Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaeiconfirmedon Monday that there are currently no plans to hold a new round of negotiations with the United States in Pakistan. His statement contradicted claims by US President Donald Trump, who said that a US delegation willtravel to Islamabadtoday for negotiations with its Iranian counterparts.
Baghaei accused the Trump administration of "contradictory behaviors," including the blockade of Iranian ports, and violating the ceasefire, which is set to expire tomorrow. "This blatant contradiction between words and actions exacerbates the Iranian nation's suspicion of America's intentions," he told reporters, adding that Tehran will decide on the course of negotiations "by prioritizing national interests and benefits." He added that Iran has not received any "serious" offers related to sanctions relief and that any potential deal with the US must include "practical guarantees."
Security preparations are underway in Islamabad as the city braces for possible talks between the United States and Iran, according to Al Jazeera.
The outlet's reporter in Pakistan said parts of the capital, including the heavily guarded Red Zone, have been placed under lockdown with roads closed and security tightened.
Several Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft landed in Islamabad over the past 24 hours, believed to be carrying advance teams, including security personnel and armored vehicles, the report added.
The arrival of US personnel suggests preparations for talks are moving forward, though the Iranian position remains unclear.
Just as Europe's neoliberal establishment was celebrating the downfall of Hungary's Orban and his replacement with...another hard-line ant- immigrationist, it got some bad news on Sunday, as Bulgaria's pro-Russian former President Rumen Radev was set for a runaway victory in the election and may even secure a parliamentary majority in the poorest EU state, exit polls showed, potentially ending years of weak coalition governments and altering the European Union member's foreign policy.
An updated exit poll conducted by Sofia-based Alpha Research showed Radev's Progressive Bulgaria with 44%, far ahead of the long-dominant GERB party, led by former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, at 12.5%.
If confirmed, the performance, which outstripped opinion polls, would mark one of the strongest results by a single party in a generation, sideline a party that has ruled on and off for decades, and may see an end to the instability that has resulted in eight elections in five years.
"Progressive Bulgaria won decisively. This is a victory of hope over distrust, a victory of freedom over fear, and finally, if you will, a victory of morality," Radev said of the exit poll results during a press conference.
Radev, a eurosceptic and former fighter pilot who opposes military support for Ukraine's war effort against Moscow, stepped down from the presidency in January to run in the parliamentary election, which comes after mass protests forced out the previous government in December.
According to Reuters, Radev rode a wave of frustration with political instability in the Balkan country of 6.5 million people, where voters are sick of corruption and veteran parties that have dominated politics for decades. Alpha Research put turnout at 47% with one hour of voting to go, up from the 39% total in the last election in October 2024.
"There is now an opportunity for the things people have been hoping to see change to actually become visible," Evelina Koleva, a manager at digital marketing company in Sofia, told Reuters.
Final election results are expected on Monday.
In his campaign, Radev drew comparisons with Hungary's pro-Kremlin former Prime Minister Viktor Orban when he talked about improving relations with Moscow and resuming the free flow of Russian oil and gas into Europe. He also criticized the EU for relying too heavily on renewable energy.
It is not clear how much his views will impact the foreign policy of Bulgaria, a NATO member on the EU's southeastern flank which joined the euro zone in January - a move Radev has criticised.
He said he would be willing to work on judicial reform with the pro-European reformist We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) coalition, which came third in the Alpha Research exit polls with 11.3%. A minority government was also an option in the 240-seat parliament, Radev said.
"Bulgaria will make efforts to continue its European path," he said. "But a strong Bulgaria and strong Europe... needs pragmatism because Europe has fallen victim to its own ambition to be a moral leader in a world without rules."
GERB's Borissov appeared to concede in a post on Facebook, but added a note of caution: "To win the elections is one thing; to govern is quite another. Elections decide who comes first, but negotiations will decide who governs."
Bulgaria has developed rapidly since the fall of communism in 1989 and joined the European Union in 2007. Life expectancy has risen sharply, unemployment is the lowest in the EU, and the economy has greater safeguards since joining the euro zone in January. But it lags behind other EU countries in many metrics, and graft remains endemic, including in elections, where vote-buying is rife.
The cost of living has become a particular issue since Bulgaria adopted the euro. The previous government fell amid protests against a new budget proposing tax increases and higher social security contributions.
Lower Power Use and Carbon Emissions than Existing Products
Government to Deploy 3.5 Million Units
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) said Thursday it will launch the Eco Heating System (EHS) Heat Pump Boiler in Korea, a product with significantly higher efficiency than conventional boilers, in line with the government's heating electrification program.
The EHS heat pump uses ambient air heat to generate more than four times the heat relative to the electric energy input, which can be used for indoor heating and hot water. Compared with conventional fossil-fuel-based boilers that have energy efficiency below 100%, it can significantly reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions.
The EHS Heat Pump Boiler generates heat energy through high-efficiency refrigerant compression technology, producing hot water at 70 degrees Celsius even at minus 15 degrees Celsius. Its Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP), which indicates heating and cooling performance, is 4.9 based on floor heating. This means it can produce nearly five times the heating energy relative to the power it consumes.
The new product also uses R32 refrigerant, which has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 68% lower than the existing R410A refrigerant, reducing carbon emissions. It is equipped with electric heaters and anti-freeze valves to prevent heat exchanger freezing and pipe icing. This prevents a sharp drop in outlet water temperature even in extreme cold of minus 25 degrees Celsius and helps avoid equipment breakdowns caused by freezing.
Samsung Electronics also improved outdoor unit noise by applying a saw-tooth fan structure that reduces air resistance to achieve minimum noise of 35 decibels while maintaining strong airflow. The design features a dark gray color and a grille structure that does not expose the interior.
Samsung Electronics plans to support government policy through the new product launch. The government recently announced a plan to deploy 3.5 million heat pump units across the country to cut 5.18 million tons of greenhouse gases by 2035.
Illinois, and particularly Chicago, have long been known as among the bluest of blue states, places where sanity, safety and common sense are outlawed, and not just figuratively. Among other things, Chicago has prevented its police from chasing criminals in most cases. All thugs have to do to get away with crimes is run away. And in September of 2022 at my home blog, I wroteIllinois: State Of Insanityabout upcoming changes in the law that benefited criminals even more:
Graphic: Twitter Post
No bail for kidnapping, robbery and second-degree murder?! That’s a failed state, a state of anarchy.
I wrote, in part:
Then there’s the next level of insanity. If the police are prevented from making arrests, or are afraid to make arrests, if prosecutors won’t prosecute, if criminals are released as soon as their paperwork is processed or even before, if there’s no bail, if predators are released from jail after serving a fraction of their rare and short sentences, society is actively falling apart.
That’s a breach of the social contract, one that can’t be easily repaired, if it can be repaired at all. Normal Americans are willing to loan their power to establish law and order to the police and prosecutors and the courts in return for making daily life possible.
And how has that brilliant innovation in social engineering been going? Not so well:
High-priority 911 calls—Priority Level 1 and 2, the ones defined as “imminent threat to life, bodily injury, or major property damage”—are the exact emergencies Chicagoans face every day: shots fired, person shot, assault in progress, armed robbery, domestic battery. In 2019, before the progressive crime wave fully metastasized, 19% of those urgent calls had “no officers available” for immediate response.
By 2021, Wirepoints found that number had exploded to 52%—406,829 high-priority incidents in which dispatchers literally had zero cops to send. In 2022 it hit roughly 60%.
Through all of 2023, 56% of high-priority calls—437,000 of them—sat in backlog with no units available. Even in 2024, through mid-May, getting a response was still a coin-flip 50%: 127,000 out of 256,000 urgent calls in which nobody came.
That’s not “delayed,” that’s “we have no police available to send to you.”
To make things even worse, the Illinois Legislature is considering House Bill 3320, which is designed to attach thousands of dollars in taxes to every gun purchase. This would, of course, price guns out of the reach of many Americans, and particularly the poor, black Illinois residents Democrats so claim to cherish and want to protect, the people who continue to vote for them by enormous margins.
At a recent legislative hearing on HB3320, Dr. Anthony Douglas, a medical resident who is pushing a “Responsibility in Firearm Legislation Act," which appears to be essentially HB3320, testified:
“I think poor people don’t benefit from owning firearms,” Douglas said during a House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force subject matter hearing of the bill Wednesday. “I think more people benefit from access to education, access to resources.”
If they’re dead, they certainly don’t benefit from either, but that’s the kind of irrelevant reality the self-imagined elite like Douglas ignore. One wonders what else Douglas—lesser items than those protected by an express constitutional right—Douglas would deny the poor for their own good? Illinois is fortunate indeed to have people like Douglas to not only tell them what they don’t need, but who will work tirelessly to use the law to deprive them.
As always, reality differs from the utopian plans of Democrats. The invaluable Heather MacDonald notes in the largest 75 counties—Cook County/Chicago is among them—blacks comprise about 15% of the population but commit about 60% of all robberies and murders, for which they’ll be released without bail.
And who are most of their victims? Other black people, people who can’t afford to move to safer cities and states. And if Illinois Democrats get their way, there will be more because they won’t be able to afford to buy guns to protect themselves when there are no police available. That’s even more important because even when they are available, the police are virtually never present when a robbery or murder attempt begins.
Democrats used to try to hide their true intentions and their hatred for Normal Americans of every race. Not anymore, which could theoretically prevent the very black and poor residents of places like Chicago from voting for them.
I won’t be holding my breath.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog isStately McDaniel Manor.
One of the enduring mysteries of California is how a state as big and advanced as it is, with as huge a tax base and as high a tax rate as it has, can have roads that look straight out of Kolkata.
Shawn Regan at the Manhattan Institute has delved into the matter in one of the worst-hit cities, Los Angeles, where its 7,500 miles of roading are in a complete state of dispair and only nine miles of them have seen any repairs at all in the last year.
Because in Los Angeles, basic roadwork has become too complicated, too expensive, and too legally treacherous.
Mandates meant to improve streets have instead made the work harder to carry out. So officials have found the path of least resistance: avoid repaving altogether.
At the center of the dispute is Measure HLA — the Healthy Streets LA initiative approved by voters in 2024.
The law requires the city to implement its long-standing mobility plan — adding bike lanes, bus lanes, crosswalks, and other safety features — whenever it repaves a street....
Those add-ons — curb reconstruction, protected bike lanes, new signal timing — can turn a routine resurfacing job into a multimillion-dollar project on a single corridor.
Faced with that reality, the city’s Bureau of Street Services landed on a simpler solution: Don’t repave the streets.
The results speak for themselves. In the two years since voters approved Measure HLA, the city has implemented just 300 feet of the improvements the law requires — roughly one city block.
It's not even wretched socialist Mayor Karen Bass who's directly causing this, it's the city's woke and gullible voters who voted this policy in, which mandates by law that for any street to get repaved after it becomes a gravel trail, it must install bike lanes, build handicapped-accessible curb ramps for the time of repair, bus lanes, crosswalks and all the other things that ensure complete accessibility, no matter what the condition of the street or how high the cost goes, which turns a simple street repairing of a few thousand dollars into a multi-million-dollar project just for the access ramps alone. If they can't get the full buffett of nice-to-have goodies for whatever the monstrous cost, then no street repairs for them. Regan points out that they are trying to work around this matter through something called 'major asphalt repairs' which means sending a truck around and dripping tar on the potholes, but it washes away in just weeks, and leaves the roads in the same shambles as before.
That's the law now in Los Angeles and that's why the city no longer repairs its roads.
Why bother, when just the first one in need of repair blows out the entire budget?
Not every city in California has laws this bad. San Jose, for one, has the nice-to-have lists but no legal mandate on installing all those goodies, which means the streets look like places normal people could live in -- Democrat gubernatorial candidate Matt Mahon, a former San Jose mayor who is running as a moderate and whose ads describe prioritizing nice-to-have things and need-to-have-things very likely was talking about San Jose's sensible roads policy, so he deserves credit for that.
San Diego, where I live, has bad policy already known as the Mobility Master Plan, which has resulted in an eight-year-wait for any road or sidewalk repairs, and now is moving to pass a measure called the Streets Masterplan which is literally modelled on the failed Healthy Streets LA disaster, "but scaled for San Diego" as its organizers say. They are gathering petition signatures now for it, so that San Diego can follow Los Angeles, lemmings-like, off the cliff.
Its organizers posted this on Reddit:
It’s called the Streets Master Plan, and it would require the City to actually add safety and mobility improvements (like crosswalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, and accessible signals) every time they repave a street — instead of just laying new asphalt and calling it a day. Basically: no more “pave now, maybe fix later.”
This plan has teeth — it’s legally binding, includes yearly public progress reports, and gives residents the right to hold the City accountable if it doesn’t follow through. It’s modeled after LA’s “Healthy Streets LA,” which voters passed overwhelmingly, but scaled for San Diego.
Want that dumpside look L.A. has after two years of this? Then by all means, sign the petition.
It's bad already in San Diego, with trucks driving around with tar streams to repair the crumbling asphalt instead of just repaving the roads.
My street, for instance, which is on a cul-de-sac neighborhood and doesn't get big traffic, looks like this; I took this picture this morning:
Image: Monica Showalter
Reporting like Regan's helps voters understand why this state is so badly run.
And the fact is, the state is going downhill fast. Los Angeles became a roadway disaster in just two years after passing the proposition. San Diego already seems to be transforming into a run-down stereotype of a Siberian street, creating the same effect as Siberia's extreme weather does on its roads, just with its Mobility Master Plan being enforced on the books.
Google AI reported from its various sources that more than a third of the city's roads were in bad condition and that was three years ago:
Based on a 2023 assessment, San Diego's overall street network has a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of 63, placing it in the "Fair" category, down from 71 ("Satisfactory") in 2016. While many streets are fair, a 2024 report indicated that 34% of the city's roads are classified as "poor," "very poor," "serious," or "failed," with nearly 600 road segments rated as failing
Los Angeles is even worse, says Google AI:.
As of early 2026, the percentage of Los Angeles streets in good condition is estimated at roughly 60%, with projections suggesting a decline to a Pavement Condition Index of 56 next year due to a shift towards patching rather than resurfacing. The city's 7,500+ miles of streets face increasing deterioration, with repairs hampered by a significant budget deficit.
Key Findings on LA Street Conditions
Declining Quality: The city’s Pavement Condition Index is projected to drop to 56 next year, a 4% decline within a single year.
Repair Shortfall: Budget constraints are reducing the city’s ability to fully repave, leading to a reliance on patching.
Pothole Surge: Intense rainy seasons have caused a surge in pothole complaints, putting stress on the roughly 7,500 miles of city streets.
Numbers like these say the cities are going downhill fast.
Regan has done yeoman's work in getting to the bottom of why California's streets are so disgusting and why changing this law is essential if the state is ever going to recover. If a city or state can't repair its roads promptly and properly, then what good is it?
The state is becoming one vast pothole fast, all because of its sounds-nice greenie and special interest policies which benefit only contractors.
Sunlight might just help the patient by November's midterm elections.
Despite the best efforts of those who would utilize the preposterous climate change scare to control us and depopulate the world, petroleum still rules world economies. About 80% of all world energy is petro-based -- it fuels industrial and agricultural production along with transportation. Constricting supplies causes all prices to rise -- the inflationary effects are well-known (except perhaps to the bright thinkers promoting net zero policies, which are tanking their economies and immiserating their citizens).
For this reason, foreign policy strategists, media pundits, and governments who listened to them for decades avoided attacking Iran, fearing worldwide disruption of a critical supply. Yet at the moment, by ignoring all these bright thinkers and conventional analyses, the President’s genius strategy has placed us in the driver’s seat. We are now the world’s top source of oil and gas and control major distribution flows of petro supplies from around the world.
The U.S. is an absolute energy monster * Sitting on 46 billion barrels of proved crude reserves (60% still locked in tight rock) * Permian Basin alone pumps 6.6 million barrels/day, more than every OPEC country except Saudi * Total U.S. crude: 13.6M barrels/day, the world’s #1 producer, beating Russia (9.1M) and Saudi (9.3M) * Natural gas? Not even close, record 43.2 trillion cubic feet in 2025, about 25% of global supply. The U.S. out-produces every petrostate on the planet. -- @hedgeye
We also control the sale and transportation of oil from Venezuela, which holds 17% of all the world’s known oil reserves. Maduro used to provide this free or cheaply to Cuba and China. Now it goes at market prices for the benefit of Venezuelans and to U.S.-approved channels.
Not only do we sit on a sea of oil and gas and control Venezuela’s output, too, but we also control the distribution of other sources around the world.
This past week, as we were mopping up the war in Iran, we signed a defense agreement with Morocco. This means we now control four major maritime checkpoints for petroleum transportation.
Translated from Chinese. The United States signed a defense agreement with Morocco yesterday, which concerns the Strait of Gibraltar (the gateway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic). Thus, in just over a year, the United States has fully controlled the world's four major maritime chokepoints: Gibraltar Malacca Hormuz Panama I don't need to spell it out -- everyone can see this is a carefully orchestrated strategy, and it feels a bit more reliable than the Belt and Road Initiative.[/quote]
In case of war -- for example a Chinese attack on Taiwan -- the U.S. can embargo a significant portion of the world’s energy mix. At the moment both Russia and Chinese strategists must be revising their expansionist policies in light of these developments.
Like the barnyard colleagues of the Little Red Hen, European leaders are likely to try to jockey themselves into position to regain some control over the Strait of Hormuz. Victor Davis Hanson explains why like the little hen, we opened the Strait and we should alone enjoy the product of our labors:
I think now that all the heavy lifting has been done and Iran is flat on its back, you’re going to see all these opportunistic, carrion actors come in. You’re going to see the UN say, ‘Well, we’re going to be in charge of the peace,’ or you’re going to see people say, ‘This is what we’re going to do with Lebanon,’ or individual European states, or the EU, or NATO. But none of them were to be found when it was very unpopular, very risky, and Iran had this reputation -- unfounded, I think -- but it was the terror of the Middle East. We were told it was indomitable. For 47 years, you might want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, but you don’t go near Iran. They’re too crazy. They’re too dangerous. And Donald Trump, in less than six weeks, with the help of the Israeli Air Force, demolished it. And now all of a sudden, everybody wants to pile on and think that they’re somehow responsible for the future of the new Middle East. It’s really shameless. It really is.”
Davis also provides the finest account of how Trump vanquished Iran in five weeks, where, for 47 years, it was believed to be an impossibility.
(Here is the briefest summary. You really should read it all.)
We’ve never taken on a country of 93 million people that had the most fearsome, terrible reputation of being dangerous and unpredictable, and running the Middle East with a ring of fire proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, indomitable.
They had terrified seven presidents. And yet in five weeks, we destroyed its ability to make war.
We found the tunnels, hidden airfields, and silos, and eliminated them.
Iran walked right, put their head right into a noose. They said, we’re gonna shut down the Strait of Hormuz, only us can determine who gets in and who gets out, and they have to be pro-Iranian. And we’re not gonna let Gulf states sell oil. Ha ha ha. We’re gonna -- and everybody said, oh, that was brilliant.
The Left went crazy. It was delighted. Oh my gosh. The Pentagon was caught on unprepared… The Pentagon had been preparing that for 50 years. Under Reagan, they opened it. They know how to do it. So, all that Trump said is that’s a good idea. Shut down the strait. And let in the good guys and stop the bad guys.
But your bad guys are our good guys. And your good guys are our bad guys. So, we’re gonna take a page outta your book, and we’re not gonna let in anybody anywhere near Iran, and we’re gonna let in everybody else. And the difference between the strategies is not just that we flipped it, but you have no wherewithal. PT boats and a bunch of mines won’t stop us, but we have a huge fleet. And that will stop you from stopping us. And if you decide that you wanna send the remnants of your missiles into the Gulf or Israel, or at our fleet, go ahead. [snip] And what was the result of all that in the last 48 hours? Ships are coming in that we let, and ships are not coming in, that we don’t let, and people, economists at the major research universities in Europe, the United States, have now flipped on a dime and they’re actually looking in empirical fashion, at last, at what this means. And the ranges are absolutely stunning. $400 million, and more, per day lost economically to Iran, whether that’s lack of oil sales or petrochemical sales, or lack of key imported mechanical goods, electrical goods that keep their infrastructure running, or food. They’re in dire straits.
They’re losing all of their income from the Strait of Hormuz and they’re losing all of their income from the petrochemical and oil. And they were broke to begin with, and they can’t do anything about it because Trump did it sequentially. Military, first, chance of negotiation, second, put the boot on the neck, third.
Unconditional surrender remains their only option now, as we have made clear.
Secretary of State Mark Rubio has flown to Cuba, and I anticipate this will result in a negotiated settlement freeing the citizens of Cuba, as we freed the citizens of Venezuela and are likely to soon free them in Iran.
If all this is not exciting enough for you, it looks like the Russiagate prosecutions are about to begin.
Source confirms to me that Joe diGenova will be sworn in on Monday as Counsel to the Attorney General to lead the Russia collusion hoax investigation. He will work out of the Fort Pierce, FLA courthouse; a grand jury has been empaneled there since January. This is the home of Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over Special Counsel Jack Smith's documents case against the president until she determined in July 2024 that his appointment violated the Constitution and tossed the indictment.
I expect this means the grand jury has completed its work, and indictments and trials are about to begin. If the media is not embarrassed enough by its ridiculous coverage of the Iran war, predicting as it did great loss of American life and a lengthy war, wait till you see whatever shred of credibility it retains after these trials are concluded, when they all fell for the Russiagate ruse.
