K-pop superstars ATEEZ released their 14th EP, Golden Hour : Part 5, on June 26, with their lead single, “BAD,” which featured Hollywood actress Chase Infiniti.
Did The World Cup Just Start A War In Europe Over Air Conditioning?
Did The World Cup Just Start A War In Europe Over Air Conditioning?
The World Cup has triggered one of the most surprising global cultural awakenings in decades and almost no one saw it coming. The establishment media had been running negative propaganda for months, claiming that the event was going to be a disaster because it was being held in the US. The machine had already decided that the World Cup in 2026 was going to be sold as a disaster from start to finish.
Rumors were spinning that because Americans don’t care about “soccer” that the tournament would be mismanaged, that America was “racist”, the players would be treated poorly, and that the US is such a dangerous place it would deter travelers from going overseas to attend the games.
The anti-American sentiment being generating by western journalists is staggering. However, all it took was a few weeks and around 1.2 million foreign visitors per city coming to see the World Cup at the same time. Suddenly, Europeans have realized they’ve been lied to about everything.
The US hosted event is now being called one of the most successful in history. The propaganda spell has been broken. Europeans are going on social media to apologize for the hate their countrymen have been dumping on the US over the years. And, most importantly, they’ve discovered air conditioning.
Strangely, it’s not American gun rights that are sparking mass debate. Rather, it’s the air conditioning issue that’s causing the most friction with political leaders back in Europe, and the elites are not happy.
Americans have trouble understanding the angst. Only 19% of all Europeans have air conditioning in their homes, compared to 90% or people in the US. In Britain, 14% of people have cold indoor air. In France it’s 25% and in Germany it’s 19%. Keep in mind, these are high rates compared to only 10 years ago. Europe’s love affair with air conditioning is a very recent phenomenon; they’ve been burning up in silence for decades.
But now, travelers visiting America are wondering why a technology created in 1902 is not more common in their home nations? They’re starting to ask questions, and they’re finding out that their own governments simply don’t want them to have it. In other words, air conditioning is a luxury for politicians and the wealthy, not for the peasants. How else can the west save the world from “climate change”?
France has banned drinking alcohol in public to counter dehydration. Residents are stampeding stores and fighting each other for fans and the few air conditioning units they can find. EU leaders are facing increasing demands for a reexamination of “Net Zero” policies.
WATCH: Fights are breaking out inside stores across France as shoppers scramble to buy fans and air conditioners amid the country’s extreme heat wave. pic.twitter.com/7HaZ3oro83
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 25, 2026
The French Environment Minister says she is “horrified” by the rising calls for air conditioning, suggesting that the peons need to worry less about the heat and more about global warming, if that makes sense. The debate is being presented as a matter of “selfishness” on the part of common citizens who want to stay cool.
🇫🇷‼️🚨 “WE AGREE THAT PEOPLE MUST NOT SUFFOCATE – BUT”
French Minister of Ecology Monique Barbut rants about air conditioning:
“I’m horrified by people who tell me we just need to put AC everywhere …
Do you think that by air-conditioning everything we’re going to prevent… pic.twitter.com/rUyJYmv55X
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) June 28, 2026
“I’m going to tell you how I see it: I’m horrified by the people who tell me, ‘We just need to put air conditioning everywhere.’ Do you think that’s going to prevent forest fires? Do you think that’s going to stop a crop from disappearing? Do you think that’s going to prevent the death of the animals we’re seeing? Do you think that’s going to prevent anything? Nothing! Of course, people shouldn’t suffocate, but this isn’t adapting to climate change — it’s just an emergency measure.”
In response, governments across Europe are cracking down even more on air conditioning in order to send a message. The EU commission is shutting down air conditioning in their Brussels HQ to set an example, but only for the bottom seven floors where all the lower wage employees work. The top floors where the important people reside still get cool air.
In Britain, local councils are being instructed to force residents to remove air conditioning appliances from their homes or face fines. They assert that the devices create too much “carbon emissions” and should only be used as a last resort. Climate change fanatics are taking to British media to admonish people who dare to purchase one of the evil appliances.
Is it selfish to get air con in the heat wave?
Air conditioner units are selling out as Brits struggle with the soaring temperatures, but with around 4% of total global greenhouse gas emissions attributed to air con, should we be using them when we know they’re heating the… pic.twitter.com/h2XIXaPL93
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 25, 2026
Europe is in the midst of a rare summer heat wave. Over 1300 deaths have so far been linked to the rising temps. The temperatures are climbing to ranges common in the US but shocking by European standards. One would think that this would be a perfect rationale for air conditioning, but globalist leaders in the region are testing the will of the public and seeing how much they can take away.
In reality, the Earth has been much hotter many times over the course of millions of years and it had nothing to do with carbon emissions or air conditioners.
The concept of man-made climate change is a farce, which means all of this discomfort and potential death is pointless. Americans discovered this a long time ago, and thanks to the World Cup and social media, Europeans are finally catching on.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/29/2026 – 02:45
South Korea’s $518 billion AI chip push shows crypto is still losing the capital race
Samsung and SK Hynix are pulling a chip-plant buildout forward by a decade to meet AI memory demand. It is the latest and largest sign of the AI capital cycle that has drawn money away from crypto all year.
An American Homework Assignment
LA Votes to Give Illegals the Vote
Chairman Of Luxury Department Store Operator Shinsegae Enters Billionaire Ranks Amid South Korea’s Stock Surge
Shinsegae heiress and company chairman is benefitting from the AI boom that’s made retail investors wealthy enough to splurge on luxury goods.
Bitcoin dips to $59,700 as Iran de-escalation lifts stocks but not crypto
U.S. equity futures rose after reports the U.S. and Iran agreed to halt strikes and resume talks. Bitcoin has barely moved, still down 6.8% on the week.
WHO: Europe’s heatwave linked to hundreds of deaths
Extreme heat that has been baking Europe over the last two weeks is at least partially responsible for hundreds of additional deaths, officials said.
Turkey Bans Protests Across Many Provinces Ahead Of Major NATO Summit
Turkey Bans Protests Across Many Provinces Ahead Of Major NATO Summit
Via Middle East Eye
Rights groups have condemned a protest ban imposed by Turkey ahead of a Nato summit, as well as the arrest of hundreds of people in a sweeping crackdown.
Last week, the Ankara Governorate announced a 13-day province-wide ban on all public assemblies from Sunday, citing “national security” and security measures around the conference.
Protesters hold a banner reading ‘Turkey should leave Nato, Nato bases should be closed’ during a demonstration in Ankara on 27 June 2026, ahead of the Nato summit. via AFP
A total of 225 people were also arrested, including alleged supporters of the leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and the Islamic State group.
Other detainees included academic Emel Memis, gay rights activist and journalist Yildiz Tar, environmental NGO Tema Foundation representative Nevzat Ozer, independent labour union Umut-Sen spokesperson Burcu Arikan, and Progressive Lawyers Association lawyers Semra Demir and Kursat Bafra.
The state-run Anadolu news agency said that 178 suspects taken into custody were formally arrested, while 34 others were released under judicial supervision.
In a statement, Amnesty International condemned the ban and the arrests as an “unjustifiable attack on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression”.
“All the excessively broad and disproportionate restrictions that prevent the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly must be lifted,” said Esther Major, Amnesty International’s deputy director of research for Europe.
“In addition, Nato’s decision to deny accreditation to some journalists and media outlets from Turkey is a blow to media freedom. We call on Nato to reverse its stance and enable those who have been excluded to cover the event.”
Journalists denied access
The Nato summit is scheduled to take place on 7-8 July and is expected to be attended by leaders from all 32 member states. US President Donald Trump is among those expected to attend.
Turkey has been a member of Nato since 1952 and has the second-largest land army in the alliance.
Leftists and some Islamist groups have long criticized Turkey’s membership, saying it has kept the country under US dominance and suppressed socialist and anti-imperialist movements in Turkey. US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as its attacks on Iran, has further provoked anger towards the summit in Turkey.
Dozens of journalists have been denied accreditation for the summit, including those from respected independent outlets such as Cumhuriyet, Sozcu, Anka, T24 and Medyascope.
On Friday, a range of media freedom bodies issued a joint statement condemning Nato’s decision to deny the journalist’s access.
🇹🇷Turkish people protest; “NATO must be disbanded” pic.twitter.com/8wm2SUggRi
— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterPress) June 28, 2026
“Given Nato’s own accreditation criteria, which lists editorial independence as a core eligibility requirement, rejection of outlets defined by that very quality is difficult to reconcile,” the statement said.
“Should a governmental institution with a documented track record of restricting press access have played any role in this process, Nato risks allowing domestic media pressures to influence what should be an independent credentialing framework.” Middle East Eye contacted Nato for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/29/2026 – 02:00
Michael Burry just made a rare bullish bet on Big Tech
Contrarian investors make their reputations by being right when everyone else is wrong. The harder trick is knowing when their own bearishness has run its course. The best of them can flip without flinching.Few investors carry a heavier bearish reputation than Michael Burry. The Scion Asset Management founder is the man who shorted the housing market before the 2008 crash, the role Christian Bale played in “The Big Short.” For most of 2026, he has aimed that skepticism squarely at artificial intelligence, stacking put options against Nvidia (NVDA) and a basket of semiconductor and Nasdaq funds while comparing today’s AI mania to the dot-com peak. He has called the leaders of the AI boom overhyped and overfunded, and he has put real money behind the warning.So it counts as news when the most-watched bear on Wall Street quietly does the opposite. On June 25 Burry disclosed a long, multi-year bullish bet on Microsoft (MSFT), buying December 2028 call options on a stock he says the market has unfairly thrown away.What Michael Burry actually bought in MicrosoftThe position is unusual in its construction. Burry did not simply buy the stock.He bought December 2028 long-term equity anticipation securities, or LEAP call options, with a strike price in the low $700s, according to Stocktwits. A LEAP is simply a call option dated years out rather than months. By using options instead of buying shares outright, Burry risks a smaller, defined sum for a far bigger payoff if Microsoft climbs, the kind of asymmetric setup he has favored for years.More Tech Stocks:Wedbush spots clear investor opportunities in tech stocksMorgan Stanley resets Micron stock price target on strong Al demandWhy a fatal crash threatens Tesla’s stockHis reasoning was blunt. The “$350 level for Microsoft is a good place to buy,” Burry wrote, calling the longer-dated options cheap next to his outlook, according to TipRanks.Here is what struck me when I ran the math. Microsoft closed at $365.46 on June 24 and touched a 52-week low of $349.20 the next day. For low-$700s calls to pay off, the stock has to nearly double by December 2028 and clear its October 2025 record close of $538.66 by a wide margin.That is not a bounce bet. It is a wager that Microsoft prints an all-time high it has never seen, and does it inside about two and a half years.This is not even Burry’s first move on the stock. He first went long Microsoft in April, when shares were also getting hammered, as TheStreet reported. The June trade escalates that position into a multi-year options structure with far more upside if he is right.He did more than one thing that day. Burry covered half of his Palantir (PLTR) short at $107.15 while keeping his put options, added to JD.com (JD) and Adobe (ADBE), and sold his Alibaba (BABA) stake for tax-loss reasons, Stocktwits reported.
Wall Street’s most famous bear just turned bullish on tech.Bloomberg / Getty Images
Microsoft’s AI spending spooked the market in 2026Microsoft did not fall because the business broke. It fell because the bill came due.The company is on track to spend roughly $190 billion on capital projects this fiscal year, much of it poured into AI data centers and the memory chips that feed them. A global memory shortage has made that hardware far more expensive.Investors did the math and balked. Microsoft has shed more than $1 trillion in market value since its October 2025 peak, sliding from a record $538.66 close to roughly $365 and a market cap near $2.6 trillion.Related: Michael Burry makes a bold call on the SpaceX tradeTo put that in human terms, in eight months, Microsoft erased more wealth than the entire market value of all but a handful of companies on the planet, the kind of money that does not just vanish from a chart. It vanishes from 401(k)s, index funds, and the retirement math of millions of people who never intentionally bought a single share.Most of them own Microsoft anyway, because it sits near the top of the S&P 500 and nearly every target-date fund in America.The drop was also part of a broader retreat from the most crowded AI trades, as a volatile 2026 market pushed investors out of anything tied to expensive computing power. That is the rotation Burry has been trading against all year.Here is the scorecard on those bets, and it is mixed:Lululemon (LULU): His long position remains underwater, with Finbold reporting the bet down about 45%.Nvidia (NVDA): His bearish short has swung back and forth for weeks without a clear winner, Finbold noted.Palantir (PLTR): His short has worked, with the stock down more than 33% in 2026, according to Finbold.Microsoft (MSFT): The new long, expressed through December 2028 call options, Stocktwits confirmed.What the Microsoft bet means for your moneyThe easy read is that Burry flip-flopped. The accurate read is sharper.When I went back through his 2026 disclosures, the pattern held. Every long he has put on this year is a beaten-down name the crowd abandoned, and every short is a crowded favorite priced for perfection.Burry is not calling the all-clear on AI. He framed this year’s software selloff as “technical pressure, not fundamental,” according to Stocktwits, meaning forced selling rather than broken businesses.His Microsoft bet and his still-live Nvidia and Palantir shorts are the same idea wearing two outfits. Buy what fear oversold. Sell what greed overbought.That distinction matters for your portfolio more than any single ticker. It reframes the question from whether AI is a bubble to which AI-exposed companies got thrown out with the bathwater.Wall Street, for its part, largely agrees with the bullish side of that trade on Microsoft. The stock carries a strong buy consensus and an average price target of $562.10, roughly 51% above recent levels, according to TipRanks. Stifel’s Brad Reback is the rare holdout, with a hold rating and a trimmed $400 target.Shares have already started to answer. Microsoft opened 4.09% higher on June 26, the day after Burry’s disclosure surfaced, clawing back much of its recent slide, according to Finbold.Burry has been early before, and early can look wrong for a long time. His Nvidia and Palantir shorts could still burn him, and a 2028 expiration gives Microsoft plenty of room to disappoint first.But the trade tells you how the sharpest bear in the market reads this moment. He is betting that the panic swept up at least one company that did not deserve it, and he is willing to wait until 2028 to be proven right.For anyone who watched Microsoft drop and wondered whether the fear went too far, that is a data point worth sitting with. When the man who shorted the housing market starts buying Big Tech, the contrarian trade might no longer be his claim to fame.Related: Morgan Stanley resets Microsoft stock price target