Last month we noted that US foreclosure filings jumped 17% in Q3 of 2025 vs. Q3 2024, with Florida, Nevada, South Carolina, Illinois and Delaware leading the pack, based on research by ATTOM. 

Now, ATTOM is reporting a 20% monthly spike in October vs. 2024 – marking the eighth straight month of YoY increases. 

Breaking it down:

• There were 36,766 US properties with some type of foreclosure filing in October, which include notices of default, scheudled auctions, or bank repossessions – a 3% rise over September of this year, and a 19% jump vs. Oct. 2024.
• Foreclosure starts – the initial phase of the process, were up 6% vs. September and were 20% higher than October 2024. 
• Completed foreclosures – the final phase, jumped 32% YoY for October. 

That said, Attom CEO Rober Barber doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

“Even with these increases, activity remains well below historic highs. The current trend appears to reflect a gradual normalization in foreclosure volumes as market conditions adjust and some homeowners continue to navigate higher housing and borrowing costs,” said Barber. 

Similar to last month’s report, Florida, South Carolina and Illinois led the nation in state foreclosure filings. City-wise, the following metro areas led the pack:

• Tampa, FL
• Jacksonville, FL
• Orlando, FL
• Riverside, CA
• Cleveland, OH

When it comes to completed foreclosures, Texas, California and Florida had the most – suggesting that those states will see more inventory available for sale at distressed prices. As CNBC notes, there’s strong demand for houses in these price ranges, so it’s likely that those foreclosed properties won’t last long on the market. 

Putting things in perspective

All of the above translates to less than 0.5% of mortgages in foreclosure. At the peak of the Great Recession, over 4% of mortgages were in foreclosure – so we have a ways to go, and are currently well below the historic average of between 1% and 1.5%. 

Also right now, 4% of mortgages are delinquent, which as 12% at the peak of the financial crisis.

What is concerning are FHA loans: 

“So, no foreclosure tsunami to worry about,” said  Rick Sharga, CEO of CJ Patrick Co., a real estate market intelligence firm. “That said, there are a few areas of concern. [Federal Housing Administration] delinquencies are over 11%, and account for 52% of all seriously delinquent loans; we’re likely to see more FHA loans in foreclosure in 2026.” 

Sharga also pointed out that states which are experiencing falling home prices with rising insurance premiums are seeing an uptick in defaults. 

At the end of the day, in most major metros – anyone looking to buy a home is still better off renting that same home for a fraction of the mortgage, property tax, and maintenance – with the wildcard of course being the potential for capital appreciation. 

Let’s Compare

Take a $2.2 million home in San Diego, for example… Someone with excellent credit will pay $13,859 per month when you include taxes, HOA, and home insurance, and cough up $439,000 for the 20% down payment. 

If interest rates drop to 4%, you’re still paying $11,480 per month…

Meanwhile, this almost identically sized house around the corner (literally) rents for $6,200 / month –  which is $7,659 less per month than the mortgage (or $91,908 less per year) and includes a landlord to pay for that broken washing machine or whatever, plus you can bail when the neighbor kid drops a 2000W stereo in his Acura you can hear from 3 blocks away coming home from his Drakkar Noir-drenched attempt to get laid in the Gaslamp (did not get laid).

Either way you’re paying for a McMansion on a postage stamp.

Via Middle East Eye

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants a defense deal that outshines Qatar’s, AI chips and AI-powered drones, and potentially, American nuclear weapons stationed in his country.

The wishlist reveals the confidence of a leader who arrives in Washington on Monday, having withstood pressure to normalize ties with Israel amid alleged genocide in Gaza. Then over the summer, he emerged unscathed, if not relatively stronger, by sitting out a direct war between Israel and Iran. On the opposite side of the aisle is a US president willing to put up his country’s crown jewels for negotiation: nuclear and AI technology.

The success of the crown prince’s visit will be a reflection of President Donald Trump’s core instinct to bypass the American security establishment’s concerns about China and safeguarding US technology in exchange for racking up foreign sales from one of the world’s few major economies that has the cash at hand, despite stretched budgets, to splash big. 

There was a time when Middle Eastern leaders came to the White House to discuss deals that basically just kept Boeing and Lockheed Martin humming. The shah of Iran, with his encyclopedic knowledge of weapons systems, was notorious for such visits. But experts say Mohammed bin Salman’s sophisticated shopping list reflects his view of a much more mature and forward-thinking kingdom.

“MBS is not looking for cooperation in a single area, but to strengthen US-Saudi cooperation in the long term. That is a two-way flow of technology and trade,” Ayham Kamel, Middle East president at Edelman Public and Government Affairs, told Middle East Eye.

“Saudi Arabia still wants to be part of a multipolar world order, but it is pivoting to take advantage of its closeness to Trump,” he added. 

Nukes and defense agreement

One of the areas to watch, experts say, is a Saudi push to be included under the US’s nuclear umbrella. Days after Israel attacked Hamas negotiators in Qatar, Saudi Arabia signed a defence pact with Pakistan, the only nuclear-armed state in the Muslim world. Pakistan is estimated to possess around 170 nuclear warheads. Saudi and Pakistani descriptions of the deal said it encompassed all military options.

The Americans’ nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia have been kept under tight wraps, but one former US intelligence official said the idea of extending protection to the kingdom could serve a purpose.

“It would pull them [the Saudis] out of the Pakistanis’ nuclear umbrella and make the Saudis feel better than the Qataris,”  he said. “I think we should look for some language next week that points to Saudi Arabia being linked to the US nuclear arsenal,” the former official said.

MEE reported previously that the Trump administration gave its approval for the Israeli attack on Qatar. The decision discredited the decades-old foundation of the US’s status as the security guarantor of the oil-rich region.

But for Saudi Arabia, that image started to fray as early as 2019 when Iran attacked its Aramco oil facilities. The first Trump administration refused to retaliate against Tehran or its allies, the Houthis, whom Saudi Arabia was fighting at the time. “The memory of September 2019…still looms large,” Hesham Alghannam, a Saudi defence analyst in Riyadh, said at an event hosted by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington on Wednesday.

In a bid to mend ties with Doha after the Israeli attack, Trump signed an executive order that guarantees Qatar’s security and says the US will regard any attack on the Gulf state as a threat to its own “peace and security”. Few officials in Washington or the Gulf put much stock in the pledge. Unlike the US’s treaty commitments to Japan and South Korea, executive orders can be revoked at any time, and incoming governments may not honour them. 

Experts say Saudi Arabia wants something stronger, with the knowledge that it will not get a Senate ratified treaty. “Riyadh is not seeking symbolic protection. It wants a credible and clear defense arrangement. Not MOUs with no action plan. Something more than the partial offers the kingdom is getting now,” Alghannam added.

Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and national security adviser Musaad al-Aiban were in Washington earlier this week to iron out the potential defense pledge. Before he has even landed in Washington, one of the successes of the crown prince’s visit has been the Saudi’s ability to disentangle bilateral deals with the US from Israel, experts say. 

The US and Saudi Arabia had been discussing a Senate ratified defence treaty as part of a quid pro quo for Riyadh to normalize ties with Israel.

Before Trump visited the kingdom in May, Saudi Arabia had pre-negotiated the talking points to make sure normalisation was not on the agenda, MEE was the first to reveal. Despite a fragile ceasefire holding in Gaza now, and Trump’s claim that Riyadh will normalise ties with Israel before the year’s end, western and Arab diplomats tell MEE that Saudi Arabia is just as reluctant to return to those discussions.

In addition to a ceasefire, the kingdom wants to see steps towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state, something Israel is loath to agree on.

Can Saudi Arabia enrich uranium?

Saudi Arabia and the US were also in talks about reaching an agreement on civilian nuclear energy as part of a reward for Riyadh to establish ties with Israel.

Those talks are still on – even if normalization is off the agenda. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited Saudi Arabia in the spring to discuss cooperation in nuclear technology.

While Trump considers the Abraham Accords a key success of his foreign policy, he is also seeking business deals. The allure of US companies like Westinghouse and Bechtel, which build nuclear reactors and the infrastructure to support them, profiting from a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, may be enough to overcome sidelining Israel, experts say.

In 2009, the UAE signed a so-called 123 agreement by which they promised not to enrich uranium in order to receive US permission to start a civilian nuclear program.

The crown prince and his advisors have pushed for a deal that will allow them to enrich uranium, which they say the kingdom holds vast reserves of. “We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake’,” Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at the start of the year, referring to a step in the process that comes after mining, but before enrichment.

“Not enriching would be a major concession by the Saudis. It’s an economic issue because the Saudis know they can make more money off their uranium by enriching themselves instead of exporting it. But it is also a matter of national pride. The question is, if they don’t enrich, what is their pay-off from Trump?” a Saudi-based analyst told MEE.

Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton, said at the Arab Gulf States Institute event that the trade-off could be nuclear weapons. “I suspect for now that they will give up on enrichment and processing, but they will want a nuclear umbrella protection from the US,” Haykel said. “Which may involve the deployment of US nuclear weapons systems on Saudi soil.”

Gregory Gause, a visiting scholar at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, told MEE: “Historically, we have had nuclear weapons stationed all over the place. It doesn’t require Congress to approve the stationing of nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia.”

“We also have nuclear-armed submarines that can go anywhere in the world. Trump could just say we will commit to nuclear-armed submarines patrolling the Indian Ocean.”

Will Saudi Arabia get F-35s?

Saudi Arabia is bringing 1,000 officials on 18 planes to Washington for the visit, a US official briefed on the preparations told MEE. Monday will mark the first time since 2018 that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit the White House.

Seven months after that trip, he ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, triggering a torrent of criticism by human rights groups and former US President Joe Biden when he was campaigning for office. Riyadh’s ties to the US were strained during the Biden administration’s early days, but by 2022, they recovered, in part because the US needed Saudi energy after it sanctioned Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman emerged from that rupture in a much stronger position. He sought a truce with the Houthis in Yemen and has patched up ties with Iran. The crown prince moved out of isolation long ago. This visit, experts say, is about consolidating the raft of deals that the US and Saudi Arabia committed to when Trump visited the Gulf in May. 

The two announced $142bn in defense sales. At the time, MEE revealed that F-35s, stealthy fifth-generation fighter jets, were part of the prospective agreement. Reuters reported last week that the sale could include up to 48 F-35s.

Some US and Israeli officials have been concerned about the sale for months, as MEE and others have reported. Israel is the only country in the Middle East to operate the F-35, which it views as a key part of its qualitative military edge against its neighbours.

Plans to sell F-35s to the UAE as part of its establishment of diplomatic ties to Israel stalled during the Biden administration over concerns that China could gain access to the technology. US officials have been raising those concerns about Saudi Arabia for months also, current and former US officials tell MEE.

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace expert at Aerodynamic Advisory, said if the deal went through, they wouldn’t start getting deliveries until three or four years from now, as they would be behind several European countries that have already placed orders.Aboulalafia said concerns about maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge have been a perennial issue in warplane sales to Saudi Arabia.

In the 1990s, the US sold the kingdom F-15S strike eagle warplanes with downgraded radars and inferior electronics countermeasures, in part to appease pro-Israel lobbying groups. “The Israelis will be a little concerned, but usually, that is addressed because Israel gets technological rights to enhance their stuff, that the Saudis do not get,” Aboulalafia said.

“The F-35 is also, to a far greater extent than any other aircraft, vulnerable to a kill switch,” he added, meaning that the US can remotely disable the warplanes.

President Trump is planning a formal dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his trip to Washington, a man the U.S. intelligence community concluded approved the killing and dismemberment of Post opinion columnist Jamal Khashoggi. https://t.co/TCT4hzLLtW

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 14, 2025

Israel itself has pioneered advancements on the F-35 with the US’s support. Israel modified its version of the warplane, the F-35I Adir, to carry external fuel compartments without compromising on its stealthy features, MEE reported. That modification allowed Israel to fly the F-35s thousands of miles round-trip to Iran, without refuelling, during its surprise attack on Iran in June.

Alghannam, the Saudi analyst, told the Arab Gulf States Institute that this is the kind of cooperation, what he called “the localisation of content”, is what Saudi Arabia is really seeking from Trump. He said, “without US assistance”, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned weapons manufacturer, Saudi Arabian Military Industries, could not become a “serious” player in the industry.

Drones to data centres: Saudi Arabia’s AI agenda 

In addition to F-35s, the US and Saudi Arabia have been discussing the sale of hundreds of MQ-9 Reaper drones. However, defense industry insiders and officials say that the kingdom is becoming more selective, and the space to watch for deals during this visit is with smaller defense players.

Saudi Arabia has been in talks with Shield AI, a US start-up whose AI-supported V-Bat drone is operating in Ukraine. The company is also working on a so-called vertical takeoff drone that carries both air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons.

“Riyadh is a big area of interest,” one person briefed on the discussions told MEE. “The Saudis are looking at mid-sized drones. They want Collaborative Combat Aircraft that can fly alongside warplanes, and they want drones suitable for maritime surveillance.”

Like its smaller neighbor, the UAE, Saudi Arabia is also eying American AI chips. In May, Nvidia announced plans to sell thousands of its advanced Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI firm owned by Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion Public Investment Fund.

The kingdom is pitching itself as an AI hub with cut-rate electricity prices to power data centers. Humain is building data centres from Riyadh to Dammam, which it says will have 6.6 gigawatts of capacity by 2034. Saudi AI company Datavolt is building a $5bn data center on the kingdom’s Red Sea coast.

While AI deals were announced with fanfare during Trump’s visit to the kingdom in May, the delivery of chips has stalled, with no public announcements. Some US officials have raised concerns that China could gain access to the US’s AI technology in Saudi Arabia. The crown prince is expected to push for progress on the deals in Washington.

Goldman analysts led by Evan Tylenda published a note on emerging labor-market risks and how companies are adapting to aging demographics and shrinking labor pools.

One section stood out in particular: the widening mismatch between an oversupply of college-educated workers and a deepening shortage of talent for non-degree, hands-on jobs.

Tylenda and others on the team spoke with labor demographer Ron Hetrick, who outlined how the U.S. labor market is entering a structural slowdown driven by aging demographics, a falling birth rate, and weakening participation among older workers.

Hetrick outlined that baby boomers once supplied 65 million workers, but only 25 million remain, and no younger generation is large enough to replace them. 

He noted that BLS data show the workforce adding just 5.9 million workers by 2034, with nearly half of that coming from workers aged +65, even as participation among those +55 continues to decline.

Here’s where things get spicy: This demographic squeeze is creating a skills imbalance: an oversupply of college-educated workers and a shortage of vocational and lower-skilled labor for non-degree jobs.

From the note:

• Shortage of skilled / technical labor: The Demographic Dilemma and resulting labor shortages make automation and AI success essential while simultaneously threatening to constrain AI’s physical scale-up via potential skilled labor shortages. The emerging bottlenecks lie in power generation, transmission and grid modernization, and upstream industries required for electrification and digitization such as manufacturing, and critical minerals mining and processing — industries with long project cycles, high regulatory friction, and limited talent mobility from displaced knowledge-worker pools.

• Shortage of low-skilled labor in high turnover industries: where recent graduates and knowledge workers displaced by AI are imperfect fits. This is driving rising automation for low-skilled jobs, driven by rising costs, declining labor pools. For example, the U.S. added 4.5 mn workers with a college degree since 2019, while losing 800k workers without a degree. Automation in low-skilled roles (especially ones with repetition) has potential to help improve worker safety and pay for remaining workers, potentially driving lower employee turnover in the medium to long term.

We hosted Ron Hetrick, a labor demographer, to highlight the structural issues forming for labor markets in the U.S. coming from declining labor pools, particularly in lower skilled fields not requiring a degree. Mr. Hetrick sees mounting challenges for the aging and declining workforce in the U.S., with industries like Healthcare and Construction most exposed to disruption, driven by limited availability of labor solutions.

Companies adapting, and key solutions for addressing labor challenges. Corporates, across industries, are taking different measures to remedy risk of labor shortages, mainly around 1) Automation upgrades to boost productivity and consistency; 2) Retention efforts, including increased pay, better work conditions, enhanced benefits packages, providing childcare service etc.; and 3) Training & Upskilling through the expansion of their own training infrastructure and partnerships with external institutions.

ZeroHedge Pro subscribers can read the complete note in the usual spot. It’s loaded with far more detail on the shifting labor market, a framework that’s increasingly important to understand before the 2030s arrive. 

The most appropriate way to end the note is an epic quote by Palantir CEO Alex Karp:

The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession.

I think that annoys the f*ck out of these people. 

Palantir CEO Alex Karp on Zohran Mandani:

“The average Ivy League grad voting for this mayor is annoyed their education is not that valuable, and that the person who knows how to drill for oil has a more valuable profession”

“I think that annoys the fuck out of these people” https://t.co/uYA54AYAJN pic.twitter.com/46XmHSB1gb

— Jawwwn (@jawwwn_) November 6, 2025

These days, college is a woke indoctrination factory pumping out our purple-haired creatures who are confused about their gender and rave about Marxism.

College is not like it used to be. There is an oversupply of unproductive “woke” degrees. Don’t be woke. Be productive, find a solid trade job that won’t be automated into extinction by 2030, and start a family; this is one pathway for GenZers.

Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins suggested on Nov. 14 that everyone registered for the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits should reapply as a result of ongoing fraud discoveries.

At least, that is what she said when she shared what the Trump administration was planning to enact during her appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she said.

This decision comes after Rollins disclosed on X that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) discovered that nearly 200,000 deceased people across 29 states received benefits.

The remaining 21 states sued to keep their data from being disclosed, according to the post.

The states that chose not to cooperate were mostly Democratic-run states.

More than 500,000 people were registered twice, she revealed.

She also said that the program experienced a 40 percent increase under the Biden Administration.

About 42 million people, or one in eight Americans, use the federal food program, and they receive $177 per person per month, on average, according to the latest USDA data.

Rollins, in an earlier interview, said that 80 percent of people using the program were able to work and described SNAP as one of the “most corrupt, dysfunctional programs” in U.S. history.

Those who choose to reapply would have to verify that they could not survive without it, she said. She also argued that the cutoff of some SNAP benefits would also incentivize more illegal immigrants to self-deport.

“In just the states that cooperated, we’ve already uncovered massive fraud,” Rollins said on X at the beginning of November.

“The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census.”

“There’s a new sheriff in town. @POTUS will not tolerate waste, fraud, or abuse while hardworking Americans go hungry,” she wrote.

SNAP beneficiaries became a poignant topic after the USDA ran out of funding for the program during the record-long government shutdown. Distribution of benefits was ordered to resume immediately after President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded through the New Year.

“The reduction in maximum allotments for November is no longer in effect,” the USDA said on Nov. 13. “State agencies should immediately resume issuing combined allotments for November and December for newly certified applicants who apply after the 15th of the month.”

Ahead of the Democratic Party’s government shutdown, the billionaire-funded, far-left activist group Indivisible – the nonprofit partially responsible for color-revolution-style operations aimed at derailing President Trump and the America First agenda at every turn – posted a frantic call to action on its website, urging its white liberal boomer supporters to pressure Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democratic senators to hold the line and not cave to President Trump.

After the record-breaking 43-day government shutdown, Democrats embarrassingly caved to President Trump, and the government reopened on Wednesday. 

Shortly after the Democrats caved, the unhinged millennial founder of Indivisible, Ezra Levin, joined leftist white boomer journalist Jennifer Rubin in a video conversation to express his profound frustration and “incandescent rage” over the Democratic Party’s capitulation to Trump.

Levin described it as a complete surrender that caused unnecessary pain without gaining meaningful concessions. 

To note: Democrats tried to divert attention from their shutdown failure by releasing Epstein emails on the same day President Trump reopened the government. The email dump backfired on the party of far-left radicals.

The millennial activist expressed to Rubin about the urgent need for strong party reforms through primaries (particularly targeting Chuck Schumer). 

This is nutjob Jennifer Rubin talking with one of the Indivisible idiots about the democrat’s caving to open the government.

I knew the progressive wingnuts were behind the shutdown because they threatened Schumer in March.

Now they are working to totally rid the Democratic… pic.twitter.com/xXuy5R2FLp

— The Researcher (@listen_2learn) November 14, 2025

The overall tone of the conversation, highly critical of Democratic capitulation, highlights how the woke party is absolutely rudderless.

New leadership? 

AOC attempts to explain that Mamdani supporters aren’t crazy: “We are sane!” pic.twitter.com/0Q9NowpIvK

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) October 27, 2025

Only the people who insist they’re “not crazy” tend to be the crazy ones.

The United States successfully carried out a test of the B61-12 tactical thermonuclear bomb – but using a non-nuclear, inert version – back in August, according to a newly released statement from Sandia National Laboratories under the US Department of Energy.

The tests took place in Nevada from August 19 to 21, which involved F-35 fighter jets deploying and releasing dummy versions of the bomb. The effort was conducted in partnership with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The tests were deemed successful as they demonstrated that inert B61-12 gravity bombs could be transported and released by an F-35, seen as an important step in assessing the weapon system’s capabilities.

The press release notes another milestone, as for the first time a joint test assembly underwent thermal preconditioning specifically for F-35 carriage before release, important for confirming that the B61-12 meets its environmental performance requirements under combined real-world conditions.

This latest testing comes soon after the NNSA completed a program to extend the service life of the aerial bombs by 20 years in late 2024. Defense News writes:

The B61 family of nuclear gravity bombs are deployed from U.S. Air Force and NATO bases and have been in the U.S. arsenal in one form or another for more than 50 years.

The test predates President Trump’s late October statements announcing the resumption of US nuclear testing. He had written on Truth Social at the time, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” the president stated. “That process will begin immediately.”

This had apparently been in response to President Putin touting new nuclear tests, but the Kremlin has made clear these were not detonations, but simply nuclear-powered weapons systems which are capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

🇺🇸 The United States has completed a series of B61-12 nuclear bomb flight tests using an F-35 at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada.

The trials, conducted from 19 to 21 August, involved the safe carriage and release of inert B61-12 units and confirmed overall system reliability.… pic.twitter.com/wqUET7RSS5

— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) November 15, 2025

As for whether Trump actually plans to carry through with atomic explosions, which the United States has not done since 1992, his precise intentions remain ambiguous.

Also there have been recent reports that administration officials are urging him not to do this, as Russia would likely respond with its own mirror tests, upping the nuclear ante among superpower rivals.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has mocked the German government’s pleas to Ukraine to keep its fighting-age young men from flooding Germany and the rest of Europe.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday acknowledged the pressing problem in televised remarks discussing Ukraine’s manpower woes with President Zelensky, pleading with him to “ensure that young men in particular from Ukraine do not come to Germany in large numbers.”

Ukrainians should remain to “serve in their own country,” Merz had said. “They are needed there,” the chancellor added.

As of October 2025, over 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded in Germany – which is the highest number among all EU countries.

Responding to all of this awkward dialogue between Berlin and Kiev, Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova posted on Friday a sarcastic reenactment of the exchange, also featured in Russian media:

“Merz: Herr Zelensky, take Ukrainians back from Germany. Zelensky: Herr Merz, I lack the tools to get them killed in large quantities. If you send more weapons and money, we will close borders and further lower the conscription age. Otherwise, expect a greater influx.”

The Zelensky government has long come under severe criticism, even from allied Western backers, over the country’s recruitment as well as border policies related to age.

His administration recently relaxed exit rules related to martial law, just months ago for the first time of the war letting Ukrainian men aged 18 to 22 leave the country. Ukrainian citizens can’t even be drafted until they are 25, under current law.

Meanwhile, intense trolling from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been consistent from nearly the start of the war:

💬 #Zakharova: We advise the current generation of Ukrainian neo-Nazis who slavishly follow their fascist idols of the Third Reich to reread the publicly available archival materials with the statements of the leaders of Nazi Germany about Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/5SSvCSDAUo

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) May 3, 2024

Kyiv Post has documented the natural result as follows:

Germany said that young Ukrainian men began arriving in large numbers after Kyiv eased travel rules for those aged between 18 and 22 in August.

As a result, the number of Ukrainian men in this age group registering in Germany went from 100 a week to almost 1,000, according to the German Interior Ministry.

…Around 490,000 Ukrainians of working age staying in Germany are receiving unemployment benefits, a point of criticism from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

American officials have also criticized Ukraine’s policy, given in most militaries in the world, eighteen makes one eligible to be recruited.

Authored by Mark Stricherz via The Center Square,

The U.S. House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol cost almost twice as much as previously reported, including spending taxpayer funds for TV news producers and documentary filmmakers to create videos dramatizing its case against President Donald Trump, an investigation by The Center Square found. 

The Washington Post reported that the panel had a projected budget of $9.3 million in September 2022. According to a review of U.S. House disbursements, the select committee spent $17.4 million.

U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican who is on a new committee appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson to investigate security failures on Jan. 6, said the original committee didn’t spend taxpayer money properly after The Center Square told him about the final costs of the panel’s investigation. 

“They wasted it, wasted it,” he said walking into his House office Wednesday before referring to two former GOP members of the panel.

“That was a sham committee. (Liz) Cheney. (Adam) Kinzinger. It was a joke.” 

Dan Savickas, president of policy and government affairs at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a non-partisan nonprofit, said more than doubling of the budget was not appropriate.

“The median budget for a House committee is $6 million a year, so for the Jan. 6 committee to spend $17.4 million is excessive,” he told The Center Square in an interview.

“And anytime a committee is grandstanding, specifically Jan. 6, to fit a narrative instead of holding people accountable and getting the story is bad. That’s why they hired documentary filmmakers.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chair of the committee, declined an interview request.

“The work of the committee speaks for itself, and the chairman continues to stand by it,” Yasmine Brown, a press secretary and communications director, wrote in an email to The Center Square. 

An undetermined amount was spent on three dozen contractors and consultants. Many worked for a few months or less than a year, rather than all 18 months like full-time staff. They are listed in the committee’s report but do not show up in a list of expenditures the U.S. House posted online disclosing its spending.

Among them were the former president of ABC News, a longtime producer for ABC’s Nightline, an Emmy-award winning daily TV news producer, and a former documentarian for the Oprah Winfrey Network.  

“I was part of the first ever team of former television journalists brought in by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to produce the historic live hearings laying out the committee’s evidence to the country,” Melinda Arons, a former Nightline senior producer, wrote on her LinkedIn page.  

Brian Sasser, an Emmy-award winning daily TV news producer, noted on his LinkedIn page that his job was to “(m)anage constantly evolving rundown and scripts for live hearings” of the select committee and to “(c)oordinate with various U.S. House staffers and Committee investigators to ensure accuracy of all scripting.” 

James Goldston worked for ABC News for 17 years, including more than one year as the senior executive producer for Good Morning America and seven years as its president, according to his LinkedIn page. Ryan Mayers said on his LinkedIn page that he has been a freelance filmmaker for seven years and edited the documentary and interview series Oprah’s Next Chapter for the Oprah Winfrey Network. 

Hyatt Mamoun described herself on LinkedIn as an award-winning filmmaker with a focus on environmental design. “With a passion for conservation through education, I believe that through educating as many people as possible through the entertainment of film, we can change our future,” she wrote.

Jan. 6 different from other committees

Previous committees and commissions examined the Watergate scandal in the early-to-mid 1970s, the Jonestown massacre of 1978, and the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. They hired or used only congressional staff, lawyers, and investigators.  

By contrast, the Jan. 6 committee hired more than congressional staff, lawyers, and investigators. They also hired freelancers with backgrounds in producing and editing graphics as well as video and audio footage – prominent features of the committee’s 10 nationally televised hearings from June to December 2022.

The committee’s records do not disclose the amount the panel paid for each freelancer. 

Among the contracting companies was Innovative Driven Inc., an Arlington, Virginia-based firm that specializes in forensics, electronic data discovery and project management. The privately held company received $2.4 million. A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Another recipient was Polar Solutions Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland-based investigative firm of money laundering and cryptocurrency crimes. The company received $2.7 million. Polar Solutions’ president, Arthur Ahrens, declined to comment when called by The Center Square. 

Full-time committee staffers received more money in personal and other compensation than regular members of Congress, a tradition in line with recent history. While rank-and-file members earn $174,000 a year, Timothy J. Heaphy, the committee’s chief investigative counsel, was paid almost $190,00 in personal and other compensation in 12 months.

Election results challenged

The committee was formed after former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, defeated President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 election. With 44,000 votes separating the candidates in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin, Trump contested the results. 

He claimed voting fraud and irregularities were responsible for his margin, but 62 of his 63 legal challenges failed in court. On Jan. 2, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to help him “find 11,780 votes” so he could be declared the winner in the Peach State. 

On January 6, 2021, the day Congress gathered at the Capitol to certify Biden the winner, Trump led a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse in Washington at which more than 28,000 people passed through security. 

More than 2,000 broke into the Capitol, including Ashli Babbitt, who was shot to death by a Capitol Police officer while attempting to break into the House floor. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick collapsed and died one day after the attack, while four other police officers at the Capitol that day died of suicide half a year later. 

The violence represented a break with tradition in which presidents transfer power to their successor peacefully. On Jan. 7, 2021, Trump conceded he would not serve a consecutive second term. 

That June, the House of Representatives voted to create a select committee, to be composed of 11 members “to investigate and report on the causes, circumstances, and causes” of the violent attack.”

The panel was controversial from the start. 

Previous select committees had members selected by leaders from both parties. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, nominated five House Republicans. In a break with tradition, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, rejected two of the members. 

Instead of suggesting alternatives, McCarthy declined to cooperate. Pelosi, then, chose two Republicans as replacements, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Both were outspoken critics of Trump for his conduct on Jan. 6.  

The other seven members of the nine-member panel were Democrats. The committee hired more than 60 full-time staff members, many with backgrounds in intelligence and investigations, and conducted more than 1,000 interviews in 18 months. 

Among the committee’s findings was that White House lawyers and senior Department of Justice officials told Trump early on that his claims of election fraud were baseless.

“From the beginning, Donald Trump’s fraud allegations were concocted nonsense, designed to prey upon the patriotism of millions of men and women who love our country,” the report concluded.

In addition, the committee found that Trump’s effort to overturn the election was multi-layered. He worked with a “handful of others” to prepare Trump slates of Trump electors in seven states that Biden won. He raised roughly $250 million between the election and Jan. 6 to support his claims. And as the attack on the Capitol unfolded, Trump watched the violence on television and did not tell his supporters to desist for 187 minutes.

Police without “sufficient assets”

At the same time, the Jan. 6 select committee was different from the Senate Watergate Committee of 1973 and 1974 and the 9-11 Commission, and not just because the panel hired contractors and consultants with backgrounds in television.

The panel also examined only one part of that day and the events leading up to it – the role of Trump, his administration, and supporters. In its report, the panel concluded Trump was “the central cause” of an attempted insurrection. 

In addition, the committee referred four criminal charges against Trump to the Department of Justice. While the Justice Department convicted more than 900 people for their actions on Jan. 6, special counsel Jack Smith was unable to prosecute Trump after Trump won the presidential election last year, bowing to longstanding department custom to not prosecute a sitting president. 

Further, the Jan. 6 committee devoted less attention to the role of federal, state, and local law enforcement in failing to deter or stop the attack. 

“Capitol police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd,” the report concluded.  

The committee’s conclusion has come into question.  

In an op-ed for Politico in January 2023, Georgetown Professor Donell Harvin, who oversaw the District of Columbia’s assessment of threat intelligence, wrote that “(t)he events of Jan. 6 represented the most telegraphed and predictable attack on the homeland in history.” Further, Harvin noted that the committee devoted only 44 pages in the annexes to the security and intelligence issues, roughly 5% of the 845-page report. 

In 2022, Denver L. Riggleman, a former GOP U.S. representative with a background in military intelligence, wrote in Esquire magazine that the committee group in charge of investigating law enforcement’s response, known as the “Blue team,” occupied a lower place in the panel’s pecking order. 

“The sensitivity of their investigation and the multiple moving parts – House leadership, the National Guard, DC and Capitol police, and the Pentagon – created a politically explosive finger-pointing extravaganza,” Riggleman wrote.

“Several witnesses they tried to interview remained elusive, and the committee gave Blue no means to compel testimony.” 

Riggleman received at least $97,047 in personal and other compensation as a senior technical advisor to the committee for 10 months, House spending data shows. 

A February 2023 study from the General Accountability Office concluded that the attack on the Capitol cost taxpayers $2.7 billion. Most of the costs were for Capitol police and other law enforcement.  

In September, House Speaker Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, named eight members – five Republicans, three Democrats – to a select subcommittee under the authority of the House Judiciary Committee to “conduct a thorough review of the security failures that occurred on Jan. 6.”

The subcommittee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican, declined comment. Kinzinger, Cheney and other members of the committee did not respond to The Center Square’s requests for comment.

Readers were given an epic breakdown on Wednesday detailing the true scale of funding needed for the AI data-center boom, one that would require an estimated $5 trillion in investment, with Washington on the hook for at least $1 trillion of it. In a separate note, we highlighted an inconvenient truth for this cycle: the U.S. is short 44 nuclear power plants.

Power is the obvious bottleneck that could derail the entire AI boom cycle. We now turn to Goldman analysts led by Carly Davenport for deeper insight into what electric companies are saying about the grid’s current structure, data center demand, load growth, the power-bill crisis, and other critical topics discussed at the EEI Financial Conference in Hollywood, Florida, earlier this week.

Davenport told clients that sentiment across the utilities sector was broadly constructive, driven by optimism about accelerating load growth, expanding capital spending plans, and a stronger earnings outlook heading into 2026. She noted investors are increasingly focused on identifying which utilities have downside protection tied to data-center growth and which are proactively addressing labor, supply-chain, and affordability constraints.

Conversations during the meetings highlighted growing bullishness toward NextEra Energy and Sempra, while near-term political and regulatory developments remain key issues for Public Service Enterprise Group, Southern Company, and PG&E Corp.

Here’s a breakdown of the top ten takeaways Davenport had from EEI:

1. Focus on inflections in regulatory backdrops. Several utilities are experiencing significant state-level policy shifts and ongoing rate case activities. In New Jersey, the upcoming transition to Governor-elect Sherrill’s administration and anticipated changes within the BPU are topical. PEG is preparing to leverage mechanisms such as utilizing ZECs to help alleviate customer bills, aligning with the new administration’s focus. EXC expects its NJ rate case at ACE to be on track for year-end 2025, and FE noted that clarity on BPU composition will be key ahead of upcoming rate case filings at JCP&L. Elsewhere, ES is focused on securing regulatory approvals for its Aquarion sale and storm cost securitization in CT from a newly composed PURA. Sentiment is growing more constructive on a positive shift in balanced collaboration between utilities and regulators in the state. Finally, SO noted 2026 could be noisy from a state-wide elections standpoint, but with a relatively quiet regulatory calendar, the company plans to actively engage with newly elected commissioners on utility economics and affordability.

2. Still room for positive capex revisions into 4Q earnings, with focus on financing options. SRE anticipates significant capital plan upside at Oncor, highlighting opportunities around an incremental ~$12 bn on top of the preliminary 30% increase to the current five-year plan, driven by accelerated Permian transmission projects and substantial data center load growth, with a definitive update pending the ongoing rate case outcome. DUK has previewed a robust $95-105 bn capital plan, with an expected update next quarter, and sees the $10 bn upside range driven by LNG solutions and transmission investments, while exploring numerous options around financing, including private credit for specific projects. XEL targets a 9% EPS CAGR through 2030, and has identified significant upside around both generation and transmission, with resource plans pointing to a potential $16-20 bn (though XEL targets 50% ownership of assets) and over $10 bn for transmission projects. FE benefits from the PJM open window, with three identified projects on the RTEP short list totaling approximately $3 bn in potential capital expenditures, in addition to growth opportunities in West Virginia from data centers, with current generation addition plans estimated at $2.2-2.5 bn of capital. Finally, SO mentioned potential capex upside, driven by significant demand growth particularly from large industrial and data center loads in Georgia, in addition to FERC natural gas pipelines.

3. Potential for greater state involvement to reform PJM. Utilities are increasingly advocating for greater state involvement in reforming the PJM market, driven by perceived market inadequacies and the need for enhanced resource adequacy. EXC advocates for states to take more control over generation procurement through processes like Maryland’s dispatchable generation procurement and Illinois’s IRP, while also pushing for expedited interconnection and extended price collars within PJM. PEG emphasizes the necessity for New Jersey to implement a comprehensive IRP to define reliability standards, emissions targets, and affordability metrics, suggesting that state-led solutions, potentially including utility-owned storage, gas or nuclear generation, are crucial, and advocating for competitive processes that allow rate-base solutions. FE highlights West Virginia’s proactive approach, where the governor is focused on generation, transmission, and energy security, allowing for new generation filings outside of standard IRP cycles to meet rapid load growth, and notes a desire for continued capacity pricing caps in PJM with less traction for longer-duration auctions. This collective sentiment points towards a growing trend where states are stepping in to ensure resource adequacy and guide generation development.

4. Affordability and bill transparency remain top of mind. As utilities strive to meet rising power demand, affordability remained a key discussion point in our meetings with management. ED’s management highlighted that property taxes, which constitute a sizable portion (~20%) of customer bills, will potentially be displayed separately to consumers as part of its joint proposal for its CECONY rate cases, aiming to promote transparency. During our meeting with PEG, management discussed the possibility of refunding ZECs to customers, which could reduce rates by 2%. However, this was viewed as a short-term solution, given that bill inflation in PEG’s service territories rose 17-20% year-over-year, largely due to supply cost increases rather than distribution costs for which PEG is directly responsible. Collectively, utilities emphasized that affordability is paramount, with customers and regulators seeking greater clarity, hence the focus on bill inflation targets (e.g., DUK aiming to keep bills below inflation).

5. EPC relationships matter for capital plan execution. Several utilities are emphasizing the strategic importance of long-term Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) relationships and partnerships to ensure efficient capital plan execution and manage labor and equipment supply. AEP highlighted that its partnership with Quanta will be key to secure labor and transformers/breakers for grid project execution, while its agreements with Kiewit, allowed for proactively locking in turbine slots. Similarly, DUK underscored its partnerships with EPCs like Zachry and Kiewit to standardize operations and ensure a consistent labor force across multiple sites, while XEL has pivoted from project-by-project RFPs to partnering with key tier-1 EPCs for a multi-year book of business. WEC also highlighted its long-standing relationships with EPCs/developers such as Burns & McDonnell and Invenergy to line up labor and manage project delivery. This positioning is crucial for mitigating supply chain constraints, standardizing equipment, and ensuring a stable, skilled labor force to manage the scale and complexity of current capital plans.

6. Phase 2 of wildfire policy reform underway, but investors still in wait and see mode. Phase 2 of the California’s wildfire policy reform is actively progressing, with Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs) like PCG, EIX, and SRE collaboratively engaging in the process. Over 30 diverse stakeholders have submitted abstracts, with IOUs filing together to present a unified front on problem identification and solution principles, aiming for a whole society approach to reduce wildfire risk and ensure predictable claims recovery. Key next steps include the submission of detailed white papers by December 12, with comprehensive reports anticipated by January 30 and a final recommendation on April 1, outlining necessary legislative changes and reforms in areas touching insurance, liability, and community hardening. According to PCG and EIX, credit rating agencies are closely monitoring phase 2 developments, with some mainly seeking tangible progress in Phase 2, while others are awaiting the final legislative outcomes before fully assessing the benefits.

7. Focus on identifying high confidence load from overall pipelines. Investors are increasingly focused on rigorously identifying high-confidence load within utility pipelines, moving beyond speculative inquiries to secure firm commitments. There is a higher degree of focus on signed ESAs, and more concern from investors that LOAs do not have the staying power that they have had previously. Companies are working to cull the speculative inquiries by requiring upfront deposits to conduct load/engineering studies, including FE, WEC, DUK, EXC and AEP. For example, AEP and EXC employ measures such as upfront deposits, take-or-pay contracts, and TSAs or LOAs that can convert to ESAs to identify high confidence load. AEP sees 80% of its LOAs converted to ESAs in PJM, though that share is lower in Texas/SPP. SO also has ESAs for its 2 GW of demand, with customers already funding engineering and site studies.

8. Customer and financial protections for data center deals are key: Across meetings, minimum take provisions, 12-18 year contract lengths, and termination fees emerged as key considerations, reflecting the push to ensure predictable cash flows amid unprecedented data center led power demand surge. WEC’s filed tariff for very large customers includes robust protections: hyperscalers must cover all incremental infrastructure costs, agree to 20-year contracts if seeking renewable generation, and pay for all requested capacity even if not fully utilized. Under the terms of WEC’s proposed contract for large load customers, they must pay the net book value if WEC cannot re-purpose assets upon early contract termination, providing downside protection for WEC and its other customers. Overall, managements remained confident that a collapse of the tech driven data center build-out is less of a concern for in flight projects, given the amount of capital tech companies are investing in the facilities. The tone of our meetings remained optimistic, with data centers driving a large portion of power demand in the U.S., but with utilities prioritizing contract discipline and balance sheet protection over headline megawatt wins.

9. Investors still highly focused on revisions to EPS growth CAGRs. Investors are seeking proof that increased power demand is translating into earnings growth for utilities. Companies that have successfully raised their EPS CAGRs are viewed more favorably on the back of this theme. For instance, XEL, targeting a 9% EPS CAGR through 2030, received positive feedback from attendees. NEE’s upcoming investor day is anticipated to bring potential earnings revisions, aligning closer to its historical EPS CAGR of approximately 10%, especially since its current CAGR is lower at 6%-8%. AEP’s recent guidance revision to a 7%-9% CAGR, with expectations of achieving 9% actual earnings growth, was also well-received. Some investors have queried if there is upside to DUK’s current 5%-7% earnings CAGR over time, given its projected annual rate base growth of approximately 8.5% (at the lower end of its new capital plan) and management’s expectation to comfortably reach the top end of the current range by 2028. For SO, growth is projected to be in the 5%-7% range, with 2027 and 2028 likely above the top end, after which the company would re-base off 2028, which was viewed as mixed by investors.

10. All the above generation technologies needed to meet demand. Renewables remain topical for utilities with investors focused on projects that are safe harbored. NEE also talked about how 8-hour batteries are becoming increasingly cost-competitive, though there are still technology evolutions needed for longer duration options. Nuclear has also been topical where PEG had talked about its opportunity for new nuclear development where it would leverage its existing early site permit but established that it will not direct capex into new nuclear generation to avoid development risk. In meetings, our overall impression was that bridge solutions are not viewed as cannibalization risk due to the amount of demand needing to be met, and that utilities including NEE and AEP are also considering those options to provide better time to power for customers.

ZeroHedge Pro subscribers can read the complete note (here) with additional color from the EEI conference about data centers colliding with the grids.