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If This Is Real, We Are Cooked…

If This Is Real, We Are Cooked…

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

Footage circulating purporting to be from the North African desert shows what looks like an enormous column of sub-Saharan African men moving under escort.

Some estimates put the number at a hundred thousand. Commentators claim Algerian military vehicles and personnel are shepherding them toward the coast.

If the scale and direction prove accurate, Europe faces another deliberate pressure wave on top of the chaos already unfolding in Ceuta.

Naomi Wolf amplified the footage, noting that these movements required state-level logistics.

Additional clips from the same period show large groups being moved near the Moroccan frontier.

One account framed the Algerian regime as collecting Africans from across the continent and directing them toward the border with Morocco, linking the timing to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s recent visit to Algiers.

The caption reads “The Algerian system is gathering Africans from all African countries and deporting them to the border with Morocco. The visit of Pedro Sánchez to Algeria ain’t no coincidence, they wanna plot how to stir up crises between Morocco and Spain. The big shots are workin’ to wreck the relations between Morocco and Spain.”

These desert images land against the still-fresh reality of Ceuta. Late last week an estimated 72,000 people, predominantly young men, stormed the Spanish enclave from Morocco by swimming around the Tarajal breakwater and scaling fences.

Despite the claims of Spanish officials that most have been returned, thousands of sub-Saharan Africans remain on the beaches and around reception centres.

Morocco has refused to take them back. Spain has allocated €25 million and indicated it will transfer those claimed as “children” to the mainland.

Parallel clips show sub-Saharan groups mobilising after the Moroccan surge into Ceuta, with local media noting thousands more Africans preparing the trip.

After the initial breach, groups of military-age men were filmed rampaging through streets, forcing entry into homes, looting, and clashing with residents.

Moroccan authorities were seen emptying trucks of young men near the border and directing traffic toward the Spanish fence. Social-media mobilisation groups shared routes and timing. The whole episode bore the hallmarks of organisation rather than spontaneous flight.

Sub-Saharan holdouts have been filmed receiving Red Cross packages of bread, milk, tuna and water while declaring they will not return and intend to reach the Spanish mainland.

The same networks that organised the first wave are already planning another, according to reports. A Facebook group of 108,000 members posted the call; intelligence estimates put the potential reach at nearly half a million across connected groups.

Lora Ries of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Centre stated: “It absolutely needs to be a concern because it’s been going on for years, not just in the UK but throughout Europe… They’ll go to London, they’ll go to other cities in Europe. And this mass migration will continue. It’s an invasion. What happened in Ceuta late last week was shocking to the world.”

Twenty-two EU leaders have warned: “We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible.”

Security risks compound the numbers. Spanish counter-terrorism police have identified at least a dozen suspected jihadists previously investigated or convicted in Spain, deported to Morocco, who re-entered during the Ceuta surge.

The investigation is early; officers expect the figure to rise. Migration expert Rubén Pulido said: “Since the Moroccan attack on Ceuta began, I’ve been warning about this issue. The scenario that has unfolded in the autonomous city is a vector for jihadist and military infiltration.”

Vox Andalusia President Manuel Gavira wrote: “Jihadists among the Ceuta invaders, the mafia transporting them to the Andalusian coast, and Pedro Sánchez on vacation. His concessions to Morocco and his suicidal immigration policies have turned our borders into a sieve.”

French National Rally leader Jordan Bardella added: “Leaving our borders open means letting enemies of our civilization into our home: the breach opened in Ceuta by the left’s naivety is a breach in the security of all Europeans.”

The desert footage fits the same pattern of state-enabled movement that turned Ceuta into a staging ground. Sánchez’s government responded to the first wave with limited returns, food distributions, and talk of legalisation pathways rather than hard deterrence. The result is a clear signal: breach the border in numbers and the system absorbs rather than expels.

Borders that are not enforced do not remain borders.

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 08/07/2026 – 02:00

Are You Ready For The “Rogue AI” Psy-Op?

Are You Ready For The “Rogue AI” Psy-Op?

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

The AIs are breaking free, that’s the story.

It started two weeks ago, when OpenAI reported one of their “agents” had escaped its testing area and got loose on the internet to launch an “unprecedented cyber attack”.

This was clearly meant to be scarier than the public response indicated, because a few days later OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was on the Invest like the Best podcast, asking why it didn’t cause more panic:

“I’ve been a little surprised that more people don’t feel it so viscerally”

In one of the most hilariously obvious propaganda manoeuvres of the year, just the day after Altman said that, CNN headlined:

The OpenAI lab leak was more extensive than we thought

“That thing you weren’t scared of? Well it was even SCARIER than we said it was! Are you scared now?”

We weren’t.

But the lack of public panic didn’t stop another AI going rogue a few days later, Anthropic’s Claude model this time.

And then OpenAI reporting two further incidents themselves.

UPDATE: Just a couple of hours after publication, META joined the party. Apparently their AI “went rogue” too, and hacked another firm.

Never in the history of human endeavour have companies been so keen to report their products going wrong. It seems a rogue AI is the latest must-have accessory in Silicon Valley.

The reasoning behind this is not hard to follow. When your product is artificial intelligence, melodramatically realising your system is even smarter than you thought it was is a simple marketing ploy.

And when one of your rivals goes rogue, you have to go rogue too or you are as good as admitting your model is not as smart as theirs.

“AI company admits their model is smarter than they realised!” is just an advert in scary headline form.

It’s like Ford “admitting” their cars are even more fuel efficient than they planned. Or McDonalds realising their cooks have “gone rogue” and are producing food that is both cheaper AND more delicious than they ever anticipated.

But there’s more to this than just techno-hype and viral marketing strategy. We’re being steered down the avenue of “AI as scary threat”.

See, for example, the dozens of stories talking up rogue AIs from the Guardian to the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal.

“Rogue” is clearly the word of the day. Notice they don’t say it “malfunctioned” or there was an “error”, because that implies mistakes or poor design.

No, the AI “went rogue”, which is cool and sexy and scary at the same time. A word chosen by a focus group of perma-teen marketing executives who have watched too much sci-fi.

Speaking of perma-teens who watch too much sci-fi, here’s Sam Altman (again) declaring we’ve already reached the singularity, the mythic phase of technological development when machines become smart enough to make even smarter versions of themselves without human input.

He is talking rubbish, of course, but the story is the story here. Why would he say this? Why now?

Obviously concerned that this tidal wave of propaganda was being too subtle, in came NBC to really hammer the point home:

The breaches signal that AI’s expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared.

Everybody got that?

It goes on and on.

Just today we’re getting reports from the UK’s brand new AI Security Institute that rogue (there’s that word again) AI agents had tried to trick people by creating false identities.

And I think that’s beginning to circle around to at least part of the wider agenda here.

After all, if AI is so good at pretending to be human, and is out there creating fake identities to steal data, well…how can we tell who is really human?

Perhaps everyone should be issued a digital ID to assist in “proving humanity”.

That’s not me saying it, it’s think tanks like OneID or “experts” testifying in front of congress.

But the ever present push of Digital ID is just one of the more obvious of a raft of potential issues raised by the scary AI narrative.

For now we’re still in the generating fear phase. Getting pumped full of scare hormones by articles like this…

Misleading AI-generated doctors pose ‘huge danger to public safety’

– The Guardian

While they tease vague solutions in headlines like this…

That’s a nice one, because it garnishes the AI main course with a soupçon of lab-leak flavour (something else that is doing the fear-porn rounds this week).

There are hints of legislation to come, the EU’s “AI transparency” rules just came into force this week, and the US demanding “kill switches” in AI models, but they are vague for now.

My soft prediction is that, before the end of the year, there will be a “rogue AI” false flag, which allegedly causes either loss of life or some massive financial losses.

I think financial would be the way to go, because they’re always looking for a reason to start a recession or banking crisis, and one they can blame on a third party is too good an opportunity to miss.

Whatever happens, there will be loud calls to “regulate AI”, but what that might mean in real terms I couldn’t say at this point.

To be clear though, if and/or when the official solutions to made-up problem #4987 are finally rolled out, they will have nothing at all do with controlling AI, and everything to do with controlling you.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 23:25

The Vanishing Art Of Presence

The Vanishing Art Of Presence

Authored by Joseph Varon via Brownstone Institute,

Medicine is always changing. In my career, I have seen intensive care units go from simple rooms with oxygen, monitors, and clinical intuition to places where artificial intelligence can predict problems before we notice them, bedside ultrasound helps us avoid guessing, and robotic systems help surgeons work with great precision. Telemedicine now lets specialists care for patients who are far away. These advances have saved lives, made care more accessible, improved efficiency, and helped doctors reach patients who might not have seen a specialist otherwise.

Many studies show how valuable telemedicine is, especially in underserved areas and critical care settings where specialists are scarce (1). I welcome these innovations and use many of them daily. I am convinced that artificial intelligence (AI) will become one of the most important tools doctors have ever had. Recent reviews also suggest that AI will help doctors make decisions, not replace them (2). Still, no matter how advanced our tools get, they should help us do our jobs better, not change what our jobs are about.

A recent lawsuit about the death of a very sick young man has sparked a lot of talk in the medical community (3). Reports say that one question is whether the doctor in charge ever actually examined the patient in person. The courts will figure out what really happened, so I won’t guess or assign blame. What worries me is not the lawsuit itself, but the bigger question it raises. Are we starting to think that because technology lets us care for patients from a distance, being there in person is no longer necessary?

When I started practicing medicine, this question would have seemed impossible. We took blood pressure by hand, read chest X-rays on lighted boxes, and depended on physical exams because we had no other choice. We were always close to our patients. We shook hands, sat with families during hard times, and listened not just to heartbeats and breaths, but also to the pauses, the worry in a spouse’s voice, the fear behind hopeful words, and the small signs that told us more than any lab test. Sometimes I think those moments taught us as much as any textbook.

Today, we have abilities my mentors never dreamed of. We can look at scans from across the world in seconds. A neurologist can check on a stroke patient from far away. An intensive care doctor can watch over several ICUs at once from a central location. Algorithms constantly review patient data and spot patterns we might miss. These advances are real progress, and many people are alive today because doctors were willing to try new technology. Ignoring these innovations would not just be unwise – it would be wrong.

Presence Begins before the First Word

One of the first lessons I learned as a young physician was never formally taught during medical school. It did not appear in anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, or any board examination I ever took. Yet it has influenced my practice. One of the first things I learned as a young doctor was never taught in medical school. It wasn’t in any class or exam, but it has shaped how I practice more than any lecture or textbook.

Before we say anything, look at lab results, or make a diagnosis, our patients are already deciding if they trust us. Turning our attention to the computer screen. None of these actions appears in clinical guidelines. None contributes directly to a hospital quality score. Yet they often determine whether patients truly hear what we are trying to tell them. Information delivered without trust rarely changes behavior. Information delivered by someone who has earned trust often changes lives.

With all our excitement about efficiency, connection, and new technology, I worry that we are forgetting one of the oldest and most important parts of medicine: simply being there with another person. Presence is hard to measure. It doesn’t show up on dashboards, billing codes, or reports. Artificial intelligence can’t chart it, and it’s hard for anyone to put a price on it.

Nevertheless, every experienced physician understands its extraordinary importance. Presence reassures before a single medication is administered. Presence builds trust before difficult decisions must be made. Presence allows physicians to observe details that no monitor can. Still, every experienced doctor knows how important presence is. Just being there can comfort someone before any medicine is given. It builds trust before tough choices. It lets us notice things no machine can pick up.

Most of all, it reminds patients and families they are not facing illness by themselves. Conversations influence decisions, strengthen therapeutic alliances, and frequently reveal information that would otherwise remain hidden. A frightened patient often tells us something entirely different after five quiet minutes than during the first hurried 60 seconds. Families ask different questions when they believe their physician is genuinely listening. These moments cannot be programmed into an algorithm because they are not transactions of information. They are exchanges of humanity.

The Physical Examination Is More Than Diagnosis

Medical students often see the physical exam as just a way to gather information for a diagnosis. But with experience, doctors learn it means much more. The physical exam is often the first way we help our patients.

When I place a stethoscope on a patient’s chest, I am certainly listening for murmurs, crackles, wheezing, or diminished breath sounds. But I am also communicating something much deeper. I am telling that patient, when I use my stethoscope to listen to a patient’s chest, I’m checking for things like murmurs, crackles, or wheezing. But I’m also sending a deeper message. Without words, I’m telling the patient, “You have my attention. You matter. I am here.” The coolness of an extremity. The slight tremor that no monitor records. The fear hidden behind forced optimism. Every experienced clinician has stories in which these seemingly insignificant observations altered diagnosis, redirected therapy, or changed an entire conversation with a family.

Artificial intelligence will likely become the best tool ever made for spotting patterns. I truly believe that. But people can do something just as important – we notice when someone is suffering.

Those are not the same thing.

Telemedicine Is One of Medicine’s Greatest Success Stories

Let me be clear. I am not arguing against telemedicine. In fact, I fully support it.

Telemedicine has transformed healthcare. It has brought stroke neurologists into rural emergency departments within minutes. It has allowed intensivists to support community hospitals lacking around-the-clock critical care expertise. It has connected specialists with patients separated by oceans, mountains, and deserts. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it allowed physicians to continue caring for patients while limiting unnecessary exposure. Countless lives have been improved, and undoubtedly many have been saved because physicians embraced this remarkable technology rather than resisted it.

I have participated in telemedicine consultations myself. Its future is extraordinarily bright. It represents one of the finest examples of technology extending the reach of experienced physicians to places where those physicians cannot physically be.

But extending our reach and replacing our presence are not the same thing.

Technology was made to help us reach across distances, not to take away our presence when we can still be there. If we mix up these ideas, we might start thinking convenience is more important than what truly helps our patients.

Artificial Intelligence Should Make Us Better Physicians

Artificial intelligence will change medicine more than anything else I’ve seen in my career. It will quickly summarize records, spot medication problems, help with diagnoses, find small changes in images, predict problems before we see signs, and cut down on mistakes. These are exciting changes, and doctors should welcome them, not fear them.

Doctors who don’t learn about AI will eventually be left behind. Every generation has had to adapt to big changes. My mentors learned to use ventilators, CT scans, and bedside ultrasounds. My generation got used to electronic records and advanced monitors. The next generation will become experts in artificial intelligence.

The mistake won’t be using AI. The mistake will be thinking that just because AI can think, it can also care.

Medicine has always been about both science and relationships. Science gives us many answers, but relationships help us with questions that science can’t solve.

The Illusion of Efficiency

Modern healthcare is very focused on efficiency. We track things like how long patients stay, how often they come back, paperwork, patient flow, and many other numbers. These measures are important, and using resources wisely does matter.

But we can’t let our focus on efficiency make us forget about the human side of medicine.

Technology has definitely saved doctor’s time. But, ironically, most of that time hasn’t gone back to patients. Instead, it’s been taken up by paperwork, admin tasks, rules, and emails. The same tools that were supposed to free us often end up keeping us stuck at our computers.

Perhaps the greatest irony of modern medicine is that technology has made it easier than ever to communicate. Maybe the biggest irony in medicine today is that technology makes it easier to communicate, but real human connection is becoming rarer. A physician sitting quietly with a frightened family may prevent misunderstandings that would otherwise require days to repair. Sometimes the fastest way to solve a medical problem is to slow down long enough to understand the person who is experiencing it.

Teaching the Next Generation

I have spent much of my career teaching. Whether I’m in Houston, Jakarta, Bali, Mexico City, or anywhere else, I am always impressed by today’s trainees. They have instant access to medical knowledge that older generations couldn’t imagine. They pick up technology quickly, and many already use artificial intelligence in smart and careful ways.

I hope that we teach them something technology can never replace. Let’s teach them to sit down before delivering devastating news. Let’s teach them that silence sometimes communicates more than another explanation. I hope we teach them that touching a patient’s shoulder may provide reassurance that no medication can duplicate. Medicine has become afraid of touch. Yet a hand on the shoulder. Holding a patient’s hand. Touching a forehead. Helping someone sit up. Those things matter. AI can never reproduce that.

Most of all, I want to show them that every monitor, algorithm, scan, lab result, and AI tool is there for one reason; to help us care better for another person. If technology ever becomes more important than the patient in medicine, we will have lost sight of what medicine is really about.

Looking Forward without Looking Away

Sir William Osler told doctors long ago that it’s more important to know what kind of person has a disease than what kind of disease a person has (5). Even after a hundred years, this is still true. Diseases follow science, but patients have families, cultures, fears, hopes, values, and beliefs. If we forget that, medicine might be technically great but emotionally empty.

That may be why I continue traveling. Maybe that’s why I still travel the world to teach, even after all these years. Whether I’m in North America, Latin America, Europe, or Asia, I keep seeing the same thing. Doctors may speak different languages, work in different systems, and deal with different challenges, but they all know the same moment: when a doctor walks into a patient’s room, and everything changes just because someone is truly there. That moment can’t be turned into data, outsourced, or given to artificial intelligence.

Choosing between technology and humanity has always been a false choice. We should enthusiastically embrace artificial intelligence, telemedicine, predictive analytics, robotic surgery, and every innovation capable of improving patient care. We should invest in them, teach them, refine them, and continue pushing the boundaries of what medicine can accomplish. But we must never confuse assistance with replacement. Technology should expand the reach of compassionate physicians, not provide an excuse for compassionate physicians to disappear.

The lawsuit that made me think about all this will go through the courts, and the facts will come out in time. No matter what happens, though, the questions it raises are important for every doctor to consider. As we build the hospitals of the future, what kind of medicine do we want to see? Should it be all about connection, efficiency, and computing power? Or should technology be a powerful tool that supports something deeply and unchangeably human? I hope the answer is obvious.

One day artificial intelligence may analyze every laboratory value before I even open a patient’s chart. It may recognize physiologic deterioration hours before I do. Telemedicine may connect every specialist on Earth with every patient who needs them. Those achievements will represent extraordinary victories for medicine, and I will enthusiastically celebrate every one of them. But, I hope we never reach a point where a scared patient thinks a screen is the same as a doctor, an algorithm is the same as judgment, or data is the same as compassion. Medicine has always been a science, but at its best, it is also a deeply human relationship.

Technology can extend our reach. It must never replace our presence. When historians look back at this era of medicine, they will undoubtedly marvel at artificial intelligence, genomic medicine, robotics, and technologies we can scarcely imagine today. I hope they will also be able to say that physicians had the wisdom to preserve the one innovation that never needed improving: the simple act of one human being caring for another.

References

  1. Totten AM, Hansen RN, Wagner J, et al. Telehealth for Acute and Chronic Care Consultations. Comparative Effectiveness Review No. 216. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2019.
  2. Topol EJ. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. New York: Basic Books; 2019.
  3. Fierce Healthcare. Yale New Haven Health hospitals’ tele-ICU model highlighted in wrongful death lawsuit. 2026.
  4. Peabody FW. The care of the patient. JAMA. 1927;88:877-882.
  5. Osler W. Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston’s Son & Co.; 1904.

Joseph Varon, MD, is a critical care physician, professor, and President of the Independent Medical Alliance. He has authored over 980 peer-reviewed publications and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Independent Medicine.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 22:35

Trump Signs Orders To Curb Birthright Citizenship, Target Birth Tourism

Trump Signs Orders To Curb Birthright Citizenship, Target Birth Tourism

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Thursday that will restrict automatic citizenship to ​children born in the United States because of commercial birth tourism and several other factors.

One of the measures bans birth tourism, the practice of traveling to the United States on a tourist visa with the intention to have a child that is given automatic U.S. citizenship.

Trump called it “a big deal” and said during the signing ceremony that birthright citizenship has been made into a joke.

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 struck down Trump’s executive order excluding children of illegal immigrants and legal temporary visitors from automatic birthright citizenship.

Trump called the Supreme Court decision “very unfortunate” and said his administration was making adjustments.

“We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“It was close, but a very, very unfortunate decision. So we’re making adjustments because it’s very unfair.”

As Tom Gantert reports for The Epoch Times, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller said the 14th Amendment was passed right after the Civil War to ensure the children of slaves would be citizens.

“It had no other meaning and purpose other than that,” Miller said during the press conference.

Miller said one executive order will expand the definition of people who are ineligible for birthright citizenship.

“That includes, for instance, alien enemies of the United States, members of foreign terrorist organizations, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments,” he said.

Miller said the second action Trump took would ban birth tourism.

“The idea that people come here, pretend to be a tourist, pretend to be a visitor, say they want to go to Disney Land … but the real reason they are here is to have a child, make that child an automatic citizen, leave our country, and then have a U.S. citizen child—it gives them access, under this broken system, to welfare benefits, ultimately the voting booth … that practice of birth tourism, is as of the signing of this order, hereby banned.”

Trump said that wealthy people were building businesses around birthright citizenship.

“That’s not the way it was suppose to work. It’s a disgrace,” Trump said. “They are buying their way in. We are not going to let it happen.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 22:10

Judge Says Updated National Firearms Act Violates Constitution

Judge Says Updated National Firearms Act Violates Constitution

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the registration and approval requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns in the National Firearms Act (NFA) are unconstitutional.

In the case of Silencer Shop Foundation v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. District Court Judge James Wesley Hendrix found that the requirements exceeded Congress’s constitutional authority once the NFA’s taxes on making or transferring those arms were eliminated. The taxes were reduced to zero last year.

The court found that the NFA, as enacted in 1934, passed constitutional muster as an act of Congress’s taxing power because the regulatory requirements—including registration, applications, ATF approval, fingerprinting, and related criminal penalties—aided the collection of NFA taxes.

This is in line with the 1937 U.S. Supreme Court case, Sonzinsky v. United States, in which the high court ruled the NFA is a legal exercise of Congress’s taxing authority. In that decision, the court found that the government could gather information on the owners of certain firearms and their accessories that were subject to the NFA’s $200 excise as part of the tax collection process.

Wednesday’s ruling in response to two consolidated cases—Jensen v. ATF, with Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF—in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, held that once Congress eliminated the taxes for suppressors, the constitutional foundation for registration was eliminated as well.

“In sum, the Court concludes that the challenged NFA provisions exceed Congress’s Article I enumerated powers and are therefore unconstitutional,” Hendrix’s ruling states.

On July 4, 2025, President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” reduced the NFA’s excise tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and a category labeled “any other weapon” from $200 to $0. However, the items were still required to be registered under the NFA.

Machine guns and destructive devices are still subject to the $200 tax and its requirements. Under Hendrix’s ruling, the category “any other weapons” is still subject to the requirements even though it is not taxed.

The court has issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of the requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns, but leaves them in place for the “any other weapons” category.

Hendrix stayed his decision for seven days to allow the government to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The government argued that the provisions were justified under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause.

In its court filings, the government pointed out that NFA-regulated businesses are subject to other federal taxes. Therefore, the registration requirements are part of the overall taxing process. The defendants said this has been recognized in prior Supreme Court cases.

“It’s long been settled that the NFA’s requirements aid in the assessment, collection, and enforcement of the Act’s taxes and are thus justified under Congress’s taxing power. Shortly after the NFA’s enactment, in United States v. Sonzinsky, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the NFA’s special occupational tax on firearm dealers, holding that Congress had the power to impose the tax even if it was intended to “restrict or suppress the thing taxed,” the government’s response reads.

Second Amendment advocates hailed Wednesday’s decision.

“We are delighted with the ruling from Judge Hendrix,” Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb wrote in a statement. “With the tax no longer in existence, there was no logical reason for the ATF’s registration requirement to continue. With this victory setting a precedent, we anticipate success in the other cases involving our sister organization, Second Amendment Foundation.”

National Rifle Association leaders, one of the plaintiffs in Jensen v. ATF, also praised the ruling, and vowed to continue pushing for the end of the NFA.

“Our successful effort to eliminate the $200 NFA tax created the opening for our world-class attorneys to secure this historic federal court ruling that the NFA is unconstitutional. The fight to fully repeal this archaic gun-control measure is not over, but today’s decision is a major step in the right direction,” John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislation Action, stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act originally repealed the NFA’s excise tax. That language was removed, and the tax was instead reduced to zero, after Congressional Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough determined a repeal did not comport with the tax purposes of the bill.

Gun Owners of America has contended that the ATF and other federal agencies have used the information gathered to build a de facto gun registry. The group has declared that part of its mission is to have the government destroy information it has that could be used to build a registry.

The ATF has strongly denied that such a registry exists.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 21:45

These Are America’s Fastest-Aging States

These Are America’s Fastest-Aging States

America’s population is getting older, but some states are aging much faster than others.

Using U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by USAFacts, this ranking, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows how much each state’s population aged 65 and older grew between 2014 and 2024.

Growth in 65-and-Older Populations (2014-2024)

The table below ranks every state by the percentage growth in its population aged 65 and older between 2014 and 2024.

State Change in 65+ Population (2014–2024) Total Growth
Alaska 56% 39,425
Idaho 51% 120,188
Delaware 48% 74,383
Utah 48% 140,632
Wyoming 46% 36,760
New Hampshire 45% 93,596
Colorado 44% 300,169
Nevada 44% 175,038
Montana 42% 71,509
South Carolina 42% 319,192
Georgia 41% 513,532
Texas 41% 1,265,419
Vermont 39% 41,969
Arizona 39% 420,852
Washington 38% 382,832
Maine 36% 87,850
Hawaii 36% 82,756
South Dakota 36% 46,219
North Carolina 36% 518,927
Minnesota 35% 275,897
Virginia 35% 401,357
New Mexico 35% 110,140
Florida 34% 1,294,733
Oregon 34% 214,979
Wisconsin 34% 295,892
North Dakota 34% 35,289
Maryland 33% 275,008
Rhode Island 32% 53,451
Massachusetts 31% 317,385
California 30% 1,519,339
Michigan 30% 461,738
New Jersey 30% 392,753
Louisiana 30% 187,508
New York 29% 854,478
Indiana 29% 275,051
Tennessee 29% 285,027
Connecticut 29% 159,449
Nebraska 28% 77,116
Alabama 28% 208,362
Kansas 28% 115,595
Illinois 27% 484,181
Kentucky 26% 172,658
Ohio 26% 474,302
Missouri 25% 235,408
Pennsylvania 25% 530,510
Iowa 25% 121,677
Mississippi 24% 103,194
Oklahoma 23% 129,764
District of Columbia 22% 16,219
Arkansas 21% 96,987
West Virginia 17% 57,493
🇺🇸 U.S. total 34% 14,964,188

Every state added residents aged 65 and older over the decade, but the increase ranged from 17% in West Virginia to 56% in Alaska. Nationwide, the senior population grew 34%.

Many of the fastest-growing senior populations were in the West and Sun Belt, including Idaho (+51%), Utah (+48%), and Texas (+41%). Several of these states began the period with relatively young populations and had experienced rapid population growth through domestic migration. As those residents aged, the number of people 65 and older rose quickly.

Why Alaska Leads

Alaska recorded the nation’s fastest-growing senior population despite not being a traditional retirement destination.

Much of the increase reflects longtime residents aging in place. Many people who moved to Alaska during the oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s are now entering retirement, helping drive the rapid increase in residents aged 65 and older.

Why Growth Was Slower Elsewhere

West Virginia, Arkansas, and the District of Columbia recorded the slowest growth in their senior populations.

A slower growth rate does not necessarily indicate a younger population. States such as West Virginia already had among the nation’s oldest populations in 2014, leaving less room for large percentage gains over the following decade.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the best countries to retire in.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 21:20

Mexico Bans Fracking In Key Shale Basin

Mexico Bans Fracking In Key Shale Basin

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com

Mexico has ruled out fracking in a key shale basin, drawing a line through a resource-rich area even as the country looks for ways to cut its dependence on U.S. natural gas.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said hydraulic fracturing will not be allowed in the Tampico-Misantla basin beneath Veracruz and Tamaulipas. The government cited the basin’s dense population, indigenous communities and freshwater reserves.

Sheinbaum ordered a panel to examine whether unconventional gas could help reduce imports from the United States. Mexico buys more than 6.5 billion cubic feet per day of pipeline gas from its northern neighbor, covering roughly 75% of domestic demand.

The commission recommended boosting conventional gas production first. Even with the proposed measures, Mexico’s reliance on U.S. supply would fall only to about 50%, according to Sheinbaum.

Mexico would need unconventional gas to push that figure lower. The panel said future fracking should be limited to basins containing salt water rather than freshwater, leaving northern shale formations in play.

Sheinbaum campaigned as a critic of fracking and its environmental costs. Energy math has since become less cooperative. Natural gas fuels much of Mexico’s power sector and industry, while domestic production has failed to keep pace.

Seven combined-cycle power plants are coming online, with five more planned, adding to the demand for gas. Pemex expects to lift domestic production to just over 4 billion cubic feet per day by 2030, still nowhere near enough to eliminate imports.

The state oil company is also under pressure to reverse falling output while carrying a mountain of debt. Mexico holds an estimated 141.5 trillion cubic feet of unconventional gas resources, mostly in northern basins.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 20:55

Investigators Unveil Charges Against Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador To The US

Investigators Unveil Charges Against Dismissed Ukrainian Ambassador To The US

Another top level Ukrainian official has been booted from office over significant corruption allegations, which comes at a moment of a broad shake-up of military and cabinet leadership initiated by President Zelensky.

Olha Stefanishyna was dismissed as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States earlier this week, both local media as as Reuters have confirmed.

via Associated Press

Reuters writes that she is “suspected of illegal enrichment and failing to declare assets, authorities said on Thursday, the latest high-ranking official targeted in an anti-graft probe” – after she reportedly hid two apartments along with other assets worth about $310,000.

She had been a deputy prime minister prior to being appointed top diplomatic representative to Washington, and it’s believed that her concealed assets could not have been obtained with her official salary alone. She had also briefly served as Minister of Justice during the war with Russia.

Much of her additional properties and other assets were registered under the names of Stefanishyna’s friends and family members. Kyiv Post reports Thursday:

The High Anti-Corruption Court on Aug. 6 set Hr 6 million ($130,000) bail for Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s former ambassador to the U.S., in a corruption case.

She has been charged with illicit enrichment amounting to Hr 13.9 million ($310,000) and lying in her asset declarations. An anti-corruption prosecutor earlier proposed setting bail for Stefanishyna at Hr 13 million ($290,000).

Stefanishyna failed to declare two apartments, worth nearly Hr 11 million ($250,000), that were registered in the name of a friend, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

She has in the meantime taken to social media to declare there’s been no wrongdoing that she doesn’t have anything to hide. But she voluntarily submitted her resignation earlier this week, upon which Zelensky dismissed her.

According to a newly published list of the undeclared assets, she tried to ‘hide’ the following:

  • Two apartments in a residential complex in western Kiev, registered to a friend
  • A luxury apartment in central Kiev, registered to her mother
  • A parking space and several auxiliary premises at the same high-end property, registered to her father
  • A Mercedes-Benz GLC 220 d, registered to a subordinate

“Any procedural actions are part of the lawful work of the law enforcement system and do not amount to a finding of guilt,” she wrote on Facebook. “I take these developments calmly and without unnecessary emotion.”

Stefanishyna had served as ambassador to the US for the past year, going back to August of 2025. Local media says the alleged concealing of assets took place during that stint, and reports additionally say she was in the process of buying another property – an apartment valued at the equivalent of $550,000 – but backed out of the deal.

Broadly, the Ukrainian population has suffered immensely amid the conflict with Russia, with frequent blackouts and amid a battered wartime economy – and so ordinary citizens get increasingly frustrated and outraged when they see government officials living lavish lifestyles which include luxury cars and multiple homes and properties.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 18:00

US Immigration Agency Asks Public To Report Fraud, Anti-Government Activities

US Immigration Agency Asks Public To Report Fraud, Anti-Government Activities

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The federal agency that processes green cards, U.S. citizenship requests, and work permits this week called on people to report potential cases of immigration fraud through a newly created portal.

In an Aug. 4 post on X, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) wrote that anyone who suspects “immigration fraud, criminal activity, or actions by aliens that threaten national security or public safety” can report it to the agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Reports should involve aliens suspected of fraud, unlawful acts, threats, violence, terrorism-related activity, or other conduct connected to immigration,” the agency said.

On Wednesday, it called on anyone who notices or suspects non-U.S. citizens are “committing immigration fraud of any kind, making false claims of U.S. citizenship, or advocating violence or terrorism against America” to report tips.

It then directed the public to a website, titled “Protect America Together,” which allows the public to submit details of suspected fraudulent activity. That can include noncitizens using fake or altered documents, as well as identity, marriage, visa, employment, and asylum fraud.

Tipsters can also submit reports of suspected fraud and abuse within the H-1B visa program, which has been used by companies to employ Big Tech workers for decades, and within the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.

“Falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, including registering or voting in a federal election” can also be reported using the website, it said.

Other activities that can be reported include noncitizens “supporting terrorist ideologies or providing material support to terrorist organization,” “advocating for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government,” “expressing hatred for American values,” working with groups or individuals who are seeking to disrupt public safety or national security, or “engaging in activities that violate the principles of the Constitution or show disloyalty to the United States.”

A spokesperson for DHS told The Epoch Times on Wednesday evening that the website is a new push from USCIS.

“A single tip can help protect the United States from immigration fraud that exploits the American people and undermines America’s legal immigration system,” the spokesperson said.

Immigrants await their turn for green card and citizenship interviews at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Queens office in the Long Island City neighborhood of New York City on May 30, 2013. John Moore/Getty Images

When submitting details to the web portal, USCIS directs tipsters to include as many details as they can, including a name, date of birth, or address.

It also directs users to provide information about themselves, including their names, emails, and phone numbers. The reporting form allows for either businesses and companies or individuals to be reported.

According to the agency, users will soon be able to upload screenshots as they report tips to USCIS.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, his administration has made mass deportations and enforcing laws against illegal immigration a priority. His administration has also moved to tighten legal immigration rules and suspend certain temporary deportation protection programs for certain countries.

The administration has also moved to denaturalize U.S. citizens such as those who were convicted of crimes including sexual abuse of a child, healthcare fraud, and immigration fraud, among other charges.

USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 17:40

DeepSeek Resumes $74BN Mega-Raise – Then Warns It’s Jacking-Up Prices

DeepSeek Resumes $74BN Mega-Raise – Then Warns It’s Jacking-Up Prices

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is looking to raise roughly 50 billion yuan at a valuation of 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion) – while the company warned developers a day later that it’s raising prices. The resumed funding round, first reported by Chinese business outlet Caijing (via The Standard), is expected to be signed by the end of the month, with the process kept deliberately quiet; some participating institutions reportedly haven’t even been formally told the deal is back on. The pricing notice, posted Thursday to DeepSeek’s developer platform, warns that API rates will rise across the board and that the increase is expected to be “significant.”

Image:  Mojahid Mottakin – stock.adobe.com 

The round restarts barely two weeks after it was shelved, and roughly six weeks after DeepSeek’s first-ever external raise in June, which pulled in some $7.4 billion from Tencent, CATL, Beijing’s National AI Industry Investment Fund, NetEase, JD.com, Monolith Management and IDG Capital at a valuation north of $50 billion (corporate filings later implied a figure closer to $52 billion). The new target is a steep markup on a deal that closed weeks ago, and the prospective investor list reportedly blends returning backers with new money that couldn’t get into round one.

As we noted last month, the round stalled because a transcript of founder Liang Wenfeng’s May 20 closed-door meeting with investors leaked onto GitHub and went viral – a document in which Liang admitted China still trails the US in AI (a gap of compute and capital, not talent, per Liang), conceded DeepSeek remains heavily dependent on Nvidia hardware, described Huawei’s substitutes as falling well short, and acknowledged the company could get its hands on processors he called “noncompliant.” 

Liang – reportedly furious over the leak – simply froze the deal.

Meanwhile, questions about how DeepSeek is obtaining restricted silicon go back to the very beginning – with federal investigators probing whether Singapore-based third parties funneled blacklisted Nvidia chips to the lab as far back as early 2025, and by that April the House Select Committee on the CCP had formally concluded that DeepSeek’s model appeared to run on tens of thousands of export-restricted Nvidia chips, branding the company a tool for “subverting” US export controls. Congress alleged it and now the founder has all but confirmed it, on (leaked) record telling investors the workaround exists – even as the company lays groundwork for a Shanghai STAR Market IPO it reportedly hopes to file this year. Should be a fun prospectus to read. 

Liang was able to hit the pause button so easily because DeepSeek’s first round routed nearly every investor’s money into a limited partnership Liang personally controls, complete with a five-year lock-up and zero voting rights. The lone exception was the state AI fund, which bought direct equity and kept its vote. Liang holds roughly 84% of the company and near-total voting control – meaning Tencent and CATL wired in billions for the privilege of watching, while Beijing holds the only outside seat at the table.

In the leaked transcript, he told investors that GPUs are the single best use of the company’s capital, that he would happily convert the entire war chest into Nvidia hardware if supply allowed, and that spending 20 billion yuan a year on processors would count as a triumph for his purchasing team. He also told them the money doesn’t go as far as it looks: even 50 billion yuan, he said, wouldn’t train a model at the scale of the largest U.S. systems, which he estimated would take roughly 50,000 Nvidia GB300s or 200,000 Huawei Ascend 950s – before the experiments that precede any final training run. Beyond the hardware, the company plans to double headcount and push into data centers and AI agents, and Reuters reports it is quietly hiring chip designers to develop in-house inference silicon – an attempt to engineer its way out of the very dependence Liang lamented.

Price Hike

Which brings us to the other shoe – the company’s announcement that API rates will rise across the board in a “significant” way – the company’s second hike in under a month, following a “peak/off-peak” scheme TechNode reported in mid-July, which doubled rates during Chinese business hours.

No new rate card or effective date has been published – but this is the lab whose $0.14-per-million-token pricing dragged ByteDance, Tencent, and lately even the US majors into a price war. Demand has reportedly overwhelmed its infrastructure, and bargain-basement tokens are a hard pitch to pre-IPO investors. The catch: DeepSeek’s weights are open, so any datacenter on earth can serve the same models. If they raise prices too far, customers may balk.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 08/06/2026 – 17:20