Update (Monday):

Disney and Paramount Skydance have both sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance, accusing the Chinese tech firm of “blatant infringement” by embedding their intellectual property into its AI video generator, Seedance 2.0.

After Seedance 2.0 videos went viral across social media following the model’s release five days ago, Reuters reports that ByteDance issued a statement saying it will strengthen safeguards to curb unauthorized use of intellectual property on the platform.

“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” ByteDance said.

ByteDance said it would curb unauthorized use of intellectual property on its Seedance 2.0 AI video generator after US studios including Disney threatened legal action over alleged use of Disney characters without permission https://t.co/SK3YPM4UG5 pic.twitter.com/NOsrfuvnLE

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 16, 2026

Some of the latest Seedance 2.0 videos…

Seedance 2.0

“make a video a 5 year old ipad kid would enjoy while smearing his cheeto stained hands on the screen. make no mistakes. aim for 50 twitter likes” pic.twitter.com/7JwlDUb8JH

— Gossip Goblin (@Gossip_Goblin) February 12, 2026

Unleashing ultimate power with these insane visuals.

Made with Seedance 2.0 pic.twitter.com/yywagN4Ayi

— Iris (@xIrissy) February 16, 2026

… which only suggests AI-driven equity disruption could emerge across Hollywood studios.

*   *   * 

AI-driven equity disruption was everywhere this past week, spreading like wildfire beyond software into insurance, commercial real estate, financials, shipping, wealth management, and likely many more industries in the coming trading sessions.

One industry in the crosshairs of AI disruption is Hollywood. Some of the publicly traded studios include The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, Sony Group Corporation, Netflix, Lionsgate, and others.

On Friday, Axios reported that the Walt Disney Company sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, alleging that the Chinese tech firm has been infringing on its films to develop Seedance 2.0 without compensation.

Disney’s outside attorney, David Singer, wrote a letter to ByteDance global general counsel John Rogovin, accusing the AI company of “pre-packaging its Seedance service with a pirated library of Disney’s copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises, as if Disney’s coveted intellectual property were free public domain clip art.”

“Over Disney’s well-publicized objections, ByteDance is hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters. ByteDance’s virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable,” Singer said.

He added, “We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, which is shocking considering Seedance has only been available for a few days.”

It’s not just ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 that has spooked Hollywood studios.

A growing wave of video-generation models suggests that Hollywood’s moat is crumbling, and its control of the media game is nearing its end.

AI VIDEO WARS JUST GOT REAL

Seedance 2.0
Kling 3.0
Sora 2
Veo 3.1

Compared in single-prompt romance scene.

Who’s winning 2026 filmmaking?

pic.twitter.com/hrh8nNbG1U

— 0xMarioNawfal (@RoundtableSpace) February 10, 2026

“Authorities should use every legal tool at their disposal to stop this wholesale theft,” the Human Artistry Campaign – a coalition that includes dozens of creative groups such as SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America – said in a statement on Friday.

Seedance 2.0 model …

Seedance 2.0

Prompt: Sum up the AI discourse in a meme – make sure it’s retarded and gets 50 likes. pic.twitter.com/09yPdo3Tjy

— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) February 14, 2026

Absolutely insane.

Seedance 2 is able to recreate full scenes from Breaking Bad.

We are officially cooked.https://t.co/1mrmjLXI3e pic.twitter.com/CggLHH8R6Q

— Mark Gadala-Maria (@markgadala) February 11, 2026

Seedance 2 is already making full cinematic short films.

Time is running out on Hollywood…pic.twitter.com/VjTdnsCeHd

— Mark Gadala-Maria (@markgadala) February 12, 2026

Billion dollar movie in just one prompt

Seriously, what the hell is going on with Seedance 2.0 pic.twitter.com/yTBlThLhBv

— Random AI (@Random_AI000) February 11, 2026

Hollywood is living on borrowed time. The next big AI disruption trade could be studios.

New research published in JAMA reveals a strong reason to feel even better about being three to four espressos deep before the cash market opens in New York. 

Here’s the short version of the findings:

• Caffeinated coffee was linked to lower dementia risk. Comparing the highest vs lowest consumption groups, the study reported a hazard ratio of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.89), which means higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with lower risk.

• People also reported less subjective cognitive decline. The higher-intake group had 7.8% prevalence vs 9.5% in the lower-intake group (prevalence ratio 0.85).

• The “sweet spot” looked moderate. The most pronounced differences showed up around 2 to 3 cups per day of caffeinated coffee.

• Decaf did not show a significant association with dementia risk.

The long-running study, led by researchers from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT, tracked 131,821 U.S. adults for four decades and documented 11,033 dementia cases. One major finding was a very clear pattern: adults who drank about three cups of coffee per day, or one to two cups of tea, had a much lower risk of dementia and more favorable cognitive outcomes over their lifetimes. Decaf, however, did not show the same relationship.

Both male and female participants who drank more than three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had an 18% lower risk of dementia compared with those who reported little or no daily caffeinated coffee consumption.

“When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention – and our unique access to high-quality data through studies that have been going on for more than 40 years allowed us to follow through on that idea,” said senior author Daniel Wang, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Wang noted, “While our results are encouraging, it’s important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle.”

The cognitive upside of caffeinated coffee is clear.

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Thank you for your support.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures.

Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through socialist and far-left policies.

The rush of liberal Democratic officeholders to Europe was telling.

A new poll shows that a record 58 percent of voters believe their party is “too liberal.”

But Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez found a welcoming audience in Europe.

The global elite gushed over Ocasio-Cortez and sat enraptured as she rattled off socialist platitudes.

That included New York Times correspondent Katrin Bennhold, who thrilled the audience by treating it as a given that Ocasio-Cortez will run for president.

Both Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez spoke of returning the U.S. to the good graces of the global elite.

Newsom assured the Europeans that Trump’s reign is temporary, and that the U.S. will soon enough dismantle the “wrecking ball” that the administration has taken to the EU.

Newsom offered his leadership and his state as the model, proclaiming that “California is a stable and reliable partner” for Europe.

The model includes high taxes, massive spending programs and greater bureaucratic regulations — precisely the policies that have driven the European economy into its current stagnation. In other words, Democrats were in Europe to offer precisely what Newsom outwardly condemned: “doubling down on stupid.”

When not fumbling with security questions about issues such as Taiwan, Ocasio-Cortez was demanding that wealth taxes be implemented in the U.S. “expeditiously.”

🚨🇺🇸🇨🇳 WATCH: When asked if US should use military to intervene in Taiwan, AOC said:

“Um, you know, I think that, uhh, eh, this is such a, uh, you know, I th-I think that… this is a um… this is of course a uhh… a very longstanding, um, policy of the United States. What we… pic.twitter.com/KgcHLXecVX

— RTSG News (@RTSG_News) February 15, 2026

Word Salad is back…

Watch AOC self-destruct live: word salad so tangled it needs a chainsaw. All because Rubio’s pro-West banger got a roaring ovation.

She’s seething, salty, and JEALOUS AF. Can’t stand the heat when real leadership shines. #AOCJealous #RubioWins pic.twitter.com/hKYtmS2238

— WashingtonAmerica.Net (@WADailyNews) February 16, 2026

…and she’s not so hot on geography either…

AOC: The US shouldn’t engage in actions like the one against Maduro just because Venezuela is “below the equator.”

Venezuela is not below the equator.

Got a round of applause anyway. pic.twitter.com/CMn9m154zZ

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 16, 2026

Such a tax on billionaires’ wealth, including unrealized gains, is currently being pushed in California. The predictable result is that billionaires and other wealthy citizens are rushing to leave the state and taking their investments and companies with them.

Ocasio-Cortez had the audience at hello.

Rather than having Vice President J.D. Vance shaming them for their attacks on free speech, the Europeans positively gushed over Democratic leaders pushing far-left agendas.

It did not matter that such policies devastated European economies in the 20th century.

In my book “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the rise of support for socialism in both the U.S. and Europe. Many of those supporting it are young voters with no memory of the collapse of socialist economies in the 20th Century. In 1977, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan pursued many of the same socialist policies, leading to what was called the “winter of discontent” as inflation hit 25 percent. With the collapse of the British pound, the United Kingdom had to take the demoralizing step of securing a loan from the International Monetary Fund, as if it were a developing country.

In France, François Mitterrand was also elected to pursue his “rupture with capitalism.” The French economy collapsed; Mitterrand quickly had to reverse himself and restore capitalist policies.

That history is rarely discussed or taught today. The “warmth of collectivism,” as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani put it, is back in vogue. It does not matter that, in Argentina, President Javier Milei is achieving one of the most impressive economic turnarounds in history — dramatically curtailing runaway inflation, government deficits and poverty — by reinstating free-market policies and reducing government spending.

What is chilling about Europe is that the EU has strangled growth with its increasingly centralized controls and massive bureaucracy. My book describes the instability of the EU and its global governance model. Europe is facing populist movements and, like many Democrats, the response has been calls for further consolidation of power. This included the creation of a new, uniform European corporate law, known as the “28th Regime.”

With an economy crushed by a massive EU bureaucracy and regulations, the solution of many is all too familiar: borrow more money. French President Emmanuel Macron and others want to issue “Euro bonds” to spend their way into an economic recovery — another policy ideal shared with many on the American left.

This week was only the latest effort of the American left to strengthen an alliance with the EU.

Previously, American leaders such as Hillary Clinton pushed the EU to censor Americans online after free speech protections were restored by companies like Twitter. Likewise, the American left is enamored with the EU’s global bureaucracy and regulations.

Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez certainly found their element in Munich, and the EU certainly found the “reliable partners” it has longed for in creating “a new World Order with European Values.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.” 

Months after Ukraine was shaken by a sweeping corruption probe into state nuclear giant Energoatom, and subject of international embarrassment given it even touched Zelensky’s office, former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko has now been formally charged – after authorities detained him while he was allegedly attempting to leave the country.

Halushchenko had been suspended by Zelensky in mid-November, when news of the scandal first hit global headlines. On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced that Halushchenko faces formal charges of money laundering and participation in a criminal organization tied to what investigators call the Midas case or Operation Midas.

“The former minister of energy (2021–2025) has been exposed for money laundering and participation in a criminal organization,” the joint statement said, adding that investigators have “expanded the circle of suspects.”

The investigation is focused on members of the alleged network which established an investment fund in Anguilla (the British Overseas Territory in the Eastern Caribbean) in February 2021. The vehicle was marketed as raising roughly €118 million in “investments” – with Halushchenko’s family listed among the contributors – after which millions flowed directly into accounts controlled by the family. 

For example, authorities claim part of the funds paid for the education of Halushchenko’s children at elite Swiss institutions, while other sums were deposited into his ex-wife’s accounts, also with a big portion of the money allegedly invested further, “earning extra income for the family’s personal use.”

Halushchenko was energy minister from 2021 to 2025 before being appointed justice minister in July 2025. In November, NABU agents conducted raided offices and properties connected to him as the investigation intensified.

Western mainstream media had almost immediately launched into damage control in the wake of the massive energy scandal, with one op-ed in Bloomberg having tried its best to say it’s not at all Ukraine’s fault, but is actually somehow… the Kremlin behind it(!). Here’s how it began:

There are at least two legitimate responses to allegations that a group of highly placed Ukrainian officials have skimmed $100 million from contracts to repair and protect their nation’s critical energy infrastructure, even as Russian attacks plunge the nation into darkness and cold. One is to despair, the other to celebrate. The second, strange as it may sound, is more logical.

This episode goes to the heart of why Ukrainians are fighting at all. The war began in 2014, after then President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled by mass protests against the epic scale of his corruption and the captivity to Moscow this created. Graft was the glue with which the Kremlin had held…

So even with high officials in Zelensky’s government are caught red-handed by a Ukrainian internal investigation, the ultimate fault lies in Moscow, according to some MSM accounts.

It must be remembered that earlier last year, Zelensky himself found himself at the center of EU pushback and controversy when he attempted to eliminate NABU’s independence, sparking outrage in Brussels some sectors of the Ukrainian populace.

Ukrainians, currently enduring a harsh winter in subzero temperatures and with rolling power outages due to the war, are outraged. But Americans might also need to wake up and take note of how billions in US funds are going into the coffers of a deeply corrupt Ukrainian system.

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said Thursday that officers purportedly collaborating with federal immigration agents will be held “accountable,” as the city defends its so-called “welcoming” status.

Bettison made the comments during a hearing with the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners regarding two incidents, one on Dec. 16 and another on Feb. 9, according to the Detroit Free Press.

“Of our officers, 98-99 percent do it the right way each and every day,” Bettison claimed.

“But I do have one or two percent that decide to violate our rules, our policies and our procedures, and to those officers, I will hold them accountable.”

A “welcoming city” refers to jurisdictions that do not require officers to investigate a person’s immigration status during routine investigations.

By contrast, sanctuary cities refuse to honor ICE detainers and actively decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In the first incident, a Detroit sergeant reportedly called Border Patrol after an officer requested a translation during a traffic stop of a non-English-speaking individual.

Bettison said that Border Patrol determined the person was not a U.S. citizen and detained the individual as a result.

In the second incident, a Detroit officer allegedly contacted Border Patrol while investigating an individual on a felony warrant.

“Border Patrol did respond, and Border Patrol ultimately took this individual,” Bettison said, citing body-worn camera footage reviewed by the DPD.

The commission is set to decide whether to suspend the officers involved ahead of a Feb. 19 hearing.

US natural gas futures tumbled to a four-month low early Monday as weather models indicate the Lower 48 is exiting the peak of the Northern Hemisphere winter and entering a much-needed warmup. For the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, which experienced some of the coldest weather in decades, the next few weeks are expected to feel more like spring.

March contracts fell 7.5% to about $3 per mmBtu, the lowest level since October 17 and a roughly four-month low.

Weather forecasts for the Lower 48 show above-normal temperatures through the end of the month, particularly in the central and southern regions.

NatGas prices have been extremely volatile this winter. Multiple cold blasts sparked freeze-offs and production disruptions across gas infrastructure that sent spot NatGas prices sharply higher. At the same time, tightening power markets, especially across the Mid-Atlantic area, sent power prices soaring.

Readers may recall we identified peak Northern Hemisphere winter in early February, as 30-year average temperature trends point to warmer conditions across the Lower 48.

Now the Trump administration can point to last month’s cold snap as a real-world stress test: fossil fuel generation helped keep much of the eastern U.S. grid from collapsing under peak demand. Read the note, titled “Sleep Tight, America. We Got This”: NatGas And Coal Power Plants Prevented Grid Collapse During Historic Winter Blast.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The European Union has lost its place in the global race for artificial intelligence. In a single tweet on platform X, France’s President Emmanuel Macron inadvertently outlined the convoluted situation while simultaneously revealing his personal emotional fragility.

The leading representatives of the European Union like to present themselves as emotionless technocrats. Maintaining the greatest possible distance from citizens, they execute their agenda of societal transformation toward what they understand as a net-zero transformation economy. 

This ostentatious distance from the citizenry acts as a simulacrum of power, which, in politicians like Emmanuel Macron, often veers into the caricatural.

Macron’s striking presence in foreign affairs—whether regarding the Ukraine war or recurring provocations toward the United States—correlates with his aggressive censorship policy toward his own population. A president without a people, steering his minority government through a budgetary crisis that brings France ever closer to the fiscal abyss.

In Macron’s persona, the European misstep is condensed: economically failed, deeply unpopular among his own people, geopolitically essentially irrelevant—and yet imbued with lofty, messianic plans. 

This performative play of power, coupled with hardly disguised impotence and incompetence, inevitably produces an effect that can be described as clownish. It is the expression of a political style that can no longer reconcile claim with reality—and thus delivers less leadership than a tragicomic performance.

A Touch of Emotion

Politicians like the French president are indeed aware of the growing public anger over their policies and, behind the technocratic façade, very much experience emotional states—Macron revealed this for a brief moment on February 7 on the platform “X,” which he otherwise fights.

This moment of exposure was triggered by a reaction to Israeli AI investor Dr. Eli David. The entrepreneur had ridiculed the French government’s plan to initiate an AI revolution with a mere initial investment of €30 million, publicly calling the president a “clown.” 

“This clown wants to make France an AI leader with €30M.”

€30 million → to attract and support around forty top-tier international researchers. They chose France for its values and its commitment to science.

Sometimes it’s too slow…… pic.twitter.com/UHlSpIIaI9

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 7, 2026

Macron responded in classic social media fashion: fast, unconsidered, emotional. And this was precisely the real revelation. His message not only displayed personal fragility but simultaneously exposed Europe’s fatal economic strategy in the field of artificial intelligence.

Macron directly addressed David’s criticism and slid into a rhetorical trap, writing: Yes, exactly this “clown,” meaning himself, would trigger an investment boom with €30 million, eventually mobilizing over €100 billion in private funds. Macron plans a French Silicon Valley south of Paris and intends to catapult his country to the Olympus of artificial intelligence—with €30 million of state money, initially benefiting those who provide the technological framework for the upcoming rollout of digital IDs.

“This clown wants to make France an AI leader with €30M.”

€30 million → to attract and support around forty top-tier international researchers. They chose France for its values and its commitment to science.

Sometimes it’s too slow…… pic.twitter.com/UHlSpIIaI9

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 7, 2026

In this sentence, Europe’s dilemma crystallized: self-assurance and denial, the familiar pathos of EU Europeans combined with an astonishing detachment from reality—and a political style that reveals more about Europe’s position in the global AI race than any sober analysis could.

Those familiar with the codes, memes, and recurring keywords of digital platforms understand the significance of this label. When “clown world” or “clown politics” is mentioned, it refers precisely to the comedy we witness daily: the routine evasion of European top politicians from the consequences of their centrally controlled policies—be it economic and industrial policy, migration, or the grotesquely perceived energy policy.

The clown meme condenses the cynically self-ironic perception of the viewer of this comedy—a viewer aware that they are not only the target of these policies but will ultimately bear their consequences.

Clown politics takes many forms. These include the countless crisis or innovation summits in which politicians stage themselves retroactively as initiators of the new, attempting to position themselves at the forefront of developments they have ignored or actively obstructed for decades. 

These summits are a particularly pernicious form of masking incompetence: political self-validation rituals simulating activity while merely covering up structural stagnation.

Another Lost Year

It has been almost exactly one year since Emmanuel Macron, at the AI conference Choose France, presented his megalomaniac-seeming investment initiative. Over €100 billion in private investment pledges were said to have been mobilized, with asset manager Brookfield promising more than €20 billion, and the UAE sovereign wealth fund with €50 billion, to participate in Macron’s Silicon Valley. To this day—nothing has happened.

As elsewhere in the EU, a Kafkaesque thicket of regulation seriously blocks private-sector engagement. At least France could score points thanks to nuclear power: stable, cheap, ideal for energy-hungry data centers. And Germany? Its locational advantage has been squandered in green delusions. Yet France remains trapped in paralyzing stagnation—announcements fade, visions fizzle, and the digital Silicon Valley appears like an illusion from the bureaucratic dream factory.

The contrast with the United States could hardly be starker. There, around $400 billion in private investments in artificial intelligence and data centers were mobilized last year alone. The infrastructure of the data economy of the future is being built in the United States, where President Donald Trump deregulates markets, cuts taxes, and promotes the comeback of nuclear energy.

Notably, major US data center operators—from Meta to Google—have already begun investing in their own energy sources. This not only stabilizes their business models but also the American energy grid. It is an impressive counterpoint from the private sector to Brussels’ statist economic model, where technological ignorance seems almost cultivated.

Europe’s idea of state seed funding and centrally planned market regulation is the real problem. 

European society has drifted too far from the principles of market economy, personal responsibility, and a general culture of initiative in business. Bureaucracy, green socialism, and the decades-long cultural struggle against bourgeois values and roots now bear their rotten fruits. The spirit of EU bureaucracy has warped the perception of economic reality for citizens, entrepreneurs, and the political class alike.

New technologies and innovations are no longer understood as opportunities but as reasons to defensively secure the status quo. This psychopolitical consequence of European bureaucratization weighs like lead on the prosperity and productivity of European economies—with consequences that even French presidents in combative cynic mode on “X” cannot hide.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Days ahead of another round of talks with US negotiators — and on the heels of more saber-rattling by the Trump administration — Iran is touting the potential mutual economic benefits of a deal that would terminate the West’s long-running sanctions regime against the second-largest and second-most-populous country in the Middle East.  

“For the sake of an agreement’s durability, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns,” said Iranian Deputy Director for Economic Diplomacy Hamid Ghanbari on Sunday, according to Iran’s FARS news agency. He said that, during negotiations, there had been discussion of what FARS called “shared interests in the fields of oil, gas, mining and even aircraft purchases.” 

Sanctions have long thwarted Iran’s need to update the country’s passenger jet fleets. After the 2015 nuclear deal was reached and sanctions eased, Iran raced to put in orders for new aircraft from Western suppliers. When President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal — despite Iran’s full compliance with it — Boeing instantly lost $20 billion worth of business.  

Oil prices were flat in early-Monday global trading. “With both sides expected to hold firm on their core ​red ​lines, expectations are low that a deal can be ​reached and this is likely to be the ‌calm before the storm,” IG analyst Tony Sycamore told Yahoo. 

Oman is set to mediate talks in Geneva this week. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is leading the Iranian delegation, while the US delegation will be headed by Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Ahead of the talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his sixth US meeting with Trump in just the last year. Netanyahu continues to push for terms that guarantee Iranian refusals and thus set the stage for more war.

Those poison-pill demands include Iran ceasing all uranium enrichment and — preposterously — dismantling the conventional, ballistic missile program that proved so effective in responding to Israel’s initiation of war last June. Trump reportedly told Netanyahu in December that he’d back Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missiles program if a new deal isn’t reached.  

In May 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal that had been negotiated between Iran and various Western governments and signed in 2015. Under that deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Iran agreed to a wide array of nuclear safeguards. They included eliminating its medium-enriched uranium, reducing its low-enriched uranium inventory by 98%, capping future enrichment at 3.67%, slashing its number of centrifuges, submitting to enhanced external monitoring, and rendering its heavy-water reactor unusable by pouring concrete in it. 

At the time of Trump’s withdrawal, Iran was in full compliance, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. In response to the re-imposition of US sanctions, Iran began straying from its own commitments under the deal, seemingly pushing the only lever it had to bring the deal back and get out from under sanctions that have sapped Iran’s economy and inflicted a harsh toll on innocent Iranian citizens. 

On Friday, Reuters reported that the Pentagon is preparing for a “sustained, weeks-long military campaign” against Iran if President Trump gives the green light. That news came as a second American aircraft carrier was making its way to the region. The USS Gerald Ford — the world’s largest — will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is already on station. Before receiving its new orders, the Ford had been operating in the Caribbean after being abruptly redeployed from the Mediterranean — part of an earlier show of force tied to posturing against Venezuela.    

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

A new US license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from transactions with China among other countries, which if true, could lead to India purchasing the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year and thus halving its import of Russian oil.

RT drew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued “Venezuela General License 48” allowing US companies to provide “goods, technology, software, or services for the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas in Venezuela” with two strings attached.

The first one is that any contract that their partners enter into will be governed under the laws of the US, which segues into the second one prohibiting any transactions with Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and China.

It’s for this reason that RT interpreted the abovementioned license in their tweet as the “US Ban[ning] Venezuelan Oil Producers From Doing Business With Russia & China”.

That’s reasonable since it was explained here that the Trump Doctrine is shaped by Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial”, which in its simplest form, seeks to deny strategic resources to US rivals such as the previously described countries.

This is especially the case as regards China, the US’ systemic rival, but Trump earlier sent mixed signals.

He recently welcomed Chinese investment in Venezuela’s energy industry, but in retrospect, that might have just been for the sake of managing the Sino-US rivalry amidst their ongoing trade talks.

Trump wants a deal with Xi, which might become much more difficult for his counterpart to agree to if he openly declares his intent for the US to deny China continued access to Venezuela’s strategic resources. It therefore makes sense for the US to quietly implement this policy through its new license instead.

Even prior to its promulgation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov complained that “our companies are being openly forced out of Venezuela”, so this policy was already being informally implemented by Delcy Rodriguez’s government under US pressure. Apart from Cuba, none of the countries that the US’ new license prohibits transactions with are dependent on Venezuelan energy, but cutting them out of this industry serves another purpose arguably even more strategic than denying them its resources.

Trump boasted earlier this month that India agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil as part of the terms of its trade deal with the US and replace its imports with American and possibly Venezuelan oil instead. It was hitherto assessed prior to the US’ new license that “India Is Expected To Only Slowly Reduce Its Import Of Russian Oil” in no small part due to the Venezuelan Ambassador to China confirming his country’s interest in continuing exports to it and Trump welcoming Chinese investment in this industry.

If RT’s interpretation of the license is correct, and Lavrov believes so after complaining about the US’ new prohibition on Venezuelan energy transactions with Russia during his latest appearance at the Duma, then India could purchase the 642,000 barrels per day of oil (bpd) that China imported on average last year.

That’s more than half of the 1 million bpd that India imported from Russia last month, which could lead to a sharp reduction in the budgetary revenue that Russia expected to receive from such sales.

The US is actively monitoring India’s direct and indirect import of Russian oil per the condition under which it recently lifted last summer’s punitive 25% tariff that was imposed because of these dealings.

Therefore, by cutting China out of the Venezuelan energy industry and consequently enabling India to replace its import of that country’s oil, the US is facilitating India’s rapid reduction of Russian oil imports and might even zero it out if this policy is soon replicated with respect to Iran’s oil exports to China.

What happens when spending $70,000 to signal virtue with your fancy EV goes wrong? FIRE! 

Mercedes-Benz USA has announced a recall of 11,895 electric vehicles due to potentially faulty cells in the automobiles’ high-voltage battery packs that could lead to a fire, like what happened in front of a MBZ dealer in Malaysia in 2024 – though that one was in the middle of charging, while this recall says they can ‘spontaneously catch fire’ either while parked or while driving. 

The move comes after the NHTSA issued a safety recall notice posted on X on Feb. 12 announcing that it affected 1,708 Mercedes-Benz EQB 350 4Matic battery-powered SUVs model years 2022-2024. On top of that, 3,674 Mercedes-Benz EQB 250+ hybrid compact SUVs model years 2023-2024 and 6,513 2022-2024 EQB 300 4Matic vehicles were recalled. 

According to the agency, the vehicles could spontaneously catch fire either while parked or while driving due to an internal short circuit in the automobile’s high-voltage battery power supply. The issue stems from variations in the battery manufacturing process, the notice stated.

“Certain battery cells in the high-voltage battery, from an early production period, are considered to be less robust against different stress factors potentially occurring during the life of the vehicle,” Mercedes-Benz said.

“If a thermal incident were to occur during driving, the driver would be made aware of the issue by a high-voltage battery warning malfunction message in the instrument cluster. Should the thermal incident occur while the vehicle is parked, the driver would not receive a warning.”

In early 2024, an EQB caught fire while charging outside a MBZ dealership in Jahor Bahru. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, the lithium-ion batteries were manufactured by China-based Farasis Energy.

Mercedes-Benz said that after being made aware of vehicles catching fire it issued a software update to remedy the problem. However, in November 2025, two vehicles located in Europe combusted after receiving the software update, triggering an in-depth analysis of the efficacy of the software remedy in markets outside of China.

In December 2025 and January 2026, Mercedes-Benz began working with the battery supplier to tear down and test battery packs and cells. It also conducted an on-site inspection of production methods at Farasis Energy’s manufacturing facilities in Ganzhou in southeastern China.

“MBAG concluded that the effectiveness of the current software update to sufficiently reduce the risk of thermal incidents cannot be fully confirmed for all affected vehicles,” the NHTSA recall notice said.

To date, Mercedes-Benz has received reports of two vehicle fires in the United States that were attributable to faulty battery cells. The company said it would replace battery packs in the recalled vehicles at licensed Mercedes-Benz dealerships at no cost to owners.

Owners of recalled vehicles are advised to only charge their vehicles to 80 percent until they can get their battery packs replaced.

“Out of an abundance of caution, customers are additionally advised to park their vehicles outside,” the recall notice said.

MBAG said a change in production procedures eliminates the issue with faulty cells for vehicles produced after July 31, 2024. Owners will be notified of the recall campaign beginning on Feb. 27. The NHTSA recall number is 26V073.