“Rare Sight”: USAF C-17 Jets Land In Beijing Ahead Of Trump-Xi Summit As the Strait of Hormuz takes center stage Monday morning, Iran is threatening to attack any ship that attempts to transit the critical waterway. This directly challenges President Trump’s plan for the U.S. Navy to “guide” tankers and container ships through the chokepoint. Looking beyond the ongoing Hormuz crisis, the China topic is next: Trump is still expected […]

Iran War Threatens China’s 4.5 Percent Growth Target: Analysts Authored by Jarvis Lim via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), China’s already-strained economy faces mounting pressure as the Iran war threatens to choke export growth and suppress domestic demand, putting its 4.5 percent growth target at risk, experts say. A woman takes a photo of the Lujiazui financial district across the Huangpu River on the Bund promenade in […]

New York Parole Bills Could Free Some Of The State’s Most Notorious Killers Two parole reform bills advancing in New York are triggering intense debate, with supporters calling them long-overdue criminal justice reforms and critics warning they could allow violent offenders to leave prison early, according to the NY Post. One proposal, known as the Elder Parole bill, would allow incarcerated individuals to request parole hearings […]

Elites And Their Contempt Authored by Reverend John F. Naugle via The Brownstone Institute, Last week, I was unexpectedly hit with a post-lockdown trauma response. While driving to a baseball game days before the NFL Draft came to Pittsburgh, I passed a digital highway sign instructing me to avoid nonessential travel. Suddenly, memories of empty highways with signs instructing drivers to “Stay Safe and Stay Home” came […]

Sacked Russian Minister Flees To US Amid Corruption Probe In First Of Ukraine War A Russian minister has become the first known high-ranking official to flee Russia and seek asylum in the United States since the Ukraine war began over four years ago, amid a fraud probe. Denis Butsayev, a senior Russian official recently dismissed from the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, fled to the US to avoid criminal prosecution, […]

Virtue Gone Mad: Manager Punished More Harshly Than The Shoplifter He Stopped Authored by Theodore Dalrymple via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Commentary Nietzsche thought that the decline of the Christian religion in Europe would inevitably lead to a social, cultural, and moral crisis. This was because a traditional morality based upon religious belief could not be upheld once the religious belief itself weakened or was […]

Hormuz Closure ‘Inflicting Enormous Impact’ On Asia: Japan’s PM Takaichi The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is “inflicting enormous impact” on the Asia-Pacific region, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday in somewhat dramatic remarks before the press. Takaichi’s words were issued from Canberra, on the occasion of Japan having signed agreements with Australia on critical minerals, energy security, and defense […]

The COVID Playbook Returns: Energy Rationing & The Politics Of Crisis Control Authored by Chris MacIntosh via Doug Casey’s International Man, This recent headline from New Zealand should itself send chills down your spine… “Government reveals details of fuel crisis rationing plan – and who will be prioritized.” Anytime the pointy shoes get to decide who will and who will not get something, you must realise that […]

Japan Says It Counts Three Consecutive Days Of FX Intervention As One Earlier today we joked when, after the third intervention attempt by Japan’s MOF/BOJ, the yen promptly sold off again as Japanese officials continued to sink billions of dollars into what has become bottomless monetary pit (ignoring for a second the lunacy of spending dollars to strengthen your currency while at the same time printing yet), one which gets bigger […]

High-Intensity Beams, Not Whispers: Study Suggests Aliens Would Send Strong Signals Authored by Rupendra Brahambhatt via Interesting Engineering, For more than half a century, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been built on the assumption that if aliens exist and try to communicate, their signals will be faint, scattered, and easy to miss.  An alien doll.James Bat Barrera/Pexels So astronomers have spent decades […]

Treasury Boost Quarterly Borrowing Estimate To $189BN: Full Quarterly Refunding Preview The US Department hiked its estimates for US debt borrowing in the current quarter, citing lower net cash flows. In a statement published today, and ahead of Wednesday’s Quarterly Refunding Announcement, the US Treasury said that it now expects to borrow $189 billion in net debt for the current quarter, up ~$80 billion from the $109 billion it […]

New Member Of Trump’s Iran Negotiating Team Comes From FDD Think Tank Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, Amid stalled peace talks and a US blockade on Iranian ports, the Trump administration has added a new member to its negotiating team who comes from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a notoriously hawkish think tank that has been lobbying for aggressive action against the Islamic Republic for many years. Nick […]

Ceasefire Over? Trump Downplays ‘Mini-War’ After US & Iranians Trade Shots, Missiles Target UAE Summary Trump employs interesting new term: “We’re in, I call it a mini-war.” Fujairah says 3 injured in Iranian attack on Oil Industry Zone, UAE confirms “air defenses are now dealing with a missile threat”, we have gotten reports of explosions in Dubai, which has sent oil higher and Emini futures into the red. UAE […]

As Pump Prices Hit Iran War Highs, Duffy Claims They’ll Fall Immediately After Hormuz Reopens As pump prices for gasoline (and diesel) hit Iran War highs, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Sunday that gasoline prices should begin to decline “immediately” once shipping resumes through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing back against analyst warnings that relief for consumers could take months. Duffy, speaking on […]

Did Bill Maher Just Kill Gavin Newsom’s 2028 Dreams? For a man who fancies himself the future of the Democratic Party, Gavin Newsom had a rough Friday night. The California governor appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, probably expecting the kind of warm exchange that comes with being a friend of the host. What he got instead was a methodical, public undressing from one of liberalism’s most prominent voices — and it proves how […]

All’s Not So Quiet On Any Front Authored by James Howard Kunstler, Project Freedom. Cute move! Notice that it’s not Operation Freedom. That would frame it as a military move. The President is tactically framing this as a humanitarian action. Mr. Trump has advised Congress as of May 1 that hostilities with Iran (Operation Epic Fury) are terminated, at the 60-day limit of the War Powers Resolution. Commercial ships from […]

Welfare Enrollment Drops Sharply Following New Federal Work Requirements Via American Greatness, Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has declined significantly since new federal work requirements took effect in mid-2025, with millions fewer Americans receiving benefits, according to newly reported federal data. The number of people enrolled in SNAP has fallen by roughly 3.5 million since July 2025, […]

Trump Renews Call For Israel To Pardon Teflon Bibi, The “Wartime Prime Minister” President Trump has renewed US pressure on some Israeli government decision-makers to grant a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he’s still battling multiple corruption charges, at a moment he has ordered the armed forces to be engaged in several fronts, including in Lebanon.  Trump told the Israeli outlet Kan News on Sunday, “Tell your […]

Deutsche Bank’s Woke ESG Whistleblower Denied Millions By SEC For Tattling To Press In 2021, Deutsche Bank sustainability chief Desiree Fixler thought she was going to make millions after she blew the whistle with claims that the bank did not adhere to its goal of integrating ESG (environmental, social and governance) into all investment decisions. Fixler – who worked within the bank’s DWS Group asset management arm – became a […]

Largest Viking Age Coin Hoard Ever Found In Norway Shocks Archaeologists Authored by Maria Mocerino, Hailed as a “historic discovery,” metal detectorists led archaeologists to the largest Viking Age hoard of silver coins ever to be found in Norway, reflecting the Vikings’ extensive network and a pivotal turning point in Norway’s history. The largest coin hoard in Norwegian history.Innlandet County Council On April 10, […]

A Property Tax Rebellion Is Emerging In America Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times, At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed. There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the property and auction it off to […]

Cigna To Exit Obamacare In 2027 Amid Rising Costs Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times, The Cigna Group, one of the country’s largest health services and insurance firms, is joining others, including Aetna and UnitedHealthcare, in divesting its individual health exchange business. By the end of 2026, Cigna Group will no longer offer insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” the […]

3 Dead, 149 Trapped Onboard: Track Cruise Ship With Suspected Deadly Virus Outbreak A luxury cruise ship carrying 149 passengers and crew is facing a suspected hantavirus outbreak that has already left three people dead. The vessel is currently anchored offshore near Cape Verde, the island nation in the central Atlantic off the west coast of Africa, as health officials rush to assess the scale of the outbreak. The MV Hondius is […]

Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends A ‘Sordid Business’ Authored by Jonathan Turley, The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering, has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely. While figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared that the court itself has been “gerrymandered” to rig the upcoming […]

Pirates Of The Arabian By Stefan Koopman, senior macro strategist at Rabobank “We landed on top of it. We took over the ship, the cargo, the oil. It’s a very profitable business… We’re like pirates.” President Trump’s remarks were, once again, strikingly blunt and unfiltered, to the point of sounding almost satirical. Yet the irony is real. The US president was openly acknowledging that American naval power in the […]