Nick Reiner Charged With Murdering His Parents

Nick Reiner faces two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office announced the charges Tuesday after the Reiners’ son was arrested Sunday night and booked into jail Monday.

“These are some of the most serious charges a DA can bring against anyone,” LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman said at a press conference.

“Prosecuting these cases involving family members are some of the most challenging and most heart-wrenching cases that this office faces because of the intimate and often brutal nature of the crimes involved,” the prosecutor added.

The weekend stabbing deaths of the acclaimed actor-director, 78, and his wife, 70, stunned the Hollywood community, as well as residents of Brentwood, the wealthy Los Angeles enclave where they lived.

Their bodies were discovered Sunday.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, Nick Reiner allegedly murdered his parents with a deadly weapon, or a knife, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters at a press conference. 

Hochman declined to say whether the weapon has been located.

Officials also declined to outline the time of death or how specifically they determined Nick Reiner killed Rob and Michele Reiner.

“He was found with good, solid police work,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said during the briefing. He added that he would not talk about “what was found or anything that could potentially taint the investigation.”

More details will be presented during court hearings and filings in the future, Hochman and McDonnell said.

“The LAPD remains steadfast in our mission to protect life and uphold justice,” McDonnell said.

“We will continue to support the Reiner family to ensure that every step forward is taken with care and dignity.”

Alan Jackson, an attorney hired to represent Nick Reiner, did not respond to a request for comment. Jackson told reporters in Los Angeles earlier Tuesday that his client would not be appearing in court before Wednesday because he has not been medically cleared. 

“Hopefully he’ll be cleared tomorrow and we’ll get him here,” he said.

Prosecutors said Nick Reiner faces a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted, and they are still evaluating whether to seek the death penalty.

Nick Reiner is currently being held without bail.

Hochman indicated the case will be handled like other similar cases.

“This will proceed along the tracks that many of the first-degree murder cases proceed,” Hochman said.

“Do I anticipate it being particularly fast? No. I anticipate it being very thorough.” 

Police officers went to the home of Rob and Michele Reiner in Brentwood in west Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon after receiving a call from the Los Angeles Fire Department.

They determined a crime had occurred and called homicide detectives, McDonnell said. 

“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,“ family members said in a statement to media outlets. ”We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”

Rob Reiner was a famous actor, director, and producer. Michele Reiner was a photographer. 

Rob Reiner made the 2016 film “Being Charlie” with Nick Reiner. They said that the movie, which features a man struggling with addiction and family problems, was inspired by experiences they went through. Nick Reiner has said he has at times been addicted to drugs and homeless. 

Officials said Tuesday that any past statements by Nick Reiner may be utilized in the case against him.

They also said that if there is any evidence of mental illness, it will emerge in court.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 18:50

The Trauma Of Inflation Hits Hard In 2025

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Inflation is the most insidious tax because it is the least visible. If the taxman took 30 percent more of your income this year than six years ago, you would be in a state of fury. Inflation does the same thing but only leaves confusion and disorientation in its way, a sense that something is deeply wrong but with an explanation that is opaque and a bit abstract.

We blame high taxes on politicians. We are never entirely certain who precisely to blame for inflation. Part of the reason is that it is generated by a system with many moving parts. The core explanation is simple—paper money expansion—but the players involve central bankers, commercial bankers, bond dealers, legislatures, and the way that it plays out depends on contingent factors involving reserves and financial velocity.

We are left with a sense of rage against everything.

But this doesn’t happen immediately.

Recall that in 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assured the country that the inflation was transitory. That sounded a bit like temporary, even if she did not say that. Many people heard that, and assumed that prices would go down in a matter of months.

That did not happen. Instead it got worse, reaching even double digits. Making matters worse, each inflation report was rendered by media as relatively good news. Inflation is “cooling,” they said, and is limited only to this sector or that, without which there would be no problem at all. This messaging continued for three years.

During that very time, there were moments in which we felt oddly prosperous because the Treasury Department was injecting newly created Fed money directly into our bank accounts. Many were staying home at that time, not really working. It seemed like magic: making money without working. It is always this way in the early parts of inflation. Life seems relatively good, at least not tremendously bad.

But then strange things started happening. Not all at once. Inflation hits random sectors and then disappears again, like a mold in the house that is there and then not. You keep wondering if it is in your imagination, not really a threat, just a one-time thing, and so on. Plus money is otherwise washing around everywhere, generating frenzied buying.

This sloshing effect of new inflations keeps going, hitting in unexpected ways. It’s plywood. Then it goes away. It’s gas. Then it’s gone. Then it’s eggs but that comes and goes. Then it hits services, which you only notice because you happen to need your car repaired. It is hidden until accidentally revealed in an unexpected health-care purchase and so on. At every stage, it is getting better in one sector and worse in another.

The point at which it becomes obvious that a massive devaluation is taking place is uncertain. Eventually, however, the reality dawns on everyone. We’ve all been robbed even though we never saw the thief or even noticed that the property was missing. Every inflation in history has worked this way, which is why governments have long resorted to money printing when taxes are too dangerous for political stability.

The inflation of 2021–2024 has its origin in the year before it showed up in prices. The pandemic response was the reason for the sudden shift from monetary tightening to monetary loosening. Such a wild printing mania has not been experienced in our lifetimes in the United States. It was also repeated in most parts of the world, causing essentially a global inflation.

No need to wonder why everyone is so upset these days about affordability and why it has become the central issue. It’s mostly because of the devaluation that took place during the pandemic. Yes, tariffs have contributed to the problem mostly by adding a pricing floor that includes compliance costs. That said, tariffs are not driving the problem even if they are not helping it.

The lingering effects are everywhere in 2025. Even as headline inflation hovers around 3 percent—higher than the Federal Reserve’s target but spun as “moderating”—the cumulative damage from those pandemic-era money floods is baked in. Prices aren’t falling back; they’re just rising more slowly. Your grocery bill is still 20–25 percent higher than in 2019, housing costs have ballooned, and everyday services feel like luxuries.

Affordability is the central grievance, not some transient blip. This has uncertain political impacts, but it certainly does not help that Donald Trump declared his Golden Age prematurely, just about the time that the trauma of the previous four years was just settling in.

Shelter costs, the biggest chunk of most budgets, have been stubbornly high and continue to rise by 3–4 percent in many reports. The pandemic lockdowns crushed new construction, supply chains lingered in disarray, and then the money printing bid up asset prices. The result is that a median home now requires an income far beyond what most young families earn. First-time buyers are sidelined, renting forever, or moving to less desirable areas.

It’s not just numbers; it’s delayed marriages, fewer children, shattered dreams of independence.

Food tells a similar story. Eggs, meat, dairy—the basics—spiked erratically, then settled at elevated plateaus. Energy prices fluctuated with global events and policy shifts, but gasoline and utilities never returned to pre-2021 levels. Add in tariffs and you get upward pressure on goods from apparel to electronics.

Today’s officials can call this all a hoax or transitory but families live in the real world. One month it’s heating bills, the next childcare or car insurance.

Inflation doesn’t just erode wealth. It erodes trust. People sense they’re working harder for less, savings vanishing into thin air, rewards from labor diluted by invisible forces. And what is the Fed doing about the problem? The answer is not good: it is lowering rates. Let there be no mystery. This is quantitative easing by another name. It risks another full wave, which is a terrifying prospect. Congress isn’t helping by its continued spending frenzies. And now we are seeing a virtual merging of the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. This can only end in making the problem worse, unless we get very lucky.

The problem comes down to this. Sound money is great and even essential for the people. But it is never good for government or debt-addicted financial markets. Governments and borrowers generally love inflation for the same reason they once loved debasing coins: it funds spending without overt taxes, and pays down debt in cheaper dollars. But the bill arrives eventually for everyone else. The results are social unrest, lost productivity, and misallocated capital.

In 2025, the trauma of inflation manifests in quiet desperation: skipped doctor visits, cheaper (less healthy) food, delayed retirements. It’s not hyperinflation but a slow grind that normalizes hardship. The thief got away, leaving us poorer, more divided, less hopeful. Until we confront the root, the hits will keep coming, random and relentless, until the system itself cries uncle.

Meanwhile, for most people, the golden age feels more like the coins in our pocket: scrap metal refashioned to look like something they are not.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 18:25

Trump Considering Executive Order To Reclassify Marijuana

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump said on Dec. 15 that he’s considering an executive order to reclassify marijuana out of Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a category reserved for drugs deemed to have no medical value and a high potential for abuse.

A marijuana grow site in California’s Mendocino County on Oct. 9, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The president was asked about the plan during a ceremony at the White House on Monday, presenting the Mexican Border Defense Medal, which recognizes service members deployed to the U.S.-Mexico Border.

“We are considering that,” the president said. “Because a lot of people want to see the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify. So we are looking at that very strongly.”

A review process started by President Joe Biden in 2022 could reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, but if finalized, it would not legalize or decriminalize the drug.

Trump told reporters in August that his administration was “looking at reclassification,” but that a determination would not come until later.

“We’re looking at it. Some people like it. Some people hate it. Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana, because if it does bad for the children, it does bad for people that are older than children,” Trump said. “But we’re looking at reclassification, and we'll make a determination over the next, I would say, over the next few weeks, and that determination, hopefully, will be the right one.”

The president added that marijuana is a “very complicated subject” and that he believes the plant has done great things in the medical field, even if there are “bad things having to do with just about everything else but medical.”

“For pain and various things, I’ve heard some pretty good things, but for other things, I’ve heard some pretty bad things,” Trump said.

Picking Up Where Biden Left Off

If the president proceeds with the executive order, it could mean picking up where his predecessor left off, as it wasn’t clear if the federal government would proceed with reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III substance after Biden urged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the drug’s status in 2022.

Once the agency completed its review in 2023 and considered recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), HHS endorsed moving marijuana to Schedule III.

Biden’s Justice Department followed suit in May 2024 and announced it was formally moving to reclassify marijuana out of Schedule I, which requires directing the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to change its classification status.

However, after the Democratic Party lost control of the executive branch in last year’s election, it was uncertain if the Justice Department and DEA would continue the process of moving marijuana into Schedule III with widely used medications, such as anabolic steroids, testosterone, and ketamine.

Schedule I, by contrast, is reserved for drugs with no “currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” including LSD, ecstasy or MDMA, and heroin.

Supporters of reclassifying marijuana point out the decades of anecdotal reports of its medical benefits treating ailments like insomnia, anxiety, and pain, but recent research has called into question the plant’s efficacy for treating non-neuropathic pain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, some of the compounds found in the plant—known as cannabinoids—have led to the creation of new FDA-approved drugs, including Epidiolex, made from cannabidiol, or CBD, which treats severe childhood epilepsy.

“These kids have seizures maybe 100 times a day, and this drug can reduce the number of seizures and, in a small percentage, abolish the seizures,” Kent Vrana, director of the Penn State Center for Cannabis and Natural Product Pharmaceuticals, said during a university Q&A in August.

A poll released in March by Fabrizio, Lee, & Associates found that 72 percent of all voters, and 67 percent of Republican voters, support moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.

Legal Implications

Putting marijuana in a different category of the Controlled Substances Act does not legalize or decriminalize the plant, but it can ease red tape on legal markets in states with recreational or medical marijuana laws.

Some banks refuse to do business with companies in the industry because marijuana is still a Schedule I substance at the federal level.

Additionally, marijuana being on Schedule I has made it difficult for universities and organizations to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve giving the drug to participants, sometimes relying on self-reported experiences with the drug that are less empirically rigorous for medical research, according to Vrana.

“I can only get cannabis and cannabinoids from a handful of federally approved sources,” he said in August, adding that it puts the university’s funding at risk.

“It makes it harder for us to conduct clinical trials that would help us better understand the potential benefits—and harms—of cannabis.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 17:40

FBI Agents Thought Clinton's Uranium One Deal Might Be Criminal - But McCabe, Yates Stonewalled Investigation: Report

Remember Uranium One? The massive 2010 sale of US uranium deposits to Russia approved by Hillary Clinton and rubber-stamped by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) - after figures linked to the deal donated to the Clinton Foundation?

Turns out rank-and-file FBI investigators thought there was enough smoke to launch a criminal investigation, but internal delays and disagreements within the DOJ and FBI ultimately caused the inquiry to lapse, newly released records reveal. 

The materials, made public by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and first reported by Just the News, reveal that investigators argued internally over the delays - which allowed the statute-of-limitations to expire and ultimately halt the case.

The Uranium One transaction - involving the sale of a Canadian mining company with substantial U.S. uranium assets to Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom - became a flashpoint during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Critics argued that then-Secretary of State Clinton, a member of CFIUS, helped approve the deal while donors connected to Uranium One made large contributions to the Clinton Foundation.

The New York Times reported in 2015 that “as the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013 … a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.”

“And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. [Bill] Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock,” the Times reported. “At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.” -Just the News

Resistance from senior officials - including then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe - slowed the inquiry to the point where statute-of-limitations concerns were later cited to justify shutting it down.

Investigators disputed statute-of-limitations claims

Thanks to Grassley we now have a newly declassified FBI investigative timeline surround the deal, as agents in multiple field offices opened inquiries in early 2016 examining the Clinton Foundation’s intersection with the Uranium One deal. The Little Rock field office initiated a full field investigation, while New York and Washington opened preliminary investigations.

Internal records show that agents and prosecutors continued to debate whether the investigation was time-barred. Jonathan Ross, then First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued in a 2018 email that “there is no legal barrier in continuing the present investigation.” Ross has served as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas since 2022.

Then-U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland of Arkansas echoed that view in a separate email to then-U.S. Attorney John Huber of Utah, stating that the team did not believe the case was barred by statute of limitations because payments to the Clinton Foundation “were made continuously from 2007 through 2014.”

The FBI timeline also noted that statute-of-limitations arguments “failed to include whether Acts of Concealment such as deleting emails in 2015” could have extended the filing window. Investigators pointed to possible statutes including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, major fraud against the United States, bank fraud, and the Wartime Suspension of Statute of Limitations Act.

Despite those arguments, senior DOJ officials expressed growing reluctance to proceed. In late 2016, then-U.S. Attorney Robert Capers and then-Criminal Chief James Gatta raised concerns about potential statute-of-limitations issues and urged moving on from the case.

Internal emails show morale collapse among agents

The records reveal frustration among investigators who believed conflicting legal guidance undermined their authority to continue the probe. Hiland wrote in June 2018 that an email circulated by then-First Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris, asserting that the statute of limitations expired on Feb. 1, 2018, “cast a permanent pall over the local agents’ attitude” toward the investigation.

Ross later disputed Harris’s conclusion, writing that Harris was unaware of 18 U.S.C. § 3287 when issuing his assessment. Ross warned that agents’ confidence had been damaged and urged additional resources or reassignment of the case to a new investigative team.

The timeline indicates that prosecutors believed additional interviews and investigative steps remained unfinished, including questioning Uranium One executives, foreign nationals, State Department officials involved in the CFIUS vote, and Department of Energy personnel who approved export authorizations after the deal closed.

Political scrutiny and congressional oversight

The Uranium One deal drew sustained attention from Congress. In 2010, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) warned that the transaction would give Russia control over a sizable share of U.S. uranium production capacity. Grassley repeatedly pressed DOJ officials to examine whether donations to the Clinton Foundation influenced the CFIUS process.

The Hill reported in 2017 that the FBI had gathered evidence as early as 2009 that Russian nuclear officials engaged in bribery, kickbacks, and money laundering connected to U.S. uranium interests. That reporting cited a confidential U.S. witness and financial records tied to the Russian nuclear industry.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions later tasked Huber with reviewing the Uranium One matter in 2017, but did not appoint a special counsel. By early 2020, reports indicated that Huber’s effort was winding down. Special Counsel John Durham later stated that his mandate did not include Uranium One.

Fallout continues amid uranium supply concerns

The release of the FBI records comes as U.S. reliance on Russian-sourced uranium remains a national security concern. Russia accounted for roughly 20% of U.S. enriched uranium supplies in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration, down from prior years.

Congress banned Russian uranium imports following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but experts have warned that decades-old policy decisions left the United States vulnerable.

The newly released documents suggest that the circumstances surrounding Uranium One were never fully investigated, leaving unresolved questions about how a strategic U.S. asset came under Russian control - and whether potential criminal conduct went unexamined due to internal delays and legal disputes.

Travis Tue, 12/16/2025 - 17:20

FDA Not Adding 'Black Box' Warning To COVID-19 Vaccines: Commissioner

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Food and Drug Administration is not adding “black box” warnings to COVID-19 vaccines, even though an agency center recommended it, FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said on Dec. 15

“When it comes to the ‘black box’ warning, we have no plans to put that on the COVID vaccine,” Makary said during an appearance on Bloomberg Television.

Black box warnings are the highest safety-related warnings that FDA officials can place on products. Scenarios warranting their usage include when there is an adverse reaction so serious that it is “essential that it be considered in assessing the risks and benefits of using the drug” or when there is a serious adverse reaction that can be prevented or reduced by appropriate use of the drug, according to FDA documents.

The announcement comes several weeks after FDA officials reported deaths of children following COVID-19 vaccination and concluded that at least 10 deaths were related to the vaccines, according to a November memorandum obtained by The Epoch Times. The review, which included looking at autopsies, has been broadened to other age groups.

The announcement also came several months after regulators updated language on the vaccine labels for a form of heart inflammation called myocarditis. The inflammation was discovered after the FDA first authorized COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020. The updated labels state that the highest observed risk of myocarditis was among young males aged 12 to 24 after receipt of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Makary said Monday that an FDA safety and epidemiology center did recommend adding a black box warning to the COVID-19 vaccines, and indicated the recommendation stemmed from the risk of myocarditis.

But, he said, Dr. Vinay Prasad, the agency’s top vaccine official, and other FDA leaders opted against accepting the recommendation because the dosage people are receiving has changed from the original two doses within weeks or months of each other.

“When you have those two doses three months apart, that’s when you see the side effects go way up, like myocarditis in young people,” Makary said on Bloomberg.

“Now that it’s annual, you may not see that same prevalence. So we don’t want to extrapolate findings to today if it’s not transferable.”

COVID-19 vaccines had been cleared and recommended for virtually all Americans until Trump administration officials took a series of steps to narrow the clearance and recommendations. They are now only advised on an annual basis after consulting with a health care professional and taking into account various factors, including whether people have characteristics such as obesity that could put them at higher risk of severe problems if they contract COVID-19.

Moderna and Pfizer have said their vaccines protect people and have favorable safety profiles, a position also held by some groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The academy counts Pfizer and Moderna among its partners.

Other experts and advocates have called for the removal of COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recently told The Epoch Times that clearance for them should be withdrawn because the spike protein they deliver is immunotoxic, and that he would not be surprised if, after the FDA finished its investigation, regulators placed a black box on the shots.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 17:00

Pew Research's 'Most Striking' Findings From 2025

Authored by Anna Jackson and Jenn Hatfield via PewResearch.org,

As we do every year, we’ve gathered data around some of the most pivotal news stories of 2025, including President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the changing U.S. immigration landscape and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence worldwide.

Here’s a look back at 2025 through 12 of Pew Research Center’s most striking research findings.

After more than 50 years of rapid growth, the number of immigrants living in the United States is on the decline. In January 2025, there were 53.3 million immigrants in the U.S., making up close to 16% of the country’s population. Both the number and the share were record highs. But by June 2025, the nation’s immigrant population decreased by more than a million, to 51.9 million. That decline has likely continued since, due to deportations, voluntary departures and fewer new arrivals.

Most immigrants are in the U.S. legally. As of 2023, 73% were either naturalized American citizens, lawful permanent residents or temporary lawful residents. The remaining 27% were unauthorized immigrants.

Views of the U.S. have worsened – and views of China have improved – across many of the 10 high-income countries we surveyed this year. Across these countries, a median of 35% of adults now say they have a favorable opinion of the U.S., while 32% say the same about China. These shares are the closest they’ve been since 2018.

There is a similar pattern when it comes to confidence in U.S. and Chinese leaders to do the right thing regarding world affairs. A median of 22% of adults in the 10 high-income countries surveyed have confidence in Trump, while 24% express confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping. Their median confidence in former U.S. President Joe Biden was consistently higher than their confidence in Xi.

Seven-in-ten Americans now say the U.S. higher education system is generally going in the wrong direction – up from 56% in 2020. Views of the nation’s colleges and universities have turned more negative among Republicans and Democrats alike. (In this analysis, Republicans and Democrats include independents who lean toward each party.)

Many Americans give these institutions broadly negative ratings in specific areas. For example, 79% of U.S. adults say colleges are doing an only fair or poor job of keeping tuition costs affordable, and 55% say this about preparing students for jobs in today’s economy.

Americans have grown more critical of the widespread legalization of sports betting, and this is especially the case among young men.

Overall, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society, up from 34% in 2022. And 40% say it’s a bad thing for sports, up from 33%.

One of the biggest shifts in attitudes has occurred among men under 30. In this group, 47% say legal sports betting is a bad thing for society, an increase from 22% in 2022. For women under 30, the shift is smaller: 35% now see legal sports betting as bad for society, up from 25%.

A substantial share of men under 30 (36%) also say they have personally placed a sports bet in the past year.

Around seven-in-ten Americans (69%) say Trump is trying to exert more power than his predecessors, according to a Center survey from September.

Most of those who say this view it as a bad thing for the country. Overall, 49% of U.S. adults say Trump is trying to exercise more presidential power than previous presidents and that this is bad for the country.

Democrats overwhelmingly say Trump is trying to exert more executive power and that this is bad (83%). Republicans are more divided: About half (49%) say Trump is trying to exert more power, and among those who say this, more say it’s good for the country than say it’s bad.

A majority of parents with a child under 2 say their child watches videos on YouTube. Some 62% of parents with a child under 2 say their child ever does this, up from 45% in 2020.

A growing share of parents with a child under 2 also say their child watches YouTube videos daily: 35% say this, up from 24% five years ago. Daily use is also up among kids ages 2 to 4, according to their parents (51%, up from 38%). But it’s stable among children in other age groups.

Google users who encounter a Google AI Overview are about half as likely as users who don’t to click on search results. Users who landed on a Google search page with an AI summary clicked on a search result 8% of the time. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result 15% of the time, according to our analysis of data from U.S. adults who agreed to share their March 2025 web browsing activity.

People who encountered the summaries – which Google introduced in 2024 – very rarely clicked on the sources cited, and they were more likely than those who didn’t see summaries to end their browsing session entirely.

Republicans have become much less likely to say healthy children should be required to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to attend public school. Around half of Republicans (52%) now hold this view, down significantly from 79% in 2019. The share of Democrats who support school MMR requirements (86%) has not changed.

Our broader survey on childhood vaccines found that Republicans are divided over some aspects of vaccine safety. For instance, 32% of Republicans are highly confident that the childhood vaccine schedule is safe, while 31% are not too or not at all confident. A 71% majority of Democrats are highly confident.

Partisans differ sharply on which news sources they trust, especially when it comes to Fox News and CNN. More than half of Republicans (56%) say they trust Fox News, but 64% of Democrats say they distrust it. The reverse is true for CNN: 58% of Democrats trust it, while the same share of Republicans distrust it.

Fox News stands out among the 30 news sources we asked about because it is the only one that a majority of Republicans trust. Democrats tend to trust a much broader range of sources.

For the first time in nearly two decades of our national surveys of U.S. Hispanics, most say Hispanics’ situation in the country has worsened over the past year. About seven-in-ten Latinos (68%) now express this view, up sharply from 26% in 2021 during the Biden administration and 39% in 2019 during the first Trump administration. In the most recent survey, 9% of Latinos say their group’s situation is better than it was a year ago, and 22% say it’s about the same.

About a third of Latinos (32%) also say they’ve recently thought about moving to another country. Among those who have considered this, the most commonly cited reason is the political situation in the U.S.

Sub-Saharan Africa is now home to more Christians than any other world region, surpassing Europe. As of 2020, about 31% of the world’s Christians live in sub-Saharan Africa, while 22% live in Europe. This change has been fueled by Africa’s much higher fertility rates, but also by widespread disaffiliation from Christianity in Western Europe.

Christianity remains the world’s largest religion. But Islam was the fastest-growing religion between 2010 and 2020, among the seven groups Pew Research Center has measured globally over time. The global Muslim population increased by 347 million people during that span (to 2.0 billion), while the Christian population grew by 122 million (to 2.3 billion).

Americans are far more pessimistic than optimistic about the effect AI will have on human creativity and connection. About half (53%) say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively, while 16% say it will improve this. And 50% say it will worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships with others, while only 5% say it will make this better.

As generative AI technology continues to improve, most Americans (76%) say it’s extremely or very important for them to be able to distinguish between content made by AI and by people. But 53% are not too or not at all confident that they can personally tell the difference; just 12% are highly confident.

*  *  *

This is just a small slice of the Center’s research publications this year.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 16:20

USDA Must Give States More Time To Implement Food Stamp Restrictions: Judge

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) must extend a deadline for states to implement new immigration-related eligibility restrictions on food stamps, a federal judge ruled on Dec. 15.

A sign advertises that "Food Stamps (EBT)" are accepted at a convenience store in Chelsea, Mass., on Oct. 24, 2025. Brian Snyder/Reuters

U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, during a hearing in Eugene, Oregon, issued an injunction requiring the USDA to extend the expiration date of a grace period for the states to comply with the new restrictions on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

The deadline was Nov. 1. It is now April 9, 2026. A written order has not been released yet.

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump over the summer, states had to stop letting certain immigrants, including those with deportation hold orders and refugees who are not legal residents, receive food stamps from SNAP, the USDA said in an Oct. 31 memorandum.

The USDA also stated at the time that lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, would only be eligible for SNAP after a 5-year waiting period.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia sued over the guidance. They said that the guidance wrongly required a waiting period for all green card holders, even though another federal law allows a variety of permanent residents, including people who are blind or disabled, to receive SNAP without a waiting period.

Kasubhai said on Dec. 15 that the guidance contributed to “confusion” that impeded states’ ability to implement the new restrictions.

The USDA said it never intended for its guidance to go beyond the new immigration-related eligibility restrictions set forth in the law, and a lawyer for the Department of Justice told the judge that reflected a “misunderstanding” by the states.

On Dec. 9, the USDA issued revised guidance on implementing the new rules, stating that some permanent residents, including refugees, do not need to wait five years to receive food stamps.

The states also said in a motion for a preliminary injunction that if the judge did not block the guidance, he should extend the compliance deadline to March 1, 2026.

Kasubhai said that the updated guidance corrected the USDA’s previous position, which he said ran counter to the One Big Beautiful Act. Later in the hearing, he said the deadline for compliance was illegal, contrary to past practice, and would expose the states’ budgets to irreparable harm if not extended.

“The inability to provide compliance in the time period in which they were forced to by virtue of the guidance contributed to an erosion of trust,” Kasubhai said.

A USDA spokesperson declined to comment in an email to The Epoch Times.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said in a statement that the ruling “allows Oregon to keep administering SNAP without fear of being punished for following the law.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 14:45

UBS Upgrades Luxury To "Overweight" For First Time In Three Years

European luxury stocks have been locked in a 4.5-year trading range, oscillating between peaks and troughs rather than the up-and-to-the-right pattern seen with AI stocks.

Global consumer uncertainty has been a persistent overhang for the last few years. Lower-income households remain under pressure from inflation and affordability constraints. By contrast, upper-income consumers have benefited from wealth effects driven by rising equity markets, cryptos, precious metals, and home prices.

UBS analyst Andrew Garthwaite now offers clarity on the next move for luxury stocks, writing in a lengthy 2026 outlook note to clients that his team has, for the first time in three years, upgraded luxury to "overweight."

Garthwaite cited a combination of improving fundamentals, supportive valuations, and strengthening macro tailwinds entering 2026 as the primary reasons for the upgrade in luxury stocks.

The analyst laid out his case in a section of the note titled, "The major sector changes are to upgrade luxury...": 

We take luxury up to overweight for the first time in over 3 years:

We upgraded to benchmark (from underweight) on July 1st. We raise further because: i) EPS is now back to trend (having been 100% above trend); ii) capex is now below trend (implying that future margins should improve); iii) we are now seeing EPS and revenue expectations being at the low end of range but improving (with UBS forecasting luxury EPS to be 5% above the market compared to consensus on 2% above the market) - we have seen the first signs of margin improvement since 2022; iv) P/E relatives ex Hermes are mid-range (only slightly above its normal 32% P/E premium) - on UBS HOLT, the implied CFROI and growth rate are at the bottom end of their historical range against that of the market at only a 1.3% and 1.5% premium, respectively. A quarter of the luxury cluster is US-related and if just 0.5% on the wealth gain in equities that we predict in 2026 in the US is spent on luxury, then that adds c7% to sales. The rise in gold has generated a wealth gain 3X higher than the losses in bitcoin YTD. The top income decile household stands to benefit by $12K a year (according to the CBO) from the OBBB. A stronger dollar forecast post Q1 26 has statistically speaking been very helpful for a sector with extremely high transactional exposure. High-end luxury tends to avoid the disruption associated in other sectors from Gen AI, GLP-1, governments cutting healthcare budgets or Chinese competition. We forecast outsized growth of the EM middle class, boosting demand for conspicuous status symbols. China is a risk, but Macau casino stocks (a proxy on high-end spending) have modestly outperformed YTD. The team have Buys on LVMH, Richemont and EssilorLuttoxica.

The UBS EU Luxury Goods basket has been rudderless for roughly 4.5 years, trapped in a trading range as investors search for signs of a consumer rebound.

Will a breakout be coming in 2026?

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to a brighter outlook for low-income consumers in 2026.

ZeroHedge Pro subs can read the full note in the usual place.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 14:25

Satyajit Das: AI – Artificial Intelligence or Absolute Insanity?

Authored by Satyajit Das via NakedCapitalism.com,

AI is tracing the familiar, weary boom and bust trajectory identified in 1837 by Lord Overstone of quiescence, improvement, confidence, prosperity, excitement, overtrading, convulsion, pressure, stagnation, and distress.

There are three primary concerns.

First, there are doubts about the technology.

Building on earlier technologies such as neural networks, rule-based expert systems, big data, pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms, GenAI (generative AI), the newest iteration, uses LLMs (large learning models) trained on massive data sets to create text and imagery. The holy grail is the ‘singularity’, a hypothetical point where machines surpass human intelligence. It would, in Silicon Valley speak, lead to ‘the merge’, when humans and machines come together potentially transforming creativity and technology.

LLMs require enormous quantities of data. Existing firms in online search, sales platforms and social media platforms can exploit their own data troves. This is frequently supplemented by aggressive and unauthorised scraping of online data, sometimes confidential, leading to litigation around access, compensation and privacy. In practice, most AI models must rely on incomplete data which is difficult to clean to ensure accuracy.

Despite massive scaling up of computing power, GenAI consistently fails in relatively simple factual tasks due to errors, biases and misinformation in datasets used.  AI models are adept at interpolating answers between things within the data set but poor at extrapolation. Like any rote-learner, they struggle with novel problems. Their ability to act autonomously interacting within dynamic environments remains questionable. Cognitive scientists argue that simply scaling up LLMs based on sophisticated pattern-matching built to autocomplete rather than proper and robust world models will disappoint. Claimed progress is difficult to measure as benchmarks are vague and inconclusive.

Cheerleaders miss that LLMs do not reason but are probabilistic prediction engines. A system which trawls existing data, even assuming that is correct, cannot create anything new. Once existing data sources are devoured, scaling produces diminishing returns. Rather than fully generalisable intelligence, generative models are regurgitation engines struggling with truth, hallucinations and reasoning.

AI models can take over certain labour-intensive tasks like data driven research, journalism and writing, travel planning, computer coding, certain medical diagnostics, testing and routine administrative tasks like handling standard customer service queries. Its loftier aims may prove elusive. Predictions of medical breakthroughs have disappointed although pre- OpenAI machine learning models, pattern recognition engines and classifiers, used for years, continue to be useful.

For the moment, GenAI, an ill-defined marketing rather than technical term, remains a costly parlour trick for some low-level applications, making memes and allowing scammers to deceive and defraud – the “unfathomable in pursuit of the indefinable”.

Second, financial returns may prove elusive.

Capital expenditure on AI is expected to total up to $5-7 trillion by 2030. AI startup valuations based on the latest round of funding were $2.30 trillion, up from $1.69 trillion in 2024, and up from $469 billion in 2020. But AI’s capacity to generate cash and returns on the investment remains questionable.

Revenues would have to grow over 20 times from the current $15-20 billion per annum to just cover current annual investment in land, building, rapidly depreciating chips and power and water operating expenses. Revenues totalling more than $1 trillion may be required to earn an adequate return. Microsoft’s Windows and Office, among the world’s most used software, generates less than $100 billion in commercial and consumer revenue. Around 5 percent of its 800 million users currently pay to use ChatGPT. Microsoft’s CEO drew the ire of true believers when he argued that AI had yet to produce a profitable killer application to match the impact of email or Excel.

The hope is AI will be paid for from higher productivity and corporate profits. But 95 percent of corporate GenAI pilot projects failed to raise revenue growth. After cutting hundreds of jobs and replacing them with AI, many firm were subsequently forced to reemploy staff when the technology proved deficient. Corporate interest is already showing sign of plateauing.

Monetisation of AI faces other uncertainties. Several Chinese firms, such as DeepSeek, Moonshot as well as Bytedance and Alibaba, have developed cheaper models which cast doubts about the capital investment intensive approach of Western firms. China’s favoured open-source design would also undermine the revenues of firms which have invested heavily in proprietary technology. Required electricity and water supplies may prove to be constraints.

In the meantime, AI firms remain a cash burning furnace. In the first half of 2025, OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, generated $4.3 billion in revenue but spent $2 billion on sales and marketing and nearly $2.5 billion on stock-based equity compensation, posting an operating loss of $7.8 billion.

Third, there are financial circularities seen during the dot com boom. 

CoreWeave, an equipment rental business trying to cash in the AI boom, purchases graphics processers in-demand for AI applications and rents them to users. Nvidia is an investor in the company, and the bulk of revenues is from a few customers. There is concern around CoreWeave’s accounting practices, especially the rate of depreciation of the chips, and its significant borrowings.

In 2025, Nvidia, the backbone of the boom, agreed to invest $100 billion in OpenAI which in turn bought a similar dollar value of GPUs from it. Open AI proposed to invest in chipmakers AMD and Broadcom. There are side arrangements with Microsoft. Figure 1 sets out some of the complex interrelationships.

Figure 1: AI Firm Inter-relationships and Cross-Investments

This intricate web of linkages creates risks. They complicate ownership and create conflicts of interest. It was not clear how any of these commitments will work or be funded if they proceed. Open AI’s ability to finance these investments depends on continued access to new money from investors because it currently does not have the resources to meet many of these long-term obligations.

These transactions distort financial performance. The firm selling capital goods reports sales and profits while the funding of the sale is treated as an investment. The buyer depreciates the cost over several years. Given that Nvidia seemingly upgrades its chip architecture regularly, depreciation periods of anywhere up to 5 years or longer seem optimistic. This means that dubious earnings boost share prices in a dizzying financial merry go round.

The AI bubble, with its growing gap between expectations, investment and revenue potential, eerily resembles the 1990s. But it is much larger. Investment may be 17 times that of the 2000 dot com and four times the 2008 sub-prime housing bubble.

AI’s acolytes deny any excess and argue that this time it is different because it is financed by equity capital. In fact, a large proportion is funded by debt with the amount tied to AI totalling around $1.2 trillion, 14 percent of all investment-grade debt.

The funding pattern is intriguing. Hyperscalers, firms that build and operate large data centres providing on-demand cloud computing, storage, and networking services, such as Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Oracle, are providing much of funding alongside venture capital investors. These firms are currently spending around 60 percent of operating, not free, cash flow, on capital expenditure, the vast majority of which is to support AI projects. This is supplemented by borrowing, relying on their credit standings, to finance their investments. Increasingly, a significant proportion of the funding is being provided by private credit with. expected volumes as high as $800 billion over the next two years and $5.5 trillion through to 2035. Given the high return, high risk appetites of these lenders, the level of financial discipline applied to these loans remains uncertain.

In effect, these large firm are now acting as financiers, borrowing money which is on-lent or invested in AI start-ups with unclear prospects. This exposure is troubling. Investor and lender assumptions that their exposure is to a strong firm is undermined where it is heavily invested in speculative AI ventures with unclear prospects. Microsoft’s share of Open AI’s losses is significant, over $4 billion in the latest quarter, representing around 12 percent of its pre-tax earnings.

Oracle’s experience is salutary. The shares rose 25 percent when it announced a transaction to provide cloud computing facilities to OpenAI. The data centres do not currently exist and will have to be constructed. The transaction requires Oracle, which is significantly leveraged, to borrow funds to create these centres meaning that the firm is taking significant exposure to Open AI. As of December 2025, investor concern was palpable. Given its current net debt of over $100 billion which will need to increase substantially to finance the data centres, the cost of insuring against Oracle default rose sharply and presumably will flow through into the value of existing debt and the cost of future debt. A credit ratings downgrade from its current BBB, low investment grade, is possible, potentially to non-investment or junk grade. Its share price has fallen to levels around that before the announcement of the OpenAI transaction. While Microsoft, Meta and Amazon have stronger balance sheets, the risks are not dissimilar.

The impact of the AI boom on the wider economy is material. AI companies account for 75-80 percent of US stock returns and earnings growth and 90 percent of capital expenditure growth. It has added around 40 percent or a full percentage point to 2025 US growth.  Any retrenchment would affect the wider economy. It would also result in financial instability because of the direct and indirect exposure of banks and financial institutions to the AI sector. It is not inconceivable that some tech firms may require bailouts, such as that engineered for Intel, alongside familiar support for financiers, who will plead that without assistance the economy will collapse.

Investors have convinced themselves that the greater risk is underinvesting not overinvesting. Amazon founder Jeff Bexos hails it a “good kind of bubble” arguing that the money spent will bring long-term returns and deliver gigantic benefits to society, the tech-bro’s persistent bromide. Investors should be cautious. In the 1990s telecoms and fibre optic cable bubble, investors drastically overestimated capacity required. The percentage of lit or used fibre-optic capacity today, much of it installed during the dot com boom, is around 50 per cent, and global average network utilisation is 26 percent.

Investors believe that they have minimises risk by avoiding direct exposure to AI firms investing instead in firms like Nvidia, which provide the ‘picks and shovels’ of the revolution. The case of Cisco, for which the investment case during the halcyon days of the 1990 was similar, provides an interesting benchmark. It briefly became the world’s most valuable company on the largely correct assumption that its routers and other products would be crucial to the Internet. While the company’s financial performance has been generally steady, investors in Cisco lost out as its share price plummeted in 2000 only reaching the same level after 25 years.

When the dot com boom ended, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Amazon fell 65, 80, 88 percent, and 94 percent respectively taking 16, 5, 14 and 7 years to recover their 2000 peaks. The economy slowed requiring government support and historically low interest rates, at the time, to sustain economy activity which set off the housing boom which resulted in the 2008 crisis.

Consensual Tolkien-esque hallucinations notwithstanding, it would be surprising if the ending is different this time.

This is an expanded version of a piece first published on 4 November 2025 in the New Indian Express print edition.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 14:05

Latest US Strikes On Drug Boats Came Hours After Trump Labelled Fentanyl 'WMD'

The Pentagon released the latest footage showing fresh airstrikes targeting several alleged drug-trafficking boats near Latin America late on Monday, just hours after President Donald Trump announced that Washington is officially declaring Fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced that "Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking. A total of eight male narco-terrorists were killed during these actions—three in the first vessel, two in the second and three in the third."

via Reuters

Like with the prior over twenty drug boat strike instances, no specific evidence was provided showing there were drugs or fentanyl on board, or related to the identities of the slain.

Trump had unveiled a little earlier the same day, "Two to three hundred thousand people die every year, that we know of, so we're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction."

The fresh executive order states that "the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders."

From Vietnam to Iraq to Libya, Washington is always looking for some kind of casus belli - even if it has to be manufactured - to sell war to the American people. And now we're already in 'Venezuela WMD' territory at a moment that unprecedented US Naval power is parked off Venezuela's coast.

Going back several years, the single biggest sources of the world's fentanyl trade have been consistently identified as China and Mexico. At this point it's impossible to know, and hasn't been disclosed, whether any of the well over 20 boats blown up by US military action off Latin America since September were actually loaded with fentanyl, or in what quantities. 

Pentagon releases latest strike video:

On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters. Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known… pic.twitter.com/IQfCVvUpau

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 16, 2025

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has said that this ultimately has nothing to do with drugs. "Already in his 2024 campaign, [Trump] openly stated that his objective has always been to keep Venezuelan oil without paying any consideration in return, making it clear that the policy of aggression against our country responds to a deliberate plan to plunder our energy wealth," it recently stated.

"The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. It is not migration. It is not narcotics trafficking. It is not democracy. It is not human rights. It has always been about our natural wealth," the statement went on to say. Is Washington going to Iraq Venezuela? That's where things seem to quickly be headed.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 13:45

Stocks Extend Losses As White House Threatens Retaliation Against 'Unreasonable' EU Digital Tax

US equity markets are extending early losses following the Trump administration threatening retaliation against the European Union in response to efforts to tax American tech companies.

The White House singled out prominent companies, including Accenture Plc, Siemens AG and Spotify Technology SA, as possible targets for new restrictions or fees.

“If the EU and EU Member States insist on continuing to restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service providers through discriminatory means, the United States will have no choice but to begin using every tool at its disposal to counter these unreasonable measures,” the Office of the US Trade Representative said in a social media post on Tuesday.

“Should responsive measures be necessary, U.S. law permits the assessment of fees or restrictions on foreign services, among other actions,” the post said.

As Bloomberg reports, the USTR named several other European companies, including DHL Group, SAP SE, Amadeus IT Group SA, Capgemini SE, Publicis Groupe and Mistral AI, which it said have enjoyed unfettered access to the US market for years.

At issue are regulations governing digital commerce, as the EU moves to regulate and tax US tech giants, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Critics of the EU’s digital tax plans say they are slowing down technological innovation, with global implications, and unfairly seeking to raise revenue.

The threat could heighten tensions between the US and the EU amid faltering peace talks aimed at resolving the war in Ukraine.

It also follows stiff criticism from President Trump, who last week in a Politico interview called the bloc a “decaying” group of nations with “weak” leaders.

Trump has imposed significant tariffs on imports - including 15% on many goods from the EU - to counter levies and other barriers he says unfairly limit the sale of US products.

The so-called digital services taxes levied by European nations on US companies have long been an irritant for US policymakers.

The bloc has persisted “in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives against U.S. service providers” that “provide substantial free services to EU citizens and reliable enterprise services to EU companies,” while supporting millions of jobs and more than $100 billion in direct investment in Europe, USTR said.

“The United States has raised concerns with the EU for years on these matters without meaningful engagement or basic acknowledgement of U.S. concerns.”

Congress considered targeting the measures with a provision in Trump’s signature tax cut legislation that would have imposed a “revenge tax” on countries the US deemed “discriminatory.”

The USTR on Tuesday said the risk extends to “other countries that pursue an EU-style strategy in this area” - a potential warning for Australia, the United Kingdom and other nations contemplating similar policies.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 13:16

Democrats Continue Blaming Data Centers For Power Bill Crisis, Ignore Biden-Era Inflation Spike By Green Policies

The clash of narratives is well underway, with Democrats blaming data centers and Republicans blaming "delusional climate cultist ideology" for a power-bill inflation crisis that is crippling working-poor families and increasingly stressing middle-income and even some higher-income households.

On Tuesday, left-wing Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and three other companies, seeking answers on whether the explosive growth of AI data centers is driving up electricity bills for households and small businesses.

"We write in light of alarming reports that tech companies are passing on the costs of building and operating their data centers to ordinary Americans, as A.I. data centers' energy usage has caused residential electricity bills to skyrocket in nearby communities," the senators said. This letter was first reported by the NYT. 

Democrats have been running on an affordability narrative, attempting to pin lingering Biden-Harris-regime-era inflation on the Trump administration. Biden's nation-killing policies, including out-of-control "climate crisis" spending, green de-growth initiatives, and heavy regulation, produced a toxic cocktail of generationally high inflation that has financially crushed tens of millions of working-poor households. The Trump administration is working to correct this.

Let's remind Democrats that U.S. CPI Electricity SA first began skyrocketing under the Biden-Harris regime.

We've outlined the competing narratives at play from both political parties.

• Electric Bill Crisis Blame Game Begins: Democrats Slam Data Centers, GOP Faults "Climate-Cult Ideology"

Why are Democratic senators conveniently ignoring the last four years of the Biden-Harris regime's failed green policies?

And now Democrats, who sparked the inflation crisis, are acting as if they should once again be the saviors of the economy, pitching revolutionary ideas such as socialism and Marxism.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 13:00

Will The Oil Curse Strike South America's Wealthiest Country?

Authored by Matthew Smith via OilPrice.com,

• Guyana’s offshore oil discoveries have driven explosive GDP growth, propelling it into the global top tier by income per capita.

• Heavy dependence on petroleum revenues, weak institutions, and geopolitical pressure from Venezuela raise serious risks of an oil curse.

• Despite massive state spending and infrastructure investment, much of the population remains poor, highlighting deep distributional challenges.

In a remarkable turnaround, the tiny South American country of Guyana, once one of the continent’s poorest nations, now ranks among the world’s top 10 wealthiest countries by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. In a mere decade, Guyana went from first discovery to be lifting nearly 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the prolific 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block. This, despite the lopsided deal favoring the ExxonMobil-led consortium, which controls the oil acreage, has delivered a massive economic windfall. There are concerns that this breakneck economic growth and the massive income generated by oil will see Guyana struck by the oil curse.

In a recent survey ranking the world’s wealthiest countries using projected 2025 GDP by purchasing power parity per capita, Guyana ranked in 10th place, compared to 107th a decade earlier. This put the former British colony behind wealthy countries like Brunei, Switzerland and Norway but, surprisingly, ahead of the world’s second largest economy, the United States of America. Indeed, Guyana’s GDP by purchasing power parity has skyrocketed since oil production began in December 2019. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) it rose sevenfold, from $10.69 billion that year, to an estimated $75.24 billion for 2025.

That immense economic expansion saw Guyana, for a brief period, become the world’s fastest-growing economy. From 2022 to 2024, the tiny country of less than one million reported annual GDP growth rates of 63.3%, 33.8% and 43.6% respectively, by far the highest each of those years for a sovereign state.

While growth has dropped off over recent months, despite petroleum output rising because of the start-up of the Yellowtail project, the former British colony’s economy is forecast to expand by 10.3% in 2025. This makes Guyana the world’s third fastest-growing economy this year.

The latest government data shows Guyana is pumping around 900,000 barrels per day, making the tiny country South America’s third-largest oil producer behind Brazil and Venezuela. Petroleum production will continue to grow with Exxon developing three additional projects in the Stabroek Block. These are the Uaru, Whiptail and Hammerhead developments with a proposed fourth facility, Longtail, subject to regulatory review. On completion of those three facilities, which start up between 2026 and 2029, will add 650,000 barrels daily, lifting Guyana’s total potential production to 1,5 million barrels per day.

There is a fourth facility under development, although it has yet to be approved. This is the 2018 Longtail discovery, which was the Exxon-led consortium’s fourth find in the Stabroek Block. The $12.5 billion Longtail project, unlike earlier developments, will be a natural gas and condensate facility. It is currently undergoing environmental permitting, with Exxon expecting to make a final investment decision (FID) by the end of 2026. Once approved, it is anticipated Longtail will come online during 2030, adding up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 290,000 barrels of condensate daily. This will lift Guyana’s hydrocarbon output to over 1.7 million barrels per day.

Once those offshore petroleum assets are operational, the oil produced will boost the former British colony’s GDP. The IMF predicts that between 2025 and 2030, Guyana’s GDP, based on purchasing power parity, will more than double from $75 million to $156 million. That for a country of less than one million translates to an impressive GDP per capita of just under $193,000. When using this metric, it will make Guyana the world’s second-wealthiest nation, behind Liechtenstein and ahead of Singapore. Such a massive concentration of wealth generated by a single resource, petroleum, is sparking considerable fear that Guyana will be impacted by the oil curse.

This is a phenomenon where a country blessed with copious petroleum resources becomes completely economically and financially dependent on crude oil. This typically leads to poor governance, extreme corruption, malfeasance, democratic backsliding, political instability and eventually internal conflict. A prime example of the oil curse, along with the social, political and economic impact it has on petroleum-dependent nations, is Venezuela. Decades of economic over-dependence on crude oil negatively affected Venezuela’s development, destabilising the country and eventually leading to dictatorship and economic collapse.

Incidentally, the Stabroek Block, which is estimated to contain recoverable oil resources of at least 11 billion barrels, has become a target for Caracas. After Exxon made a swathe of world-class discoveries in the offshore acreage, Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, ratcheted up his sabre-rattling and aggressive rhetoric as part of his campaign to reclaim the long-disputed Essequibo region. This area, comparable in size to the state of Georgia, comprises two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is rich in precious metals, diamonds, copper, iron, aluminium, bauxite, and manganese.

You see, the prolific Stabroek Block lies in Guyana’s territorial waters that are part of the disputed Essequibo region, an area claimed by Venezuela since independence. Caracas over the last three years has intensified its campaign to regain control of the Essequibo, even threatening to invade the region. There are regular skirmishes between Guyana’s army and Venezuelan gangs on the border between the two countries in the Essequibo. Venezuelan military vessels have entered the Stabroek Block to harass and intimidate the crews of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) operating in the offshore oil acreage.

There are very real fears that Guyana, which is a developing country with a history of corruption, lacks the good governance and institutional stability to effectively manage this massive economic windfall generated by this once-in-a-generation oil boom. Already, concerns are emerging about how Georgetown is spending the vast oil profits flowing into government coffers. Georgetown has embarked on a massive infrastructure boom, budgeting $1.2 billion in public works for 2025 to fund new roads, bridges, the development of a world-class deepwater port and public goods such as hospitals. There are, however, considerable concerns that many Guaynese are not benefiting from the tremendous economic windfall generated by oil.

Despite the economy growing at a stunning rate, a sizable portion of the population still lives in poverty. Analysts claim that up to 58% of Guyanese live below the poverty line, although an accurate number is difficult to determine because of a lack of official data. The World Bank estimated in 2019 that 48% of Guyana’s population lives below the poverty line. Despite the economy’s rapid growth, community leaders, nonetheless, claim that much of the wealth generated by the oil boom has yet to trickle down to Guyana’s poorest communities, especially in rural regions.

Those fears are exacerbated by Georgetown’s growing dependence on volatile international energy markets, at a time when the outlook for crude oil is poor. The international Brent benchmark price is down 17% over the last year, which is sharply impacting oil revenues. Analysts from major financial institutions are forecasting that Brent could plunge into the $30 per barrel range by 2027 due to overwhelming market supply. Unsurprisingly, the rapid development of Guyana’s offshore oilfields is a key contributor to this massive jump in non-OPEC global supply growth.

This will sharply impact Georgetown’s newly found oil riches. As international oil prices plunge due to an overwhelming supply glut, Guyana’s petroleum revenue will plummet. This will be exacerbated by 75% of the petroleum produced from the Stabroek Block being classified as cost oil, thus seeing it excluded from royalties and profit-sharing payments with Guyana. While this will not be enough to roil Guyana’s newfound economic boom it has the potential to trigger corruption and malfeasance, leading to uneven development while damaging an increasingly petroleum-dependent economy.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 12:40

DOJ Sues States For Voter Information - What To Know

Authored by Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing 18 states that refused to hand over voter registration information following a series of requests made earlier this year.

The U.S. Department of Justice in Washington on Oct. 21, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

The DOJ said it wants to inspect voter rolls to make sure they are clean and up-to-date, while some states said they are worried the government has ulterior motives in requesting the information.

On Dec. 12, the department added Fulton County, Georgia, to that list; there, the government is asking for records related to the 2020 election.

Here’s what to know about the lawsuits.

The Requests

The DOJ’s inquiry began in May with a letter to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold asking for voter information and certification that the state had not destroyed any records it was legally obligated to retain.

The letter said the DOJ wanted to ensure that Colorado was in compliance with the Voting Rights Act 52 U.S.C. 20701, which requires states to retain election information, including voter registrations, for 22 months following presidential and congressional races.

Similar requests went out to at least 40 states, but Maria Benson, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the DOJ told her “all states would be contacted eventually.”

The requests were sent out following President Donald Trump’s executive order asking the DOJ to verify that states were checking citizenship status for those who registered to vote, in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.

A few states, like Minnesota, are exempt from the National Voter Registration Act. In those cases, the DOJ cited the Help America Vote Act, which requires similar preservation of voter records, and requires each state to maintain a single, computerized database of its registered voters.

Notably, the DOJ’s request to Minnesota also asked for other information, such as how the state struck deceased voters from its rolls, and how it dealt with duplicate registrations. It also asked the state to explain its procedures for identifying non-citizen voters.

In Nebraska, the DOJ asked for full voter registration data, including “full name, date of birth, residential address, his or her state driver’s license number or the last four digits of the registrant’s social security number.”

The Fulton County suit is different, in that it follows a July resolution passed by the State Election Board of Georgia “calling upon the assistance of the Attorney General to effect compliance with voting transparency.”

In October, the DOJ responded by requesting “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

Fulton County officials rejected that request, saying the records “remain under seal” and will not be produced without a court order.

The Fulton request is notable, not just because it stems from internal state action, but because Trump narrowly lost Georgia in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes.

The Refusal

Only two states, Indiana and Wyoming, fully complied.

Some states, like Washington, responded by giving only part of the requested information, citing privacy concerns or legal prohibitions.

“While we will provide the DOJ with the voter registration data that state law already makes public, we will not compromise the privacy of Washington voters by turning over confidential information that both state and federal law prohibit us from disclosing,” Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement.

Hobbs, in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, said Washington state law gave the federal government the right to some information, but not voters’ driver’s license and social security numbers.

Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also issued a public letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi opposing the DOJ’s inspection, calling it a plan “to use sensitive state voter information to create a national voter database, without any direction from Congress or guardrails on how the information in the database will be used.”

“Put simply, it is neither the Department’s job nor its skillset to micromanage how election officials purge voters from state voter rolls,” the senators said.

Among other inquiries, their letter asks Bondi to clarify fully how the DOJ intends to use the information, and what protocols are in place to protect voter privacy.

The Lawsuits

The DOJ has sued 18 states, saying Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 requires states to turn this information over to the attorney general upon request.

So far the Justice Department has sued California, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Washington.

Many of these cases were delayed by the government shutdown and are still in the early stages of litigation. Oregon and Pennsylvania have filed motions to dismiss, but most other states have asked courts for extra time to respond to the suit.

Nebraska resident Dawn Essink, backed by voter advocacy group Common Cause, has sued State Secretary Robert Evnen, hoping to stop the information disclosure.

“Under current [Nebraska] law, local and state election officials are prohibited from disclosing a voter’s birth date, driver’s license information, or social security number,” their complaint reads.

A similar lawsuit was filed in South Carolina, and a judge temporarily blocked the state from releasing the records to the DOJ. That block was later overturned by the state Supreme Court.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 12:05

Goldman's First Take On Safety Monitor-Free Robotaxis In Austin

On Monday, Goldman analyst Mark Delaney highlighted comments from Elon Musk and key Tesla executives touting robotaxi operations in Austin, Texas, with no safety monitors.

Testing is underway with no occupants in the car

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2025

"We believe that removing the monitor for testing shows that Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology," Delaney told clients.

The analysts provided more color on what this development means for scaling driverless operations:

We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla's approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability. As we have previously written, we believe how fast Tesla can scale its operating design domain or ODD (e.g. service area and the weather it works in) from a technical capability standpoint will be particularly important, and we think vehicle cost is a somewhat less important variable for profitability, given the potential ability for AV operators to amortize vehicle costs over many miles in a commercial business.

One key factor related to autonomous technology monetization is competition, given the competitive landscape both within the US and internationally for robotaxi operations (with Uber expecting to have AVs in at least 10 cities by the end of 2026 and Waymo already operating in several cities and with multiple additional planned deployments).

Specifically on the competitive landscape, we highlight several planned driverless deployments for Uber (covered by Eric Sheridan), Lyft (covered by Eric Sheridan), and Waymo robotaxis based on company announcements in the US and internationally (ex China) in Exhibits 1–3. Note that some of these overlap (e.g. in cities where Waymo and Uber partner), and we didn't include cities with testing/data collection that have a less clear commercial objective (e.g. NYC, where state law does not currently allow for commercial AV operations).

Recall we expect the US rideshare AV market to reach ~$7 bn in 2030.

Delaney also touched on over-the-air software updates that improved FSD:

We also believe Tesla is making progress with its autonomy software for consumer vehicles (which is FSD). Recall Tesla's CEO recently posted on X that the current v14.2.1 of FSD allows for texting while it is active in some cases depending on the context of surrounding traffic. We believe that the driver is still responsible for the vehicle in these situations (i.e. it is an L2 system). Additionally, the company had noted that v14.3 could be the version where customers could sleep while driving. Per crowdsourced data, v14.x currently can drive ~2,000–3,000 miles without a critical disengagement, though we acknowledge limitations may exist with this data, including controls on data collection and some disengagements not being classified by cause (e.g. lane issue, wrong speed, and other "non-critical" disengagements vs. safety issues, obstacles, or other "critical" disengagements). In addition, reviews, such as from Barron's, are showing good performance with FSD v14.

Robotaxis as a long-term profit driver for Tesla:

Recall that we previously estimated that Tesla's 2030 EPS could range from ~$2–3 to $20 (although we acknowledge there are outcomes beyond these ranges). This would assume:

1. automotive deliveries of 2–5 mn and automotive revenue ranging from approximately $75–$225 bn;

2. Services & Other revenue of $20–$40 bn (as the installed base grows);

3. Software revenue of $5–$45 bn, with the low end implying a competitive FSD market and the high end potentially driven by selling software to other OEMs;

4. Energy revenue of $35–$55 bn;

5. Robotics revenue of $3–$25 bn (based on the TAM analysis in the report led by Jacqueline Du linked here);

6. Robotaxi-related revenue of $2–$10 bn.

We assume EBIT margins ranging from the mid-to-high single digits to the low 20% range. We consider a middle-of-the-road scenario to be ~$7–$9 of EPS, which would imply what we view as balanced share in EVs and robotaxis, plus growth in its high-margin software/FSD business to a meaningful percentage of its own fleet as it begins providing eyes-off functionality for consumer vehicles (but not a meaningful software business for non-Tesla consumer vehicles).

The analysts are Neutral-rated on Tesla with a 12-month price target of $400. ZeroHedge Pro subscribers can read the full note in the usual place.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 11:45

JPMorgan Launches Its First Tokenized Money Market Fund On Ethereum

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

JPMorgan, one of the world’s biggest banks, is advancing its presence in tokenized finance by launching its first money market fund through its $4 trillion asset management arm.

The fund, My OnChain Net Yield Fund, will trade under the ticker MONY and is available on the public Ethereum blockchain, JPMorgan said in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Monday.

Launched via Kinexys Digital Assets, JPMorgan’s proprietary tokenization platform, MONY is a 506(c) private placement fund providing qualified investors the opportunity to earn US dollar yields by subscribing through its institutional trading platform, Morgan Money.

“With Morgan Money, tokenization can fundamentally change the speed and efficiency of transactions, adding new capabilities to traditional products,” said John Donohue, head of global liquidity at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

MONY investors can receive tokens at their blockchain addresses

By launching MONY, JPMorgan has become the largest global systemically important bank to introduce a tokenized money market fund (MMF) on a public blockchain, the bank said in the announcement.

The fund’s tokenization provides increased transparency, peer-to-peer transferability and the potential for broader collateral usage within the blockchain ecosystem, it said.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s My OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY) is issued through Kinexys Digital Assets and is available to investors via Morgan Money. Source: JPMorgan

“This marks a significant step forward in how assets will be traded in the future,” Donohue said, highlighting the role of Morgan Money, where qualified investors can access the fund and receive tokens at their blockchain addresses.

Launched in 2019, Morgan Money provides a real-time investment dashboard and a single access point for operations, allowing investors to build stronger liquidity strategies.

“Morgan Money is the first institutional liquidity trading platform to integrate traditional and on-chain assets offering investors access to a full-range of money market products,” JPMorgan said.

Subscriptions and redemption in cash or stablecoins

According to the announcement, MONY will invest only in traditional US Treasury securities and repurchase agreements fully collateralized by US Treasury securities, allowing qualified investors to earn yield while holding the token on the blockchain.

It also offers daily dividend reinvestment, enabling investors to subscribe and redeem using cash or stablecoins through the Morgan Money platform.

Cointelegraph asked JPMorgan which stablecoins would be supported within the offering, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

JPMorgan’s MONY launch marks another milestone in the race among traditional financial institutions to introduce regulated tokenized products. The news came weeks after the company initiated the first transaction via its forthcoming fund tokenization platform, Kinexys Fund Flow, which is expected to roll out in 2026.

On Thursday, JPMorgan also announced the issuance of a US commercial paper for Galaxy Digital Holdings on the Solana blockchain, marking one of the earliest debt issuances ever executed on a public blockchain.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 11:30

Pump-Prices Plummet As Ukraine Peace Deal Progress Sparks Oil Plunge

West Texas Intermediate oil fell below $55 a barrel for the first time since February 2021, the latest sign that crude supplies are outpacing demand as the market braces for a large surplus, and further helped rising hopes for a potential peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

OilPrice.com's Charles Kennedy notes that the ongoing talks about a potential peace deal in Ukraine chipped away at a longstanding geopolitical premium on crude after reports of positive discussions and progress made. 

Rising optimism over a potential peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict added to downward pressure as U.S. officials proposed NATO-style security guarantees for Ukraine in talks with Kyiv in Berlin. 

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that the negotiators are “closer now than we have been ever.”  

A peace agreement could ease sanctions on Russia’s oil flows and raise supply on an already well-supplied global market.  

“Oil markets will be watching developments closely, given the significant supply risk from sanctions on Russia. While Russian seaborne oil exports have held up well since the imposition of sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, this oil is still struggling to find buyers,” ING’s commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note on Tuesday.

“The result is a growing volume of Russian oil at sea. India, a key buyer of Russian oil since the Russia/Ukraine war began, will reportedly see imports of Russian crude fall to around 800k b/d this month, down from around 1.9m b/d in November,” the strategists added. 

As Bloomberg reports, expectations of a surplus, driven by a wave of new supply from the OPEC+ alliance and countries in the Americas, as well as subdued demand growth, drove prices down this year.

At the same time, signs of weakness are mounting across the oil market, with Middle Eastern prices entering a bearish contango pattern early on Tuesday.

Elevated premiums for fuels like gasoline and diesel relative to crude, which supported prices last month, have also eased, with national average pump-prices in the US now well below $3/gallon - the lowest since Q1 2021...

And given the lead-lag nature of the energy supply-chain, pump-prices could be set to tumble further over the holiday season...

Piling on the bearish slide (bullish for Americans' pocketbooks), US gasoline demand continues to pull back heading into the final weeks of the year amid cold weather sweeping the country.

According to US Energy Information Administration data, the four-week average of product supplied is down 320,000 barrels a day over the last three weeks, and now sits 1.3% below year-ago levels.

This is relatively in line with typical seasonal trends as driving winds down heading into the holidays, though severe winter weather may be limiting driving activity nationwide.

But, despite all this 'peace deal' optimism Martijn Rats, Morgan Stanley’s global commodities strategist warned, however, that markets may be getting ahead of themselves. “We have seen this on a few occasions before and it turned out to be premature.”

Additionally, The FT reports that Energy Aspects, a consultancy, said it did not expect “a rapid peace deal” but described the latest negotiations as the biggest geopolitical wild card for the oil market, particularly during the Christmas and new year period when trading volumes are traditionally thin.

So, maybe a tank of gas is a great (affordable) Xmas gift this year?

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 11:15

Oklo Fuel Facility Hits Next Milestone

Oklo achieved their next milestone with the Department of Energy, with the approval of the Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (PDSA) for the Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility at Idaho National Laboratory.

We previously discussed the break-neck speed at which the DoE is reviewing and approving reactor plant and fuel facility designs under the department’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP) and Fuel Line Pilot Program (FLPP), and now the regulatory are pouring in:

• Radiant submitted their DARK, satisfying the intent of a PDSA, for the Kaleidos reactor
• Oklo received approval for their Nuclear Safety Design Agreement (NSDA) for the A3F
• Valar Atomics went critical on a pilot reactor core with DoE coordination
• Antares’s NSDA for their Mark-0 reactor was highlighted during their $96 million Series B

This latest achievement from Oklo represents the roughly 50% completion mark of the A3F design, and is first of its kind under the FLPP. The DoE is coordinating with Oklo to use existing facilities at INL to construct the fabrication plant for producing the unique metallic fuel that will be used in the first Aurora reactor.

Oklo has been working with the DoE and INL since 2019 and has leveraged the coordination over the past six years to progress as rapidly as possible through the novel DoE licensing path.  The sodium-cooled reactor development company will now be focused on the physical construction of the A3F while they prepare their Documented Safety Analysis, which will be submitted near the end of the construction process.

The assertions are still popping up everywhere that the DoE is simply rubber stamping everything that comes across their desk, in contrast to what would be a thorough and detailed review of the safety aspects of reactor plant and fuel facility designs by the NRC. However, this train of thought fails to hold for two major reasons.

1. The endless headaches that come with NRC regulation are not present under the DoE, such as town hall meetings, lawfare from environmental activists, and political-ideology-based state laws and regulations. The lack of these problems alone reduces the timeline for regulatory review by years.
2. Neither the DoE nor the reactor developer has any incentive to develop and progress a product that would not eventually meet the requirements of the NRC. As we thoroughly detailed in our coverage of the new addendum between the DoE and the NRC, there is no path to the commercialization of a reactor or fuel fabrication facility that does not travel through the NRC review process. The NRC is intimately involved with the DoE’s reviews conducted under the RPP and FLPP so concerns can be addressed early and commercialization can happen as rapidly as possible when that stage is reached.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 10:45

California Sues Trump Admin Over $33 Million Withheld Due To Trucker English-Proficiency Rules

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The state of California filed suit against the Trump administration on Dec. 12 for withholding federal funds over truck driver English-proficiency requirements.

Trucks in Phoenix on Nov. 19, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

The suit centered on a decision by the Department of Transportation (DOT) to hold back $33 million in federal funding for commercial vehicle safety programs because of the state’s decision not to comply with the federal requirements.

The English language requirement was reinstated by the DOT in May of this year.

California responded to the withholding of funds by saying the decision was “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law; imperils the safety of all persons driving in California; and threatens to wreak significant economic damage.”

According to the state’s suit, California enforces the English-language rule for commercial drivers and is in compliance with federal laws.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the Transportation Department, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration were named in the suit.

This isn’t the only action taken by the administration related to alien truck drivers’ presence on the road. In August of this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States would pause the issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.

The Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

The day before the suit, on Dec. 11, Duffy announced that more than 9,500 commercial truckers were taken out of service for failing English-language proficiency checks.

“We’ve now knocked 9,500 truck drivers out of service for failing to speak our national language—ENGLISH!” Duffy wrote in a Dec. 10 post on X. “This administration will always put you and your family’s safety first.”

The total consists of actions taken since May of this year, when the policy was reinstated.

“America First means safety first,” Duffy said in May. “Americans are a lot safer on roads alongside truckers who can understand and interpret our traffic signs. This common-sense change ensures the penalty for failure to comply is more than a slap on the wrist.”

Late in November, the DOT warned that Pennsylvania could lose up to $75 million if the state does not immediately revoke the commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) issued to foreign nationals and “correct dangerous failures” identified in its CDL program.

Duffy warned that the DOT found that the state had violated safety regulations by issuing CDLs to foreigners.

The California suit comes about two weeks after a review by the DOT found that almost half of the truck driving schools in the United States were found to be noncompliant with federal guidelines.

Around 44 percent of the roughly 16,000 truck driving schools in the country could be forced to close.

Duffy said in a Dec. 1 statement that the Trump administration is “cracking down on every link in the illegal trucking chain.”

“Under [President] Joe Biden and [former Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg, bad actors were able to game the system and let unqualified drivers flood our roadways,“ Duffy said. ”Their negligence endangered every family on America’s roadways, and it ends today.”

At the time, 3,000 commercial driver license training providers had been removed from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Training Provider Registry because of violations, and an additional 4,500 training providers were put on notice for possible noncompliance.

The centers were closed for falsifying or manipulating training data; failing to meet requirements for curricula, facility conditions, or instructor qualifications; and failing to maintain accurate documentation or refusing to provide those records during the federal audit.

The Trump administration gave the state of New York 30 days to comply with federal rules for nonresidents, saying it could lose approximately $73 million in funding.

“Fifty-three percent of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued unlawfully or illegally,” Duffy said in a news conference on Dec. 12.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 10:25

Zelensky, Merz Hail NATO-Style US Security Guarantees As 'Real Progress' In Peace Deal

We've heard this all before, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and American officials are hailing progress after deep discussions on a peace deal to end the nearly four-year war with Russia. During the couple days of meetings in Berlin, US officials have said there's consensus from Ukraine and Europe on about 90% of the Trump-proposedd peace plan.

It could be finalized within days in order to present to the Kremlin, which is unlikely to go for any scheme which doesn't feature serious territorial concessions. Zelensky late Monday said the draft is "very workable" but that key questions remain unresolved.

Still, the land issue remains a front and central problem. "The Americans are trying to find a compromise," Zelensky said just ahead of visiting the Netherlands on Tuesday. "They are proposing a ‘free economic zone' (in the Donbas). And I want to stress once again: a ‘free economic zone' does not mean under the control of the Russian Federation."

One big breakthrough, from Kiev's point of view, is being reported, however. The NY Times writes that "The United States, Ukraine and Europe have agreed on a NATO-like guarantee for the future security of Ukraine, two U.S. officials said on Monday, as they tried to come up with a revised peace proposal that would deter future aggression and still satisfy Russia."

Via AFP

And a senior US official was cited in Politico as saying, "The basis of that agreement is basically to have really, really strong guarantees, Article 5-like." This has sparked optimism in Berlin (though again, we've seen this all before):

"We now have the chance for a real peace process," Merz said.

Zelensky concurred: "We have progress there. I have seen the details from the military that they have been working on, and they look very good, even though it is only the first draft."

Zelensky and his backers have only very belatedly agreed that future NATO membership is not on the table, but now they are focused on something that's sure to receive massive pushback from Moscow: 'Article 5'-style' guarantees. So the idea is that Ukraine would never become a formal member of NATO, but would still in the end receive the benefits of such an alliance in a de facto way. 

Article 5 says that an attack on one country is an attack on all. But this is why Russia is sure to see in this simply a recipe that sets up future direct war with the West over Ukraine. The precise language of what such a security guarantee will look like has yet to be disclosed.

The NY Times presents things as being somewhat up in the air on the issue and subject to future negotiatons:

Most of the conversations over the past two days, the officials said, focused on the security guarantee, which is intended to deter Russia from invading Ukrainian territory again in coming years. The two officials were vague about the specifics, though they said that Mr. Trump was willing to submit any final agreement on American commitments to Ukraine to the Senate for approval. They did not say whether the guarantee would become a formal treaty — akin to what the United States has with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and other allies — or whether any vote would simply be intended to show a bipartisan commitment.

Mr. Trump has said the United States will not contribute ground troops to a security force. But last summer he offered to patrol the skies and enforce a no-fly zone, in addition to continuing to provide Ukraine with intelligence from U.S. satellites and signals intercepts. Senior officials say that offer still stands.

Again, at least some of these scenarios would be seen by the Kremlin as merely a precursor to bigger war. As such "robust" security guarantees would put Moscow and the NATO alliance a significant step closer to direct war, instead of the current state of things which remain more on a proxy war basis.

Meanwhile there is indeed plenty of cause for skepticism:

Another ruse, the "security guarantees" Zelensky is demanding is de facto NATO status. Besides, Zelensky and the Eurocrats will not recognize the Donbass oblasts as “de jure” permanent Russian territory. The deal is... there's no deal. The war will be decided on the battlefield. pic.twitter.com/w4S519irQ6

— Alan Watson (@DietHeartNews) December 15, 2025

Moscow has recently warned that Zelensky's sudden vocalization of willingness to make all kinds of concessions, such as preparations to hold elections, are but a ploy in order to buy time on and take off the immediate pressure from Trump.

For example, he's said he would be willing to prepare to hold elections in 60 days, but only if international backers could guarantee the freedom, fairness, and safety of such a vote. Likely this would mean demanding of Russia's military some kind of short-term ceasefire for Ukrainians to go to the polls. As we featured earlier, geopolitical analyst and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer has a pessimistic take on the 'progress' being reported out of Berlin.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/16/2025 - 10:05