At The Money: Building an ETF with Wes Gray, Alpha Architect (January 28, 2026)

Have you ever had a great investment strategy and thought to yourself, “Hey, this is really good! It should be an ETF!” It is much easier than it used to be to create a strategy and put it into an ETF wrapper.

Full transcript below.

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About this week’s guest:

Wes Gray is founder and CEO of ETF architect. He helps managers turn strategies into ETFs by providing turnkey, white label platforms to handle all of the complex and expensive office operations.

For more info, see:

Professional website

Masters in Business

Personal Bio

LinkedIn

Twitter

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TRANSCRIPT:

Mutual funds, trusts, and ETFs. Have you ever wondered how these are put together? Are you an analyst, strategist, or fund manager that has a really good idea? Have you thought about launching a fund to employ that idea? I’m Barry Ritholtz, and on today’s edition of At The Money, we’re going to discuss how to build your own exchange-traded fund or ETF.

To help us unpack all of this and what it means for your portfolio. Let’s bring in Wes Gray of ETF architect. He helps managers turn strategies into ETFs by providing turnkey white label platforms that handle. Legal compliance operations, portfolio management, allowing sponsors to focus on the idea and distribution, and Wes also runs the Alpha Architect Shop as well.

Full disclosure, Wes Gray and ETF architect are helping my firm, Ritholtz Wealth Management launch a new ETF later this year.

Barry Ritholtz: So Wes, let’s start with the basics. If I’m someone with a novel strategy and a good idea for a ticker, what are the elements that determine whether or not this ETF launches or whether it just dies on the vine?

Wes Gray: It’s gonna come down to low fees, capital and passion in ETF market, as you know, you gotta have low fees for the most part, or people aren’t gonna buy your product. And low fees means you also gotta have a lot of capital to back this thing. ’cause you gotta be around for at least three to five years to tell your story and then you gotta have the passion.

You’re in a market competing with monopolies like BlackRock and Vanguard. So you gotta be someone like a Perth Toll that we talked about previously where you just have to go knock on doors and tell people why your product and your story is so great.

Barry Ritholtz: I’m curious as to the timeline from the original conception to Trading Day.

What’s a realistic timeline and where are the common bottlenecks?

Wes Gray: We generally tell folks, four months, you sign the letter of intent and you’re ready to whoop it on. We can get this thing out the door in plus or minus four months. Obviously that could go out to four years, depending on your, your own internal issues.

But we’ve got this thing, so checklist and automated. At this point, if you want to launch in four months for like a relatively straightforward ETF, that’s gonna be possible.

Barry Ritholtz: Four months seems really short, but I guess I’m imagining how long it takes to accumulate enough seed capital launch. How much money under management do you need to launch an ETF? How does that get structured? What’s the usual launch dollar amount?

Wes Gray: This is a moving target. And let’s say four or five years ago we would’ve said, Hey, 5 million minimum. Now we tell people 25 million and I’m about to probably move it up to 50 million. And, really it’s, it’s not because of the operating cost of the ETF, it’s to convey credibility to the marketplace.

We, need, like people just, everyone kind of knows like, yeah, where’s your break even? You know, ’cause I want you to be in business three to five years from now, and usually that break even in people’s minds is 25 to 50 mil. High barrier to entry just on that.

Now, how do you seed these things?

Well, there’s basically two methods. You either seed with cash. So you launch the ETF and people go open up their Schwab account and click the button and you know, pay cash to buy your ETF. Or you can seed it with property where there, it’s a little bit convoluted, but there’s this thing called Section 351 where you can actually contribute property tax free to seed the ETF.

So basically, cash or property is the two methods you can use.

Barry Ritholtz: And I’m assuming property is usually individual stocks or bonds. Is that right?

Wes Gray: You got it. So, so if you have a portfolio of securities, public securities that naturally fit in the CTF, you can contribute those tax-free. And then that, that property serves as initial seed for essentially the launch of the ETF.

Barry Ritholtz: You mentioned break even. Take me into the minutia of what the backend of this looks like – legal, audit, administration, listing distribution, marketing. What are the big costs that any ETF manager has run? Where do people kind of make mistakes with these?

Wes Gray: I’ll kind of reverse the, the question and, and let me tell you what we’ve done, the cost and what you have to do, because what you’re asking about is a total dumpster fire behind the scenes, but essentially for our platform is you show up with the spreadsheet, tell us what to do. And you go market and distribute this thing, comma compliantly. ’cause we have oversight responsibilities. That’s your two primary jobs.

We’re gonna deal with all the dumpster fire behind the scenes and the generic cost of doing this to launch an ETF, again, all sandbag for a generic ETF, just with easy numbers. You’re looking at a 50k startup, soup to nuts. Which is not the bad news.

The bad news is the ongoing. Cost to deal with all the aspects you just talked about, and you know, it’s plus or minus, but you’re looking around 200K a year. What the heck does that mean as a business, uh, setup? Well, it, you know, if you charge 1%, your breakeven is 20 million.

If you charge 20 basis points, which is a much, you know, much more marketable, your breakeven is a hundred million. And then everything in between. So, so obviously your breakeven depends on your fee, but you’re looking at 200 k burn a year on average.

Barry Ritholtz:  Let’s say someone comes to you with a systematic strategy. How do they decide whether or not this is based on an index and running it fairly statically versus a more active ETF that’s run more dynamically.

Wes Gray: This advice has also changed over time. We’re we’re, in the old days, we would say, Hey, index active, there’s a bigger trade off there now.

It’s almost always the case. Just go active. Even if your strategy is a hundred percent systematic, why is that? Well, there’s just low overhead cost. I don’t have to pay for a third party index agent. I don’t gotta pay for third party service providers. And, and I also have a little bit more flexibility at the margin.

So for example, let’s say I’m on an index versus an active, and I’m doing the exact same strategy, but we know this week there’s gonna be three Fed meetings and. You know, the world’s gonna blow up. I might not wanna rebalance this week, I’ll just punt to next week. That’s easy in an active strategy, in an index strategy that’s possible — but the paperwork trail and the compliance to be able to facilitate, that’s essentially a nightmare.

Which means most index funds just follow the book no matter what, on unlike little minutiae decisions like this. We recommend active at the margin.

Barry Ritholtz: You must see a ton of different strategies. What do you see that really. Shouldn’t be put into an ETF. What, what kind of strategy, even if a manager is passionate and excited about the idea, what, what are the sort of red flags that, “Hey, you don’t want this in an ETF?”

Wes Gray: I don’t know if I’m weird or just old school or conservative, but, but if I’m not gonna recommend this to my parents or my, my grandma. Why we have this in an ETF where anyone with a Schwab account can click the button and have a party, right?

What does that mean? Things like double levered, triple levered, whatevers, uh, a lot of these gimmicky products that are extremely expensive and they have tons of embedded costs via like swaps and a lot of other things that aren’t transparent. I can’t stand those products personally.

Does that mean that people won’t do ’em? Well, of course not. If you can sell out to people that are gonna pay 1% for your stupid idea, great. But I’m not a big fan of having those products in the ETF marketplace.

Barry Ritholtz: You’re not a big fan of the inverse three x levered Bitcoin.ETFI?

Wes Gray: No, I’m not a fan. And again, maybe I’m just a funny duddy and I need to move on in the world, but I’m just kinda, old school, I like, you know, low fees, transparent, tax efficient things that people can understand, uh, that presumably add value, uh, in the long game.

Barry Ritholtz: Let’s talk about, uh, some of the block and tackling once an ETF is created and launched, how, how do you think about. What I think about as someone who was on a trading desk as good market behavior, meaning tight spreads, reasonable liquidity, especially if the ETF is holding some assets that are perhaps a little less liquid than than average.

Wes Gray: That’s a great question and, and it creates a lot of confusion in the marketplace.

There are, there’s basically two types of ETFs, one we’ll call liquidity diamonds. These are ETFs that everyone knows, right – like SPY or Triple Q – where when you go and transact in those ETFs, it’s very likely that you’re actually trading shares with someone else who actually owns those ETF shares. That’s rare. Right, because it’s just such a huge market.

The other set of ETFs, which is 99.99% of ’em is normal ETFs, where when you go access the marketplace, you’re accessing what they call primary liquidity, which means you’re asking a market maker to give you a bid ask spread.

So the vast majority of that bid ask spread. Is simple to understand. What would it cost you as a trader to acquire or dispose of that basket of securities? For example, if I’m trading the triple levered Zimbabwe Bitcoin swaps, well, my bid ask spread might be 10%. Why? Where if I’m trading a basket that’s s and p 500 stocks, even though the ETF maybe never trade, but once a year.

We could trade a billion dollars of that ETF with a couple basis points of impact. So it just depends on the underlying basket liquidity.

Barry Ritholtz: You may notice I didn’t ask an obvious question, “Hey, do you go ETF structure or not?” I think we all understand the advantages of this structure — intraday liquidity, no phantom capital gains taxes.

What might send us in a different direction, an SMA, a mutual fund to trust when is an ETF really not the right structure.

Wes Gray: Another great question. So ETFs, and unfortunately we run ETF architects, so everything should be at an ETF, of course. Right? But you know, let, let’s be honest here, the big disadvantages of the ETF structure are transparency.

And you cannot close an ETF. So if we have a strategy where transparency is just not, you know, gonna play favorably for my shareholders, ’cause I, I don’t wanna expose this to the world every single day, then obviously you can’t do an ETF for all intents and purposes. The other one is capital constraints.

So let’s say we’re trading the microcap strategy and penny stocks, where the maximum amount of capital that can go in there is called 50 a hundred mil. Beyond that I’m gonna start blowing the whole concept up. You cannot stop or close an ETF, whereas an SMA or mutual fund, obviously they, they have tools in which you can actually capacity constrained, uh, the capital you take on.

Barry Ritholtz: We have noticed just a tremendous amount of flows are going to the big three – they go to BlackRock, they go to Vanguard, they go to State Street, and broad passive indexes have dominated a lot of the flows. The exception has been these kind of new, clever, unusual, active funds that occasionally catch people’s fancy.

If you’re thinking about creating an ETF, what sort of space should you really be looking in? What sort of strategy is the best ETF alternative to the core of a lot of people’s portfolios, the big indexes.

Wes Gray: I would basically focus on things that Vanguard or iShares can’t do well, which is you can usually gonna be very boutique, very niche strategies where it takes some special expertise to put those portfolios together and or you can’t jam a trillion dollars into the strategy.

Basically be good at being a boutique, ’cause you’re never gonna beat Vanguard at delivering scale trillion dollar market beta. That’s insanity.

Anytime you have a strategy that, that Vanguard is not offering because it’s either really complex, really differentiated, hard to explain, hard to build, hard to manufacturer, or there’s just not massive scalability, that’s where you’d wanna focus.

If you can put a trillion dollars in your strategy without any breaks, it’s probably not gonna work,  because Vanguard’s already doing it and we don’t wanna compete with the monopoly.

Barry Ritholtz: To wrap up, if you’re an analyst or strategist, or even fund manager, and you have a unique idea that you think will do well in the market as well, as well in the marketplace, you think others are willing to pay for it with their capital, consider launching your own ETF. You need about $25 million in assets and a cost of about a quarter million dollars annually, but the upside are potentially hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in client assets.

I’m Barry Ritholtz and this is Bloomberg’s at the Money.

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The post At The Money: Building an ETF appeared first on The Big Picture.

The post The AI Bubble #24,736: Consumption Is Outrunning Wages appeared first on CEPR.

My morning train WFH reads:

• Will Danoff, Fidelity Contrafund’s Legendary Manager Keeps Beating the Market. Now He’s Getting Closer to Passing On the Reins. The legendary manager has taken on two co-managers to help him run the mammoth fund. Just don’t use the word “retirement.” (Barron’s).

• The Next Step on the Bond Ladder: ETFs New funds offer income from bond ladders inside an ETF. Here are the pros and cons for investors. (Morningstar)

• Termites are slowly feasting away at the foundations of the dollar’s dominance. The dollar’s dominance was built on the foundation of America’s many strengths. But like termites eating away at a house’s woodwork, Trump’s dysfunctional policies are eating away at its support and rendering the US currency acutely vulnerable to future shocks. (Financial Times)

• Management Fees as the Anti-Alpha: What’s a management fee? Why are investors using this contractually fixed fee in their endeavor to seek market alpha? (Cash and Carried)

• Stung by Trump, America’s Top Trading Partners Shift Gaze to China: Some U.S. allies are weighing closer ties to Beijing as they seek alternative markets (Wall Street Journal) see also Canadians Are Boycotting US Ski Slopes: Travelers from Canada, long the biggest source of international visitors to the US, have pushed back against the president’s imperialist rhetoric. Winter resorts are feeling the chill. (Businessweek) see also How Canada Became an Enemy: It’s not about trade, it’s about ego. (Paul Krugman)

• OpenAI Wants To Create Biometric Social Network To Kill X’s Bot Problem: OpenAI is quietly building a social network and considering using biometric verification like World’s eyeball scanning orb or Apple’s Face ID to ensure its users are people, not bots. (Forbes)

• Trump is dealing with an immigration mess of his own making: The killing of Alex Pretti on Saturday, coming just two weeks after the shooting death of Renée Good, represents a crisis moment for Trump’s immigration policy. (Washington Post)

• Why Your “Squirrel-Proof” Bird Feeder Never Stood a Chance: You’re handing puzzles to expert problem-solvers. (Slate)

• Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong: The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions. (The Atlantic)

• When the World Turned to Color: The Inside Story of The Beatles on Ed Sullivan: There are moments in history that act as permanent markers of “Before” and “After.” The printing press. The atomic bomb. The moon landing. On a cold Sunday night in February 1964, four young men from Liverpool joined that list. In just 12 minutes and 40 seconds of television, they didn’t just play songs; they redrew the cultural map of the Western world. (Beatles Rewind)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Kate Burke, CEO of Allspring Global Investments a global asset manager with more than 600 billion dollars in assets under advisement. She is also a director on the firm’s board. Previously, she was at AllianceBernstein as COO/CFO.

 

Europe’s Top Economies in 2026 by Projected GDP
Source: Visual Capitalist

 

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UK Government To Create 'British FBI', Roll Out Nationwide Facial Recognition Cameras

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The British Home Secretary unveiled plans in Parliament on Jan. 26 for a new National Police Service (NPS), which is modeled on the FBI and will take over the fight against terrorism and organized crime in the United Kingdom.

Undated image of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood speaking in the House of Commons in London, England. UK Parliament/PA

At the weekend, Shabana Mahmood described the NPS as a “British FBI” and said it would alleviate the burden on local police forces, allowing them to concentrate on issues such as shoplifting and street robbery.

The NPS will replace the National Crime Agency, which covers England and Wales, but it will also have a UK-wide role.

On Monday, the Home Office published a 106-page White Paper that sets out in detail the new police structure and how it would be supported by state-of-the-art technology.

The document says the government would invest 115 million pounds ($157 million) over the next three years “to enable the rapid and responsible adoption of AI and automation technologies by the police.”

A new National Centre for AI in Policing, known as Police.AI, would be created.

There are also plans to roll out facial recognition cameras nationwide to help police catch wanted criminals on watchlists.

The number of facial recognition camera vehicles would be increased from 10 to 50.

“A hundred years ago, fingerprinting was decried as curtailing our civil liberties, but today we could not imagine policing without it,” Mahmood said.

“I have no doubt that the same will prove true of facial recognition technology in the years to come.”

An undated image of a police officer viewing a camera feed from inside a live facial recognition vehicle at an undisclosed location in England. Andrew Matthews/PA

There is currently no dedicated statute governing police use of facial recognition in England and Wales.

Earlier this month, Eleanor “Nell” Watson, a leading researcher and adviser on artificial intelligence ethics and transparency, criticized the increased deployment of surveillance technology.

“The UK is constructing infrastructure for a surveillance society while telling itself it is merely catching criminals,” she told The Epoch Times via email.

Mahmood also announced plans to scrap the existing 43 police constabularies in England and Wales, which would be reorganized into a dozen regional forces.

“Policing is not broken, as some might have us believe,” she told the House of Commons on Monday, “Last year, the police made over three-quarters of a million arrests, five percent more than the year before.”

She said knife crime was down and murder rates in London were at their lowest recorded level.

‘Epidemic of Everyday Crime’

“However, across the country, things feel very different. Communities are facing an epidemic of everyday crime that all too often seems to go unpunished, and criminals know it,” Mahmood said. “Theft has risen by 72 percent since 2010, phone theft is up 58 percent.”

The current 43 police forces in England and Wales were set up in 1974, but Mahmood said the world has changed dramatically.

“Criminals are operating online and across borders with greater sophistication than ever before, be they drug smugglers, people traffickers or child sexual abusers,” Mahmood said.

“The world has changed dramatically since policing was last fundamentally reformed over 50 years ago. Policing remains the last great unreformed public service.”

There were plans to merge police forces 20 years ago, but the idea was dropped by the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Labour won a general election in Britain last year, and Mahmood was installed as home secretary, tasked with sorting out Britain’s police and prisons.

“Consolidating the current model will make the police more cost-efficient, giving the taxpayer more value for money, while also ensuring a less fragmented system that will better serve the public and make them safer,” the Home Office said in the paper.

Criticism of ‘Mega-Forces’

The opposition Conservatives’ shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, criticized the plan to reduce the number of police forces from 43 to 12 and said it would create forces that would be too big.

“Such huge forces will be remote from the communities they serve. Resources will be drawn away from villages and towns towards large cities,” Philp said.

He added that the Metropolitan Police, Britain’s largest police force, had the worst crime-solving rates.

“That goes to show that large scale does not automatically deliver better results, and therefore we will oppose the mandated merger of county forces into remote regional mega-forces,” Philp said.

“Over the weekend, the Home Secretary was trailing this proposal as a British FBI,” Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Pete Wishart said.

“While it might indeed be their FBI, British, it most definitely is not, as it applies only to England and Wales.”

“In Scotland, we are immensely proud of our culture and ethos of policing by consent and the fact that we have the lowest crime rates in the whole of the UK. The last thing we want is this creeping Americanization,” Wishart added and demanded to know what powers the NPS would have in Scotland.

Mahmood said NPS would cover the whole of the UK.

“In England and Wales, it will have full operational powers and will be able to carry out its law enforcement activities,” she said.

“But in Scotland and Northern Ireland, it will carry out operations only with the agreement of the legally designated authority.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 01/29/2026 - 02:00

Why The US Was Right To Leave The WHO

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Commentary

The United States has pulled its membership in the World Health Organization (WHO), and many other nations are rethinking their participation. Of course, this could change with some future administration. The institution itself is not going anywhere. This is why it is crucial to understand the case for why the United States needed to pull out and cut all funding.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

Get out and stay out.

It’s also critically important that other nations join us and leave this organization. To top it all off, the WHO has become a pillar of duplicity even now.

Over the weekend, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “While WHO recommended the use of masks, physical distancing and vaccines, WHO did not recommend governments to mandate the use of masks or vaccines and never recommended lockdowns.”

This claim is easily refuted.

The evidence that WHO backed lockdowns begins on Jan. 29, 2020, when Tedros praised the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping in particular to the skies for its “amazing” response to COVID-19, which included welding people inside their homes and arresting and likely killing people for disobeying the authorities.

Nothing like this had happened in the modern era in any country. The WHO was completely on board.

A few weeks following this celebratory news conference, the WHO organized a trip to Wuhan and several other cities in China. This junket involved the UK, EU, and the United States. This trip included Clifford Lane, a top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, and several other Americans. On the way back from this multi-city trip, they drafted the report that praised China’s response to the virus in terms that contradict every principle of public health.

This is before there were any lockdowns in the United States or the UK.

This Feb. 28, 2020, report, is still on the WHO website:

“Achieving China’s exceptional coverage with and adherence to these containment measures has only been possible due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat. At a community level this is reflected in the remarkable solidarity of provinces and cities in support of the most vulnerable populations and communities.”

It goes on:

“At the individual level, the Chinese people have reacted to this outbreak with courage and conviction. They have accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures—whether the suspension of public gatherings, the month-long ‘stay at home’ advisories or prohibitions on travel. Throughout an intensive 9-days of site visits across China, in frank discussions from the level of local community mobilizers and frontline health care providers to top scientists, the Joint Mission was struck by the sincerity and dedication that each brings to this COVID-19 response.”

Or as WHO spokesman Dr. Bruce Aylward said following his Wuhan mission in February 2020, “Copy China’s response to Covid!” This exhortation was praised by the Chinese Communist Party. Incredibly, the WHO was so influential on the world that 194 nations followed the model and did exactly that. They issued stay-at-home orders and shut business, churches, and schools.

Not only did the WHO support lockdowns, it urged them on the entire world in the name of public health, as a method of following the Chinese plan. Indeed, this report was the basis of the lockdowns that came to the United States and UK. It provided the cover necessary for imposing this unprecedented violation of rights.

When the lockdowns next came to Northern Italy, the WHO celebrated those, too. A spokesman for the WHO and director of WHO Europe, Hans Kluge expressed his “full support for the measures adopted by Italy to address the novel coronavirus emergency and the World Health Organization’s willingness to offer every means of full cooperation!”

The lockdowns came to the United States and most nations in mid-March 2020. Already the disaster was unfolding all around us within a week or two. A month later, the WHO urged nations not to open up too soon. They sent out communications demanding universal track-and-trace policies with testing, full protective equipment, social distancing, and a massive propaganda campaign of fear and loathing.

In other words, while the WHO recognized that people were going crazy in lockdowns and would not stand much more of this, it refused to recognize the need for freedom but rather doubled down on tyranny, surveillance, and control as the right way to manage a virus.

A month later, the WHO warned against lifting lockdowns because this would only result in more infections and danger. It posted on social media: “Further guidance was published that outlines the key questions countries should ask prior to the lifting of lockdowns: Is the epidemic under control? Is the health system able to cope with a resurgence of cases that may arise after relaxing certain measures?”

Later that month, the WHO said lockdowns are actually wonderful because they address the problem of climate change. “The pandemic has given us a glimpse of what our world could look like if we took the bold steps that are needed to curb #ClimateChange and #AirPollution,” it quoted Tedros as saying, in a social media post.

By mid-summer, the WHO said that lockdowns were great but not enough, and that all government should be engaged in universal contract tracing to control the virus that everyone would get anyway.

By October 2020 and following the Great Barrington Declaration, the WHO once again endorsed lockdowns. “We recognize that at certain points, some countries have had no choice but to issue Stay-At-Home orders and other lockdown measures, to buy time,” the WHO posted, quoting Tedros, on Oct. 12, 2020.

This was not accidental messaging, but rather stated WHO policy throughout.

The moment that the vaccine was rolled out, following the November 2020 election, the WHO actually changed its definition of herd immunity to exclude the possibility of natural immunity. It previously said that herd immunity is reached through vaccination or exposure from infection. The WHO suddenly eliminated the second point and said that vaccines are the only path.

What this note at the World Health Organization did was delete what amounts to the entire million-year history of humankind in its delicate dance with pathogens. You could only gather from this that all of us are nothing but blank and unimprovable slates on which the pharmaceutical industry writes its signature.

In addition, the editorial change at WHO ignored and even wiped out a century of medical advances in virology, immunology, and epidemiology. It was thoroughly unscientific—shilling for the vaccine industry in exactly the way that the conspiracy theorists say that the WHO has been doing since the beginning.

By the time that the virus weakened to become no more dangerous than a cold, the WHO was still at it. “We’re concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of the vaccine, and because of Omicron’s high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible, and no longer necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth,” it stated.

This was worse than bad health and policy advice. The WHO allowed itself to be used as a handmaiden of totalitarian controls across the globe. Many nations had trusted this organization and followed advice. This was a disaster for health and for freedom. The United States simply cannot be a member of such an organization.

The WHO once served a valuable function, and those functions are still necessary. That said, each nation alone needs to embrace its own health sovereignty based on its own needs. There is, in short, no such thing as global or world health. This is why every nation should leave the WHO, which proved itself to be completely compromised by its celebration of the CCP and then its promotion of a dangerous product. It has no credibility remaining to its name.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 23:25

New Footage Appears To Show Alex Pretti Spit At ICE, Break SUV Tail Light In Prior Minneapolis Confrontation

The killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last Saturday sparked national outrage - particularly when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and his right to carry while protesting. The incident resulted in two federal agents involved in the shooting being placed on leave, and the ouster of US border patrol chief Gregory Bovino as the face of the Trump administration's mass deportation drive.

While the circumstances of his death are still under investigation - many believe this  gun went off after an agent took it off his body, spooking the shooter or shooters - he was known to federal authorities, and had suffered a broken rib during a violent confrontation with agents about a week before his death, CNN reported Tuesday.

Now, new footage appears to show Pretti armed and spitting at ICE agents before he smashes the taillights of their black SUV during a wild confrontation roughly a week before his death. 

Screenshot via The News Movement

The video, verified by the BBC, captures what appears to be Pretti screaming at federal agents while they were driving away during a Jan. 13 protest. As their SUV leaves, he kicks the taillight - breaking it, causing agents to exit the vehicle and tackle him to the ground. 

The agents continue to hold him down until he retreats and joins a crowd shouting at agents, as his gun is visibly tucked into the back of his pants. 

Screenshot via The News Movement

Watch:

Video of Peaceful Alex Pretti helping old ladies cross the street and doing volunteer work at the orphanage
OR
Swearing like a drunken sailor, spitting and destroying property pic.twitter.com/FChuxZ7Zwy

— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) January 29, 2026

Prior to the protests, Pretti's parents specifically warned him against engaging. 

"We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically," said Michael Pretti. "And he said he knows that. He knew that."

While this changes nothing about an American's 2nd Amendment rights, it certainly changes the narrative insofar as whether ICE agents identified Pretti prior to his death and considered him to have an elevated risk profile. 

So the “hero nurse” was actually a crazy psycho spitting on ICE agents and attacking their vehicle. Guy should have been charged for this. Might still be alive if he had been. He was looking for trouble for weeks. https://t.co/owRNNIvTRD

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 29, 2026

Well this aged incredibly poorly https://t.co/TBRPcVurG6

— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) January 28, 2026

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 23:00

The Campaign Against ICE Is All About Open Borders

Authored by Kevin M. Spivak via RealClearPolitics,

Most of the recent vitriolic opposition to ICE is a feint by unrepentant open-borders progressives. They won the first round when Joe Biden was elected president, lost the second when Donald Trump returned to office, and are back for a rematch.

Democratic leaders portray ICE agents as violent Gestapo thugs and murderers. They claim ICE kidnaps good people off the street, rips apart their families and communities, and deprives them of due process. They give lip service to deporting the “worst of the worst,” but they lead sanctuary cities that release hardened criminal illegal aliens and incite protesters to harass and prevent ICE from arresting rapists, child predators, and killers.

For most, the venom has little to do with how ICE performs its mission and everything to do with preventing the Trump administration from undoing Biden’s brazen deluge of illegal migrants. But for the protests, ICE would be nearly invisible to most Americans, who abhor these violent confrontations. Instead, two Americans have tragically died in Minneapolis.

Democratic leaders deflect when challenged with the fact that disruption and mistakes would be greatly reduced if sanctuary cities turned over criminals already confined. Minnesota alone refuses to comply with 1,360 detainers for illegal aliens in its jails, including 500 previously ordered to be deported by federal judges.

The Democratic establishment sees mass immigration as the path to secure permanent rule, with much of the radical left expecting immigrants to force America to abandon its traditional values.

A refresher on how the Biden administration unlawfully admitted at least 12 million unvetted migrants underscores the radical left’s deep commitment to open borders. It also explains why Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Alan Frey flirt with insurrection by inflaming rage-filled protesters who accost ICE agents, invade churches, and protect criminals.

On his first day in office, Biden stopped construction of Trump’s border wall and ended the “Remain in Mexico” policy. He dismantled virtually all Trump immigration policies, exempted most illegal immigrants from deportation, granted protected status to about 1 million illegals, boosted refugee admissions, issued green cards to immigrants who required public benefits, allowed Title 42 authority to lapse – increasing illegal immigration by nearly one million migrants each year, distributed free cell phones and housing subsidies to entice even more illegal immigration, and, in the dead of night, flew hundreds of thousands of migrants from the southern border into American cities and towns.

In 2024, just five of 203 Democrats in the U.S. House supported legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and the Biden Justice Department sued Virginia to prevent it from removing noncitizens from its voter rolls.

Trump won his second term on a platform of closing the borders and deporting illegal aliens, particularly those admitted by Biden or who had committed other crimes. Polls show majority support for deporting all illegal immigrants, and 78% support (including 69% of Democrats) for deporting criminal illegal aliens.

Despite Minnesota’s refusal to cooperate, ICE has already arrested 3,000 illegal aliens in Operation Metro, including migrants convicted of murder, aggravated assault, domestic abuse, drug trafficking, and other serious crimes. Claims that ICE’s mandate is unlawful or unconstitutional, or that it requires permission from sanctuary cities, is nonsense, repudiated by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, 250 years of jurisprudence, and well-settled federal law.

So far, Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez has refused to grant the temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop ICE sought by Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St. Paul in a frivolous lawsuit that inverts the 10th Amendment into a right for states or even cities to veto federal laws they dislike. Though, in a separate lawsuit, she ordered ICE not to arrest or tear-gas peaceful demonstrators who are not obstructing ICE or who are “safely” following from an “appropriate” distance. That virtue-signaling order, now stayed by the Eighth Circuit pending an appeal, largely summarizes existing law. It likely would not have applied to Renee Good or Alex Pretti.

Contrary to Democratic spin, Good was part of a group that sought to derail ICE operations. She had been stalking ICE, and obstructed its vehicles with her SUV. Instead of complying with instructions to step out of her SUV, she abruptly accelerated, hitting an ICE agent hard enough to cause internal bleeding. As her SUV leapt forward, the agent fired, killing her.

Good either intended to strike the agent, or she acted recklessly by hitting the accelerator on a snowy, icy road in an SUV surrounded by agents. The legally relevant question for the agent is whether he reasonably believed that he or others were in “imminent danger” of death or serious injury.

It is unclear why a Border Patrol agent fatally shot Pretti on Saturday, during yet another protest. Video shows that he intervened between an agent and a woman. To the administration, he was an “armed domestic terrorist.” To Democrats, he was a “murdered nurse.” Both include some truth and premature conclusions. What is known is that he was doing something he should not have been doing because Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. shamelessly ignored America’s sovereignty to admit tens of millions of illegals, and now Democratic leaders and the progressive media are willing to sacrifice people like Good and Pretti on the corrupt altar of open borders.

Polls show that the all-out Democratic campaign to vilify ICE; disturbing video of militarized law enforcement officers in gas masks and fatigues; a growing toll of injuries and fatalities, regardless of fault; adverse court decisions, though many are reversed on appeal; and the administration’s caustic rhetoric are eroding support for ICE and Trump’s deportation program, and may imperil Republican control of the House.

The administration requires support from the public to keep ICE and the public safe, and for ICE to be effective. Democrats sense weakness, and will do everything they can to prevent that. The administration must be the adult in this situation. It must soften its language. ICE should avoid militarized operations and more clearly focus on deporting criminal aliens, and unvetted illegal aliens admitted during the Biden administration. Although it’s time for a reset, backing down is not an option.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 22:35

Putin Hosts Syria's Sharaa As Russian Forces Exit North In Tandem With US Drawdown 

Syria's self-declared President Ahmad al-Sharaa is in Moscow on Wednesday, where he has met with President Vladimir Putin, at a moment Russia's long-running presence in Syria is in question. Sharaa, formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who founded Syrian al-Qaeda and began fighting the ousted President Assad under the flag of ISIS, is trying to shore up international recognition for his rule.

"Russia has supported Syria’s territorial integrity and unity, and has also played a historic role in the stability of the region," President Putin stated during the meeting. "I would like to emphasise the need to preserve Syria's unity and territorial integrity."

He hinted that ending the American occupation of the oil and gas rich northeast is paramount. "The return of eastern Syria to Damascus’s control is an important step," Putin said.

via Reuters

But while Russian forces are still present at historic bases on the coast, there are signs of a final Russian withdrawal from the country underway, also as US troops appear to be making a slow exit:

Days before the scheduled meeting, Russian forces began a phased withdrawal from Qamishli Airport in northeast Syria, relocating personnel and equipment to the Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia, according to a security source cited by Shafaq News last week.

...The final stage involved the relocation of what the source described as an “elite team,” marking the departure of the last Russian contingent stationed at the airport. The redeployment was carried out in coordination with both Syrian and US sides, according to the same account.

AP journalists who visited the base next to Qamishli airport reported it was guarded by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, who said Russian troops had been “evacuating bit by bit” over several days.

Conflict has been engulfing the same region, as Syrian forces loyal to Sharaa attack Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces. While the US trained and weaponized the SDF for years, Washington appears to be throwing its Kurdish allies under the bus once again.

ISIS/Daesh hits the Kremlin.

After being normalized in Washington and Brussels.

Realpolitik may take precedence, but the optics are dreadful. pic.twitter.com/LGODGRvxqw

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) January 28, 2026

Kremlin spokesman Peskov had previously said ahead of Sharaa being hosted in Moscow that "the presence of our soldiers in Syria" would be discussed.

According to Al Jazeera:

Moscow had been worried about the possibility of a “populist anti-Russia” government emerging in Damascus when Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the London-based RUSI think tank, told Al Jazeera.

“They feared he [al-Sharaa] would squeeze them out, but the Russians have been pleasantly surprised, even if they’ve had to downgrade their ties from before,” Ramani added.

Indeed Moscow has sought to keep its lone deep water port and Mediterranean base at Tartus, and this appears to be happening. But there has been a military and equipment draw-down, and now the Russian operations are said to be 'humanitarian-focused'.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa:

“Russia has supported Syria’s territorial integrity and unity, and has also played a historic role in the stability of the region.”

Russian President Putin:

“I would like to emphasise the need to preserve Syria’s unity and territorial… pic.twitter.com/96lFJuMNPN

— Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) January 28, 2026

Russia seems to be hinting that it is OK with a draw down so long as the Americans exit the region too. One irony in all this is that Assad and his family are currently living in exile from their homeland at a posh Moscow apartment, keeping a very low profile.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 22:10

Free Speech Isn't Free and It Cost Charlie Kirk Everything

Authored by Kristan Hawkins via RealClearPolitics,

The First Amendment protections for free speech have inspired people worldwide and laid the foundation not just for American society but also for entire industries – from social media to this very publication. But as someone who travels the country both speaking and setting up events on college and university campuses, I can tell you that “free speech” isn’t free. 

Nobody knows that better than those of us mourning Charlie Kirk’s passing. At this time last year, Students for Life of America honored Charlie as our  “Defender of Life” at our sold-out National Pro-life Summit, and this year at the National Pro-Life March, our signs and messaging will create a sea of thousands of young people celebrating his legacy. But in the wake of his murder, I continue to reflect on the high cost of free speech for those of us who refuse to abandon college and university campuses. 

Manipulative schools have worked hard to develop financial and logistical obstacles to student speech – from special, additional, and often last-minute insurance to requirements for bomb-sniffing dogs. And everything comes with a price tag. 

To practice “free” speech, we start with time-consuming permits with the endless, additional, and sometimes arbitrary requirements that come with a cost. 

Special event insurance can run from $800 to $5,000, though in Washington, D.C., it can easily run close to $15,000 or higher. We were actually quoted a $20,000 fee in required event insurance to chalk pro-life messages in Miami. 

And if you need to rent a bomb-sniffing dog – because why not – it usually runs $650. My Kevlar vest set me back $1,000. And police, on campus or off, with or without weapons, county, city, or state (which has a range), commonly add $1,200 per event. Private security, if needed, has a price of about $600 per professional. Equipment rental for security wands or metal detectors may be needed. And we can’t forget that a commitment to free speech is a decision to keep lawyers on retainer, especially for the last-minute “requirements” from school administrators.

Even before the tragedy that ended my dear friend’s life, security costs for our Students for Life events had risen about 25%, putting the average cost of a campus event at $4,000. That’s a lot of money for a passionate student to raise, and we work with them to make it happen. 

But not everyone can afford free speech. 

Students for Life’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement just released our 2026 Survey USA poll, looking at the abortion views of registered youth voters. 

They understand that free speech comes at a high cost. Asked about whether colleges and universities should prioritize and financially support free speech, more than nine in 10 (93%) said yes, with 33% saying it’s extremely important. 

But they are worried about those engaging on campus. Almost half (49%) of registered youth voters think violence on college campuses and in public spaces has increased, and more than nine in 10 (92%) are concerned about violence directed at those using their free speech rights, with one in four extremely concerned.

Their fears are probably heightened by the 2025 Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) annual College Free Speech Rankings survey, which reported that one in three students thought it was acceptable to use violence to stop speech. 

Previously, the most common attacks on free speech have been: 

A Vandals Veto seen in destroyed messaging and outright theft of displays and signs, and lately in a trend of protestors eating rubber fetal models brought to illustrate the size of babies in the womb. 

A Heckler’s Veto, in which schools cancel or move events when extremist groups or a disgruntled student oppose a speaker. 

A Slow-Walk-to-Nowhere when a pattern of delays for approval of events or clubs creates a virtual veto of student speech.  

A Not-Even-Separate-but-Equal Accommodation as schools refuse similar support for pro-life students as given to others. 

A Religious Gag Rule in which schools may allow students to speak as long as they stay silent about faith. 

A Required “Trigger Warning” in which the school signals through signs posted in the areas where pro-life speech is taking place that such speech is controversial and offensive, to be possibly avoided or protested.  

A Power-of-the-Purse Veto involving biased use of student fees. 

A Threat-of-Violence Veto, making school administrators unwilling to allow any speech that might be confrontational. 

And a Big Brother’s Threat of Doxxing move.  

But now we deal with a supersized Virtual Poll Tax on some students’ speech. 

Our team has endured bomb threats, vandalizations, stolen and damaged property, physical attacks, urine throwing, stalking, student doxxing, and general cruelty, all of which can raise the emotional cost of public speech. Threats of rape and murder are common, and we keep a file, just in case. 

Such opposition is surely designed to discourage those who wish to participate in the free marketplace of ideas. Silence Dogood, believed to be a pseudonym of Benjamin Franklin, wrote, “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

But it’s not free. And without better support, many will be priced out of the public arena. 

Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,600 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, The Kristan Hawkins Show.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 21:45

California Man With Underground Bunker, Weapons Cache Arrested In CHP Raid

Reminder to Californians; you do not live in a free state, and they don't play around. 

Michael Jay Kamfolt, pictured in a red sweatshirt and hat, at a No Kings protest on Feb. 17, 2025 in Redding, California. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

Last week the California Highway Patrol (CHP) announced that they arrested Michael Jay Kamfolt, a 40-year-old conservative activist who has an underground bunker containing a cache of 'illegal weapons,' ammo, and body armor. 

After receiving tip about an illegal marijuana grow operation, CHP Air Operations conducted a flyover of the property located in the city of Anderson, located around 150 miles north of Sacramento in Shasta County. 

Authorities conducted a month-long investigation of the property owned by Kamfolt, after which CHP executed a search warrant at the location on Jan. 20. 

And while they didn't find any weed being grown, officers recovered 13 firearms - including three AR-style assault rifles, one of which was a "ghost gun" without a serial number, along with a sawed-off shotgun and two firearms that had been reported stolen, one in 2016 and the other in 1978. 

A 'ghost gun' can be assembled at home, which is usually milled out of a hunk of aluminum or 3D printed. 

The bunker, equipped with power, ventilation, a concrete floor with built-in drainage, and the necessary supplies to grow weed, also contains a home gym, armchair, television, and workbench with a Bennington flag.

Investigators also found roughly 10,000 rounds of ammunition - an amount not uncommon among enthusiasts and preppers, including armor piercing rounds, 30 high-capacity magazines, and four soft-body armor vests. 

"During the search, officers discovered an underground bunker accessible through a 100-foot-long culvert," reads a press release. 'The bunker was equipped with power, ventilation, a concrete floor with built-in drainage and the necessary supplies to cultivate marijuana." 

Kamfolt was arrested and booked for the following: 

• 30605(a) PC – Possession of an Assault Rifle
• 30600(a) PC – Manufacturing of an Assault Rifle
• 33215 PC – Manufacturing of a Short Barreled Rifle
• 32625(a) PC – Possession of a Machine Gun
• 32625(b) PC – Converting a firearm into a Machine Gun
• 23920 PC – Possession of an Altered Firearm Serial Number
• 24610 PC – Manufacturing and Possession of an Undetectable Firearm
• 496(a) – Possession of a Stolen Firearm
• 29180(b) PC – Manufacturing of a “Ghost Gun”
• 30315 PC – Possession of Armor Penetrating Ammunition
• 32310(C) PC – Possession of High Capacity magazine

He was held in the Shasta County Jail overnight. Bail was set at $50,000 and he is no longer in custody according to county jail records.

According to county records available so far, Kamfolt is not facing federal charges. Some of his alleged offenses — such as owning a machine gun — are only illegal in certain states such as California, while other allegations, like obliterating an identifying marker on a firearm, also violate federal gun laws. 

Kamfolt was also active in local politics:

In November of 2024, the day before the presidential election, Kamfolt visited the county election office with Supervisor Crye who said he’d just met Kamfolt that day. Speaking to a reporter, Kamfolt expressed his support for Crye’s work in the community and his interest in the importance of this particular election. He said he wanted to observe for himself that it was being facilitated correctly. At the time, former Registrar of Voters Tom Toller was running the election office. 

A few days later, Kamfolt made an appearance at a county board meeting alongside members of the local Cottonwood Militia. The group showed up after community member Jenny O’Connell-Nowain was arrested for allegedly disrupting the meeting. She was protesting statements by Supervisor Patrick Jones about another election official, former Assistant Registrar of Voters Joanna Francescut. Earlier this month, O’Connell-Nowain was found guilty of disrupting that meeting by a Shasta County jury. -Shasta Scout

"This operation went far beyond an illegal grow," said CHP Northern Division Chief John Pinoli. "The combination of a hidden bunker and an alarming cache of illegal firearms and ammunition highlights the threat posed to public safety."

Again, Californians - your state doesn't play around.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 21:20

Century Aluminum To Construct First US Aluminum Plant In More Than 40 Years

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Illinois-based Century Aluminum Co. has entered into a joint development agreement with Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) to construct the “first new primary aluminum production plant in the United States since 1980,” Century said in a statement on Jan. 26.

Employees work with aluminum ingots at a factory in Huaibei, Anhui province, China, on Feb. 9, 2022. STR/AFP via Getty Images

Primary aluminum production involves smelting alumina to produce new aluminum metal. This differs from secondary production, in which existing aluminum is recycled.

“The new plant, to be built in Inola, Oklahoma, as previously announced by EGA, is expected to produce 750,000 tonnes of aluminum per year, larger than previously envisioned and more than doubling current U.S. production. The Inola plant will create 1,000 permanent direct jobs at the facility and 4,000 jobs during construction,” Century stated.

“About 85 percent of the aluminum needs of American industries are currently met by imports. The new smelter will expand the domestic supply of this critical mineral and grow the American aluminum workforce, revitalizing U.S. aluminum expertise and know-how.”

According to data from the International Aluminum Institute, China was the largest producer of primary aluminum in 2025, accounting for an estimated 44.2 million metric tons out of the 73.78 million metric tons of global output.

Commenting on Century’s plan to build a U.S. aluminum smelter, White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai said in a Jan. 26 post on X, “President Trump’s tariffs are working.”

Trump’s Tariffs

In March 2025, the Trump administration’s 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports came into effect. In June, the tariff rate doubled to 50 percent.

At the time, the Aluminum Association, a group representing the U.S. aluminum industry, had struck a cautious tone on the tariffs, saying they would neither increase domestic aluminum output nor support mid- and downstream industries.

In a post on June 5, 2025, the Council on Foreign Relations warned that if aluminum and steel prices were to rise, it could negatively affect industries such as automotive, appliances, electrical, oil and gas, and machinery.

President Donald Trump justified the tariffs in February 2025, a month before the 25 percent tariff took effect, saying they were essential to bolster domestic production, bring jobs back to the United States, and stop other nations from taking advantage of the United States.

“Our nation requires steel and aluminum to be made in America, not in foreign lands,” he said at the time. “This is a big deal, the beginning of making America rich again.”

In August 2025, the federal government announced tariff hikes on more than 400 products, subjecting them to the 50 percent steel and aluminum import tariffs.

The move affected 407 product categories, including furniture, railcars, and compressors.

Jeffrey Kessler, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said at the time that the action “expands the reach of the steel and aluminum tariffs and shuts down avenues for circumvention—supporting the continued revitalization of the American steel and aluminum industries.”

Aluminum Plant

Construction of the Inola plant is set to begin by the end of the year, and production is scheduled to kick off by the end of the decade, Century stated.

The plant will be constructed at the industrial park at Tulsa Port of Inola, located on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which connects to the Mississippi River system, providing efficient bulk freight movement.

Once construction is completed, the Inola plant will be the largest ever primary aluminum production plant in the United States.

The plant is expected to drive forward the development of an aluminum-focused industrial hub in the state, which would result in thousands of additional jobs, Century stated.

Under the deal, EGA, the world’s largest “premium aluminum” producer, will own 60 percent of the joint venture, and Century will hold the remaining 40 percent. The plant will use EGA’s “state-of-the-art” EX technology, its next-generation aluminum smelting technology.

Jesse Gary, CEO of Century Aluminum, said that key industries such as aerospace, automotive, construction, and national defense stand to benefit “greatly” from the venture.

“Our partner EGA brings world-class smelting technology and construction expertise that are fast-tracking our collective efforts to realize President Trump’s vision of rapidly increasing domestic primary aluminum production,” he said.

“We are once again proving that President Trump’s leadership is working to spur investment and innovation to revitalize the U.S. aluminum industry, which is essential to our nation’s defense and the economic vitality of working-class communities across the country.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 20:55

GM CEO Warns Of 'Very Slippery Slope' As Canada To Import Cheap Chinese EVs

Shortly before Davos, Canada and China announced a 5-point 'strategic partnership' which includes slashing tariffs on Chinese EVs from 100% to 6.1% for the first 49,000 units, in exchange for China cutting tariffs on Canadian canola from 85% to 15% until at least the end of the year. 

After Donald Trump stomped his feet and threatened to slap a 100% tariff on Canadian exports, PM Mark Carney assured the US that the deal with China was simply 'rectifying' some 'issues' that developed over the last several years. 

Yet, the reduced EV tariffs remain...

In response, General Motors CEO Mary Barra told employees at an all-hands meeting that the EV deal is a risk to North American auto manufacturing, WSJ reports. 

Mary Barra, Chair and CEO of the General Motors Company (GM), speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, on May 2, 2022. Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

"I can’t explain why the decision was made in Canada," Barra told employees, warning "It becomes a very slippery slope," and noting that Chinese automakers benefit in China from high tariffs imposed on importers, plus technology restrictions that prevent other companies from entering their market. 

Under the agreement between China and Canada, at least half of the EVs imported would be required to have a price of $35,000 Canadian dollars (US$26,000), according to Carney's office. Canada will also work with Chinese automakers to ensure timely vehicle certifications, and that they meet the country's motor-vehicle safety standards.

Illustration via insideevs.com

Canada, meanwhile, is a major market for Detroit automakers. In 2025, Ford, GM and Jeep owner Stellantis sold over 700,000 vehicles combined in Canada. One factor which makes this easy is that Canada's emissions standards closely mirror those of the US. 

That said, Canada's auto industry has been burnt, badly by Trump's tariffs on vehicles and parts made there, causing US automakers to scale back manufacturing as a result. Last year GM made the decision to stop making slow-selling electric vans at an Ingersoll, Ontario factory, while Stellantis has canceled plans to build the electric Jeep Compass in Ontario - and will instead make them in Illinois. 

Chinese automakers, meanwhile, have been rapidly gaining global market share in recent years, but continue to be effectively barred from entering the massive US car market due to triple-digit tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports. Meanwhile, they're making roughly 25% of new Chinese cars in Mexico. 

We hear they're pretty cool too. 

h/t Capital.news

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 20:30

NASA Set to Launch 1st Manned Moon Rocket In 50 Years: What To Know

Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

For the first time in more than 50 years, NASA has mounted a rocket on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a manned flight around the moon.

Artemis II sits in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan. 16, 2026.  Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images,

The super heavy lift rocket is called the Space Launch System. Fueled by more than 700,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen and two solid rocket boosters reminiscent of the space shuttle era, the orange and white behemoth could, as soon as Feb. 6, carry the Artemis II crew—NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—on their 10-day voyage around the moon and farther from Earth than any astronauts have gone before.

Hundreds of men and women who had a hand in assembling the rocket braved the winter cold on Jan. 17 to watch the ship roll out of the vehicle assembly building and move to the launch complex. The Artemis II crew, mission leaders, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman were also on hand to commemorate the milestone.

But there is still a lot to be done before liftoff, and the exact launch date is still to be determined.

Here is what to know about the Artemis II mission, as well as what preparations and parameters still stand in the way of launch.

What Is Artemis II?

Artemis II is the second mission of NASA’s Artemis campaign. Named after the ancient Greek goddess of the moon and Apollo’s twin sister, the program’s purpose is not only to return manned missions to the moon, but also to establish a sustainable, permanent human presence on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit before 2030.

Lead flight director Jeff Radigan emphasized that the mission is first and foremost a test flight. Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen will be the first to fly aboard the Space Launch System and NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which includes the crew capsule and a service module provided by the European Space Agency.

NASA’s priorities for the test flight include successfully demonstrating that the spacecraft and ground teams can sustain the crew members for the entirety of the mission and return them safely to Earth, successfully demonstrating the operations and procedures that are essential for future crewed moon missions, and demonstrating emergency systems and operations.

These demonstrations will include proving the readiness of critical functions, including life support systems, radiation shielding, and maneuverability for docking on future missions, as well as solidifying everyday procedures onboard. That includes how to optimally stow flight suits and fulfill physical exercise requirements in the cramped quarters of the crew capsule.

(L–R) The Artemis II crew—mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, mission specialist Christina Koch, pilot Victor Glover, and commander Reid Wiseman—rehearse a walkout from the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 20, 2025. The astronauts are rehearsing for the scheduled 10-day mission in February, which will take them around the moon and back to Earth. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The crew will also test a new laser communication array, participate in ship-to-ship communication with the International Space Station, and conduct human science experiments.  Those experiments will not only broaden understanding of how deep space affects the body, but also improve NASA’s ability to customize treatments for each astronaut.

“This is a test flight, and there’s things that are going to be unexpected,” Radigan stressed at a news conference on Jan. 16. ”You know, I think we’ve prepared for those as much as we can, and we’re very much looking forward to flying this mission successfully with the crew and learning what we need to on Artemis II moving forward and paving the road for future Artemis missions.”

Artemis II Launch

Artemis II could launch as early as Feb. 6 or as late as April 6. That is, if the space agency wants to keep its long-held promise that the mission will launch before the end of April.

Because of parameters set by mission objectives and vehicle limitations, NASA has isolated six-day launch windows at the start of each month.

The first group of launch opportunities will be Feb. 6, Feb. 7, Feb. 8, Feb. 10, and Feb. 11. After that, NASA will have launch opportunities on March 6, March 7, March 8, March 9, and March 11, and then, if necessary, launch opportunities on April 1, April 3, April 4, April 5, and April 6.

Limiting factors include the need for the position and rotation of the Earth and the moon to be aligned properly on launch day so the Space Launch System can lift the spacecraft into the correct high-Earth orbit. The spacecraft can then set off on its “free-return trajectory” around the moon, ending with a shortened re-entry path toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

All the while, because of the service module’s solar panel wings that provide power, the spacecraft and its service module cannot be in darkness for more than 90 minutes.

On flight day 12 of the 25 1/2-day Artemis I mission, a camera on the tip of one of Orion’s solar arrays captures the Earth as Orion travels in distant retrograde orbit around the moon, on Nov. 27, 2022. NASA

On top of these conditions, the moon rocket still needs to undergo some testing and systems integration before it is cleared for launch, including a “wet dress rehearsal.” That is a practice in which ground operations will put the rocket through launch day conditions such as fully loading and unloading the rocket with fuel, powering up and powering down critical systems, and practicing closeout procedures that would secure the crew in the capsule.

If the wet dress rehearsal exposes a problem such as a fuel leak, as was the case during Artemis I, that must be addressed before proceeding further.

The weather could also cause delays. For example, if the temperature at the launch pad falls below a defined temperature constraint—from 38 degrees Fahrenheit to 49 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on wind and relative humidity—for 30 minutes, the moon mission will not be able to get off the ground. And if lightning or thunderstorms are detected within 10 nautical miles of the launch pad, the launch could be delayed or scrubbed.

Although NASA only published its launch windows for the next three months, Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said a suitable launch window exists for every month this year, and the rocket can remain on the pad exposed to the elements for two launch windows before it would need to be rolled back into the Vehicle Assembly Building.

The Artemis II rocket core stage of NASA's Space Launch System is offloaded from the Pegasus Barge at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on July 24, 2024.Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images Artemis II Flight Plan

Whenever it does launch, NASA leadership expects Artemis II’s 10-day flight to begin with a night launch and end with a nighttime splashdown.

The first two days of the mission have been described by the crew and flight directors as grueling in terms of workload.

Day one will kick off with a more-than-three-hour journey from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center to a high-Earth orbit, flying as high as 46,000 miles. By comparison, the International Space Station generally flies at an altitude of 250 miles beyond Earth.

Once in high-Earth orbit, Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen will conduct a roughly 23-hour checkout of the spacecraft while still relatively close to the Earth. That checkout includes what NASA calls a “proximity operations demonstration.” Glover will take manual control of the spacecraft to test the maneuverability of the Orion spacecraft as it relates to docking. Using the detached upper stage of the Space Launch System as a point of reference, he will fly as close as 30 feet to the stage. After all, the Orion spacecraft will have to be able to dock with a lunar lander built by either SpaceX or Blue Origin in order for its future crews to land on the moon.

This demonstration will make Glover the first astronaut to manually fly NASA’s new moon-bound spacecraft, putting him in league with the Apollo astronauts who came before him.

Mission leaders said the astronauts will get a rest period of approximately four hours during the first day before waking up to conduct one more orbital adjustment ahead of their trans-lunar injection.

A diagram of NASA's Artemis II flight around the moon scheduled for February. Artemis II could launch as early as Feb. 6 or as late as April 6. NASA

If all checkouts and tests reveal a healthy spacecraft, Artemis II will perform its “translunar injection burn” just 25 hours and 37 minutes into the mission, when its crew fires the spacecraft’s main engine to set it off on a course from the Earth to the moon on a free return trajectory.

It will take the spacecraft and her crew three days to reach the moon. During those proverbial days at sea, the crew members will perform three trajectory correction burns, test communications on the deep space network, and demonstrate operations inside the brand-new spacecraft, including rapidly putting on their spacesuits. They will also review imaging plans for the lunar flyby in anticipation of the geological observations that await them.

The spacecraft will enter the moon’s gravity four days and seven hours after launch, and roughly 15 hours later, Artemis II is expected to pass the farthest point from Earth reached by any manned Apollo mission.

It is in this newly-reached frontier of deep space that the crew members will make their closest approach to the moon and perform their flyby, roughly five days after liftoff. They will have three hours to observe the far side of the moon.

Mission leaders said the moon will appear to the crew members to be the size of a basketball held at arm’s length as they pass at a distance of 4,000 to 6,000 miles above the lunar surface. The crew will be tasked with performing geological observations by a lunar science ground team, which will be following along and passing requests to the astronauts from Houston in real time, save for a brief loss of signal when the moon is directly between the crew and the Earth.

Erroneously called “the dark side of the moon” because it is in darkness while the side seen from Earth is lit, the moon’s far side is expected to be lit by sunlight, possibly to a greater extent than on any Apollo mission. If so, Artemis II’s flyby could reveal parts of the moon never seen by human eyes.

However, NASA will not know for sure how much of the far side will be in sunlight until the crew is on its way, and mission science leaders have confirmed that far-side visibility has no effect on the launch date.

It will take another three days to get back home. The crew will make more trajectory corrections, participate in a lunar science debrief, and conduct a demonstration of radiation shielding, as well as another manual flight demonstration.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 20:05

"Will Bring Country To Halt": Far-Left NGOs Prepare To Mobilize Children As 'Ice Out' Protesters

A network of far-left nonprofits linked to Marxist financier Neville Roy Singham is leveraging Minnesota-based Black and Somali student organizations to mobilize child protesters in a planned "ICE Out of Everywhere" action on Friday, assessed as a coordinated general strike intended to inflict economic disruption amid widespread protests following multiple fatal shootings of protesters by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

"We support the call from Minnesota-based Black and Somali student organizations — on Friday, January 30, join the national day of action to say ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE!" Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) wrote on X.

PSL continued:

Last Friday, people from all walks of life came together in the Twin Cities and all across Minnesota had a day of "no work, no school, no shopping" and shut it down. It captured the imagination of the whole country. They've shown the way for all of us — to stop ICE's reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN. What happened in Minnesota can happen across the entire country.

Now is the decisive moment. The Minnesota General Strike has given us a historic opening. If we all take a stand now, we can stop the killings and the kidnappings, and end Trump's war on our most basic rights!

Make a plan. Organize your people. Stay tuned for actions this January 30 around the country.

We support the call from Minnesota-based Black and Somali student organizations — on Friday, January 30, join the national day of action to say ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE!

Last Friday, people from all walks of life came together in the Twin Cities and all across Minnesota had a day… pic.twitter.com/ZOUvWRtaey

— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) January 27, 2026

Just the News reports that anti-ICE protests involving children and business shutdowns - one that can only be viewed as a general strike - are being planned nationwide.

Key organizers and promoters include the People's Forum, Party for Socialism and Liberation, BreakThrough News, Code Pink, and the ANSWER Coalition, with heavy coordination via social media and a central "National Shutdown" website.

Left-wing activist Linda Sarsour declared that "we will bring this country to a halt."

As assessed last week, Minneapolis protests have moved beyond normal demonstrations toward deliberate targeting of critical economic chokepoints, with left-wing activists exploiting public outrage over federal agent shootings as a catalyst to sow chaos from within the nation. 

Meanwhile...

• "Yes, Yes, And Yes": Bessent Signals Crackdown On Dark-Money NGO Protests 'Just Like We Did With The Mafia'

Just wait until warmer weather arrives; the Trump administration will face a protest-industrial complex that will likely deploy assets across major sanctuary cities.

• 'Comrade' Singham Faces House Subpoena Over Alleged CCP-Linked NGO Network Fueling Anti-ICE Protests

Get ready for spring. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 19:40

Why Your Brain Overreacts To Fear - And How To Fix It

Authored by Debbie Cohen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

We’ve all been there: that jolt of panic before a job interview, the knot in your stomach while public speaking, the dread during a difficult conversation. Your heart pounds, your breath turns shallow, and your palms sweat. Your body reacts as if physical danger is imminent, even when it’s not.

At the center of our fear response is the amygdala, an almond-sized structure deep in the brain. Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

This surge of anxiety stems from your brain’s fight-or-flight response. It is designed to protect us from threats, but modern life sets it off every time we get stuck in traffic or think our coworker is upset with us. When activated repeatedly, it can fuel high blood pressure, weakened immunity, anxiety disorders, and burnout.

Getting the fight-or-flight response properly tuned requires a counterintuitive solution. Neuroscience suggests that we need to expose ourselves to what unsettles us.

Why Modern Stress Makes Fear Harder to Regulate

If our collective mental health is any indicator, people are struggling. According to research from Moodle, conducted by Censuswide, approximately 284 million people, or about 3.5 percent of the world’s total population, have an anxiety disorder, while 66 percent of American employees report experiencing burnout.

These aren’t separate problems; they’re symptoms of brains stuck in perpetual threat mode, unable to distinguish between psychological discomfort and physical danger.

The Epoch Times asked Supatra Tovar, a licensed clinical psychologist and wellness expert, how these findings reflect acute stress turning into chronic stress. Tovar noted that chronic tension is directly linked to the brain’s fear circuitry.

The amygdala becomes harder to regulate when a person is exposed to repeated uncertainty or alarm.

“Over time, the nervous system starts treating these inputs like real danger, making it difficult for the body to return to a calm baseline.”

Why Your Brain Overreacts

At the center of our fear response is the amygdala, an almond-sized structure deep in the brain responsible for detecting threats and triggering rapid emotional reactions. However, it can be trained to calm down.

How can something the size of an almond cause so much trouble? Because its job lies at the heart of human experience. The amygdala is the region of the brain associated with emotional processing, and it constantly scans for threats like a smoke detector ready to sound the alarm.

Under normal circumstances, the logical prefrontal cortex runs the show, handling executive function and rational decision-making. However, when the amygdala senses danger, it hijacks the system entirely.

“That irritation shows up in the autonomic nervous system. These changes happen automatically and instantly,” Dr. Allan Bernstein, a California-based neurologist who has spent decades bridging the gap between scientific investigation and clinical practice, told The Epoch Times.

When this protective system becomes hypersensitive, it can trick the brain into perceiving threats where none exist. The amygdala doesn’t distinguish between real-time danger and imagined scenarios. It can be activated by memories, sensory cues, or hypothetical fears, such as standing near the edge of a high balcony, even if you’ve never fallen.

However, said Bernstein, “Once you know how the amygdala works, you can stop being afraid of your own reactions. And once you’re not afraid of the reaction itself, you can learn how to slow it down.”

Steps for Retraining Your Fear Response

The brain is capable of change throughout life, a quality known as neuroplasticity. One study shows that an effective way to retrain fear circuits is through gradual, controlled exposure to anxiety-provoking situations. However, patience is key, as it’s a process that requires repetition and can take months to master.

Rewiring the brain is best approached in small, manageable steps, according to Pankhuri Aggarwal, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology. An assistant professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, she has studied how culture and context shape mental health.

The amygdala learns from direct experience, while the prefrontal cortex learns from interpretation, Aggarwal told The Epoch Times.

“When someone gradually engages with something that makes them anxious while still feeling safe, the amygdala begins to realize that the situation is not dangerous, and the prefrontal cortex becomes more efficient at down-regulating that fear response. We sometimes describe this as building the ‘fear-regulation muscle,’” she said.

3 Elements That Make Exposure Effective

Essentially, repeated, tolerable exposures help the brain form new associations, shifting from threat to safety. Over time, the prefrontal cortex becomes quicker and more automatic in calming the amygdala.

Aggarwal emphasized that fear responses shift most effectively when several conditions are present:

• Predictability, so you know what to expect
• A sense of control, meaning you choose to engage rather than being forced
• Repeated practice, which allows the brain to learn through experience

“People gain confidence surprisingly quickly once they learn that the initial spike of fear does not last forever. That realization alone can dramatically shift how their brain responds in the future.”

For example, an actor suffering from stage fright is usually less nervous after opening night. With each subsequent performance, the brain learns: “I survived. Nothing bad happened. I can do this.”

Aggarwal cautioned against common mistakes people make when trying to face their fears, including going too big too fast, avoiding discomfort, and facing fear without support or structure. For people with severe anxiety or trauma histories, she noted that these steps are best taken with the support of a mental health professional.

Resilience, she stressed, is not the absence of fear. “Fear is an adaptive part of how we stay safe. Resilience comes from recalibrating the fear system so it responds proportionately. Small, consistent steps toward feared situations help people feel capable again, and that sense is often what truly changes lives.”

Habits That Reset Your Stress Response

To counter chronic stress, Aggarwal advised building simple, consistent habits that signal safety to the nervous system, including:

• Slow, steady breathing
• Brief grounding pauses
• Mindful movement
• Limits on news and social media consumption
• Reconnection with others in real life

“Human connection is not just comforting; it is biologically stabilizing, helping the brain recalibrate away from chronic threat and back toward balance,” she said. She added that even small steps—a short walk outside, a phone call with a friend, or a few minutes of controlled breathing—help deactivate unnecessary fight-or-flight responses.

Reframing How We View Fear

Although most people want to avoid things that make them anxious, fear is not our enemy. Doing the thing that scares us can be an opportunity for growth.

Thomas Plante, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology and is a psychology professor at Santa Clara University in California, told The Epoch Times, “This might seem counterintuitive, but research over many years and with many different populations has clearly indicated that gradual exposure to fears helps us to overcome them.”

This approach, known clinically as exposure therapy with response prevention, is one of the most evidence-based treatments for anxiety disorders and fears. It is effective for anxious situations, such as public speaking, as well as specific phobias, including snakes, spiders, and airplanes.

The Takeaway

Fear isn’t the villain. It’s a signal that evolved to protect us, even if it sometimes misfires in modern life. However, it does not have to hijack the body.

With awareness and consistent practice, experts say that unnecessary fear can be reshaped into a source of resilience rather than a threat to our well-being.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 19:20

2026 Brings Big Changes To Charitable-Deduction Rules

Now that we're into 2026, many provisions of last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are coming to life. One set of tweaks brings major changes to the tax treatment of charitable contributions, getting non-itemizers back into the tax-saving game but curtailing tax benefits for itemizers and higher-income filers. 

Ever since standard deductions were nearly doubled in 2018, far fewer Americans have been itemizing their deductions -- only about 9% in recent years. For the masses, that reduced the appeal of charitable donations, since the only way to benefit from contributions was via an itemized deduction. Losing a major selling point, the country's charities pushed for the creation of an "above-the-line" deduction for non-itemizers. With the 2025 OBBBA, their ship came in. 

Which organizations are on your 2026 donation list? Let us know in the comments

In 2026, single people who take the standard deduction can deduct up to $1,000 in cash gifts to qualified 501(c)(3) public charities. For married couples, it's $2,000. You can't take an above-the-line deduction for contributions to donor-advised funds or private foundations. As usual, the IRS requires that you have a written acknowledgement from a charity that you give $250 or more. Unlike itemized charitable contributions, there's no carry-forward for contributions that exceed your cap on the deduction in a given year. This new deduction feature of the tax code has no expiration date, and it will be adjusted for inflation going forward.

Non-profit institutions are welcoming the change. "The new above-the-line deduction will make it easier for Americans to support causes they care about,” says Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. "A healthy non-profit sector is critical to a free society."   

While the OBBBA is all good news for the standard-deduction crowd, the new law tightened charitable tax-deductions for those who itemize. Specifically, they can only deduct charitable gifts to the extent they exceed 0.5% of adjusted gross income. For example, if your 2026 AGI is  $100,000, you can only deduct the amount of your total contributions that exceeds $500. So, if you made a total of $2,000 in donations to all your chosen charities, you could only take a $1,500 itemized deduction.

In light of that 0.5% AGI floor, one way for itemizers to optimize donations is by "bunching them" in a single tax year. With that strategy, someone who'd intended to donate money to charities at a pace of $2,000 per year might instead donate $4,000 in 2026 and then come back with another round of bunched contributions in 2028.  

OBBBA also brought a new reduction in tax benefits enjoyed by high-income donors. Generally, taxpayers can calculate the benefit of a tax deduction by multiplying it by their marginal tax rate. For example, someone who's in the 22% tax bracket gets $22 in tax benefits for a $100 donation. Now, however, those in the highest 37% tax bracket will see their tax benefit limited to 35%. In 2026, the 37% bracket applies to taxable income above $640,600 for singles and $768,700 for married couples filing jointly. 

While US nonprofits are getting a boost in the form of the new above-the-line deduction, they also face economic headwinds thanks to the declining power of the US dollar, and increased prices thanks to tariffs. "47% of charitable donors have given less in the past 12 months due to inflation," nonprofit fundraising and marketing firm RKD Group reported in September.  

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 19:00

US Launches Revamp Of FAA To Improve Safety, Modernize Airspace Operations

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration on Jan. 26 unveiled what it described as the largest overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the agency’s history to enhance safety and support modernization efforts.

The overhaul includes launching an airspace modernization office to oversee the installation of a new air traffic control system and creation of an advanced aviation technologies office to oversee the integration of drones and other air mobility vehicles into U.S. airspace, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in a statement.

The FAA will also move more key leadership posts to permanent roles and consolidate management of finance, information technology, and human resources under the administrator, according to the DOT.

The department said the restructuring of the aviation regulator will not result in workforce reductions.

“It’s important that we have the right people in the right places to do the best work possible,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in the statement. 

“These actions will put permanent leaders in place who embrace innovation, share safety data and insights freely and are focused on deploying a brand-new air traffic control system all while integrating key innovation technologies into the new National Airspace System (NAS).”

DOT said the restructuring is intended to strengthen the FAA’s safety foundation and modernize the national airspace system.

The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) expressed support for the FAA overhaul, saying it would help tackle current challenges facing the aviation industry.

“The FAA’s new structure makes the changes required to increase operational efficiency, foster innovation and empower the bold action needed to build an aviation system that in many ways will redefine air transportation,” NBAA CEO Ed Bolen said in a statement. 

“More than just a ‘re-org,’ this plan re-envisions what America’s aviation system is, and how it can best serve all stakeholders, now and in the decades to come.”

The announcement came just weeks after the FAA awarded contracts to RTX and Indra to replace the nation’s aging radar system as part of efforts to enhance the agency’s safety oversight.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (L) and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford hold a press conference at the U.S. Department of Transportation Headquarters in Washington on Nov. 5, 2025. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The DOT said on Jan. 5 that the two companies will replace up to 612 old radars across the United States with modern surveillance radars by June 2028. The replacement process will kick off this year and prioritize high-traffic areas, it added.

“While our air travel system is the safest in the world, most of our radars date back to the 1980s. It’s unacceptable,” Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said at the time.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025, allocated $12.5 billion to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system. The amount is appropriated to the FAA administrator and would remain available until Sept. 30, 2029.

Out of the total funds, $3 billion was set aside for radar systems replacement, $1.9 billion for building a new air route traffic control center, and $1 billion for terminal radar approach control facilities.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 18:40

"How Silly It Would Be": Columbia Student Explains Why She Did Not Report Her Own Gang-Rape To Protect Attackers

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Columbia PhD candidate, Anna Krauthamer, has caused a stir over her column in the far-left Nation on “Why I Didn’t Report My Rape.”

The reason?

Krauthamer is a prison abolitionist and wanted to protect her rapists, saying it would be “silly and strange” for her to subject these rapists to the carceral state. Instead, she allegedly allowed multiple rapists to potentially rape other women.

In her column, Krauthamer alleged that she was gang raped in a Las Vegas hotel room for several hours.

She explained that she “never did anything about it” and  “the simple answer to the question of why I never reported the rape is that I believe in the abolition of police and prisons.”

She added:

“The prospect of being a participant in other people’s incarceration is as alien to me as anything could be, to the point that I can only conceive of it in childish terms – how silly and strange it would be to have a group of people incarcerated at my expense when doing so would do nothing to fix the damage they have already so thoroughly done.”

Rather than having concerns about future victims, Krauthamer said that these rapists would be the victims of a carceral state:

“I don’t want to ruin the lives of my rapists, and I don’t know if they have children. The only thing I want is for them to have never done what they did to me – and nothing, including sending them to prison, will ever change that reality.”

Whether you call it virtuous or virtue-signaling, the suggestion is that rapists would never be sent to prison for their crimes in a nation without prisons.

This is a PhD candidate at a leading university.

She is not alone.

Some faculty members have espoused the same anarchist position. In places like Columbia, this absurdist position is considered intellectually valuable while the faculty has largely purged any conservatives and libertarians from their ranks.

What is particularly astonishing is that, according to her X profile, Krauthamer is a PhD candidate working on “sexual violence & contemporary fiction.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 17:05

Russian Crew Of Seized Tanker Finally Freed By US, On Their Way Home: Kremlin

Washington has quietly released two Russian sailors detained earlier this month by the US Navy's enforcement arm of Venezuela sanctions, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday. "Two Russian sailors have been released and are on their way home to Russia," she announced.

The men were part of the crew aboard the Russian-flagged oil tanker Marinera (formerly Bella 1), which was intercepted and seized on January 7 in the North Atlantic after being tailed by US authorities from the Caribbean.

Source: Marine Traffic

US officials claim the vessel - chartered by a private company - was skirting Washington's oil embargo on Venezuela. "We welcome this decision and express our gratitude to the US leadership," Zakharova had also said.

The tanker's multinational crew totaled 28, including 17 Ukrainians, six Georgians, three Indians, and just two Russians - the latter now released - underscoring once again how US sanctions enforcement routinely sweeps up foreign nationals far removed from Washington's geopolitical score-settling.

American officials had earlier threatened that the Marinera's crew could face prosecution in the United States, which Russia warned would be "categorically unacceptable."

Russia's foreign ministry threatened serious escalation at a moment both sides are seeking to improve delicate bilateral relations, saying such a move will "only result in further military and political tensions," adding that it was worried by "Washington's willingness to generate acute international crisis situations."

But days ago the Kremlin previewed that the US was preparing to release the Russian nationals "in response to our request" - while the fate of the other detained crewmembers remains unknown, and their respective embassies are likely lobbying for their swift release.

But a real and potentially explosive crisis has thankfully been avoided here, and the Kremlin disclosed that it directly appealed to the Trump administration to quickly release the Russian crewmembers.

The explosive situation could have easily spiraled, given also the rare presence of a Russian submarine so near in proximity to US maritime forces.

As for US policy in post-Maduro Venezuela, the US is making slow moves to reopen the embassy in Caracas, amid ongoing talks with interim leader Delcy Rodríguez (or should we say 'directives' given to...).

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the US is preparing to issue a general license - a move that would enable a sweeping rollback of sanctions, replacing the piecemeal waiver system used until now.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 16:45

Meta Stock Jumps Despite Soaring Capex, Expense Forecast

As we wrote in our Mag 7 earnings preview, investor sentiment has soured considerably on META since the Q3 25 print when it became abundantly clear that Zuckerberg’s foot remains firmly pressed down on the OpEx/capex accelerator.

To date, investors have seen little tangible evidence that the Meta Superintelligence Lab is capable of producing a leading edge model, and as JPM sais, "we won’t receive clarity on that issue this print. (But we may get some in the March/April timeframe when Avocado might launch.)" Looking at this quarter specifically, investors’ attention will be focused squarely on the 2026 OpEx guide (can’t be bigger than feared) as well the Q1 26 Revenue guide (needs to show a modest FXN acceleration on an easier comp). All told, investor sentiment on META heading into this print was at best ‘timid’, with many looking for the trade-off between massive capex and returns on investment.

Going into earnings, Goldman's desk wrote that investor positioning is 7/10, and notes that the stock has been a relative short amongst Mag7 peers for investors since the last earnings print on ROI debates + Product visibility (LLMs? New products? Other?). Into the print, focus on visibility into Meta's expense profile in 2026 (for context, Goldman sits at $125bn of capex in ’26 and $152bn of total expenses) relative to Revenue trends (Goldman models nearly ~20% ad revs growth in CY26). The options implied move of the stock is 6%. 

With that in mind, here is what Meta reported moments ago for Q4.

• Revenue $59.89 billion, +24% y/y, beating estimate $58.42 billion 
  • Advertising rev. $58.14 billion, +24% y/y, beating estimate $56.79 billion
  • Family of Apps revenue $58.94 billion, +25% y/y, beating estimate $57.47 billion
  • Reality Labs revenue $955 million, -12% y/y, missing estimate $962.7 million
  • Other revenue $801 million, +54% y/y, beating estimate $718.8 million

• Operating income $24.75 billion, +5.9% y/y
  • Family of Apps operating income $30.77 billion, +8.6% y/y, estimate $30 billion
  • Reality Labs operating loss $6.02 billion vs. loss $4.97 billion y/y, estimate loss $5.8 billion
     
• Operating margin 41% vs. 48% y/y
   
• EPS $8.88 vs. $8.02 y/y, beating estimates of $8.19

Some other Q4 details:

• Ad impressions +18% vs. +6% y/y, estimate +12.2%
  • Average price per ad +6% vs. +14% y/y, estimate +9.07%
• Average Family service users per day 3.58 billion, +6.9% y/y, estimate 3.56 billion

What is probably more important to investors is where did capex end in Q4: the answer, $21.4BN, up more than 50% YoY from $14.4BN a year ago.

Some more comments from management on the quarter:

• “We had strong business performance in 2025,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. “I’m looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence for people around the world in 2026”
• “We expect first quarter 2026 total revenue to be in the range of $53.5-56.5 billion.”
• “Despite the meaningful step up in infrastructure investment, in 2026 we expect to deliver operating income that is above 2025 operating income.”
• “Absent any changes to our tax landscape, we expect our full year 2026 tax rate to be 13-16%.”
• “We expect full year 2026 total expenses to be in the range of $162-169 billion.”
• The company will continue monitoring legal and regulatory headwinds in the EU and the US. It continues to see scrutiny on youth-related issues, which may result in material loss

In a nutshell, the historical numbers were solid. What about the future? This is the company's outlook:

Q1 revenue in the range of $53.5-56.5 billion, higher than the $51.3BN estimate (assumes FX is a ~4% tailwind to year-over-year total revenue growth)

Full year 2026 total expenses to be in the range of $162-169 billion, much higher than the $151BN expected.

• company says the majority of expense growth will be driven by infrastructure costs, which includes third-party cloud spend, higher depreciation, and higher infrastructure operating expenses)
• The second-largest contributor to total expense growth is employee compensation, driven by investments in technical talent. This includes 2026 hires to support our priority areas, particularly AI, as well as a full year of expenses from 2025 hires.
• At a segment level, we expect expense growth to be driven by the Family of Apps, with Reality Labs operating losses remaining similar to 2025 levels.

Last but not least, META's 2026 capex forecast was an absolute stunner: the company said that it anticipates 2026 capital expenditures to be in the range of $115-135 billion.

• The majority of expense growth will be driven by infrastructure costs, which includes third-party cloud spend, higher depreciation and higher infrastructure operating expenses.
• The second-largest contributor to total expense growth is employee compensation, driven by investments in technical talent. This includes 2026 hires to support our priority areas, particularly AI, as well as a full year of expenses from 2025 hires.

This number is much, much higher than the $110.62BN median estimate, and represents a doubling in capex YoY.

Putting it together, the Q4 beat, and the Q1 guidance beat, are up against the concerns about that spending figure. If Meta hits the high range of that estimate, it’s close to a 90% year-over-year jump in capex. And while the kneejerk reaction was the punish the stock, some algo ended up liking the mindblowing capex spending projection, and has pushed META almost $100 from its after hours low. 

Indeed, META has dumped and pumped after hours: after initially dumping on the report of the blowout expense/capex surge, it was as if a relentless buyer stepped in and moved the stock from the session low of $637 to what has so far been an after hours high of $721.

So how it is possible that the stock is surging on the exact same setup which sent it crashing last quarter? It appears that Meta ad growth is letting investors brush off the eye-popping spending increase. It’s a different story over at Microsoft, whose shares are currently sharply lower after increased spending alarmed shareholders. Microsoft released its earnings around the same time as Meta.

Yet we would be very cautious chasing the stock here as the exact same questions that emerged last quarter are bound to resurface, namely just what return is Meta expecting to generate on this mindblowing capex spending.

Tyler Durden Wed, 01/28/2026 - 16:30