Government Has Frozen $584 Million In UCLA Funding, University Resumes Talks

Update: The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, CNN has exclusively learned, marking the latest effort by the White House to shape higher education and extract significant concessions from universities.

Officials from UCLA have returned to the negotiating table, a source familiar with the matter said, and have made clear they would like to reach a deal to restore that funding.

The Trump administration, in turn, is laying its marker for a high-dollar settlement.

* * *

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

The federal government suspended $584 million worth of grants to the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA), the university’s Chancellor, Julio Frenk, said in an Aug. 6 statement to community members.

Pro-Palestinian protesters rebuild the barricade surrounding their encampment after clashes erupted overnight on the campus of the University of California–Los Angeles on May 1, 2024. Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images

“If these funds remain suspended, it will be devastating for UCLA,” he said.

The funding cancellation affects UCLA departments that rely on grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy.

“The suspension of these funds is not only a loss to the researchers who rely on critical grants,“ he said. ”It is a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on our groundbreaking research and scholarship.”

The university announced the funding cancellation on July 31 without identifying the exact amount to be cut.

The announcement was made after the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a July 29 statement that UCLA violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by “acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.”

The DOJ said that UCLA failed to appropriately respond to complaints about Jewish and Israeli students facing “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment and abuse” on its campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel by the Hamas terrorist group.

“This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the statement.

Under Title VI, the federal government has the authority to withhold funding from educational institutions found to be discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, or religion.

In a July 29 notice of violation issued to UCLA, the DOJ said that Jewish students reported being assaulted or denied access to campus facilities due to their faith. In one instance, a student was knocked down by protestors, suffered a head injury, and had to be hospitalized, the DOJ stated.

The DOJ gave UCLA until Aug. 5 to reach a voluntary agreement resolving the issue, failing which, the agency planned to file a federal lawsuit against the university by Sept. 2, the notice said.

In the July 31 message, Frenk said that UCLA has taken “robust actions” to make its campus safe for all students.

Earlier this year, the university instituted new policies to manage campus protests and has taken action against conduct violating the institution’s policies, he said.

UCLA has launched an initiative aimed at extinguishing anti-Semitism on the campus “completely and definitively,” Frenk wrote.

“As part of this initiative, UCLA is implementing recommendations of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias,“ he wrote. ”These include enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, ensuring enforcement of current and new laws and policies and cooperating with stakeholders.”

Frenk said federal research grants are not “handouts,” that researchers from the university “compete fiercely” to secure such funding, and that the work conducted by these researchers is crucial to America’s safety, health, and economic future.

On Aug. 4, senior leaders at the university held a town hall attended by 3,150 faculty and staff to discuss the issue, following which the university estimated that grant suspensions by federal agencies would put $584 million in funding at risk, Frenk said.

“We are doing everything we can to protect the interests of faculty, students, and staff—and to defend our values and principles,“ he said. ”The UC Board of Regents and the UC Office of the President are providing counsel as we actively evaluate our best course of action.”

Removing Discrimination, Harassment

Other U.S. universities have agreed to adhere to the federal government’s policies, often after the Trump administration threatened federal funding cuts.

Columbia University was, until recently, in conflict with the administration over the issue of alleged anti-Semitic incidents on campus. In March, government agencies cut $400 million in university funding because of this issue.

Last month, the university announced it would pay $200 million to resolve allegations that it discriminated against Jewish students, securing restoration of federal grants in return.

“While Columbia does not admit to wrongdoing with this resolution agreement, the institution’s leaders have recognized, repeatedly, that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents, and that reform was and is needed,” the university said, announcing its deal with the federal government.

On July 30, Brown University said it reached an agreement with the federal government after being in conflict over the issue of violating Title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal funding.

Under the deal, the university committed to making policy adjustments such as using the Trump administration’s definitions of “male” and “female” for athletes and housing on campus. This includes installing female-only floors at dormitories and offering male and female bathrooms. The university also vowed to take measures to address anti-Semitism on campus.

The agreement restores federal funding to the university for research and ends the government’s investigation into racial and sexual discrimination.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon applauded the deal.

“Restoring our nation’s higher education institutions to places dedicated to truth-seeking, academic merit, and civil debate—where all students can learn free from discrimination and harassment—will be a lasting legacy of the Trump administration, one that will benefit students and American society for generations to come,” she said.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 13:25

Gen Z: Nationalists vs. Communists

Authored by Adam Sharp via Daily Reckoning,

Young Americans are fracturing along ideological fault lines.

They are breaking into two camps. For lack of better terms, we will call them the far-right and far-left.

Unfortunately, there are few surveys which ask these kinds of questions. Pollsters still query along legacy party lines, Democrat vs. Republican, even though those labels are losing relevance.

Fortunately I have two teenage kids, and friends in the same boat. So I have a pretty good read on young Americans’ political leanings.

Most kids I know fall into one of two buckets. Let’s call them America First nationalists and hardcore socialists.

Girls are more likely to be on the far-left, while young men are increasingly right-wing. This gender divide couldn’t be clearer, at least in my area.

This shift to the extremes is understandable. Both sides are angry, and for good reason. The system isn’t working for them.

Young people today see a world in which they have no chance of affording a house. See the chart below, which shows how the average age of homebuyers has soared over recent decades.

The median homebuyer is now 56 years old! That’s up from 31 in 1981. Wages simply haven’t kept up with housing costs. The American dream is increasingly out of reach.

As kids, Gen Z was told to go to college and they’d get a 6-figure desk job. Now they’re graduating, often saddled with unpayable debt, into a rough market for new white-collar workers. Blue-collar workers are having less trouble finding steady work, but inflation is a pervasive problem.

The young left sees the solution in more socialism. The young right wants politicians to put America first and shrink the government. Both want to end corruption and tear down the status quo.

Strangely, on certain issues these two seemingly distant emerging political wings agree.

Increasing Nationalism

On both the left and the right, different kinds of nationalist sentiment is rising. Both right and left are increasingly against immigration, for example. For too long, mainstream politicians spurred immigration into the States. Broad support for this is ending.

And the more hardcore wings of each side are increasingly angry about America’s many foreign entanglements. They want the war in Ukraine to end. And Gen Z as a whole tends to disapprove of American support for Israel. This is in sharp contrast to older conservatives, who still tend to support Israel.

In general, young people want more focus on America’s issues, and less on the world’s. Again, this is completely understandable. Our youth is struggling, and they see trillions of dollars being spent overseas. Meanwhile our debt load continually rises.  It is politically and economically unsustainable.

Consequences and Direction

For the past 30 years, the left has dominated the culture wars. Think political-correctness, DEI, LGBTQ propaganda in schools, and immigration. Even mainstream conservatives gave way on these issues.

Now everything is changing.

The young right is on the rise, and the consequences of this shift will be dramatic and long-lasting.

A recent post by Robert Sterling on X summed up the situation perfectly:

The left has no idea the monster they’ve created with Gen Z men. Absolutely no idea.

These guys spent their formative years navigating an unprecedented social experiment—COVID lockdowns; DEI struggle sessions; pronouns, micro-aggressions, land acknowledgements, intersectional justice—and, as a demographic, they simply snapped. They stopped fearing cancellation, they realized black marks on social credit scores don’t leave permanent stains, and they started owning—rather than futilely trying to defend against—the accusations of villainry they had suffered since young age.

It’s a wholesale reactionary movement against a political system—more than that, a culture at large—which, rightly or wrongly, they see as dedicated to their emasculation. A system that, in their view, creates little of value, affords them scant opportunity, celebrates that which is ugly and mediocre and profanes that which is sacred.

From the fires of this crucible is emerging the most right-wing generation I’ve ever seen. And from the unhinged group chats of today are emerging the legislators and congressmen of tomorrow.

The left has no idea what they have done, and they can’t imagine what the second- and third-order effects of this will be.

Nailed it. Historically, major political shifts are driven by disaffected young men. That’s where we are with America’s youth today. Especially on the right.

President Trump is responsible for some of this shift, but I suspect the young right movement will eventually outgrow his brand of conservatism. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is a vast improvement from Biden and past GOP leaders. But he’s still too mainstream for these disaffected young Americans.

For the past 3 decades, mainstream Democrats, neocons, and RINOs had their way with the direction of America. This new generation will lead the way to change that.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 12:45

Trump Orders Surge Of Law Enforcement In Washington To Combat Crime

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump had ordered the federal government to increase law enforcement presence in Washington to combat violent crime, the White House said on Aug. 7.

U.S. Capitol Police Officers patrol the East Front plaza of the Capitol Building in Washington on March 7, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

“President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, noting that the city “has been plagued by violent crime for far too long.”

The White House said that additional law enforcement officers would be deployed on the streets for seven days commencing midnight following an 11 p.m. roll call on Thursday at an established command center.

The operation, led by U.S. Park Police, will involve officers from the U.S. Capitol Police, Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Protective Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Enforcement and Removal Operations, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Marshals Service, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The number of officers had not been disclosed.

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Before the announcement, Trump said on Aug. 5 he was considering placing the District of Columbia under federal control after the recent assault of former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Edward Coristine.

The assault allegedly involved underage gang members. Two 15-year-olds were arrested in connection with the attack, and police said they are still looking for other members of the group.

“Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control,” Trump stated on Truth Social. “If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore.”

The president demanded that the city—which is run by a locally elected city council and mayor—change its ordinances regarding the prosecution of minor offenders. He said that offenders as young as age 14 should be subject to trial as an adult for violent offenses.

“Local ‘youths’ and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released,” he stated.

On March 28, Trump signed an executive order establishing the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which will be tasked with ensuring “maximum enforcement” of federal immigration law in the city, reviewing federal prosecutorial policies on pretrial detention for criminal defendants, and monitoring the city’s sanctuary-city status.

The order also directed the task force to work with local law enforcement to facilitate the deployment of “a more robust local law enforcement” in areas of Washington and to ensure strict enforcement of “all applicable quality of life, nuisance, and public-safety laws” in the city.

The Associated Press and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 12:05

Trentadue To Trump, Bondi: Release The OKC Tapes

During last night’s ZeroHedge panel on the Oklahoma City bombing, attorney Jesse Trentadue (whose brother Kenneth Trentadue was murdered by the FBI then covered up in the wake of the OKC bombing) had two requests for the Trump administration: “[release] the videotape of the bombing and unseal John Matthews’ deposition, because the Department of Justice has it sealed, and President Trump’s Department of Justice is fighting to keep it sealed.”

Trentadue filed a FOIA lawsuit in 2008 to get the surveillance tapes — which the FBI is on record acknowledging exist — but the bureau has told him “they can’t find it”.

“You would think if you had a videotape showing who committed this horrific crime, wouldn't that have been exhibit number one in McVeigh's criminal trial? The reason it wasn't because I believe that second person was an FBI operative who got out of that truck.”

Investigative reporter and author Peter Schweizer, who hosted the ZH panel, responded: “Let’s make sure that those two messages are delivered to Pam Bondi.” 

Well as our other guest, Margaret Roberts, pointed out… it already has been delivered… by Jesse.

“Those are the two critical calls to action. Jesse has a letter on Attorney General Bondi’s desk since March asking the Justice Department to stand down from its opposition to unsealing the John Matthews deposition.”

Roberts recently published her book Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing (available here).

She continued, “The other area here that needs addressing is the FOIA process. This is supposed to be the citizens’ last resort for obtaining records that belong to the American public. This story belongs to the public, not locked away in secret government vaults. The many exclusions available to the secret keepers inside these government agencies make it almost impossible.”

“Jesse has navigated this flawed process so masterfully, and yet this FOIA action to release the videotapes has just been sitting marooned for more than a decade. John Matthews told Jesse he had been pressured by the FBI not to tell his story… FOIA needs to be fixed.”

Check out the full discussion here, shorter than our typical debates but packed with info:

https://t.co/c1e9mSWnIp

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 7, 2025

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 11:45

Schiff: Interest Rates Should Be Higher, Not Lower

Via SchiffGold.com,

Along with Trump, market watchers are salivating for rate cuts. But rates should be higher, not lower - and in a free market, they would be.

In a free market, interest rates are determined by the supply and demand for credit. Savers provide capital (supply) while borrowers like businesses, consumers, and governments create demand. Rates would reflect the real cost of capital. They would balance risk, inflation expectations, and real economic conditions.

Instead, we trust a small handful of individuals with full implied mastery of an infinitely complex system with endless interdependent factors that even they admit they don’t fully understand. It’s absolute madness when this same system, left to its own devices, would self-correct on its own if we allowed it to. In that self-correcting system, rates would be drastically higher than they are now.

All central planning does is distort markets by trying to override the natural order in favor of the preferred reality of bankers, bureaucrats, politicians, and academics. While you can achieve a brief illusion of success, you can’t do that forever. Meanwhile, most people have too little understanding of the dynamics, and too short an attention span to realize what’s actually happening. That includes politicians.

The prevailing popular sentiment always seems to be that we can just make the economy great by declaring lower interest rates and printing money, and that monetary easing is both necessary and inevitable. But while investors focus on short-term gains, the underlying conditions almost never support rate cuts in today’s economy. 

Real interest rates are still low by historical standards, and the federal government continues to run huge fiscal deficits. Inflation is still a problem and consumer prices are going to keep going up. Lowering rates even more will make those problems worse.

As Peter Schiff said recently on Fox Business:

“We still have a lot of inflation in the pipeline from all the money the Fed’s been printing over the last, you know, couple of decades.”

Peter also mentioned the inflationary impact of Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which adds fuel to the fire the Fed has already lit and stoked:

“Plus we have the Big Beautiful Bill, that is highly inflationary, because of its massive increases in already big deficits. So I think there’s a lot of inflation that’s coming, and you’ve got the impact of tariffs that is lagging a bit, but it’s going to be there.”

As for Powell, in the face of political pressure and opposition in his own ranks, he at least seems to understand that inflation is still too high, staying steadfast that rates shouldn’t be lowered yet. But he even went as far as leaving the door open to hike them (albeit vaguely, as the Fed always does):

“And so now you have Powell saying I’m going to do ‘whatever it takes’ (to bring down inflation), and that is going to require rate hikes.”

Artificially low rates incentivize borrowing, discourage saving, and misallocate capital into speculative ventures. The asset bubbles and malinvestment can take years to unwind, which then leads to calls for even more intervention. That’s the cycle we’re seeing now, and the one we see over and over.

So while Powell is right for not cutting rates, he was already wrong to have dropped them as low as they already are. The bigger and much more important fact is that Powell’s job shouldn’t exist at all. In a free market, rates would be drastically higher, as they would have to go sky-high for the system to properly correct. If left to their own devices, the blatant unsustainability of the US debt would ring all the market’s alarm bells with regard to default, pushing up Treasury yields. 

Abysmal personal savings would drive rates higher still, as the average American has basically nothing in the bank, and has retirement accounts consisting of a social security ponzi and 401ks filled with stocks that only go up because the currency keeps becoming less valuable. 

Look at US household saving rates as just one basic example. They spiked right around the time everyone got handed a wad of free, freshly-printed money. Now, five years later, they’re even lower than they were before the spike.

US Personal Savings, 10-Year

Global demand for dollars and Treasuries help keep rates down, but as confidence in the dollar drops more and more, rates will have to keep going up to continue attracting that capital. Ultimately, the Fed can only mess with short-term rates, and trying to keep them artificially low  can only give the illusion of succeeding for so long.

The market’s desire for lower interest rates is understandable, especially in the face of sluggish growth, instability, and high borrowing costs. Ultimately, the solution is not more central planning or different leadership at the Fed, but abolishing central monetary planning altogether. Rather than waiting for the Fed to “get it right,” policymakers and economists should be asking whether the Fed should be setting rates at all. While more people are asking this question than probably at any other time in modern economic history, the established orthodoxy continues to refuse to regard it as anything but a total non-starter.

A free-market approach to interest rates would result in massively higher rates and promote sounder long-term decision-making, both by investors and by governments. But it would cause tremendous economic pain as the low rate-addicted economy figures out how to grapple with its paper-thin security blanket being ripped away. 

It’s hard to imagine a Fed Chair, or president, who would be willing to publicly encourage this kind of reset.

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 10:20

JPMorgan Changes Fed Call After Miran Appointment, Now Sees September Rate Cut

On Thursday President Trump named current CEA Chair Stephen Miran to serve as Fed governor for the remainder of outgoing Governor Kugler’s term. That term ends at the end of January, and the president indicated that the administration is continuing to search for a “permanent replacement.”

Like Peter Navarro, Miran has a PhD in economics from Harvard, and has also offered some unorthodox economic views, particularly about reforming the Fed. Almost all the substantive reforms he’s suggested would require Congressional action, something that does not appear to be immediately likely.

Separately, Bloomberg confirmed what we have been saying for months, namely that current Governor Waller is now the favorite in the race to succeed Powell as Fed chair. Waller is viewed as a widely respected policymaker who would represent continuity and whose nomination would very likely be cheered by markets, yet his recent Fed contrarian calls (he was one of two dissenters last week) have made him a darling in the eyes of the Trump admin. 

As JPM chief economist Michael Feroli reminds us, last year, Miran penned an opinion piece arguing for hawkish monetary policy, although as Feroli adds, he "very much doubts that remains his view today." And while getting Miran approved by the Senate after it gets back from recess on September 5 but before the next FOMC meeting starts on September 16 would be a Herculean task, many thought that about getting OBBBA done before July 4.

Historically, new governors or Fed presidents have sometimes abstained from voting at their first FOMC meeting. But Feroli - and we - suspect that may not be the case now. So, according to the JPM analyst, in the off chance Miran is governor by the time of the next meeting, that could imply three dissents. That’s a lot of dissents.

For Powell the risk management considerations at the next meeting may go beyond balancing employment and inflation risks, and JPMorgan now sees the path of least resistance is to pull forward the next 25bp cut to the September meeting, while also continuing to look for three like-sized cuts at the subsequent three meetings before pausing indefinitely.

But what about the S&P printing new record highs every day? Well, as Feroli notes, "it's not unprecedented for the Fed to ease when stocks are at or near all-time highs" although he caveats that "it’s rarer when stocks are at the highs and inflation is above target and inflecting higher." So, an ease next meeting isn't likely to be broadly welcomed by the Committee, according to JPMorgan.

At the last FOMC meeting, Powell framed the labor market risks in the context of the unemployment rate. Simplifying to that one dimension, a rate of 4.4% or higher could get a larger-sized cut at the next meeting, while a rate of 4.1% or lower could prompt a few dissents for a full employment, above-target inflation cut. 

More in the full JPM note available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 10:01

Disney Settles Legal Dispute With Gina Carano Over Her Firing From 'The Mandalorian'

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Disney has settled a legal dispute with actress Gina Carano following her dismissal from “The Mandalorian,” according to both parties.

Carano announced on social media that she had “come to an agreement” with Disney and its subsidiary, Lucasfilm, resolving the lawsuit she filed last year over her termination.

“I am humbled and grateful to God for His love and grace in this outcome,” she stated on X.

“I am excited to flip the page and move onto the next chapter. My desires remain in the arts, which is where I hope you will join me.”

The actress and former MMA star also expressed her gratitude to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the owner of X, who helped fund her lawsuit. Carano said that Musk had backed her case without asking anything in return.

“I want to extend my deepest most heartfelt gratitude to Elon Musk, ... a man I’ve never met, who did this Good Samaritan deed for me in funding my lawsuit,” she wrote.

A Lucasfilm spokesperson stated that the company will “look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future” after the case resolved, adding that she has always been a well-respected actress.

The terms of the settlement have not yet been disclosed. Disney did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Disney fired Carano in 2021 over a social media post it described at the time as “abhorrent and unacceptable” for allegedly “denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities.”

In a now-deleted post, Carano stated that “because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views.”

Carano played rebel ranger Cara Dune on two seasons of “The Mandalorian” before she was terminated from her role. The actress had argued the firing was discriminatory and filed a lawsuit last year.

Her lawyers argued that Disney and Lucasfilm had targeted Carano for “harassment, termination, and public defamation” because she expressed views that did not align with the company.

In July last year, U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett denied Disney’s bid to dismiss the case, ruling that “the court cannot conclude, as defendants urge it to, that plaintiff’s continued employment by defendants would inhibit or intrude upon defendants’ rights to expressive association.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 09:45

Under Armour Shares Crash As Kevin Plank's Turnaround Plan Hits Wall

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank's turnaround plan has hit a wall, with the athletic apparel and footwear maker forecasting worse-than-expected adjusted EPS and revenue, both missing Bloomberg Consensus estimates. 

The struggling Baltimore-based brand, once expected to challenge Nike but now severely falling short, said it expects revenue this quarter to decline between 6% and 7%, compared with the nearly 3% drop projected by analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

The takeaway from Under Armour's Q2 guidance is that its turnaround plan is losing momentum amid mounting macro headwinds, tariffs, and soft consumer demand:

• Revenue Drop: A projected 6–7% decline, more than double Wall Street's expected 3% fall, points to weaker demand, especially in the North America market, despite efforts to reposition the brand with premium products.

• Margin Pressure: A sharp gross margin contraction of 340 to 360 bps from tariffs, supply chain costs, and unfavorable channel mix suggests cost pressures are outweighing pricing gains.

• Earnings Downturn: Adjusted EPS guidance of just 1 cent to 2 cents versus the 26-cent consensus is a massive shortfall, implying that higher costs and weaker sales will erode profitability. 

• Limited Profitability: Even excluding restructuring costs, projected operating income of $30 million to $40 million is modest for a brand trying to reestablish growth.

While the new tariffs are creating major headwinds, the more unexpected and ominous sign is that demand across its North American market is shrinking amid Plank's turnaround plan. 

"Moving ahead, we're focused on strengthening our brand positioning with premium products and increasing our average selling prices through innovative offerings, optimizing our top-volume programs, and creating a more compelling full, price-to-value proposition. Regardless of the backdrop, this is about building a fearless, thoughtful, and stronger Under Armour," Plank wrote in a statement. 

Under Armour delivered mixed Q1 results, slightly better than last year in profitability but still showing soft top-line growth and ongoing demand issues in key markets. 

Summary of Q1 results (courtesy of Bloomberg): 

Adjusted EPS 2.0c vs. 1.0c y/y, estimate 2.5c (Bloomberg Consensus)

Loss per share 1.0c vs. loss/shr 70c y/y, estimate EPS 1.2c

Net revenue $1.13 billion, -4.2% y/y, estimate $1.13 billion

• Apparel revenue $747 million, -1.4% y/y, estimate $735.5 million

• Licensing revenue $24.4 million, +12% y/y, estimate $22.6 million

• Footwear revenue $266 million, -14% y/y, estimate $291.8 million

• North America revenue $670.3 million, -5.5% y/y, estimate $672.1 million

• Asia Pacific revenue $163.4 million, -10% y/y, estimate $155.7 million

• EMEA revenue $248.6 million, +9.6% y/y, estimate $244.5 million

• Latin America revenue $54.6 million, -15% y/y, estimate $57.5 million

Adjusted operating income $24.4 million vs. $8 million y/y, estimate $20.7 million

Inventory $1.14 billion, +2% y/y, estimate $1.1 billion

Total location count 442, +0.2% y/y, estimate 443 (2 estimates)

Operating income $3.32 million vs. loss $299.7 million y/y, estimate $6.04 million

Shares are down as much as 20% in premarket trading, set for the largest decline in three years. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 09:25

US Startup Scoops Up Bankrupt Northvolt's $5B European Gigafactory Assets

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

California-based Lyten has signed a binding agreement to acquire nearly all remaining assets of failed European battery firm Northvolt, including its Swedish and German gigafactories and all remaining intellectual property. In the deal, announced on Thursday, the company confirmed it would take over Northvolt Ett, Northvolt Labs, and Northvolt Drei, including projects developed with more than $5 billion in capital investment.

According to Energy-Storage.news, the assets include 16GWh of operational lithium-ion capacity at Ett, with an additional 15GWh still under construction at Drei. Lyten plans to immediately restart production at Ett and the adjacent R&D complex, while continuing construction in Germany. Several Northvolt executives are expected to join Lyten as part of the transition, the Financial Times reported. 

Northvolt, once the EU’s flagship battery champion, filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. in late 2024 and in Sweden this March. Its collapse followed escalating delivery delays, cost overruns, and financing shortfalls. At its peak, the company had raised more than $10 billion and was considered central to Europe’s energy storage ambitions, according to Reuters.

This latest deal follows Lyten’s earlier acquisition of Northvolt’s Polish energy storage division, Northvolt Dwa, as well as the California-based lithium-metal battery firm Cuberg. The company now controls nearly all of Northvolt’s former assets. Per Energy-Storage.news, Lyten’s chief business officer Keith Norman said lithium-ion deliveries from Dwa will begin in Q4, with plans to later integrate lithium-sulfur chemistry based on demand.

Lyten is also in talks with Canadian officials to acquire Northvolt Six, a Quebec-based facility with integrated cell, cathode, and recycling lines. A $200 million funding round completed in July will help finance the acquisition, restart manufacturing, and support the company’s lithium-sulfur transition roadmap.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 07:20

Democrats' Trust In Institutions Hits New Record Low

While Republicans' trust in U.S. institutions has surged recently, that of Democrats has reached a new all-time low. This is the result of an ongoing survey by Gallup.

Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that, as of June 2025, 37 percent of Republicans trusted the average U.S. institution (out of nine surveyed), while this was only 26 percent for Democrats.

A previous low for Democrats in the survey that has been running since 1979 was 30 percent in 2019, the third year of the first Trump administration.

Republicans' lowpoint was - also at 26 percent - in 2022 and 2023, the second and third year with President Joe Biden in power.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Out of the continuously surveyed institutions, Republicans saw the biggest gains in trust for the military, closely followed by Congress (from 4 percent to a still-low 19 percent) and organized religion. Even banks and organized labor earned percentage point increases in the double digits concerning trust levels among Republicans in just the past year. Democrats lost the most trust out of institutions included in the survey in the military, followed by newspapers and organized labor. Interestingly, both groups had no or minimal changes in confidence in the Supreme Court, which 48 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of Democrats trusted most recently.

Looking at all institutions surveyed by Gallup, more than 50 percent of Americans trust small business, the military and science.

Black Americans exhibited lower levels of trust in U.S. institutions compared to white respondents, according to the release, while both groups were unified by their mistrust in big business and Congress.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 06:55

Why Britain Arrests 30 People Every Day For Speech

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In this engaging Triggernometry interview, Lord Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, discusses the UK’s Online Safety Act and its implications for free speech.

He traces the Act’s origins to a moral panic over children’s exposure to harmful online content like self-harm sites and pornography, initially introduced under Theresa May’s government and expanded under Boris Johnson.

Young criticizes it as overly broad, leading to excessive content removal by platforms fearing massive fines or jail time for executives. He highlights how it has resulted in age-gating innocuous material, such as speeches on grooming gangs or historical blog posts, under the guise of child protection, while failing to include robust free speech safeguards.

Why Britain Arrests 30 People EVERY DAY For Speech

Watch the full episode with Lord Toby Young @toadmeister, right here on X. pic.twitter.com/qOcoC1siuX

— TRIGGERnometry (@triggerpod) August 6, 2025

Young argues this creates a chilling effect, with companies over-censoring to comply, and expresses concern that the Labour government, under figures like Peter Kyle, will strengthen it further rather than repeal it.

Young warns of broader threats to free expression, including over 30 daily arrests for speech offenses and a quarter-million non-crime hate incidents recorded in recent years, often for online posts challenging government narratives on immigration or gender issues.

He discusses risks to anonymity and encrypted apps like WhatsApp, potential blasphemy law revivals via anti-Islamophobia measures, and new employment laws that could ban “banter” in workplaces to prevent perceived harassment.

Emphasizing the Free Speech Union’s role in defending cases—primarily gender-critical women—he notes a surge in membership since Labour’s election, underscoring growing public unease.

Overall, Young portrays the UK as sliding toward authoritarian censorship, prioritizing “safety” over liberty and stifling open debate.

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Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 06:30

CDC Reveals Children Have Highest Intake Of Ultra-Processed Foods

'Make America Healthy Again' (MAHA) coverage in the corporate media has spiked in recent days, marking one of the highest story counts in months. The timing isn't a coincidence, given that the 'back to school' season is fast approaching and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to roll out new national dietary guidelines next month.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new nutrition survey showing that Americans receive more than half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods, with salty and sugary items making up an even larger share of children's diets. This heavily processed diet is fueling America's health crisis. 

Here are the highlights from the CDC's new report titled "Ultra-processed Food Consumption in Youth and Adults: United States, August 2021–August 2023": 

• Overall: Americans aged 1+ consumed 55% of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods.

• Youth (ages 1–18): Averaged 61.9%, with the highest intake in children aged 6–11 (64.8%).

• Adults (19+): Averaged 53%, with intake decreasing as age increases (down to 51.7% for those 60+).

• Top sources: Sandwiches (incl. burgers), sweet bakery goods, savory snacks, sweetened beverages, pizza (for youth), and breads/tortillas (for adults).

CDC explained, "Ultra-processed foods tend to be hyperpalatable, energy-dense, low in dietary fiber, and contain little or no whole foods, while having high amounts of salt, sweeteners, and unhealthy fats. Ultra-processed food consumption has been associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality."  

Here are the ultra-processed food groups that were top sources of calories among youth and adults... 

The findings support Secretary Kennedy's move to revise U.S. dietary guidelines and reduce reliance on the processed foods industrial complex. 

On Monday, Secretary Kennedy and others celebrated "MAHA Monday" with the announcement that six more states have agreed to remove junk food from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

Speaking at the press conference earlier this week at the White House, Secretary Kennedy said, "Taxpayer dollars shouldn't go to junk food that makes our kids sick. We're fixing that—state by state, step by step—to Make America Healthy Again."

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 05:45

Nearly 10,000 Killed In Syria Since 'Diversity-Friendly Jihadists' Seized Power

Via The Cradle

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has documented the violent deaths of nearly 10,000 people in Syria since the former ISIS commander, Ahmad al-Sharaa, was installed in power in Damascus.  

After Sharaa toppled the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December last year, he was widely praised. An article in the UK's Telegraph described his armed group, the former Al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as "diversity friendly jihadists".

Getty Images

Since that time, his HTS-led security forces have gone on a killing spree targeting Syria's minority groups.

SOHR reported on 7 August that "due to ongoing violence and violations by local and foreign actors, coupled with widespread security chaos," at least 9,889 people have been killed since 8 December 2024, the day Damascus fell.

The SORH said that 7,449 civilians were among the victims, including 396 children and 541 women.

It also stressed that there has been no accountability for killings carried out by members of Syria's security forces and affiliated armed factions, while “in some cases, perpetrators are being covered up and facts are being distorted.”

The SOHR noted, for example, that the fact-finding committee formed to investigate the massacre of roughly 1,600 Alawite civilians in Syria's coastal regions in March “did not provide results consistent with the facts,” and was released while government forces and affiliated factions were carrying out new massacres of Druze civilians in Suwayda.

At the same time, pro-government media have launched campaigns aimed at undermining any groups seeking to document or expose the human rights violations, including by “disseminating sectarian and inflammatory rhetoric” against specific religious minority groups.

For example, media campaigns have been launched to deflect from the massacres by calling Alawites “remnants of the regime” of Bashar al-Assad, calling the Druze “collaborators” with Israel, and calling the Kurds “separatists.”

In many videos posted online, Syrian government-affiliated fighters regularly refer to both Alawites and Druze as “pigs” before executing them in their homes and the street.

The SOHR stated as well that thousands of detainees – who have not had a proper trial or been allowed to appear before a judge – remain in prison.

Among the detainees are people arrested after the fall of Assad, and others who were arrested during raids or at security checkpoints. Many of these detainees have no clear charges against them and are being arbitrarily detained without due process, SOHR added.

Bet he constantly dreamed of sitting on this special chair next to a Gulf-owned American diplomat billionaire while he was coordinating suicide bombers to hit US convoys and hiding in caves. An inspiration to us all. pic.twitter.com/mjANpLoPQP

— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) August 6, 2025

On 5 August, SOHR reported that families of kidnapped civilians renewed calls for Syrian authorities to reveal the fate of young Alawite men taken from their homes without charges during the massacres on the coast in March.

The missing detainees are from the villages of Hmeimim, Bustan al-Basha, Al-Qabo, and Al-Sanober. Families told SOHR activists that armed groups stormed houses and took the young men to an unknown location without explaining the reasons or issuing official arrest warrants. Since then, Syrian authorities have provided no information about their fate despite repeated demands from their families.

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 05:00

Swedish PM Slammed After Admitting He Uses ChatGPT To Help Run Government

First we learn that doctors are using ChatGPT to treat patients. Now, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is taking a heaping ration of Lutfisk for admitting he's been using ChatGPT to help run the government.

Kin Cheung - Pool/Getty Images

Speaking with a Nordic news site, Kristersson said that he sometimes asks ChatGPT for a "second opinion" when it comes to governance strategies.

"I use it myself quite often," he said, "If for nothing else than for a second opinion. What have others done? And should we think the complete opposite? Those types of questions."

Kristersson's comments predictably came under fire.

"The more he relies on AI for simple things, the bigger the risk of overconfidence in the system," Virginia Dignum, a professor of responsible artificial intelligence at Umeå University, told DiGITAL. "It is a slippery slope. We must demand that reliability can be guaranteed. We didn’t vote for ChatGPT."

"Too bad for Sweden that AI mostly guesses," wrote Aftonbladet’s Signe Krantz. "Chatbots would rather write what they think you want than what you need to hear."

"You have to be very careful," Simone Fischer-Hübner, a computer science researcher at Karlstad University, told Aftonbladet, noting that people shouldn't submit sensitive information to GPT.

As Gizmodo opines;

Krantz makes a good point, which is that chatbots can be incredibly sycophantic and delusional. If you have a leader asking a chatbot leading questions, you can imagine a scenario in which the software program’s algorithms only serve to reinforce that leader’s existing prerogatives (or to push them further over the edge into uncharted territory). Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like a whole lot of politicians feel the need to use ChatGPT as a consigliere yet.

Kristersson spokesman Tom Samuelsson 'clarified' that the PM doesn't take risks in his use of AI. 

"Naturally it is not security sensitive information that ends up there. It is used more as a ballpark," he said. 

Tyler Durden Fri, 08/08/2025 - 02:45