Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

Thirty U.S. academic institutions have until Aug. 31 to examine specified foreign research ties or risk losing eligibility for future federal research funding.

Seven days after the Pentagon ordered the reviews, an Air Force-affiliated institute published a study cataloging 204 interactions involving U.S. institutions and laboratories at the center of China’s defense research system.

The Aug. 24 study by the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) found more U.S. institution-level interactions with China’s Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories than those involving institutions from any other country.

CASI describes the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratories as China’s highest level national laboratory network for military research. The contacts it identified ranged from academic visits and conferences to coauthored technical research and formal joint laboratories in fields including aero-engines, underwater sensing, hyperspectral target detection, advanced communications, and aerospace materials.

CASI described interactions between Western researchers and Chinese military laboratories as “at the very least problematic,” saying even seemingly benign exchanges could give Chinese defense researchers access to knowledge and technology useful to the People’s Liberation Army.

CASI Director Brendan Mulvaney told The Epoch Times that institutional collaborations-including joint laboratories, long-term partnerships, and mutual study or training agreements-were the most concerning because they represented sustained cooperation rather than one-off encounters.

The Pentagon’s Aug. 17 order directs 30 U.S. institutions to review academic, financial, and research relationships with foreign entities of concern and report what action they have taken by Aug. 31.

The Pentagon did not publicly identify the schools. According to a list DefenseScoop obtained from a U.S. official, Harvard University, MIT, the University of California-Berkeley, Duke University, Penn State, the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and the University of Southern California are among institutions on that list that also appear in CASI’s records.

The Pentagon has not said that the relationships identified by CASI prompted the Aug. 17 notices.

Purdue and Beihang Built Joint Research Labs

In 2011, Purdue and Beihang formally established the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Energy Systems and the BUAA-Purdue Joint Laboratory on Low Emissions Combustion.

Then-Purdue President France Córdova and Beihang President Huai Jinpeng signed the agreements.

The energy laboratory paired Purdue’s computational modeling with Beihang’s experimental capabilities. The combustion laboratory focused on low emission gas turbine combustors used in aircraft and power generation.

Beihang records also describe the two laboratories as formal joint research arrangements and say the universities discussed broader scientific research, teaching, and faculty and student exchanges.

Beihang later described the combustion laboratory within a research program that also undertook Chinese National Defense 973 projects, a state-backed basic research program supporting its defense science and technology.

CASI identified Beihang’s thermal engineering department-which oversees a Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory for aero-engine aerodynamics and thermodynamics-as having established a joint combustion research team with Purdue.

Beihang is now on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list of foreign institutions subject to tighter research security restrictions.

Harvard Listed by Chinese Defense University as Collaborator

The Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), one of China’s leading defense linked universities, currently lists Harvard among the international collaborators of its Center for Composite Materials and Structure.

The center works on aerospace structures, smart and composite materials, sensors, structural health monitoring, multifunctional nanocomposites, and related technologies, according to its research description.

CASI also cites an earlier HIT description saying its composite materials research institute had established an overseas joint laboratory with Harvard and maintained long-term exchanges and cooperation with other foreign universities.

HIT has been on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 research security list since at least fiscal 2022 and was added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List in June 2020 over its alleged efforts to use U.S. technology for Chinese missile programs.

Research Reached Underwater and Missile Fields

The links also extended into published technical research.

In 2017, researchers affiliated with the University of Houston and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University joined researchers from Harbin Engineering University on a study of underwater wireless sensor networks.

The paper, published in Sensors, developed a method for accessing data through an underwater sensor network.

The authors included Houbing Song, then affiliated with Embry-Riddle; Albert M. K. Cheng of the University of Houston; and Xuefei Ma, who was affiliated with both Harbin Engineering University’s College of Underwater Acoustic Engineering and its National Key Laboratory of Underwater Acoustic Science and Technology.

The author-contribution statement credits the U.S.-based researchers with experimental, analytical, and research work. Funding listed in the paper came from Chinese sources, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China, basic-research projects, and the China Scholarship Council.

CASI classified the work as research collaboration involving a Chinese defense laboratory in underwater acoustics.

Another collaboration reached into hyperspectral target detection.

A 2021 study coauthored by Ying Qu, listed with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, developed a neural-network method for identifying anomalous targets in hyperspectral images.

One of Qu’s coauthors was Xuemei Liu of Beijing’s Space Vehicle Survival Technology and Effectiveness Evaluation Laboratory.

Researchers from that laboratory have separately published work on missile trajectory tracking, missile attack-and-defense simulations, and radar-seeker countermeasures.

CASI said the Beijing laboratory appears closely affiliated with a Chinese defense laboratory involved in ballistic-missile penetration technology.

Harbin Engineering University, like Beihang and HIT, is on the Pentagon’s Section 1286 list.

Advanced Communications Contacts Continued Into 2025

Mulvaney said conference participation could also be consequential because of how common it is and how little scrutiny it has received compared with formal research collaboration.

Some contacts cataloged by CASI are more recent.

University of Houston professor Zhu Han delivered keynote speeches at the International Conference on Communication Software and Networks in China in both 2024 and 2025.

His 2024 keynote focused on federated learning and multi-access edge computing, technologies used to distribute artificial intelligence processing across communications networks and connected devices.

The conference listed China’s National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Space Security among its technical sponsors.

Han returned as a keynote speaker at the 2025 conference, which again listed the laboratory among its sponsors.

CASI traces the laboratory to a predecessor known as the Defense Science and Technology Key Laboratory of Communications Countermeasures Technology.

The 2025 keynote roster also included Nian Fushun, identified by organizers as a chief scientist of test instruments at China Electronics Technology Group Corp. and its 41st Research Institute.

China Electronics Technology Group is a state-owned defense electronics conglomerate involved in radar, communications, electronic warfare, and other military technologies.

Han’s University of Houston profile lists wireless networking, security, and data analysis among his research interests.

Pentagon Restrictions Take Effect

Beginning in fiscal 2026, Pentagon funds cannot be used for fundamental research involving collaboration with institutions on the department’s Section 1286 list.

The restriction applies to grants, contracts, and other assistance to higher education institutions and bars Pentagon funded fundamental research from collaborating with, or using equipment from, listed entities. It also extends to employees of those institutions.

Beihang University, Harbin Engineering University, and Harbin Institute of Technology-the Chinese universities involved in several of the relationships identified by CASI-are on the list.

The 30 U.S. institutions notified this month must report their findings and any mitigation measures to the Pentagon by Aug. 31.

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Secret Service confirmed on Aug. 25 it is aware of a video aired by Iranian state-run media that appears to threaten President Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, and places a $10 million bounty on him.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” spokesman Nate Herring told The Epoch Times in an email. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”

The three-minute video that first aired Aug. 24 alleges Trump’s 20-year-old son is being monitored.

The video, titled “Where and how should we kill Barron Trump?” was produced by media entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and broadcast on Channel 3 of Iranian state television.

The clip shows the location of the university he attends, along with maps of the school. It also depicts security vehicles that drive him around. The clips also allege Barron Trump’s movements have been monitored.

The Epoch Times reached out to the university about the video and didn’t immediately receive a response about whether any additional security measures have been taken.

The video also claims Barron Trump communicates through voice-to-text on a gaming platform and mentions Trump Tower, where he is known to stay.

The broadcast also claims Barron Trump’s gaming accounts have been located and allegedly names a couple of his friends.

Statements in the video appeared to taunt and intentionally terrorize Barron Trump and the president’s family. The Epoch Times has not been able to verify whether claims made in it are legitimate.

This is the second broadcast by the Iranian regime to threaten Barron Trump.

An IRGC-affiliated news agency also broadcast a similar video in July threatening First Lady Melania Trump. It claimed to have information on her security detail, her movements and alleged security vulnerabilities.

At the end of the July video, the narrator says: “This is just the beginning. Barron Trump, wait for us.”

The video that was broadcast this week ends with the same statement.

Since the start of the war against Iran, and the assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have issued several articles and statements threatening the lives of President Trump and his family members.

The White House referred questions about the threats against the Trump family to the Secret Service.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong could be the next Silicon Valley billionaire to flee California over a union-backed, draconian wealth tax scheme that critics slam as a radical wealth grab.

“I think it’s deeply un-American to seize people’s assets. It might be unconstitutional,” Armstrong, who has an estimated net worth of $8.8 billion, said of the proposal during an interview on the “The Katie Miller Podcast.”

“It’s against my values, I would say. I think it’s bad for the state and for America. So we’re considering any and all options basically at this point to be, in terms of relocation,” the crypto executive added.

This week on the Katie Miller Podcast, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong breaks down crypto, meme coins, and the explosive future of AI in digital assets.

You will see a side of the CEO you have never seen before: his passion for longevity plus the incredible story of how he met his… pic.twitter.com/JxdDittltm

— The Katie Miller Podcast (@katiemillerpod) August 25, 2026

While Coinbase has maintained that it is a remote-first operation, it signed a lease for 150,000 square feet of San Francisco office space in May. That came just four years after it paid $25 million to break its previous office lease in the same city, the New York Post reports. 

If the wealth tax is approved by voters, the levy would hit anyone who lived in California as of Jan. 1 this year and holds a net worth of $1 billion or more by year’s end, excluding certain assets like directly owned real estate. 

The tax has split Democrat ranks wide open, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Xavier Becerra both publicly opposing it. The measure originated with a major healthcare union, the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), which claims it would raise $100 billion to offset what it calls deep healthcare funding cuts under the Trump administration. Unsurprisingly, far-left lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, have cheered it on.

The proposal has already reverberated through Silicon Valley, where several high-profile figures have established residency elsewhere. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have moved to Florida, while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a $150 million mansion in Miami. Even Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, prominent Democrat donor, and longtime buddy of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has publicly criticized the proposal, describing California’s wealth tax as a “horrendous idea” that would hasten the departure of tech founders and executives from the state.

In May, one of the co-authors of California’s controversial tax appeared to suggest that the levy could extend beyond a single imposition. Marxist economics professor Emmanuel Saez, who hails from France, made the comment during a heated debate against economist Arthur Laffer at the University of California, Berkeley.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a one-time tax. Because you can’t surprise billionaires more than once,” Saez said. “Even then, maybe some of them were expecting something like this. So, it’s going to be a debate about this time, you know, a permanent wealth tax at a low rate that’s going to last for a number of years.”

Update1505ET: In the wake of yesterday’s unusual visit by the Director of the CIA to Moscow for mystery 2-hour talks, Bloomberg says that President Putin is preparing for a major escalate against Ukraine:

Russia is preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after concluding that negotiations for a peace deal have reached a dead end, according to three people close to the Kremlin.

For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.

While the original Bloomberg TV reporting appears just speculation based on what already seemed the current trend on the ground, oil had climbed back on the news:

*  *  *

An IRGC spokesman has announced Wednesday that Iran and Oman have reached agreements on their share of the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, according toTasnim news agency. So essentially the “fee” scheme has been set. There’s talk of reopening the strait on an “interim” basis, Bloomberg says.

“We entered into negotiations with Oman about a month ago and have reached results that have been accepted by both sides,” the official said. “Agreements have been reached on the share of each country in the waters of the strait and the share of Iran and Oman in its revenues,” the statement continued, while also alleging that negotiations were previously delayed only due to the US obstructing negotiations.

Tehran is still insisting on the United States lifting its naval blockade of the country’s ports. However, it seems that for now at least Tehran is open to some level of negotiations, or at least seems content to see where this current period of rare calm leads.

This is evident in the latest words of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who argued Wednesday that any negotiations with the US don’t equate to retreat from Iran’s demands.

“Negotiation, in my view, has neither intrinsic value nor is it a taboo; it is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil,” he wrote in a letter responding to more hardline critics, IRNA reports.

He insisted this does not mean abandoning resistance to US-Israeli aggression. “If necessary, dialogue, too, according to this logic, is the same arena of struggle and resistance; neither a replacement for it nor a sign of retreat from it,” he said.

Ghaliban further suggested this is being done by the Islamic Republic from position of strength while holding on to the nation’s “dignity, wisdom and interests.”

Meanwhile, it seems Washington is also in no mood to rush back into military action, following the Monday announcement by Scott Bessent of the Economic D-Day action against Iran, which is to including secondary sanctions on any country found not complying.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told several foreign officials in recent days that “for the time being” the US is not planning to initiate any new strikes against Iran, but instead the focus is on other means of pressure, especially the sanctions initiative, Axios reports. According to more:

• The U.S. official said that while Rubio made clear that the U.S. isn’t planning a return to major combat operations, he didn’t rule out strikes if Iran attacks first.
• Another U.S. official said the clearing of mines from the Strait of Hormuz by the U.S. Navy is a watershed moment in the war, largely neutralizing one of Iran’s main sources of leverage.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi confirmed their further work on the “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a joint statement.

State television has indicated Iran and Oman agreed that the new transit corridor would enter through Iranian territorial waters, with part of the exit route also passing through them. The corridor will span roughly seven miles.

On this and other headlines, oil prices continue to fall…

• Oil extends declines as Iran, Oman continue finalizing talks to reopen Hormuz
• Satellite image shows surge in Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil loadings

A busy day in the Gulf of Oman, where there are at least fifteen sets of STS transfer sessions taking place. We count 25 million barrels of crude oil; plus some refined products. The oil originates from almost every country in the region, minus Iran.#OOTT #IranWar #Tankers pic.twitter.com/TAba26mJiW

— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) August 25, 2026

The day prior, on Tuesday, President Trump hinted that military options are still on the table. While announcing the new claim that all mines had been detonated or removed from international waters of the Strait of Hormuz, he said the US Space Force was watching “every square inch” of the Strait, and that “There is ⁠a Zero Tolerance policy ‌on mine ‌placement in full force and ​effect.” But Iran is still asserting that the strait remains “closed”.

Oil prices extended their declines for a third straight day after the US plan to ramp up economic pressure on Iran spared the country’s trading partners from harsher measures for now, while mediators said they were continuing efforts to end the conflict.

“There was a lot of buildup around the announcement but what we got was more a warning about where policy is heading than an immediate shock to physical supply,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Chicago-based Karobaar Capital LP. “Until secondary sanctions start changing who can buy, ship or even finance Iranian crude, I don’t think traders have much reason to add another geopolitical premium.”

Oman and Iran said the countries’ foreign ministers discussed an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary framework.

Negotiations between the two countries will continue “with a view to agreeing on a permanent navigational corridor and future administration of the strait,” the joint statement said.

While positive, an agreement between Oman and Iran wouldn’t result in oil flows through the strait returning to prewar levels, ING analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said.

“We would likely need to see the U.S. lift its blockade on Iranian ports and ease sanctions on Iran before we see any move towards normalization.”

All eyes on domestic supply (and demand) for the next tactical leg…

API

• Crude +4.2mm

• Cushing +1.0mm

• Gasoline -3.2mm

• Distillates -459k

DOE

• Crude +95k (+500k exp)

• Cushing +1.18mm

• Gasoline -2.54mm

• Distillates -2.23mm

Crude stocks rose for the 4th straight week (but it was a tiny 95k increase) while Cushing saw a modest build off tank bottoms. Product inventories saw large drawdowns..

The Trump admin drained another 3.6mm barrels from the SPR to 289.7 million barrels (1983 lows), approaching the minimum operational level for storage facilities, which ranges between 250 and 300 million barrels.

The combination of a tiny commercial crude build and sizable SPR drain created the biggest net crude drawdown in over a month…

Cushing stocks remain very near ‘tank bottoms’

Distillates stocks fell back near 25 year lows and the lowest seasonally on record…

US crude imports from Saudi Arabia picked up recently (but remain well below peak war levels). Crude exports fell below 4 million barrels a day, a threshold closely watched by the market to gauge demand. 

US Crude production remains near record highs and while the rig count dipped last week, it is still trending higher overall…

Refining utilization rates are at the highest seasonal level since 1998. That is, in part, due to a shrinking US refining fleet in recent years. But it’s also evidence of how hard fuel-makers are running their plants right now to capture wide margins. They plan to keep that up into the fall, with some companies even deferring maintenance.

WTI was hovering around $81.50 (off the overnight lows) ahead of the official data (down from almost $88 last week)…

Crude is still up about 50% this year as the war – now in its sixth month – continues to disrupt the shipping of crude and refined fuels out of the Middle East.

The impact has been particularly acute in fuel markets, which have also faced a hit from Ukrainian attacks on Russian refiners. That’s helped push premiums over crude to stratospheric levels (but the crack spread is starting to decline)…

At the same time, large volumes of crude supplies continue to transit Hormuz with their satellite signals turned off.

Those volumes are in millions of barrels a day and have helped generally keep a lid on prices that had been expected to soar at the outset of the conflict.

At least 31 people were confirmed dead, and hundreds of tourists and travelers remained missing after a catastrophic flash flood tore through Nepal’s border region with Tibet.

This image helps explain what happened along the Nepal–Tibet border. According to reports, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake on the Tibetan side triggered a massive ice avalanche, which then led to the flash flooding of the Bhotekoshi River in Nepal. Around 1,000 people are missing, and… pic.twitter.com/2n46czGNoB

— Weather Monitor (@WeatherMonitors) August 26, 2026

The South China Morning Post shared horrifying security-camera footage circulating online that appeared to show people fleeing as a giant wall of water, mud, and debris crashed through a checkpoint on the China-Nepal border.

A landslide at the China-Nepal border has hit a key checkpoint with Tibet, resulting in “major casualties”, according to state media and footage shared online. pic.twitter.com/rc7teWCa2r

— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) August 26, 2026

SCMP cited Chinese state media outlets that said the flash flood struck the border area around 0900 local time before spilling into Gyirong County in Tibet, causing what authorities described as “major casualties and missing persons” at the border checkpoint.

More from SCMP:

In Nepal, 384 tourists and travelers were missing after the landslide, including 93 Nepalese and 291 foreigners, according to the Nepal Tourism Board.

The board said the missing foreigners included citizens from India, Australia, the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands. The nationalities of 111 individuals had yet to be confirmed.

Other dramatic footage:

🇳🇵 🇨🇳 Massive flood sweeps through northern Nepal

Massive flooding has killed several people in Nepal as Chinese state media reported “major casualties” from a mudslide at a Tibet trade hub on China’s side of the nations’ shared border. pic.twitter.com/NaCZrQ3qrP

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 26, 2026

#BREAKING .
devastating Flooding Nepal China 🇳🇵😭😭😭😭
Pray For Nepal 🇳🇵🇳🇵😭😭#flooding #Nepal #China pic.twitter.com/L6zqWDF3BJ

— Kiran Joshi ( Follow Back 100%) Live #Ukraine (@Kiranjoshi900) August 26, 2026

Flash floods have swept away entire villages in Nepal’s Rasuwa area, killing at least nine people. Local reports say an earthquake triggered an avalanche that caused the flooding. The Nepal Tourism Board says 291 foreign nationals, including at least 105 Indian tourists, are… pic.twitter.com/OY7Pe6FLbv

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) August 26, 2026

No, that’s not smoke — it’s floodwater engulfing Nepal

Aerial footage shows the extent of the damage following DEVASTATING flooding

Hundreds have gone missing, while many are feared dead

Video: Kantipur on X https://t.co/ZTIomUGfLz pic.twitter.com/WHxwWilwTq

— RTVisual (@RT_Visual_on_X) August 26, 2026

The US Embassy in Nepal responded to the natural disaster on X, saying it was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life caused by the flood. “We extend our sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and our thoughts are with all those affected by this disaster.”

We’ve covered soaring “chipflation” for months and the trend does not seem to be abating. Nvidia is reportedly informing its largest customers to expect price hikes of at least 15% for next year, possibly to set expectations of a still larger move upward… and meanwhile the semi component in the PPI looks like a 2021 memecoin:

All this has earned the attention of FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who apparently enjoys building his own personal computers. In an interview last week in Aspen, Ferguson said he was floored by the recent explosion in prices.

“I build my own desktops at home mostly for fun, and a year ago, I decided that my rig needed to be updated, and I was like, ‘Oh well, you know, RAM is pretty cheap right now, maybe I’ll do that.’ And then the job got busy, and I was like, ‘I’ll take a look at this later.’ In six months, I looked at RAM prices and went, ‘Oh my God, I’m not building this right now. This is crazy.’”

As we covered last month, consumer electronics across the board are forecasting price hikes in the double digits, with Samsung tablets and Xbox consoles expected to increase by 20-25% by next year, per Haver Analytics. On this topic, Ferguson added that he “[does not] want consumers to have to pay way more for chips than they have to for all sorts of other applications, including the phones that we have cast all about us.”

And just yesterday, Amazon announced 60% price hikes for its major hardware products, blaming the chip shortage.

In April, Senator Bernie Moreno, who represents many car manufacturers in Ohio, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asking the government to restrict chip exports to increase domestic supplies, citing concern that the American auto industry won’t be able to compete on the global market due to “higher prices and supply delays” of chips.

FTC Chair Ferguson floated the idea of using antitrust measures to crack down on some of the chip giants, in an effort to “focus on the meat and potatoes” of what’s fueling the broader AI-related inflation crisis.

“That we can do,” he said when asked about whether his agency could intervene. “That’s just ordinary industrial organization economics and antitrust,”

“We know when consolidation there becomes dangerous. We know when agreements are likely to raise prices or reduce competition or cut off innovation, as opposed to trying to get out in front of the AI developers,” Ferguson continued. “It would be insane for a regulator to say, ‘I know where it’s going, and I’m going to make predictive regulatory choices on that basis.’ But further back in the supply chain, that we can apply ordinary antitrust to.”

Pressed on a hypothetical merger between Nvidia and chip designer ARM, the chairman appeared to issue a soft warning.

“I think if Nvidia and ARM were to merge, we would have to take a very careful look at that,” Ferguson said. “That is antitrust enforcer speak for, you know, we would have concerns.”

Ferguson said earlier in the conversation that keeping AI’s raw inputs competitive is his top antitrust priority.

“I want to make sure that the markets for the inputs for AI remain competitive. I don’t want there to develop overnight sudden bottleneck monopolies in the inputs for AI that deprive downstream users of the benefits of competition because someone upstream in the supply chain gets to jack up everyone’s prices because it’s enjoying a monopoly and maintaining it illegally,” he said.

Some foreign chip makers are already under fire for potential collusion and price fixing.

In June, a class action lawsuit was filed against the three dominant DRAM makers – South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix and America’s Micron. The lawsuit alleges that the three companies, which control ~90% of the DRAM semiconductor, have conspired to restrict the supply of memory and have driven prices up 697% compounded by 2022 to 2026. The lawsuit alleges all three companies had simultaneous production cuts and have not expanded supply despite record prices.

The lawsuit notes: “DRAM is embedded in virtually every electronic device manufactured today. When Defendants coordinate to restrict DRAM supply and inflate prices, the cost increase is passed through to consumers across every one of these product categories—smartphones, PCs, gaming consoles, servers, automobiles, and consumer electronics. No device category escapes the impact.”

If found guilty, it wouldn’t be the first time.

In the mid-2000s, Samsung and Hynix pleaded guilty to fixing DRAM prices. Samsung paid a whopping $300 million fine, the second largest criminal antitrust fine in U.S. history at the time.

Meta Platforms has reached a $16.7 billion settlement to resolve a landmark claim brought by several states that the company designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children, improperly collected children’s personal data, and misled consumers about their safety. 

The deal was in a Wednesday court filing in California after a lawsuit was brought by 29 states – with attorneys for  Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky – leading the group. The states argued that features like infinite scroll were purposely engineered to keep young users hooked, that Meta misled the public about the safety of its platforms for adolescents, and that the company improperly collected and monetized children’s personal data in violation of federal law.

As part of the settlement, Meta must implement daily usage limits and ‘nighttime blocks’ for teenagers who use the company’s apps like Facebook and Instagram, as well as “enhanced age assurance measures” that would prevent children from using them, and also providing parents with additional tools, CNBC reports.

Additionally, Meta is tying another $5.3 billion of the settlement to Google and TikTok adopting similar teen safety measures – cutting default teen time limits from 2 hours to 1 hour per day. 

The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement.

Prior to the settlement, Meta warned that maximum statutory penalties could theoretically reach $1.4 trillion, while the attorneys general have indicated they may seek around $200 billion. That said, the company still faces thousands of lawsuits filed by school districts and individual plaintiffs alleging harms from social media. 

While shares spiked as much as 5% premarket on the news, the move was quickly reversed at market open.

h ttps://x.com/TrwendSpider/status/2092360371138932969?s=202

An IRGC spokesman has announced Wednesday that Iran and Oman have reached agreements on their share of the Strait of Hormuz and its revenues, according toTasnim news agency. So essentially the “fee” scheme has been set. There’s talk of reopening the strait on an “interim” basis, Bloomberg says.

“We entered into negotiations with Oman about a month ago and have reached results that have been accepted by both sides,” the official said. “Agreements have been reached on the share of each country in the waters of the strait and the share of Iran and Oman in its revenues,” the statement continued, while also alleging that negotiations were previously delayed only due to the US obstructing negotiations.

Tehran is still insisting on the United States lifting its naval blockade of the country’s ports. However, it seems that for now at least Tehran is open to some level of negotiations, or at least seems content to see where this current period of rare calm leads.

This is evident in the latest words of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who argued Wednesday that any negotiations with the US don’t equate to retreat from Iran’s demands.

“Negotiation, in my view, has neither intrinsic value nor is it a taboo; it is neither absolutely good nor absolutely evil,” he wrote in a letter responding to more hardline critics, IRNA reports.

He insisted this does not mean abandoning resistance to US-Israeli aggression. “If necessary, dialogue, too, according to this logic, is the same arena of struggle and resistance; neither a replacement for it nor a sign of retreat from it,” he said.

Ghaliban further suggested this is being done by the Islamic Republic from position of strength while holding on to the nation’s “dignity, wisdom and interests.”

Meanwhile, it seems Washington is also in no mood to rush back into military action, following the Monday announcement by Scott Bessent of the Economic D-Day action against Iran, which is to including secondary sanctions on any country found not complying.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told several foreign officials in recent days that “for the time being” the US is not planning to initiate any new strikes against Iran, but instead the focus is on other means of pressure, especially the sanctions initiative, Axios reports. According to more:

• The U.S. official said that while Rubio made clear that the U.S. isn’t planning a return to major combat operations, he didn’t rule out strikes if Iran attacks first.
• Another U.S. official said the clearing of mines from the Strait of Hormuz by the U.S. Navy is a watershed moment in the war, largely neutralizing one of Iran’s main sources of leverage.

Also on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi confirmed their further work on the “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a joint statement.

State television has indicated Iran and Oman agreed that the new transit corridor would enter through Iranian territorial waters, with part of the exit route also passing through them. The corridor will span roughly seven miles.

On this and other headlines, oil prices continue to fall…

• Oil extends declines as Iran, Oman continue finalizing talks to reopen Hormuz
• Satellite image shows surge in Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil loadings

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Authored by Daniel J. Smith via The Daily Economy,

How does Paris get fed? Frédéric Bastiat famously explained in Economic Sophisms (1845) how market exchange reliably provisioned the (then) million people of Paris with agricultural produce from the countryside that they were able to enjoy “peaceful slumbers…not disturbed for a single instant….”

In stark contrast, Bastiat predicted that there would be “much suffering within the walls of Paris – poverty, despair, perhaps starvation…” if a presumptuous minister decided to replace the market with their own decision-making for what “should be produced, transported, exchanged and consumed….”

We can appreciate Bastiat’s observation about the miraculous functioning of the market even more when we look at a time when Paris actually went hungry.

France’s Experiment in Forced Provisioning

Leading up to the French Revolution in 1789, France found itself in a precarious fiscal position. It had accumulated crippling debt from the Seven Years’ War and its support for the American colonies during their War of Independence. This heavy debt burden left the kingdom woefully unprepared to withstand the economic shocks that followed.

Economic shock came in the form of the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland in 1783, which contributed to climatic disruptions and poor harvests in France in the years that followed. These problems were compounded by a severe hailstorm in 1788 that devastated crops and livestock, raising prices, especially for bread, which was the main staple at the time. Increased demand for grain to support the military and its draft animals, when France declared war on Austria in 1792 (followed by war with Great Britain), pushed prices even higher. When France implemented a draft that drew agricultural workers into the military and then began requisitioning agricultural horses and wagons, the supply of grain was further reduced.

Henry Bourne, writing a two-part article in the Journal of Political Economy in 1919 about this era, notes that in the fall of 1792, “One of the longest and most important debates [of the National Convention] was upon the best method of insuring a supply of bread at a reasonable price.” This was a problem that especially loomed over the major city of Paris. Bourne argues that the threat of starvation fueled not only the French Revolution, but the mob mentality and interventionism that followed. As Bourne writes, “People, in a panic because they do not know where next week’s bread, meat, and coal are to be found, are not likely to apply the rules of evidence to every rumor.” The French clamored for state intervention on the “fixed idea that dearness and scarcity were the result of speculation” rather than underlying economic conditions.

Transporting grain became a risky enterprise as mobs sprang up to seize it, further decreasing the supply of grain to Paris. To add insult to injury, the transportation of grain to major cities was further suppressed by inflation, which made the issued assignats unappealing to country farmers.

The National Convention and the Paris Commune turned to “a series of ventures in price-fixing and food control” to solve the problem. Bourne notes that “price-fixing became one of the characteristic features of the Reign of Terror.” In 1793, the National Convention imposed a maximum price, or what economists today call a price ceiling, on grain. In a futile attempt to warn of the potential consequences, Pierre Vergniaud, who later that year was executed under the accusation of the radical Jacobin Maximilien Robespierre, urged that “If you destroy commerce, you decree famine.”

French attempts to deny the economic reality reflected by market prices, by attempting to suppress them, resulted in severe shortages and long lines.

“The scheme not only failed to encourage the farmer, it threatened him with ruin,” Bourne noted. “His expenses for tools, draft animals, and wages were steadily rising, but his profits were cut down, with the prospect of further losses every succeeding month.”

But politically savvy politicians blamed these disappointing outcomes on greed and used them to justify further interventions backed by the threat of imprisonment and death. The National Convention created a Commission of Subsistence and Provisioning to be the “Food Director” of France. Swarms of officials were commissioned to survey farmers’ inventories and fields in an attempt to enable government officials to redirect grain to where it was needed. Rules were issued detailing the precise percentage of bran that millers could extract and even dictated the one type of bread that would be allowed. A bread card rationing system was created but was abused as families failed to report the death of family members to continue receiving the same allotment. Bourne reports that in 1794, rations fell to a single pound of bread for each laborer and three-fourths of a pound for others, and that “it was practically impossible to obtain meat, butter, eggs, oil, and other articles of food commonly regarded as necessary,” as price ceilings were extended to these items as well.

Officials attempted to appeal to the higher motives of the people, telling them that they were “brothers and that they should help” even if it meant turning over the grain needed for their family, for storage for future use, or even the seed necessary to plant the next year’s crop. This proved insufficient, however, so the officials eventually turned to force.

Bourne writes that “An attempt was made to provide for Paris by compelling every farmer to furnish within twenty-four hours sixteen bushels of wheat for each hide of land.” French dragoons were soon released upon the countryside to “scour the country” for food and to arrest any suspected hoarders. As Bourne notes, “merchants were thrown into prison upon the accusation of the first intriguer who shouted out his suspicions at a popular society. The local revolutionary committees acted as judges without appeal. To escape a similar fate the other merchants hastened to dispose of their merchandise and did not restock.”

If a farmer had grain in the field but no laborers to gather it, laborers were drafted by local authorities. Millers and bakers in Paris were drafted and forbidden from abandoning their work without sufficient notice. Eventually, the National Convention even attempted to extend maximum price laws to the wages of laborers as well.

Despite the substantial and systematic efforts of the National Convention and the boards of the separate departments of France, Parisians and much of the rest of France, went hungry under government control. In Cahors, people “were so poorly fed that they were falling in the street from sheer weakness.” In Nord, “grain of every sort disappeared from the markets…” The people of Paris would stand “with famished eyes” for hours in line “only to be told when their turn came that nothing was left.” As Bourne concludes, “If the maximum laws were meant to save the common people from want and wretchedness, they failed.”

Bastiat’s Market-Fed Paris

It is unclear whether Bastiat, when writing in the 1840s about the remarkable way in which free markets coordinated the efforts of countless individuals to feed Paris every day, was implicitly contrasting this outcome with the French Revolution’s earlier rejection of market exchange. He almost certainly knew that revolutionary France had experienced severe food shortages and government price controls, making the contrast between the two episodes striking even if he did not intend it.

As Bastiat stressed, government officials could not replace the information and incentives provided by market prices. Orders, price controls, requisitions, forced sales, and even forced labor failed to feed Paris. When the National Convention tried to do so, it produced exactly the outcome Bastiat had predicted more than half a century later: not peaceful slumbers, but long lines, empty markets, and widespread hunger. Notably, these outcomes began to recede as the Commission was abandoned and markets were restored.

Dr. Daniel J. Smith is the Director of the Political Economy Research Institute and Associate Professor of Economics in the Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University. His academic research and policy work uses Austrian and public choice economics to analyze private and public governance institutions.