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Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:45:00 +0000 Poland Moves To Tax Fuel Windfalls Earned During Iran War
Poland Moves To Tax Fuel Windfalls Earned During Iran War
Poland Moves To Tax Fuel Windfalls Earned During Iran War
Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com ,
Poland's government has approved a one-off windfall tax on fuel companies that benefited from soaring energy prices during the U.S.-Iran-Israel war , seeking to recover part of the billions spent protecting consumers from higher fuel costs.
The proposed levy would impose a 60% tax on excess profits generated between March and December 2026, during the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Polish Finance Ministry estimates the measure will raise around 4 billion zloty $1.1 billion.
Under the proposal, excess profits would be calculated using fuel sales margins that exceed a company's average 2025 margin by more than 20% , reflecting profits from an extraordinary geopolitical supply shock instead of improved business performance.
"Exceptional economic and geopolitical conditions" created unusually high profits across parts of the fuel sector while imposing significant costs on the state budget, the Finance Ministry said in a statement carried by Polish news outlets.
State-controlled energy giant Orlen is expected to bear the largest share of the tax burden, accounting for roughly 60% of the projected tax base according to the government's impact assessment.
The proposal follows months of emergency measures introduced by Warsaw to shield households and businesses from soaring fuel prices. Poland temporarily reduced VAT and excise duties on fuels and imposed price controls designed to ensure consumers benefited from the tax cuts. According to government estimates, the fuel excise reduction and reduced VAT collections cost Poland around $435 million a month.
The measure still faces political hurdles, though. Tusk's coalition controls parliament; however, the legislation must also be signed by President Karol Nawrocki, an opposition ally who has repeatedly blocked government fiscal initiatives.
The government initially proposed a 75% windfall tax before reducing the rate to 60% following consultations with industry groups, which warned that the original proposal would have pushed the effective tax burden on some companies to nearly 94%.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/18/2026 - 02:45 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 06:00:00 +0000 Germany's Anti-immigration AfD Party Jumps To Record 9-Point Lead Over CDU In Latest Poll
Germany's Anti-immigration AfD Party Jumps To Record 9-Point Lead Over CDU In Latest Poll
Germany's Anti-immigration AfD Party Jumps To Record 9-Point Lead Over CDU In Latest Poll
Via Remix News,
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to run away from its main rival, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Socialist Union (CSU) in a new poll, which shows the AfD nine points ahead.
The AfD achieved a new record in the current YouGov poll, reaching 29 percent, while the CDU/CSU and SPD have hit all-time lows. The results are expected to pile on the pressure on a governing coalition the German public increasingly despises.
In the YouGov poll , CDU/CSU achieves 20 percent of the vote and SPD earns 12 percent. The Union parties have never been worse in a YouGov poll.
However, the Greens at 14 percent and the Left Party at 12 percent are making slight gains.
The FDP is also gaining ground, reaching 5 percent for the first time in a year and a half after a new chairman was elected, Wolfgang Kubicki.
The results for the CDU in particular are bound to spark further turmoil in the party, with some members perhaps even eyeing a future coalition with the AfD, a move that has been soundly rejected by CDU leadership. In particular, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to never work with the party.
The conundrum for the CDU remains that the party is forced to build coalitions with predominately left-wing parties like the Greens, the SPD, and even the Left Party, through its firewall against the AfD. The resulting politics have left CDU voters increasingly unhappy with the results, but remarkably, about half of CDU voters also reject a coalition with the AfD.
Majority of Germans reject politicizing the World Cup
YouGov also found that a majority of Germans do not want the World Cup politicized. The German national team has a history of taking a “woke” stance in the last two World Cups, but the German team was eventually humiliated in each tournament, failing to advance past the preliminary round in both World Cups.
However, Germans soundly reject politics in football, with 65 percent of respondents saying they want the World Cup and politics to be strictly separated. AfD voters (82 percent) and CDU/CSU voters (74 percent) are especially in favor of this position. More than half of SPD voters at 55 percent also share this view.
However, those on the more extreme left, back politics in football, like the Left Party (41 percent) and the Greens (34 percent).
Read more here...
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/18/2026 - 02:00 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 03:25:00 +0000 America At 250: Survey Finds Enduring Patriotism, Growing Anxiety
America At 250: Survey Finds Enduring Patriotism, Growing Anxiety
America At 250: Survey Finds Enduring Patriotism, Growing Anxiety
Authored by Karlyn Bowman and Nicole Penn via RealClearPolitics ,
As we approach the nation's semiquincentennial celebrations, the American Enterprise Institute released a new public opinion survey exploring Americans' views about the nation's past and present. The survey is part of AEI's America at 250 initiative , and it expands on a survey conducted 30 years ago by the Public Agenda Foundation in NYC.
Americans continue to endorse many of the ideals the founders championed, and they worry about their erosion. Nearly eight in 10 believe Americans take their freedoms for granted, while only 19% say Americans appreciate the freedom we have.
More than two-thirds of Americans believe that society has to teach kids what it means to be an American , while three in 10, 31%, believe this is something that happens naturally as they grow up. Three-quarters think high school students should be required to study the Declaration of Independence this year as part of the nation's 250th anniversary, including 61% of Gen Z-ers. Twenty-nine percent nationally say they have read the Declaration in full, while 45% have read it in part. Slightly more than a quarter, 26%, say they have not read the document. Still, 85% said they could give a good answer to what the 4th of July holiday actually celebrates, while 13% said they would be more comfortable looking it up.
Americans don't want to gloss over their history, and 65% said it was important to have public discussions of the nation's historical failures and flaws. In another question, 90% said it was very or somewhat important for high school students to learn how slavery and racial discrimination shaped the country. Forty-two percent said the public schools these days do not pay enough attention to the harm done to African Americans in U.S. history. Still, 75% in another question agreed with the statement "America is not perfect, but the country's leaders have worked hard to make it better." To this group of Americans, it was important to teach the country's failures and flaws but also its successes and strengths.
The survey revealed some significant gaps between members of the Gen Z cohort and baby boomers. Thirty percent of the Gen Z-ers strongly agreed that the Founding Fathers deserved respect for how they created the country compared to 60% of baby boomers. Two-thirds of Gen Z compared to 89% of boomers said they were very or somewhat proud to be an American. There were also big gaps between the parents surveyed in 1998 and parents today. Parents today are less likely to see the country and its history positively and also less likely to insist that schools teach positive claims about it.
Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute where she studies public opinion.
Nicole Penn is the assistant director of AEI’s Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 23:25 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 03:00:00 +0000 China's Alibaba Unveils AI Brains Designed To Power The Next Generation Of Robots
China's Alibaba Unveils AI Brains Designed To Power The Next Generation Of Robots
China's Alibaba Unveils AI Brains Designed To Power The Next Generation Of Robots
Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering ,
Chinese firm Alibaba has launched its first embodied AI model family, which links large language models with real-world robotic actions.
The Qwen-Robot suite includes three distinct models, each targeting a different layer of physical intelligence.Unitree/YouTube
The Qwen-Robot suite was developed by Alibaba's Tongyi Lab and is undergoing pilot testing with selected Alibaba Cloud enterprise clients.
The suite comprises three models focused on navigation, manipulation, and world modeling for robots operating in physical environments.
Alibaba said the models enable machines to perceive, reason, and interact with the real world , joining a growing global push to advance embodied AI beyond traditional chatbot applications.
Robots meet reasoning
Alibaba says its Qwen family of AI models has become very good at understanding the physical world. These models can recognize objects, understand spatial relationships, follow complex visual instructions, and reason about real-world environments. For example, a model can understand a command such as, "Go to the kitchen, find the red cup, pick it up, and place it on the shelf."
However, understanding a task is different from actually performing it. While a vision-language model (VLM) can describe the steps needed to complete a task, it cannot directly control a robot's movements.
The challenge is connecting human language and visual understanding with the motor actions required to interact with the physical world.
This problem is difficult because robot training data is very different from internet data. Information collected from navigation systems, robotic arms, vehicles, and cameras comes in different formats and is expensive to gather. Simply combining all this data often creates conflicts rather than improving performance.
To address this, Alibaba developed the Qwen-Robot Suite, which includes three specialized models. Qwen-RobotNav focuses on movement and navigation. It helps robots follow instructions, navigate to locations, track targets, and support autonomous driving.
According to its website , Qwen-RobotManip focuses on physical interaction . It enables robots to grasp, move, and manipulate objects using a large training dataset collected from different robotic systems. Qwen-RobotWorld acts as a world model, predicting how environments may change and helping robots understand the likely outcomes of their actions.
Together, these models aim to enable robots to understand instructions, interact with objects, navigate environments, and make decisions in the real world.
Physical AI accelerates
Alibaba showcased Qwen-RobotNav on a Unitree Go2 quadruped powered by NVIDIA Jetson Thor hardware and a single low-resolution camera. The robot successfully navigated an unfamiliar apartment, following spoken instructions across multiple rooms without preloaded maps, while maintaining an inference latency of 196 milliseconds.
The company claims that Qwen-RobotManip, its robotic manipulation model, was trained on more than 38,000 hours of open-source data covering object handling and interaction tasks . According to Alibaba, the model recently achieved the highest score in the generalist category of the RoboChallenge real-world robotics benchmark, earning a process score of 59.83 and a task success rate of 45 percent.
The company also unveiled Qwen-RobotClaw, a robotics agent framework that enables Qwen models to use the Qwen-Robot suite as physical-world tools. In one demonstration, an agent searched for a restroom, identified an out-of-order sign, and independently rerouted to another location. Alibaba further open-sourced Chat2Robot, a browser-based platform for testing embodied AI interactions.
As competition in embodied AI intensifies worldwide, Alibaba has expanded its ambitions beyond language and multimodal software with the launch of its Qwen-Robot models. The move reflects a broader industry shift toward creating AI systems capable of understanding and interacting with the physical world.
Alibaba's move comes as competition in physical AI accelerates globally. In the US, Google DeepMind is advancing Gemini Robotics, while Nvidia is expanding its robotics ecosystem through Cosmos, Isaac, and GR00T. Start-ups, including Physical Intelligence, Skild AI, and Figure AI, are also developing general-purpose robotic intelligence, according to the South China Morning Post .
China is strengthening its position by pairing its manufacturing advantages with growing investments in AI software for autonomous decision-making. The sector now spans AI developers, robotics firms, and EV makers. Companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Unitree, AgiBot, UBTech, Galbot, Spirit AI, GigaAI, Xpeng, and Xiaomi are actively pursuing embodied AI technologies.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 23:00 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 02:35:00 +0000 Drug Czar On How She Is Taking On The Cartels And China
Drug Czar On How She Is Taking On The Cartels And China
Drug Czar On How She Is Taking On The Cartels And China
Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times ,
The dim tunnel passage hugs narrow, winding concrete steps that lead 55 feet down, with a ceiling no higher than 4 1/2 feet, making it a claustrophobe's nightmare.
The underground passage stretching from Tijuana, Mexico, to a warehouse in California near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry known as "Buy 4 Less" is about 2,000 feet long and features reinforced walls, rail, ventilation, and electrical systems.
Sara Carter, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, at her office in Washington on June 8, 2026. Carter was sworn in to the role in January. Her office coordinates anti-narcotics policy for 19 federal agencies. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said on June 1 that the tunnel had been discovered during a Homeland Security investigation involving a suspected drug smuggling operation.
Four people were charged with conspiring to distribute more than a ton of cocaine worth $45 million. Authorities said the discovery dealt a blow to the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars of narcotics have probably made their way through this tunnel . Imagine the national security implications of that," drug czar Sara Carter told host Jan Jekielek on a recent episode of EpochTV's "American Thought Leaders."
Power Play
Carter said federal agencies have been turning to technology to help combat cartels, although she couldn't disclose details. She said the cartels' use of tunnels to transport illicit drugs shows that they are feeling U.S. pressure along the border.
"They're having a much harder time getting their product across the border because we've shut it down, " she said.
Carter attributes it to the Trump administration's whole-of-government approach to stop the flow of illicit drugs into the country, at the border and beyond.
Carter was sworn in this January as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which coordinates anti-narcotics policy for 19 federal agencies. The office leads the Trump administration's effort to reduce illicit drug manufacturing, trafficking, drug use, and overdose deaths.
"Our Homeland Security task forces, now under President Trump, have the capability ... to do what's needed to cut off the heads of the snake ," she said.
Carter attributed President Donald Trump's efforts to close the border to illegal immigrants and designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations as significant factors in reducing the flow of drugs across the border, and ultimately driving overdose deaths.
Yet Carter said the cartels aren't the only problem fueling drug use in the United States - adversarial nationals are also part of the problem.
"We have adversaries that have contaminated our supply chain. We have cartels that couldn't care less," she said.
Carter acknowledged the Chinese Communist Party's involvement in the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl distributed by the cartels.
"It is unrestricted warfare ," she said.
"I have already spoken with Chinese counterparts about this. I have made it very clear that we understand, and we know where these precursor chemicals are coming from, and that it will not be tolerated."
Carter said China has been put on notice to disclose such chemicals in shipments coming into the United States. Likewise, she has been talking to Mexican officials about safeguarding their own ports against the importation of illicit drugs.
At U.S. ports, the government is also working to hold private industry accountable. If cargo ships are caught with precursor chemicals, then the federal government will hold them accountable, she said.
"We're looking at all kinds of new technology, technology that was unheard of in the past," she said. "How can we implement this technology to ensure that the cargo that is coming in is clean?"
Cooperation Through Strength
Carter said that countries understand that Trump is willing to wield U.S. power to stop the drug trade, putting nations on notice around the world.
Trump's military operation in Venezuela resulted in the arrest of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who had a $50 million bounty on his head as the alleged leader of the De Los Soles cartel, which was designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
"One of the best operations I've ever seen conducted," Carter said. "We have done what we said we were going to do. There were no more games."
She also said that the amount of cocaine and other drugs flowing from Venezuela has dropped since Maduro's capture.
Trump's projection of strength has led to unprecedented cooperation from both Mexico and China, she said.
One example is a February operation in which the United States provided Mexico with intelligence that they used to take down the Jalisco New Generation cartel's kingpin, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho."
Mexican officials cooperated with the United States, sending in the Mexican National Guard and special forces to confront the cartel's leader, Carter said.
"We said, 'Look, here's the information, go get them,' and they did, and we'd never seen that before, not like that, not in that same way, not with that cooperation," she said.
Likewise, China's Ministry of Public Security has been uncharacteristically cooperative, she said. FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to China in November 2025 to meet with his counterpart to discuss stopping the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
During Patel's visit, the Chinese regime agreed on a plan to stop fentanyl-related chemicals as part of its deal with the Trump administration to crack down on the lethal synthetic opioid.
Two milligrams of fentanyl - the size of a few grains of salt - can be fatal. The drug has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
'Don't Give Up'
Overdose deaths have been decreasing, but Carter said there are still far too many.
She said 68,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2025, down from a high of 112,000 in 2023. Some have attributed that decrease to a reduction in the amount of fentanyl found in street drugs.
Carter said she does not consider it an overdose when a person orders what he believes to be Adderall online and then dies because the pills are laced with fentanyl.
"This is unacceptable. This is the United States of America," she said.
Members of Congress look on as President Donald Trump signs the Secure America Act in the Oval Office in Washington on June 10, 2026. The $70 billion package funds Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations through the end of Trump’s term in office in fiscal year 2029. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 22:35 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 02:10:00 +0000 Welcome To Baltimore: Chaos, Gunfire, And Roaming Youth Mobs Transform Bar District Into Warzone
Welcome To Baltimore: Chaos, Gunfire, And Roaming Youth Mobs Transform Bar District Into Warzone
One of Baltimore City's premier bar and restaurant districts was transformed into a warzone over the weekend, with roaming gangs of und
Read more.....
Welcome To Baltimore: Chaos, Gunfire, And Roaming Youth Mobs Transform Bar District Into Warzone
One of Baltimore City's premier bar and restaurant districts was transformed into a warzone over the weekend, with roaming gangs of underage kids, large unruly crowds, fights, and even a shootout that seemed like a scene from the crime drama The Wire . Urban decay in Baltimore is rampant and is a symptom of failed left-wing leadership, which seems more focused on city-killing progressive politics, DEI, illegal aliens, and climate change than actually providing basic law and order to taxpayers.
Fox Baltimore reports that Fells Point was flooded with hundreds of young people, mostly underage teens, overwhelming parts of the nightlife district known for its local shops, bars, and restaurants.
What came next was chaos...
The scenes of chaos raise new concerns that the failed left-wing leadership under Mayor Brandon Scott has lost control of the city’s youth. The direct consequence will be that tourists - those still brave enough to visit a city in terminal decline - may abandon plans to come to Fells. This will impact mom-and-pop restaurants.
City leaders are unserious.
Lawlessness is nothing new in Baltimore, which continues to suffer a population collapse , now at a 100-year low.
Related:
As public safety concerns mount, quality of life deteriorates, and taxes remain ungodly high, raising a family in a city controlled by Democrats has become unbearable and dangerous - all the more reason to flee to the county or leave the state entirely for a common-sense red state.
Related:
And it gets much worse, well, the local economy is in turmoil:
For anyone traveling up or down the I-95 along the East Coast this summer, the Baltimore exit may be one to avoid. The wise move is to keep on driving. And if you want a taste of Baltimore, just re-watch The Wire on a streaming platform from the comfort of your sofa.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 22:10 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 01:45:00 +0000 Majority Of Americans Say It Would Be Good For Society If More People Were Religious: Poll
Majority Of Americans Say It Would Be Good For Society If More People Were Religious: Poll
Majority Of Americans Say It Would Be Good For Society If More People Were Religious: Poll
Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times ,
A majority of U.S. adults (65 percent) say they believe that it would be good for society if more Americans were religious , according to a poll by Gallup.
A man prays following an Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, on Feb. 22, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Gallup's Values and Beliefs survey, released on June 16, found a substantial gap between the sexes, with 70 percent of men agreeing that more religiosity would be good for the country, compared with 61 percent of women.
By age grouping, the younger generations were least likely to agree, with less than half (49 percent) of 18- to 34-year-olds saying it would be good if more Americans had a faith, compared with 66 percent of 35- to 54-year-olds and three in four (75 percent) of those aged 55 and over.
In terms of political affiliation, the vast majority of Republicans (94 percent) thought that having more religious people would be better for the United States, followed by independents (59 percent), and Democrats (51 percent).
"Nonreligious people are the only major subgroup that believes increased religiousness would be negative (55 percent) rather than positive (27 percent) for the nation," pollsters said of the findings of their survey, conducted between May 1 and 17.
Proportion Down From 2013
While nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans say that more religiosity would be good for the country, Gallup noted that this proportion is down from the 75 percent of U.S. adults who expressed the same opinion when asked by the polling firm in 2013.
This 10-point shift reflects changes in opinion in most key demographic and political groups, mostly dramatically among women, 18- to 34-year-olds, those with some college, and Democrats - with all those groups shifting opinion by negative 16 points.
The only exceptions were Catholics (up 5 percent), those with no religious affiliation (up 3 percent), and Republicans (also up 3 percent).
The decline mirrors the decrease in religious sentiment across the United States.
According to Gallup findings from March, less than half (47 percent) of Americans say that religion is "very important" in their lives. The reading has been gradually declining from 58 percent in 2012. In 1952, this proportion was 75 percent, and 70 percent in 1965.
Religion Increasing Influence
The latest survey also found that Americans see religion increasing its influence in life in the United States, with 39 percent of U.S. adults saying religion's influence is on the rise. This is among the highest readings in the past two decades, only lower than 41 percent in December 2025 and 40 percent in September 2006.
"The recent increase began after Republican Party victories in the 2024 elections, with the percentage climbing from 20 percent in May 2024 to 35 percent in December of that year, " Gallup said.
"The past two readings, from May and December, have been even higher since the GOP has been in office and governing."
Commenting on the findings overall, Gallup said that "while Americans continue to believe a more religious society would serve the U.S. well, fewer hold this view than did in 2013.
"This shift has come as the percentage of Americans who are religious are, by nearly any measure, near historical lows."
Pollsters added that the findings come at a time when the Trump administration "has sought to elevate the role of religion in public life, including by establishing the White House Office of Faith, beginning government meetings with Christian prayers, and encouraging federal workers to express their faith in the workplace."
White House Faith Office
In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a White House Faith Office.
The office was tasked with working alongside faith and community leaders to develop policy recommendations for combating faith-based discrimination, strengthening religious liberty, and strengthening families and marriages.
In February of this year, Trump said during the National Prayer Breakfast that there were many signs that faith was returning to the United States.
"Religion is back, now, hotter than ever before," Trump said in his speech at the Washington Hilton on Feb. 5.
"Thankfully, as we gather today, there are many signs that religion is coming back. Now, it's no longer signs.
"It's just coming back; it's coming back so strong. You know, your churches are filling up."
President Donald Trump bows his head during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in Washington on Feb. 5, 2026. Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 21:45 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 01:20:00 +0000 COVID Origins, Lab-Leak Accountability, And The Next Pandemic Threat
COVID Origins, Lab-Leak Accountability, And The Next Pandemic Threat
COVID Origins, Lab-Leak Accountability, And The Next Pandemic Threat
The Hudson Institute hosted Dr. Steven Quay on Monday afternoon for a discussion on COVID-19 origins, during which he presented genetic evidence from his new book, The Code as Witness , arguing that the virus originated through gain-of-function research in a Chinese lab.
Years later, there has still been no accountability for what Quay argues was a Chinese lab leak that killed more than one million Americans and caused U.S. economic damages in excess of $18 trillion. Nor has there been a unified U.S. government consensus on the lab-leak theory, let alone on potential consequences for China or Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In the roughly one-hour discussion, which was opened by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a leading voice for stronger oversight of high-risk biological research, Quay, a Hudson senior fellow, said features encoded in the virus's genetic material point directly to lab manipulation rather than natural zoonosis .
Quay warned that irresponsible and unregulated gain-of-function research is accelerating globally and could produce pathogens far deadlier than the one that caused COVID.
Last week, Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a set of internal intelligence slides documenting a long-running US program that has funded a global network of biolabs that handle dangerous pathogens - including dozens in Ukraine.
Returning to Quay's discussion at Hudson, he pointed to several genetic features he says are difficult to explain by natural evolution alone, making it impossible . These include the furin cleavage site, the virus's early optimization for human ACE2 receptors, the ORF8 gene, restriction-enzyme patterns, and the rapid D614-to-G614 mutation.
VIDEO
Hudson Senior Fellow David Asher, drawing on decades of national security and intelligence work at the State Department, spoke with Quay about the confluence of the U.S. government and scientists who censored the lab-leak theory.
Asher told Quay that, years after the pandemic, there is still no formal COVID commission that gives the American people a clear understanding of where the virus came from , who should be held responsible, or a unified government consensus on the virus.
The Quay-Asher discussion then shifted to the biosecurity policy . They spoke of the urgent need for accountability, biosafety reform, and risk reduction as gain-of-function research accelerates globally.
VIDEO
Even with no clear federal government consensus on COVID origins, a recent YouGov poll demonstrated sharp partisan divides among the American people: 80% of Republicans and 47% of Democrats say the virus came from a Chinese lab . Meanwhile, 66% of Republicans and 26% of Democrats think it is definitely or probably true that the virus was released on purpose.
The American people demand accountability. It is time for a COVID commission.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 21:20 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:52:34 +0000 "The Situation Has Become Unsustainable": Apple To Hike Prices To Offset Soaring Memory Costs
"The Situation Has Become Unsustainable": Apple To Hike Prices To Offset Soaring Memory Costs
Up until now, Americans primarily hated the flood of data centers popping up around the country like mushrooms (at least those that haven'
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"The Situation Has Become Unsustainable": Apple To Hike Prices To Offset Soaring Memory Costs
Up until now, Americans primarily hated the flood of data centers popping up around the country like mushrooms (at least those that haven't been canceled or delayed due to regulatory pushback, lack of electricity or outright hostility) because of surging electricity prices and the rising tide of unemployment as chabots gradually make America's white collar workers obsolete. Now they can add surging consumer price inflation to the list of reasons to hate data centers, whose ravenous demand for memory has sent prices to record highs.
According to the WSJ, Apple plans to raise prices on its products to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips, CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal .
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” he said. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”
Cook declined to offer details on the timing or scale of the planned price increases, nor which products would be affected. Apple’s next major product launch is likely to be in September when it releases the iPhone 18 lineup, expected to include a new foldable iPhone.
Price increases, especially for Macs and iPads, could come sooner. Apple - which is only the first major consumer electronics company to succumb to surging input prices and pass them through to consumers - raised the starting price of the Mac Mini last month in between launch events.
Skyrocketing demand for memory and storage chips from artificial-intelligence companies has pushed up their cost so much that Apple would have to raise device prices substantially to maintain its profit margins. Passing the higher cost on to consumers while maintaining its profit margin would add about $270 to the price of the next iPhone Pro model, or a price increase of more than 20% estimates research firm TechInsights.
While Apple doesn’t report the gross profit margins on individual products, the TechInsights research suggests the margin on the $1,099 iPhone 17 Pro was a tidy 47%. To maintain that profit margin for the iPhone 18 Pro, based on estimated costs, the company would have to charge $1,371. Because the company likes standardized pricing, the starting price tag would more likely be $1,299, yielding a 44% gross profit.
And this calculation doesn’t account for a potential new camera system that will also cost Apple about 50% more than previous models, according to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In that case, following the same math, Apple could set the starting price of the iPhone 18 Pro at $1,399—or higher.
A full breakdown of the math behind the increase can be found in this WSJ article .
Source: WSJ
While chips have emerged as the key bottlenecks for agentic-focused data centers, even more so than GPUs/CPUs, the resulting price surge has prompted manufacturers like Samsung and SK Hynix to focus production on high end HBM products, while shrinking supply for more modest DRAM products which however are used in virtually every modern product; chips for memory and storage are key components inside most computing devices, including smartphones, laptops, game consoles, medical equipment and even cars. But with AI servers gobbling up rapidly increasing volumes of those chips - with little to none price discrimination since it is the latest batch of bondholders who ends up footing the bill - even a company as rich and powerful as Apple is struggling to secure supply.
Since last year, when Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon began announcing big increases in their capital spending budgets, the prices for memory and storage chips have both quadrupled. TechInsights expects both prices to continue increasing into 2027, unless a flood of Chinese chips hits the market .
Memory, also called DRAM, and storage, also called NAND, are like elements of a mid-20th-century office: The memory is a desk that holds all the papers a worker needs to perform a task, while storage is the filing cabinet that holds everything else. Smartphones use DRAM memory to run apps currently in use; they use NAND storage to file away photos and videos, for example. And since both products were (and are) a pure commodity, there were are substitute makers in the Western world besides the big memory companies.
Cook said prices for memory and storage are both issues for the company, though he focused on the DRAM market in particular, calling out the increased allocations going to so-called high-bandwidth memory that is used for AI servers.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” said Cook. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
Three companies dominate the market for DRAM memory: Samsung and SK Hynix in South Korea, and Micron in the U.S. Makers of NAND storage include those three companies as well as Kioxia and Sandisk. Their stock prices, along with their profits, have exploded over the past twelve months: Micron and SK Hynix shares have risen more than 800% while Kioxia and Sandisk have risen 4,600%.
Seeing the unprecedented demand, memory companies are building more factories: Morgan Stanley forecasts that production capacity for DRAM wafers, the silicon discs on which chips are patterned, will grow 30% by 2027. Yet as suppliers prioritize the specialized AI memory, wafers for consumer tech will fall up to 15% short of demand, Morgan Stanley estimates, although the bank may be conflicted due to its substantial exposure to various companies in the AI ecosystem, which would be terribly vexed if Morgan Stanley were to reach a different conclusion (like, for example, that China - that great commodity crushed - is coming online with massive output in the coming months which will send prices for at least baselines DRAM and NAND sharply lower).
While China has national champion companies in memory and storage, but due to national-security rules, American companies would likely require licenses to work with them. When asked if those restrictions should be loosened, Cook said: “I think everything needs to be on the table,” adding, “I think we should look at all supply.”
He is right: as we showed recently, chips and memory have emerged as one of the biggest drivers of wholesale inflation, and now that it is being passed on to consumers, it is only a matter of time before the inflation-averse White House starts making very loud noises, demanding an artificial limit on how high memory prices can rise.
Apple is late to the party: Companies that make PCs, game consoles, smartphones and more have already raised prices, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Nintendo. A consortium of industry associations recently sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick complaining about the overallocation of memory to AI buyers and asking for help to increase supply.
Morgan Stanley estimates a 15% bump for prices of smartphones and PCs in the U.S. this year. This price hike will have a limited impact on the consumer price index, which has only a small weighting for such devices. Yet any price increase on the popular iPhone will immediately grab Washington’s attention.
Compounding the issue is Apple’s need for additional DRAM to support more AI features, including a rebooted Siri announced last week. And the company has long used NAND storage upgrades to boost profits, charging $100 to $200 for extra increments that cost it just a fraction of that.
In the interview, Cook said Apple stands ready to use its cash reserves to boost memory supply. “We’re willing to use our balance sheet to help be a part of the solution,” he said but added that “obviously, more capacity is needed.”
Cook declined to offer specifics. It is unclear how Apple could match, let alone beat, the deal terms that AI hyperscalers are offering to lock up supply, and how much of a hit to the company's profits such a move would be . Those companies are signing three-to-five year agreements with huge cash prepayments that Apple is unlikely willing to match, given its long history of disciplined spending.
Cook said Apple wouldn’t use its cash and silicon expertise to build its own memory and storage factories. “We can’t do everything,” said Cook. “We know what we’re good at.”
Apple spends in the low tens of billions of dollars per year on memory and storage , according to people familiar with its costs, making it one of the largest customers in the world. Historically it has used its heft to wring the lowest prices out of suppliers, playing them off each other and leaving them little profit. As AI companies have stormed into the market, suddenly Apple has to wait in line.
Cook said during his time working in the electronics supply chain, from IBM to Compaq to Apple, he had never seen a commodity price swing like the one from the past six months. “This is a hundred-year flood,” said Cook. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
Luckily, every flood comes with a drain, and as usual it is made in China. A few weeks ago, we reported that "China Begins Flooding The Market With DRAM And NAND Memory Chips ", and followed up with a report yesterday that China's DRAM giant CXMT has gotten a final node for the largest mainland IPO since 2022 (as has YMTC, China’s leading NAND flash maker, #4 globally). In short, CHina is preparing to do to this commodity market what it has done to every other one in recent years: unleash massive price cuts to steal market share, and leave the incumbents in the trash heap (just look at Europe's imploding auto manufacturing sector).
Sure enough, we are now getting reports that none other than Google is evaluating procuring DRAM from Chinese vendors.
And once Google can do it, so will everyone else, at which point sit back and watch as the epic memory bubble crashes and burns.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 20:52 Close
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:30:00 +0000 From Diablo Canyon Closure Fights To Record-Speed Renewals: The Nuclear Reversal
From Diablo Canyon Closure Fights To Record-Speed Renewals: The Nuclear Reversal
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) clocked another subsequent license renewal (SLR) in under 12 months . Southern Nuclear’s appli
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From Diablo Canyon Closure Fights To Record-Speed Renewals: The Nuclear Reversal
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) clocked another subsequent license renewal (SLR) in under 12 months . Southern Nuclear’s application for the two-unit Edwin I. Hatch plant in Georgia cleared the finish line on June 11, extending both boiling water reactors from 60 to 80 years of operation .
Hatch-1 is now licensed through August 2054. Hatch-2 runs through June 2058. That is roughly 1.85 GWe of carbon-free baseload secured into the 2050s. The approval makes Hatch the second and third units to ride the NRC’s new streamlined SLR track that targets decisions in 12 months or less.
Duke Energy’s Robinson Unit 2 in South Carolina was the first, cleared in what staff called the fastest-ever review earlier this spring. St. Lucie Units 1 and 2, run by Florida Power & Light, received their extensions in late April, stretching Unit 1 to March 2056 and Unit 2 to April 2063.
The NRC has moved a noticeable cluster of applications in 2025 and 2026.
Oconee, Summer, Point Beach, Browns Ferry, and Dresden all picked up subsequent renewals last year. When the agency signed off on Diablo Canyon’s extension in April it issued its 100th renewed commercial reactor license .
For years the California plant served as the headline example of the “all plants must close” era. Activists and state policy pushed hard for a 2025 shutdown. After legislative rescue and full federal review, the units now hold approval into the mid-2040s.
The speed of the recent reviews stands out, as historical SLR proceedings averaged roughly two and a half years . But the NRC has now proven that the staff can reach timely calls while keeping strict safety oversight. Nine Mile Point Unit 1 and Cooper already sit in the accelerated pipeline with decisions expected in 2027, and more applications are queued for later this year and 2027.
The practical result is a growing share of the existing fleet now operating under, or heading toward, 80-year licenses. Research inside and outside the NRC is already examining materials performance and aging-management needs for operation beyond 80 years, with some policy signals pointing toward frameworks that could support century-long runs where the data justify it .
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/17/2026 - 20:30 Close