For the fifth straight week, the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time was less than 200k (199k)…

That is the longest streak below that level since 1969! (And remember, the labor force then was a fraction of what it is now).

Interestingly, Ohio, Tennessee, and California saw a rise in unadjusted claims last week…

Continuing claims remains low too – holding around 1.7 million Americans – the lowest level since March 2023…

However, as we noted last week, payrolls tell the other half of the story. September nonfarm payrolls came in at just +29k (with prior months revised down), well below the already modest recent trend. Net employment change is simply hires minus separations. When separations are that low but the net number is mediocre, hiring itself must have slowed substantially.

So the market has cooled mainly through reduced hiring rather than rising firings. That keeps the unemployment rate relatively contained (4.2% in September) even as it becomes harder for job seekers, switchers, and new entrants to land roles. 

Economists (including various Fed research notes) have been describing this as a stable-but-fragile equilibrium for a while: low layoffs prop things up, but the low hiring rate leaves little cushion if demand weakens further or a shock forces companies to start cutting.

It’s also consistent with slower labor-force growth from demographics and reduced immigration – fewer people needing to be absorbed means weaker payroll growth can still leave unemployment from rising sharply.

The bottom line is simple: the ‘low-hire, lowest-fire’ economy continues to roll along with no obvious signs of AI’s productivity surge (or replacement projections).

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

Eight states filed lawsuits against OpenAI Oct. 14, claiming the company’s ChatGPT app harms children, deceives parents, and violates state consumer fraud laws.

The states – Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, and Arizona – individually filed lawsuits in their states, alleging the chatbot was giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide while pretending to be a friend.

“We will not just accept that any big tech company can make money by hurting Iowa’s kids and use them as lab rats in a race to be the first, or the biggest, or have the most users,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told reporters Wednesday during a news conference on the lawsuits.

Chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly popular with teens. Almost two-thirds – 64 percent – of teens ages 13 to 17 reported using chatbots, with about 30 percent using them every day, according to a report published in December 2025 by Pew Research Center.

ChatGPT is by far the most popular among teens and favored by 59 percent of them, the survey found.

The lawsuits filed Wednesday claim ChatGPT is marketed by OpenAI as a safe product but, in reality, it is designed to be dangerous to vulnerable users, like children, and coaches them to commit suicide or to harm other people.

The states are asking the courts to compel OpenAI to comply with state consumer fraud laws, which prohibit deceptive business practices.

OpenAI responded to the filing of lawsuits, saying the company has implemented several safety measures and is continuing to work to build more safeguards.

“We’ve built industry-leading, age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack,” OpenAI’s spokesman Eric Porterfield told The Epoch Times in an email. “While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today.”

The company is committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry, according to Porterfield.

OpenAI claims its chatbot is intended for users age 13 and older. Users under 18 need permission from a parent or guardian to use it.

ChatGPT for Teens applies default safeguards for users under 18, OpenAI claims. Teens can manage and delete their chats and history, and control whether their conversations are used by the company to train models.

The company claims 90 percent of its teen ChatGPT users only use it for learning, skill-building, or productivity. Half of the teens who use it for conversations take breaks when they are given a break reminder, according to OpenAI.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said the states moved ahead with lawsuits instead of waiting for Congress to set federal guidelines.

“We’re in a world right now where the AI companies – and in this case OpenAI – are asked to police themselves,” said Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach during Wednesday’s press conference. “And as our cases allege, they’ve done a very poor job of policing themselves and have placed the public in danger.”

Florida became the first state to file a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in June, alleging its chatbot concealed serious risks, suppressed internal safety warnings, and deceived Floridians.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI in April after ChatGPT gave detailed advice to a suspected shooter who allegedly used it in a deadly campus shooting at Florida State University last year.

BofA’s omniscient analysts expected a hotter than expected retail sales print this morning (but it came with a warning as they start to see some substitution effects as rising gasoline spend is wearing on discretionary purchases).

Once again, BofA was right, with headline Retail Sales surging 0.8% MoM (+0.3% exp), lifting sales up by 6.3% YoY…

Spending at gasoline stations soared…

Eight out of 13 categories posted increases, led by a 6.4% increase in the value of purchases at gas stations. While consumers pulled back on spending on things like hobbies and building materials, sales at furniture retailers, electronics stores and restaurants increased.

This was not good for GDP as the so-called control-group sales – which feed into the government’s calculation of goods spending for gross domestic product – increased just 0.1% after surging the prior month. The measure excludes food services, auto dealers, building materials stores and gasoline stations.

The figures indicate consumers took a breather as the third quarter drew to a close and price pressures mounted. Faster inflation is taking a bigger toll on Americans’ paychecks and squeezing their budgets.

And BofA’s data appears to confirm that spending at the pump is squeezing spending elsewhere…

The AAA national average price of gasoline has stayed above the politically sensitive $ 4-per-gallon level for the last three months. Diesel has been above $5 over the same period and is flirting with a record high amid a global refining crisis. As we’ve outlined using high-frequency data, high fuel prices affect consumer behavior and spending patterns at convenience stores and gas stations. 

The latest comes from UBS analyst Ritu Solanki, who wrote in a brief note on Wednesday about US bank earnings that delivered an inconvenient message for those hoping for a recession: the economy remains resilient, but inflationary pressures persist.

Solanki said consumer spending, loan growth, and corporate activity remain healthy, while credit performance shows limited evidence of broad deterioration.

Solanki then cited Bank of America spending data for September showing consumers are spending more on fuel with credit and debit cards, up more than 20%. The risk is that rising fuel bills are crowding out other purchases. 

BAC’s card data show accelerating fuel spending alongside softening spending across several other major categories, suggesting higher pump costs are pinching household budgets.

Total card spending per household rose about .2% in the month, slowing from 1% in August, on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis. Meanwhile, gas spending jumped 5%, up from 3.1% in August. 

Several categories contracted in September:

• Home improvement: 1.6%
• Department stores: 1.1%
• Clothing: .9%
• Furniture: .5%
• Restaurants: .4%
• Groceries: .2%
• Online spending: .1%

The spending data suggest that fuel bills are squeezing room for other purchases, translating into dismal consumer sentiment ahead of the midterm elections. 

Is it really as bad for the American consumer as it has ever been?

Chief executives at Domino’s Pizza and Albertsons acknowledged in recent earnings calls that many consumers remain in a challenging economic environment. Even so, Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have also signaled that the consumer remains resilient.

Piper Sandler’s latest Teen Survey of nearly 9,000 respondents offers an early read on energy drink preferences among younger consumers.

Analyst Michael Lavery highlighted Monster’s growing appeal, noting that the brand is gaining share and leading rivals in consumers’ intentions to increase consumption.

“Teens report highest consumption increase intent for Monster,” Lavery wrote in the note published earlier today.

He continued:

We asked teens whether they intend to drink more or less of their favorite energy drink brands in the next six months; 20% plan to drink more while 49% plan to drink the same amount and 32% plan to drink less (though reduction intentions often do not actually occur).

Teens plan to drink more Monster (23%), than Alani Nu (20%), Red Bull (18%), and Celsius (16%).

The survey of roughly 8,935 teens showed Monster retaining second place among their preferred energy drink brands, behind Red Bull. Its share of mentions rose about .6 percentage points from a year earlier, reaching about 28%, broadly in line with its 27% share of measured US retail sales.

The results stand in sharp contrast with Celsius, which dropped from fourth to sixth and lost about 5.55 percentage points of preference share. Alani Nu remained third but also lost momentum among young consumers. 

Monster consumption is heavily skewed toward males: about 75% of teens who selected it as their favorite energy drink were boys. Alani Nu’s following was mostly female, highlighting how differently the brands compete for younger consumers.

Other fun facts from the survey:

Energy drinks top soda and coffee for source of energy among young consumers.

Maybe the youngsters need some Hooked on Phonics …

Monster’s growing advantage over Celsius is showing up in stock performance this year.

Celsius is down 41% year-to-date, while Monster is up solidly at around 14.3%.

Authored by Robert Rapier via OilPrice.com,

• Diesel has generally cost more than gasoline since 2004 due to higher production costs, taxes, and global demand.

• Global refinery disruptions, export restrictions, and low inventories have widened the diesel price premium in 2026.

• Strong US crude production and refinery output cannot fully offset global diesel supply shortages.

There was a time when diesel fuel was usually cheaper than gasoline in the United States. That relationship began to change about 20 years ago, and since then diesel has generally traded at a premium. Today, that premium is not just persistent but unusually large, which raises an obvious question: how did we get from gasoline typically costing more than diesel to diesel costing substantially more than gasoline?

The answer has two parts.

The first is structural and goes back to the mid-2000s, when changes in fuel specifications, taxes, refining economics, and global demand fundamentally altered the relationship between gasoline and diesel prices.

The second is more immediate. In 2026, refinery disruptions, geopolitical conflicts, low inventories, and reduced exports from major suppliers have pushed the global diesel market into an unusually tight position. Understanding the difference between those long-term and short-term forces explains both why diesel usually costs more and why the gap is so large right now.

Diesel Was Once The Cheaper Fuel

Before the mid-2000s, diesel was often cheaper than regular gasoline in the United States. There were exceptions, particularly during cold winters when heating-oil demand strengthened, but the longer-term pattern generally favored diesel. That began to change around 2004, and according to the Energy Information Administration, on-highway diesel prices have been higher than regular gasoline prices almost continuously since September of that year.

That shift is clearly visible in the historical data I examined in my 2023 article on the subject. In the decade before 2005, gasoline generally traded at a small premium to diesel. After that, the relationship reversed, and diesel became the more expensive fuel in most years. The timing is important because it coincided with a major change in the way U.S. refiners had to produce highway diesel.

Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel Changed The Economics

Beginning in the mid-2000s, U.S. refiners had to dramatically reduce the sulfur content of highway diesel. That was an important environmental improvement because sulfur emissions contribute to air pollution and acid rain, but it also made diesel more expensive to produce. Refineries invested billions of dollars in new hydrotreating and sulfur-removal equipment, and those investments increased capital and operating costs and made compliant diesel more expensive to produce and distribute.

My earlier article focused heavily on this transition because the timing lines up closely with the point at which diesel’s historical discount disappeared. EIA now describes the persistent diesel premium as the result of several factors working together, including strong global demand for diesel and other distillates, the higher cost of producing low-sulfur diesel, and federal taxes that are six cents per gallon higher on diesel than on gasoline.

None of those factors explains every short-term price movement, but together they created a structural premium that had not existed to the same degree before 2004. Once diesel became more expensive to produce and more tightly linked to global distillate markets, the old relationship with gasoline never really returned.

Diesel Became A Global Commodity

Another important change has been the globalization of the diesel market. Gasoline is also traded internationally, but diesel and other middle distillates occupy an especially important role in the global economy because they power trucking, agriculture, construction, mining, shipping, industrial equipment, and heating systems. Strong demand in Europe, China, India, and the United States has kept pressure on global distillate balances for years.

That means U.S. diesel prices are increasingly influenced by events far beyond U.S. borders. Even when domestic production is strong, refiners can export diesel into higher-priced international markets, tying domestic prices more closely to global supply and demand. This is one reason it is misleading to look only at U.S. crude oil production and assume that abundant domestic oil should automatically translate into cheap diesel.

The United States can produce plenty of crude while still facing tight supplies of refined products. Crude oil has to be processed in the right refineries, into the right products, and then moved through the right transportation system. Those constraints matter just as much as the amount of oil coming out of the ground.

2022 Showed How Quickly The Premium Can Explode

The most dramatic recent example came in 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted global energy markets. Diesel was hit particularly hard. Russia was a major supplier of crude oil, refined products, and feedstocks to Europe and other markets, so sanctions and trade restrictions forced a rapid reshuffling of global flows. Gasoline prices rose sharply as well, but diesel supplies tightened even more, pushing the diesel premium to record levels.

In my earlier article, I noted that the gasoline-diesel spread reached a record in 2022. At the time, the disruption from Russia explained why a structural premium suddenly became an extreme one. The market eventually adjusted as trade routes shifted, refinery operations stabilized, and inventories recovered, but that normalization did not last.

Why The Gap Is So Large Again In 2026

The current situation resembles 2022 in one important respect: global diesel supply has again been disrupted more severely than gasoline supply. EIA recently reported that global distillate supplies are tight because of reduced refining activity in Russia, China, and the Middle East. At the same time, U.S. refiners have been running near maximum utilization, with domestic distillate production averaging about 5.1 million barrels per day through August, the highest level since 2019.

That point is worth emphasizing because it shows that the current problem is not simply a collapse in U.S. refinery output. American refiners are producing large volumes of diesel, but global demand for those barrels has increased at the same time that supplies elsewhere have fallen. As exports increased, U.S. inventories declined, and by mid-September distillate inventories were about 13% below the five-year seasonal average even though summer is normally a period when inventories build ahead of winter.

Since then, the global situation has become even tighter. Russia has restricted diesel exports as refinery infrastructure has been damaged, China has curtailed fuel exports to protect domestic supplies, and Middle Eastern refining and shipping have been disrupted by the conflict involving Iran. Tanker costs and insurance rates have also risen, making it more expensive to move refined products around the world.

The result is a global scramble for middle distillates. Both gasoline and diesel are affected by higher crude prices, but diesel is being squeezed more severely because the product itself is in shorter supply relative to demand. That is why the diesel-gasoline spread has widened so dramatically.

The Price Gap Is Now Extraordinary

As of October 5, the national average price of on-highway diesel was $6.199 per gallon, compared with $4.354 for regular gasoline – a spread of about $1.85 per gallon. Diesel reached a nominal record of $6.29 per gallon in September, according to EIA, and remained above $6 nationally in early October.

That gap is not primarily the result of a sudden increase in diesel taxes or some new change in fuel specifications. Those structural factors help explain why diesel usually costs more than gasoline, but they do not explain why the premium is so large today. The current premium reflects a very tight global distillate market layered on top of the long-term changes that already made diesel the more expensive fuel.

That distinction is important because it separates the underlying reason diesel normally carries a premium from the temporary forces that can cause that premium to explode.

Refining Margins Are A Consequence, Not A Cause

Refining margins have risen sharply, and major refiners are benefiting from the tight market. But those high margins are a consequence of constrained diesel supply relative to demand rather than the original cause of the shortage.

When refinery capacity is disrupted, exports are curtailed, and inventories fall, the value of the remaining barrels rises. Refiners that can continue producing diesel benefit from that scarcity, but the scarcity comes first. This distinction is important because high margins are sometimes cited as evidence that refiners decided to raise prices, when in reality the margin expansion is largely the market’s response to a shortage of refined product.

Diesel Is A Different Market Than Gasoline

The broader lesson is that gasoline and diesel may come from the same barrel of crude oil, but they are not interchangeable products. They serve different markets, have different seasonal demand patterns, require different processing, and face different global supply pressures. A refinery cannot simply turn every barrel of crude into whichever product happens to be most expensive that day because refinery configuration, crude quality, product specifications, and physical operating limits all constrain what can be produced.

That is why abundant crude oil does not guarantee cheap diesel. The United States can produce record amounts of oil, run refineries near capacity, and still face expensive diesel if global product markets remain tight.

Twenty years ago, gasoline was often the more expensive fuel. Then diesel moved to a structural premium, and today that premium has widened dramatically because the global market for diesel and other middle distillates is again under severe strain. Until those supply constraints ease, diesel is likely to remain much more expensive than gasoline.

Brussels appears increasingly aligned with the Trump administration’s view that securing reliable, conflict-free supplies of critical materials is important for the incoming rearmament supercycle. Continued reliance on China exposes Western defense manufacturers to export restrictions that have already disrupted supply chains and could delay deliveries. 

Reuters cites internal EU documents dated June 2026 that identified Vietnam as a potential source of critical materials outside China.

“Considering Europe’s need to rearm and de-risk as fast as possible, the EU cannot afford ignoring Vietnam as a potential supplier of critical raw materials considering its abundant reserves in rare earth and tungsten in particular,” the document stated which was prepared by the EU delegation in Hanoi.

The push comes as Chinese export restrictions collide with the West’s rearmament supercycle next year, exposing alarming vulnerabilities in the supply chains needed to manufacture missiles, ammunition, armored vehicles, one-way attack drones, interceptors, sensors, and other military equipment.

The West is quickly learning that bigger and bigger defense budgets alone cannot solve the critical material shortage and there is high urgency in securing alternative supply chains.

Vietnam holds substantial deposits of tungsten, rare earths, and other critical minerals, but its exports to Europe have largely been limited to tungsten and antimony, both of which are used to manufacture weapons.

The document noted that China’s restrictions on critical material exports last year disrupted European supply chains, strengthening the case for exploring alternative sources.

It called for stronger relations with Vietnam to “add an alternative to China,” especially after Beijing’s export restrictions last year “disrupted European supply chains.”

“The European Commission is currently assessing the potential for concrete cooperation with Vietnam in the critical raw materials sector,” a spokesperson for the EU executive arm told the outlet.

Adrien Rabier, Bernstein’s equity analyst covering European aerospace and defense, outlined to clients last month that Europe’s rearmament supercycle will begin next year and extend through the end of the decade. 

Our reporting has pointed out that the next phase of the critical materials trade will favor miners already producing and delivering these materials to Western markets. 

This comes as resource nationalism intensifies across critical minerals, metals, energy, adding to uncertainty as the world heads into a potentially volatile winter.

The VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF (REMX), which tracks global companies that produce, refine, and recycle critical minerals, peaked in May and lost nearly half its value by early fall.

REMX’s decline appears to be a retracement of the rally in 2025 and early 2026 that followed China’s export restrictions. Once the space bottoms, traders will likely focus on miners that can reliably deliver conflict-free materials to the West. These materials are critical not only to the rearmament cycle but also to AI data centers, reindustrialization, electrification, and the broader modern economy.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Oxford University has advised its staff to avoid common English idioms such as “learn the ropes” and “find your feet,” on the grounds that they may confuse international students or that they perpetuate negative stereotypes.

The guidance appears in the university’s official style guide, which also recommends replacing gendered terms and softer language around socioeconomic status, prompting criticism from free speech groups that Oxford is prioritising sensitivity over cultural immersion.

The style guide tells writers to favour “plain English” and cautions: “Be mindful of idioms that may not be familiar to international readers or that may use stereotypes. Use common words, short sentences and familiar constructions.”

Oxford University guide ditches traditional British phrases in favour of ‘inclusive’ language for foreign students https://t.co/K3S44IcKQe

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 12, 2026

Specific alternatives are offered: “learn the ropes” becomes “learn how to do that,” “find your feet” becomes “getting used to their new environment,” and “blindspots” becomes “gaps in knowledge.”

Gendered words face similar treatment. “Spokesman,” “chairwoman,” and “mankind” are to be swapped for “spokesperson,” “chair,” and “humankind.”

Staff are also advised to use “they/them” rather than alternating “he” and “she,” to describe “deprived” students as “lower income” or as having experienced “socioeconomic disadvantage,” and to prefer “gay” over “homosexual” (except in legal or medical contexts) and “older people” over “the elderly.”

Around a third of Oxford’s students are international, including a fifth of undergraduates. The university has become increasingly dependent on higher fees from overseas students as domestic funding pressures grow.

An Oxford spokesman said: “Like many large organisations, including newspapers, Oxford University has a style guide to help staff write clearly and consistently. As a global university with staff and students from around the world, we write for a wide international audience. The guide provides practical advice for written University communications, from punctuation to choosing language that readers will readily understand. Its writing guidance is advisory and supports staff in exercising their own judgement about the language they use and the audience they are writing for.”

Lord Young of the Free Speech Union rejected the premise. “Surely, one of the reasons international students come to Oxford is so that they can immerse themselves in our culture and master colloquial English,” he said. “What’s next? Is Oxford going to insist all lectures have to be in Esperanto?”

The episode fits a wider pattern of language policing across British higher education and politics. Cambridge University has previously argued that free speech should be restricted in certain circumstances.

Other institutions have declared the term “ethnic minority” itself offensive.

UK students have been ordered to undertake white privilege training.

The government has urged schools to report “anti-Muslim hostility.”

The Green Party has called for the words “mother” and “father” to be erased in favour of more inclusive alternatives.

These measures arrive as universities face financial strain and recruit more heavily from overseas. Critics argue the result is a slow dilution of the very cultural and linguistic distinctiveness that draws international students in the first place.

Learning everyday English, including its idioms, is part of mastering the language rather than an obstacle to be removed. Treating common British phrases as potentially confusing or stereotypical places the burden of adaptation on the host culture instead of on those who choose to study within it.

The style guide is presented as advisory. In practice, such documents shape institutional expectations and signal which forms of expression are considered acceptable. Free speech advocates note that once everyday language is flagged as risky, the scope of self-censorship expands.

Oxford’s response emphasises clarity for a global audience. Lord Young’s reply highlights the opposite priority: that international students benefit from encountering the language and culture as it is used.

British universities remain among the world’s leading institutions. Their reputation rests on rigorous standards and open inquiry, not on rewriting ordinary English and instituting Orwellian Newspeak to minimise every possible misunderstanding.

Treating common idioms as problems to be solved by avoidance rather than explanation reverses the traditional purpose of a world-class university. Students who arrive at Oxford should leave more fluent in the language and more familiar with the culture, not less exposed to either.

The climate change industry (and yes, it is an industry) generates approximately $18 billion globally for NGOs, and a big part of that cash flow is the relatively new agenda of “Climate Justice”.  This is the melding of the global warming fraud and the social justice fraud into one very big and very lucrative mega-fraud.  

Climate Justice is simply another strategy for attacking western economies and free market enterprise, using the accusation that the west is “creating environmental crisis” which developing nations then suffer for.  In other words, it is repeating the false claim that the wealth of the west is built on the suffering of the third world.  If it weren’t for the US, Europe and other developed nations, the third world would be rich and prosperous and peaceful and a multicultural Utopia would flourish.   

The end game of this narrative, of course, would be the eventual dismantling of western economies in the name redistributing the wealth, stopping global warming and “saving the world.”  It’s all a fantasy, but we’ll get to that in a moment…

One NGO with extensive ties to the climate agenda is called Plan International, an organization focused on children’s rights, specifically the equality of girls and gender-based violence.  Sure sounds like a righteous cause, but the veneer is deceiving.  

According to a recent story by French news outlet Le Parisien, Plan International has released their shocking annual State of the World’s Girls 2026 report, and they assert that climate change is contributing to a sharp increase in child marriages in third world countries. 

The report combines analysis of health and climate data across more than 50 countries over three decades with a survey of 5,000 girls and young women aged 15–24 in Bangladesh, Kenya, Peru, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, plus interviews and focus groups.  At least 36% of respondents observed more child marriages or early unions in their communities after climate-related shocks; about 11% said they had personally experienced one. 

Girls as young as 10 years old can be married off in these culture, even when national laws forbid the practice. Poverty supposedly compels these marriages, because families need to reduce the number of mouths to feed.  Also, the younger the bride, the more in “Bride Price” (payment) the family might receive in some cultures.

The survey attempts to link “climate change to destructive weather events, the weather events to a rise in poverty, and poverty to rising child marriages.  It’s quite a stretch, but it gets worse.  The NGO also attempts to link climate change to sexual assault and increased violence against women.  

And of course, the “Climate Justice” position implies that the women in these countries are facing such violence and exploitation because of the actions of first world economies.

In their COP policy briefs (COP26, COP27, COP28 and others), Plan International states that “early industrialization, colonization, and wealth inequality means that developed countries contribute to global emissions significantly more than others.  They call on countries with “the greatest historical and current responsibility” to raise emissions-reduction ambition and increase climate finance (more money for the NGOs).  

Plan International presents itself as a humanitarian org focused on protecting girls and women, but they have deep ties to the climate change industry through the UN and other NGOs.  For example, they receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the original globalist institutions behind the creation of the climate change narrative in the 1970s. 

As we have shown many times int eh past, there is zero concrete evidence supporting global warming theory.  In fact, the data shows no relationship between human industry and changes in temperatures and weather.  For starters, groups like Plan International use climate data from the past few decades.  The vast majority of climate science uses temp records from the 1880s onward.  None of them acknowledge climate data from longer timelines.

The Earth’s weather history is vast, and temperatures have been much hotter than they are today.  Modern temps are some of the coolest in the past 400 million years.  There was no human related carbon emissions back then; the temps fluctuated dramatically anyway.

Furthermore, when matching the carbon content record to the temperature record over this time period, there is no match whatsoever.  In other words, carbon emissions have nothing to do with rising or falling temperatures.  

By extension, there is no indication that current weather patterns are affected by human industry either.  In Bangladesh, for example, flooding is the primary weather related disaster, and there is no evidence of a significant change in the frequency of flooding in the region from 50 to 100 years ago.  The weather changes according to the long cycles of the Earth.  The economic successes of the west have no bearing at all on the suffering of the third world. 

Maybe don’t build your village in a desert or a flood plain. 

As for the child marriage problem, these cultures have been engaging in this behavior for thousands of years.  If anything, the west has contributed to a steep decline in these kinds of barbaric practices.  What was the scapegoat for third world nations prior to the fabrication of the climate change crisis?  

The lesson here is to beware of NGOs and the causes they claim to champion.  They have a tendency to hide their true intentions behind otherwise noble pursuits.  

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Russia still has time to propose Ukrainian-like security guarantees for averting another special operation…

Politico recently published a piece about how “France and Turkey block NATO’s drive to deepen ties with Caucasus countries“, not because they’re opposed to it in principle, but due to Turkiye blocking the renewal of Armenia’s partnership plan after France declined to approve Azerbaijan’s. France and Azerbaijan have long been at odds over Paris’ support of Armenia, particularly in the context of the Karabakh Conflict, and recently over Azerbaijan’s detention of French citizens (who were later released).

Per Politico, “The delay has forced NATO to temporarily extend Armenia and Azerbaijan’s outdated partnerships despite negotiations on the new plans being near-finalized, three of the diplomats said. The new plans would allow their participation in joint military exercises, boost military-to-military training and intensify cultural cooperation all the way down to setting up local English-language lessons, they added.” Joint NATO drills might be held on the Caspian coast with Azerbaijan upon its plan’s approval.

None of this is surprising to astute observers. August 2025’s “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP) has the unstated dual purpose of a NATO military logistics corridor to the Caspian Sea and thenceforth to Central Asia. TRIPP is therefore the means through which NATO aims to contain Russia along the southern flank of the new “cordon sanitaire” that Trump 2.0 assembled around it. Azerbaijan poses a Ukrainian-like challenge to Russia by functioning as TRIPP’s irreplaceable transit state.

If Azerbaijan cooperated with Russia to ensure that TRIPP wouldn’t be exploited for military purposes, then there wouldn’t be any problem, but Baku has no such interests and has instead thrown its weight behind the West. In point of fact, President Ilham Aliyev announced last November that his country’s armed forces have completed the conformation to NATO standards, and their naval drones could threaten Russia’s Caspian Fleet in crisis scenarios just like Ukraine’s currently threaten its Black Sea one.

Azerbaijan is also on pace to further integrate its economy with the EU’s. Not only is it helping the bloc replace Russian energy, but it’s also going to facilitate their trade with Central Asia, to which end European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last month that “we will aim to crowd in up to €12 billion in public and private investment” in regional logistics along what’s known as the “Middle Corridor“. All of this tightens the containment noose around Russia’s southern flank.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested last month that his people are sometimes optimistic to the point of implied naivete and also tend not to proactively address latent crises. With the deepest of respect for those of them who are responsible for formulating its policies, that arguably appears to be the case regarding the threat that TRIPP poses to Russia. That’s not to imply that Russia should wage a preventive war against Azerbaijan, just that it should urgently wise up to the threats coming from it.

Looking forward, just like NATO’s de facto expansion to the Caspian Sea is inevitable, so too is it inevitable that Russia’s threat perception towards Azerbaijan will intensify. The sooner, the better, since Russia still has time to propose Ukrainian-like security guarantees for averting another special operation. In this context, they could concern Azerbaijan agreeing to Russian inspections of TRIPP’s cargo and not allowing any joint NATO drills on its territory, but Aliyev might not assent unless Putin presses him a bit.

Four years after the largest act of infrastructure sabotage in postwar Europe, Germany finally has a defendant. Just one.

Serhii Kuznietsov, a 50-year-old former Ukrainian army officer, went on trial Wednesday at the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, accused of leading the seven-person team that blew up three of the four Nord Stream lines on September 26, 2022. Prosecutors charge him as a co-perpetrator of a war crime, namely an attack on civilian objects, along with causing an explosion, destroying structures and disrupting public utilities. Around 30 hearing days are scheduled, running into February.

The prosecution’s version is about as cinematic as it gets: a crew of four professional divers, an explosives expert and a skipper set out from Rostock on the chartered yacht Andromeda, rented through intermediaries with forged identity papers, and planted devices packed with HMX and RDX at roughly 80 meters near the Danish island of Bornholm. Kuznietsov, a former SBU officer, allegedly ran the show from the deck. German investigators also say he incriminated himself by chatting about the operation with friends and relatives while in Italian custody, which in hindsight may not have been the best use of his phone privileges.

Most notable, however, is who Berlin says was behind it. The federal prosecutor’s indictment states plainly that Kuznietsov and fellow servicemen were acting on behalf of Ukrainian state authorities, with the aim of permanently halting gas flows and cutting off Russia’s revenue to fund the war. In other words, Germany is prosecuting an ally’s officer for an operation it says the ally’s state ordered, against German energy infrastructure, while continuing to bankroll that same ally. Kyiv, for its part, maintains it had nothing to do with it; Ukraine’s prosecutor general said in July it had found “no evidence” of state involvement. Awkwardly, Ukraine’s own human rights ombudsman had already confirmed to an Italian court that Kuznietsov was serving in the armed forces at the time.

On day one, the defense declined to let Kuznietsov speak and moved to dismiss all charges. His lawyers argued that war crimes prosecutions would be better aimed at Russian forces (citing Bucha and the deportation of Ukrainian children), that his fingerprints were never found on the yacht, and that no witness placed him aboard. His Ukrainian counsel go further, arguing the pipelines were a legitimate military target regardless of who hit them. The court has already rejected his claim to combatant immunity, ruling that it does not cover covert operations in which soldiers cannot be distinguished from civilians. The BBC reports the defense plans to submit written testimony from two of his former commanders, one of them reportedly the alleged mastermind of the entire operation, which should make for an interesting exhibit.

Then there is the matter of who wants a seat at the table. Gazprom-owned Nord Stream 2 AG has applied to join the case as a co-plaintiff, and Kuznietsov’s Ukrainian lawyers warn that a conviction could hand Moscow a legal basis to claim compensation, potentially from the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets that Europe has been trying to earmark for Kyiv. A guilty verdict, then, could put Brussels in the unusual position of having established a Russian damages claim against money it already promised to Ukraine.

The diver who keeps getting away

Kuznietsov is the only person currently on trial because Germany’s second suspect keeps slipping through European courts. Volodymyr Zhuravliov, the alleged diver, was arrested in Poland in September 2025, only for a Warsaw court to refuse extradition a month later, ruling the act had been committed in the context of Russia’s war. Prime Minister Donald Tusk was blunter, saying handing him over would go against Poland’s interests and that those who built Nord Stream 2 “should be ashamed and remain silent.”

Germany, whose energy costs have exploded – no pun intended – after the pipeline sabotage, and refuses to be ashamed or silent now that its entire manufacturing sector is imploding as a result, tried again in August when Croatian police picked up Zhuravliov in Pula, where he was reportedly working on, of all things, a Hollywood dramatization of the Nord Stream attack. Berlin upgraded its warrant to include the war crime charge, and on September 18 a Pula court approved extradition. His lawyers are appealing to Croatia’s high criminal court and say they will go to international bodies if needed, so his arrival in Hamburg is anything but assured. According to ARD, investigators have identified seven suspects in total, one of whom has since been killed fighting Russia.

The question nobody in Hamburg will ask

The trial also formally enshrines the “six guys on a sailboat” thesis that first surfaced in March 2023 and was fleshed out by the WSJ in August 2024, when the Journal reported that Zelensky initially approved the plan before calling it off at the CIA’s request, only for then-commander Valery Zaluzhny to proceed anyway. Zaluzhny, now ambassador in London, called it a provocation. The court is unlikely to spend much time on Seymour Hersh’s February 2023 account, which pinned the operation on the US Navy, or on Joe Biden’s February 2022 promise that if Russia invaded, “we will bring an end to it.”

Meanwhile, the pipelines remain at the bottom of the Baltic, Nord Stream 1 having moved nearly 60 billion cubic meters in 2021, and Germany continues to pay up for LNG. The AfD has campaigned on restarting Russian gas flows, which means the verdict, due sometime next year, will land squarely in German domestic politics. Expect a long, carefully narrow trial in which a court determines whether one man captained a yacht, while the question of who sent the yacht remains politely unexamined.