{"id":164,"date":"2018-04-16T21:44:56","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T21:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/?page_id=164"},"modified":"2018-04-16T21:45:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T21:45:03","slug":"zerohedge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/zerohedge\/","title":{"rendered":"ZEROHEDGE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-feed\"><ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/democrats-national-popular-vote-push-about-fear-not-fairness\" title=\"The Democrats&#039; National Popular Vote Push Is About Fear, Not Fairness\n\n            Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact into law this week, adding her state&#039;s 13 electoral votes to a growing coalition that wants to effectively render the Electoral College a ceremonial relic. The move is strategically transparent, and it tells you almost everything you need to know about the Democratic Party&#039;s relationship with electoral math right now.\n\n\n\nThe compact now covers 18 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 222 electoral votes - 82% of the 270-vote threshold required to trigger the agreement. When that threshold is crossed, every member state would be obligated to award its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of how its own residents voted.\u00a0\n\nDemocrats lead every single state that has signed the compact.\u00a0\n\nThe stated rationale has always been simple: twice in the modern era, a Republican won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. Democrats argued the system was undemocratic, a quirk of 18th-century compromise that distorted the popular will. Even though Bush and Trump both went on to win the national popular vote in their second terms, the compact&#039;s momentum has not waned.\n\nIf anything, the push has accelerated - which reveals the real motivation behind it.\u00a0\n\nDemocrats are staring at a demographic and geographic clock, and they don&#039;t like what it&#039;s telling them. Fox News projects the party could lose up to 14 net Electoral College seats following the 2030 Census, as population shifts continue favoring red states. Florida is projected to gain 2 electoral votes, Texas 3, Idaho and Utah 1 each. California stands to lose 3, Illinois 2, New York and Rhode Island 1 apiece.\u00a0\n\n\n\ud83d\udea8 MASSIVE: Democrats are staring down a devastating Electoral College loss of possibly 14 NET SEATS in the coming 2030 Census\nThis will SEVERELY constrain their ability to win the House and Presidency\nFL: +2\nTX: +3\nID: +1\nUT: +1\nCA: -3\nNY: -1\nIL: -2\nRI: -1\nDon&#039;t count\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/ez7js1apGo\n\u2014 Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 16, 2026\nThe compact, in this light, is less a principled stand for democratic purity and more a preemptive strike - an attempt to erase projected Republican gains before the new maps are even drawn.\n\nThe Virginia case is a useful illustration of how the compact actually works in practice - and how disconnected its logic has become from its stated ideals. Virginia voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. Under the compact, all 13 of its electoral votes would have gone to Trump, who won the national popular vote. Run that math based on the current compact membership, and Trump would have won the 2024 election 533-5 under the very system Democrats are fighting to implement.\u00a0\n\nThere&#039;s a structural argument for the Electoral College that gets less attention than it deserves: federalism works. The current system forces campaigns to engage with the regional particularities of states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Mexico. Candidates have to build broad coalitions that speak to a range of economic, cultural, and geographic interests \u2014 not just run up the score in population centers.\n\nElection integrity is another dimension the compact&#039;s proponents prefer not to discuss in detail. The Electoral College system actually contains and isolates fraud risk because manipulating a presidential outcome requires coordinating across multiple jurisdictions. That\u2019s a significantly harder logistical undertaking.\u00a0\n\nBut, under a national popular vote, that calculation changes. Every fraudulent vote, wherever it&#039;s cast, flows directly into the national tally. Padding a safely partisan state that currently has no effect on outcomes suddenly becomes a worthwhile project for bad actors.\n\nThe compact also creates a sovereignty problem that its advocates haven&#039;t resolved. A state that invests in election security - tightening voter ID requirements, maintaining clean voter rolls, restricting mail-in balloting - could still have its presidential outcome determined by the looser practices of another member state. Voters in one jurisdiction effectively inherit the election administration decisions of every other. It&#039;s a framework that rewards the lowest common denominator.\n\nThe Electoral College system was a genius invention by the Founding Fathers that has stood the test of time, while the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a proposal shaped by electoral anxiety, not democratic principle.\n\n* * *\u00a0Top Sellers at ZeroHedge Store\u00a0(week of 4\/13)\n\nIQ Ultimate Omega 3\u00a0-\u00a05:1 DHA to EPA Ratio For Brain &amp; Eye Health\n\nGMO-Free Heirloom Seed Vault\u00a0-\u00a039 Varieties - 4,500 Seeds\n\nIQ Brain Rescue\u00a0- Daily basic for ongoing brain support\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 09:20\n\">The Democrats&#039; National Popular Vote Push Is About Fear, Not Fairness<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/personal-finance\/heres-what-happened-inside-gas-stations-when-gas-hit-4\" title=\"Here&#039;s What Happened Inside Gas Stations When Gas Hit $4\n\n            In Goldman&#039;s first-quarter &quot;Nicotine Nuggets&quot; survey of retailers and wholesalers covering roughly 44,000 U.S. stores, or about 28% of all tobacco outlets nationwide, analysts observed that once the national average for regular 87-octane gasoline hit the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon level, the squeeze on consumers began to emerge. One of the clearest signs of stress was a downshift in purchases as budget-conscious consumers started pulling back on tobacco purchases or, in some cases, trading down.\u00a0\n\n&quot;The outlook remains cautious but retailers &amp; wholesalers generally see the environment as stable despite ongoing concerns on the consumer and recent pressure from higher gas prices,&quot; Bonnie Herzog, managing director and senior consumer analyst at Goldman, wrote in a note on Friday morning.\u00a0\n\n\n\nAccording to the survey, 58% of respondents said consumer behavior had noticeably changed once 87-octane gasoline prices at the pump crossed the $4 threshold, while another 26% said they have not seen changes yet but expect them if prices remain elevated.\n\n\n\nThe biggest changes cited were consumers downtrading in stores, buying less fuel, and purchasing less overall inside stores. Some retailers also reported fewer trips, weaker inside sales, and more &quot;splash and go&quot; visits at the pump, where customers buy smaller amounts of fuel and skip in-store purchases.\n\n\n\nShe said, &quot;Downtrading was strong in Q1, as roughly 80% of respondents indicated that deep-discount cigarettes gained share.&quot;\n\nMain points of the survey:\n\n\n\tSpecific changes in behavior noted included consumers purchasing less in stores (indicated by 32% of respondents), downtrading in stores (47%), downtrading at the gas pump (11%), driving less (16%), and purchasing less fuel (37%).\n\t\n\t\n\tMultiple respondents noted seeing fewer customer trips to stores as a result of their higher retail fuel prices (with one noting higher basket sizes as a result of trip consolidation), along with overall lower levels for inside-store sales. One respondent pointed to considerable pressure on the consumer buying at budgeted dollar increments (a rapidly growing consumer segment), which naturally purchases less fuel as the price increases.\n\t\n\t\n\tNegatively, one retailer is witnessing more &quot;splash and go&quot; trips to the pump (fewer gallons and fewer people converting to inside sales). That said, the retailer also sees a shift in consumer behavior toward value, which has been a benefit to the nicotine pouch category in this regard, as higher engagement with fuel reward promos has led to category sales - with VELO Plus sales for the retailer up 20%+ in the last three weeks.\n\t\nHerzog and her team &quot;remain cautious on the U.S. tobacco\/nicotine industry near-term given continued cig volume declines in Q1 and pressures on the tobacco consumer as a result of the inflationary backdrop and recently higher gas prices, although we see continued robust growth for the nicotine pouch category.&quot;\n\nThe &quot;Nicotine Nuggets&quot; report underscores just why politicians are so sensitive to surging gasoline prices: once fuel prices spike, cash-strapped consumers are forced into difficult trade-offs, whether that means buying less gas or diesel, cutting back elsewhere, or, in some cases, trading down in tobacco products.\n\nLate last year, Herzog told clients, &quot;Buy nicotine, energy drink, and candy stocks.&quot;\n\nProfessional subscribers can read the &quot;Nicotine Nuggets&quot; note on\u00a0our new Marketdesk.ai portal.\u00a0\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 08:45\n\">Here&#039;s What Happened Inside Gas Stations When Gas Hit $4<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/bit-chaos-hormuz-reportedly-shuts-agains-ships-make-u-turn\" title=\"Iranian Gunboats Open Fire On Tanker As Hormuz Closure Sparks Maritime Chaos\n\n            Summary:\u00a0\n\nTwo Iranian gunboats Open Fire on a tanker near Oman\n\tFriday: Hormuz Open; Saturday: Hormuz Closed\u00a0\nIranian Forces Open Fire On Tanker\u00a0\n\nThe UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reports that a tanker was &quot;approached by 2 IRGC gunboats, with no VHF challenge, and then fired upon.&quot;\n\nUKMTO did not provide any further details about the two Iranian vessels that fired on the tanker or the type of weapons used in the maritime incident, which was reported to have occurred 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman.\n\n\n\nAssume that President Trump is about to become absolutely furious on Truth Social. One can also assume that backchanneling and behind-the-scenes talks are not going well if an incident like this occurred ahead of the U.S.-Iran weekend negotiations.\n\nHormuz Closed (Again)\u00a0\n\nThe Trump administration\u2019s &quot;baffle &#039;em with bullshit&quot; methodology has been on full display, as the reopening of the Hormuz chokepoint on Friday drove a broad risk-on in markets: US equities soared, crude collapsed, and Treasury yields declined, based on the assumption that disruption to global energy flows had eased. However, as of early Saturday morning, those moves may prove premature.\n\nThe Wall Street Journal reports that the world\u2019s most important maritime chokepoint is once again closed to commercial transit.\n\n\n\nAbout 20 ships waiting to enter the Persian Gulf through the maritime chokepoint have turned back toward Oman after Iran\u2019s military declared the waterway closed again, amid a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.\n\n\nAnd rejected: the two tankers taking the neutral route, Minerva Evropi and Nissos Keros, have turned around; the Sanmar Herald which appears to be taking the Iran-sanctioned Larak island route is proceeding. https:\/\/t.co\/aceBI7ki0B pic.twitter.com\/gmkM37iA1U\n\u2014 zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 18, 2026\nThe\u00a0OSINT community on X is reporting a Hormuz closure as well...\u00a0\n\n\nA bit of chaos in Hormuz this morning as nearly all of the outbound tankers have abruptly turned around.\nFollows an announcement by Iranian military leadership that the Strait has &quot;reverted to its previous state of strict military control.&quot; pic.twitter.com\/XSc6lvxwJo\n\u2014 OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 18, 2026\n\nMERCHANT VESSELS RECEIVE RADIO MESSAGE FROM IRANIAN NAVY SAYING STRAIT OF HORMUZ SHUT AGAIN, NO SHIPS ARE ALLOWED TO PASS THROUGH, SHIPPING SOURCES SAY\n\u2014 *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) April 18, 2026\nThe vessels had reportedly been prepared to pay $2 million in tolls to Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards to pass through, but radio warnings indicated the strait was closed.\n\nWSJ notes:\n\n\nThey are now turning back because the Revolutionary Guards are sending radio messages that the strait is closed, according to one Hong Kong owner with a container ship waiting to transit the strait.\n\n\nOvernight, Iran\u2019s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, wrote on X that President Trump&#039;s &quot;false&quot; claims won&#039;t help in US-Iran negotiations...\n\nThe President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false.\n\tThey did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either.\n\tWith the continuation of the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz will not remain open.\n\tPassage through the Strait of Hormuz will be conducted based on the &quot;designated route&quot; and with &quot;Iranian authorization.&quot;\n\tWhether the Strait is open or closed and the regulations governing it will be determined by the field, not by social media.\n\tMedia warfare and engineering public opinion are an important part of war, and the Iranian nation is not affected by these tricks. Read the real and accurate news of the negotiations in the recent interview of the Foreign Ministry spokesman.\nEarlier, President Trump said peace talks with Iran are making progress and will continue over the weekend. \u00a0\n\n\u201cWe had some pretty good news 20 minutes ago, but it seems to be going very well in the Middle East with Iran,\u201d Trump told reporters traveling to Washington on Air Force One, according to MS Now. \u201cWe\u2019ll know over a little period of time. We\u2019re negotiating over the weekend.\u201d\n\nTrump said one main issue is recovering material from Iran\u2019s nuclear program, which he said the U.S. would remove after any agreement is signed.\n\n\u201cMaybe I won\u2019t extend it, but the blockade is going to remain. But maybe I won\u2019t extend it, so you have a blockade, and unfortunately, we\u2019ll have to start dropping bombs again,\u201d Trump said.\n\nPolymarket odds of the Hormuz chokepoint returning to normal status by the end of April have been on a rollercoaster ride over the last 24 hours, peaking at 64% on Friday morning after Iran announced the waterway was open, but dropping to 32% following Iran&#039;s announcement that the maritime chokepoint was closed early Saturday.\n\n\n\n\/\/--&gt;\n\n\/\/--&gt;\n\n\nStrait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by end of April?\nYes 33% \u00b7 No 68%View full market &amp; trade on PolymarketHere are the latest headlines from the Middle East:\n\nStrait of Hormuz Status\n\nIran reopened the Strait of Hormuz on Friday for commercial shipping during a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon (BN) (BN)\n\tIran swiftly reversed course on Saturday morning, reimposing restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iran-linked shipping (AP) (SMP) (WSJ)\n\tIranian forces announced control over the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous status under strict Iranian administration and supervision (NS8) (AFP)\n\tSome 20 ships lining up to cross the Strait of Hormuz were turning back toward Oman after Iran&#039;s military said the waterway was closed again (WSJ)\nShipping Activity\n\nA convoy of eight tankers was crossing the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, comprising one very large crude oil carrier, several oil product and chemical tankers and LPG carriers (NS8)\n\tFour tankers loaded with Qatari LNG within the Persian Gulf moved toward Hormuz in the last 12 hours, with no loaded LNG shipment having exited the Gulf since late February (BN)\n\tMore crude oil and gas carriers began testing the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday despite mixed messages from Iranian authorities (BN)\nUS-Iran Negotiations\n\nIran has not yet agreed to a next round of negotiations with the US due to Trump\u2019s announcement of a naval blockade and excessive US demands (BV)\n\tTrump said a deal with Iran to end the seven-week war may be imminent, claiming most main points are finalized (BN) (BN)\n\tTrump claimed Iran has agreed to suspend its nuclear program indefinitely, though Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry said enriched uranium won\u2019t be transferred anywhere under any circumstances (BN) (BN)\nMarket Activity\n\nStrait To New Record Highs: Hormuz Hopes Spark Risk-On Wrecking Ball Across Markets\n\tInverse Fear Is Taking Over The Market\nFriday&#039;s US-Iran Wrap\n\nIran Bats Down &#039;Baseless&#039; Trump Claim On Handing Over Enriched Uranium To US, As He Declares Hormuz &#039;Never Again&#039; Closed\n* * *\u00a0Top Sellers at ZeroHedge Store\u00a0(week of 4\/13)\n\nIQ Ultimate Omega 3\u00a0-\u00a05:1 DHA to EPA Ratio For Brain &amp; Eye Health\n\nGMO-Free Heirloom Seed Vault\u00a0-\u00a039 Varieties - 4,500 Seeds\n\nIQ Brain Rescue\u00a0- Daily basic for ongoing brain support\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 08:26\n\">Iranian Gunboats Open Fire On Tanker As Hormuz Closure Sparks Maritime Chaos<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/spain-erupts-patriots-attacked-socialist-mob-over-mass-illegal-migrant-amnesty\" title=\"Spain Erupts: Patriots Attacked By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty\n\n            Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,\n\nViolence broke out in the Spanish city of Granada when roughly 40 left-wing Antifa extremists tried to shut down a pre-election rally held by the nationalist party Vox in Plaza de las Pasiegas. Police had to\u00a0form\u00a0a cordon between the rival groups as fights broke out, delaying the event by around 30 minutes.\n\n\n\nVox leader Santiago Abascal refused to start the rally until the disruptors were removed. He stepped down from the platform, walked toward the rival group with supporters, and crowds chanted \u201cOut, out!\u201d as tensions spilled over. Abascal directly accused authorities of failing to protect free speech, stating: \u201cThey are preventing us from carrying out this act freely.\u201d\n\nHe went further, blaming the unrest on the very politicians who enabled it: \u201cThey are the ones who put S\u00e1nchez in La Moncloa.\u201d\n\n\n\nFootage shows red paint thrown at attendees, shouting matches, and police struggling to keep the sides apart. Smaller groups of protesters reappeared near the square after the rally began, mobilized via social media.\n\n\nViolence erupts in Spanish city days after controversial plan to grant amnesty to 500,000 migrants\nClashes broke out in Granada\u2019s Plaza de las Pasiegas between right-wing Vox supporters and left-wing activists.\nAround 40 left-wing protesters tried to disrupt a Vox rally,\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/1VfeHsamIB\n\u2014 G R I F T Y (@GriftReport) April 17, 2026\nThe clashes come just days after Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s socialist government approved plans to grant legal status, jobs, and benefits to around 500,000 migrants \u2014 with analysts warning the real number could hit 800,000.\n\nAs we reported earlier, this triggered immediate chaos at consulates across Spain, where thousands of migrants swarmed to submit paperwork:\n\n\n\nEndless queues snaked through streets in cities like Almer\u00eda, Bilbao, and Madrid. Migrants clambered over security gates. Immigration offices are now threatening strikes, overwhelmed by the sudden flood with only a handful of staff handling applications that were farmed out to post offices and NGOs.\n\nVox has hammered the policy as an \u201cinvasion\u201d accelerated by S\u00e1nchez. The Granada rally turned into a flashpoint for that anger, with party figures accusing the government of promoting demographic replacement while the opposition People\u2019s Party offered little resistance.\n\nThis is the direct result of S\u00e1nchez\u2019s open-borders\u00a0experiment, which prioritizes globalist virtue-signaling over Spanish citizens\u2019 safety and cohesion. While the left screams about \u201cfascism,\u201d it is their own policies that are turning Spanish streets into\u00a0battlegrounds\u00a0between patriots demanding\u00a0borders\u00a0and radicals defending unlimited migration.\n\nThe\u00a0amnesty\u00a0is already facing a serious legal challenge that could freeze the entire process. The Spanish legal group Hazte O\u00edr has taken the royal decree to the Supreme Court, which accepted the case and gave the government just 20 days to justify bypassing parliament:\n\n\n\nLawyers argue there was no \u201cextraordinary and urgent need\u201d for a decree instead of normal legislation, warning of irreversible damage to public services, housing, and social cohesion. A precautionary suspension is on the table \u2014 meaning the flood of new legal residents could be halted before it becomes impossible to reverse.\n\nAbascal has been blunt about what comes next if the courts fail to act: \u201cThese are the lines to manage mass regularization in each municipality of Spain. Tomorrow this chaos will move to the health centers, to the social services, to the real estate agencies\u2026 It\u2019s called thirdworldization. It\u2019s already happening. Our priority is to reverse it, radically.\u201d\n\nS\u00e1nchez, meanwhile, calls the giveaway \u201can act of justice\u201d and \u201ca necessity,\u201d claiming it simply recognizes migrants who \u201calready\u00a0form\u00a0part of our everyday lives.\u201d Critics point out Spain has run multiple amnesties since 1986 with over 1.75 million permits issued \u2014 yet illegal\u00a0entries\u00a0and integration failures continue unabated.\n\nThe left\u2019s response to pushback is always the same: label patriots as extremists while their policies import the very tensions now exploding. Spain stands at a crossroads. Either the courts step in and the people demand sanity, or the socialist experiment will turn one of Europe\u2019s great nations into a cautionary tale of what happens when globalism overrides national survival.\n\nYour support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via\u00a0Locals\u00a0or\u00a0check\u00a0out our unique\u00a0merch. Follow us on X\u00a0@ModernityNews.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 08:10\n\">Spain Erupts: Patriots Attacked By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/ukraine-israel-act-against-russian-ship-carrying-stolen-grain-haifa-port\" title=\"Ukraine Urges Israel To Act Against Russian Ship Carrying &#039;Stolen&#039; Grain To Haifa Port\n\n            Ukraine is pushing Israel to seize a grain shipment it says was looted from Russian-occupied territory as the war persists in the east.\n\nAt the moment it does not appear that Israel complied with any interdict of the vessel, also as reports say the cargo is already offloaded and gone.\nvia MarineTraffic\n\nUkraine&#039;s government flagged the Russian vessel ABINSK, docking at Haifa, as part of Moscow\u2019s so-called shadow fleet, alleging that it is tied to operations used to &quot;illegally export, transport, and sell stolen Ukrainian grain&quot; and bankroll Moscow&#039;s war effort.\n\nThe saga has been featured in Ukrainian media, which says that despite a formal government-to-government request, Israeli authorities didn&#039;t stop the shipment.\n\nSome 43,765 tonnes of wheat - loaded at Russia\u2019s Kavkaz port and believed to originate from Ukrainian regions controlled by the Russian military - was allowed to be unloaded.\n\nUkraine is still expressing hope for &quot;fruitful and constructive interaction&quot; between both sides, with its embassy in contact with Israeli officials, but Tel Aviv does not appear to be as eager to intervene.\n\nAccording to some further details in Le Monde:\n\n\nOn April 12, it was permitted to dock in Haifa, where it may have unloaded its cargo, valued at about \u20ac8.5 million at current wheat prices. The Abinsk then left Haifa the same day, heading for the Dardanelles Strait with the Turkish port of \u00c7anakkale listed as its next stop, according to\u00a0Marinetraffic.com, a vessel-tracking website.\n\nThe Russian bulk carrier reportedly loaded its cargo at the port of Kavkaz on the Kerch Strait, which separates the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea and links the Russian Federation to Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, according to Ukrainian investigative journalist Kateryna Yaresko, who works for the SeaKrime project at Myrotvorets, an online collaborative platform listing &quot;enemies of Ukraine.&quot;\n\n\nAt a moment the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked, and global shipping is feeling the disruption, the Israelis are unlikely to get too trigger happy when it comes to further disrupting trade - even if it comes from Russia or is in a &#039;gray area&#039;.\u00a0\n\nAs for Ukraine and Israel, the two countries&#039; relations has lately improved given the two can find common cause in opposing Iran. President Zelensky has meanwhile been touting drone sales to US allies in the Gulf of late too.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 07:50\n\">Ukraine Urges Israel To Act Against Russian Ship Carrying &#039;Stolen&#039; Grain To Haifa Port<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/eus-digital-gulag-apparently-ready-roll\" title=\"The EU&#039;s Digital Gulag Is (Apparently) Ready To Roll\n\n            Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,\n\n\n\u201cIt is for parents to raise their children, and not the platforms.\u201d\n\n\nThose were the words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday as she announced the readiness of the EU\u2019s online age verification, ahem, platform.\u00a0As\u00a0we\u2019ve been\u00a0warning\u00a0since November 2024, these platforms are ultimately a Trojan Horse for digital identity systems, which are in turn intended to serve as the cornerstone for the digital gulags being quickly assembled around the world.\n\n\n\nWhat gets rarely mentioned in the public debate, including in Von der Leyen\u2019s 11-minute speech below, is the fact that online age verification inevitable traps everyone, not just minors, in its web. \u201cProtecting the children\u201d, however, is always a\u00a0seductive pretext\u00a0for launching otherwise socially unacceptable policies. And there are few more socially unacceptable policies than the controlled death of online privacy and anonymity.\n\n\nIt is for parents to raise their children. Not platforms.\nThe European Age Verification App is ready \u2193 https:\/\/t.co\/EumEPEJOI7\n\u2014 Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 15, 2026\nTo save readers from having to stomach Von der Leyen\u2019s sickly sweet presentation of the European Age Verification App, here is a summary of the main points [incidentally, while listening to her address, punctuated with beaming smiles, I kept thinking of Pink Floyd\u2019s classic tune, \u201cMother\u201d, particularly the line \u201cMomma\u2019s gonna make all your nightmares come true\u201d*]:\n\n\n\tThe app, VdL says, is necessary to make the online world safer for children\u00a0\u2014 safer from online bullying, highly addictive content, highly personalised advertising, harmful and illegal content, and grooming from online predators.\n\t\n\t\n\tVdL claims to have herself \u201ccarefully listened to the parents,\u00a0who do not have proper solutions to protect their children\u201d whose concerns she shares. \u201cIt is\u201d, she says, \u201cfor\u00a0EU institutions\u00a0parents to raise their kids and not for platforms.\u201d\n\t\n\t\n\tTo protect children from the dangers of the online world, the EU needs a \u201charmonised approach\u201d\u00a0\u2014 in other words, a \u201cEurope-wide technical solution for age verification.\u201d And the good news is that the European Age Verification app is \u201ctechnically ready\u201d and will soon be \u201cavailable for people to use.\u201d\n\t\n\t\n\tVdL likened providing proof of age to access online platforms to supermarkets asking young people for ID to purchase alcoholic beverages. What she doesn\u2019t say is that people of all ages, even adults well into retirement age, will have to provide proof of age to access online platforms. That is a major distinction that doesn\u2019t once get mentioned. Also, once this system is in place, users would not just momentarily display their ID like one does when buying alcohol. Instead, they\u2019d have to submit their ID to third-party companies, raising major concerns over who receives, stores, and controls that data.\n\t\n\t\n\tFrance, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland are the so-called \u201cfrontrunners\u201d in adopting the app. From the horse\u2019s mouth: \u201cThey are planning to integrate the app into their national [digital ID] wallets and I hope more member states and private sector companies will follow, so that every citizen can use pretty soon this app.\u201d\n\t\n\t\n\tVdL likened the age verification system to the COVID pass, which is not exactly reassuring.\u00a0With another of her bone-chilling smiles, she said: \u201cthis is not the first time the Commission has come forward with an innovative solution to a new problem\u201d that would then go on to became a template not just for EU member countries to use but also \u201cour global partners\u201d around the world. Which brings us to the part that merits direct quotation:\n\t\n\n\u201cWe all remember the COVID pandemic. Our world came to a complete standstill. But as we came out of the lockdowns and as vaccines were available, the Commission came up with the COVID app in record time \u2014 it was three months \u2014 to help bring us back to normal life in a safe way. With a scan of our COVID certificate \u2014 you will remember, we could go to a concert, board a plane to travel, etc, etc \u2014 78 countries in four continents were using this app.\n\nSo, it was a huge success. And now we are taking this success and applying it to the age verification app, following the same principles, following the same model. First, it was user friendly. You download the app, you set it up with your passport or ID card, you then prove your age when accessing online services. Second, it respects the highest privacy standards in the world\u2026 Third, it works on any device \u2014 phone, tablet computer, you name it. And finally, it is fully open source.\u201d\n\n\nWhat VdL describes as a \u201chuge success\u201d represented an unprecedented violation of basic rights, including personal privacy and bodily autonomy. It also further centralised power in the hands of the VdL Commission. Who can forget how VdL\u00a0abused\u00a0that power in her vaccine negotiations with Pfizer as well as the destruction of evidence that followed?\n\nNaked Capitalism was among relatively few alternative media sites to flag the potential risks posed by the EU\u2019s \u201cGreen Pass\u201d on its launch in April 2021, as well as all the other digital health passes being developed by public private partnerships such as the Rockefeller Foundation\u2019s Common Pass and ID2020\u2019s Good Health Pass Collaborative.\n\nAs we warned in our April 13, 2021 post, \u201c7 Reasons Why a Vaccine Passport (Pass, Certificate or Whatever They Want to Call It) Should Give Us Pause\u201c, mission creep was arguably the biggest risk of all, especially with state-controlled digital IDs and programmable central bank digital currencies already on the horizon:\n\n\n\u00a0The framework is unlikely to be limited to health-care information. The use of the term \u201cdigital wallet\u201d, both by the Vaccine Collective Initiative and\u00a0IBM, to refer to their different digital health passes suggests that economic activity could become an integral part of the frameworks\u2019 functions. The developer of the Vaccine Collective Initiative\u2019s SMART Health Cards framework at Microsoft Health, Josh C. Mandel,\u00a0hinted\u00a0in a recent YouTube presentation that SMART Health Cards could soon be used as IDs for commercial activity, such as renting a car.\n\nThat this is all happening as central banks around the world are busily laying the foundations for central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs as they\u2019ve come to be known, raises the specter of digital vaccine passports being used as a vehicle for the creation of a purely digital currency system to replace physical coins and notes. That\u2019s not to say this will happen but it is a distinct possibility. If the vaccine passport does give way to a broader digital ID system, which in turn serves as the pass key for a CBDC, and cash is then eliminated, opting out will be much harder. And opting in will leave us subject to levels of surveillance and control that were heretofore unthinkable.\n\n\nNow, VdL is herself openly admitting that the Commission is following the exact same principles and model behind the Green Pass to create the European Age Verification App. Coordination is already ramping up at the highest levels of the EU bureaucracy to ensure that the age verification platform is rolled out as quickly and as seamlessly as possible. From\u00a0Reuters:\n\n\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron will host a \u200bvideo call with other \u200cEU leaders and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen \u200bto push for a \u200bcoordinated approach on banning social \u2060media for minors, Macron\u2019s office \u200bsaid Tuesday.\n\nSpanish Prime Minister Pedro \u200bSanchez and representatives of Italy, the Netherlands and Ireland will attend \u200bthe conference call, among \u200bothers, on Thursday, Macron\u2019s office said, adding \u200cthat \u2060the final list of attendees will be announced later.\n\n\u201cThe main goal is to \u200bact in \u200ba \u2060coordinated manner and push the European Commission, \u200bin the positive sense \u200bof \u2060the term, to move ahead at the same pace \u2060as \u200bmember states,\u201d a \u200bpresidential aide told reporters.\n\n\n\nThank you @emmanuelmacron for organising this discussion on the safety of our children online.\nWith the DSA, we have EU-wide rules.\nAnd now we have an EU-wide app.\nIt\u2019s piloted in \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddf0 \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddfe \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddea\nAnd soon available to all.\nOnline platforms are held accountable.\nParents\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/PQQgZisvPP\n\u2014 Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) April 16, 2026\nA Totally Voluntary System, Apparently\u00a0\n\nThe Commission has been at pains to stress that the EU Digital Identity Wallet that forms the backbone of the age verification app will be voluntary as well as safe and secure, even producing the following infographic to supposedly debunk the claim.\n\n\n\nSimilar claims, of course, were made by Narenda Modi\u2019s government before launching Aadhaar, India\u2019s now\u00a0de facto mandatory\u00a0digital identity system. Since its launch over a decade and a half ago, the Indian authorities have struggled, and failed, to make Aadhaar fraud-proof. The world\u2019s largest digital identity has suffered innumerable breaches, including\u00a0one\u00a0that potentially exposed the sensitive personal data of around 815 million Indian citizens.\n\nAs readers may recall, the EU\u2019s digital vaccine certificate was also marketed as \u201cvoluntary\u201d before becoming necessary for citizens to perform even the most basic of functions in many EU member states, from travelling to working to accessing basic public services. Some countries, including Germany and Austria, even used the vaccine passport system to impose lockdowns of the unvaccinated.\n\nIn its article, \u201cEU Says EUDI Wallet Is Voluntary; Germany\u2019s SPD Plan Says Otherwise\u201c,\u00a0Reclaim the Net outlines how the EU\u2019s \u201cvoluntary\u201d digital identity system can quickly become de facto mandatory through the online age verification requirements:\n\n\nThe EU\u2019s digital identity wallet is voluntary. That\u2019s the official position, repeated often enough that the European Commission felt the need to label the opposite claim a \u201cmyth.\u201d\n\nUnder the\u00a0eIDAS 2.0 regulation, use of the wallet is voluntary and free of charge for citizens. Nobody will be forced to download the app. Nobody will be compelled to link their government ID to a smartphone.\n\nThe EU has been very clear about this.\n\nGermany is now showing everyone what \u201cvoluntary\u201d actually means.\n\nThe country\u2019s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has\u00a0proposed\u00a0making the EUDI Wallet the tool for accessing social media platforms, tying the proposal to an impulse paper circulated ahead of a CDU federal conference in Stuttgart.\n\nThe plan creates a three-tier system. Children under 14 would face a complete ban, with platforms required to \u201ctechnically prevent access.\u201d Users aged 14 to 15 would get youth-only platform versions with restricted algorithmic features, and everyone 16 and older would need mandatory EUDI Wallet verification.\n\nThat last category includes every adult in Germany. The wallet that nobody is forced to use becomes the only way to access Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook\u2026\n\nThe broader EU framework around the wallet tells its own story about where \u201cvoluntary\u201d is heading. Under the eIDAS 2.0 regulation, all Very Large Online Platforms and companies required by law to use strong customer authentication must accept the EUDI Wallet by late 2027.\n\nThe EU\u2019s own Digital Decade target aims for 80% of citizens to use a digital ID solution by 2030, with the EUDI Wallet as the primary instrument for reaching that goal. You don\u2019t set an 80% adoption target for something you genuinely intend to keep optional.\n\n\nOpen Source Claims\n\nThe German digital activist Michael Ballweg has described Von der Leyen\u2019s claim that the EU\u2019s age verification app is fully open source as\u00a0\u201cyet another typical Brussels half-truth that needs to be dissected\u201d:\n\n\nThe truth is: The EU Commission, under the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) project, is indeed making several key components of the Age Verification Solution available as open source on GitHub. The core \u2013 that is, the app building blocks, the protocols, and the zero-knowledge technology \u2013 is publicly accessible. Member states, developers, or even third countries can adopt and adapt it all. That\u2019s the \u201cblueprint,\u201d the modular system.\n\nBut here\u2019s the crucial catch, which they conveniently omit:\n\nThe finished app that you later download to your phone is not centrally provided by the EU. It comes from your national government or its service providers. It is integrated into the respective national digital wallet. And these national versions aren\u2019t automatically 100% open source, even if they\u2019re based on EU building blocks.\n\nSome parts\u2014especially the backend infrastructure, the servers, the connection to government databases, and specific national adaptations\u2014can remain completely proprietary and opaque.\n\nAnd that\u2019s precisely what\u2019s dangerous.\n\nYou\u2019re presented with a nice, \u201cprivacy-friendly\u201d frontend with zero-knowledge promises\u2014but the real power, the control, the data flows in the background remain shrouded in mystery. Who\u2019s really checking what\u2019s happening with your ID cards, your devices, and your movement profiles when national authorities or their private partners operate the backend?\n\nThis isn\u2019t an open system. It\u2019s a modular system where the important drawers remain locked.\n\n\nThen there\u2019s the equally concerning question of security. Within literal minutes of the app\u2019s launch, IT security consultants and hacktivists were already finding glaring flaws in the security architecture.\n\n\nThe \u201cage verification app\u201d the EU wants to impose on the world got hacked in 2 minutes.\nStep 1: Present a \u201cprivacy-respecting\u201d but hackable solution.\nStep 2: Get hacked (you are here).\nStep 3: Remove privacy to &quot;fix&quot; it.\nResult: a surveillance tool sold as \u201cprivacy-respecting\u201d.\n\u2014 Pavel Durov (@durov) April 17, 2026\nA tweet from International Cyber Digest:\n\n\nThe EU\u2019s new Age Verification app was hacked with little to no effort. When you set it up, the app asks you to create a PIN. But that PIN isn\u2019t actually tied to the identity data it\u2019s supposed to protect. An attacker can delete a couple of entries from a file on the phone, restart the app, pick a new PIN, and the app happily hands over the original user\u2019s verified identity credentials as if nothing happened.\n\nIt gets worse. The app\u2019s \u201ctoo many attempts\u201d lockout is just a counter in a text file. Reset it to 0 and keep guessing. The biometric check (face\/fingerprint) is a simple on\/off switch in the same file. Flip it to off and the app skips it entirely.\n\n\n\nHere is a demonstration video of how the &#039;hack&#039; was performed. https:\/\/t.co\/GA8oC9tRtn\n\u2014 International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) April 16, 2026\nAnother major architectural flaw was flagged by a March 2026\u00a0security analysis\u00a0of the app\u2019s open-source code, reports Reclaim the Net in another\u00a0article.\n\n\nThe system\u2019s issuer component has no way to verify that passport verification actually happened on the user\u2019s device.\n\nThe researchers who found the vulnerability noted an uncomfortable tradeoff at the heart of the design. Fixing the security gap would likely require sending full passport cryptographic data to the server, including the user\u2019s name and document number, which would amount to a significant reduction in the privacy the system currently promises.\n\nThe Commission calls this a \u201cmini wallet.\u201d That nickname reveals more than the branding intends. The app is built on the same technical specifications as the European Digital Identity Wallets, ensuring compatibility and future integration.\n\n\nA number of third party companies that manage digital age verification systems have already suffered serious data breaches, including AU10TIX, a major Israeli identity verification company, as well as one of the vendors used by leading gaming platform Discord.\n\n\nDiscord says a vendor breach exposed user data: names, emails, IP logs, billing info, and even some government IDs.\nThe attacker wanted ransom, but the real story is this: once platforms collect official IDs, the risk is permanent.\nGovernments keep pushing online ID mandates.\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/G0fKHcXVXS\n\u2014 Reclaim The Net (@ReclaimTheNetHQ) October 4, 2025\nThat didn\u2019t stop Discord from proceeding with plans to require a bio-metric face scan or ID verification for full access to the site.\n\n\nA reminder that this is the same Discord that suffered a data-breach last October where some 70,000 images were exposed. https:\/\/t.co\/3ACqfN8a2C\n\u2014 STOPCOMMONPASS \ud83d\uded1 (@org_scp) February 9, 2026\nIt\u2019s not just alternative media that are warning of the risks:\n\n\n\nBank ID, Sweden\u2019s de facto national digital ID system, was also hacked a couple of months ago.\n\n\n\ud83d\udea8 BankID is Sweden&#039;s defacto National Digital ID based system used across 7,500 services, including govt.\n\ud83e\udd16 A severe data breach has been confirmed with hackers claiming they pulled source code, user data and other internal system data. https:\/\/t.co\/JxmIItDSQo\n\u2014 STOPCOMMONPASS \ud83d\uded1 (@org_scp) March 18, 2026\nAs Electronic Frontier Foundation has repeatedly warned, \u201conline age verification is\u00a0incompatible with privacy\u201c:\n\n\nIn the final analysis, age verification systems are surveillance systems. Mandating them forces websites to require visitors to submit information such as government-issued identification to companies like AU10TIX. Hacks and data breaches of this sensitive information are not a hypothetical concern; it is simply a matter of when the data will be exposed, as this breach shows.\n\n\nBut that doesn\u2019t seem to matter. After Australia became the first Western country to roll out a full-fledged online age verification system in December, governments of all stripes are lining up to follow suit, including the UK,\u00a0Turkey, Brazil, multiple states across the United States, and even the US federal government itself, where the idea appears to\u00a0enjoy bipartisan support. No great surprise there.\n\n\nThe White House AI framework calls age verification &quot;privacy protective.&quot; There is no version of age verification that doesn&#039;t require touching sensitive personal data. And there is no version of collecting sensitive personal data at scale that isn&#039;t a breach waiting to happen... https:\/\/t.co\/1v4GcNy84l\n\u2014 Reclaim The Net (@ReclaimTheNetHQ) March 21, 2026\nIn Australia, meanwhile, VPN usage is surging as Internet users, presumably of all ages but one imagines that particularly the tech-savvy youth that are supposedly the target of all this legislation, seek workarounds to the age verification requirements. This in turn has prompted\u00a0speculation\u00a0that Canberra may choose the nuclear option of trying to ban VPNs, just as the UK, France and other European governments have threatened to do (as we discussed\u00a0here).\n\nNone of this is happening in a vacuum. It is happening precisely at a time when governments across the so-called \u201cliberal\u201d West are resorting to increasingly intrusive and repressive measures to track and control their respective populaces. In the UK, police arrest 30 people a day for online posts,\u00a0notes\u00a0Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch: \u201cOver the past decade alone, police have racked up almost 150,000 \u201cnon-crime\u201d hate incidents \u2013 that is, lawful speech.\u201d\n\nThe UK, like many other governments, is also making it harder to protest while punishing subjects\/citizens for protesting against Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza. As Grayzone reported this week, \u201cthe British state is so desperate to crush these antiwar activists and preserve Israeli death factories on its soil that it is resorting to crude anti-democratic tactics and corrupting the entire jury system.\u201d\n\n\nEXCLUSIVE: UK seeks to jail Palestine Action for \u2018terrorism\u2019 amid UK media blackout\n6 activists could be sentenced as terrorists, facing long prison terms\nBut the jury has not been notified about the &#039;terror&#039; designation, and UK media can&#039;t report on ithttps:\/\/t.co\/pbwG5JvhCo\n\u2014 The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) April 12, 2026\nMeanwhile, Brussels and Washington are imposing what amounts to starvation blockades on prominent individuals that have dared to challenge Israel\u2019s genocide or Gaza or question the wisdom of the EU\u2019s actions in Ukraine. They include the UN rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, four International Criminal Court judges, the geopolitical analyst and former Swiss army colonel, Jacques Baud, and the pro-Palestinian journalist H\u00fcseyin Dogru.\n\nTheir experience has a name: \u201ccivil death\u201d. Their assets are frozen, access to banking services are blocked and the ability to participate in the official economy is almost completely paralyzed. The sanctions are imposed without prior judicial control and those affected are not given a legal hearing before they are listed. As in Kafka\u2019s\u00a0The Trial, once you get caught in the bureaucratic vice, there is no escape; it just keeps tightening.\n\nOn the one hand, governments and the corporations whose interests they serve want to digitise and tokenise everything, making us wholly dependent on digital platforms. On the other hand, they want to, and are close to, setting up internet controls governed by digital ID checkpoints that will strip away the very last vestiges of digital privacy and anonymity. These checkpoints will also allow them to block online access to anyone who is deemed a threat.\n\nThis, it seems, was always the plan. In my 2022 book\u00a0Scanned: Why Vaccine Passports and Digital IDs Will Mean the End of Privacy and Personal Freedom,\u00a0I quoted from a 2018 World Economic Forum report that openly admitted that while verifiable identities \u201ccreate new markets and business lines\u201d for companies, they also (emphasis my own) \u201copen up (or close off) the digital world for individuals\u201d. Welcome to the digital gulag.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nSat, 04\/18\/2026 - 07:00\n\">The EU&#039;s Digital Gulag Is (Apparently) Ready To Roll<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/kuwait-holds-american-journalist-after-reporting-friendly-fire-shootdown-incident\" title=\"Kuwait Holds American Journalist After Reporting On &#039;Friendly Fire&#039; Shootdown Incident\n\n            Authored by Chris Hedges via Consortium News\n\nAhmed Shihab-Eldin, a fearless Palestinian-American journalist (he&#039;s an American-born Kuwaiti of Palestinian descent) whose writing and reports are defined by unparalleled integrity, depth and eloquence, was arrested on March 3rd in Kuwait.\n\nHe is charged with spreading false information and harming national security.\n\n\n\nHis arrest took place following his reporting of the shooting down of\u00a0three\u00a0U.S. fighter planes by the Kuwaiti military in an act of friendly fire during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. Ahmed, along with other news outlets such as the\u00a0BBC, published\u00a0footage\u00a0of a U.S. F-15 E Strike Eagle crashing in al-Jahra west of Kuwait City.\n\nI fear Ahmed, a graduate of Columbia Journalism School who has worked for\u00a0The New York Times, PBS Frontline, Al Jazeera English, Vice\u00a0on HBO,\u00a0The Huffington Post\u00a0and appeared on numerous news outlets including the BBC and CNN, will be charged under new, draconian security laws instituted in Kuwait, which have already led to dozens of arbitrary arrests.\n\nKuwait has desperately tried to maintain the fiction that it did not serve as a staging area for US attacks on Iran.\u00a0\n\nThe NY Times had also confirmed this week:\n\n\nThe arrest of the journalist, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, which Kuwaiti authorities had yet to publicly confirm, would be\u00a0one of many detentions across the Persian Gulf\u00a0as governments there try to repress information about local effects of the war in Iran.\n\n\u201cIt is understood that authorities have charged him with spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone \u2014 vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists,\u201d the committee said in a\u00a0statement.\n\nHe had not posted online or been seen in public since early March, it said. His Twitter and Instagram accounts appeared to have been deleted.\n\n\nIran repeatedly attacked Kuwait, including strikes on Kuwait International Airport, the Ali Al Salem Air Base, the U.S. garrison at Camp Buehring and an operations center that saw six U.S. soldiers\u00a0killed\u00a0and dozens wounded. Iran also attacked the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery and a Kuwaiti oil tanker.\n\n\nWATCH: Clear footage of a U.S. F-15E jet that was shot down over Kuwait on March 1-2 in a friendly fire incident by Kuwaiti F-18 jet. pic.twitter.com\/rk1uAANWNh\n\u2014 Clash Report (@clashreport) March 16, 2026\nFrance 24 broadcast a video of HIMARS missiles allegedly being fired from Kuwait into Iran. Ahmed\u2019s reporting also undercut the lie of Kuwaiti neutrality.\n\nThe Kuwaiti authorities will, I expect, for this reason, seek to turn Ahmed into an example for the rest of the press.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nFri, 04\/17\/2026 - 23:25\n\">Kuwait Holds American Journalist After Reporting On &#039;Friendly Fire&#039; Shootdown Incident<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/spillover-conflict-still-raging-iraq-three-iranian-kurds-killed\" title=\"Spillover Conflict Still Raging In Iraq: Three Iranian Kurds Killed\n\n            The Iran war seems to be cooling, as a two week ceasefire holds, but people are still dying from spillover effects and sporadic conflict in neighboring Iraq.\n\n&quot;Drone and rocket strikes in Iraq&#039;s northern Kurdistan region on Friday killed three Iranian Kurds, including two women fighters, an exiled opposition group said, blaming the attack on Iran,&quot; AFP reports. It&#039;s unclear if the projectiles were sent across the border, or whether pro-Iran groups inside Iraq carried out the killings.\nIllustrative: Alhurra\n\nThis comes several weeks after US officials first floated the possibility of arming Iranian Kurdish dissident groups. Kurdish organizations in Iraq and along the border insisted at the time that there was no plan to receive arms and training from the US.\n\nThe fear was that the US statements and avalanche of international press reports claiming a potential impending plan to use Kurds as a proxy ground force served to put a bright red target on the Kurdish community of Iran\u00a0(and by extension Iraq).\n\nIndeed throughout the conflict there had been sporadic Iranian attacks on Kurdish areas, particularly in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. That appears to still be happening, with the Friday report:\n\n\n\u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran launched a new wave of missile and drone strikes today targeting... civilian camps of the PDKI,\u201d killing one person and wounding his father, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) said on X.\nIn a separate attack, two women fighters were killed and other fighters wounded, the party added.\nA PDKI official told AFP the fighters were killed in an attack on their positions in the Soran area, nestled in the Zagros mountains near the Iranian border.\n\n\nIn other Iraq-related news connected to the Iran war, the US Treasury on Friday has slapped new sanctions on a series of Shia pro-Iran militia leaders.\n\nThe United States Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has targeted seven pro-Iran Iraqi militia commanders, accused of organizing and carrying out attacks against US soldiers and facilities.\n\nThey are &quot;some of Iraq&#039;s most violent Iran-aligned militia organizations,&quot; such as Asa&#039;ib Ahl Al-Haqq, Kata&#039;ib Hezbollah, Kata&#039;ib Sayyid Al-Shuhada, and Harakat Al-Nujaba - according to the Trump administration.\n\n&quot;We will not allow Iraq&#039;s terrorist militias, backed by Iran, to threaten American lives or interests ... Those who enable these militias&#039; violence will be held accountable,&quot; US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nFri, 04\/17\/2026 - 23:00\n\">Spillover Conflict Still Raging In Iraq: Three Iranian Kurds Killed<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/weather\/massive-cosmic-test-shows-newton-and-einstein-still-explain-gravity-accurately\" title=\"Massive Cosmic Test Shows Newton And Einstein Still Explain Gravity Accurately\n\n            Authored by Neetika Walter via Interesting Engineering,\n\nScientists have tested gravity across some of the largest structures in the universe and found that it behaves exactly as predicted by long-standing physical laws.\nGalaxies and clusters trace gravity\u2019s pull across the universe.iStock Photos\n\nResearchers led by University of Pennsylvania used data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope to examine how galaxy clusters move across vast cosmic distances.\n\nTheir results show that gravity weakens with distance in line with the inverse-square law first described by Isaac Newton and later embedded in Albert Einstein\u2019s theory of general relativity.\n\nThe findings challenge alternative theories that suggest gravity changes at large scales and instead reinforce the idea that an unseen component, dark matter, is shaping cosmic motion.\n\nGravity holds at scale\n\n\u201cAstrophysics has been plagued by a massive discrepancy in the cosmic ledger,\u201d said Patricio A. Gallardo.\n\n\u201cWhen we look at how stars orbit within galaxies or how galaxies move within galaxy clusters, some appear to be traveling way too fast for the amount of visible matter they contain.\u201d\n\nTo test whether gravity itself might be responsible, the researchers analyzed subtle distortions in the cosmic microwave background as it passes through massive galaxy clusters.\n\nThese distortions, caused by the motion of hot gas around clusters, allowed the team to measure how quickly clusters are moving toward each other across distances spanning hundreds of millions of light-years.\n\nThe results closely matched predictions from classical and relativistic physics, showing no evidence that gravity weakens differently than expected at these scales.\n\n\u201cIt is remarkable that the law of the inverse of the squares\u2014proposed by Newton in the 17th century and then incorporated by Einstein\u2019s theory of general relativity\u2014is still holding its ground in the 21st century,\u201d said Gallardo.\n\nDark matter case strengthens\n\nThe study addresses a long-standing puzzle in cosmology. Observations have consistently shown that stars at the edges of galaxies and galaxies within clusters move faster than visible matter alone can explain.\n\n\u201cThat is the central puzzle,\u201d Gallardo explained.\n\n\u201cEither gravity behaves differently on very large scales, or the universe contains additional matter that we cannot directly see.\u201d\n\nBecause the new measurements confirm that gravity behaves as expected, the results strengthen the case for dark matter as the missing component.\n\n\u201cThis study strengthens the evidence that the universe contains a component of dark matter,\u201d said Gallardo. \u201cBut we still do not know what that component is made of.\u201d\n\nThe work also places constraints on theories such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, which attempt to explain cosmic motion by altering the laws of gravity.\n\nBy extending tests of gravity to distances far beyond the scale of individual galaxies, the research provides one of the most comprehensive validations of standard cosmological models to date.\n\nFuture observations using more detailed maps of the cosmic microwave background and larger galaxy surveys could further refine these measurements and test gravity with even greater precision.\n\n\u201cWith so many unanswered questions, gravity remains one of the most fascinating areas of research. It\u2019s a naturally attractive field,\u201d Gallardo said.\n\nThe study was published in Physical Review Letters.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nFri, 04\/17\/2026 - 22:35\n\">Massive Cosmic Test Shows Newton And Einstein Still Explain Gravity Accurately<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/markets\/beijing-boosts-beidou-satellite-system-try-and-compete-gps\" title=\"Beijing Boosts BeiDou Satellite System To Try And Compete With GPS\n\n            China is upgrading its BeiDou satellite navigation system, a domestic alternative to GPS, to expand its global reach and industry use, according to South China Morning Post.\n\nThe plan involves replacing older satellites with newer third-generation models and adjusting their orbits to improve worldwide coverage. The system will be streamlined from 50 to 37 active satellites, most operating in medium Earth orbit like GPS and Europe\u2019s Galileo.\n\nA few satellites will remain in specialized orbits to improve signal reliability in certain regions, including areas linked to China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative. The upgraded network will mainly use newer BDS-3 satellites, which are more accurate and advanced, while older BDS-2 units will be retired.\n\n\n\nThe SCMP writes that\u00a0China also aims to boost international adoption of BeiDou, especially in Belt and Road countries where it\u2019s already used in shipping, agriculture, and transport.\n\nThe upgrade supports a broader strategy to integrate space, air, and ground systems and expand satellite technology across industries. Officials expect BeiDou\u2019s value to reach about $145 billion within five years.\n\nIn addition, the overhaul is designed to make the system more efficient by reducing the total number of satellites while improving overall performance. By focusing on newer technology and better orbital positioning, China hopes to deliver more reliable global coverage with fewer resources. The remaining unused slots in the network also leave room for future expansion and technological upgrades.\n\nThe move reflects China\u2019s long-term goal of reducing reliance on Western navigation systems and strengthening its technological independence. By improving accuracy, coverage, and international partnerships, Beijing is positioning BeiDou as a competitive global alternative, particularly in developing regions where infrastructure projects are already closely tied to Chinese investment.\n\n      Tyler Durden\nFri, 04\/17\/2026 - 22:10\n\">Beijing Boosts BeiDou Satellite System To Try And Compete With GPS<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165,"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/164\/revisions\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doncarbonexpress.com\/truebreadfellowship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}