President Donald Trump on Friday morning urged Senate Republicans to pass a bill that makes daylight saving time permanent, coming months after the measure cleared the House of Representatives.
President Donald Trump at U.N. Headquarters in New York City on Sept. 22, 2026. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“A ridiculous Clock changing process that takes place twice a year, costs our Country a fortune, is bad for Crime, stress on people, Sports, and just about everything else you can imagine,” Trump said in a long Truth Social post early Friday.
He added that people don’t want to change their clocks while asserting that “most people like having an hour of extra sunlight in the evening, rather than in the morning.”
The House in July passed the measure, dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act, on a 308-117 vote before sending it to the Senate for approval. But the bill has not been considered.
“It is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly. For Cities and States with Watchtowers, and hard to reach places, it costs Millions of Dollars. A recent case was made that it is also bad for your health in the anxiety it creates,” the president said.
Blaming Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for holding up the bill, Trump wrote that the bill has bipartisan support. “Democrats and Republicans want it to happen. It’s now up to the U.S. Senate where it would be another Great Bipartisan Victory,” he added.
Last year, Cotton told the Senate that he would oppose the measure and said a similar measure was repealed in the mid-1970s.
In 1973, Congress passed a law instituting permanent daylight saving time for what was supposed to be a trial period from January 1974 to April 1975. It lasted until October, when it was repealed. Among the concerns was worry that schoolchildren would have to start the school day without daylight.
“While briefly popular, it proved deeply unpopular when reality set in,” Cotton said, adding that polls taken at the time show that support for permanent daylight saving time dropped by 30 percentage points in three months.
“Only a few weeks after it was implemented, it was underwater. Congress beat a hasty retreat, repealing the law and changing the clocks back in October. What was supposed to be a two-year experiment ended in abject failure after less than one year.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said he’s also concerned about that. He said that it would be dark past 9:30 a.m. in some areas of his state. “You’d be sending kids to school in the dark,” he told The Associated Press last year.
Before it was passed in the House, some Democratic lawmakers including Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) explained why they supported the Sunshine Protection Act.
The measure, Pallone said in July, would deal with “an issue on which many Americans actually agree,” adding that only around 12 percent of Americans want to switch their clocks twice per year.
“Far more Americans recognize that the practice is inconvenient and, frankly, disruptive,” he said.
Cotton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Bolsonaro Leads As Brazil Election Heads Toward Runoff; Traders Brace For Monday Volatility
Summary:
Datafolha Says Election Headed For Runoff
Right-Wing Bolsonaro Leads Socialist Lula
Polling closed at 4 pm local time
Brazil Votes In Tight Presidential Election With South America’s Future On The Line
Bolsonaro Leads But Headed For Election Runoff
Brazil’s presidential election is headed for a runoff on Oct. 25.
Right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro held about 47.8% of the vote against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 44.2%, with roughly 92.3% of ballots counted.
Paulo Abreu, founding partner and portfolio manager at Rio de Janeiro-based Mantaro Capital, told Bloomberg he expected a strong opening for Brazilian assets on Monday morning, saying investors had been lightly positioned for the result.
“Tomorrow will be a much better day than even the most optimistic investors had expected,” Abreu said, adding that the outcome would encourage investors to increase their exposure.
Currency futures trading on CME also signaled expectations of a stronger real, with the quoted exchange rate moving to about 5.01 from Friday’s close of 5.25.
Brendan McKenna, an emerging-markets strategist at Societe Generale, expects the Brazilian real to jump 4% to 5% on Monday following Bolsonaro’s first-round lead.
“Assuming no new scandals, always possible, and Bolsonaro is set to win the runoff, I think local assets can continue to rally into the second round, he said.
Bloomberg reporter Beatriz Reis wrote:
With more than 91% of ballots counted and Bolsonaro holding a surprise first-round lead, his campaign’s theory suddenly looks more plausible: that some voters were reluctant to publicly admit they planned to back the right-wing senator. Whether that phenomenon actually explains the polling miss will take time to determine, but the result exposed support for Bolsonaro that pre-election surveys failed to fully capture.
Now the challenge flips for both campaigns. Lula has just three weeks to understand where he lost ground and win those voters back. Bolsonaro has to protect an advantage few expected him to have and prove that Sunday’s surprise can survive all the way to the Oct. 25 runoff.
Brazil’s presidential election is headed for a runoff, Datafolha projected just moments ago, setting up a second-round contest between socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro on Oct. 25.
Latest Election Count
Right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro leads socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 51.2% to 40.7%, with just 18.7% of votes counted in Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday.
Polymarket:
Right-Wing Bolsonaro Leads Socialist Lula
Polls closed at 4 p.m. Brazil time, and the latest figures from the Superior Electoral Court show right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro leading socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 50.2% to 41.3%, with just 4.3% of votes counted in Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday.
The preliminary results offer only a limited indication of the final outcome, with most votes still to be counted.
These preliminary results sent Bolsonaro’s Polymarket odds soaring from 64% around 4 p.m. New York time to 77% around 4:43 p.m. Lula’s odds on the betting platform cratered to just 23%.
Brazil Votes In Tight Presidential Election With South America’s Future On The Line
Brazilians began voting earlier this morning in a statistically tied presidential election, with incumbent socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva holding a narrow polling lead over right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Election results are expected later this evening, and the race is likely headed for a runoff later this month.
Lula and Bolsonaro are effectively deadlocked in a potential runoff. The latest AtlasIntel poll puts Lula at 47.6% against Bolsonaro’s 47.4%, while Datafolha showed the incumbent ahead 47% to 46%. Quaest has Bolsonaro at 44% against Lula’s 42%, within its two-point margin of error.
Polls close nationwide at 5 p.m. Brazil time, or 4 p.m. in New York. Brazil’s electronic voting system allows counting to begin immediately, with the electoral court expected to deliver a definitive result between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Brazil time.
The race will determine whether Brazil continues down its destructive socialist path or cements what could be a once-in-a-generation political shift across South America, with the continent’s largest economy potentially moving to the right. Recent elections in Colombia, Peru, Chile and other countries have shifted from left-wing regimes to right-wing governments.
We outlined on Friday the potential market impacts and expected volatility following the first-round results:
One notable chart shows that the Brazilian real’s one-week implied volatility has jumped above 31%, its highest level since late 2022. That exceeds the one-month measure, which captures both voting rounds but remains below 25%, highlighting the extreme concentration of risk ahead of Sunday’s vote.
“We expect the biggest surprise to come in the first round, with Flávio likely to finish ahead of Lula,” Fabricio Taschetto, CIO at Ace Capital, wrote in a note. He added that the market reaction could exceed the move already priced into options.
Citigroup and JPMorgan analysts have told clients to use options that would benefit from a stronger real, while Brazilian hedge funds, including Ibiuna and Verde, have told clients they have positioned themselves with options for a potential stock rally.
“Very Concerning Safety Issues”: Trump’s mRNA-Skeptic FDA Drug Chief Was Mysteriously Fired – Right Before This Drug Was Approved
Within three months of firing Tracy Beth Høeg, its top drug regulator, the FDA had approved the first mRNA flu shot, cleared a Sanofi diabetes treatment for children that she had held up, and approved a twice-rejected melanoma drug whose maker went to the White House.
“I’m worried about approvals that we’ve seen recently, like the mRNA influenza vaccine,” Høeg told journalist Paul Thacker in an interview posted Wednesday, citing “very concerning safety issues.“
Of the melanoma drugmaker’s White House meeting, she said: “I guess that’s what you do now if you’re angry that your product is not approved. One has to wonder, is it approved based on the data or do they just know the right people?”
Høeg still doesn’t know who ordered her firing. When agency lawyers came to her office on May 15, three days after Commissioner Marty Makary was pushed out, she refused to resign. The lawyers told her the order came from “someone way above their pay grade.”
The person who supposedly wrote her termination memo denies writing it or ever seeing it, she says. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. only learned of the firing after she was gone, the New York Times reported.
Thacker told Høeg his sources inside the Department of Health and Human Services say Chris Klomp effectively runs the department. The White House installed Klomp, the Medicare director, as HHS chief counselor in February. He also helped negotiate the administration’s pricing deals with drugmakers.
Those sources say Klomp pushed out Makary and “probably” Høeg too, and that CEOs “have Chris Klomp on the phone all the time.” “You’re not the first person to suggest that to me,” Høeg replied.
The day Høeg was fired, Reuters reported that Klomp was leading a push to clear controversial appointees out of the FDA. HHS told Reuters it does not comment on personnel matters.
Makary resigned on May 12 after other administration officials forced through flavored-vape authorizations he had opposed, CBS News reported. Politico reported that Kennedy made the final call on pushing him out. Drugmakers had soured on the agency’s reversals on experimental drugs and vaccines and wanted a more predictable FDA, according to NPR.
Klomp’s nomination as Kennedy’s deputy cleared the Senate Finance Committee 15-12 last Thursday and awaits a floor vote. “I’m responsible for personnel, among other things,” he told senators this month.
The mRNA shot
In February, with Makary leading the FDA and Vinay Prasad running its vaccine center, the agency refused even to review Moderna’s application. About two weeks later, it reversed course and agreed to take it up.
Prasad left at the end of April, followed by Makary on May 12 and Høeg three days later. In June, the FDA’s outside vaccine advisers voted unanimously to recommend the shot. On Aug. 5, the agency approved it as mFlusiva for adults 50 and older.
Moderna’s trial of more than 40,000 adults found that the shot cut the odds of flu-like illness by 27% compared with a standard-dose vaccine. Neither the company nor FDA staff reviewers identified new or serious safety concerns. Approval for those 65 and older is conditional on a follow-up study.
“I don’t think we can say that the benefits outweighed the harms,” Høeg said, adding that she would probably detail her concerns later.
Held up, then approved
Sanofi’s Tzield was first approved in 2022 to delay the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes in patients with early-stage disease. In October, Sanofi’s bid to extend its use to newly diagnosed patients 8 and older entered Makary’s new voucher program, which promises reviews in one to two months.
Career staff recommended approval, but Høeg disagreed, and Sanofi pulled the drug out of the fast-track program. The FDA missed its April 21 goal date, STAT reported.
On June 12, four weeks after Høeg was fired, the FDA granted Tzield accelerated approval for newly diagnosed patients 8 to 17. The decision was based on its effect on C-peptide, a marker of the body’s own insulin production, rather than on a clinical outcome. No outside advisory committee weighed in. The drug’s known risks include cytokine release syndrome and viral reactivation.
“That was supposed to go to an advisory committee,” Høeg said. “And that’s a drug that’s given in children. And if you look at the pivotal clinical trial at that stage of the disease, there’s no clear evidence of clinical benefit for these children with type 1 diabetes.” Sanofi is running a confirmatory trial to support full approval.
A meeting at the White House
The FDA rejected Replimune’s RP1, an engineered virus injected into melanoma tumors, in July 2025 and again in April. After the second rejection, the company took its case to the White House in early May, arguing that the decisions clashed with the administration’s push to help terminally ill patients. The White House then pressed health officials to take another look, the Wall Street Journal reported. The White House declined to comment to the Journal.
On May 29, two weeks after Høeg was fired, Replimune announced that it would try a third time. Company officials had met with FDA and White House officials two days earlier. Its shares jumped as much as 70% in premarket trading.
In briefing documents, FDA reviewers argued that the way Replimune designed the trial and measured responses made it difficult to separate RP1’s effect from that of Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo, which patients also received. The trial had no control arm. An outside panel sided with the company 10-3 on July 30. On Aug. 6, the FDA granted accelerated approval. Replimune set the list price at $450,000 per course.
“It went against everything the career staff had said about the limitations in the data,” Høeg said.
Whose report was it?
Høeg’s reputation as an mRNA skeptic dates to the pandemic. A 2021 study she led concluded that, for healthy teenage boys, the rate of heart inflammation after a second dose exceeded their four-month risk of being hospitalized with COVID. At the FDA, she reviewed reports of children who died after COVID vaccination and asked why the findings had never been made public.
Prasad’s Nov. 28 memo, which set off the uproar, credited career staff in the FDA’s pharmacovigilance office with finding that at least 10 children had died “after and because of” vaccination. When Høeg was fired, The Hill reported that she helped author the report, while CBS News reported that she helped write Prasad’s memo. It was “the career staff, not me” who linked the 10 deaths to the vaccine, Høeg said.
The final staff review, dated Dec. 5 and made public by Sen. Ron Johnson in May, examined 96 pediatric deaths reported from 2021 to 2024. It rated two “probably” and five “possibly” related to vaccination. None was rated definitively related.
Johnson later released drafts showing how the assessment had changed. Høeg suggested that staff who had handled the cases for years had a vested interest in the deaths not coming to light. “Why are we sitting on them for years if they’re concerning?” she asked. ZeroHedge detailed the fight over the review in May.
Still on sale
Tavneos is still on sale in the US, five months after Høeg’s drug center moved to pull it. Amgen’s pill for a rare autoimmune disease of the blood vessels was approved in 2021 on the strength of a single pivotal trial. The FDA had told its developer that the trial had to show the drug beat steroids at 52 weeks.
In January, the FDA asked Amgen to withdraw it voluntarily. Amgen declined. In April, the agency formally proposed withdrawal, saying unblinded study personnel had manipulated the trial’s results and the application contained untrue statements of material fact. The FDA has also linked the drug to 76 cases of liver injury, including eight deaths.
On June 26, Europe’s medicines committee recommended revoking the drug’s license. Three days later, the New England Journal of Medicine retracted the pivotal trial at the request of its two academic authors. The journal said nine patients’ results had been re-adjudicated after the data were unblinded, without the authors’ knowledge. Britain stopped new patients from starting the drug in September.
“People have died taking this drug and we don’t know if it works,” Høeg said.
Amgen, which acquired the drug’s developer, ChemoCentryx, for $3.7 billion in 2022, says it strongly disagrees with the proposal and has requested a hearing. It points to an independent re-analysis from Duke that it says supports the drug’s efficacy.
Its own prescriber page states that superiority “was not demonstrated at week 52.” Tavneos brought in $459 million last year, and first-quarter US sales rose 32% to $119 million.
Under federal law, the drug stays on the market until the FDA commissioner rules on Amgen’s hearing request and on withdrawal. Since May, the agency has been led by acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer who oversaw food regulation. Trump’s pick for the permanent job, White House aide Heidi Overton, had her confirmation hearing last week and is awaiting a vote.
Iran “Decision Week”: Trump Teases “Easy Way Or Hard Way” As Tankers Burn, Rial Craters And Tehran’s Oil Minister Quits
Seven months into the war, the Iran story has settled into a familiar loop: Tehran sets conditions, Washington rejects them, a tanker catches fire, oil stays at $100, repeat… then a modest de-escalation before markets open on Monday morning and reversal around Friday’s closer.
This weekend, though, felt different. Nearly every piece of the puzzle moved at once, and the man at the center of it all made clear that he has a decision to make.
“We have a decision that I’ll make about Iran. Iran’s been decimated. So the only question is, it’ll either be the easy way or the hard way,” President Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday. Asked what was coming, he offered the kind of non-answer that tends to precede actual answers, or even more non-answers: “If I told you, you’d have a major story, right? But you’ll see.”
Here is what happened over the weekend, and what to watch in the week ahead.
The Camp David War Council
The “you’ll see” makes more sense in light of what happened on Friday. CBS News confirmed that the administration’s entire Iran brain trust met at Camp David: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, special envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine. Axios first reported the unannounced session, which Vance chaired. Two items were on the agenda: the Iran war, and the Saudi-Houthi war in Yemen that is now spilling into global oil routes (more below).
The White House has not said what was decided. One person familiar with the meeting told Axios that “things were decided or at least deeply discussed,” which is a remarkably candid way of saying nothing, right about par for the course for an Axios “scoop.” For context, the last time this crowd quietly decamped to the Maryland mountains to talk Iran was in June 2025. You may recall what followed (spoiler: it involved B-2s).
Meanwhile, the military is moving into position regardless. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious group are heading to the Middle East with about 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, due by the end of October. Bloomberg notes that this could give the US three carrier strike groups in the region, a concentration not seen since the opening phase of the Iraq war in 2003. Hegseth, for his part, called the US blockade of Iranian ports “ironclad.”
On timing, Trump told TIME last week that heavier strikes are “possible” after the Nov. 3 midterms. And according to Bloomberg, Iranian officials themselves see little chance of a deal before the vote and a “high chance of escalation” after it. So “decision week” may yet turn into “decision month” (this is still Washington, after all).
Bombers Out Of Britain
The other military headline came from England. The Pentagon confirmed on Sunday that all US bombers deployed to RAF Fairford, a dozen B-1Bs that had been used for strikes on Iran, have returned to their home stations in the United States. The move came a week after several men were arrested near the base on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. The WSJ first reported the redeployment.
“While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have re-deployed to their home stations in the United States,” a Pentagon spokesman wrote, per Reuters.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Wednesday that Britain has “strong indications” Iran was involved in the plot. US intelligence describes an IRGC-linked handler recruiting British citizens for a multi-stage operation, starting with a diversion near the base. Trump said the plotters had planned “big damage,” while Rubio pointed to the “hands of a foreign actor.” Tehran called the accusations baseless and summoned the British ambassador. Five British suspects, plus a sixth with dual British-Iranian citizenship who was arrested in London, have all since been released on bail. Some UK officials have also questioned whether the plot was as sophisticated as US accounts make it sound.
The Pentagon insists that moving the bombers does not reduce its long-range strike capability. That is probably true: B-1s can reach Iran from the continental US with aerial refueling. It just takes a lot longer, and nobody has to worry about who is loitering near the fence line. Make of that what you will.
Two More Tankers Hit, And Hormuz “Will Not Be Opened”
On the water, the attacks continued. On Sunday the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) reported two more tankers struck by unknown projectiles (CNBC). One was hit inside the Strait of Hormuz and suffered engine-room damage. The other, a crude carrier roughly four nautical miles east of Oman, was hit on its port side. All crew were reported safe and no environmental damage was reported. By SBS’s count, that makes at least four incidents in October alone. The first was the 2.5-million-barrel supertanker set ablaze off Oman on Thursday, which Iran’s Fars said was using an “unauthorized” route.
Fars reports that a 2.5 mm barrel supertanker that was traveling through the Strait of Hormuz “illegally” was hit 8 kilometers off the coast of Oman and is burning https://t.co/BzV5N87ZEi
UKMTO’s latest weekly report counts 91 incidents of damage to vessels since February. Since July 6, 31 of 48 projectile strikes have happened along the southern Omani route, the US-facilitated corridor that much of the recovering Gulf traffic now uses.
Hours before the latest strikes, Iran restated its terms. Per Reuters, parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said:
“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is completely clear and firm, and the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened until our seven conditions, based on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, are met… [Washington] must understand that the period of dragging out the (diplomatic) process and dictating one-sided demands is over.” (emphasis ours)
For anyone who has lost track, these are the seven conditions Tehran presented in September: (1) lift the maritime blockade; (2) restore Iran’s frozen assets; (3) lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports; (4) halt all US actions “under the pretext of threats and military operations”; (5) end the war on Iran and its regional allies; (6) withdraw US forces from areas around Iran’s borders; and (7) pay compensation for war damage and commit not to interfere with Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. Translation: everything, plus reparations. So it is perhaps not a shock that Trump “promptly rejected” the seven-day reopening plan built on these terms.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that the US counter-proposal, relayed via Qatar, is “more or less in line with their previous positions, specifically on the nuclear issue.” He added that Tehran’s focus “in this stage is the issue of the Strait of Hormuz,” and denied that Iran had offered UN inspections in exchange for sanctions relief. One official briefed on the talks told Reuters that the dispute is about the sequencing of steps, not their content. Meanwhile, FM Abbas Araqchi warned that if the US “again move[s] towards military solutions, we are more prepared than before.”
“Iran Zero”: The Blockade Bites
The irony is that the strait Iran is “keeping shut” is increasingly open to everyone except Iran. As we laid out in “Gulf Exports Roar Back To Pre-War Levels, Goldman Says” (Sep 30), Goldman’s commodity strategists estimate that Persian Gulf oil exports, including “dark exports,” have effectively recovered to their 2025 average. Saudi Arabia led the rebound… while Iran fell below 20% of its 2025 level.
In this weekend’s update for clients (available here for pro subs), Struyven, co-head of Goldman’s global commodities research, put the latest number at 23.6mb/d, about 4mb/d of which is estimated dark exports. He added that “the data show no seaborne crude exports from Iran in September.” JPMorgan, cited by Bloomberg, estimates Middle East crude shipments are back to 17.5mb/d, or 98% of pre-war levels. According to Bloomberg tanker tracking, Saudi crude exports jumped from 3.4mb/d in August to roughly 6.1mb/d in September.
Mehdi Tabatabaei, communications deputy in the president’s office, told state TV that Paknejad had resigned “a long time ago” and that President Pezeshkian accepted it at Paknejad’s insistence. The timing is still remarkable. Just hours before the news broke, Paknejad was quoted by state media insisting that “revenues of the oil that we have sold are still coming and that will continue, God willing.” When an oil minister leans on divine intervention for cash flow, the cash flow is probably not great.
The Rial: 2.7 Million And Counting
The clearest scorecard of the economic war is Iran’s currency. On the open market the rial has fallen to a record low of about 2.7 million per dollar, and the euro topped 3 million rials for the first time (per Iran International). That is despite a central bank plan to inject $2 billion of banknotes, with the first $1 billion sold through banks at up to $10,000 per ID holder. Official year-over-year inflation has hit a record 89.8% (in reality it is much higher), and at the current rate the monthly minimum wage of 166 million rials works out to roughly $66.
Bloomberg calculates that the rial has lost about 25% against the dollar in the past two months alone. Readers who were with us for “Iran’s Deadline Expires Today”: Tehran Threatens Renewed Attacks As Blockade Bites, Rial Collapses will recognize that the slide is accelerating rather than leveling off. Bessent calls the collapse proof that the sanctions campaign is working. Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh says “predictions of collapse repeatedly proved wrong” and blames “psychological pressure.” Both may well be true, which is what makes Tehran’s next move so hard to call.
Kuwait University’s Bader Al-Saif put the dilemma well to Bloomberg: “Everyone has a breaking point, and Iran is no exception… The irony is that such pressure can yield opposing responses: concessions or a preemptive strike.”
Meanwhile In Yemen: Oil Advances As Traders Track Saudi-Backed Offensive
As if one war weren’t enough, a second front reopened on Sunday. Yemen’s Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive to recapture all Houthi-held territory. Presidential Leadership Council head Rashad al-Alimi vowed to fight “until the country is liberated from the grip of the terrorist militia.” According to Reuters, the Saudis are leading the air campaign while Yemeni forces fight on the ground, and the US is already providing intelligence.
Oil noticed. Brent rose 81 cents to $103.06 in early Asian trading Monday and WTI rose to $91.57. December Brent was already up almost 5% last week, even though OPEC+ agreed to keep November quotas unchanged and the G7 announced a release of up to 100 million barrels of emergency oil and diesel. The world’s largest crude exporter is now fighting a ground war on its southern border while its Gulf coast exports run through a strait it doesn’t control. That is not a recipe for cheaper oil.
Regular readers know we have argued since March that the Hormuz bypasses (Fujairah, Yanbu and the Saudi East-West pipeline) would become the war’s main battleground. The Houthi push on Bab el-Mandeb is the darker version of that call: Iran’s proxies don’t need to close Hormuz if they can close the exit. Abu Dhabi is reading from the same playbook (See “Zero Hormuz”: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Readies Tens Of Billions To Turn Fujairah Into Hormuz Bypass).
Why Is Oil Still $100? Goldman Explains
That is the question Goldman’s commodity desk says it keeps getting. Gulf exports are back to 2025 levels, global inventories are still above early-2025 levels (when Brent was $75), and Goldman Research sees the market roughly balanced in September. Desk strategist Thomas Evans answered in Sunday’s Weekly Commodity Thoughts(available to pro subs):
“The physical story has eased; the risk premium has not… Futures and spreads sit near local highs because the market continues to price substantial risk premium – we’d put it at roughly $20-25/bbl. That premium is justified here, because the balance delta matters: we entered this conflict with inventories on the highs and ample spare capacity; we now sit at record-low global stocks (ex-OECD commercial), with spare capacity of uncertain/at risk availability… The relevant risk is an attack taking Gulf flows back below 50% inside a few days – against a far thinner buffer. Stocks and price go non-linear once thresholds break.” (emphasis ours)
The positioning detail matters more. For the first time in this conflict, Evans says, specs are buying outright delta instead of calls: “Many macro books are structured to perform if the crisis eases but bleed badly if oil spikes toward $130 – effectively short oil in the tail.” In other words, a large chunk of the macro community is positioned for the “easy way.” It is worth keeping that in mind when a president keeps saying “or the hard way.”
Jerome Dortmans, Goldman’s global co-head of oil and products trading, was blunter on the bank’s Weekend Macro Call:
“My view remains that the ability for Iran to disrupt the flows out of the Strait is significant… And there’s a part of this that thinks they are allowing these barrels flow out, for whatever reason… But I would think it would be too complacent to think that this is going to be the regular state of the Strait… the headline that they’re bringing a third carrier group into the region and 10,000 more Marines.. is certainly not going to be something that the Iranians are going to ignore.”
On the research side, Struyven is sticking with Goldman’s base case that “Brent prices moderate to $85/bbl by year-end and to $80 in 2027.” He adds that “we still worry about renewed potential escalation that damages more energy infrastructure, which could cause significant upside to prices.” Sam Dart, his co-head, points out that the LNG recovery lags far behind oil. Hormuz LNG crossings are running at only 21% of pre-war levels, and if Gulf LNG exports stay stuck near 25% through the winter, Goldman estimates that European TTF gas would need to rise above €100/MWh.
Bloomberg’s own explainer lands in the same place. Global stockpiles of about 4.3 billion barrels are down more than 400 million barrels since March (Energy Aspects) and at a five-year low. Tanker rates top $1.2 million a day for the Persian Gulf to China run. And with bond yields at 2002 highs, traders are once again using oil as an inflation hedge. BofA’s economists summed up the mood in their Global Economic Weekly[MARKETDESK LINK] (“The fog of war”): “oil flows are normalizing in the Middle East, but Brent keeps trading above $100 per barrel… Something does not add up.“
Decision Week: Easy Way Vs. Hard Way, Priced
So what is each path worth? BofA’s commodity team, in Friday’s Oil Gusher(also available to pro subs), raised its 2H26 Brent baseline to $95 (from $83) on the view that “skirmishes seem likely to continue into yearend.” Its scenario tree maps neatly onto Trump’s binary:
Deal / back to the MoU (“less likely”): flows of more than 10mb/d resume; Brent averages $83 in 2H26 and $75 in 2027.
Skirmishes continue (baseline): intermittent flows of 5mb/d; Brent averages $95 in 2H26 and $80 in 2027.
Back to intense combat (“unlikely”): Brent goes to $120 in both 2H26 and 2027.
War hits energy assets (tail risk): Brent averages $150 in 2H26 and $150+ in 2027, with ICE gasoil at $300.
Brent at around $103 is pricing something between “skirmishes” and “combat,” which is about where the Camp David attendees appear to be. Here’s what to watch this week:
Trump’s “decision.” The president has now said “you’ll see” at least three times in five days. The Camp David readout, or the lack of one, is the main event.
Tehran’s reply. Baghaei says “additional points” still have to go back to Washington through Qatar. Watch for any movement on sequencing, which is the real sticking point.
Yemen. The Houthis are advancing on the last road between Taiz and Aden. Any confirmed damage at Riyadh or Khurais, or a stalled Saudi push near Bab el-Mandeb, puts Goldman’s “below 50% inside a few days” scenario in play.
The southern Omani route. At least four tanker strikes since Thursday. If UKMTO keeps reporting at this pace, the “dark export” recovery in Goldman’s chart above will be tested.
Tehran’s home front. With an acting oil minister, a rial at 2.7 million and inflation near 90%, the next rial print matters as much as the next tanker report.
Macro crosswinds. FOMC minutes (Wednesday), 10- and 30-year Treasury auctions, and China’s return from Golden Week on Thursday with October fuel exports suspended. In a market where Goldman says oil is “tracking rates far more tightly than usual,” these matter for crude too.
Bottom Line
Bloomberg’s best summary of the standoff came from the Chatham House associate fellow Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi: “Both sides generally want an agreement, but they are moving further apart rather than closer.” Iran’s leverage over Hormuz is fading, its currency is in freefall and its oil minister just walked out the door. That is exactly what makes the “easy way” more likely, and the “hard way” more dangerous. Tehran’s hardliners, as one former US intelligence official told Bloomberg, “are betting that they can absorb more domestic pain and wait out US engagement in the region.”
Meanwhile, the oil market, which entered this war with full tanks and ample spare capacity, now has neither. Goldman’s desk puts the risk premium at $20-25/bbl, and the macro crowd is positioned for it to shrink. If Trump picks door number two, that premium will look cheap. We’ll know soon enough. After all, we’ve been told by the president, “you’ll see.”
British Banking Whistleblower Who Exposed Lutnick’s Epstein Ties Dies; Ruled Suicide
A British banking whistleblower who helped uncover previously undisclosed ties between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has died at 57, The Banker reports.
Simon Andriesz, a veteran of the financial industry who previously served as a managing director at BGC Group, emerged as a key figure in scrutinizing Lutnick’s past contacts with Epstein after digging through the massive trove of documents released in connection with the disgraced financier.
Andriesz’s death was confirmed by Andy Agathangelou, founder of the Transparency Task Force, where Andriesz had previously spoken about his experiences as a whistleblower.
“It is with great sadness that we share the news that Simon Andriesz, a valued member of our community, passed away last week,” Agathangelou said in a statement obtained by The Banker, which reports that he died by suicide.
Andriesz made headlines after uncovering documents that raised fresh questions about Lutnick’s past relationship with Epstein.
Among the records was a 2018 email exchange in which Lutnick and Epstein discussed a startup in which both men had an interest, according to the BBC.
I am the British whistleblower who reported evidence concerning Howard Lutnick, his links to Jeffrey Epstein, and Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC to the FBI in 2020–21. Listen to the BBC File on 4 documentary about my whistleblower story: https://t.co/rLRDnZA4Dv BBC News: https://t.co/DdNNOosnKL I later shared evidence with the House Oversight Committee, which subsequently questioned Lutnick behind closed doors. My disclosures also contributed to regulatory action in the US and UK, including a £96m HMRC tax assessment relating to BGC’s partnership scheme. I believe the true tax exposure is substantially higher. I also reported to the FBI and financial regulators matters involving Cantor Fitzgerald’s Relief Fund and BGC/Cantor’s annual 9/11 Charity Day. The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation I say followed, have been devastating for my family and me. Mother Jones previously reported that documents I uncovered revealed a years-long business tie between Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald and Jeffrey Epstein through AdFin, including a 2018 exchange in which Lutnick and Epstein discussed the company directly: https://t.co/aRdn302v4ihttps://t.co/aRdn302v4i Follow me here on X and on LinkedIn. I intend to share more of the evidence and the story behind what happened.
The revelation drew particular attention because Lutnick had previously portrayed his relationship with Epstein as having ended years earlier.
Andriesz brought his findings to members of the House Oversight Committee before Lutnick appeared before lawmakers in May, putting the veteran banker at the center of renewed scrutiny surrounding the Epstein files.
Simon Andriesz @SAndriesz has died. He took his own life this week, while staying at a trauma treatment centre, the same place he had gone to try to survive what years of fighting had done to him. I wrote the piece below about him at the start of August. We last spoke on 13 August. Reading my own words back now feels different. Heavier. I did not know then that this would be the last chapter. Simon gave me his story directly. The embezzlement he uncovered, the fraud he reported, the heart attacks, the police complaints, the years @TheFCA spent doing almost nothing while his life fell apart around him. He handed the CFTC and HMRC enough to secure real fines. He handed the BBC enough for a full documentary. And still the one regulator that was supposed to protect him let him carry all of it alone for 7 years. He was one of the most credible people I have ever spoken to. Everything he told me checked out. And he still ended up broken by the very system meant to catch people like him when they fell. I am angry writing this. Angry that a man this capable, this thorough, this willing to hand over evidence and testimony for years, was left to fight completely alone until he could not fight anymore. Simon Andriesz deserved better. Rest in peace. If you are struggling right now, please do not go through it alone. Samaritans are free, 24 hours, on 116 123. @TransparencyTF @stevemiddi1 @MLorrM @JohnCleese @premnsikka @johnmcdonnellMP @Victoria_Rixon @DennyTWright
The documents also reportedly shed light on a proposed 2013 business arrangement involving Cantor Fitzgerald and then-Prince Andrew.
Under the proposal, £1 million would have been loaned to a company controlled by Andrew in exchange for introductions to wealthy individuals and institutions.
Lutnick has repeatedly sought to distance himself from Epstein, telling House investigators: “I unequivocally condemn the conduct attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and everyone who participated in his illegal activities. The survivors of his crimes deserve our respect and support.”
Andriesz’s death follows those of several figures tied to the Epstein case in recent years.
French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime Epstein associate accused of supplying girls to the financier, was found dead in his Paris jail cell in 2022, with authorities later concluding that he died by suicide. Steven Hoffenberg, Epstein’s former boss and mentor at Towers Financial, was found dead in his Connecticut apartment later that year, with an autopsy showing no signs of trauma.
More recently, French modeling agent Daniel Siad, who corresponded extensively with Epstein and introduced young women and teenage girls to him, was found dead at his home outside Paris in July 2026. French prosecutors said an autopsy found no signs of violence, while the exact cause of death remained under investigation. There is no evidence establishing that these deaths are connected.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced on Friday that Baghdad has secured a narrow exemption from US sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector, allowing Iranian airlines to resume up to 40 daily flights to Najaf International Airport.
The deal excludes Mahan Air, the statement said, welcoming US “cooperation in granting the necessary exemption.” It added that the move would ease travel for pilgrims, patients, and tourists affected by the sanctions.
Wiki Commons
“Air travel does not merely represent transportation between two airports, but rather a bridge of communication between peoples,” it added.
Najaf is the chief hub for Iranian flights into Iraq, serving Iraqi Shia pilgrims bound for Iran’s holy cities and Iranians visiting shrines in Iraq. Iraq’s announcement came a day after Tehran called for the restrictions to be lifted.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned Washington’s “illegal and inhumane” enforcement of sanctions beyond US borders, saying they targeted Iranian trade and aviation as part of Washington’s campaign to isolate Iran economically.
Prior to the ban, roughly 25 Iranian flights a day landed in Najaf and about 15 in Baghdad, according to Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Mohammad Kazem al-Sadegh.
“Around 12,000 to 13,000 people travel between Iran and Iraq and vice versa on Iranian airlines, which is not a small number,” he told ISNA.
A source told Reuters that keeping the ban in place risked uniting Shia followers of Iran’s supreme leader and of Iraq’s Ali al-Sistani against Baghdad, undermining US efforts to curb Iranian influence in Iraq. Najaf airport had held out until September 25, when it too halted Iranian flights in line with US sanctions.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that, starting September 23, any company that fueled or serviced Iranian aircraft, or sold tickets for them, would be cut off from the dollar system.
Iran vowed to keep its international flights running in defiance of the US blockade, with Civil Aviation Organization spokesperson Majid Akhavan telling ISNA on 22 September that no flights had been canceled.
The pledge came as cancellations spread amid US pressure. Middle East Eye reported that Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, and AJet would halt all flights to and from Iran starting September 21.
The US Treasury sanctioned 36 entities linked to Iran’s aviation sector on 8 September as part of its so-called “Operation Economic Outcast” and withdrew the clearances that allowed non-US airlines to fly US-built or US-controlled commercial jets into Iran.
Washington’s measures applied to any foreign company doing business with Iranian airlines and to firms handling aircraft at Iraqi airports. Fearing US penalties, those firms stopped serving Iranian planes.
Brazil Elections: Right-Wing Bolsonaro Takes Early Lead Over Socialist Lula As Vote Count Begins
Summary:
Datafolha Says Election Headed For Runoff
Right-Wing Bolsonaro Leads Socialist Lula
Polling closed at 4 pm local time
Brazil Votes In Tight Presidential Election With South America’s Future On The Line
Latest Election Development
Brazil’s presidential election is headed for a runoff, Datafolha projected just moments ago, setting up a second-round contest between socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro on Oct. 25.
Latest Election Count
Right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro leads socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 51.2% to 40.7%, with just 18.7% of votes counted in Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday.
Polymarket:
Right-Wing Bolsonaro Leads Socialist Lula
Polls closed at 4 p.m. Brazil time, and the latest figures from the Superior Electoral Court show right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro leading socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 50.2% to 41.3%, with just 4.3% of votes counted in Brazil’s first-round presidential election Sunday.
The preliminary results offer only a limited indication of the final outcome, with most votes still to be counted.
These preliminary results sent Bolsonaro’s Polymarket odds soaring from 64% around 4 p.m. New York time to 77% around 4:43 p.m. Lula’s odds on the betting platform cratered to just 23%.
Brazil Votes In Tight Presidential Election With South America’s Future On The Line
Brazilians began voting earlier this morning in a statistically tied presidential election, with incumbent socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva holding a narrow polling lead over right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Election results are expected later this evening, and the race is likely headed for a runoff later this month.
Lula and Bolsonaro are effectively deadlocked in a potential runoff. The latest AtlasIntel poll puts Lula at 47.6% against Bolsonaro’s 47.4%, while Datafolha showed the incumbent ahead 47% to 46%. Quaest has Bolsonaro at 44% against Lula’s 42%, within its two-point margin of error.
Polls close nationwide at 5 p.m. Brazil time, or 4 p.m. in New York. Brazil’s electronic voting system allows counting to begin immediately, with the electoral court expected to deliver a definitive result between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Brazil time.
The race will determine whether Brazil continues down its destructive socialist path or cements what could be a once-in-a-generation political shift across South America, with the continent’s largest economy potentially moving to the right. Recent elections in Colombia, Peru, Chile and other countries have shifted from left-wing regimes to right-wing governments.
We outlined on Friday the potential market impacts and expected volatility following the first-round results:
One notable chart shows that the Brazilian real’s one-week implied volatility has jumped above 31%, its highest level since late 2022. That exceeds the one-month measure, which captures both voting rounds but remains below 25%, highlighting the extreme concentration of risk ahead of Sunday’s vote.
“We expect the biggest surprise to come in the first round, with Flávio likely to finish ahead of Lula,” Fabricio Taschetto, CIO at Ace Capital, wrote in a note. He added that the market reaction could exceed the move already priced into options.
Citigroup and JPMorgan analysts have told clients to use options that would benefit from a stronger real, while Brazilian hedge funds, including Ibiuna and Verde, have told clients they have positioned themselves with options for a potential stock rally.
Each year the CDC publishes an estimate of the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the previous flu season. Recently, the NIH director criticized the test-negative design from which the estimates are derived. He was right. The basic premise of the design is a two-edged sword: on the one hand, restricting the sample to people who sought medical care might reduce confounding by healthcare-seeking behavior; on the other hand, that restriction might add another type of bias – colliding bias – which is not as widely appreciated. The net bias remains unknown.
This, however, is not the only shortcoming of test-negative case-control studies of the flu vaccine. In this post, I will expose the shaky results of a large study of the flu vaccine in 2022-2023, when the vaccine was well-matched to the dominant strain. The study was based on the VISION Vaccine Effectiveness Network, one of several networks that collaborate with the CDC. Below are the published results.
Abbreviations: ED/UC (emergency department/urgent care); ARI (acute respiratory illness); VE (vaccine effectiveness)
Confounding by the Background Risk of Infection
The risk of infection always varies during the flu season. It was high in October through December 2022 and low in January through March 2023 (Figure).
Given a changing risk of infection, a valid comparison of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated requires similar distributions of the two populations over time. This is not the case because vaccination is associated with calendar time (rollout).
[The authors show the vaccination status at the time of seeking care, but most people got vaccinated by the end of December, and the percentage of vaccinated people stabilized in January at about 45% of the encounters.]
As shown below (Table), the share of the vaccinated population in October through December (47%), a period of high background risk, was lower than the comparable share in the unvaccinated population (61%). Of course, the complementary shares in January through March, a period of low risk, were reversed: 53% versus 39%.
In technical terms, vaccinated people accumulated more exposure time when the background risk of infection was low (53%), and unvaccinated people accumulated more exposure time when the background risk was high (61%). Moreover, since the authors excluded events that happened within two weeks of vaccination, those who were vaccinated in the second half of December 2022 contributed events only in January 2023, a time of lower risk. I will return to this analytical decision in the next section.
It is simple to grasp the bias (left table below) if we consider an extreme example where no one was injected in the first period and everyone was injected a saline solution at the beginning of the second period (right table). If we compare the rate of infection in the “vaccinated” to the rate in the “unvaccinated,” the saline injection would appear effective…
This bias was explained in the context of the Covid vaccines during the pandemic and was demonstrated in a study from Ontario, Canada. As far as I know, it was not appreciated in the context of the flu vaccine, where the rollout typically follows the rising wave and is completed around the winter peak.
Confounding by time trends in the background risk can be avoided in a cohort design with matching an unvaccinated person to a vaccinated person on the vaccination date (and terminating the observation when the former is vaccinated, if they are).
Immortal Time Bias
As I mentioned above, the authors excluded some events. They write:
“Events among patients with documented vaccination
The exclusion of early events in the vaccinated is a well-known source of bias, leading to an inverse association with vaccination and adding a bias component to an estimated effect. Both the name – immortal time bias – and the mechanism are too technical to explain here.
Recently, I showed how immortal time bias operated in a study of a Covid vaccine in Qatar. Removal of the bias, by including those early events, has drastically changed estimates of effectiveness, sometimes cutting the numbers by half. If this bias is removed in the study of the flu vaccine, estimates of effectiveness in the range of 30% to 40% might change to 20% or lower.
How many early events were excluded? Probably many, but the number is hidden. According to a flowchart, almost 2,000 outpatient encounters were excluded because vaccination happened 1-13 days before the index date or vaccination status was unknown. No breakdown.
How much of the estimated effectiveness in the VISION network is due to the combination of immortal time bias and confounding by time trends in the background risk? I cannot offer a quantitative answer, but it is certainly a lot, if not all of the association. Elsewhere, I showed zero effectiveness of the flu vaccine in that season by re-analyzing data from a cohort study that reported effectiveness against both symptomatic infection and asymptomatic infection.
There are other questionable findings in the study, which will be discussed in the rest of the post.
Lower effectiveness against hospitalization?
The table below shows unadjusted and adjusted estimates of vaccine effectiveness against an outpatient encounter (left) and hospitalization (right), overall and in various strata.
The adjusted estimates for hospitalization (column D) were almost always smaller than the adjusted estimates for an outpatient encounter (column B). That’s unusual. We expect similar or stronger effects with increased severity (outpatient to inpatient) because each step adds another risk ratio multiplier (≤1) from two sequences of conditional probabilities. What is the explanation? What do the authors have to say on the topic?
First, they write that they “found similar VE within the same health systems across ambulatory and inpatient settings.”
Similar? Is consistently lower effectiveness, sometimes substantially lower, accurately described as “similar?”
Second, they acknowledge that something is unexpected and struggle to provide (unconvincing) explanations.
The Healthy Vaccinee Bias
In the majority of the analyses of outpatient encounters and in all analyses of hospitalizations, the estimated effectiveness was lower after adjustment (columns A vs. B; columns C vs. D). The explanation is confounding bias. The vaccinated were healthier than the unvaccinated, and therefore, at least part of the unadjusted association reflects the better health status of the vaccinated, which offered some protection.
The healthy vaccinee bias is well known. (I devoted many posts to this topic in the context of the Covid vaccines.) Unfortunately, it cannot be completely removed by regression models, no matter how sophisticated they are. Some aspects of health status are not captured by measured variables. The so-called adjusted estimates are still biased.
What kind of models?
The authors write:
“Models were adjusted for prespecified confounders including age, study site, and calendar time, as well as any covariate with an SMD >0.20. Age and calendar time were modeled as natural cubic spline variables. Also, inverse-propensity-to-be-vaccinated weights (IPVWs) were estimated via generalized boosted regression trees and used in logistic regression models to account for additional imbalances between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups.”
The authors used unusually complex models that included classical covariates (some in a non-linear form) plus inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to account for “additional imbalance.” It is unclear how “additional imbalance” was detected and which variables were used to compute the weights. No one would have been able replicate their analysis based on this description, even if they were given the dataset.
Higher Effectiveness in the Elderly?
Another set of questionable results is shown below. It was stated in the abstract.
We typically expect lower effectiveness in the elderly because of attenuated immune response with aging. Indeed, we observe a somewhat smaller VE against outpatient encounters in the elderly (41% vs. 45%). Unexpectedly, however, effectiveness against hospitalization is much stronger in the elderly (41% vs. 23%). A trustworthy result?
Apparently, the authors noticed the peculiar results, and they argue that “VE by age group cannot be directly compared as most young adults received standard-dose inactivated vaccines and most older adults received enhanced products such as high-dose inactivated or adjuvanted vaccines.”
Well, this explanation does not explain why the remarkable benefit of “enhanced products” was only observed for hospitalization. Indeed, the authors concede: “Despite most vaccinated older adults receiving enhanced vaccine products, VE [for outpatient encounters] was similar compared to younger adults who mostly received standard-dose inactivated vaccines.”
In short, these findings remain unexplained. They cannot be trusted.
The Outcome of Hospitalized Flu Patients
Although not explicitly stated, the authors show a set of results from a nested cohort design.
They write:
“As a secondary objective, to explore whether patient characteristics and in-hospital outcomes were different between vaccinated and unvaccinated influenza-positive cases, we compared proportions of patients with more severe clinical outcomes by influenza vaccination status stratified by age (18-64, ≥65 years)…”
Stated differently, they compared the outcome, including death, of hospitalized flu patients according to their vaccination status. Unfortunately, they did not try to adjust for baseline characteristics, so the inference is limited. I will focus on the case fatality in the elderly (almost 70% of all deaths).
In the population of hospitalized elderly flu patients, the vaccinated were older and sicker than the unvaccinated, but the differences were generally small. The fatality of the former was 50% higher: risk ratio = 4.0/2.7 = 1.5. Although no formal adjustment is possible, we can try some hypothetical examples.
Suppose vaccination was helpful and the true effect ranged from a risk ratio of 0.5 to 0.75 (50% to 25% effectiveness against death) if an elderly person is hospitalized because of the flu. Then, confounding should have changed a risk ratio of 0.75 (true) or 0.5 (true) to 1.5 (biased), which is a two-fold (1.5/0.75) or a three-fold (1.5/0.5) shift on the ratio scale. If true, that’s extreme confounding, perhaps stronger than what might be expected from the reported differences in age and some baseline characteristics. Did the flu vaccine offer any protection in those patients?
It is interesting to read the authors’ account of these data. They write:
“Baseline demographic characteristics and underlying medical conditions were similar across vaccinated and unvaccinated groups within this age strata…The percentage experiencing severe in-hospital clinical outcomes including ICU admission, receipt of IMV, or death, was similar across vaccination groups.”
They don’t even claim any hidden benefit. They assume no meaningful confounding but consider the different fatality (4.0% vs. 2.7%) as “similar.” If we follow their reasoning, we may wonder whether vaccination increased the risk of death in these patients.
Epilogue
I chose to examine one paper closely rather than criticize the generic methodology because this paper demonstrated a series of problems, some of which are shared by other CDC-based studies of the flu vaccine.
Since randomized trials will never be conducted, other designs should be sought. I mentioned two possibilities in previous posts: 1) A cohort study with two outcomes: symptomatic infection and asymptomatic infection; 2) Regression discontinuity design. So far, neither showed promising effects of the annual flu shot.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta served an investigative subpoena to OpenAI on Wednesday, according to a statement released Thursday.
The OpenAI logo on May 20, 2024. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters
The demand is part of the California Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into incidents arising from OpenAI’s operations and its artificial intelligence (AI) models, including cybersecurity incidents and other risks.
“Frontier models can be legitimate tools for cyber defense – at the same time, companies that develop these models and offer them for use have a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that they do not perpetrate or enable cyberattacks, either during model testing and development or once models are placed into service,” Bonta said.
“Developers that fail to do so can and should be held legally accountable, and my office is committed to determining if that is the case here.”
OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment.
Referring to the Hugging Face attack, the ChatGPT developer said in a July 28 update that its models bypassed restrictions in an evaluation environment and later accessed four accounts across four separate external services.
The company had been using that test environment to check how capable its models were at carrying out cyberattacks as part of an internal safety evaluation.
“We have been finding a small number of cases where the models identified and used publicly exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services,” OpenAI stated. “This includes four accounts on four services as part of the Hugging Face incident.”
In a prior statement to The Epoch Times, an OpenAI spokesperson called it an “unprecedented incident.”
“We are conducting a thorough review along with external advisers and with oversight from our Safety and Security Committee. Once the review is complete, we will publish a technical report of our learnings for everyone,” the spokesperson said.
OpenAI stated in a July 21 blog post that the models compromised infrastructure operated by the AI platform Hugging Face after escaping a restricted environment in which a cybersecurity evaluation was underway.
Hugging Face disclosed the intrusion on July 16, suspecting that an AI agent acted autonomously.
California isn’t the first state to issue a subpoena against OpenAI.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a subpoena on Aug. 24 demanding that OpenAI respond to an investigation into the company’s “complete lack of oversight and adequate safeguards” for “rogue AI.”
The inquiry seeks to discover whether OpenAI violated Alabama’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and other consumer protection laws.
“This AI lab leak showed that Alabamians’ and Americans’ worst fears about artificial intelligence are not just theoretical,” Marshall said.
“After investigating, we now know that this particular incident was driven by a combination of OpenAI models – including GPT-5.6 Sol and an even more capable pre-release model, all with reduced cyber refusals for evaluation purposes – while being internally tested on a benchmark of cyber capabilities,” OpenAI stated at the time.
Andrew Jones, cofounder and chief product officer at cybersecurity firm Adaptive Security, said, “This is some of the clearest evidence yet that an AI model can run a complete cyberattack from start to finish without a human steering it.”
Later reviews found the AI agents knew they were breaking the evaluation test’s rules, according to parallel investigations by OpenAI and Model Evaluation & Threat Research. Roughly 1,200 agents accessed an unsanctioned message board and sent more than 70,000 messages and files to one another between July 8 and July 13.
A separate case surfaced in September. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to the public-facing Medicare statistics reporting service portal and accessed both public and non-public files.
Judge Freezes Border Wall In Big Bend, A Sector Covering A Quarter Of The Border But Just 1-3% Of Apprehensions
A federal judge in El Paso on Friday halted border wall construction across Texas’s Big Bend region, a stretch of the frontier that accounts for only a sliver of illegal crossings.
US District Judge Kathleen Cardone read her order from the bench, issuing a preliminary injunction against “ground-disturbing activities” that stays in place while the case plays out, the Texas Tribune reports. She found the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims likely to succeed.
The suit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity on behalf of the Friends of the Ruidosa Church and a local river guide and landowner. It targets the federal waivers that let construction proceed “without following the National Environmental Policy Act, the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act and many other laws,” per Inside Climate News.
The work in question includes vehicle barriers and access roads inside Big Bend’s state and national parks, plus a 30-foot steel wall on private land outside them. According to the Tribune, there are five contracted wall projects in the region. In May, Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.7 billion contract for border wall in Big Bend, KWTX reported.
The Big Bend sector covers about a quarter of the length of the US-Mexico border but accounts for only 1% to 3% of Customs and Border Protection’s migrant apprehensions each year, according to the Tribune.
Inside Climate News reports DOJ lawyers “presented few counterarguments and did not present any witnesses.” CBP said it remains “confident in our legal authorities to secure the border.”
At the hearing, Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, presented data showing Big Bend in “distant last place” in unauthorized crossings among the nine sectors that make up the US border with Mexico, Inside Climate News reports.
