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VP Vance Confirms Hormuz Strait To Reopen ‘Toll Free’, Says ‘Israel Has Seat At Table’

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VP Vance Confirms Hormuz Strait To Reopen ‘Toll Free’, Says ‘Israel Has Seat At Table’

Summary:

  • Vice President JD Vance Begins Optics Roadshow to Boost Investor Confidence On Deal 
  • Iran Offers 60-Day Toll-Free Hormuz Transit As 100s Of Ships Await Reopening

VP Vance

Not even 24 hours after President Trump declared a peace deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and just 30 minutes before New York futures opened Sunday evening, the administration already had Vice President JD Vance beginning a media roadshow to calm investor nerves and boost confidence.

Vance began the Monday roadshow on CNBC, providing more details on the U.S.-Iran deal, as uncertainty is the market’s worst fear.

Vance said the U.S.-Iran deal is moving ahead despite what he called MSM “misreporting.”

“The agreement is fundamentally built around a two-step verification process,” Vance told the outlet, adding that Israel will have a seat at the table. Vance also stated that all Iranian government factions are represented in the talks, with several Iranian representatives expected at Friday’s signing ceremony.

On the Hormuz maritime chokepoint, Vance said the strait is already seeing increased traffic and is expected to remain open toll-free over the long term, not just temporarily. He added that Iran would need resources to rebuild, but those resources would not be available without a nuclear deal.

Summary of discussion via CNBC: 

Vice President JD Vance on Monday said after the U.S. and Iran struck a preliminary deal that there are “a lot” of details that remain to be ironed out, but he expressed confidence that America has “all the cards” in subsequent talks.

The agreement reached Sunday would extend the U.S.-Iran ceasefire for 60 days and set up a framework for future negotiations about Tehran’s nuclear program and other key issues.

The text of the preliminary deal has yet to be released. Vance, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday morning, said the deal’s two major prongs are reopening the Strait of Hormuz and clinching a long-term commitment that Iran will never develop a nuclear weapon.

He indicated that if Iran abides by the deal’s commitments, it will be rewarded with loosened economic sanctions or other barriers, allowing Tehran “to be reinvited into the world economy.” 

Vance is also expected to join CBS Mornings to discuss the U.S.-Iran peace deal. It is likely that Fox Business and other outlets will follow, as the administration must repair any political damage from four months of war with Iran, which created uncertainty on Wall Street and sent the national average for gasoline prices above $4 per gallon for 2.5 months.

Let the roadshow begin… 

Iran Offers 60-Day Toll-Free Hormuz Transit As 100s Of Ships Await Reopening

The U.S. and Iran reached an interim agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday evening, just 30 minutes before New York futures opened, with officials from both countries set to meet in Switzerland on Friday to formally sign the peace deal.

According to Iranian outlet Fars, the U.S.-Iran deal reportedly includes a 60-day toll-free window for vessels. After that period, if a more permanent deal is agreed upon, Tehran may seek to monetize the Hormuz chokepoint by charging commercial vessels for “services” tied to safety, navigation, environmental protection, and insurance.

Traffic on the Strait remains light on Monday morning, with hundreds of tankers waiting for the Hormuz waterway to officially reopen by the end of the week. But LNG tanker Disha did not wait for the formal opening and made a dash to exit the strait early Monday.

There are nearly 300 loaded vessels idling in the Persian Gulf, while a similar number of empty ships are waiting in the Gulf of Oman to return to export terminals. Another 250 ballast vessels inside the Gulf are ready to pick up cargoes if outbound flows resume.

The reopening could release millions of barrels of trapped oil and restart LNG flows, but normalization of energy flows back to pre-war levels could take many months, if not quarters, and for Qatar’s sake, years.

“From the bridge and the engine room where we’re sitting, right now it looks very different to what the headlines may say,” said Angad Banga, CEO of maritime conglomerate The Caravel Group, which owns Fleet Management Limited, one of the world’s largest ship management companies.

Banga told Bloomberg that it has several crews trapped in the Persian Gulf area, adding, “We’ve seen positive signals before, and I think ultimately what matters is what holds.”

Anoop Singh, global head of shipping research at Oil Brokerage Ltd, told the outlet, “Shipowners are on a risk spectrum — the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese are less open to high risk, while the Greeks have a different appetite — so we may see some people gearing up.”

Singh noted, “But by and large the rest of the market is still seeking more details and assurance before proceeding.”

Beyond the shipping industry, on Wall Street, UBS economist Arend Kapteyn told clients earlier this morning that “the test will be how quickly and to what extent the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Early indications suggest this may depend on Iran clearing naval mines over an initial 30-day period. But taken at face value, the news should be supportive for risk assets, pushing yields, oil and the US dollar lower, while equities move higher.”

Latest Hormuz trends via Kepler Cheuvreux shipping analyst Axel Styrman:

Daily arrivals at the Strait of Hormuz in 2026

Global trade & capacity trapped/waiting as of 22 May

Daily arrivals, Strait of Hormuz, # of ships per segment

Crude Exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

LNG Exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

LPG exports and destination via the Strait of Hormuz

Shipping Stocks To Watch

Professional subscribers can read much more about the Hormuz chokepoint on our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 09:00

Anduril CEO Urges U.S. Arms Export Reset To Become World’s Gun Store

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Anduril CEO Urges U.S. Arms Export Reset To Become World’s Gun Store

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey has called for critical resets across defense procurement, manufacturing, innovation, and national identity.

Luckey’s defense startup, valued at over $60 billion, is one of the key forces reshaping America’s military power through low-cost, automated systems that can be manufactured and reproduced at scale, from autonomous weapons and AI fighter jets to drones for the modern battlefield.

America’s hollowed-out industrial base is being rebuilt through President Trump’s reshoring push and other domestic policies designed to expand the war economy. This leads us to the latest comments from Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf.

Schimpf spoke with the Financial Times about the urgent need for a “reset” of America’s strict arms-export regime to make it easier for allied nations to produce and deploy U.S. weapons.

“There is an ‘export control reset that needs to happen,’ with other countries contributing to the total supply,” Schimpf said in the interview.

Schimpf said Cold War-era International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) are slowing the West’s ability to mass-produce low-cost weapons at scale. Simply put, ITAR determines who can receive U.S. weapons, military software, technical data, and know-how, and under what conditions.

He noted that the “ability to produce is probably the biggest deterrent gap that we have as a Western alliance, and having nations contribute to that—not just buying, but actually participating in production—is actually a very good thing.”

Schimpf added that producing U.S.-origin weapons abroad could benefit allies, as they could tailor them to their own needs.

The problem that Anduril appears to be identifying is that maintaining America’s military edge over the decades relied on tightly controlling the flow of weapons and technical data abroad. But in the era of low-cost drones, ground-bots, and AI kill chains, those same systems have become a bottleneck, limiting allied co-production, slowing deployment, and weakening the West’s ability to ramp up production and ship at wartime scale.

Schimpf told FT that there have been emerging signals of openness for an “export-control reset” in the Trump administration. President Trump announced plans in February to reset the arms trade regime.

This comes as Luckey recently told CBS News’ Bari Weiss that America must become “the world’s gun store.”

It also comes as Anduril has begun initial production activity in Ohio, starting with its Fury high-speed combat drone at the Arsenal-1 site near Columbus, and is considering a European Arsenal-2 facility as it expands overseas.

The wars stretching across Eurasia and the Middle East, from Ukraine and Russia to the U.S. and Iran, have drawn down critical Western weapons stockpiles to dangerously low levels. There is now an urgent need to rebuild stockpiles of critical weapons while adding new stockpiles of emerging systems, such as one-way attack drones, loitering munitions, and other next-generation weapons

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 06:55

Watch: Korean Humanoid Robot Performs Viral K-POP Dance, Learns By Watching Videos

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Watch: Korean Humanoid Robot Performs Viral K-POP Dance, Learns By Watching Videos

Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering,

While China dominates humanoid robotics headlines, a Korean firm showcased a humanoid learning complex motions through an open-source AI framework.

AI Sapiens enables a complete pipeline for imitation learning, covering data collection, training, and inference. ROBOTIS/YouTube

In a recent demonstration, ROBOTIS’ AI Sapiens learned the famous CORTIS REDRED Challenge motion using only smartphone video, eliminating the need for professional motion-capture systems.

The process combined video-based motion capture, motion retargeting, simulation-based reinforcement learning, and Sim2Real transfer.

According to the firm, the demonstration highlights how open-source tools can simplify humanoid robot training, enabling users to generate, learn, and execute full-body motions more easily.

Humanoid Learns Motion

ROBOTIS has demonstrated the capabilities of its AI Sapiens humanoid robot, an open-source platform for physical AI powered by DYNAMIXEL-Q actuators. The project is designed to make humanoid robot motion learning more accessible by using widely available hardware and open-source software tools.

In the demonstration, AI Sapiens learns and performs a complex full-body motion known as the CORTIS REDRED Challenge. Instead of relying on expensive professional motion-capture systems, the robot learns the movement from video recorded using a standard smartphone camera. This significantly reduces the cost and complexity of collecting training data for humanoid robots.

The motion-learning process begins with video-based motion capture. Human movements recorded on a smartphone are converted into digital motion data that can be processed by software. The captured motions are then passed through a motion retargeting stage, where the human movements are adapted to match the physical structure and joint limitations of the humanoid robot.

After retargeting, the robot is trained in a simulation environment using reinforcement learning. During this stage, the AI repeatedly practices the motion in a virtual world, allowing it to improve balance, coordination, and movement accuracy without risking damage to physical hardware. Simulation training also enables rapid testing and optimization before deploying the motion to the real robot.

Once training is complete, the learned behavior is transferred from simulation to the physical AI Sapiens robot through a Sim2Real pipeline. This process helps ensure that motions developed in the virtual environment can be executed successfully in the real world, despite differences between the simulation and the physical hardware.

Accessible AI Robotics

ROBOTIS plans to release the motion generation and learning pipeline as open-source software, giving researchers, developers, educators, and hobbyists access to the tools used in the demonstration. The goal is to lower barriers to humanoid robotics development and enable a wider community to experiment with motion learning and physical AI systems.

According to ROBOTIS, AI Sapiens is a fully open-source humanoid robot platform designed for physical AI research and development. Standing 1.3 meters tall and weighing 34 kilograms, the robot features 23 degrees of freedom across its body, enabling a wide range of human-like movements.

The platform is powered by 23 next-generation DYNAMIXEL-Q quasi-direct-drive (QDD) actuators, including 14 QM-060 units and 9 QM-080 units. These actuators combine low gear reduction ratios, high-torque motors, and integrated control electronics to deliver high backdrivability, low impedance, and precise torque control, making them suitable for dynamic and compliant humanoid motion.

AI Sapiens is powered by an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX 16GB computer, delivering up to 100 TOPS of AI performance for advanced robotics tasks. It supports Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0, dual Ethernet ports, USB connectivity, and 24V/12V power outputs for connecting additional hardware.

The robot is powered by a 46.8V, 9000mAh battery. It is supported by a fully open-source ecosystem that includes hardware bills of materials, CAD files, source code, simulation assets, and development tutorials, enabling researchers and developers to customize and expand the platform.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 06:30

Pump Pain Relief? Gas Above $4 May End Soon As U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Sends Oil Lower

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Pump Pain Relief? Gas Above $4 May End Soon As U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Sends Oil Lower

The national average for U.S. gasoline prices has hovered above the politically sensitive $4-per-gallon level for 76 days, or roughly 2.5 months, as the Gulf energy shock tightened physical markets and forced emergency SPR draws.

But with President Trump declaring late Sunday, just 30 minutes before NY futures opened, that a US-Iran peace deal has been secured, and with WTI and Brent futures tumbling, pressure at the pump could begin to ease in the very near term.

National gasoline prices could slip back below $4 in the coming days or weeks if the crude selloff holds and traders begin pricing in a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Still, normalization of crude energy flows will likely take months, if not longer, to return to pre-war levels.

As of Sunday evening, AAA data show the national average for 87-octane gasoline stands at around $4.074.

Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, wrote on X shortly after Trump announced the peace deal that the national average for gas could fall to $3.75 by July 4.

De Haan wrote:

The U.S. and Iran signaling a deal has been struck. The next few days will be key to see if the agreement sticks, and if traffic begins moving in the Strait. WTI crude down 5%, as more confirmations come in days ahead, national average price of gasoline may continue to fade.

Beyond that, the national average could fall below $3.75/gal by July 4, under a optimistic timeline, but hurricane season could be a major wildcard for the rest of summer- tight global inventories mean it will take months or beyond to fully restore global oil inventories.

The next several weeks will be key- one major slip up could impact greatly prices moving forward. And with so many speedbumps in this situation, it may be foolish to think this problem is now completely over. Time will tell.

Surging gas and diesel prices over the last 2.5 months have added downward pressure on consumers, especially working-class households, who were hit with sticker shock at the pump. This shift in spending patterns is a concerning trend we have meticulously detailed:

The combination of elevated gas prices and fading tax-refund tailwinds had already begun to expose cracks in the consumer economy, particularly among lower- and middle-income households. That likely served as a warning signal for the Trump administration: resolve the Middle East conflict before worsening consumer sentiment and pain at the pump become much larger political liabilities heading into the midterms.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 05:45

Exposed: UK Govt Has A ‘Thought Police’ Unit To Control Mass Migration Narrativ

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Exposed: UK Govt Has A ‘Thought Police’ Unit To Control Mass Migration Narrativ

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,

A secretive Home Office propaganda outfit founded by a former MI6 officer is actively working to control narratives around incidents involving migrants and rising tensions, a bombshell report reveals.

The Research, Information and Communications Unit, or RICU, has been exposed advising police on how to portray protesters and intervening in the aftermath of brutal attacks by migrants to prevent statements that might inflame public anger over mass immigration failures.

This comes as fresh confirmation of suspicions raised after the attack on vulnerable special needs man Stephen Ogilvie in Belfast. Sources now confirm the unit’s role in managing family liaison and messaging in such cases. The pattern fits a broader shift where government “nudge” operations once focused on enforcing COVID compliance have pivoted to shielding open borders policies from scrutiny – and are now being hardened into formal crisis powers.

The Daily Mail reports that RICU was set up in 2007 by the late Charles Farr, a former MI6 officer, under the Prevent counter-terrorism banner. It operates from Home Office headquarters and draws on tactics from the old Information Research Department, the post-war propaganda unit used to counter communist influence.

Its methods include planting media stories, deploying undercover operatives, and shaping online conversations in targeted communities.

Recent operations show the unit extending far beyond its original remit. During unrest in Belfast following the stabbing attack on Stephen Ogilvie by Sudanese asylum seeker Hadi Alodid, RICU worked with the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s C3 intelligence unit.

A source described the effort: “They are working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s C3 intelligence unit to identify those posting the online ‘calls to protest’ in Belfast and other areas, as well as giving strategic messages to the police to ensure that the protesters were portrayed as unsympathetic thugs, rather than activists, and effecting behavioural change.”

The same source noted RICU’s involvement with family statements in volatile incidents. “RICU made sure that the liaison team dealing with the family were well briefed.” Another observation: “You can see their fingerprints all over the statements released by the families of victims in these volatile situations – they usually have a similar tone.”

This aligns with what was noted right after the Belfast incident. The family statement released in the wake of the attack on Stephen Ogilvie came across as oddly generic and scripted, using placeholder phrasing such as “our loved one” and quickly pivoting from shock to calls for calm plus emphasis on migrants’ contributions rather than raw, unfiltered grief or pointed questions about what had happened. It did not read like the spontaneous words of devastated relatives.

The Mail also notes that RICU was involved with the aftermath of the murder of Henry Nowak by Vickrum Digwa, again providing strategic input to police handling the family.

The interventions align with long-standing criticisms that RICU applies uneven standards. Sir William Shawcross, in his 2023 review of Prevent, observed: “The bar for what RICU includes on Islamism looks to be relatively high, whereas the bar for what is included on the extreme Right-wing is comparably low.”

The unit has flagged mainstream cultural consumption – watching Michael Portillo’s programmes, reading Shakespeare, Chaucer or Milton, or books documenting grooming gang scandals – as potential indicators of far-Right susceptibility. It even linked Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg to sympathetic audiences.

Professor Anthony Glees described the outfit’s position: “The unit that produced this report is called RICU. It’s based in the Home Office but it’s in that kind of shadowy area between what the Home Office does and what the security service MI5 ought to be doing.”

A Home Office spokesman offered the standard line: “RICU provides analysis on extremist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter terrorism system. We cannot comment on its operations.”

The unit has pushed for expanded recording of non-crime hate incidents, measures later scrapped after public backlash over their chilling effect on ordinary speech. It has also claimed that discussion of grooming gangs in Pakistani communities is exploited by the far-Right to stir hatred.

This is not isolated activity. Government narrative management operations have multiplied. A 2025 examination detailed how teams such as the National Security and Online Information Team monitor “concerning narratives” on social media and flag material to platforms for removal, particularly content critical of migration policy during periods of unrest.

An elite police unit tracks anti-migrant posts. Officials stated they make “no apologies for flagging to platforms content which is contrary to their own terms of service and which can result in violent disorder on our streets.”

The same infrastructure that once deployed propagandistic fear tactics to drive mass compliance during the COVID period has been repurposed. What began as emergency messaging around a virus has evolved into tools for managing public reaction to the consequences of sustained high immigration and associated crime.

We have also seen the Prevent apparatus targeted firmly at British people, and even children, who have expressed concern about mass migration.

This apparatus is also now being formalised and expanded under the banner of “crisis response.” In the wake of the Belfast unrest sparked by the attack on Stephen Ogilvie, ministers have moved to give Ofcom sweeping new authority under the Online Safety Act to pressure platforms into rapid removal of content labelled “false information” or inciting disorder during declared crises.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall announced the government will “lay in Parliament an update to the Online Safety Act requiring services to take quicker action to remove illegal content circulating during times of crisis.”

Ofcom has already issued open letters to platforms citing spikes in content tied to the Northern Ireland events and demanding enhanced, crisis-specific moderation measures – without requiring fresh parliamentary approval.

The definition of “crisis” is deliberately broad, drawing on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and covering threats to welfare, security or public order. This builds directly on the informal narrative-shaping RICU has conducted for years, now also augmented by a new £115 million PoliceAI centre equipped with live facial recognition, predictive analytics and automated real-time content flagging.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss directly addressed the underlying dynamic. She stated that mass migration “is being weaponised to undermine Western civilisation.” Truss continued: “They want to undermine the family. They want to undermine the nation state. And people in Britain are saying ‘we’ve had enough of this.'”

She added that institutions have been corrupted by a DEI mentality focused on group outcomes rather than equal treatment under law, with the response being suppression of discussion and attacks on those highlighting the role of mass migration.

The through-line is clear. Legitimate public concern over policy outcomes – crime rates, community cohesion, strained services – is reframed as dangerous extremism requiring state-managed behavioural change. Protesters become “thugs.” Family grief is shaped into generic calls for calm that emphasise migrant contributions.

Online speech is monitored and throttled. Cultural touchstones are recast as radicalisation risks when they appear on the “wrong” side of the narrative. Now “crisis” declarations provide the trigger to accelerate these controls with regulator muscle and AI tools.

This apparatus operates with minimal transparency and little accountability to elected representatives or the public whose taxes fund it. Critics inside Whitehall have described it as out of control. Its expansion from countering Al Qaeda propaganda into domestic speech management on immigration – and now into codified crisis powers – represents a fundamental shift toward treating British citizens’ unfiltered reactions as the primary threat.

Britain faces real pressures from decades of rapid demographic change and enforcement failures. Honest examination of those pressures does not equate to hatred. Suppressing that examination through coordinated narrative control only deepens distrust and guarantees that underlying problems fester.

Citizens retain the right to discuss the impacts of policy without state operatives scripting responses or directing police to rebrand dissent.

The revelations about RICU and the accelerating “Ministry of Truth” machinery confirm what many already sensed: the tools built for one set of emergencies have been turned inward to protect another set of political choices.

Restoring open debate and accountability requires dismantling these layers of managed perception and returning to straightforward governance that prioritises the security and cohesion of the existing population.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 05:00

EU Auto Giants Call For ‘Made In Europe’ Incentives Amid Rising Chinese Competition

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EU Auto Giants Call For ‘Made In Europe’ Incentives Amid Rising Chinese Competition

Europe’s largest automakers are stepping up efforts to secure stronger support for domestic vehicle manufacturing as competition from Chinese electric vehicle producers intensifies. Renault, Volkswagen, and Stellantis have jointly urged EU policymakers to introduce rules that more heavily reward cars developed and produced within Europe, according to FT.

The companies are advocating for a straightforward local content requirement under which vehicles sold as European would need to source the majority of their components from within the EU and closely associated European countries. They argue that industrial policy should encourage not only final assembly in Europe but also engineering, research, and product development activities.

FT writes that the proposal forms part of a broader European debate over how to rebuild industrial competitiveness while accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. The automakers are also seeking wider incentives for EVs manufactured in Europe, arguing that higher labor and energy costs put local producers at a disadvantage compared with rivals operating in lower cost regions.

Not all manufacturers support the plan. Several international carmakers have warned that a narrow definition of European content could exclude important suppliers and technology partners in countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. Critics argue that stricter sourcing requirements could raise compliance costs and ultimately increase vehicle prices for consumers.

Battery production remains one of the most challenging aspects of the strategy. European manufacturers continue to rely heavily on supply chains dominated by Chinese companies, and industry leaders have called for a more gradual timeline to localize battery manufacturing capacity within Europe.

The debate reflects a broader shift in the global automotive industry over the past two years. Chinese carmakers have rapidly expanded their presence in international markets, supported by strong domestic scale, advanced battery supply chains, and increasingly competitive technology. European manufacturers, meanwhile, have faced slowing EV demand, rising production costs, and growing pressure to protect domestic industry. As Chinese brands continue to gain market share, policymakers in Brussels are increasingly balancing free trade principles against concerns over industrial competitiveness, strategic supply chains, and long term economic security.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 04:15

Starmer To Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps, Including X, But Not Bluesky

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Starmer To Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps, Including X, But Not Bluesky

Authored by Toby Young via DailySceptic.org,

Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce sweeping reforms tomorrow banning under-16s from 10 major social media platforms, including X, but not the Left-wing platform Bluesky.

In addition, he will introduce daily curfews for 16 and 17 year-olds, going further than Australia’s restrictions. The Times has the story:

Teenagers will be banned from certain social media platforms and have their daily usage curbed under sweeping reforms to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday.

The ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed harmful to children, including chatbots and certain features on gaming apps.

Under-16s in Australia have been banned from using ten platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. It is understood that the UK will follow suit by raising the minimum age on social media to 16, from the average of 13, for the same ten sites.

Curfews for older teenagers will be introduced. Daily social media use will be restricted for 16 and 17 year-olds in a move designed to curb unhealthy late-night scrolling habits.

A Government source said: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.”

The reforms, which come two weeks after a public consultation on potential restrictions closed, will stop short of banning the messaging platform WhatsApp and apps considered to have educational value.

However, the government will go further than Australia and introduce restrictions on romantic or sexual chatbots after several legal cases involving the AI agents mimicking relationships and encouraging children to take their own lives.

Kanishka Narayan, the online safety minister, has said the government — which will also give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote — could block conversations between children and strangers on gaming platforms.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which was passed in April, gave ministers the ability to introduce measures to restrict harmful features on online services without needing to pass new laws.

It is not clear when the ban will come into force or how effectively the government will be able to enforce it.

The 10 social media apps under-16s will be banned from are:

  • X
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Snapchat
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Twitch
  • Kick
  • Threads

How could the Government have digested the 116,000 responses to its consultation about restricting social media access for children just two weeks after the consultation closed?

Hard not to agree with Ian Russell, the father of Molly, 14, who took her own life after viewing harmful content online, who has accused Starmer of “playing politics” by rushing out the ban.

Worth reading in full.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 03:30

‘Manufactured Story’: Hegseth Goes Off In CBS Interview On Crisis Of US Arms Stockpiles

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‘Manufactured Story’: Hegseth Goes Off In CBS Interview On Crisis Of US Arms Stockpiles

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth joined CBS’s Margaret Brennan on Sunday for an interview which quickly degenerated into a tense, finger-pointing segment over billions poured into the military-industrial complex, as well as foreign coffers, amid multiple global hotspots and a couple major war fronts – most notably Ukraine and the Middle East.

Brennan pressed Hegseth on the hollowed-out state of American arms stockpiles, invoking a recent plea from Ukraine for localized weapon production. “Let me ask you before you go about what is going on with US munitions and stockpiles here,” Brennan posed. “Ukraine’s President Zelensky was on this program a few weeks ago. He made a plea not just for more interceptors, but for the ability to produce them, for friendly governments to be able to produce patriots. Some Republican lawmakers support this idea. Do you?”

Hegseth pivoted immediately to ‘everything is fine’ talking points regarding American stockpiles… “Nobody makes better and more munitions than the United States of America, and we are open to co-production wherever we can,” Hegseth said. “And because of this administration, we’re supercharging our arsenal of freedom, building more, building faster, opening up the Pentagon, ripping through the Pentagon bureaucracy to force industry to move faster. So our stockpiles are strong, and it will only get stronger in the future.” Watch the tense and very testy exchange unfold below:

Brennan, however, wasn’t buying it. She pointed out the glaring disconnect between Hegseth’s rosy public relations script and the grim reality of what’s being reported among private defense contractors.

“There is a crisis with those stockpiles right now in private industry,” Brennan said. Hegseth snapped, interjecting, “That is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle!”

But the CBS host quickly reminded the US defense chief that his own prior under oath testimony contradicted this narrative. 

“You have testified to it in front of Congress,” Brennan said. “Ultimately our stockpiles are great and they only get stronger because of the way this president has,” Hegseth maintained. 

“You testified under oath that it would take years to rebuild those stockpiles,” Brennan emphasized.

“You don’t have to read back to me what I testified,” Hegseth shot back. “I speculated some munitions take more time than others. We’ve got lots of them, we’re building more than ever before. The Biden administration gave away hundreds of billions to Ukraine. And so President Trump had to refill, and he has, and we have in real time.”

When Brennan tried to pin him down on whether the Pentagon would actually grant Ukraine’s Zelensky’s wish for domestic Patriot missile production, she pressed…

“So the answer to Zelensky’s request is a no or a yes?” Brennan asked.

“Ultimately, we’ve worked with them, and Ukraine is buying munitions that Europe pays for,” Hegseth responded. It’s great to see Europe finally step up and pay for those.”

“OK, well, he was asking for the ability to produce, but I’ll leave it there,“ Brennan then concluded sarcastically.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 02:45

Major U-Turn: Swedish Parliament Abolishes Permanent Residence Visas For Migrants

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Major U-Turn: Swedish Parliament Abolishes Permanent Residence Visas For Migrants

Via Remix News,

The Swedish Parliament has officially passed a government bill to end permanent residence permits, which will offer a vastly stricter approach to the country’s immigration policy. Under the new legislation, the government “eliminates the possibility of granting permanent residence permits to asylum seekers” and other immigrant groups specified in the reform.

Set to take effect on July 12, the updated rules dictate that affected individuals will now only be eligible to receive temporary residence permits. However, those who currently hold valid permanent residence will keep their existing status and remain unaffected by the change.

While temporary permits have become standard practice in Sweden over recent years, this reform goes significantly further by preventing specific groups from converting those temporary stays into permanent ones. Through this measure, the Swedish Executive aims to tighten its oversight regarding the long-term status of foreigners within its borders.

This legislative shift takes place amid deep public and political concern over escalating violence tied to criminal networks and the cost of mass immigration. Recent data emerging from Scandinavia, specifically from the Danish Ministry of Finance and analyzed by the White Papers Policy Institute, showed that Scandinavian nations like Denmark and Sweden are spending billions on their migrant populations.

Austrian MEP Harald Vilimsky cites the data, which was complied by the White Papers Policy Institute:

“The financial consequences of mass immigration. The White Paper Policy Institute also refers to the costs for Somalis in this context and concludes that Sweden will spend approximately 117.3 billion euros on the 102,000 Somalis living in Sweden over the next 50 years,” the MEP wrote on X.

Security is also a top concern. For years, Sweden has grappled with rampant shootings, targeted gang retaliations, and turf wars driven by drug trafficking networks, many of them made up of individuals of immigrant origin. Of course, there is also the issue of gang rape, rape, and robberies, which are dominated by foreign offenders.

In some cases, lives have even been lost as gang violence spiraled out of control in many major cities. According to official police data published in May, “23 people outside these gangs have died and another 30 have been injured in shootings” linked to organized crime over the last three years. Law enforcement officials emphasize that these bystanders were not the intended targets but were rather caught in the crossfire by stray bullets, misidentified by attackers, or targeted simply due to their personal associations with gang members.

This newly approved immigration law aligns with a broader, multi-pronged crackdown targeting individuals connected to organized crime. Notably, the Swedish Migration Agency recently revoked the permanent residence permits of 11 individuals who maintained “strong connections with criminal networks and long stays outside the country.”

According to state authorities, these individuals were living abroad in nations such as “Iraq, Lebanon, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.” Stripped of their permanent Swedish residency, they have lost access to the national welfare system and now face severe restrictions regarding international travel within the Schengen zone and their ability to conduct business.

Despite these measures, there are still many anti-immigration critics of the current conservative coalition government. They argue it has done little to truly stem the tide of mass immigration and reverse the radical open borders policies that dominated Swedish society for many years.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/15/2026 – 02:00

Why Does America Have A ‘Diversity Visa’?

survivalnomics
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Why Does America Have A ‘Diversity Visa’?

Authored by White Papers Policy Institute and James Fulford via American Greatness,

The Diversity Lottery means you can receive immigrants from almost any of these countries on the watch list for human trafficking for the sole reason that “diversity is our greatest strength.”

Lucky you!

The Immigration Act of 1965 abolished the National Origins quotas of the 1924 Act, which had favored European immigrants. As a result, America has had a flood of non-European immigrants . . . and Europeans were, in effect, discriminated against for Visas.

In 1990, the late Teddy Kennedy instituted the “Diversity Visa Lottery” with the specific intention of allowing more Irish immigrants to the U.S.

Since then, it’s been a source of many overly diverse immigrants, some of whom were terrorists or mass murderers. Recently, the Trump administration paused it after a diverse guy from Portugal, Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente, killed two students and wounded nine other students at Brown University.

This is not the first time something like this has happened:

As Kristi Noem writes above:

In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people.

That was Uzbek bike path attacker Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, below:

An NBC report from October 31, 2017 said:

The 29-year-old man detained after a flatbed truck drove down a popular lower Manhattan bike path, killing at least 8 people and injuring more than a dozen more, has been identified as an Uzbek national living in New Jersey.

In a report like this, the words “Uzbek National” are, in effect, a euphemism for immigrant.

After it transpired that Saipov was an Uzbek immigrant here on the Diversity Visa, The New York Times found an Uzbek Rhodes Scholar (now at Stanford) to do an op-ed saying, as Steve Sailer blogged at the time:  “An Uzbek Explains Why the Zeroth Amendment Obligates USA to Have the Diversity Visa Lottery: ‘No Person Has a Greater Claim to the American Dream Than Any Other.’”

The November 2, 2017 op-ed by Machmud Makhmudov was titled “We Need the Diversity Visa Lottery,”  and I suppose by “we” Mr. Makhmudov means the citizens of the United States.

By the way, the fact that Makhmudov, now an American citizen, got a Rhodes Scholarship, which Cecil Rhodes intended “to promote unity among English-speaking nations,” is just one more example of high-skilled immigration displacing a better class of American.

At the time of the Uzbek mass killing, Steve Sailer pointed out that he’d called out the Diversity Visa as long ago as 2002 in an article for UPI: “Analysis: The Curious Immigration Lottery” (UPI, July 29, 2002).

Oddly enough, the diversity lottery originated as a way to bring more whites to the United States. White ethnic politicians in America felt that their distant relatives in Europe had been squeezed out by chain migration from the Third World. So, natives of the 14 largest sources of legal immigrants—such as Mexico, India and China—are banned from participating. In particular, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., saw a diversity lottery as a way to boost the number of legal Irish immigrants.

[Center for Immigrants Studies head Mark] Krikorian explained, “It was cooked up in the 1986 law to provide a way to amnesty Irish illegal aliens, since the main amnesty in that law primarily benefited Mexicans. In fact, to this day the lottery is often referred to by congressmen and their staff as ‘The Irish Program.’ But as the program evolved, and as there were fewer and fewer Irish illegals, its emphasis changed, and it’s now more accurately described as the Middle Eastern, East European and African program.”

Only 331 visas were awarded to Irish applicants this year.

But the reason Sailer was writing about this crazy visa in 2002 is because of another immigrant atrocity—when Hesham Mohamed Hedayet, below, shot up the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport.

The late Sam Francis wrote at the time:

If it’s proof of the sheer, homicidal insanity of American immigration policy you want, consider the case of the late Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, who achieved immortality of a kind when he shot and killed two people at Los Angeles International Airport last week on July 4. Mr. Hedayet may or may not have been a “terrorist,” actually connected to some formal terrorist organization. But he certainly was an immigrant.

Mr. Hedayet, himself shot down by an El Al security guard after he began blasting by-standers at the El Al ticketing area on Independence Day, was in this country legally, through the grace of a program known as 245(i), which is supposed to let in aliens who meet certain work qualifications and which both President Bush and a bipartisan coalition of the Open Borders lobby have been trying to expand. But the only way that Mr. Hedayet was even able to apply for legal status under 245(i) is that his wife won a lottery.

The lottery in question awards a green card, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s ticket of legal immigration status, on the basis of “diversity” to some 55,000 foreigners every year. Once she got her green card and became legal, then her husband could apply for legal residency himself under 245(i) and stay here if he paid a fine of $1,000.

Welcome to America in the 21st century. [More]

It’s now America in the second quarter of the 21st century, and it’s finally time, with the Trump administration firmly in control, to just stop doing this. While Trump can simply refuse to issue refugee visas, as head of the Executive Branch, the Diversity Visa Lottery is a congressionally mandated program, and needs to be repealed by Congress. One avenue for this would be the Assimilation Act, of which we wrote last week, whose

structure and provisions align closely with core America First priorities: it ends exponential family-chain migration, eliminates the anti-assimilation diversity lottery, imposes a national-interest gate that includes cultural considerations, and raises concrete assimilation and self-sufficiency bars. The Assimilation Act represents the strongest congressional attempt in generations to halt mass immigration and to replace it with an immigration system focused upon quality and cultural compatibility.

There are other options for repeal. The America First Policy Institute wrote in February that:

After 30 years, the Diversity Visa Program does not advance America’s national interest, nor was it ever designed to do so. Indeed, sold under the guise of “diversity,” the program was unabashedly designed to import less-educated, low-skilled workers of Irish descent to appease the constituencies of Northeast politicians. The program has been riddled with fraud from its inception, making security checks and eligibility determinations unreliable. Additionally, lax rules that fail to address the dangers posed by state sponsors of terrorism and other terrorist groups present significant national security concerns.

The Trump administration has rightfully paused the Diversity Visa Program in the wake of the shooting at Brown University. America’s immigration programs should not be designed based on the ease with which foreign nationals can use (or abuse) them. Instead, such programs should place the interests of Americans first. It is time that Congress ends the DV Program and replaces it with a program that promotes merit-based immigration, where individuals are selected to come to the United States based on education, skill, self-sufficiency, and ability to contribute to our economy and society.

Thirty-plus years of “diversity” is enough.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/14/2026 – 23:20

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