Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Sweden’s new Minister for Education and Integration, Simona Mohamsson, says it’s time to stop relying on gut feelings and start using facts when it comes to integration.

The new Liberals leader called for plans to map immigrants’ values, to find out where many sit on cultural issues that may not align with those held by native Swedes.

“It is not a human right to live in Sweden,” she said in a recent interview with Dagens Nyheter.

The government has asked the World Values Survey (WVS), a global research group, to study how immigrants’ views compare with those of people born in Sweden. Mohamsson says it’s about time Sweden looked at hard data instead of assumptions.

“For too long, integration has been based on gut feeling and guesswork,” she said.

“With real facts, we can finally talk clearly about Swedish values and take proper action on integration.”

Mohamsson pointed out that Sweden is very different from many countries when it comes to things like religion, gender equality, and family roles.

“We’re an extreme country in a good way,” she said. “People coming here can find it hard to understand how our society works.”

Mohamsson said the results could lead to changes in schools, civic classes, or language courses for migrants.

Past surveys have shown that many migrants arrive in Sweden with very different views on topics like divorce, premarital sex, abortion, and homosexuality. Over time, those views tend to shift — after about 10 years, migrants’ values start to resemble those of Swedes. But Mohamsson says that’s too slow.

“Ten years is way too long,” she said. “That’s an entire generation of girls who can’t choose who they love or boys who can’t come out.”

“This isn’t about forcing people to change what they think. It’s about making sure everyone respects the core values we have in Sweden,” she said. “It would be strange to say some people don’t need to follow those values.”

However, some political parties — especially the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, who prop up the current government — consider this approach to be far too soft. They argue that Sweden has already waited too long to tackle cultural clashes and that surveys and gradual changes are not enough. Instead, they demand tough measures, including deportations or stricter immigration controls for migrants who do not accept Swedish and Western values.

The Sweden Democrats recently announced they will campaign in the 2026 general election on a pledge to stop migration to the country.

“Sweden’s safety must come first — even when it conflicts with the right of asylum,” its party leader, Jimmie Åkesson, wrote in May.

Their concerns have gained traction amid growing unrest across Sweden. Migrant gang violence has reached record levels, with deadly shootings, bombings, and grenade attacks now at an all-time high. Police regularly report surging conflicts between criminal groups, and some neighborhoods in major cities are now described as no-go zones for locals after dark.

Even the Moderate Party, which leads the current government, has begun increasing its remigration efforts and pushing for higher income thresholds for prospective migrants, in part due to mounting pressure from the Sweden Democrats and growing public frustration over crime and integration failures.

Mohamsson wants to portray her party as one that understands these concerns, stressing that people who move to Sweden have a duty to try to fit in. “It’s not a human right to live in Sweden,” she repeated. “This isn’t about opinions — it’s about finding out which values clash with Swedish ones.”

This is one of Mohamsson’s first big interviews since becoming both integration minister and leader of the Liberals. She admitted her views have changed over time — she used to oppose her party’s shift to the right, but now she’s a minister in a government supported by the Sweden Democrats.

Asked about this, she said, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind since I first got into politics 15 years ago. When it comes to problems in schools and integration, I think the best way to fix them is through the cooperation we have now.”

Despite the current government’s hardline rhetoric on migration, 60,000 foreigners still received Swedish citizenship in 2023.

Read more here…

Ukraine’s talks with NATO over a path to future membership have become increasingly tense and unproductive, according to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy.

In a recent interview, Tikhy described the discussions as “toxic” (something he said elsewhere weeks ago too) – characterizing the negotiations as repetitive and are no longer making progress. He also indicated there does not appear to be a chance for breakthrough anywhere on the horizon.

The foreign ministry official conveyed his assessment in a recent interview featured on the YouTube channel of journalist Aleksandr Notevsky.

The words gained attention in Russian state media, which subsequently translated some of Tikhy’s key statements. “All the arguments and counterarguments have already been presented, and each new round of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to NATO goes in circles,” he said. The discussions “have become, to put it simply, very toxic,” he emphasized.

The NATO bloc has consistently held out that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” Secretary-General Mark Rutte had at this summer’s annual NATO defense summit, hosted in The Hague, issued similarly optimistic words.

However, what’s become clear is that waning American support for Ukraine’s military, and even President Trump’s stated desire to step back from leadership in NATO amid lack of fair cost-sharing among allies, has resulted in a broad decline in enthusiasm and momentum for Ukraine’s accession.

This is where things stand following NATO’s June summit:

It was therefore something of a relief that Nato’s summit in The Hague produced a short joint declaration on June 25 in which Russia was clearly named as a “long-term threat … to Euro-Atlantic security”. Member states restated “their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine”. While the summit declaration made no mention of future Nato membership for Ukraine, the fact that US president Donald Trump agreed to these two statements was widely seen as a success.

Yet, within a week of the summit, Washington paused the delivery of critical weapons to Ukraine, including Patriot air defence missiles and long-range precision-strike rockets. The move was ostensibly in response to depleting US stockpiles.

Simultaneously Russia has made steady gains along the almost 1,000km long frontline, and is even expanding operations into a central oblast, beyond the Donbass region.

Russian forces have also in the last days declared that it maintains full control over the whole region of the Luhansk, where Russian forces made quickest gains early on. The Kremlin has shown patience in this grinding war of attrition, though its advances have been costly in terms of manpower, as it taps reserves and continues recruitment efforts back home.

Authored by Javier Villamor via europeanconservative.com,

Spain’s leading energy companies – Iberdrola, Endesa, and EDP – remain stunned. After the nationwide blackout that cut power across Spain on April 28, the government has yet to provide a clear explanation or take technical responsibility…

The companies, represented by the employers’ association Aelec, have denounced “surprising omissions” in the official investigation. They demand that the extreme voltage spikes recorded in the days leading up to the collapse be included in the analysis. They have criticized the preliminary report from ENTSO-E—the European network of electricity operators—for claiming that “the system was operating normally” just seconds before the failure. Meanwhile, severe voltage swings were recorded, going beyond safety limits and triggering automatic shutdowns of high-voltage substations and key refineries.

This episode is far more than an isolated incident. It is a metaphor for the erratic direction taken by the European Union’s energy policy. In the name of climate change, Brussels has embarked on a radical overhaul of its energy model driven not by technical or economic realities, but by an ideological agenda imposed by political and bureaucratic elites. What was marketed as a smooth transition toward renewable energy has turned into a forced green agenda, with no viable alternatives and little regard for its impact on competitiveness, system stability, or citizens’ well-being.

At the root of this drift lies the REPowerEU plan, launched after the start of the war in Ukraine with the stated aim of “fully decoupling” Europe from Russian energy. What initially appeared to be a justified geostrategic measure quickly became, in the hands of the European Commission, a pretext to push through renewable energies at any cost. This led to a rushed and uneven transition, with citizens and businesses footing the bill.

This leap into the void has destabilized key sectors such as agriculture, transport, and industry, forcing them to absorb rising costs without receiving real technological upgrades. Countries like Germany, which shut down their nuclear plants out of political conviction, have now had to reopen coal-fired stations in a contradictory reversal. Meanwhile, state propaganda continues to promote green energy self-sufficiency, while households face record electricity bills and companies lose competitiveness.

The structural failures of the European power grid are becoming increasingly evident. The continental grid was designed for stable and predictable hydro, gas, and nuclear sources. The mass introduction of intermittent sources like wind and solar makes imbalances difficult to manage: without wind or sun, generation collapses; with too much, the grid becomes dangerously overloaded.

On April 28th, the Iberian Peninsula experienced those consequences firsthand. Abnormal voltage levels were detected in several substations throughout the morning. To grasp the gravity: a “voltage oscillation” involves a sudden and significant fluctuation in the grid’s voltage, which can damage equipment, trigger automatic disconnections, or, in extreme cases, cause a total blackout. At the Lancha substation, voltage reached nearly 250 kV on a line rated for 220. Another line, rated at 400 kV, surpassed 470 kV just before the collapse. According to Aelec, these anomalies began as early as 10:00 a.m. While a sudden drop of 2,200 MW in generation has been cited as the trigger, the system is theoretically built to withstand a loss of up to 3,000 MW without shutting down. This was not a coincidental failure—it was a built-in weakness.

Beyond technical and political issues, the forced energy transition takes a human toll. European households are paying more for electricity, hitting middle- and lower-income families especially hard. Electrification of transport, promoted without adequate foresight, is raising the cost of mobility due to a lack of reliable charging infrastructure. Farmers and truckers, already squeezed by unmanageable climate regulations, face growing expenses while being pressured to make investments they cannot afford.

Moreover, blackouts are no minor issue: their impact ranges from multimillion-euro industrial losses to the paralysis of hospitals, schools, and transport networks. In Spain, the outage even cost five people their lives. An energy model that cannot ensure a steady supply threatens the economy and public safety.

European industry, particularly in the central and southern parts of the continent, is already bearing the brunt. Unable to compete with American or Asian energy prices, many companies are relocating production or shutting down. Paradoxically, even sectors the green agenda promotes, such as electric vehicles, are faltering. Once-dominant car industries in Germany and France are struggling to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive global market. While Europe imposes ideological standards, China manufactures more, better, and cheaper. Deindustrialization is no longer a threat—it’s a fact. Notably, some factions on the Left even embrace “degrowth”—deliberate economic decline—as a desirable path.

Worse still, despite all these sacrifices, Europe continues to import Russian energy—now via third countries—and remains vulnerable to geopolitical pressure. The promise of energy independence often rings hollow.

The Green Deal has morphed from a promise of modernization into a political myth: a story no longer grounded in reality, propped up by propaganda that refuses to confront its contradictions. The public, increasingly aware of the real costs, is beginning to push back. The farmers’ resistance in the Netherlands gave rise to a political party now part of the ruling coalition. In other countries, protests and citizen discontent are multiplying. And this is only the beginning. This very week, farmers returned to Brussels to protest the suffocating policies they face.

An energy transition is not inherently harmful, but cannot be imposed dogmatically. It requires realism, technological pluralism, gradual implementation, and a willingness to adopt what works. Nuclear, hydro, and natural gas must be part of the energy mix while green technologies mature. Sustainability will not be achieved by denying physics or punishing citizens, but by integrating every available tool with a long-term vision.

What happened in Spain is a symptom, not an accident.

Europe’s current energy model is not equipped to operate under the conditions imposed by Brussels. There is an urgent need to rethink energy policy—not through ideology, but through engineering, economics, and common sense. If the energy transition is to be our path forward, let it be pursued with caution, technological plurality, and respect for the system’s real limitations.

Europe cannot afford to stumble in the dark in the name of a green light; it still does not know how to switch on.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Australia agreed during last month’s NATO Summit to deploy an E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and up to 100 troops to Europe till November at the bloc and Poland’s request in support of Ukraine. This will be carried out under “Operation Kudu”, which “is the Australian Defence Force commitment to the training of Armed Forces of Ukraine personnel in the United Kingdom.” It follows a prior such deployment to Ramstein Air Base so the latest one isn’t really all that newsworthy.

That doesn’t mean that it’s insignificant, however, since it’s important for observers to understand why Australia is continuing to militarily involve itself in a conflict on the opposite side of the planet. The reason is that Australia is doing so as a quid pro quo for Anglo-American support in containing China through AUKUS. Regardless of whether one agrees with it, the Australia government nowadays considers China to be an adversary – largely due to Anglo-American influence – and formulates policy accordingly.

Sending arms to Ukraine, training its troops in the UK, and once again carrying out a temporary military deployment to Europe isn’t just a way to pay back its AUKUS allies, but also a means for obtaining experience in the event that China gets involved in a regional conflict. Whether it’s against Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, and/or the US, Australia expects to involve itself in a similar way as with Russia-Ukraine via the aforesaid means of arms shipments, training, and early warning and control missions.

Moreover, by showing solidarity with NATO in its proxy war on Russia through Ukraine as explained above, Australia hopes that the bloc’s European members will repay the favor if it involves itself in a future AUKUS+ (AUKUS, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines) proxy war on China. Even though they’d probably do this at their American “daddy’s” behest, albeit as a quid pro quo for “defending Europe from Russia” in this case (as they sincerely but wrongly believe), it’s a suitable pretext for the public.

The larger goal is to craft the perception of a “Global West” that stretches across the Atlantic and Pacific to encompass both halves of Eurasia, thus enabling the US to “Lead From Behind” in containing China in the future and maybe once again Russia too depending on events. Australia’s role is therefore to serve as an example of an Asia-Pacific country contributing to the European front of the US’ present containment campaign against Russia to justify European countries contributing to a future Asian front against China.

That being the case, Australia’s latest temporary military deployment to Europe actually advances a much grander strategic goal than most observers might have realized. In and of itself, Australia’s contribution to NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine is minimal and has no influence over the course of events, but it helps lay the ground for what might come next after that conflict finally ends. If Trump’s “total reset” with China fails, then the US-led “Global West” might more aggressively contain it.

To that end, the precedent of Australia’s continued military involvement in the Ukrainian Conflict can be spun as the pretext for NATO’s European members involving themselves in a future AUKUS+ proxy war on China, which can be sold to the public as “paying back the favor out of solidarity”. The emerging “Global West” concept therefore isn’t just a “collection of democracies” like it’s been portrayed by some, but a collection of US military partners that can be relied upon for helping to contain its Eurasian rivals.

Authored by Kerry McDonald via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As a mother of nine in Tennessee, Sarah Fagerburg tried a variety of different schooling types, from public schools to homeschooling, but she always felt there had to be something better. In the spring of 2023, she discovered Acton Academy from listening to a podcast, and knew that this was the educational model she had been seeking.

“My mind was blown,” said Fagerburg. “I had no idea education could be this good.”

She applied to open her own Acton Academy, and was accepted into the fast-growing network of approximately 300 independently operated schools, emphasizing learner-driven education. Fagerburg launched Acton Academy Johnson City last fall with 13 students, including four of her own children. Today, she has 26 K-6 students enrolled in her secular microschool, with plans to add a middle school and high school program in the coming years. “Parents want this. They love it,” said Fagerburg, adding that some families drive up to 45 minutes each way for their children to attend her program.

She says she sees enormous demand for the Acton Academy model, and hopes to open more locations in Tennessee, but access is a key concern. “I grew up poor,” said Fagerburg. “I never would have been able to attend a school like this.”

With the current expansion of school choice programs, such as Tennessee’s new universal education savings accounts (ESA), many more families are able to access innovative schools and learning models. “It’s a complete game changer,” said Fagerburg, explaining how the ESA program enables Tennessee families who previously had limited education choices to now use a portion of state-allocated education funding to select the school or learning space that is best for their child.

But there’s a catch. In order to participate in Tennessee’s ESA program, Fagerburg’s school must be accredited, and its current accreditation by the International Association of Learner Driven Schools isn’t recognized by the state.

That is why Fagerburg jumped at the opportunity to participate in a fledgling program offered through the Middle States Association (MSA), one of the four major K-12 accreditation entities, with 3,200 member schools worldwide. In partnership with Stand Together Trust, MSA’s Next Generation Accreditation pilot program seeks to offer a faster, more affordable, and more flexible route toward accreditation for today’s emerging schools.

“We created this flexible protocol around how a school actually works,” said Christian Talbot, President and CEO of MSA. “That gives mostly microschools, but really any innovative school, the opportunity to tell their story with the production of evidence that makes the most sense to them.”

Talbot offered the example of a hypothetical urban “place-based” learning environment, with no designated school building and students taking classes at various museums, public parks, and historic sites throughout a city. “That school is going to have the opportunity to describe the learning environment in ways that existing accreditation protocols really don’t allow because you have to have a certificate of occupancy, or a lease, or some other thing that is tied to this mental model we have that school has to be in a building,” said Talbot.

He emphasized that these innovative schools are “meeting all of the exact same standards of accreditation” as conventional schools, but they are able to demonstrate these standards in ways that reflect the ingenuity of their models.

MSA is the world’s second-oldest accrediting agency. It launched more than a century ago, as interest grew from schools and colleges for independent, third-party verifiers of quality. For higher education, accreditation eventually became a requirement for US colleges and universities to participate in federal student financial aid programs, but at the K-12 level, mandatory accreditation is less common.

Most states don’t require schools—public or private—to be accredited, but some schools choose to become accredited to earn an external “seal of approval,” which may help them to attract and retain students and educators. With the expansion of school-choice programs nationwide in recent years, certain states, such as Tennessee and Texas, require accreditation in order for a school to participate in these programs.

Cammy Herrera had been exploring the possibility of accreditation for her secular microschool MCP Academy, in Mansfield, Texas, well before the state introduced a new universal school-choice program this spring. A former public school teacher, Herrera had been running a licensed in-home preschool for more than a decade when she decided in 2021 to add a Montessori-inspired school-age program. She now serves over 50 students through middle school, with plans to open a high school if she can find a larger space to accommodate more students.

For Herrera, accreditation was appealing as a signal of quality, but she felt that most existing accrediting organizations took a traditional view of education that didn’t reflect her personalized, flexible approach.

“Our school is so different. We are not trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all box when it comes to schooling,” said Herrera, whose students are technically considered homeschoolers. They can attend her school full-time at an annual tuition of $10,250, or customize their enrollment based on their own learning needs. Tuition for Herrera’s two-day-a-week option is about $4,000 annually. “Whoever we get accredited through has to believe in our vision and has to be on board with what makes our school special because we don’t want our school to lose that special part that makes us different from a traditional school,” she said.

When Herrera learned about the MSA’s pilot accreditation program for microschools, she eagerly applied. Next Generation Accreditation would offer Herrera that third-party validation she has been seeking while retaining her program’s originality. It would also enable her to participate in Texas’s new school choice program, should she choose.

MSA hopes to run the Next Generation Accreditation pilot with 10 to 15 innovative schools over the next several months to learn more about these schools’ distinct needs and structures, and then iterate and adapt protocols to provide a valuable accreditation pathway for today’s creative schooling models.

As the creator of the Texas Microschools Facebook group, Herrera sees mounting interest in microschooling and the diverse educational models and methods that the movement fosters. She thinks that accreditation options that reflect this diversity can be beneficial to founders and families who value that credential, or who need it to participate in certain school-choice programs. But she also warns of potential drawbacks: “There are all these special schools, and if everybody has to follow the same standards to be accredited, then I think they’ll be more alike than different. That’s the only thing I could see being a downfall.”

Originally published on The74, reposted from the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Via SpotGamma Substack,

Days ago India barred Jane Street (JSG) from its security market, citing manipulation of markets.

TLDR: We think JSG knew options skews could be heavily distorted, and traded large options positions trying to take advantage of the distortion.

Additionally – a disclaimer: We have no idea what really happened, and we did our best to accurately quote from the SEBI & other documents. We have no idea if anyone is guilty of anything, nor are we alleging that. If anything in here is incorrect, we will do our best to update the post.

The Indian regulatory body, SEBI, launched the investigation “Based on media reports titled ‘Jane Street-Millennium Suit: ‘Secret’ Strategy Concerns India, Hearing Reveals’ and ‘Ex-Jane Street trader pillories claims he stole trade secrets’, published during April 2024 wherein it was inter-alia mentioned that Jane Street and its associated entities alleged unauthorised use of their proprietary trading strategies in Indian options markets…”

This recent banning was related to a 2024 regulatory investigation (and warning to JSG) into short-dated index options trading. After that ‘24 investigation, SEBI, India’s market regulator, accused Jane Street of manipulating the BANKNIFTY index on expiry day using aggressive futures flow and deeply skewed 0DTE option structures — a strategy that mirrors the same tactics Jane Street would later allege were stolen in its U.S. lawsuit against Millennium (more on this later)

Critical to this, understand that Jane Street is/was not a registered market-maker in India’s options market. But according to SEBI’s 2024 interim order, they behaved like the most aggressive one in the room.

SEBI found that the Jane Street Group (“JSG”) ran the single largest risk-adjusted book on BANKNIFTY index expiry days. One day stood out above the rest: January 17, 2024.

On element left from the report was that the day before, January 16, BANKNIFTY fell more than 4% following disappointing earnings from HDFC Bank. The January 17 session opened lower again — creating a setup where options prices were likely skewed to the extremes.

On Jan 17 SEBI estimates JSG made ₹662 crore (~$79M USD) that day using what they call an “Intraday Index Manipulation” strategy. The allegation? That Jane Street pushed BANKNIFTY higher in the morning by aggressively buying stocks and futures, built massive short-delta positions in 0DTE options while the index was artificially elevated, and then sold their equities to drive the index lower and monetize the short-delta.

This is also the depiction you hear on social media. But, as with most things, there is way more nuance.

Both the equities market and the options market opened at 9:15 AM IST. Jane Street began executing its strategy immediately. From 9:15 to 11:45 AM, JSG bought ₹4,370 crore ($525M) of BANKNIFTY futures and stocks. This alone accounted for 15–25% of total traded value in those names. Simultaneously, they shorted delta* to the tune of ₹32,115 crore ($3.9B) via 0DTE options — selling calls and buying puts.

In plain terms, Jane Street put on a massive intraday risk reversal by selling same day expiration (a.k.a. 0DTE) at-the-money (ATM) calls vs ATM puts.

*As we noted before, the BANKNIFTY was down 4% the prior day, and was opening ~1% lower on the morning of the 17th. This is critical to understand, because they SEBI report goes to great lengths to detail the alleged delta exposure that JSG carried. With great respect to the regulator, we think that depicting accurate deltas into wild vols/skews is rather difficult.

I suspect that Jane Street likely anticipated that volatility skew would be heavily mispriced at the open, potentially due to the prior day’s steep index decline. When the market opened, they bought futures and stock simultaneously against extremely skewed options — selling richly priced calls and buying heavily discounted puts. This structure effectively established risk reversals vs long futures to exploit the skew differential.

Initially, the position may have been close to delta-neutral — designed not for directionality, but to mine the skew. This is likely why they were buying stock (positive delta trades) and futures as they were entering into risk reversals (negative delta trades). Further, as the day progressed and the skew normalized, Jane Street ceased additional accumulation (per charts below).

What made the setup unique was the sheer distortion in option pricing. At 9:15 AM, spot BANKNIFTY was trading at 46,814. The 46,800 ATM call was priced at ₹653.45 (blue); the ATM put, just ₹123.55 (red). While we have not studied Indian options prices before, one would expect ATM calls and puts to have much more similar prices.

This inverted skew suggests calls were extremely rich vs puts, a perfect setup for the trade JSG implemented. By day’s end, that call expired nearly worthless (₹0.65), while put values exploded.

This is a clear breakdown of put-call parity, one that SEBI argues was engineered by Jane Street itself. Their aggressive equity buying misled other participants and skewed IV pricing, particularly in the ATM strikes, allowing JSG to put on the risk reversal at an extreme edge.

SEBI writes: “Participants in index options markets [were] misled by the support for BANKNIFTY.” The strategy was not just delta directional — it was vol- and skew-sensitive. Jane Street created short-term realized vol and harvested convexity on both sides.

Notably, option volumes themselves appeared to collapse once the skew normalized. The SEBI states that JSG’s flow was the primary driver of the distorted vol surface that they were mining. We think this is the critical piece which the argument rotates around – did they knowing create this skew or was it the result of market volatility?

By 11:47 AM, Jane Street began unwinding their long equity exposure as you can see above (bottom 2 bar plots). At this same time, the options volume dies out (center plot). SEBI notes that their selling was again aggressive and concentrated in BANKNIFTY components, disproportionately moving the index lower and inflating the value of their long puts.

They reportedly closed some positions, letting others expire ITM. Though they booked losses on equities, the options PnL overwhelmed it. SEBI estimates a ₹662 crore net profit.

This apparently wasn’t a one-off. SEBI identified 15 other days using this same blueprint, plus 3 additional instances where Jane Street employed a variant: the “Extended Marking the Close” strategy. This involved building large delta positions in options during the day, followed by an aggressive equity ramp or selloff into the expiry window to influence the settlement print.

How Does the Jane Street Millennium Lawsuit Tie In?

In April 2024, Jane Street sued Millennium and two former traders, alleging misappropriation of a confidential strategy. The complaint describes an SPX-based strategy developed over six years, involving:

• Identification of latent market inefficiencies

• Use of intra-day models and machine-learning-driven heuristics

• “Expensive investigative trades” to test signal robustness

• A framework to predict directional bias based on a fusion of signal inputs and execution behavior

Jane Street claims this strategy was unique and counterintuitive, and that its IP centered on exploiting subtle, repeatable intraday price dynamics. Internal chat logs cited in the complaint show the strategy was so profitable they considered hiding it from internal PnL tallies to avoid attracting attention.

Jane Street alleges that immediately after the traders joined Millennium, a new competitor began mirroring their trades via the same broker infrastructure, including specific order types and risk throttles. The broker even paused execution due to the similarity in patterns. Jane Street’s own profits reportedly collapsed concurrently.

The Millennium lawsuit makes the BANKNIFTY trades even more revealing. According to Jane Street’s own complaint, their core strategy was explicitly designed to detect and trade on skewed volatility surfaces. It wasn’t just about forecasting direction — it was about identifying mispriced convexity and exploiting it through engineered flow. The “expensive investigative trades” described in the lawsuit align almost perfectly with the behavior SEBI observed in India: buying up underlying stocks to shift implied vols, then harvesting the reversion through options.

In both cases, infrastructure mattered — Jane Street touted proprietary execution pipelines, broker logic, and near-automated rebalancing. The precision seen on January 17 — with flow ramping at open, peaking by 11:45, and reversing in size — fits the exact framework Jane Street claimed was stolen.

If Jane Street had a strategy designed to weaponize short-term volatility dislocations using index-linked options and coordinated flows in the underlying, SEBI’s findings suggest it was indeed deployed.

Subscribe to SpotGamma’s high frequency expert options analysis here…

Amid ongoing talks with Israel, Syria’s new Islamist-led government is considering a scenario in which it would relinquish claims to most of the Golan Heights to Israel, in exchange for carving the city of Tripoli and surrounding territory out of Lebanon and making it part of Syria. The development was first reported by Israel’s i24News, which didn’t address the question of how Israel would have any authority to trade another country’s territory.  

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967’s Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981. In 2019, the Trump administration became the first country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the 700 square miles of strategically-important land. Six years later, the United States still stands alone in doing so, as Israel’s annexation is widely seen as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter. Following Assad’s collapse, the Israeli army raced into Syria and seized what had been a demilitarized, UN-monitored “buffer zone” under a 1974 ceasefire agreement, and also ventured beyond it. Israel did so despite assurances from the new Syrian government’s assurance that it would honor the 1974 agreement. Other violations of Syrian territory has been part of the Israeli routine for years, with periodic bombings that have continued after the fall of Assad.

Now, the two governments are engaged in what an Israeli official characterizes as “advanced talks” on a bilateral security agreement. According to a source close to President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria is demanding that Israel part with at least a portion of the Golan Heights, and has thrown two scenarios on the table: 

Scenario 1: Israel would retain strategic areas in the Golan Heights equivalent to one-third of its territory, hand over a third to Syria, and lease another third from Syria for a period of 25 years.

Scenario 2: Israel keeps two-thirds of the Golan Heights, and hands over the remaining third to Syria, with the possibility of its lease. Under this scenario, the Lebanese city of Tripoli, close to the Lebanese-Syrian border, and possibly other Lebanese territories in the north of the country and the Beqaa Valley, would be handed over to Syria.  –i24News.

“There is no such thing as peace for free,” said the Syrian government source, adding some concession by Israel on the Golan Heights is essential to al-Sharaa from the perspective of domestic politics: “Al-Sharaa would likely face significant internal resistance should he fail to [secure the return of some territory].” 

In addition to the port city of Tripoli, Syria is angling to take over surrounding Sunni-dominated Lebanese territory. According to one analysis, here’s how Lebanon’s population breaks down along religious lines: 32% Shia Muslim, 31% Sunni Muslim, 31% Christian and 6% Druze Muslim. However, Tripoli is something on the order of 81% Sunni Muslim. The city and surrounding territory were removed from Syria when the state of Lebanon was formed by France in 1920, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Tripoli is Lebanon’s second-largest city with a population of about 229,000, and is home to an important seaport.  

The idea of a swath of Lebanon being carved off and handed over to an extremist government dominated by members of an al-Qaeda offshoot is certain to raise eyebrows — most of all, because Lebanon is not a party to the discussions. While the Lebanese government has yet to issue a statement about the report, Ashraf Rifi, a member of the Lebanese parliament who represents Tripoli, dismissed the idea, telling the state-run National News Agency: 

“Syria is not giving up the Golan, and it is not engaging in any barter. Al-Fayhaa [a union of municipalities that includes Tripoli, Mina and Baddawi] is Lebanese, Lebanese, Lebanese — Tripoli is Lebanese and proud of its identity. The 10,452 square kilometers [of Lebanon] constitute a final homeland for us and all its people. Period.”

We’ll have to see if the State of Israel somehow manages to have the last word on Tripoli’s future.  

Via Died Suddenly on X,

Vero Beach, Fla. – Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Kirk Moore is facing thirty five years in federal prison for destroying thousands of vials of COVID-19 vaccine, giving his patients vaccine cards without taking the shots, and injecting saline into children whose parents wanted them to believe they got vaccinated without risking the deadly side effects.

Dr. Michael Kirk Moore Jr., 58, who operates his practice Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, Inc. in Salt Lake County, Utah, begins his trial on Monday, July 7, 2025, at the Orrin G. Hatch U.S. Courthouse, located at 351 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah.

As of this writing, a ‘GiveSendGo’ donation campaign for him is at just under $140,000

A rally that day at the steps of the courthouse at 350 South Maine Street, Salt Lake City, UT, is being organized by

We Are The People Utah

and will include veterans of the health freedom movement, such as vaccine safety activist Robert Scott Bell, as well as the team that produced the film Died Suddenly, Dr. Moore’s son Michael, Jason Preston, host of the organizing group, and Mike Schultz, the speaker Utah’s House of Representatives

Countless other prominent figures in the MAHA sphere, such as Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, will be joining online to stand with Dr. Moore.

Follow @DiedSuddenly_ on X for updates over the next three weeks as the trial progresses.

The charges against Dr. Moore were filled in 2023 by the Department of Justice under Joe Biden, and have not been dropped yet by President Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not formally intervened, despite his agency’s Inspector General’s involvement, but did publicly expressed his support in April of this year, saying on his government verified X account, “Dr. Moore deserves a medal for his courage and commitment to healing.”

Officially, Dr. Moore and his co-defendant, are being charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey, and dispose of government property; and conversion, sale, conveyance, and disposal of government property and aiding and abetting.

The “government property” being referred to is $28,028.50 worth of “government-provided COVID-19 vaccines”, also referred to by Pfizer as “government prototypes” due to their experimental, untested, and dangerous nature.

Dr. Moore is also accused of specifically distributing at least 1,937 “fraudulently completed vaccination record cards” to his patients, none of which are testifying for or against him in this case, and also administering saline shots to some of their kids, admitted by the DOJ to have been carried out with the full knowledge and consent of their parents, so their children would actually believe and act as if they were vaccinated, and not have to lie to live a normal life with their friends amidst the pandemic mandates and madness.

Dr. Moore was even arrested initially when the charges were made official in 2023.

“In a blatant act of intimidation and punitive cruelty, Dr. Moore was arrested and incarcerated for 22 days—isolated for 22 hours each day—merely for attempting to communicate essential court information to co-defendants,” Dr. Margaret Aranda, who has followed the case closely, said on Substack.

“Kirk Moore offered his patients a choice when others wouldn’t,” Dr. Bowden said of the doctors couregaous stand. “He received no compensation for his care and has paid a tremendous price for honoring his patients’ fundamental right to bodily autonomy.”

Despite the aggressive and nastily toned characterization of Dr. Moore by the DOJ, he has no criminal record, is a devoted father raising two children alone after tragically losing his ex-wife to suicide in 2019, and is a decorated U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon who has tirelessly cared for patients throughout his career.

“Amid the COVID-19 crisis, he courageously provided free medical care to those in need, making house calls and offering essential treatments without compensation,” Dr. Margaret Aranda said on Substack. “The individuals who turned to Dr. Moore did not do so lightly, nor did they seek refuge merely for convenience or leisure. These were men and women whose fundamental constitutional rights to medical autonomy were being compromised. They faced profound and life-altering threats: military personnel urgently seeking help as they faced imminent deployment—being unjustly threatened with court martial unless vaccinated; brave individuals who, within hours of seeing Dr. Moore, would leave to defend our nation’s freedom. Others were desperately awaiting life-saving organ transplants, yet cruelly denied these procedures due solely to their vaccination status, forced into a devastating choice between their beliefs and their very lives.”

“Dr. Moore provided these individuals with a chance to uphold their deeply held personal convictions while safeguarding their futures,” Dr. Aranda pointedly concluded.

The U.S. government team, previously headed by Biden-appointed prosecutor U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins, is now being overseen by Felice John Viti, Acting-U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, who previously served on the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division and has investigated terrorists in war zones for most of his career.

And prepare for war is exactly what the U.S. did in this case, involving everything short of the DOD, such as the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and the FBI.

This war footing has also had a chilling effect on the courtroom and the overseeing justice, Judge Howard C. Nielson, Jr., a Trump appointee in 2017 and former member of the Federalist Society, who has instructed the jury and opposing councils to not mention vaccines, covid-19, alleged “medical misinformation” and other details about Dr. Moore’s intentions and safety concerns, because it may “poison the jury pool.”

“Shockingly, the prosecution has moved to deny Dr. Moore and his co-defendants their fundamental right to present a necessity defense—an essential opportunity to demonstrate that their actions were taken in good faith to prevent greater harm,” Dr. Aranda said. “Furthermore, the prosecution seeks to exclude testimony from patients harmed by COVID-19 vaccines, silencing crucial voices and denying the jury critical context. Such actions suggest not justice, but an orchestrated attempt to suppress evidence that might validate Dr. Moore’s ethically driven decisions.”

Dr. Moore is also under surveillance by the Trump DOJ.

“When they threw me in jail for contacting my co-defendant one of the further restrictions that I had for pre-trial release was only to communicate via text message and email,” Dr. Moore told this reporter. “I had sent them a message on Signal. They thought I was trying to hide communications. They put monitoring on my phones.”

If you’d like to hear directly from Dr. Moore about his case and defense, watch his interview here on X with the Died Suddenly team, one of his last before the beginning of the trial. (or Rumble here)

Due to the case being held in Federal court and not State, no livestream or recordings will be available throughout the trial, and unless you are physically in the courtroom, or part of the defense or prosecution teams, the public will not have timely access to developments or transcripts. Because of this, the Died Suddenly team is closely considering attending the trial in person as court reporters, to provide crucial updates for the American people, whose liberties are truly on trial in this case.

“Before Fauci, before any pharmaceutical company, the U.S. government chose to prosecute a doctor that honored his oath, to do no harm to his patients,” Matthew Skow, the award winning film maker of Died Suddenly and partner of Gateway Studios, said after learning the details of Dr. Moore’s case.

The line team of prosecutors are led by Todd Bouton, a former federal judge, who joined the DOJ at the height of the pandemic to pursue COVID-related and healthcare fraud, and his assistants are Jacob Strain, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Sachiko Jepson.

Constitutional Attorney Jonathan W. Emord says the case is a prime opportunity for dismissal, and if convicted, President Trump should at the minimum consider pardoning Dr. Moore, especially based on his past statements, criticizing COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination mandates, often framing them as overreaches of government authority or threats to personal freedom.

“The left wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fearmongering about the new variants that are coming,” President Trump said in a campaign video before the 2024 election, condemning the same tyrannical henchmen now gathering against Dr. Moore. “They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal dropboxes, more mail-in ballots and trillions of dollars in payoffs to their political allies.”

“Every COVID tyrant who wants to take away our freedom,” President Trump said, addressing those who sought to mandate the same Covid-19 vaccines that Dr. Moore refused to administer to patients. “Hear these words: We will not comply. So don’t even think about it. We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”

You can watch President Trump’s statement here for yourself.

President Trump’s words and Dr. Moore’s actions are only further justified by the FDA’s decision to add a new safety warning label to all mRNA COVID vaccines, stating the extremely high risk of Myocarditis and long term Heart Effects in young men who take the shots and boosters.

The Hippocratic Oath that all doctors ascribe to, and Dr. Moore was following, says to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life.

If the shots now officially cause myocarditis, wouldn’t refraining from administering them according to one’s judgment, be refraining from causing harm or hurt, and be the best example of living an exemplary personal and professional life?

You can submit public comment by calling DOJ Public Affairs Specialist Felicia Martinez at (801) 325-3237 or email at Felicia.martinez@usdoj.gov

Please share this article with your doctor, your friends, and your family. This case is proof the pandemic madness is not over, and if this trial is allowed to continue and result in the unjust conviction of Dr. Moore, no doctor, patient, or parent is safe to live their conscience and by common sense in the United States of America.

Join us with the battle cry: “No Moore Tyranny”

Support Dr. Moore’s legal fight by donating here.

This report was produced by investigative journalist Edward Szall, a producer with the Died Suddenly team. If you have any tips, information, or comment please post below, or email me at Edward.r.szall@gmail.com If you enjoyed this report and others posted by the team, consider supporting our latest film project, Died Suddenly 2: Nano Sapiens, at DS2NANO.COM

The federal government is on pace to post a $92-billion deficit this fiscal year — nearly double what was projected just four months ago, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. If accurate, it would mark the second-largest deficit in Canadian history, trailing only the $327.7-billion shortfall of 2020-21 during the pandemic, according to National Post.

“The picture is definitely not pretty,” said Alexandre Laurin, C.D. Howe’s vice-president, who co-authored the report with William Robson and Don Drummond.

The think tank now forecasts annual deficits of over $77 billion for the next four years, far higher than the government’s projections in its most recent budget — which is now more than a year old. The report criticizes the government’s delay in tabling a new budget, saying, “Delaying a budget until the fiscal year is more than half over is never good, but Canada’s current high-spending trajectory makes this delay especially bad.”

National Post writes C.D. Howe attributes the worsening outlook to rising defence spending, Trump-era tariffs, tax cuts, and the scrapped digital services tax. It also questions whether promised revenue boosts from fines, penalties, and savings will materialize.

The report notes Ottawa is making major fiscal commitments without disclosing key figures, including the expected tax intake, spending levels, and future interest payments. “Ottawa is making costly commitments… without showing key numbers to the public,” it warns.

“It is widely accepted that Canada’s economy is at a critical crossroads,” the authors write. “So are Canada’s finances – beyond the economic drag of high deficits and rising debt, it is unfair to pass these burdens on to the current young and future generations.”

In contrast, the Parliamentary Budget Officer had projected in March that the federal deficit would shrink to $50.1 billion this year, with continued improvements in future years — assuming no major new spending or tax cuts.

C.D. Howe recommends the government cut operating costs, abandon some costly platform promises, consider increasing less harmful taxes like the GST, and reduce federal transfers. It also rejects Ottawa’s plan to separate operating and capital budgets: “The large deficits projected in this update cannot be downplayed or disguised by dividing the budget into two new categories.”

The report concludes that greater transparency is essential: “The government must improve its accountability by sharing its revenue and spending figures with taxpayers.”

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com,

• U.S. insurers are rapidly pulling coverage from homes in high-risk climate zones, particularly in California, Florida, and North Carolina.

• Millions of homeowners are facing nonrenewals, impacting their ability to secure mortgages and causing housing market instability.

• Government and local efforts are underway to mitigate risks and persuade insurers to continue coverage, but significant gaps remain.

As countries worldwide experience more regular extreme weather events, insurers have become more reluctant to cover properties in high-risk areas. However, without insurance, it is impossible for many people to gain access to mortgage financing. We are seeing an insurance crisis in the United States, as insurers are becoming less likely to offer coverage for homes in certain areas, particularly those that have experienced natural disasters, such as flooding and wildfire, in recent years. 

Between 2018 and December 2024, over 1.9 million home insurance contracts were “nonrenewed”, meaning they came to an end. The nonrenewal rate tripled or more in over 200 U.S. counties, according to a congressional report. These figures became clear following an investigation spurred by the Senate Budget Committee, which demanded in November 2023 that the largest U.S. insurance companies provide the number of nonrenewals by county and year.

Some states and cities are seeing greater nonrenewal rates than others, particularly those at greater risk of fire, flood, hurricanes and other severe weather events. Although there is still a lack of information on the reason behind the nonrenewals, the countrywide map of nonrenewals strongly reflects the climate crisis as it is being seen across the U.S. Some of the areas most affected include California, Florida, and North Carolina.

Following the publication of the report, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “The climate crisis that is coming our way is not just about polar bears, and it’s not just about green jobs.”

Whitehouse added, “It actually is coming through your mail slot, in the form of insurance cancellations, insurance nonrenewals and dramatic increases in insurance costs.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2024, there were 27 individual weather and climate disasters, coming only behind the record-setting 28 events in 2023. Last year was the fourth-costliest year on record in terms of these types of events, with a total cost of approximately $182.7 billion, coming after 2017 ($395.9 billion), 2005 ($268.5 billion), and 2022 ($183.6 billion). The 2024 weather events included storms, wildfires, droughts, flooding, tornadoes, tropical cyclones and other types of extreme weather. 

In addition to considering which areas are “high risk”, insurers also assess the building materials used for construction. Many mobile or manufactured homes are not covered by insurers. Companies may also impose restrictions on houses constructed out of wood and other fire-prone materials. However, even states with strict building codes are seeing more coverage denials. In California, which has strict building codes to mitigate wildfire risk, insurers have been increasingly rejecting requests for coverage. In certain counties, nonrenewal rates have risen by over 500 percent since 2018. 

The government has started to respond to the problem in some areas of the country. For example, in December, officials announced that they would make it easier for insurers to increase rates, but in exchange, they must agree to continue insuring consumers in fire-prone areas. Other state and local governments are carrying out prescribed burns in residential areas, as well as clearing vegetation close to houses, to reduce the risk of wildfire spread in these areas. 

Some companies have halted new insurance policies in certain parts of the country, such as AllState. In 2022, AllState paused the sale of new home and condo insurance policies in California. A spokesperson for the firm stated, “Our payments to help California residents recover from accidents and disasters have increased significantly in recent years due to higher repair costs and more frequent and severe weather… We continue to offer coverage to most existing home insurance customers.” 

State Farm, one of the biggest insurance providers in the U.S., followed suit in 2023 by halting the sale of new housing insurance products in California. In Florida, by the spring of 2024, at least 12 insurance companies had stopped selling housing insurance in the state. Farmers Insurance stated upon withdrawing from Florida, “This business decision was necessary to effectively manage risk exposure.”

A 2024 report by the non-profit First Street Foundation, showed that 23.9 million properties in the U.S. were at risk from damaging winds, 4.4 million properties were at risk from wildfire, and a further 12 million properties were at significant risk of flooding – in addition to properties in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema)’s Special Flood Hazard Areas. The report stated, “Private insurance companies are effectively labelling areas as uninsurable.”

The result of the withdrawal of insurance companies from certain parts of the country is the inability for consumers to get a mortgage, meaning fewer people can buy a house. As houses sit empty, it drives down property prices in the area and leads to less tax revenue being collected to invest in services. Many communities are facing these consequences and feel left behind.

If the U.S. government does not take action to mitigate the risk of the impact of extreme weather events in these areas or encourage insurers to continue covering high-risk areas, this will happen to a greater number of communities across the country.