Tag: finance

Iconic chicken-wing chain Hooters, famous for buxom waitresses wearing skimpy orange and white uniforms, appears to be throwing in the towel on its 35-year struggle to stay politically incorrect.

As Ben Sellers writes for HeadlineUSA.com, while some restaurants, like Cracker Barrel, have successfully fought off the takeover of corporate wokeness, Hooters recently announced the closure of its last New York location, the New York Post reported.

“Thanks for the mammaries,” the paper wrote in a nod to the voluptuous waitresses who became a prominent marketing gimmick and, ultimately, a business model for the franchise.

In addition to shuttering its holdout location in Colonie, N.Y., just outside Albany, Hooters also recently closed its final three Massachusetts locations in Dedham, Saugus and West Springfield.

And in March it said goodbye to its final locations in Connecticut and Minnesota, the latter of which was located in the Mall of America.

Technically, it was not the prescriptive mandates of virtue-signaling womynists that drove the chain under, but rather a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last year.

It cited inflation and other issues as the reason for sagging sales.

However, after closing around 40 company-owned restaurants, the final nail in the coffin may have been a “family friendly” rebranding, with the company focused on retaining its beach-bar motif—along with more modest server outfits, the Post reported.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a bunch of butt cheeks hanging out,” said Neil Kiefer, the 73-year-old lawyer who took control of the brand after its default, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For decades, Hooters fought off outside attempts to reign in its “delightfully tacky” image, including a four-year fight with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its refusal to hire men as servers.

In a 1997 case, the restaurant argued that it was safeguarding women’s rights under Title VII by designating womanhood a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification, meaning it was a necessity to the operation of the business.

(Hooters made no such distinction for its chefs and kitchen staff, who disproportionately were men.)

As the Obama era gave way to #MeToo grievances, the restaurant continued to weather a barrage of complaints including allegations of sexual harassment and objectification of women.

“It is time women spoke up and were not browbeaten into accepting places such as Hooters so they are not seen as prudish,” said former Cardiff University lecturer Gill Boden in a 2010 BBC article.

“Places such as this all contribute to the current climate where men see women’s bodies as available objects.”

In the Biden era, as identity politics blossomed into a giant turd, the restaurant not only fell victim to financial issues like pandemic restrictions, supply-chain shortages and increased poultry costs, but also new threats from cancel culture.

In 2023, Hooters was sued by Taria Daughtridge, a dark-skinned waitress at a North Carolina branch who claimed white and light-toned servers received preferential treatment.

In 2024 came the inevitable lawsuit attempt by a biologically male transgender individual, going by the name “Brandy Livingston,” who was banned from Hooters as a man for making lewd comments but went on to sue the restaurant for discrimination after undergoing a gender transition.

Mourners eulogized the outlet on Reddit, with one fan joking that it “went bust” while another wrote, “I just fell to my knees.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has sued four states, accusing them of withholding crucial data on food stamp applicants.

Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania refused to turn over information to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that would let federal officials identify fraud, Trump administration lawyers said in lawsuits filed on June 26 against the states.

Officials are asking judges to enter injunctions that would force state authorities to hand over the last five years of applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food stamp program known as SNAP.

The USDA requested the SNAP data in 2025, citing an executive order from President Donald Trump that directed agencies to stop waste, fraud, and abuse, and many states complied with the request.

Data from those states showed that states had enrolled some 186,000 people in SNAP despite those people being deceased, among the discrepancies that added up to $3 billion in wasteful spending, the department said in a report.

The government spends nearly $100 billion a year on SNAP.

Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania are among the states that did not comply with the request, which suggests fraud and abuse are likely going undetected, the filings say.

“The American people deserve a government that is transparent about how it spends their hard-earned tax dollars,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.

“These four states are thwarting USDA’s efforts to ensure that the billions of dollars in SNAP benefits they distribute every year are not lost to fraud. It’s unacceptable, suspicious, and it will not stand under this Administration.”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said she asked that the lawsuits be filed.

“If a State misguidedly stands between the federal government and the information needed to protect the generosity of the American taxpayer, the Trump Administration will take them to court,” Rollins said.

Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania were among the states that sued the Trump administration over the data demand, alleging in a July 2025 complaint that it violated privacy protection outlined in federal and state law and that federal officials could use the data to target illegal immigrants.

A federal judge in February ruled partially in the states’ favor, preventing the USDA from cutting off funding to the states for failing to comply with data demands. The case is ongoing.

“The Trump Administration tried to force us to turn over the personal, private information of 8 million Pennsylvania voters. We won in court to stop them,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on X on Sunday.

“No matter what the Trump Administration tries next, we’re going to stand up to protect Pennsylvanians’ right to privacy—and our fundamental right to vote.”

Speaker Mike Johnson returned to the Capitol this afternoon after several hours at the White House, telling reporters that the only viable path to enact the SAVE Act is to attach it to a reconciliation bill – and that work is already underway.

“The only way to get the SAVE Act to the president’s desk, we’ve been shown many times, is to put it on a reconciliation bill, so that is in the process,” Johnson said, adding that he believes a version of the measure would “clearly” comply with the Senate’s Byrd Rule.

Earlier today, Punchbowl News’ reported that House Republican leaders are considering a modified version of the bill structured as a $4 billion grant program. The grants would incentivize states to adopt citizenship verification and voter ID requirements for elections. The idea is still in its early stages, with no guarantee it will ultimately work or pass procedural hurdles.

Speaker Mike Johnson just got to the Capitol after “hours” at the White House.

Johnson said “the only way to get”
The SAVE Act to the president’s desk “we’ve been shown, many times, is to put it on a reconciliation bill, so that is in the process.”⁰
He says it would “clearly”…

— Em Luetkemeyer (@em_luetkemeyer) June 29, 2026

This approach aims to frame the policy as a budgetary/spending matter, which is more likely to survive the Senate parliamentarian’s review under the Byrd Rule.

NEW — House GOP leaders are planning to vote on NDAA passage Wednesday, if they can pass the rule tomorrow amid a fight over the SAVE America Act, per sources

The House is also poised to vote on the @RepThomasMassie amendment to cut military aid to Israel Wednesday. GOP leaders…

— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) June 29, 2026

The SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and photo identification to cast a ballot. The House has passed versions of the bill multiple times, but it has repeatedly stalled in the Senate due to the 60-vote filibuster threshold.

Republicans argue the measure strengthens election integrity and closes potential loopholes. Critics contend it is unnecessary (federal law already prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections), could create barriers for eligible voters, and amounts to voter suppression.

Reconciliation allows the majority party to pass budget-related legislation with a simple majority in the Senate. However, the Byrd Rule limits what can be included – non-budgetary or “extraneous” provisions are generally prohibited.

Bottom line: House Republican leaders, aligned with the White House, are actively exploring a reconciliation vehicle for a revised SAVE Act. 

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

This movie is a warning to globalists…

Director Uwe Boll just released a movie that is ticking off all the right people.  Called Citizen Vigilante, it is an unapologetic rejection of globalism, mass migration, Islamic conquest, and “woke” leftism.  The movie bashes politicians, judges, NGOs, and law enforcement agencies that have bent over backwards to excuse inexcusable crimes committed by non-Western immigrants.  It unequivocally demands a return to law and order.  It urges viewers to seek justice.  It threatens the continuing survival of any Western government that continues to allow outsiders to prey on its nation’s citizens.  Boll’s movie is nothing less than a call for Westerners to revolt against the authorities who have refused to keep them safe.

The opening title cards warn Western governments: “All behavior can be traced back to instincts.  When justice is denied, instincts turn to vengeance.”  Think: the British government’s decades-long cover-up of Muslim rape gangs…or the French and Canadian governments’ cover-up of church arson and attacks on Christians…or the German government’s efforts to censor news stories of Muslim immigrants raping children at public pools and shoving young women onto train tracks.  Boll isn’t messing around.  He’s telling Western governments in the clearest terms: Your deliberate choice to sacrifice your citizens to raping, murdering outsiders is about to unleash the primal instincts of millions of Americans and Europeans who refuse to remain victims.  In other words, vengeance is coming.

Just in case his message was not sufficiently clear, Boll leaves the audience with these words before the end credits: “This film is dedicated to the thousands of rape and murder victims in Europe who were betrayed by our legal system.”  Without antiseptic apology, moral dithering, misplaced empathy, or two-faced whataboutism, Boll indicts Western “elites” for their many crimes against “the people” and suggests…nay, encourages…citizens to redress their grievances by seeking justice against the very public officials who have abused them for so long.

In between the opening and ending cards that acknowledge Western citizens as real victims of their respective governments, there is a vigilante tale about an American taking out the trash in Europe.  Why an American?  Maybe because President Trump is the only Western leader actually taking the threat of mass invasion seriously.  For what it’s worth, the vigilante’s only redeeming quality is that he recognizes European governments as monsters harming their citizens.  He’s a psychopath, but that’s also part of Boll’s message.  The director is telling viewers that they are behaving as “sheep” while their governments slaughter them.  The American vigilante, incapable of being brainwashed by politicians’ “woke” sermonizing and virtue-signaling, is the only one acting rationally.  He sees the whole European system as a threat to “the people” and decides to eliminate the threat.

Where in Europe does the story take place?  It doesn’t matter.  Boll’s movie begins with a depiction of an all-too-common murder of a young mother randomly stabbed in the neck by a young punk.  Boll then weaves in a number of tales of women who have been beaten, gang-raped, and left for dead.  He spares us from having to watch most of the details.  Instead, he shows us how these women have been broken and ignored by the government authorities entrusted to ensure their safety.

In separate scenes, the American vigilante asks two young survivors if the police, prosecutors, and courts had given them “justice.”  

The broken look in their eyes answers the question definitively.  Likewise, a resilient spirit washes over both of their faces once they learn that the vigilante has done what the authorities would never do: execute real justice.

What does real justice mean? 

 It means that Boll’s American vigilante doesn’t execute just the rapists and murderers.  He also executes the families who support those rapists and murderers.  “Are these the values you’re teaching your children?” he asks the father of a rapist.  Because if the “values” from the Quran teach that “women in America and Europe deserve to be raped because of a dress code,” then “I don’t think it was the good ones that got out of your country.  I think it was the bad ones.”

Boll’s vigilante also executes the judges who allow those rapists and murderers to escape punishment by inexcusably painting the evil perpetrators as misunderstood “victims” of “traumatic integration.”  “You really believe that?” the vigilante scoffs at a judge who found a way to blame Western culture and Western citizens for Islamic immigrants’ vile gang-raping of young girls.  “You let a gang of rapists go.  You know what that makes you?  Just as bad as the perpetrators.  Might as well have raped her yourself,” he says before slitting the judge’s wrists.

Boll’s vigilante, in other words, executes judgment on globalism, itself, and all of globalism’s enablers who prey on Western citizens’ empathy and slander anyone who objects to the mass importation of foreign rapists and murderers by calling them “nationalists,” right-wingers,” “fascists,” or “racists.”  Western society “is falling apart and dying,” the vigilante tells a judge.  “And you are the cancer that is killing it.”

This isn’t a Belgian, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Swedish, or British story.  It’s the story of Europe, generally — and an equally applicable warning to the governments of Canada, Australia, and the United States: Either end this foreign invasion, or you will be punished for your complicity.  Aiding and abetting foreigners who commit horrific crimes will no longer be tolerated.

Lest you think that I am exaggerating Boll’s bluntness, allow me to quote the American vigilante as he speaks directly to two separate audiences: (1) Western governments and (2) Western citizens.

In one scene, he tells an Interpol chief (i.e., one of globalism’s top cops): “The people will not accept a takeover…They never voted for what’s happening.  This is an unfriendly takeover by the Islamist extremists and blindsided woke left.  And if this takeover is successful, it’ll destroy the democracy you say you love.  All the freedom, everything you enjoy and stand for.  There’s only one option.  You end this or we the people will end it ourselves.”  The vigilante then tells the Interpol chief to “take this message” to his government leaders.  Subtle?  Hardly.

The movie ends with an equally compelling video message from the vigilante to “the people.”  This is what he says: “I’m here to help you take that control back.  I’m here to show you that you’re no longer the victims.  I’m here to show you that it’s time to go out and show these fuckers that they aren’t getting away with it anymore.  Remember: I do this for you…until you learn to do it for yourselves.”

Holy moly, no wonder this movie has been banned across Europe.  In ninety minutes, it recognizes Europe’s rape and murder victims in a meaningful way; it excoriates third-world immigrants for having an “archaic value system” and a “commitment to religion over democracy and over anything else, including the rule of law”; and it warns Europe’s governing class that it will be overthrown and judged for crimes against humanity.  Boll tosses explosive truth after explosive truth at the audience, and it is impossible not to see this movie as the beginning…of something.  If European governments’ efforts to censor this movie and prevent citizens from receiving Boll’s message are any indication of how much they fear the public’s wrath, then it is clear that globalism’s “elites” are terrified of losing their heads one day soon.

Citizen Vigilante isn’t just a movie.  It’s a wakeup call for the ignorant, a call to arms for the fed-up, a promise to the victims, and an explicit warning to the West’s parasitic “elites.”  The message for Western governments is simple: Change your policies immediately, or you will be judged ruthlessly.  No justice?  No peace.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz tumbled since late last week, as ship owners and operators froze up amid the renewed hostilities between Iran and the US over the weekend.

The Thursday attack on the container ship Ever Lovely prompted some shipowners to pull back and wait for additional information about how safe transiting the Strait is. The U.S. military on Friday carried out strikes on Iran in response to the attack on the vessel.

Then, on Friday and Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted strikes against multiple targets in Iran, in response to attacks on two vessels near the Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, an Iranian attack on a Panama-flagged oil tanker, Kiku, while it was transiting the Strait of Hormuz prompted additional strikes by the U.S. forces. Kiku was carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude oil, the U.S. armed forces said.

“After yesterday’s U.S. strikes in response to the Iranian attack on M/V Ever Lovely, Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to when its forces launched a one-way attack drone that hit M/T Kiku this morning at 4:30 a.m. ET,” CENTCOM said on Saturday.

The attacks on commercial vessels and the U.S. retaliatory attacks on Iran continue to test not only the fragile ceasefire, but also the willingness of shipowners and operators to press on with transits through Hormuz.

Since a weekly peak of vessels transiting Hormuz on June 24, traffic has materially eased, both in the outbound and inbound directions, according to ship-tracking data by Kpler compiled by Bloomberg.

After the flare-up this weekend, the U.S. and Iran have reportedly agreed to cease attacks ahead of tentatively planned new talks this week.

Although traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has resumed and more vessels are openly broadcasting their position, a return to normality is far from certain and far from near amid persistently volatile operating conditions in the Middle East and its key shipping lane.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“You’re next!”

This chant, at the victory celebration of the Democratic Socialists this week, was a message not for the oligarchs or the billionaires, but for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the Democratic establishment. They were threatening that Jeffries would be the next to lose his House seat to a socialist candidate.

It was a scene that has recurred throughout history, as establishment leaders are overtaken by the very mobs they sought to use for their own purposes.

For years, Jeffries has joined other Democrats in fueling the rage on the left in the hopes of becoming the next House Speaker. Whether calling for supporters to “fight in the streets,” denouncing the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” or posting an image of himself brandishing a baseball bat, Jeffries sought to portray himself as a class warrior worthy of the mob’s support.

Other Democratic leaders followed suit — especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It was Schumer who yelled threats at conservative Supreme Court justices in front of the court. A deranged man triggered by such rhetoric in the media later attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Schumer and others portrayed their opponents as Nazis who threaten the very existence of democracy, and they stoked class conflict to inspire resentment for the wealthy.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now Minnesota’s attorney general — celebrated that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump and his supporters.

Figures like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) (who is reportedly worth half a billion dollars due to his wife’s inherited fortune) have attempted to ride the rage wave by advocating a billionaire’s tax that is presumptively unconstitutional.

By the time these establishment figures realized their armchair-revolutionary rhetoric would not convince the mob, it was too late.

Jeffries and figures like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had endorsed candidates such as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who perhaps more than anyone else personified the problem. He was the attack dog of the establishment, fueling rage and promising a spate of impeachments. But what the left saw was a trust-fund baby who had inherited a fortune, owns three houses, and has publicly pledged to use his inheritance to fund his reelection. He came across as the Democratic Richie Rich, and he lost on Tuesday by more than 30 points.

In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive pattern of prior establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they would be overlooked.

The American and French Revolutions were contemporary movements based on Enlightenment principles. But whereas our Revolution went on to become the world’s oldest and most stable republic, the French Revolution became the blood-soaked Terror. The French Revolution was not some spontaneous uprising of the proletariat or underclass. It was led by relatively affluent figures on the left, from aristocrats to journalists to lawyers. Maximilien Robespierre, who would later declare terror a virtue, was a lawyer who helped organize the revolutionary Jacobins.

These educated and affluent figures turned to working-class radicals as their muscle to terrorize their opponents. And not long after executing aristocrats and clergy, the radicals turned on the Jacobins themselves. “Moderates” were sent to the guillotine by Robespierre and his henchmen as they clung to power. But eventually, the mob came for them, too.

After the Terror, French writer Jacques Mallet du Pan wrote, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”

After candidates endorsed by socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani easily swept aside the establishment candidates in Jeffries and Schumer’s backyard, politicians and pundits began to panic. They never imagined the mob would turn on them.

Even liberal media figures such as Ezra Klein and pandering academic figures have become targets of the left. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who has called for the effective trashing of the U.S. Constitution, had law students staging protests in his own home.

Others have sought to stay at the front of the mob. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced the lengthy sentences handed down to nine violent Antifa figures in Texas for their roles in the ambush and attempted murder of a police officer who had responded to the disturbance they were creating at an ICE facility. The officer, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, barely survived a bullet to the neck.

In the meantime, the mob is continuing its rush toward socialism and communism. One of those elected in New York, Democratic Socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier, bragged about how she wiped her hands on the American flag as her fellow victors pledged to tear down core institutions, including the Supreme Court.

In Michigan, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is soaring in popularity after campaigning with virulent anti-Semite and extremist Hasan Piker. Piker was on hand to celebrate the recent victories as speeding along the socialist agenda to end capitalism and has promised the mob that “the American empire is going to inevitably fall.”

For some of us who predicted the rise of the American Jacobin movement, there is little joy in seeing Democratic establishment figures consumed by their own mob. They have been feeding a rage addiction in this country. Now they express surprise as protesters celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk and display guillotines at protests for those deemed enemies of the people.

After starting a brush fire, they have found themselves engulfed in the same flames with their targets. With Democratic voters now expressing support for socialism in record numbers and politicians pledging radical changes to our political system, they have proven again to be what Soviet communists called the “useful idiots” of the American left.

If history is any measure, we may soon find ourselves in the same position as Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, who was considered the Thomas Paine of the French Revolution. When asked what he had done during the Revolution, the old abbot pondered the question and answered:  “I survived.”

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.“

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

• Oil prices are tumbling as tankers stream out of the Strait of Hormuz, but most of that traffic is stranded vessels finally allowed to leave, not new supply heading in.

• Iran struck a commercial ship near Oman this week even as the 60-day U.S.-Iran ceasefire holds and markets keep pricing in a supply glut.

• The U.S. strategic petroleum reserve is at its lowest level in four decades, and China may resume buying once it stops selling off the cargoes it’s offloading now.

Crude oil prices are in freefall after the United States and Iran agreed on a ceasefire, set to last 60 days. Traders expect the ceasefire to unleash an avalanche of crude, and indeed, tankers are leaving the Persian Gulf in growing numbers. And yet Iran just struck a commercial ship in Hormuz.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the ceasefire prompted huge discounts in available crude cargoes, noting how Angolan crude was selling at a $10 discount to dated Brent—for the first time in a decade. Not only this, but Chinese refiners were offering crude oil cargoes for sale, the publication wrote, citing unnamed traders.

“You actually get a discount to buy a barrel now versus a barrel tomorrow because of the weakness in the Asian pull on Middle Eastern grades,” Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg.

“Reopening is going well and quickly.”

This appears to be the general feeling in trading and analyst circles. Indeed, analysts were somewhat baffled by the speed with which oil prices dropped amid the reports of more tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz loaded.

“The market has rebalanced through a meaningfully different mix of demand losses and inventory withdrawals than we initially assumed,” JP Morgan commodity analysts said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. 

ING, however, sounded a note of caution.

“The market is largely focused on the resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which continues to increase,” the Dutch bank’s commodity team wrote today.

“However, much of the increase reflects previously stranded vessels leaving the Persian Gulf. Vessel flows into the Gulf remain much more modest.”

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal also noted in its report that while there has been a strong rebound in tanker traffic out of Hormuz, it is made up of stranded vessels finally allowed to exit the chokepoint. Incoming tankers, however, are nowhere near outgoing numbers. The publication cited the chief executive of Phillips 66 as estimating some 90 to 100 million barrels set to leave the strait and adding, “Then the question is: Who will be brave enough to send ships back in? Will they be able to get insurance? How does that all play out?”

Interestingly, Bloomberg also focused on the stranded tankers now leaving the Strait of Hormuz as the basis for its prediction that a flood of crude is coming into the market. The suggestion here is that oil markets are about to flip from deficit to excess in a matter of days, which was immediately reflected in prices. “The market might be a little bit overenthusiastic of how quickly the supply side, particularly inventories, are going to stabilize,” TD Securities’ global head of commodity strategy Bart Melek told the Wall Street Journal.

The reported Iranian strike on a commercial vessel in Hormuz earlier this week could give those overenthusiastic market players a pause, but for now, there is nothing to suggest it. Oil benchmarks are set for a sharp weekly decline despite a slowdown in the price movement following the news.

“With the geopolitical risk premium once again creeping back into prices, markets will be watching intently to see if tanker traffic resumes or if these latest hurdles force producers to tap the brakes on planned production increases,” IG analyst Tony Sycamore said as quoted by Reuters.

There is also the matter of inventory refilling. As Bloomberg noted in its report, echoing analyst warnings, the world handled the Hormuz crisis by tapping oil in storage. China’s contribution to relative market balance was seen as particularly notable, since the world’s largest importer of crude could afford to reduce purchases by dipping into its massive oil inventory, reducing oil prices’ potential for skyrocketing. Yet with flows out of the Persian Gulf improving, Chinese refiners may start buying once again—presumably, after they sell all the cargoes they want to sell right now.

The U.S. also needs to refill, and rather urgently, because oil in storage is at levels low enough to start worrying some observers, with the strategic petroleum reserve sitting at the lowest level in four decades, lower than when it was in 2023, after the Biden administration released close to 200 million barrels. At the end of the week ending June 19, the SPR had 331.2 million barrels in it. The thing to remember about oil in storage, whether in the U.S. or anywhere else, is that not all of these barrels are actually available. There is a certain level of crude in the system that needs to be maintained in order for the system to keep working—the so-called minimum operational level.

So, it appears that a lot more oil is coming out of the Persian Gulf, and this is, naturally, weighing on prices. Yet there are doubts as to whether the rate of this outflow can be sustained over a longer period once the stranded ships clear out, which is potentially a booster for prices. The issue of insurance also looms large over the tanker market, as does the strength of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

Meta Platforms has instructed engineers in its Applied AI division to limit or restrict their use of Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex coding and agent tools, according to internal documents reviewed by The Information. The policy, driven by concerns over inadvertent model distillation, aims to prevent outputs from rival AI systems from contaminating Meta’s own training data and model development processes for its Llama family of models (which, quite frankly, could only help).

The move reflects the increasingly zero-sum nature of frontier AI development, where companies aggressively protect the provenance and purity of their training data while seeking to reduce reliance on competitor tools. Internal guidelines referencing the restrictions date back to at least May, with the policy actively in effect as of late June. Meta has not publicly confirmed or commented on the directive.

According to the internal documents, strict limits have been placed on how engineers in the applied AI division can use the rival tools. The stated goal is to block “inadvertent distillation” of competitor model outputs into Meta’s AI development pipeline. The scope is targeted: it focuses on engineers working directly on model building and applied AI initiatives rather than the entire engineering organization.

Claude Code from Anthropic and Codex from OpenAI are basically the industry standard now for professional developers engaged in agentic coding workflows. These desktop and app-based interfaces can plan, write, debug, and iterate on complex codebases, offering powerful assistance at relatively low individual subscription costs. That accessibility, however, has increased the potential surface area for the risks Meta is now seeking to contain.

What “Distillation” Means

Model distillation is a well-established technique in which outputs from a larger or more capable “teacher” model are used to train or improve a “student” model. In this instance, Meta is concerned that high-quality code suggestions, architectural recommendations, debugging logic, and reasoning traces generated by Claude or Codex could be incorporated – whether intentionally for productivity or accidentally through copied artifacts – into internal codebases, documentation, or synthetic training data.

The result would be a subtle transfer of competitor capabilities into Llama models. Beyond intellectual property exposure, the risk includes contamination of Meta’s carefully curated training data pipelines and the creation of unintended dependencies on rival model behaviors. Secondary concerns involve proprietary Meta code and context being transmitted to external Anthropic and OpenAI servers during routine usage.

The move comes as Meta is locked in a high-stakes competition to close the capability gap with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google – while simultaneously constructing massive internal infrastructure. The company has publicly emphasized its desire to reduce dependence on third-party AI services for both cost and strategic autonomy reasons. Restricting these widely used coding tools sends a clear internal message: engineers should build with Meta tools and data wherever possible.

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

It’s been two years since Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate against President Donald Trump, which ultimately made his party realize they could no longer pretend he was fit for office and forced him out of the race.

Two years later, Biden is still proving how unfit he was, this time stumbling through a combative speech in front of the very people who used to cheer him on.

Biden showed up Saturday night at the Maryland Democrat Party’s Fight Back & Win Summit at Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover, Md., to deliver a teleprompter-fed attack against Trump.

The crowd was full of party activists, the kind of room that should have been the easiest audience of his career.

Instead, hecklers interrupted him mid-speech, and by the time it was over, he struggled just to make his way off the stage.

Protesters screamed “Genocide Joe” through Joe Biden’s speech tonight.

Why are Democrats still dragging him out like this.

It’s just sad at this point. pic.twitter.com/pRk7SwAgWm

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 28, 2026

If Biden wanted to use the event to prove that he still has some fight in him, what he delivered instead was a reminder of exactly why the Democrat establishment forced him out of the race two years ago.

Of course, Biden put on a show with his usual attack lines.

He accused the president of wrecking America’s alliances, enriching himself in office, and tanking the country’s standing both at home and abroad, calling it “corruption on a scale never seen before.”

This is from the guy who literally tried to put Trump, his political rival, in prison. 

Then came the line that should embarrass every Democrat in that room.

“Have you noticed that Americans are saying the economy under the Biden administration is a hell of a lot better than under Trump?” Biden asked, and the crowd actually applauded.

It’s not, of course.

Rampant inflation under Biden crushed American families and handed Trump the White House back in the first place.

Trump has since gotten inflation under control, something Biden apparently can’t bring himself to acknowledge even now.

Biden kept swinging anyway. “It’s simply stunning to me,” he said of Trump’s conduct.

“He has no shame, and frankly it’s embarrassing for the country. But Trump? Trump could care less.”

He also went after what he called Trump’s “vanity projects,” ticking off a list.

“It’s not just his vanity projects — tearing down the East Wing of the White House making room for his ballroom. Putting his name on the Kennedy Center. Building an arch in his own honor. Even hiring his own pool guy to fix the reflecting pool,” Biden said, before adding, “Whoa — what a loser.”

And then he got lost trying to exit the stage.

Joe still can’t find his way off the stage. pic.twitter.com/zO9wSb3Ef8

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 28, 2026

Two years after that debate stage exposed him to the entire country that was pretending everything was okay, Biden refuses to go away, embarrassing himself repeatedly for speaking fees because now that he’s out of power (or at least his autopen is), he has no other way to make money

The PlayStation 6 is shaping up to launch during one of the most challenging periods in recent consumer electronics history. Soaring prices for key components – particularly RAM and high-speed SSDs – have pushed the estimated component cost for the next-generation console close to $1,000, according to recent analysis. Combined with Sony’s latest comments to investors, this suggests that a significantly higher launch price than many had hoped for is no longer out of the question.

In a recent investor Q&A session noted by Wccftech, Sony made its position clear: the company does not intend to sell hardware at a substantial loss. A representative stated that absorbing all recent component cost increases is “not realistic,” noting that Sony has already implemented selective price increases outside Japan, as detailed in Sony’s official investor briefing. Importantly, the company reported that these adjustments have not hurt demand so far.

“As for pricing, it is not realistic for us to absorb all component cost increases, and we have already implemented some price increases outside Japan. At present, however, sales are proceeding as planned, and we do not believe this has led to a decline in customer demand. As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses. At the same time, we are carefully monitoring the market and continuing to evaluate our approach. We believe it is important for us to make every effort to ensure that customers fully understand the value we provide in relation to pricing.”

This is a notable shift – as Microsoft and Sony had effectively subsidized hardware for years in order to gain market share. But thanks to elevated component costs due to insane prices, Sony appears unwilling to do that with the PS6.

How the hell is an average family supposed to afford a $1,000 gaming console? Sony apparently thinks it can justify higher pricing by clearly communicating the value – performance, features, and ecosystem – that the PS6 will deliver.  

Last week we noted that Xbox Series X/S consoles are also set for another price hike. 

According to The Game Business: 

Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball told The Game Business earlier in the month that there are already supply issues.

“I can tell you definitively demand for our console exceeds the supply,” he told us. “We are putting them in as many stores as possible. We are producing them as quickly as possible. There is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that, but it’s not a question of appetite. We need to do more, but there are constraints here. And so there are, unfortunately, a number of different markets in which we do not have supply. There are other markets in which we have inadequate supply. That is a privilege as a company it is a challenge for us to figure out.”

The Verge, meanwhile, reported that Xbox prices will jump starting August 11, with 512GB models increasing by $100 and 1TB models rising by $150. The price hike now means the Xbox Series S starts at around $499.99, while the disc-less Xbox Series X starts at $749.99 and the disc-drive version at $799.99.