Zerohedge

NatGas, Nuclear, Coal Keep Nation's Largest Grid From Buckling Under Heat Dome Summary: NatGas, Nuclear, Coal Power Generation Keep PJM Alive  First Day of Heat Dome Across Mid-Atlantic; Last Through Weekend  "Set Your AC To 78F": NYC Socialist Pleads With Residents As Fragile Grid Faces Blackout Risk GridStatus' website shows the PJM Interconnection under severe peak-demand stress as heat-driven cooling loads surge across the Mid-Atlantic and eastern U.S. PJM load is near 158 GW, net load is around 142 GW, and real-time power prices are sharply rising to about $929/MWh. The fuel-mix chart shows the grid is heavily reliant on natural gas and coal, which together account for about 64.2% of all power, with nuclear at 20.6%. In total, gas, coal, and nuclear account for about 84.8% of the power being generated, while solar and wind remain in the high single digits. Peak power prices across PJM are expected at around 6 p.m. local time. The grid is operating near record load and relying heavily on gas-fired generation to prevent rolling blackouts. Do not let climate-crisis socialists pretend otherwise: policies that reduce dispatchable fossil-fuel power leave grids extremely fragile and prone to failure when demand spikes. Meanwhile, President Trump and the Energy Department are moving to keep fossil-fuel power generation online to preserve grid stability. Why Democrats pushed for a power grid increasingly dependent on unreliable wind and solar, while stripping away the stable baseload capacity needed during peak demand, is no longer just an energy-policy question; it is a national security question. "Set Your AC To 78F": NYC Socialist Pleads With Residents As Fragile Grid Faces Blackout Risk "Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you're not using, and unplug what you can," New York City Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on X late Wednesday. New Yorkers are now getting a real-world lesson in what Mamdani's recent "warmth of collectivism" comments actually mean: shared sacrifice, including being told to dial back air conditioning during blistering heat as the risk of power blackouts rises. New York: it's hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you're not using, and unplug what you can. Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings,… — Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 1, 2026 The deeper issue here is that years of left-wing climate policies and poor grid management have left the metro area and the broader region increasingly vulnerable during peak-demand hours. Temperatures are forecast to top 100F across NYC and large parts of the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast beginning today. The extreme weather is set to sharply drive up cooling demand, just as power grids are already under pressure from failed climate-change policies colliding with the era of data centers. On Tuesday, the Energy Department issued emergency orders allowing PJM Interconnection power plants to bypass certain environmental limits to keep electricity flowing. Backup generators have been placed on standby on the grid serving 67 million people across 13 states. New York City power prices climbed above $1,100 per megawatt-hour by late Wednesday afternoon. PJM expects to break its all-time peak load record of 165.5 gigawatts later today. Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 15:20

FDA Allows Label Saying Zyn Nicotine Pouches Less Harmful Than Cigarettes Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, The Food and Drug Administration is letting Philip Morris International market its Zyn nicotine pouches as being safer than cigarettes. Zyn nicotine cases and pouches on a table in New York City on Jan. 29, 2024. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images The FDA said on June 30 that the pouches can now feature the statement, "Using Zyn instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis." The authorization of the modified risk statement followed an extensive scientific review, regulators said. That process concluded that Philip Morris subsidiary Swedish Match demonstrated the claim was scientifically accurate, that consumers understand the claim, and that marketing the products with the claim would benefit the population. "FDA's review of modified risk products is intended to ensure that adult users have clear, science-based information about the relative harms of tobacco products, so they can make informed choices," Bret Koplow, acting director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said in a statement. "Today's decision allows these products to be marketed with a modified risk claim that informs adults who smoke about the lower risks associated with these products." The FDA initially cleared Zyn pouches in 2025. Officials at the time said that the benefits to adult cigarette smokers outweighed the risks to adults and youth, based in part on the finding that the pouches contain fewer harmful chemicals than cigarettes. An FDA advisory panel in January said the proposed statement was likely accurate. The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids opposed the proposal at the time. The nonprofit said that Swedish Match did not meet the standard for authorization, in part because there was no demonstrated benefit. The authorization of the new claim includes the requirement that the pouch manufacturer carry out studies and surveillance, including assessing how people interact with the updated products and understand the updated risk-related information. The authorization lasts for five years and can be extended. If the FDA determines that the marketing under the adjusted statement no longer benefits the population, such as a scenario that involved a spike in uptake among young people, the agency may withdraw the authorization, officials said. Philip Morris CEO Stacey Kennedy hailed the development. Kennedy said in a statement it "ensures these adults have access to accurate, science-based information, including FDA-authorized evidence that switching from cigarettes to Zyn reduces the risk of smoking-related diseases like heart disease and lung cancer." "More broadly, it reinforces the agency's science-based approach to evaluating products across the continuum of risk and communicating those findings transparently," she said. Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 14:40

Judge Blocks USPS Ballot Rule Tied To Trump's Election Integrity Order Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times, A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Postal Service from implementing a Trump administration proposal to boost election integrity by enhancing ballot tracking and verification, finding it conflicted with a 2021 settlement requiring the agency to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled on July 1 that USPS could not move forward with the proposed rule, which would have required states using the mail for federal absentee and mail-in voting to adopt standardized ballot envelopes with trackable barcodes and provide USPS with voter participation lists to make ballot verification easier. Ballot mailings that failed to comply would have been rejected. One day after the proposed rule was published in early June, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) returned to court in a long-running lawsuit originally filed during the 2020 election, asking Sullivan to enforce a 2021 settlement that requires USPS to prioritize the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail through the 2028 election cycle. The proposed rule stems from President Donald Trump’s March executive order directing USPS to develop new standards for handling federal ballot mail as part of a broader thrust to bolster election integrity. The Justice Department, which represented USPS in the case, did not respond to a request for comment before publication. Rule Boosts Election Integrity, DOJ Says In opposing the NAACP’s motion, the Department of Justice (DOJ) argued in a court brief that the proposed rule was designed to improve—not hinder—the handling of election mail. Attorneys representing the Trump administration wrote that requiring standardized Election Mail logos and Intelligent Mail barcodes would make ballots easier to identify throughout the postal network. They argued this would allow USPS to better monitor the movement of mail-in ballots and help implement the “extraordinary measures” USPS has traditionally used to expedite election mail before federal elections. “Such requirements promote the ’monitoring and timely delivery of Election Mail'; they do not frustrate it,” they wrote in the brief. “And while the Postal Service has proposed requiring state and local election officials to identify the names and addresses of the persons to whom they send ballots and to provide the barcodes for the ballot envelopes, requiring this information—which officials already, by definition, have—would not compromise the lawful delivery of any mail.” The administration stated in the proposal that the new rule would strengthen election integrity by creating a uniform ballot-tracking system while leaving decisions about voter eligibility entirely to the states. Election officials—not USPS—would determine who is eligible to vote by mail and would submit lists of voters receiving mail ballots, together with unique barcode information, through a federal portal. The Postal Service would use that information only to verify ballot mailings and improve tracking, not to decide who could vote. “State and local election officials would maintain full control over who they send ballots to,” government attorneys said in the brief. “There are no plausible concerns, certainly at this stage, that the Proposed Rule would negatively impact USPS’s ability to timely and reliably deliver Election Mail. Rather, this provision would, again, assist USPS in better being able to track (and thus deliver) such important mail.” Plaintiffs Claim ‘Confusion and Uncertainty’ The NAACP argued in its motion that the new requirements would violate the 2021 settlement and could prevent eligible voters from receiving mail ballots. “Implementation of the Proposed Rule would threaten to prevent millions of eligible voters from receiving mail-in ballots to which they are entitled,” attorneys representing the plaintiffs wrote. They also argued that, even while the rule remains in proposed form, it already caused confusion within USPS, and among election officials and voters, about what procedures will be in place for mail-in ballots in the November 2026 election cycle. “The pendency of the Proposed Rule ... creates confusion and uncertainty,” they wrote. “USPS, for example, cannot conduct internal or external trainings to plan for a rule that is not yet finalized. Nor can it provide answers or guidance to election officials and voters to mitigate confusion or uncertainty.” The case traces back to August 2020, when the NAACP sued USPS over operational changes introduced around that time that plaintiffs said caused widespread mail delays during the COVID-19 pandemic and threatened the timely delivery of absentee ballots. The parties settled the case in December 2021. Under the agreement, USPS committed through 2028 to issue nationwide election-mail guidance, organize regular “outreach meetings” with the NAACP before federal elections, provide performance reports, and make good-faith efforts to prioritize the monitoring and timely delivery of election mail. Trump’s March executive order directed USPS to develop new standards to strengthen election security, prompting USPS to publish the proposed rule, which the NAACP challenged. The judge sided with the plaintiffs, concluding that the proposed procedures conflicted with USPS’s commitment to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail. Allison Zieve, director of Public Citizen Litigation Group, which represented the NAACP in the case, praised the ruling. “The court today correctly recognized that USPS’s plan to create roadblocks to mail-in voting was inconsistent with its commitment to timely deliver election mail,” she said in a statement. “USPS’s plan was unwise, unlawful, and a threat to the millions of voters who rely on mailed ballots to participate in our democracy.” Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 14:00

Sin(a)tra By Michael Every of Rabobank Sin(a)tra Let’s be Frank: the central banker pow-wow at Sintra had a touch of Sinatra. Fed Chair Warsh belted out “I’ll do it MYYYYYY way,” and everyone else chimed in that they’d had a few regrets about how they’ve run monetary policy and were coincidentally now mentioning them. Markets swooned when Warsh stated the case for Fed independence and that anyone expecting tolerance for inflation above 2% “would be disappointed.” Yet he also sang with an AI autotune. While the current “AI shock” is driving a boom in capex, i.e., the inflation he said he will fight, this will eventually expand the supply side through higher productivity, a shift with “huge implications for monetary policy.” In other words, “we’ve all looked around, and we’ve seen that prices are too high,” but he can fight it by saying it will eventually become deflation. (That would logically hold true for tariffs; and wars in the Middle East – if you win them.) Warsh really will do things his way. He said central banking needs structural adaptation and must move away from forward guidance towards “framework guidance,” with “contemporaneous real-time” big data/AI monitoring to capture what’s going on --not backwards-looking, inaccurate analogue surveys the equivalent of vinyl-- within 9–12 months. This will also include new measures of inflation: are they going to be lower or higher than the current ones based on the heuristic in how they have always been changed so far? He also wants central bankers to go on tour less. He rejected heavy reliance on “conventional wisdom” or detailed predictive guidance, i.e., a data calendar filled with central bankers talking. This implies the Wall Street-analyst Brat Pack may soon be out of the picture. What’s a generation of macro-commentary scribblers pushing “X said Y”, or “Survey X was up Z vs consensus of Y, and we guess next month will be A” going to do with nothing to report on? Indeed, if we have omerta and a (transparent?) set of accurate real-time economic indicators, what role is there for macrostrategy? More chatter to fill the space? A meta-approach, i.e., seeing differences between a Kalecki or Minsky view of political economy vs. the neoclassical, as such fundamental questions re-emerge; or, given other economies won’t have the same data quality or timeliness, linking up with what’s going on abroad? It may also imply that Wall Street itself will not be a Warsh fan. He is no fan of QE and the Fed’s large balance sheet: what if we see deregulation aimed at incentivizing banks to lend into productive capital like factories or infrastructure rather than holding financial assets? Warsh is perhaps already getting others to do it his way. The ECB’s Lagarde spoke of going “back to basics,” abandoning heavy reliance on unconventional tools and complex forward guidance in favour of simpler frameworks. The BoE’s Bailey voiced regret over past forward guidance practices and aligned with the broader retreat from detailed predictive signalling. The BoC’s Macklem didn’t push back either, and multiple reports note a widespread “open-mindedness” among Sintra attendees on AI and productivity too. Let me say this not in a shy way, things are changing far more than a “Warsh wants inflation back below 2%” headline captures. Meanwhile, the brief US Operation Freedom to get Hormuz oil flowing before the US-Iran MoU was reportedly shot down by Saudi Arabia: Riyadh refused to allow the US to use its bases or airspace, to which the US threatened to not shoot down incoming drones or missiles – and is reportedly considering moving bases elsewhere in the region – like Israel(?) Which Iran is again threatening today in tit-for-tat rhetoric. We had more ‘positive’ talks in Qatar. Both sides reportedly still want the ‘peacefire’ to hold for now, as we expected, as the US tries to convince Iran to look at the ‘bigger picture’ and not insist on control of Hormuz or tolls. However, the US also said Iran will not get any frozen assets until it fulfils the MoU, which Iran puts the other way round, as Tehran claims it will use that cash in Qatar to buy “required goods” while the US says it will be held in escrow and used to buy US products. Meanwhile, VP Vance made clear the MoU is an opportunity to refuel, then see if more war is required (our base case), as Lebanon and Syria, a former Iranian proxy now flipped, joined a CENTCOM-led Middle East security dialogue for first time, and Iraq’s PM gave pro-Iranian militias a 30 September deadline to disarm. Ukraine will allow weapons exports for first time since start of the war; Germany charged a Ukrainian suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage case; Russia and Crimea are grappling with fuel shortages and blackouts as Zelenskyy warned of further massive Russian strikes planned for Ukraine; the US NATO envoy has warned some allies are ‘lagging’ on their spending; the UK’s defence black hole just tripled to £15bn; Germany is proposing to make US weapons; and US defence startups are raiding the auto and fracking sectors for parts to speed weapons output. In frenetic geoeconomics, the US opted not to renew the USMCA, so it rolls annually towards a 10-year death unless reworked into Fortress Americas; Canada joined Europe – its song contest that is, alongside Australia; Politico says ‘Europe wants to save its industry. It still can’t agree how’, as the EU imposed a €3 fee on small packages from abroad and reduced steel quotas while raising tariffs; the Supreme Court ruling on independent agencies and regulators is reportedly seeing Europe think again about the €1.7 trillion data deal it signed with the US; the White House is accelerating its plans for AI model standards; the US nuclear power regulator is proposing changing rules that protect people from radiation, as Brussels will bend its budget rules to allow countries to borrow more for EVs, bike lanes, and train stations; and the EU-Mercosur trade deal is sparking a quota tug-of-war as LatAm countries can't agree on how to divide it up. In equally frenetic politics, democratic socialists continue to win US electoral primaries, seeing Trump warn about the return of communism: while hyperbole to European ears, that’s easily matched by many statements made by new figures on the US far left (and right). It also underlines that there’s no longer a US Overton Window - indeed, following the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship, the Trump plan B is reportedly ‘No expectant moms at the border’; November’s midterms could be wild, and November 2028’s election’s far more so - and Europe and Australia are far from immune. As such, central banks need to get things right – or talk about ‘revolution’ may not be hyperbole. As the tears subside, there isn’t a lot to find amusing in all this; or bemusing - we are being told by the Establishment that things need to, and will be, done differently ahead, like it or not. And that includes central banking and how one analyses what they are doing and why. Let the record show I took the blows in trying to flag this well in advance, and I did it my way. Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 13:20

Minnesota Gov Walz Pardons Convicted Child-Molester, Blocking Deportation A Minnesota pardon board that includes Gov Tim Walz among its three members has issued a full pardon to a convicted Laotian child-molester, torpedoing Homeland Security's effort to deport him. The 42-year-old convict, Tou Lue Vang, submitted a letter to the board saying he regretted what he did -- and just like that, his criminal record is now clean as a whistle via unanimous decision.  “Governor Tim Walz's decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” said DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis. “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting. Tou Lue Vang lost his legal status following his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl."  Tou Lue Vang told the pardons board that he had regrets about abusing a 10-year-old girl multiple times (DHS photo) In a storyline that has Democrats co-conspiring to infuse precious "diversity" into the American bloodstream over more than three decades, the Clinton administration granted Vang legal status after he entered the United States as a child in 1994. Now, 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz has  helped guarantee that the convicted sex fiend will be safe from deportation. The two other members of the pardon board are Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and chief Supreme Court justice, Natalie Hudson.  Vang was convicted of sexually assaulting a girl who was just 10 years old when his perverted acts began. He repeated the offense with the same girl between 2002 and 2004, and pathetically tried to buy her silence with an offer of just $10 in hush money.  After his conviction, an immigration judge ordered his removal way back in 2006.   When he was first interrogated by police, Vang tried to sweep away the gravity of his actions, telling them, "it is a cultural thing...to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.” Apparently, Walz -- who's heralded as a reliable "ally" for the LGBTQ crowd and famously put tampons in school-kids' boys rooms -- thinks diversity in sexual morality is our strength too. Vang's pardon quest was bolstered by a supportive letter to the board from his victim, along with many letters of support from the "community."   Minnesota Gov Tim Walz was part of a unanimous decision that will prevent a child-molester's deportation Minnesota is on a roll when it comes to helping Laotian criminals stay in America. "In May, the state pardoned Jai Vang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos, whose criminal record includes convictions for robbery, robbery of a business with a gun, and driving under the influence of liquor," noted DHS in a statement. He was ordered to be removed from the United States -- you better sit down for this --  in May 1996. The Clinton administration sprung him loose. Between March 2025 and June 2026, Minnesota has received 67 pardon requests that cite immigration woes as a reason for seeking forgiveness. Across all decisions made this year, the Minnesota board has approved an overwhelming 94% of pardons requested.  Of course, the Trump administration is in a glass house when it comes to throwing rocks about pardons. Among too many other examples, Trump has stirred the disgust of victims and law-and-order Republicans alike with pardons or commutations of:  Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home operator in New York convicted of a $39 million tax fraud scheme Eliyahu Weinstein, a real estate developer who'd been convicted of a real estate Ponzi scheme; after his 24-year sentence was commuted after only a few months, he immediately started orchestrating a scheme in which he defrauded people who thought they were investing in deals to get scarce medical supplies to war-torn Ukraine Sholam Weiss, who was staring down an 845-year sentence for racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and transporting stolen goods, after defrauding an insurer and its elderly policyholders out of £91 million; he fled the US before he could be prosecuted and was convicted in absentia Its unbelievable Tim Walz pardon a child rapist so he cant be deported pic.twitter.com/flxoIndZhP — The Highland Knight (@KnightHighland) July 2, 2026 Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 12:20

Europe Capitulates, Sees Iranian Hormuz Fee Collection As 'Inevitable'  Europe capitulates at a moment Washington and Tehran (and possibly Oman) continue to be directly at odds over how future shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz energy chokepoint will be administered. Bloomberg reports Thursday, "Some leading European powers now accept that ships transiting the vital Strait of Hormuz will have to pay fees to Iran and Oman, according to people familiar with the matter." "The prospect of some sort of service fee in the aftermath of the US and Israeli war with the Islamic Republic was described as a given by two of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations," the report adds. At the moment there's an uneasy pause in purported 'positive' indirect negotiations in Qatar, as Iran prepares for a multi-day funeral for the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this weekend - which as it so happens will kick off on July 4th. A fresh Qatar-Pakistan statement has indicated, "The parties agreed to continue discussions over the coming period, with the next meeting to be scheduled at the earliest possible time following the funeral processions of the former Iranian Supreme Leader." Other sources say a diplomatic 'pause' is on for the moment, as is presumably military action. Maritime Executive comments that "While a relative calm prevails, shipping is using both the Omani/IMO channel to the south, and a loosely-defined channel through Iranian waters to the north, with inbound and outbound shipping using the same channel, at a rate of about 60 transits a day. The volume of traffic is difficult to judge accurately, given that some ships are still traveling without switching on their AIS systems." Still, more ships are making it through compared to before the start of Operation Epic Fury and the height of the US-Israel bombing campaign and Iranian retaliation, by all regional accounts. But last month proved this could shift at any moment, given the several tit-for-tat strikes between Iran and US forces, focused on the Hormuz and coastal Iran region. And now Europe is admitting it will be 'inevitable' that 'some fees' will be collected under the Iran-Oman scheme for passage, Bloomberg confirms. Oman's official position remains that it will not allow 'tolls' - instead it has opted for ambiguous language of necessary environmental and navigational administrative fees. So Iran will still tout 'tolls' (at perhaps $2 million per ship) - as Europe seems eager to play along - the Omani/Gulf position seems open to simply calling it something else, or a quibbling over definitions, clearly loose definitions. It must be remembered that the pre-war situation was one of no fees at all for vessels passing via legally recognized international waters. Now, the NY Times admits where things are headed: "Iran and U.S.-allied Oman are moving forward with plans to collect payment for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite public American objections, according to an Iranian official and four diplomats with knowledge of the matter." The NYT fresh reporting says that "If enacted, the plans would be a significant change from the prewar status in the strategic waterway, underscoring how the American-Israeli decision to attack Iran on Feb. 28 has changed the Middle East in far-reaching and unanticipated ways." HORMUZ SHIPPING STABILIZES, UNCERTAINTY REMAINS Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has recovered to an average of 40 vessel crossings per day, according to Kpler. Shipping rebounded after recent attacks disrupted transit, but uncertainty persists over who controls passage.… — *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) July 2, 2026 Iranian leaders have made clear their position that a lasting result of Operation Epic Fury will be that strait passage will never remain the same. Europe is fast capitulating, and will likely call it some kind of necessary 'environmentally safe' passage scheme - as Iran is due to collect untold millions or even billions over time. The question remains whether Washington will also eventually quietly accede for the sake of peace. For now the two sides are holding to rival absolutist demands, and the alternative will be a return to a fire-fight. Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 11:40

Vegas Cops Disrupt Alleged Casino Terror Plot By Trans Gunman As Pattern Of Left-Wing Violence Raises Alarms The nihilistic accelerationism spreading through the revolutionary left is becoming an increasingly visible security threat, as years of radical rhetoric and political demonization by Democrats and their aligned, billionaire-funded NGOs bleed into real-world violence. The pattern is becoming increasingly troubling and harder to ignore: left-wing extremists are taking their grievances into an active phase, targeting wealthy individuals, capitalism, law enforcement, and right-leaning political figures. What was once overlooked because the Biden-Harris FBI was too focused on White Catholics is now manifesting in assassination plots, terroristic threats, and planned terror attacks. The latest incident comes after Las Vegas-area police arrested a 36-year-old transgender suspect who allegedly planned either a mass shooting or a "suicide by cop" incident at a casino, after officers found a large cache of weapons in a stolen vehicle and later at the suspect's home, according to The New York Post. Watch the moment Las Vegas Police dragged transgender suspect Allison Howlett out of a stolen car and arrested him after he allegedly planned to carry out a mass shooting. The media wants you to think this alleged wannabe terrorist is a "woman" https://t.co/QCuO92WAUJ pic.twitter.com/Bd2Y8zKnb8 — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 1, 2026 More color from Las Vegas Police: The investigation began after Henderson Police received a 911 call reporting a domestic dispute involving a stolen vehicle that was believed to contain numerous firearms. The caller also reported alarming statements indicating the suspect intended to commit "suicide by cop" and carry out a mass shooting.  Using vehicle tracking information, Henderson Police officers quickly located the vehicle at Sunset Station. Through calm communication, tactical decision-making, and exceptional restraint, officers safely took the suspect into custody without injury to the public.  What police found: • 22 firearms from the stolen vehicle, including multiple handguns, rifles, a fully automatic firearm, suppressors, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. • 30 additional firearms from the suspect's residence, including automatic weapons, AR-style rifles equipped with grenade launchers, suppressors, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. #BREAKING NEW DETAILS ON TERRORISTIC THREATS On Saturday, June 27, a coordinated response by the Henderson Police Department, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI Las Vegas Field Office, and our regional law enforcement partners helped prevent what… pic.twitter.com/riBI1egGtO — LVMPD (@LVMPD) June 30, 2026 Authorities said Howlett, a man pretending to be a woman, made violent threats in the past, including a 2024 call in which the suspect allegedly warned of a mass shooting unless federal agents arrested him.  NEW MEDIA HOAX This "woman" who allegedly planned a mass shooting in Las Vegas is a MAN. The fake news media is covering up the truth of TRANS VIOLENCE once again. You don't hate the media enough https://t.co/QCuO92WAUJ pic.twitter.com/lCRICjXTh2 — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 1, 2026 Internet sleuths uncover...  Anarcho Queer Ideology (Similar flag/insignia to Doll Squad). Note the surname and use of "Howlett"; individuals involved in this recent threats of a mass casualty event. All I have for now, more will be released pending on additional information or gaps by public statements pic.twitter.com/bxVUc3NQZQ — Glow So Bright (@GSB_Actual) July 1, 2026 Weapons used in the recent potential mass casualty event where the heavily armed suspect that was detained by @LVMPD. (Thread) M2 HB 50 caliber machine gun pic.twitter.com/2U10tllMsu — Glow So Bright (@GSB_Actual) July 1, 2026 Howlett faces charges including making terroristic threats, assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft, and gun theft. A judge set bail at $500,000. The Vegas incident follows two separate cases involving left-wing revolutionaries targeting "capitalists" and raises concerns that over a decade or more of the Democratic Party pushing radical rhetoric against Republicans might have unleashed a dangerous wave of revolutionaries. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Democratic staffer Teha Delaruelle appeared to have called on supporters to "kill your local Republican." 🚨 WOW: Wisconsin Democrat staffer, Teha Delaruelle is calling on activists to "K*LL YOUR LOCAL REPUBLICAN." “We’re going to make this the moderate position for the state of Wisconsin” WTF!? pic.twitter.com/NdFeWaCjMX — Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) July 1, 2026 Related: • Troubling Pattern Of Left-Wing Revolutionaries Targeting "Capitalists" Raises Alarm Over Youth Radicalization Related: • America Has A "Transtifa" Problem • Link Between Transgenderism And Violence In Spotlight And the radicalization is set to get even deeper as the Democratic Party, which let the socialists and Marxists into their DEI kingdom, is now in a power struggle with socialists. The party freaked out last week: More on this:  "The Democratic establishment is absolutely in retreat. They have no idea what to do," @TomBevanRCP said about Melat Kiros beating a 15-term incumbent in a Colorado primary. "They've encouraged this younger generation's radicalism and activism, and now they're coming for them." https://t.co/13ONi6fLMK pic.twitter.com/1rmUH6oro3 — RealClearPolitics (@RCPolitics) July 1, 2026 This is not your grandparents' or parents' Democratic Party. This new breed of the party is defined by revolutionaries seeking violence and destruction of the West.   Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 11:00

Core Durable Goods Orders Soar Most In 4 Years US durable goods orders plummeted 4.5% MoM in May (as expected), dragging orders down 4.3% YoY - the worst annual decline since Nov 2024... Source: Bloomberg However, ex-transports, orders rose 1.4% MoM - up for the 14th straight month - with orders soaring over 10% YoY, the strongest annual surge since May 2022... Adding more confusion, US factory orders fell 1.3% MoM in May (better than the 2.0% MoM decline expected) but dramatically divergent from the 4.8% MoM surge in April (revised down from +5.3%). ...but factory orders ex-transports rose 1.9% MoM - the seventh straight month of gains - with core orders up 9.5% YoY, the best since Sept 2022... So, take your pick. Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 10:24

'Something Has Gone Completely Wrong': Palantir's Alex Karp Goes Ballistic On OpenAI, Anthropic On Wednesday, Palantir CEO Alex Karp delivered a blistering critique of frontier AI labs, accusing them of having an "effing insane" business model that leaves enterprises paying escalating token costs for limited value while risking their proprietary data and intellectual property. He said that top AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI were misleading corporate partners - "overselling" the risks of AI while at the same time offering their most powerful models to companies and governments worldwide.  When CNBC host Becky Quick said "You sound pretty angry," Karp replied: "This is the voice of American business that is being channeled through me," he told CNBC, joking later that he might "get kicked out of the room." Karp's comments come amid a "revolt" against U.S. AI labs - driven by a combination of high costs, questionable ROI, and increasing regulatory headwinds which have driven some major U.S. companies to cheaper Chinese alternatives, creating multiple pressure points for OpenAI, Anthropic, and others. "Something Has Gone Completely Wrong" Karp slammed the token model used by Anthropic and OpenAI - saying "I'm not throwing shade at them, but something has gone completely wrong," he said. "The basic view among enterprises in this country is I'm going to chillax and waste my time with tokens." He argued that that labs were overselling risks while simultaneously pushing powerful models, and that companies were effectively paying a "wealth tax" that transferred their "alpha" (competitive advantage) to third parties. On national security, he warned: "Are we really going to outsource the battlefield of this country to the consensus view in Silicon Valley? That is effing insane." Palantir CEO Alex Karp on what customers actually want, the real business of frontier labs, and the importance of open source models: “What the technical customers want is control over their compute, their models, their data stack, and their alpha. They want to know they own the… pic.twitter.com/2hvTx7VSyj — Palantir (@PalantirTech) July 1, 2026 The remarks aligned with a 9-point "AI sovereignty" manifesto Palantir posted on X the day before, which criticized "tokenmaxxing" for incentivizing disposable scripts over robust systems and urged institutions to retain control over their data, model weights, and competitive edge. Via X:  Our thoughts on the importance of AI sovereignty. 1. Your AI sovereignty dictates your institution’s future. Sovereignty is the precondition for choice. Relinquishing sovereignty transfers the future choices of your institution to others, who are likely to exploit it for their gain and your loss. 2. Data retention is your treasure. Transfer it at your own peril. Your ability to win is dictated by your ability to recognize and use your unique edges, and you keep winning by compounding the underlying data to generate new insights. Transferring that data hands over access to your pre-existing winning plays and yields the means of production for new ones. 3. Tokenmaxxing hijacks your value orientation and decreases your institutional fortitude and intelligence. The pursuit of high token usage incentivizes disposable scripts over robust software — with the addictive feeling of false progress. There is a reason why those selling tokens refuse to charge based on value. 4. Controlling your weights is controlling your fate. Weights are the distilled form of hard-won, accumulated institutional knowledge. If you let others control your weights, you are allowing them to migrate the alpha of your business to theirs. 5. There is no contradiction between sovereignty and alpha. The architecture that maximally preserves sovereignty is one that enables institutions to own their tribal knowledge, and to compound it as alpha. 6. Politicizing the technical issues involving sovereignty is what your adversary wants. Techno-politicization is the wellspring of false sovereignty. Techno-politicization drives decisions that seem to reduce dependency, but ultimately limit agency — especially on the battlefield in the West. 7. Real expertise is existential. Allowing politics or favoritism to determine your technical decisions rewards whoever is best at politics, not whoever is right. Listen to those closest to the problems, not those speaking most compellingly about them. 8. Learn from institutions that are winning or that have consistently delivered. Institutions facing existential threats do not have the luxury of making technical decisions based on political preferences. 9. Only listen to institutions, countries, and people who have a proven record of being right. A track record of correctness is the best and only signal for future correctness. Judging something as right or wrong based on who you like is exceedingly misguided. "Controlling your weights is controlling your fate," the manifesto stated. "If you let others control your weights, you are allowing them to migrate the alpha of your business to theirs." Karp noted Palantir's expanded Nvidia partnership, which enables custom, sovereign AI deployments where customers retain control over compute, models, data, and weights - a direct counter to the metered frontier API model. Watch CNBC's full interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp The Cost-Driven Shift To Chinese Models As we've been noting, high token prices and mixed returns have prompted several U.S. companies to adopt or explore Chinese open-weight models: Microsoft is considering a Microsoft-hosted, fine-tuned version of China's DeepSeek V4 (or another open-source model) as a lower-cost engine for its Copilot Cowork agentic tool, as it moves toward usage-based pricing. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed the company cut internal AI spending by nearly 50% by defaulting engineers to Chinese open-weight models (Zhipu AI's GLM 5.2 and Moonshot AI's Kimi series) via an internal gateway, while maintaining high usage. Cursor, a fast-growing AI coding startup, built its Composer 2 model on top of Moonshot AI's Kimi K2.5 (backed by Alibaba). Data from OpenRouter shows Chinese models capturing a rapidly growing share of global token consumption - in some periods exceeding 60% among top models - as enterprises seek cost relief without fully sacrificing capability. Karp had warned against underestimating China's progress; these examples illustrate the trend in real time. Watch the entire interview below: here is the entirety of Palantir CEO Alex Karp's televised nervous breakdown this morning on CNBC pic.twitter.com/gzD8debrKB — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2026 Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 10:15

Tesla Reports 480,126 Q2 Deliveries, Crushing Estimates Tesla delivered a much stronger-than-expected second quarter, reporting 480,126 vehicle deliveries, well ahead of Wall Street forecasts of roughly 406,600. The company also produced 451,758 vehicles during the period, signaling a meaningful improvement after a slow start to the year, according to CNBC. Shares were volatile on the news and have settled near unchanged into the cash open… The delivery total marked a sharp increase from 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter and was also significantly higher than the roughly 384,000 deliveries Tesla recorded in the same quarter last year. As has been the case in recent years, the vast majority of deliveries came from the Model 3 and Model Y, which accounted for 467,762 vehicles. The results provide a boost for Tesla as it looks to regain momentum following consecutive annual declines in vehicle sales. The company has faced growing pressure from intensifying EV competition, the loss of U.S. federal EV tax incentives, and controversy surrounding CEO Elon Musk that has weighed on demand in some markets. Beyond its automotive business, Tesla’s energy storage segment also posted a strong quarter, deploying 13.5 GWh of battery storage, ahead of analyst expectations of 13.3 GWh and well above the 9.6 GWh deployed in the year-ago period. Days ago, we pointed out that the market may have been underestimating Tesla’s second-quarter delivery numbers after highlighting a research note from Deutsche Bank that called for a stronger-than-expected quarter. At the time, the firm projected roughly 416,000 deliveries, above the company-compiled consensus and ahead of many estimates on Wall Street. While Tesla’s actual results ended up blowing even that forecast out of the water, the broader takeaway was the same: expectations appeared too low heading into the report. Deutsche Bank argued that improving international demand, particularly in Europe, was driving a meaningful rebound after a weak first quarter, and the company ultimately delivered an even larger upside surprise than many investors anticipated. With 480,126 deliveries versus consensus expectations near 406,000, Tesla didn’t just beat estimates, it exceeded them by a massive margin. The results suggest demand was far stronger than the market had priced in and should help ease concerns that had weighed on the stock in recent months. Whether this marks the beginning of a sustained recovery remains to be seen, but for now, Tesla has delivered one of the biggest positive surprises of the earnings season… Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2026 - 09:30