Zerohedge

UK Bans Pretend "Stepsister" Porn Months After Actual Muslim Incest Protections Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news, The British government has banned “step” porn, where the porn stars pretend to be related in a scripted format. Meanwhile, a bill earlier this year to ban first cousin marriage was rejected. The crackdown targets consenting adults role-playing taboo family scenarios, including step-family tropes.  Offenders face prison time, and platforms must block UK access or face Ofcom fines. It’s sold as “protecting children” and aligning online rules with offline laws. Ban on step incest porn and 'barely legal' content in government climbdownhttps://t.co/FrwZcknX8v — Sky News (@SkyNews) April 10, 2026 Yet the same government draws a firm line at stopping the real thing when it involves actual blood relatives. 🚨 UK GOVERNMENT IS OFFICIALLY INSANE The UK has just banned people from watching porn that features “step-family” members. Yet the same government still refuses to ban actual cousin-on-cousin incest. Let that sink in. They’re more concerned about fictional step-relatives on… pic.twitter.com/uzDk4REppS — British Intel (@TheBritishIntel) April 11, 2026 First-cousin marriage remains fully legal in the UK. A Tory MP’s bill to prohibit it was blocked. Successive governments, including the current one, have opted for “education” and genetic counselling instead of legislation.  An NHS report last year even highlighted supposed “benefits” of first-cousin marriage – stronger family networks and economic stability – before being quietly pulled after public backlash. UK health agency cites ‘benefits’ of first-cousin marriage in bizarre report, unsurprisingly sparks outrage https://t.co/NrYLqX4BxE pic.twitter.com/r3zpJ7nW8N — New York Post (@nypost) October 1, 2025 Critics have repeatedly pointed out that such unions are far more common in certain Muslim communities, particularly among British Pakistani groups where rates have historically hit 40-55 percent in places like Bradford.  Many argue that’s precisely why Westminster refuses to touch the issue with a bargepole – cultural sensitivity trumps public health data showing doubled risks of serious birth defects, genetic disorders, and long-term strain on the NHS. 🇬🇧 “They did a study in Bradford, UK where there’s a high propensity of Cousin marriage and they found - that first Cousin babies had doubled the chance of a recessive gene disorder” “Higher infant mortality rates, kidney and liver problems, developmental disorders” “Many… pic.twitter.com/adIz5lVY4l — Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 16, 2026 Meanwhile, the porn ban isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s the latest incremental step in a broader push that funnels users through age-verification gateways. Those systems don’t stop at blocking “step” content or barely-legal role-play. They lay the groundwork for something far more permanent. As we previously detailed, Apple is already forcing iPhone users in the U.K. to prove age with ID or lose unrestricted internet access: Similar pressures are mounting on phones and devices across the board: The UK government’s plans for newborn digital IDs show the endgame: cradle-to-grave tracking dressed up as child protection: This is classic nanny-state sleight of hand. Ban the pretend taboo to justify scanning everyone’s ID at the digital door, while the real taboo that carries measurable human costs gets waved through for political reasons.  Fictional step-siblings on a screen? Criminal. Actual cousin marriages producing children with elevated health risks? Carry on, just don’t film it. The message to the public is unmistakable: your private fantasies are the state’s business, but protecting future generations from documented genetic harm is not – especially if it risks offending key voting blocs. Britain’s ruling class has its priorities exactly backwards. While they lecture the public on online harms and roll out surveillance-by-stealth, they leave untouched practices that clash with basic Western norms of family and child welfare.  Freedom isn’t protected by banning role-play; it’s eroded when governments pick and choose which realities to ignore for the sake of political convenience. Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews. Tyler Durden Mon, 04/13/2026 - 03:30

France's Gig-Economy Built On Migrant Labor As 99% Of Surveyed Delivery-Riders Are Foreign-Born, Two-Thirds Are Illegal Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, A major new study has found that France’s food delivery sector is almost exclusively staffed by migrant workers, a majority of whom are living in France illegally. The Enquête report, based on a survey of more than 1,000 riders in Paris and Bordeaux, reveals that 98.7 percent of delivery couriers were born outside France, with nearly two-thirds lacking legal residency status, highlighting the extent to which the platform economy depends on a highly vulnerable migrant labor force. The workforce is dominated by recent arrivals from Africa, the majority of whom are not undertaking any other education or training in France. A total of 55.2 percent of riders come from West Africa, making it by far the largest group. A further 17.4 percent are from North Africa, while 4.6 percent come from other African countries, meaning that over 77 percent of all riders are African-born. By comparison, 16.6 percent are from Asia, 4 percent from the Middle East, and fewer than 2 percent from France. Most riders are new or relatively new arrivals. Some 98 percent of those surveyed had arrived in France after 2014, while 47.2 percent had arrived in the last five years. 🚴 « Ubérisation » et immigration clandestine La quasi-totalité des livreurs de repas pour des plateformes numériques sont des immigrés récents. ➡️ Deux tiers des livreurs sont en situation irrégulière. Les faits à retenir d’une étude inédite 🧶 pic.twitter.com/0U9r3VoC56 — Observatoire de l'immigration et de la démographie (@ObservatoireID) April 2, 2026 The vast majority do not have the right to work in France and are living there illegally — 64.4 percent of riders have no residence permit, meaning they are undocumented. Among the remainder, 12.4 percent hold a residence permit of at least one year, 9.7 percent have a permit of less than one year, and 13.3 percent have a 10-year residency card. Many operate using accounts rented from third parties to circumvent work requirements, creating an additional layer of economic dependency. The findings suggest that this structure helps explain the extreme working patterns documented in the report. Riders work an average of 63 hours per week, with most working six or seven days, often year-round. Despite this, average gross earnings were just €1,480 per month, with hourly pay equivalent to €5.83 before expenses. Read more here... Tyler Durden Mon, 04/13/2026 - 02:00

Half Of US Data Centers Scheduled To Start In 2026, Will Be Canceled Or Delayed Just over two years ago, we first penned our views on "The Next AI Trade", which looked beyond the hyperscalers and the data centers supporting the AI revolution, and instead focused on the energy and logistical needs that would be so very critical in allowing the US to dominate China in the existential race to first reach Artificial General Intelligence (which many have dubbed the next nuclear arms race due to its profound civilizational implications). It was here that we defined the "Power Up America" basket as the next AI trade.  Yet as one can see in the chart below, after outperforming the AI Data center and the TMT AI baskets in 2024 and much of 2025, the Power Up America trade has lagged and clearly underperformed, as some investors have started to express doubt that the US would ever be able to "grow" into its massive AI computing needs... with dire consequences for record AI capex budgets, something the market has yet to grasp. And unfortunately, with every passing day, the outlook for the US AI revolution looks increasingly more dim.  That's because, as Canaccord Genuity analyst George Gianarikas writes, "the American data center boom is hitting a formidable wall of logistical friction." He is referring to the latest outlook by Sightline Climate, which is also reinforced by recent articles from Bloomberg and others, and reveals a sobering reality for 2026: nearly half of the nation's planned 16-gigawatt capacity faces cancellation or delay, with only 5 gigawatts currently under construction. This inertia stems from a volatile mix of local permitting hurdles, community resistance, and a desperate reliance on overextended global supply chains for critical components like transformers and helium. That's right: half. That's right: despite $700BN+ of expected 2026 hyperscaler capex, nearly half of the data centers scheduled to begin operations in the US in 2026 "will either face delays or outright cancellations." The data, which comes from Sightline Climate's 2026 Data Center Outlook,  suggests that just 30% - 50% of the ~16 GW of planned US capacity for the year will face risks, with only ~5 GW currently under construction! And the horizon only grows darker in the coming years. By 2027, the gap between ambition and reality widens further, as a mere fraction of the announced 21.5 gigawatts has actually broken ground. Worse, according to Futurism, data centers slated to open in 2027 are progressing far more slowly than anticipated. "Only about 6.3 gigawatts worth of computing infrastructure are actually under construction, compared to 21.5 announced gigawatts." And then visibility drops to virtually nothing beyond 2028 as uncertainty increases materially in the outer years. According to the article, "things get even dodgier in the coming years, with the vast majority of data centers planned for launch between 2028 and 2032 having yet to even break ground. There are a further 37 gigawatts of planned infrastructure which haven’t even received a firm completion date, only 4.5 [gigawatts] of which have actually begun work." This trend suggests an increasingly uncertain future for the industry, where power constraints and grid instability cast long shadows over projects slated through 2032. But while one can pretend the future is irrelevant, the same limitations are visible in the here and now: according to the SightLine report, "at least 16GW of data center capacity is slated to come online this year across 140 projects. 53% will be grid connected, 3% will be powered solely by on-site power, and 25% have not disclosed their powering strategies. We expect 30-50% of these projects to be delayed. Only 5GW is currently in construction." And the punchline: "We expect 30-50% of 2026 projects to be delayed, driven by power constraints (25% of projects have not disclosed powering strategies), increasingly effective community opposition, and potential grid equipment shortages. 11GW of 2026 capacity remains in the announced stage with no signs of construction, despite typical build times of 12 to 18 months. Itʼs still possible for this capacity to come online, but it would need to dramatically accelerate." Which brings us to the question we raised more than two years ago: how will the US modernize its ancient power grid and build out the huge energy supply needed to power up the AI revolution. Here, too, it appears there has been little progress:  "On-site and hybrid power punch above their weight when measured by capacity. Grid-connected projects still lead at 40% of total capacity, but on-site generation and hybrid approaches together account for close to half of announced capacity, far exceeding their share by project count. A small number of gigascale, grid independent campuses account for this capacity, including New Era Energy & Digitalʼs 7GW project in Lea County, Homer Cityʼs 4.5 GW coal-to-gas redevelopment in Pennsylvania, and Crusoeʼs 1.8GW natural gas and renewables project in Cheyenne, Wyoming. These projects are large enough to require their own generation plant, and have the capital to fund it. Waiting for the grid to supply this level of capacity could take a decade." The problem, as Canaccord warns, is that "without a radical acceleration in domestic manufacturing and grid integration, the digital expansion of the late 2020s risks stalling into a series of unfulfilled promises." Others agree: in a note published over the weekend by Goldman Executive Direct Shreeti Kapa, she wrote that at a recent dinner with investors, the overwhelming consensus was that "there is simply not enough compute and every player is acutely compute constrained – bottlenecks from fabs to permitting for data-centers to power to memory to labor are real and are here to stay for some time to come. I wasn’t sure what to make of it – if its consensus is it peak, or is the imagination for scale of AI demand is so great among a very small sub-segment of investors & technologists here in the valley and the rest of the word is yet to catch-up?"  While imaginations may indeed by running wild, the hard limitations in the real world are indeed starting to catch up: we recently highlighted OpenAI's decision to pause its UK Stargate project - a partnership with Nvidia and Nscale to deploy up to 31k GPUs - citing the UK’s prohibitive energy costs and regulatory hurdles. The project was to be based across several sites including Cobalt Park and a dedicated "AI Growth Zone", enabling OpenAI's models to provide local compute for critical public services and highly regulated industries including finance and national security. UK energy prices represent a key bottleneck to AI infrastructure development. According to the report, UK's industrial prices "are among the highest in the world" and have been a key gating factor delaying companies from building AI infrastructure. According to a spokesperson from OpenAI, “we continue to explore Stargate U.K. and will move forward when the right conditions such as regulation and the cost of energy enable long-term infrastructure investment.” OpenAI and Nscale maintain plans to develop the project in the future. According to the OpenAI spokesperson, “We see huge potential for the U.K.’s AI future... London is home to our largest international research hub, and we support the Government’s ambition to be an AI leader. In the meantime, we are investing in talent and expanding our local presence, while also delivering on the commitments under our MOU with the government to adopt frontier AI in UK public services.” Bloomberg also chimed in earlier this month, writing that "as the global AI race heats up, there is a huge rush to build data centers fast. There’s no lack of money chasing these projects, with tech giants Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com, Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. committed to spending more than $650 billion this year alone. Yet neither ambition nor capital is enough to materialize all the necessary components."  Here Bloomberg again quotes the Sightline data, noting that "almost half of the US data centers planned for this year are expected to be delayed or canceled" and as one big reason for the delay Bloomberg cites the shortage of electrical equipment, such as transformers, switchgear and batteries: "They are needed not just for powering AI, but also for building out the grid that is seeing increased consumption from electric cars and heat pumps. US manufacturing capacity for these devices cannot keep up with demand, and the scarcity has caused data center builders to rely on imports." At its core, the problem is the lack of domestic manufacturing which makes sense for a country that has outsourced much of its industrial base to China in the past century, and despite loud promises of reshoring, there are few tangible results.  Indeed, while over the past 10 years, the US government has tried a series of policies to reshore manufacturing, they haven’t yet yielded a significant boost to domestic capacity, forcing businesses to look to China regardless of the tariffs or the alleged national security risk. As a result, the US now finds itself in an absurd Catch 22: the US needs crucial parts from China to dominate it in the AI race, while China needs advanced chips from American companies to stay in the race. The biggest bottlenecks, understandably, have been observed in the power space - the same space we aggressively pitched two years ago as enabling the AI revolution, hoping that whoever was in charge of the US would take America's chronic energy deficiency seriously. It appears we may have been overly optimistic. One thing is clear: data centers have rapidly grown in size and now consume more electricity than their predecessors a decade ago. That demands bigger transformers, which safely pull electricity from the high-voltage grid to feed to tiny computer chips. Without the right transformers, there’s no way to make the data center work. Before 2020, these high-power transformers typically arrived 24 to 30 months after an order was placed. Those timelines were “totally manageable in the old world” when data centers didn’t need such large transformers or at such short timelines, says Philippe Piron, chief executive officer of GE Vernova’s electrification division. But AI companies “want something typically in less than 18 months.” The spike in demand from data centers and grid expansion have pushed up prices and extended delivery times to as much as five years. That is why some, like Crusoe, have even resorted to refurbishing old transformers from shuttered power plants as a stopgap measure. Meanwhile, a far greater looming problem is where will the US source the dozens of Gigawatts needed to power up the AI revolution. So far Trump's promises of a nuclear renaissance have remained just that, with virtually no new nuclear power plants breaking ground, while the push for small modular reactors - a ray of hope in an otherwise dreary landscape - is still years away from practical results, let alone scale.  Oh, and there is the question of who pays for all this: by now everyone knows about the hundreds of billions in capex the hyperscalers will spend over the next few years.  What fewer people know is that this money won't be enough. According to an analysis by JPMorgan, it will take no less than $5 trillion to fund the AI cycle, and even with the massive capex - and debt outlays - the US government will still be on the hook for over a trillion to close the funding gap. It's not just power: as Canaccord writes, beyond the power-related technicalities "lies a fraught sociopolitical reality". Consider the following: The Maine House of Representatives approved a moratorium on large-scale data centers until 2027. This pause allows a newly formed coordination council to weigh innovation against environmental and resource stewardship. The House passed the bill 82-62, advancing it to the Senate. The goal of the bill, according to state representatives, is not to fight innovation, but as a pause for planning to improve stewardship of the state's resources and limit financial and environmental impacts on the state's citizens. In addition to the moratorium, "the bill also creates the Maine Data Center Coordination Council, and instructs the council to provide strategic input, facilitate planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities." Simultaneously, OpenAI faces mounting scrutiny as Florida’s Attorney General launched an investigation into the company following the release of safety-critical chat logs. And then there was last week's firebomb attack on Sam Altman's home: while the police are still investigating, and there are many reasons why someone may want to express their "displeasure" with the man behind ChatGPT, the reality is that, as we warned last August, "between exploding electricity bills and lack of jobs for grads, a new luddite revolution is coming - they will be burning down data centers within a year." between exploding electricity bills and lack of jobs for grads, a new luddite revolution is coming - they will be burning down data centers within a year — zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 25, 2025 Sure enough, these institutional shifts arrive as a recent Quinnipiac University poll - which looked at AI use and its impacts on daily life, education and healthcare - confirmed the public is growing increasingly wary of AI’s deepening integration into healthcare, education, and daily life. Here are some of the findings showing just how rapidly public sentiment has turned against AI: The bottom line is that the time for talk has long passed, and yet for all the posturing, the US government continues to act as if a victory against China in the AI race is a given. It is anything but, especially with America's own society rapidly turning against the next industrial revolution. As Canaccord concludes, "Not only are the energy constraints mounting, but so are the sociopolitical ones. Something's got to give." Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 22:38

Swalwell Quits CA Governor's Race Amid Sexual Assault Allegations Update: Swalwell suspended his California gubernatorial campaign on Sunday as furor over his sex assault allegations reached a fever pitch. "To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past," he wrote on X. "I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s."  I am suspending my campaign for Governor. To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s. — Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) April 13, 2026 Swalwell's decision came after a firehose of Democrats pulled their support and told him to quit.  * * * The latest: • Eric Swalwell’s California governor campaign collapsed after sexual assault allegations. • Former staffer alleged harassment plus two assaults while she was intoxicated. • Four women total have accused Swalwell of sexual misconduct. • Swalwell denies all claims as false and politically motivated. • Major Democratic allies withdrew support and called for him to exit the race. - Update (as of Saturday morning): Since the San Francisco Chronicle story and initial fallout (including Hakeem Jeffries’ call for Swalwell to step down), Swalwell released a video across social media strongly denying the allegations as “flat false” and confirming he is not dropping out of the governor’s race. In the video Swalwell specifically referred to the accusations as coming from “anonymous” people, even though at least one woman (the primary accuser) has come forward publicly and given an on-camera interview to CNN. Hear it directly from me. These allegations are flat false. And I will fight them. pic.twitter.com/bQSlCquD1U — Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 11, 2026 CNN’s follow-up confirmed four women total have now alleged misconduct - including the named Chronicle/CNN accuser (former staffer) plus three others citing unwanted touching, intoxicated encounters, and unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos. Additional prominent Democrats (Sen. Adam Schiff, campaign co-chairs Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray) withdrew endorsements and joined calls for Swalwell to exit the race and resign from Congress. More unions and rival candidates echoed those demands. The campaign saw continued staff departures, quietly removed its endorsements page (now a 404 error), and faces legal threats against accusers. Prediction markets price his win odds at roughly 4-5% and show ~86%+ odds he drops out before the June primary. Republicans (including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna) have filed motions to expel him from the House. No formal investigations or lawsuits have been publicly filed yet, but the political damage appears severe and possibly irreversible. Eric Swalwell's chances of becoming California's next corrupt governor cratered on Friday after detailed sexual assault allegations from a former district-office staffer were published in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Polymarket odds of becoming California's next governor are at 4% as of this writing... Will Eric Swalwell win the California Governor Election in 2026? Yes 5% · No 96%View full market & trade on Polymarket* * * The stunning drop - visible in real time on platforms such as Polymarket, where “Yes” contracts on Swalwell's victory traded as high as $1,100 earlier in the day before cratering to pennies - reflects a campaign that appears to be in free fall just weeks before ballots drop in the June primary. Traders piled into the “No” side at 96 cents, effectively pricing in the congressman’s political demise in the nation’s largest state. The Allegations A woman who worked in Swalwell's Castro Valley district office for nearly two years, beginning around 2019 when she was 21, alleged that Swalwell sexually harassed her as soon as she started, that they had some consensual encounters while she was on staff, and that he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent - once in a 2019 hotel room and again in 2024 after she had left his office. The woman, who is not named in the story, told the Chronicle she felt pressured by his position of power and has lived in fear of coming forward. "She said Swalwell, who is married and 17 years her senior, tried to kiss her in her car when she drove him home from a donor meeting one night. Driving him to another event weeks later, she said Swalwell pulled out his penis in the car and asked her to perform oral sex on him. She said she did so in a parking lot. In September 2019, the woman said, Swalwell invited her out for drinks and she became so severely intoxicated that she does not remember the rest of the night. She said she woke up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed and could feel the effect of vaginal intercourse. She said Swalwell distanced himself from her afterward and the relationship faded." -The Chronicle Swalwell immediately rejected the claims as “false” ...hang on...  Eric Swalwell told us to BELIEVE SURVIVORS. Do as he says! pic.twitter.com/ul1cHHcPDf — Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) April 10, 2026 ...and politically motivated, calling them a last-ditch effort to kneecap the Democratic primary leader. “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public — as a prosecutor and a congressman - and have always protected women,” he said in a statement. “I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action.” His attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the accuser’s counsel threatening defamation litigation. The allegations landed as the campaign was already reeling from weeks of unverified social-media rumors about inappropriate conduct with female staffers. By Friday, the fallout was swift and brutal. At least four senior aides had resigned in anticipation of the story, according to multiple Democratic sources familiar with the situation. Unions that had endorsed Swalwell, including the powerful UFCW Western States Council, withdrew their support and called on him to suspend his campaign. “The allegations … are extremely detailed, troubling, and gut-wrenching,” the union said in a statement. Even longtime ally Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) publicly withdrew his endorsement. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who had been neutral in the race, issued a carefully worded statement Friday night: “This extremely sensitive matter must be appropriately investigated with full transparency and accountability. As I discussed with Congressman Swalwell, it is clear that is best done outside of a gubernatorial campaign.” * * * Update: House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries has called for Swalwell to step down, as well as for an investigation. Statement on the Serious Accusations against Rep. Eric Swalwell. pic.twitter.com/9lkYqiCIGr — Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) April 11, 2026 Swalwell’s campaign manager, Yardena Wolf - his longtime chief of staff who moved over to run the gubernatorial operation - had personally briefed a small group of online influencers earlier in the week on the initial rumors, sticking to the campaign’s line that the claims were “false, outrageous” and that no NDAs or ethics complaints existed. Wolf has not issued a new public statement since the Chronicle story dropped, and a campaign spokesperson was unreachable Friday night amid the staff exodus. JUST IN: The 'Endorsements' section on Eric Swalwell's campaign site has been removed and returns a 404 error. pic.twitter.com/sMndosxwWl — Rob Pyers (@rpyers) April 10, 2026 The political math in California has shifted overnight. Just weeks ago, Emerson College polling showed Swalwell leading a fragmented Democratic field with 17 percent support and 25 percent undecided. Prediction markets briefly pegged his chances above 60 percent. He had positioned himself as the Democrat best equipped to counter the Trump administration from Sacramento, leveraging his national profile and prosecutorial background. Now the race is wide open. Rivals who once struggled for attention are suddenly the story, while progressive voices that once gave Swalwell the benefit of the doubt are demanding full investigations - or his immediate exit from the race and even Congress. The timing has fueled intense partisan finger-pointing. Swalwell allies describe the allegations as a coordinated hit job engineered by flailing opponents and amplified by conservative voices. Supporters of the accuser counter that the details are credible, long-suppressed and too serious to ignore for a candidate seeking the state’s highest office. Whatever the ultimate legal or electoral verdict, the market verdict is already in. The blue line on the betting charts has turned into a cliff - and Eric Swalwell’s path to the governor’s mansion has all but vanished. Needless to say, not even Chinese spies will be interested in Eric after this. Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 21:17

Treasury, IRS Propose Rules For 1 Percent Remittance Tax On Some Money Sent To Foreign Countries Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury proposed regulations on Friday regarding the new excise tax, established under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, on certain remittances made abroad. The Internal Revenue Service in Washington on March 10, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times “Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, a 1 percent remittance transfer tax applies to remittances sent from the United States to recipients in foreign countries when the sender provides cash, a money order, a cashier’s check, or other similar physical instrument to the remittance transfer provider,” the IRS said in an April 10 statement. “The sender is liable for the tax, and remittance transfer providers are required to collect the remittance transfer tax from certain senders, make semimonthly deposits, and file quarterly returns with the IRS. If the remittance transfer provider does not collect the tax from the sender, the tax becomes a liability of the remittance transfer provider.” The proposed regulations clarify how the remittance transfer tax would be applied. According to the notice of the proposed rule, the remittance tax is applicable to all eligible transfers irrespective of whether the amount is actually disbursed to the designated recipient. In case a remittance transfer expires or is canceled and the remittance transfer provider refunds the amount to the sender, the sender can recoup the tax by filing a claim for refund with the IRS. The tax does not apply to any remittance transfer in which the funds come from a credit or debit card issued in the United States. It is also inapplicable if the funds being sent are withdrawn from an account held in a financial institution. Any amount that is ultimately transferred to a designated recipient will be taxed, the notice clarified. The rules affect remittance transfer providers, such as credit unions, banks, and money services businesses, as well as their agents. There are roughly 600 money services businesses licensed as money transmitters in the United States, out of which more than 200 operate through around 500,000 authorized agents, the IRS said, citing data from the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System. Between 2019 and 2024, money transfers to domestic and foreign destinations via money services businesses increased from $1.3 to $4 trillion. “Money transmitted to foreign destinations (remittance transfers) accounted for 9 to 25 percent of the total money transmissions, equaling $236 billion in 2019, growing to almost $1 trillion in 2021 and 2022, but decreasing to $365 billion in 2024,” the notice said. “Over 2019–2024, annual remittance transfers to foreign destinations through [money service businesses] averaged $520 billion. The average individual money transfer size ranged from $290 to $740 over the same time period.” The IRS said in its statement that remittance transfer providers must report the new remittance transfer tax via Form 720. In an Oct. 7 statement, the IRS said that limited penalty relief will be available for remittance transfer providers who fail to deposit the collected remittance taxes in the first three quarters of this year. “Treasury and the IRS understand there might be challenges implementing the new law and have determined it is in the interest of sound tax administration to provide limited penalty relief related to remittance transfer tax deposits,” the agency said. Tax Impacts In a July 1 report, the Center for Global Development said that even at 1 percent, the remittance tax would hit poor countries “hard.” The new tax not only raises costs by 1 percent but can also lead to a dip in remittances. Mexico stands to lose the most due to the tax imposition, with the loss being more than $1.5 billion per year, the report said. Other nations majorly affected by the tax include India, China, Vietnam, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. “Central American countries are projected to suffer the greatest loss relative to their gross national income (GNI), with El Salvador—a close ally of the Trump administration—projected to lose the equivalent of 0.6 percent of GNI,” the report said. “Where the effects of the tax are significant relative to GNI, countries could experience lower household incomes, weaker consumer demand, and increased exchange rate pressures.” The Federation for American Immigration Reform blamed remittances for causing the United States’ economy to lose at least $200 billion per year, according to a July 22 report. This amount is more than enough to run the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department combined. It is also four times the amount spent on the Department of Justice. “Remittances represent a substantial loss to the U.S. economy. The money that is sent out of the United States is money that is not spent on goods and services in the United States,” the report said. “The loss of money remitted also means no benefits from the sales, excise, and restaurant taxes, etc. attached to those goods and services. Indeed, remittances carry a significant opportunity cost.” Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 19:50

All High Earners Need To Know About The Mega Backdoor Roth Authored by Javier Simon via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), If done the right way, a mega backdoor Roth can allow investors to save in a workplace retirement plan such as a 401(k) beyond the typical contribution limits. High earners can use a mega backdoor Roth to save beyond normal retirement contribution limits. Vyaseleva Elena/Shutterstock It also can allow investors to save in a Roth account when they otherwise would not have been able to do so because of certain restrictions. So let’s take a closer look at this complex, but potentially beneficial strategy for high earners. What Is a Mega Backdoor Roth? The mega backdoor Roth is a strategy that involves making after-tax contributions to a 401(k) and then making a conversion of those contributions into either a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k). Many people take the mega backdoor Roth approach because they can’t contribute to a Roth IRA due to income limits, or they’ve already maxed out their traditional 401(k) via salary deferrals and want to make additional contributions. In 2026, you can’t contribute to a Roth IRA at all if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) is $168,000 as a single filer or $252,000 if married and filing jointly. How Does a Mega Backdoor Roth Work? If your plan administrator allows it, you can make after-tax contributions to your traditional 401(k) and then convert those contributions to a Roth IRA via an in-service distribution. Or, if the plan allows it, you can convert those after-tax contributions into a Roth 401(k) portion of the plan. The key here is after-tax contributions. After-tax 401(k) contributions are different from Roth 401(k) contributions and pretax contributions, which are associated with traditional 401(k)s. But after-tax contributions may allow you to contribute to a workplace retirement plan like a 401(k) beyond the annual contribution limits for pretax and Roth contributions. So let’s take a close look at these contribution limits for 2026. You can contribute up to $24,500 in pretax and/or Roth contributions to your 401(k) if you’re under the age of 50. Because of catch-up contributions, those aged 50 or older can contribute up to $32,500. If your plan allows for super catch-up contributions, those between the ages of 60 and 63 can contribute up to $35,750. But by factoring in after-tax contributions, those below age 50 may be able to save up to $72,000. Those between the ages of 50 to 59 or 64-plus can save up to $80,000. And those between the ages of 60 to 63 can save up to $83,250 if the plan allows super catch-up contributions. But any employer contributions would count toward these limits. Drawbacks to the Mega Backdoor Roth Taking the mega backdoor Roth route can leave you with a hefty tax bill. This is because when you make qualified withdrawals in retirement, any investment earnings would be taxed as ordinary income. And the earnings portion of the conversion into a Roth IRA would be subject to taxation at the time of the conversion. In addition, your capacity to make after-tax contributions could be restricted by IRS nondiscrimination rules that affect highly compensated employees. These rules may limit how much highly compensated employees can contribute compared to non-highly compensated employees. For 2026, you’re a highly-compensated employee if you made $160,000 or more in 2025 compensation, or if you owned more than 5 percent of the company at any time during the current or previous year. And some plans don’t allow after-tax contributions to be eligible for employer matches. And that brings us to one of the biggest downsides. Your plan administrator simply may not allow you to engage in the mega backdoor Roth strategy. Some employers won’t let you move money from the 401(k) and into a Roth IRA while you’re still employed by them. Or they may not allow you to transfer money from the after-tax portion of your plan into a Roth 401(k) part of the plan. So you need to contact your plan administrator or human resources department to learn what their rules are. The Bottom Line Many high earners face some barriers when it comes to contributing to a Roth account. But this is when the mega backdoor Roth can come into play. This is a strategy involving making after-tax contributions to a traditional 401(k) and converting those contributions into a Roth IRA or a Roth 401(k) within the plan. But there are a few obstacles; not all companies let you take these steps within their 401(k) or other type of workplace retirement plan. There also may be some important tax implications, and the overall process could be highly complex. That’s why you need to be interested enough to brush up on your plan’s rules and take the backdoor route approach the right way. So it’s highly recommended you engage in this strategy with the guidance of a qualified tax professional. The Epoch Times copyright © 2026. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided. Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 18:40

"Create A Crisis": American Association Of University Professors Sponsors Anti-ICE Campaign Authored by Jonathan Turley, “Create a crisis.” That call is made in a new campaign sponsored by the American Association of University Professors to force “colleges to drop their contracts with ICE’s key corporate enablers.” Despite years of criticism over the purging of faculty ranks of conservatives and libertarians, university professors continue to double down on far-left ideology that is now an orthodoxy in higher education. I previously wrote about the AAUP’s ideological shift in my book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. After that book, the AAUP then selected Todd Wolfson, a far-left activist, as its new president. Wolfson ran on the pledge to make AAUP a “fighting organization” for social change. After his selection, Wolfson has called Trump supporters “fascists” and demanded boycotts of Israel. Given that history, it was little surprise to see the AAUP’s sponsorship of this campaign, as reported by the College Fix. The campaign is also funded by  Coefficient Giving, associated with liberal billionaire Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna. They have been criticized for reportedly funding groups pushing defund police and other radical agendas. AAUP joined this campaign with Young Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, and the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University. It includes a toolkit instructing students to “create a crisis for university admin through an escalating campaign.” The campaign seeks to organize to combat the “Trump regime” and its “terrorism”: “When students and workers join together in action, we can force our schools to stop funding and normalizing ICE collaborators and take down the whole regime.” They are targeting companies such as Enterprise, Flock, ICE Air Carriers, Hilton, and Target. The campaign states further that “ICE, and the Trump regime generally, cannot function without the consent and collaboration of the business world. Breaking companies from ICE is the central axis for generating enough leverage to stop the regime’s terrorization campaign.” So university professors are funding a campaign that actively seeks to create a crisis on campuses. It takes a position as an organization that immigration enforcement is a form of terrorism. The silence among faculty is deafening. Rather than objecting that the AAUP should focus on issues related to academic freedom and protections for its members, there have been virtually no objections to the organization’s ideological agenda. It is evidence of the new orthodoxy in higher education and the refusal of administrators and faculty to make any meaningful change in their intolerance for opposing views. Many departments no longer have a single Republican faculty member in this academic echo chamber. A Georgetown study found that only 9% of law school professors at the top 50 law schools identify as conservative — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters in the new poll. There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools.  In places like North Carolina State University, a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1. Yale University has finally achieved the academic version of Nirvana, a state of perfect peace and enlightenment. A recent study found that the faculty had finally purged every Republican donor from its ranks. According to a recent report from the Buckley Institute, there is now not a single Republican found across 27 of 43 departments at Yale University. In a nation roughly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats (with a slight advantage to the GOP), only 3 percent are Republicans across all Yale departments. The hostility to opposing views is impacting our students. A new study offers additional data on this problem, showing that almost 90% of students misrepresent their views in class and on assignments to satisfy faculty by adopting more liberal views. In the meantime, the small number of dissenting faculty have no real voice, particularly among legal academics. I have previously written about the similar liberal agenda of the American Bar Association despite plunging membership among lawyers. The ABA now represents just 17 percent of the bar. The AAUP currently has only 44,000 to 45,00 members. There are an estimated 1.5 million university and college professors in the United States. Both the ABA and AAUP have become captive to the most ideological elements of their membership. That agenda has overwhelmed the original apolitical mission of these groups. This orthodoxy will continue until donors refuse to support universities that do not take meaningful action to restore diversity in the faculty ranks. The AAUP’s radical agenda is only the latest example of how higher education remains a hardened ideological silo. These faculty members have shown again and again that they are unwilling to change this culture. Only donors can force reform by cutting off their contributions or directing them to schools with a proven commitment to intellectual diversity. Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 17:30

An Actual Smart Fix: How Waymo And Waze Are Tackling Potholes In San Francisco A smart new approach to fixing road issues is taking shape in San Francisco—and honestly, it’s finally a good idea.  Waymo, known for putting driverless cars on city streets, is now teaming up with Waze to help identify potholes. Using data from its self-driving vehicles, Waymo can detect rough road conditions and automatically flag them in the Waze app, according to a new report from NBC.  Drivers using Waze can already see these reported potholes, but the bigger impact comes from Waze’s “Waze for Cities” program. Thousands of cities use it to collect real-time road hazard data, giving local agencies a clearer picture of where repairs are needed. The report notes that San Francisco officials say this won’t replace existing systems like 311 reports, but it adds another valuable layer of information. Crews still aim to fix major issues within a few days, while also making sure all neighborhoods—not just high-traffic areas—get equal attention. This kind of tech-driven system actually makes a lot of sense. Bringing something like this to places like New Jersey or New York could seriously improve how quickly and fairly road repairs get handled. Before partnering with Waymo, Waze had already developed a crowd-sourced approach to identifying road hazards like potholes. Drivers using the app could manually report issues in real time, tagging exact GPS locations of potholes, debris, or rough road conditions, which were then shared with other users to improve routing and safety. Over time, Waze also leveraged passive data—such as repeated sudden decelerations or erratic vehicle movement patterns—to infer the presence of road irregularities without explicit reports. This combination of active user input and behavioral data allowed Waze to build a dynamic, continuously updated map of road quality, laying the groundwork for more automated detection methods later explored in collaborations with autonomous driving systems. Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 15:55

Decades-Long Study Blows Up Narrative That 'Gender Reassignment' Prevents Suicide Authored by Tim O'Brien via PJ Media, One of the most common talking points from the left is that if you don’t rush confused kids into the gender reassignment pipeline, they will kill themselves. The left tells us that “transgenderism” is not a mental health problem, while at the same time telling us that people, especially minors, will kill themselves at greater rates if steps aren’t quickly taken to get those kids on puberty blockers, and on track to have their bodies permanently mutilated to change their sex.  AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin More to the point, the narrative goes like this: “Trans kids” are at higher risk of suicide if they don’t receive greater acceptance, supportive environments, and “access” to “gender-affirming care.”  Did it ever occur to the left that the suicide in these cases may be connected to the increased likelihood that gender-confused children have severe mental health instability? Did it ever occur to the left that a pre-existing mental health issue, not the gender issue, is what may contribute to the risk of suicide?  I’ve looked at a bunch of studies the left uses to justify this narrative, and one thing goes overlooked, which is the difference between correlation and causation. In other words, if someone doesn’t call a teenager by her trans name, is that the cause of her later suicide? Or was it something else, and the "misgendering" was just a convenient scapegoat?  And so, when researchers studied the relationship "between chosen name use, as a proxy for youths' gender affirmation in various contexts, and mental health among transgender youth," did they just assume that the trigger for later “health risks” was due to how they were addressed by name, or were all possible causes considered?  Kids who are confused about their gender are likely confused about a lot of things, and it could be that it’s this state of confusion and a general struggle with reality that is the more fundamental problem. But if researchers only key in on how those boys and girls are addressed, they can come to any conclusions that suit them. Destroying a common myth Don’t take my word for it. Researchers in Finland published a groundbreaking study in the peer-reviewed pediatric journal Acta Paediatrica, which pretty much destroyed the notion that “gender reassignment” surgeries and treatments help gender-confused kids.  According to the study, the surgeries and treatments may, in fact, be making things worse.  “In some individuals, medical GR [gender reassignment] appears to be linked to deterioration in mental health,” the study found. “Subsequent to medical GR, psychiatric treatment needs appear to increase.”  In other words, the surgeries and puberty blockers may be hurting the children they purport to help, and even then, the kids’ needs for psychiatric treatment for mental health problems only increase.  Let’s dig deeper: “Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up,” the study found. If that euphemism is sufficiently confusing to you, “psychiatric morbidity” in this context is suicide, eating disorders, depression, and other serious mental health problems.   The title of the study is “Psychiatric Morbidity Among Adolescents and Young Adults Who Contacted Specialised Gender Identity Services in Finland in 1996–2019,” which itself emphasizes that this is an analysis of real-world data, not just some carefully constructed sample to study. And the time period for the study spanned 25 years. You would think that if you take a deep dive into 25 years of real-world data, you might get a clear picture of the issues at play and what’s really happening.  During that period, the percentage of males wanting to become female jumped from 9.8% in 1996 to 60.7% in 2019. This stat alone kills the “born this way” assumption. As Finland’s culture has shifted aggressively leftward, more boys want to be girls. This suggests that the “trans kids” dynamic is a social contagion.  On the female side, the number of girls wanting to become boys from 1996 to 2019 jumped from 21.6% to 54.5%.  Here’s a look under the hood of the data. The study authors analyzed data from “a total of 2,083 individuals under the age of 23, who received ‘specialized gender identity services’” at hospitals over time.  Finland has a nationalized, centralized health care system, which means that this data is pretty comprehensive and a reflection of what is actually happening in that country.   The big news coming out of this research is that adolescents who were referred to specialist transgender services “showed significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls,” with 45.7% having mental health issues before referral, compared to 15.0% among the control population. This means the mental health problems were a pre-existing condition.  Two years or more after referral to the system for “gender affirmation,” 61.7% of the gender dysphoric population had mental health issues, compared to only 14.6% of the control population. At the same time, the data revealed that the proportion of teenagers with mental health problems also rose by 35% after receiving a referral to specialist transgender services. If I’m reading this right, it would seem that any kid in Finland who turned to the healthcare community for help with gender dysphoria issues likely found that his or her mental health problems got worse as a result.  Here’s the kicker. Because not every kid who entered the system went through with the whole program, the researchers were able to measure how many kids who opted out of puberty blockers and sex change surgeries fared psychologically as a result.   The study found that teens who decided not to receive hormonal or surgical treatments enjoyed better mental health outcomes. The rate of mental health challenges increased by a much lesser amount. That puts the kibosh on the whole rationale for transing the kids.  If a kid is confused over his or her gender, and you don’t give them puberty blockers, and you don’t push surgeries on them, you’re more likely to have a kid with better mental health in the end.   But if you do put them on the hormonal treatment track and the surgery track, the chances of the child having compounded mental health problems increase.  Common sense wins The bottom line is that common sense wins every time. Tragically, there are still hospitals, mental health professionals, school counselors, and parents who want to irreversibly change a child’s mental and physical make-up to solve what amounts to a very treatable mental health problem at a key stage of their adolescent growth and maturation process.  The left likes to lecture the right to “follow the science,” but this science will be buried if the left has anything to do with it. The left wants gender-confused children. The left wants to "trans kids." Speaking of “trans kids,” how did that even become a thing? How does a child know he or she is, in fact, the opposite sex in the wrong body? That can only come as part of a very sophisticated, manipulative process that certain segments of society are foisting on the kids to corrupt them.  It’s time to put an end to this. The more irrefutable data we have that cannot be suppressed, the more likely we’ll be able to look after the most vulnerable among us and protect them from “gender affirming” destruction.  Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 15:10

FAA Greenlights Laser Sentry Guns To Combat Attack Drones In U.S. Airspace The Federal Aviation Administration has given the green light for the U.S. military to deploy high-energy counter-drone laser weapons in U.S. airspace, adding a new, low-cost layer of protection against the rising threat from kamikaze drones. The decision follows a two-month interagency standoff over whether the systems posed a risk to general aviation and commercial aircraft, as well as incidents in Texas earlier this year that briefly led to an airspace closure. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford was quoted by The New York Times as saying the new laser weapon systems had completed a safety assessment that "determined that these systems do not present an increased risk to the flying public." The decision paves the way for broader use of these 20- to 35+-kilowatt-class laser weapon systems along the southern border to combat drug cartel drones and one-way attack drones. These threats have caused alarm at the highest levels in Washington, especially following the use of drones by Iran in the Gulf area to target data centers, civilian infrastructure, and U.S. military bases. The NYTimes provided more color on the FAA's decision:  The statement did not address whether the agency had determined that the high-energy lasers posed no physical risk to aircraft, or whether the safety determination was based on how the lasers were being deployed. But the F.A.A. determined that the risk would be minimal even if the laser came into contact with an airplane, according to an agency official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The controversy surrounding these laser weapons stems from the February 10 incident when the FAA briefly closed airspace over El Paso after Border Patrol fired the weapon at an object that turned out to be a metallic balloon. With the interagency standoff over, the U.S. military has considered deploying these lasers in Washington, D.C., to combat low-cost, one-way attack drones. The core vulnerability across U.S. airspace is that a cheap, layered counter-drone system still does not exist, nor is one widely deployed around critical civilian infrastructure such as data centers, power plants, transmission substations, and other critical nodes across the modern economy, where even limited disruption could trigger localized or regional turmoil. The race to close that gap with low-cost systems is underway. We laid out this threat assessment one month before the US-Iran conflict. Now it's time for solutions. Tyler Durden Sun, 04/12/2026 - 13:25