is expected to add an element of uncertainty to weather trends, which could further complicate the gas demand picture. Threats remain to fuel shipments traversing the Strait of Hormuz, as well as ongoing threats to energy infrastructure across the Middle East. Meanwhile, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and against pipelines continue to be a concern. Therefore, there are likely to be restrictions on global oil trade well into 2027.

The United States has focused on increasing oil and gas production to help alleviate some of the energy supply chain constraints, but this can only partly fill the gap. Atlantic and Pacific freight rates have returned to pre-Iran war levels, as a larger share of cargoes from the United States is heading to Europe rather than Asia, thereby reducing travel distances and increasing ship availability.

The independent LNG and shipping analyst Pratiksha Negi stated, "The growing share of Atlantic trade, combined with an increasing pool of prompt vessels, will continue to pressure freight rates... I expect Europe to remain the principal destination for marginal U.S. LNG at the start of Q4 2026, given the significant storage deficit this season." Negi also highlighted the rise in newbuild deliveries, with roughly 55 new vessels delivered in the first seven months of the year and another 40-45 expected by the end of the year.

Across Europe, it is not only households that are concerned about their energy bills, as several industries prepare for fuel shortages. Higher fuel prices are driving up operating costs in factories and other facilities, which could lead companies to charge more for manufactured goods, as costs will once again shift to consumers. Meanwhile, companies that cannot secure or afford adequate fuel supplies may be forced to suspend operations in the winter, leading to job cuts.

A recent forecast by the Item Club suggested that in the United Kingdom, as many as 163,000 jobs could be lost in 2026 in relation to the war, mainly in manufacturing-heavy regions such as South Wales and the Humber region. As one of Europe's biggest gas consumers, the U.K. is highly exposed to trade restrictions, particularly because it has one of the lowest levels of domestic storage capacity, which means it relies heavily on pipeline imports from Europe and tankers from the U.S. and the Middle East. The CEO of British Gas owner Centrica, Chris O'Shea, said in August that Britain had "almost no gas in storage" for the coming winter.

Both households and businesses across Europe could be hit hard this winter by the continued constraints on oil and gas supplies and high energy prices. This could force consumers to ration their consumption and may prompt the European Commission and governments to intervene to ensure consumers have access to vital energy supplies.

Tyler Durden Mon, 10/19/2026 - 05:00