ICE Flights Have Ramped Up Since May

The number of deportation flights has ramped up in the United States since May, according to data collected and analysed by Thomas Cartwright for Witness at the Border.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below in January, 109 flights were recorded by the immigrant advocacy group. June and July each saw more than 200 deportation flights, the highest figures since Cartwright started tracking flights in 2020.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Most flights carried out on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are domestic shuffles between detention facilities. This is where people are ferried from one part of the U.S., largely based on detention center bed availability following the rise in ICE arrests.

Between January and July of this year, Cartwright counted 3,650 domestic shuffle flights, compared to 1,539 connections and returns and 1,101 removals flights. As the following chart shows, domestic shuffle flights accelerated this year, rising from 273 flights in January to 727 in July.

The U.S. military have carried out 68 deportation flights from January through July, nine of which passed through Guantanamo. However, the majority of flights are being operated by charter airlines. In July, GlobalX Air operated 50 percent of total flights, followed by Eastern Air Express at 24 percent, Avelo at 20 percent, military at 2 percent and other carriers at four percent. This is proving to be a big business for some of these airlines, with more than half of GlobalX’s revenue having come from ICE in Q2 2025, as reported by the Financial Times.

Since ICE Air does not disclose information or data about their flights, this data is based on flight information from the publicly available FlightAware application, FlightRadar24, AirNav, and the ADB-S tracking system.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 06:55

Belarus President Urges Banks To Expand Crypto Use As Sanctions Bite

Authored by Stephen Katte via CoinTelegraph.com,

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has reportedly pushed the country’s banks to expand how they use crypto, admitting that sanctions have greatly impacted the economy.

Lukashenko told the heads of Belarus’ central and commercial banks in a meeting that the use of digital tokens needs to be expanded, the state-owned Belarusian Telegraph Agency reported on Tuesday.

“Over the past five years, the national economy, and with it the Belarusian banking sector, have faced unprecedented challenges,” Lukashenko said. “The government and the National Bank have been given corresponding instructions. Now, act.”

Lukashenko’s latest push comes days after he told lawmakers to create transparent rules for the country’s cryptocurrency market on Friday, as the country’s economy has declined due to shrinking exports under broad EU and US sanctions for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

President Alexander Lukashenko told banks to expand crypto usage after telling lawmakers to develop rules for the sector. Source: YouTube 

Due to their anonymous and decentralized nature, cryptocurrencies have been used among other methods to help countries, most notably Russia and North Korea, evade sanctions and conduct trade.

Payments via Belarusian crypto exchanges could top $3 billion  

The total number of crypto users in Belarus is expected to surpass more than 855,000 by 2026, out of a population of 9.1 million, while user penetration is projected to increase to 9.57% according to online data platform Statista.

Lukashenko claims all the exchanges operating in the country, such as Binance, OKX and KuCoin, are on track to possibly double in external payments by the end of the year.

“Today, cryptocurrency-based transactions are more active than ever, and their role in facilitating payments is growing,” he said.

“In the seven months of this year, the volume of external payments through cryptocurrency exchanges amounted to $1.7 billion. According to expert estimates, it may reach $3 billion by the end of the year.”

In September last year, Lukashenko signed a law banning individuals from buying and selling crypto outside of Belarusian exchanges.

Another push for digital payment systems

Lukashenko also told the banking leaders to increase the adoption of digital payment systems, after making a “start with QR codes,” and to launch an instant payment system by the end of the year.

VTB Bank Belarus, a Russian majority state-owned bank, started offering its customers payment options using QR codes connected directly to the online payment system ERIP.

Lukashenko said the country’s digital strategy must prioritize adopting biometric technologies, establish a dedicated IT company to reduce reliance on external service providers and integrate artificial intelligence-based solutions.

“Banks must try to make the most of modern technology. Digitalization is not an end in itself; it must deliver tangible economic results,” he added.

Belarus crypto attitude

Belarus’s attitude toward crypto has been somewhat mixed in the past.

In March, Lukashenko instructed his energy minister to begin developing the country’s cryptocurrency mining industry because the country had an excess of electricity.

In the summer of 2023, the Belarusian Ministry was working on banning peer-to-peer transactions in crypto, such as Bitcoin.

However, the country also legalized crypto transactions in 2018 and allowed selling, exchanging, and mining. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 06:30

Amb. Huckabee Clarifies The US Won't Oppose West Bank Annexation

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in an interview last week that the US has never asked Israel to "not apply sovereignty," referring to the possibility of Israel annexing parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

"The US has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty," Huckabee said, according to a September 5 post from a journalist for Israel’s Channel 14. "I have repeatedly stated that the US respects Israel as a sovereign nation and will not tell Israel what to do. This is also what Secretary Rubio has said as recently as this week."

Source: NPR

Israeli officials said last week that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had signaled to them that the US wouldn’t oppose Israel if it moved to annex the West Bank. He has also said publicly that annexation could be Israel’s response to Western states taking steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently outlined a proposal for annexing 82% of the West Bank and leaving six Palestinian population centers isolated as islands. He said that his plan aims for “maximum territory and minimum Arab population.”

Huckabee has also made clear that the Trump administration doesn’t oppose the recent major expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Smotrich said would "erase" the idea of a Palestinian state.

Huckabee has claimed that the settlements are not illegal under international law despite their clear prohibition under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which both the US and Israel have signed and ratified.

Huckabee is a Christian Zionist, and his approach to Israel and Palestine is based on his view that God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel, a theology that is rejected by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and most other Christian denominations.

When asked in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post about the growing skepticism of Israel among Americans, Huckabee suggested Christian pastors who didn’t teach his viewpoint were to blame.

"There are pastors in the evangelical world who have not explained to their congregations where the support for Israel comes from biblically," he said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 05:00

How Much Are Teachers Paid Around The World?

Teachers' salaries vary significantly around the world.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, based on new data published in the OECD Education at a Glance report, that salaries in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are at the higher end of the spectrum, with primary school teachers in public institutions earning on average over $90,000 per year.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Poland is among the countries found towards the other end of the spectrum, with teachers earning around $55,407 per year.

These calculations are based on the average actual salaries of 25 to 64 year old teachers in public schools and were converted to U.S. dollars using purchasing power parities for private consumption.

Of the 34 OECD countries that provided data on average teacher salaries, the average annual salary came out at $57,399 in 2024.

The United States performed above this mark, with primary school teachers earning an annual salary of $68,153.

In the United Kingdom, teachers in England had a lower than average salary at $54,550 while Scotland’s figure was $62,584.

These figures hide the differences that exist within countries. OECD analysts explain that teachers may enter the profession with different levels of qualifications and differ in their years of accrued experience, with a higher level often linked to a higher salary band. In Colombia, a maximum statutory salary in 2024 was $119,850. This is a salary at the top end of the scale for teachers who have the maximum number of qualifications. By contrast, the minimum statutory salary in Colombia was $26,862. This figure reflects starting salaries for teachers with the minimum number of required qualifications. In the U.S., the maximum was $85,827, while the minimum was $49,386. In England, $97,930 was the top level and $41,468 the minimum.

Teachers’ salaries also typically increase with the level of education that they are teaching. According to the report, the figures are lowest for pre-primary school at an OECD average of $55,725, rising to $59,673 at primary school level, $61,563 at lower secondary school and $63,925 at upper secondary school.

The OECD Education at a Glance report, released on Tuesday, analyzes the state of education around the world, spanning all levels of education and providing data on topics from teacher retention rates to the latest figures on unemployment.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 04:15

Sudan's Hidden War: Muslim Brotherhood's Grip On Army Threatens Regional Stability, Global Trade

Authored by Anna Mahjar-Barducci via The Gatestone Institute,

Sudan's brutal civil war, often overshadowed by global headlines, is not just a clash between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their former military allies turned rivals, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It is a calculated power grab by the Muslim Brotherhood, which appears to be using the SAF as a Trojan horse to dominate northeast Africa and the Red Sea, a critical artery for global commerce.

Despite recent moves by SAF leader General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan to curb Islamist influence, presumably at the request of the United States or Egypt, the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has deep roots in his army, to achieve control of Sudan, northeast Africa and the Red Sea, signal a dangerous threat that could disrupt oil supplies, inflate global prices, and revive Sudan as a terrorist hub, imperiling Western interests.

The Muslim Brotherhood, sponsored by Qatar, appears to be hijacking the SAF to stage a takeover, recycling old alliances under new guises. Despite recent concessions to the United States and Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood's grip in Sudan -- backed by Qatar and Iran -- threatens regional and global stability, potentially including freedom of passage in the Red Sea. The U.S. would do well to intensify sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and support regional actors in efforts to dismantle these networks.

The Muslim Brotherhood's influence is increasingly recognized as a global threat by governments in countries such as the United States and France. A May 21, 2025 report requested by the French government on the Muslim Brotherhood's role in France and Europe, detailed the threats posed by the Islamist movement shaping "parallel Islamic ecosystems," challenging Western secular values.

A Legacy of Islamist Control

Sudan's descent into chaos began in 1989, when General Omar Al-Bashir, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood's National Islamic Front, seized power. For three decades, his regime orchestrated genocides in South Sudan and Darfur, sheltered Osama bin Laden from 1992 to 1997, and enabled Al-Qaeda's attacks, including the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Bashir's regime also funneled Iranian missiles to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and supported Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, making Sudan a global extremist stronghold.

The 2019 ouster of Al-Bashir had sparked hopes for democracy, but Burhan's 2021 coup against the transitional government and the 2023 war with the RSF, which wanted to defeat Burhan and his Muslim Brotherhood allies and take over the country, crushed those dreams. Beneath the surface, the Muslim Brotherhood — known in Sudan as the Islamic Movement — has entrenched itself in the SAF, and turned it into a tool for their regional ambitions to take control of northeast Africa and the Red Sea.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not just allied with the SAF; individuals in it seem to be steering the SAF to take total control of Sudan in order to make it the Muslim Brotherhood's stronghold in Africa and the Middle East.

Sudan, at the crossroads of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, happens to be in an extremely critical strategic position. It has access to the Red Sea and vital trade routes such as the Suez Canal, and is also a crucial transit point for migrants traveling from the Horn of Africa and the Sahel to North Africa, then on to Europe.

The SAF is infiltrated by jihadist factions such as the Al-Bara Bin Malik Brigade (the Muslim Brotherhood's local military arm), the Bunyan Al-Marsous Brigade, and Justice and Equality Movement rebels led by Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim. These groups, tied to Bashir's ruthless National Intelligence and Security Service, frame their fight as a "jihad" against the RSF, which is backed by Sudan's secular civil society.

Social media videos show the Al-Bara Bin Malik Brigade, in Omdurman, halting RSF advances and bolstering SAF operations in Khartoum. A retired officer told the media that Islamic extremists have filled critical infantry gaps. Ali Ahmed Karti, the U.S.-sanctioned Islamic Movement leader, is, as reported by Arab media outlets, a key orchestrator of the SAF-Muslim Brotherhood alliance. Since his student days, Karti has organized Brotherhood loyalists in the army, and later packed the SAF with jihadists.

Reports in the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reveal that after 1989, the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, which was aligned with the Bashir government, purged thousands of non-fundamentalist officers, assassinating some, and took control of admissions to the Military Colleges. By 2019, the SAF was ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was Karti's ideological influence that apparently derailed the possibility of a civilian-led transitional government in Sudan after the October 2021 military coup. Karti also unleashed jihadist battalions, which were rebranded as Burhan's "Popular Resistance."

This summer, there seemed to be cracks in the alliance between the SAF and the Muslim Brotherhood. In August, Burhan fired five senior generals who are Islamic extremists, including General Nasreddin, head of the SAF Armored Corps, whom the Muslim Brotherhood had reportedly been grooming as a potential successor to Burhan. One analyst suggested that the five generals were dismissed after Burhan met with U.S. Special Envoy Mossad Boulos in Switzerland, on August 11, 2025. Researcher Mujahid Ahmed, however, warns that the Muslim Brotherhood's influence persists, extending into civilian institutions, especially the foreign affairs and justice ministries. According to the Ayin Network, Al-Burhan apparently still relies on Karti and Bashir's loyalist, Ahmed Haroun, for battlefield support, indicating a tactical, not total, break.

Iran's Arms and Qatar's Role

Iran has been supplying the Muslim Brotherhood-SAF axis with arms, including Ababil-3 and Mohajer-6 drones, which were delivered to Port Sudan in March and June 2024. Satellite imagery viewed by the BBC confirms their presence at a military site near Khartoum. Iran's support of this Muslim Brotherhood-SAF axis, tied to its ambitions to have a presence in the Red Sea, coincides with the Brotherhood's goals: namely, threatening U.S. allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Why It Matters to the West

The Red Sea handles 10-15% of the world's maritime commerce, including vital oil and gas shipments. In a conflict, the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Sudan, using the SAF as a proxy, could choke this route as the Houthis have been doing, thereby spiking prices and impairing American and other economies. The Muslim Brotherhood's ties to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State risk turning Sudan into a terrorist base targeting Western and allied Middle Eastern interests.

Trump's Sudan Gamble

The Trump administration is navigating a tightrope, trying, it seems, to balance Egypt's pro-SAF stance. Egypt is actively supporting the SAF to bolster its stability as a national institution, while simultaneously working to curb the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its sponsor, Qatar. Ayin Network noted that Egypt insists "the SAF must remain central to any post-war political order." Burhan's "cosmetic" purge of Islamist generals shows that he can indeed be influenced by Egypt and by the United States, but his reliance on the Muslim Brotherhood's financial and military support limits his ability to implement any reforms .

A Global Wake-Up Call

Sudan is evidently very much a part of the Muslim Brotherhood's global agenda. Ignoring events there will only allow a hostile stronghold to emerge in a region strategically vital for the interests of the West.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 03:30

Spain's Power Grid In One Chart: Net Zero Drive Pushes Economy Toward Paralysis

Days before the media celebrated Spain's first full weekday powered entirely by renewables in late April, the unthinkable happened: the grid collapsed, triggering a nationwide blackout. The incident served as a stark reminder to other Western nations, including 'America First' folks, that overreliance on intermittent sources, such as solar and wind, creates not just grid fragility but also a national security risk. 

A new report from El País, citing data from the Association of Electric Power Companies (Aelec), based on data published by Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy, and EDP, warned that Spain's peninsular power grid is severely overstretched and unable to absorb additional demand. In fact, most of the country's electricity hubs have already reached their limits.

Aelec data showed that 83.4% of all these power nodes in the Spanish grid are at full capacity and can no longer accept new connections. 

Most regions in Spain have limited spare grid capacity to accommodate new energy demand without compromising the system's stability. 

The problem of grid capacity shortages arises as Europe's overreliance on intermittent sources, such as wind and solar, has left the continent's energy grid vulnerable. 

Brussels has had a weird obsession with all things "green" energy, which is not as green as it's made out to be, sparking the blackout in Spain in late April. Also, energy prices have soared, and power bills have skyrocketed as liberal elites on the continent sacrificed grid reliability to combat some alleged climate crisis. 

As we all know, net zero was bullshit and won't come until nuclear power generation is ramped up in the 2030s, if not in the decade after. However, the net zero narrative was lucrative for woke politicians and their allies (billionaires). And under the banner of fighting an alleged climate crisis, these lawmakers funneled billions of dollars into subsidies, grants, and contracts that enriched a web of special interests, from renewable energy companies to consulting firms to NGOs and financial institutions.

After this massive boondoggle, what are the Europeans left with? Look no further than Spain: a fragile, maxed-out grid that threatens to paralyze the economy as power constraints will stall new factories and data center buildouts. Well done, Brussels - it's almost as if these so-called 'green' policies were never intended to succeed, but rather to neuter the E.U. and give a clear path for China's economic rise.

Tyler Durden Thu, 09/11/2025 - 02:45

The US Might Try To Manipulate Nepal Into Weaponizing Its Revived Border Dispute With India

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The student-driven riots that were putatively sparked by the state’s banning of social media after top platforms failed to register in line with the law might be a front for ultra-nationalist extremists backed by the West in a remix of summer 2024’s Bangladeshi regime change model.

Nepal formally complained in late August after China and India agreed to resume their border trade through the Lipulekh crossing. Newly ousted Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli also brought it up during his meeting with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Tianjin. Kathmandu lays claim to this territory and a mountainous sliver beyond per a colonial-era dispute but only rigorously began pursuing it in the run-up to summer 2020’s Sino-Indo clashes.

This context suggests that Nepal expected Chinese backing against India, calculating that it could benefit from this via privileged economic and military support or at the very least by profiting off of facilitating their trade if their bilateral dispute kept border crossings closed indefinitely. What Oli (who was Prime Minister back then and once again till recently after a three-year hiatus) couldn’t have foreseen, just like mostly everyone else, was the Sino-Indo rapprochement that the US just inadvertently brought about.

He's a communist with Machiavellian characteristics as proven by the aforementioned foreign policy calculation and his hitherto crafty politicking, but he’s also somewhat of an idealist who simply couldn’t countenance the realpolitik involved in fellow communist China’s latest own calculations vis-à-vis India. Simply put, China’s interests in the present context are best served by prioritizing India’s interests over Nepal’s in those two’s dispute, which appears to have truly caught Oli and his government off guard.

Nevertheless, China’s mercantile move doesn’t come at any tangible expense to Nepal since it hasn’t controlled this territory for over 200 years, but the political consequences might possibly push Nepal to recalibrate its balancing act by leaning more on the US. That’s precisely what India did from 2015 till just recently due to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship project of China’s Belt & Road Initiative, passing through Pakistani-controlled Kashmiri territory that India claims as its own.

India’s pro-US foreign policy recalibration took the form of them comprehensively expanding economic and military ties, while Nepal’s might focus more on developmental assistance such as the almost-cut “Millennium Challenge Corporation”, which is aimed at countering Sino-Indo influence there. Geography limits the extent to which a potentially pro-US Nepal could become a wedge between China and India, but it could still at minimum turn into a bastion of hostile “NGO” operations after Oli’s surprise ouster.

The student-driven riots that were putatively sparked by the state’s banning of social media after top platforms failed to register in line with the law might be a front for ultra-nationalist extremists backed by the West in a remix of summer 2024’s Bangladeshi regime change model. It therefore can’t be ruled out that the new Nepali authorities might be tasked by the US with weaponizing their country’s border dispute with India as punishment for Delhi refusing to submit to Washington’s demands on Russia.

All in all, there are three takeaways from the latest twist in this dispute that suspiciously preceded Oli’s ouster:

1) China is prioritizing India’s interests over Nepal’s in furtherance of its own;

2) Nepalis might be manipulated by the US against both as a result; and

3) this could be weaponized by the new authorities.

The best-case scenario is that they prioritize economic and anti-corruption reforms instead of letting themselves be exploited as geopolitical pawns, but it’s too early to say exactly what they’ll do.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 23:50

How US Government Stake In Intel Will Affect Tech Race With China

Authored by Terri Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The federal government’s move to take a 10 percent stake—and become the largest shareholder—in chip company Intel in August raised some eyebrows among investors and observers. California-based Intel, once the leading manufacturer of microchips, has for years struggled to keep up with its competitors in an industry critical to ensuring the United States’ continued technological and military dominance.

The Intel logo is displayed outside of the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., on July 26, 2025. Gary Wang/The Epoch Times

While the government’s ownership is passive, or nonvoting, it will still have some influence over the company.

Some have suggested that the deal amounts to government meddling in the private sector or even signals that the nation is moving away from a free market and toward state capitalism.

Trump administration officials have pushed back on characterizations likening the move to socialism, saying the agreement will boost U.S. leadership in semiconductors.

The deal forms part of a broader trend as Washington steps up its efforts to win the U.S.–China tech race, experts told The Epoch Times.

While they were split on how to characterize the trend—state capitalism or something else—the experts agreed it was a necessary move to compete against an economy directed by a regime that doesn’t play by established trade rules.

Washington cannot win the tech race by just controlling Beijing’s access to advanced U.S. technology, the experts said. It also needs to exert pressure on China’s economic model.

For years, the Chinese regime has been flooding the global market with inexpensive products by maintaining an excessive manufacturing capacity. That, in turn, makes money for tech development.

As China continues to rely on stolen technology and funding through exports, the United States has a short window of opportunity to gain a step ahead in the tech race, experts said.

Intel’s Strategic Value

Under the deal, the Department of Commerce converts the $11.1 billion grant it provided to Intel under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act into nonvoting shares. Additionally, within five years, the U.S. government has the right to acquire another 5 percent share if the company decides to reduce its ownership stake in its chip manufacturing, or foundry, business to below 51 percent. That’s the “foundry clause.”

The federal government has taken ownership of private companies before. However, that was typically done during an emergency, such as the 2008 financial crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic.

Intel’s current woes are not due to broader market conditions but poor management decisions.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger holds the “Gaudi 3” AI chip as he speaks at the 54th Annual Meeting of The Semafor 2024 World Economy Summit in Washington on April 17, 2024. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Intel missed out on the mobile chip market by banking on chips for personal computers, and it was late in the game for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips. As a result, the company announced in July that it would slash its workforce by 24,000, or 25 percent of its core employee base, by the end of this year and it recorded a $2 billion restructuring charge, leading to a $3 billion loss in the second quarter.

James Lewis, a former diplomat specializing in technology and a distinguished fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, calls Washington’s new approach “state capitalism.”

Intel doesn’t get new money, he told The Epoch Times, and taking a stake in Intel without a board seat doesn’t really help solve the company’s problems.

William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, however, said he thinks it’s too early to conclude it’s state capitalism because Intel is a unique case, and the government’s ownership is passive.

Lee describes the approach as a “national defense strategy that includes economic assets.”

“China’s attack on the U.S. is most likely going to be cyber, software-related, and tech-related,” Lee, who also leads the consultancy Global Economic Advisors, told The Epoch Times. “That’s why we want to have our own tech industry. Because that’s where the battleground is going to be.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an Aug. 27 interview on Fox Business, said that the fact that the vast majority of the world’s advanced chips are manufactured in Taiwan posed a “national risk like we haven’t seen since the Arab oil embargo.” The 1973 crisis caused severe energy shortages in the United States and triggered a global recession.

From a national security perspective, Intel has unique value because it’s the only American shop with advanced chip design and manufacturing under one roof.

The chip supply chain consists of three main components: design, wafer production, and testing and packaging. Unlike Nvidia and AMD, which rely heavily on Taiwan for chip production, Intel owns all the steps and maintains facilities in the United States. It also has testing and assembly sites in China, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Washington’s move is “preemptive” in using state capital to prevent the talent and technology of a high-tech company from being transferred to other countries, Ethan Tu, founder of Taipei-based Taiwan AI Labs and a veteran practitioner in the AI field, told The Epoch Times.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 22:30

Meet The New AI Billionaires Of 2025

In just a few short years, dozens of entrepreneurs and technologists have crossed into billionaire status thanks to the artificial intelligence gold rush.

To learn more about this new class of wealthy founders, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu highlights some of the most notable AI billionaires minted in 2025.

Data & Discussion

This visualization is based on reporting from CNBC, which tracks the emerging fortunes tied to AI companies around the world. Net worth data was collected from Forbes, as of August 2025.

*The average Anysphere founder’s stake value is $1.3B.

CoreWeave Co-founder: Michael Intrator

Michael Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, stands out with an estimated net worth of $6 billion. His company provides cloud infrastructure optimized for AI workloads, a sector that has seen explosive demand as AI models become increasingly compute-intensive.

The company launched its IPO in March 2025 at $40 per share, and has seen extreme volatility since then. Shares peaked at $183.58 on June 20, 2025, but are currently trading in the low $90 range.

CoreWeave has a strategic partnership with NVIDIA, which is not only its primary supplier of GPUs, but also a major investor.

Scale AI Co-founders: Alexandr Wang & Lucy Guo

Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo, co-founders of Scale AI, are currently two of the world’s youngest billionaires.

The pair met when working for social question-and-answer website Quora, and started Scale AI in 2016. The San Francisco-based firm provides data annotation and other services that are used to build, test, and refine AI systems.

Since then, Guo has founded Backend Ventures (a tech-focused venture capital firm) in 2019, and later Passes (a content creator monetization platform) in 2022.

More recently in June 2025, Meta invested $14.3 billion into Scale AI, a deal which also placed Wang at the head of Meta’s Superintelligence Lab.

OpenAI Alumni: Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever & Mira Murati

Three of OpenAI’s most prominent alumni, Dario Amodei, Ilya Sutskever, and Mira Murati all helm companies valued in the billions.

Amodei, formerly vice president of research at OpenAI, co-founded Anthropic in 2021. The company is responsible for Claude, which as of January 2025 had 105 million monthly users.

Sutskever, formerly chief scientist at OpenAI, co-founded Safe Superintelligence in 2024. The company is valued at over $30 billion, with investment from firms like Andreesen Horowitz and Alphabet.

Last but not least is Mira Murati, former chief technology officer at OpenAI. She founded Thinking Machines Lab in February 2025, raising $2 billion from a consortium of investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, and AMD. The company is set to announce its first product later this year.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Most Popular AI Chatbots in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 22:00

It Makes More Sense To Produce Hydrogen With Nuclear, Not Renewables

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearEnergy,

Hydrogen is often thought to be linchpin of a future 100% renewable economy. To make up for wind and solar's deal-breaking intermittency and to rid industry of energy-dense fossil fuels, the surplus cheap electricity that renewables produce during times of abundance would need to be channeled into electrolyzers that split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then be collected, stored, transported, and eventually combusted for on-demand energy.

But is this scenario really the most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option? Would it make more sense, for instance, to produce hydrogen from another carbon-free source – nuclear power?

A trio of scientists in the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering at the University of Pisa in Italy explored that question. Utilizing data from the International Atomic Energy Agency Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Programme, the group performed a feasibility assessment to compare various methods of producing hydrogen from futuristic Gen IV nuclear reactors. Their findings are published in the journal energies.

Two methods of producing hydrogen from nuclear power rose to the top. First, engineers could construct an attached electrolyzer system just like with renewable energy. Since a nuclear reactor is almost constantly running as "baseload" power, plant operators could simply divert power to the electrolyzers when grid demand wanes. The researchers estimate the cost of hydrogen with this setup would be 2.71 USD/kg with paltry carbon emissions of 0.3 kgCO2e/kgH2. 

Second, the authors envisioned a system where futuristic Gen IV reactors operating at high temperatures (between 550 and 1000 °C)  can produce hydrogen through the hot steam they emit. This high-temperature steam electrolysis is similar to how hydrogen is produced from steam reforming via natural gas. They predict costs here to be 3.57 USD/kg with slightly higher emissions of 0.8 kgCO2e/kgH2. Costs are higher because it a more novel system, even though it is "the most efficient coupling since it better exploits the electrical and thermal energy resources produced by the reactor," the researchers write.

Costs and carbon emissions for both methods compare favorably with current costs of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels and renewables. In Europe in 2023, hydrogen made via methane reforming cost 3.76 EUR/kg (4.39 USD) and produced emissions of at least 11.6 kgCO2e/kgH2. Hydrogen made from a direct connection to renewables cost 6.61 EUR/kg (7.71 USD) with emissions similar to production from nuclear.

The researchers' assessment is highly preliminary, of course. There's only one commercial nuclear reactor in operation today that matches the reactor they modeled. It's in China. Their cost estimates could also be overly rosy, and it's likely that the cost to produce hydrogen with renewables will come down over time as solar panels grow more efficient. 

The world currently produces 52.6 million tons of hydrogen per year, used mostly to make ammonia for fertilizer. The process of making this hydrogen accounts for two percent of the world's total energy consumption and contributes roughly the same proportion of global carbon dioxide emissions. Even if hydrogen doesn't find wider use in industry, transportation, and grid storage, we still need a lot of it to feed the world, preferably produced in a far cleaner manner than it is currently. Nuclear energy could provide it in abundance.

Source: Buzzetti, R.; Lo Frano, R.; Cancemi, S.A. Sustainable Hydrogen Production from Nuclear Energy. Energies 2025, 18, 4632. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18174632

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 19:30

Eight Years Of Consumer AI Deployment In One Giant Timeline

What unfolds in this sweeping spiral graphic, made possible by Visual Capitalist and Made Visual Daily, is a story of how the LLM ecosystem has exploded in size, complexity, and ambition. Each arc represents a model release, each colored path traces a different entity, from OpenAI to Meta, Anthropic, Baidu, and beyond.

When eight years of LLM evolution are collapsed into one view, what’s revealed is not merely the pace of releases, it’s how competition, curiosity, and capital have fused into a self-sustaining cycle. Each launch seems to fuel the next with even greater velocity, pushing breakthroughs into deployment at unprecedented speed and scale. It’s a vivid testament to how far the field has come — and how high the stakes now are.

Key Players in LLM Innovation

While OpenAI maintains a commanding lead in user base and public attention, the wave-like graphic underscores a crucial point: this is not a one-player game. The ecosystem is vast and highly competitive.

OpenAI: The most recognizable name in the space. With ChatGPT and its API integrations, OpenAI has become the face of generative AI. GPT-4 and GPT-5 remain benchmarks for capability and deployment scale.

Meta: Meta’s LLaMA series has steadily evolved into one of the most important open-weight model families. LLaMA 2 helped popularize open access; LLaMA 3 is now used in major consumer products like Instagram and WhatsApp, and LLaMA 4 is on the horizon.

Google: With Gemini, Google has rebranded its Bard chatbot into a full-spectrum AI platform. It’s integrated across Workspace tools, Search, and Android, signaling a deep push into multimodal and productivity-focused use cases.

DeepSeek: Based in China, DeepSeek has quickly emerged as a major contender in open-weight LLMs. Its DeepSeek-V2 and DeepSeek-Coder models are among the top-performing open-access models, especially in code generation and multilingual tasks. It reflects China’s growing ambition to compete in foundational AI research.

Anthropic: Backed by Amazon and Google, Anthropic’s Claude models are designed with “constitutional AI” in mind—prioritizing safety and steerability. Claude 3 is one of the top performers across reasoning and coding benchmarks.

Beyond these leaders, the graphic is crowded with rising names. Mistral, Cohere, Baidu, Stability AI, xAI, and Alibaba are all carving unique paths—whether through specialized models, regional focus, or open-weight releases.

Contextualizing the Wave: From Transformers to Today

The roots of today’s LLM explosion trace back further than 2017’s breakthroughs:

• Pre‑Transformer era: N‑gram and statistical models dominated (“web as corpus,” IBM’s early work).

• 2017: The advent of the transformer (“Attention Is All You Need”) completely redefined architecture.

• 2018–2020: Landmark models emerged — BERT, GPT‑1, GPT‑2 — steadily increasing capabilities.

• 2020 onwards: GPT‑3 exploded public attention and utility. GPT‑3.5, GPT‑4 followed, each more capable.

• Latest: LLaMA 3 and 4, with massive scale, multimodality, and instruction tuning, showcase how quickly the frontier keeps moving.

From this timeline, one thing is clear – innovation no longer flows from a single source, but from dozens of labs racing to define what’s next. The result? An LLM landscape that’s more competitive, creative, and global than ever before.

Explore what’s coming next for LLM-makers on Voronoi: What is coming next for LLM makers?

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 19:05

Why The Democrats' Latest Framework For Crypto Market Structure Could Hurt Financial Privacy

Authored by Frank Corva via BitcoinMagazine.com,

This morning, 12 Senate Democrats published a six-page framework for digital asset market structure legislation in which they outlined their plan to combat illicit finance while protecting users’ financial privacy.

Senator Ruben Gallego and 11 of his colleagues recently released a crypto market structure framework that includes vague language around financial privacy.

The group of Democrats, which included Senate Banking ranking member Ruben Gallego (AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), stated in the first page of the document that digital assets legislation should be guided by certain values, include “protecting financial privacy while denying bad actors access to the financial system.”

In the fifth section of the framework, they outlined what this looks like.

The outline included the following points:

• Require digital asset platforms to register with FinCEN as “financial institutions” under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), while adopting anti-money laundering/combatting the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) policies

• Address bad actors’ use of DeFi platforms to circumvent illicit finance controls

• Ensure that crypto platforms serving U.S. customers comply with sanctions and AML/CFT requirements, even if domiciled abroad

• Shape ecosystems to isolate non-compliant platforms that enable illicit activity

Intentionally Unclear Language?

What does “addressing bad actors’ use of DeFi platforms” look like? What role will U.S. regulators play in “shaping ecosystems to isolate non-compliant platforms”?

These questions remain unanswered as per this framework, which is notably less detailed and comprehensive than the draft of the CLARITY Act that the Senate Banking Committee recently released.

What comes to mind I think of the U.S. government “shaping digital asset” ecosystems is its pushing for the implementation of a digital ID that only allows for “good actors” to transact. Former CFTC Chair Tim Massad said he is in favor of such a scheme in an interview I conducted with him earlier this year.

Luckily, this would be nearly impossible to technically implement for bitcoin. Smart contract blockchain networks, on the other hand, would be more easily susceptible to the censoring of transactions, as the government could mandate that the smart contracts on the network include certain rules and stipulations within the code that prohibit bad actors from transacting.

What Democrats Should Do

If Democrats are looking to engage in Bitcoin and crypto regulation in good faith, they should be more specific about their intentions and include further details about how they plan to combat illicit finance while still preserving user privacy.

And in their next round of messaging, they should clearly define how they plan to “shape ecosystems” as well as provide clear definitions for what they mean by terms like “platforms”. For example, when they say “platforms” are they referring to centralized entities that hold users’ private keys like Coinbase or Kraken, or does the term also encompass services like Samourai Wallet or Tornado Cash?

They are questions that must be answered if Bitcoin and crypto advocates and enthusiasts are to trust that Democrats do in fact want to enshrine into law the right for Bitcoin and crypto users to preserve their privacy.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 18:40

MIT President Sally Kornbluth Is A Magnet For Research Fraud And Medical Misconduct

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

The Boston Globe published an incredible investigation highlighting yet another corruption scandal in academic research, this time involving two prominent research institutions—Duke University and MIT—tied together by Sally Kornbluth, the former head of research at Duke, who MIT picked as president in 2022. The Globe article adds to Kornbluth’s headaches as she has also been caught up in a dragnet of prestigious universities investigated by the Trump administration for alleged antisemitism and liberal political bias.

The White House spotlight likely spurred the Globe reporters to delve into Kornbluth’s past at Duke, uncovering court documents and sworn depositions by prominent Duke scientists. The Globe reported that, while at Duke, Kornbluth ignored scientific criticism and a whistle-blower pointing to corrupt, harmful research by a Duke physician treating patients dying from cancer.

But did anything happen to Kornbluth? No!

As the Globe documents, Kornbluth kept failing up, gaining ever more prominent positions at Duke, even as the university dealt with an increasing series of unethical research problems. (The Globe didn’t report on several other examples of Duke research misconduct, which are detailed below.)

The Boston Globe’s reporting doesn’t plow much new ground. In fits and starts, several media outlets covered the cancer research scandal overseen and ignored by Kornbluth while she was at Duke. The Globe just put all the pieces together into a comprehensive narrative (The Globe article is behind a paywall, but an MIT professor sent me a copy which you can read here).

Much of the news about Duke’s cancer research corruption was broken by The Cancer Letter, such as a whistle-blower complaint by a medical student, who Kornbluth and other Duke administrators tried to shut down: “Duke Officials Silenced Med Student Who Reported Trouble in Anil Potti’s Lab.” The Cancer Letter has an entire series devoted to the Duke Scandal which you can find here.

The federal government later charged Duke’s cancer physician with research fraud, finding that he had submitted false information in his grants to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Several of his papers published in premier research journals were retracted and he was banned for several years from receiving NIH grants.

But it doesn’t end there.

Kornbluth evaded any consequences from this highly detailed example of research fraud that harmed dying patients. On the contrary, Duke promoted Kornbluth to Provost, the chief academic officer overseeing the university’s teaching and research mission. “The Provost also engages with issues concerning admissions, financial aid, information technology, and all other facets of university life touching on academics,” explains Duke on their website.

Duke made national news for more fake scientific studies in 2019, while Kornbluth was Duke’s academic provost.

The Globe didn’t report this, but the Justice Department forced Duke to pay $112.5 million in 2019 because university officials submitted bogus data to win federal grants on a mouse study project.

“This settlement sends a strong message that fraud and dishonesty will not be tolerated in the research funding process,” said one federal official. “We will continue to take appropriate legal measures to ensure a fiscally sound system that protects grant funds.”

The Boston Globe missed another Kornbluth medical scandal that stayed hidden until I reported it in 2022—the same year MIT picked Kornbluth as their university president. Yes, Kornbluth is ensnared in even more academic sleaze.

While Duke Provost, Kornbluth ignored a 2019 complaint filed by Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey that charged Duke physician Ralph Snyderman and other board members of Purdue as co-defendants with the Sackler family for addicting millions of Americans on opioids. “Defendants Peter Boer, Judith Lewent, Cecil Pickett, Paulo Costa, and Ralph Snyderman took seats on the Board and knowingly advanced the Sacklers’ scheme.” The Daily Mail later named Ralph Snyderman in their report on this lawsuit.

As I reported in 2022, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s complaint runs 274 pages, with Duke’s Ralph Snyderman named 76 times. “Together with the Sacklers, they controlled the unfair and deceptive sales and marketing tactics Purdue used to sell its opioids in Massachusetts.”

According to the complaint, Snyderman voted with the Sacklers to hire hundreds more sales reps to sell opioids; to implement incentive compensation policies that aggressively drove opioid sales; and, to pay out millions of dollars to already convicted criminals to help the Sacklers keep their loyalty.

In November 2020, Purdue pleaded guilty in federal court to several felonies, admitting that it marketed and sold dangerous opioid products, lied to the Drug Enforcement Administration about steps it had taken to prevent the diversion of opioids, and that it paid kickbacks to encourage prescribing.

Yet, Kornbluth did nothing to address Snyderman’s corrupt behavior.

When I contacted Duke in 2022 to ask if they were looking into the Attorney General’s complaint against Snyderman, a Duke spokesperson emailed me, “I can’t comment on Ralph Snyderman. I’ll decline comment.”

Who knows what other research scandals MIT’s Sally Kornbluth has tried to bury or will ignore in the future?

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Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 17:00

Nepal Army Takes Over Capital As Politicians Flee By Helicopter, Mayhem Worsens

The collapse of the Nepal government situation has gone from bad to worse overnight and into Wednesday. Parliament has gone up in flames, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has resigned, there have been dozens of deaths and injuries - including among some government officials or their families. 

Government ministers have been seen fleeing the capital, chased by enraged mobs of mostly youth, sick of government corruption and following the latest attempt to outright ban a large number of popular social media sites, including Facebook, X, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube.

Via Reuters/DW

But apparently the social media ban days ago was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. "The unrest started in early September, when a group of young Nepalis, fed up with seeing politicians’ children posting about their designer handbags and luxury travel while most people struggle to make ends meet, organized a peaceful protest," CNN reviews.

"Anger had been brewing for years about the country's worsening youth unemployment crisis and lack of economic opportunities, exacerbated by what many viewed as a growing disparity between the country’s elite and regular people," the report adds.

Residents of top politicians in Kathmandu have been reported attacked and in some cases damaged or set on fire, including the home of the now former prime minister of the country.

Army helicopters were seen ferrying government ministers to safety:

Nepal officials reportedly fled by clinging to an emergency helicopter yesterday as protesters stormed & set fire to the government building https://t.co/HkvqrNyPny pic.twitter.com/52COoCDbDP

— RT (@RT_com) September 10, 2025

The Finance Minister was beaten by a mob, with some barely escaping the wrath of the rioting...

Politicians are FLEEING Nepal after Gen Z rises up against social media ban! pic.twitter.com/SuTiqgsfnp

— Sabby Sabs (@SabbySabs2) September 10, 2025

The moment at which police opened fire on crowds was the tipping point, with at least 19 demonstrators killed, as we detailed Tuesday. Even after the social media ban was reversed, the rioting became more intense. The police had merely described using riot control measures like rubber bullets and tear gas.

Part of the outrage among youth was an increasingly feeling of economic isolation from the rest of the world, and little hope for progress, in a tiny mountainous country where personal remittances accounted for over 30% of Nepal’s GDP.

Nepal’s parliament, which was built in 1903, engulfed in flames...

Nepal’s parliament ENGULFED in flames — built in 1903 as the PM’s residence

Protesters broke into the building, looted it, and set it on fire

Singha Durbar (Lion’s Palace) is the largest palace in Asia pic.twitter.com/liBH5sG99e

— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025

Recent World Bank figures have put youth unemployment of individuals aged 15 to 24 at just over 20%. So when the most popular social media apps were recently banned by the central government, popular rage sparked across the country.

Now, Kathmandu has been taken over by the army, with an effective state of martial law and indefinite curfew on until authorities can restore order. The Army is warning against looting:

The man in the spotlight is General Ashok Raj Sigdel, the Chief of the Army Staff, who has appealed to protesters to engage in talks to find a peaceful way out.

The 58-year-old General, who took over the top post last year, addressed the shaken nation in a televised address last night. "We appeal to the protesting group to halt protest programs and come forward for dialogue for a peaceful way out for the nation. We need to normalize the present difficult situation and protect our historical and national heritage and public as well as private property, and to ensure safety to the general public and diplomatic missions," he said.

The Kathmandu Post

People have been ordered to stay indoors. There are reports of tanks in the streets, with some of the youth claiming that the army troops are on their side, against the police.

Tyler Durden Wed, 09/10/2025 - 16:40