The United States intelligence assessments claim that at least a dozen underwater mines have been placed in the Strait of Hormuz, CBS reported on Monday, citing US officials.
According to the report, the mines that were placed in the critical Middle Eastern waterway are the Iranian-made Maham 3 and Maham 7 Limpet Mine, with the former being a naval mine that has an approximately 10-foot range, and the latter being a compact high-explosive limpet mine that targets medium-sized vessels, landing craft, and smaller submarines. The report added that Iran is using smaller vessels that can carry two or three mines to place them in the strait.
Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said earlier today that there is "no need" to place any mines in the Persian Gulf, seeing as Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz with "full authority."
Inclusive Capital Partners is looking to sell a stake in Bayer AG, three years after the investment firm led by activist Jeff Ubben first disclosed a holding.
The investor is offering roughly 8.5 million shares in a stock placing arranged by JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to terms seen by Bloomberg. The stake would be worth about €327 million ($379 million) based on the German agriculture and health firm’s closing stock price on Monday, according to Bloomberg calculations.
The United States is considering deploying the 82nd Airborne Division and elements of the division's headquarters to support its campaign against Iran, The New York Times reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, the potential deployment is being treated as "prudent planning." The forces could come from the Immediate Response Force, a unit of about 3,000 soldiers that can deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours. One option under discussion is to use the force to seize Kharg Island.
Another scenario under consideration would deploy about 2,500 troops from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is now heading to the region, to take the island. No decision has been made, and the Pentagon has not issued any order, the report said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he spoke with United States PresidentDonald Trumpearlier in the day to discuss the possibilities of adeal with Iran.
In a video message published in Israeli media, Netanyahu claimed that Trump "believes there is a chance to leverage the military achievements of the war to get all the objectives of the war through an agreement," adding that "such an agreement will safeguard our interests."
In addition, the prime minister pointed out that Israel will continue to strike Iran until a deal is officially reached. He also revealed that the Israeli military had eliminated two more Iranian nuclear scientists in recent days.
Lawmakers have never met a market they didn't want to control. And when they can't do that, they try to crush them - sometimes after taking six-figure donations from competing lobbies. To wit; Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and John Curtis (R-UT), on Monday introduced legislation that would prohibit federally regulated prediction-market platforms from offering wagers on sports events, targeting what they call a regulatory backdoor that has let online betting proliferate beyond state control. Reading between the lines, prediction market betting is clearly a threat to the old guard.
The bill, titled the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, would bar entities overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - including leading platforms Kalshi and Polymarket’s U.S. operations - from listing or trading contracts tied to the outcomes of any sporting event or athletic competition. It would also extend the prohibition to “casino-style games” such as slot machines, video poker, blackjack and bingo. The measure marks the first bipartisan Senate legislation aimed squarely at prediction markets’ expansion into sports wagering.
The push comes as the broader U.S. sports-betting industry - legalized nationwide after a landmark 2018 Supreme Court ruling - generated a record handle of roughly $167 billion and gross gaming revenue of about $17 billion in 2025. More than 90% of those bets are placed online or via mobile apps operated by companies such as DraftKings Inc. and Flutter Entertainment Plc.’s FanDuel. Yet prediction markets, which structure wagers as yes-or-no event contracts under CFTC oversight rather than state gambling licenses, have carved out a parallel lane. These platforms, which gained prominence during the 2024 presidential election, now derive a significant share of volume from professional and college sports, offering bets even in states that prohibit traditional sportsbooks.
OF NOTE: The gambling industry contributed $111,876 to Sen. Schiff during the 2023-2024 election cycle, with California tribal gaming entities being particularly supportive - donating six-figure sums to pro-Schiff leadership PACs and related efforts.
Meanwhile, the American Gaming Association (AGA), which represents licensed operators including DraftKings and FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment, and the Indian Gaming Association (IGA) have publicly pressed Congress and states to crack down on prediction-market sports contracts.
A Regulatory Loophole Sparks Bipartisan Alarm
Schiff and Curtis argue that betting via prediction markets undermines state authority, deprives governments and tribal casinos of tax revenue, and exposes young people to addictive products without the consumer protections that accompany licensed sportsbooks. “The CFTC is greenlighting these markets and even promoting their growth,” Schiff said. “It’s time for Congress to step in and eliminate this backdoor, which violates state consumer protections, intrudes upon tribal sovereignty and offers no public revenue.”
Curtis, whose home state of Utah remains one of the few without legal sports betting, highlighted concerns about youth access. “Too many young people in Utah are getting exposed to addictive sports betting and casino-style gaming contracts that belong under state control, not under federal regulators,” he said.
The legislation aligns with a companion House effort, the Event Contract Enforcement Act, introduced earlier this month by Reps. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican, and Salud Carbajal, a California Democrat. That bill would require the CFTC to prohibit event contracts related to sports and gaming, among other sensitive categories such as terrorism and elections, while giving states an opt-out for sports-related contracts. “Prediction markets also sponsor sports-related contracts against the wishes of many states, including Utah,” Moore said in a statement.
States have grown increasingly frustrated. Attorneys general from 39 states and the District of Columbia have urged federal courts to uphold their authority. Nevada secured a temporary restraining order last week blocking Kalshi from offering sports, election and entertainment contracts without state licenses. Arizona filed criminal charges against Kalshi’s parent companies. Lawsuits and countersuits have proliferated, with platforms arguing exclusive federal jurisdiction and states insisting the products amount to illegal gambling.
The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision striking down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act unleashed a wave of state legalization. Thirty-eight states plus the District of Columbia now permit sports betting, generating billions in tax revenue and creating thousands of jobs. Major leagues from the NFL to the NBA have embraced partnerships, sharing data for integrity monitoring and reaping sponsorship dollars.
Prediction Markets Exploding in Popularity
Prediction markets have exploded from niche election curiosities into a multi-billion-dollar parallel sports-betting channel. Kalshi posted roughly $17–24 billion in notional volume in 2025 (85–87% sports), while Polymarket reached $21.5 billion overall (sports ~39% globally, nearly 100% on its U.S. app). Combined monthly trading volume for the two platforms surged to nearly $18 billion in February 2026 and hit a record $26 billion in January 2026, with Kalshi alone handling more than $2 billion per week ahead of the Super Bowl. Valuations followed: Kalshi hit an $11 billion mark, Polymarket $8 billion, fueled by venture inflows and retail/crypto traders who treat contracts like liquid equities rather than traditional parlays.
This growth has turned the platforms into a measurable competitive pressure point. Kalshi’s sports-fee revenue is already running at an annualized pace that rivals roughly 25% of DraftKings’ projected 2026 take, while both operators now serve prohibition states that traditional books cannot touch. User bases have scaled rapidly - Kalshi monthly actives topped 5 million, Polymarket’s on-chain DAU records exceeded 150,000 in recent weeks - creating a younger, more tech-native cohort that bypasses state licensing, taxes, and responsible-gaming mandates. Traditional operators view the trajectory as existential if unchecked: without federal intervention, analysts project the sector could capture 3–5% of national sports revenue in 2026 and far more by decade’s end.
Industry Reaction and Market Moves
Traditional sports-betting operators appeared to welcome the news. Shares of DraftKings rose more than 7% in premarket trading Monday, only to settle up 2.3% as of this writing, while Flutter Entertainment gained nearly 9.5% (now only up 5.15%). The American Gaming Association, which represents many licensed operators, has long warned that unregulated prediction markets threaten state-regulated markets and lack responsible-gaming standards.
Kalshi pushed back sharply. “Banning sports on regulated prediction markets would just push this behavior offshore, where no regulation exists,” said spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana. “It’s clear this bill is motivated by casino interests that are threatened by competition.” Polymarket did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The prediction-market sector itself remains nascent but fast-growing, with platforms reporting billions in trading volume and attracting venture-capital interest. Proponents argue the markets promote price discovery and innovation; critics counter that sports contracts function indistinguishably from gambling.
The new bill joins a slate of bipartisan measures addressing sports betting. The SAFE Bet Act, backed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, would impose federal minimum standards on state programs - including advertising restrictions during live events, limits on bonus bets and curbs on credit-card deposits. Separately, the POINTS Act would direct roughly one-third of the federal excise tax on sports betting - potentially $100 million annually - toward prevention, treatment and recovery services for gambling addiction.
Supporters frame the efforts as protecting consumers without dismantling an industry that has become a significant economic force. Opponents warn that heavy-handed federal intervention could stifle innovation, reduce tax revenue and drive activity to offshore sites.
Fresh Justice Department files reveal a frantic document destruction operation at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan just days after Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death, adding fresh fuel to suspicions of elite protection and deep state obstruction.
This latest bombshell, drawn from a Miami Herald analysis of thousands of pages in the Epstein files, fits the pattern of irregularities we’ve exposed in our prior reporting.
Less than a week after Epstein was found dead inside his cell on August 10, 2019, an inmate was ordered to take bags of shredded material to the jail’s rear gate and throw them in a dumpster on Thursday, August 15, and again on Friday, August 16. The sheer volume struck him as unusual.
“They are shredding everything,” the inmate told one of the guards, adding that he was asked to give the officials a hand with the shredding, with key records vanishing before review.
A corrections officer at the detention facility called the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center that same night, a Friday, at 6:28 p.m. to report that he had “never seen this amount of bags of shredded documents coming out to be put in the dumpster at the rear gate of MCC.”
The caller found it suspicious that an after-action team charged with investigating would be shredding huge amounts of paperwork with FBI, BOP and OIG officials in the building.
A back gate corrections officer was also troubled by what he witnessed. In a memo to investigators three days later, on Monday, August 19, he wrote: “I believe that this conduct may be inappropriate for [an] investigative team to be shredding paperwork related to the investigation and you may want to investigate why BOP employees are destroying records.”
“Can we take a look at the Dumpster ASAP to see if the paper is still there? Possible they didn’t dump it yet,” replied one of the federal agents.
But it was already too late. The trash was picked up that very morning.
Federal prosecutors discovered something else amiss: “We learned today that all institutional count slips for dates prior to August 10, 2019, which we requested on August 12, 2019, are apparently ‘missing.’”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York opened three separate probes: one into Epstein’s death, an obstruction-of-justice case involving the shredding of documents and possible misconduct by correctional officers, and a separate “Color of Law” corruption probe. Shockingly, these shifted from potential FBI criminal cases to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General, which cannot prosecute.
Then-Attorney General William Barr immediately announced an “apparent suicide.” The medical examiner ruled the same, so Epstein’s cell was never treated as a crime scene. Critical evidence, including the fabric allegedly used in the hanging, was never properly examined.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, hired by Epstein’s estate and a veteran of over 20,000 autopsies, argued the neck injuries and ruptured capillaries in the eyes were more consistent with strangulation than suicide by hanging.
The Bureau of Prisons conducted a standard “After Action Review,” stating these teams “review such things as various background information for the inmate, health care and personality information, antecedent circumstances, and various other details surrounding the suicide. This team then draws conclusions and makes recommendations to the facility.”
Yet the rush to shred documents and the missing count slips tell a different story.
These developments expose the same bureaucratic stonewalling and selective transparency that has shielded powerful figures tied to Epstein’s network. While some claim simple incompetence, the coordinated destruction of records right under the noses of investigators screams intent to bury connections that could implicate elites.
X-energysubmitted a draft registration statementto the SEC for an initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The company intends to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “XE.”
The company develops the Xe-100, an 80 MWe high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) designed for both electricity generation and high-temperature process heat. Modules can deploy individually or in four- to twelve-unit plants for scalable output. Safety features rely on its core design and proprietary TRISO-X fuel, tristructural-isotropic particles widely regarded as among the most robust nuclear fuels available. X-energy manufactures this fuel through subsidiary TRISO-X LLC to maintain quality control.
Progress on their fuel supply chain is advancing rapidly. Vertical construction began in November 2025 at the TX-1 fuel fabrication facility in Tennessee.
Once complete in mid-2026, the Category II facility will produce approximately 700,000 TRISO pebbles annually, sufficient for up to 11 Xe-100 reactors.
TRISO-X received the first-ever Part 70 high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel fabrication license earlier this year, with confirmatory testing underway at Idaho National Laboratory.
X-energy’s commercial pipeline now exceeds 11 GW across the United States and United Kingdom.
The flagship project is a four-unit Xe-100 plant at Dow’s Seadrift (Long Mott) site in Texas, selected under the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.
The installation will supply power and steam for chemical manufacturing.
A construction permit application is under NRC review, though the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper has intervened in proceedings, raising contentions including the financial qualifications of the project entity.
Partnerships continue to expand as well:
- Amazon holds options for more than 5 GW of Xe-100 deployments by 2039, starting with the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state alongside Energy Northwest.
- X-energy signed a letter of intent with Talen Energy to evaluate gigawatt-scale deployments, potentially three or more four-unit plants, in Pennsylvania and the broader PJM Interconnection market.
- In Europe, a joint development agreement with Centrica commits to up to 6 GW of advanced reactors in the United Kingdom, with the Hartlepool site under consideration for the initial fleet.
Supply chain momentum supports these ambitions, including recent agreements with Doosan Enerbility for reactor components and SGL Carbon for graphite. Following oversubscribed Series D funding of $700 million in late 2025, the IPO positions X-energy to accelerate licensing, manufacturing scale-up, and project execution.
