USAF Tests Interceptor Drone To Hunt Iranian Shahed-Style Threat Defense Blog’s Dylan Malyasov reports that U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Airmen tested a counter-drone interceptor in Arizona, designed as a low-cost solution against one-way attack drones, such as Iran’s Shahed drone.  Malyasov said the Guardian-1 Interceptor from defense startup Powerus was recently tested at the Arizona Army National Guard’s Florence Military […]

The Elites And Their Contempt Authored by Rev. 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 flooding […]

8 In 10 Chatbots Inclined To Assist Users In Planning Attacks Eight out of ten AI chatbots have been found to actively assist users in planning violent attacks, according to a new investigation by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, when asked to plan violent attacks including a school shooting, an antisemitic bombing and a political assassination, platforms such as Perplexity, Meta […]

Meta Buys Robot Brain Startup As Zuck Wants Humanoids In Homes After the Oculus and Metaverse bets turned into costly disappointments for Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms, the tech giant’s pivot to real-world humanoid robotics appears to be gaining momentum, with news Friday afternoon that it is acquiring Assured Robot Intelligence. Bloomberg reports that Meta has closed the acquisition of the humanoid robotics startup, which […]

Trump Issues Letter Rejecting Congressional Oversight For War, Citing Ceasefire Has ‘Terminated’ Hostilities Summary Trump submits letter to Congress at 60-day mark: ceasefire ‘terminated’ hostilities & so doesn’t need authorization, he argues. US Treasury goes after Hormuz payment fees, sanctioning  three Iranian foreign currency exchange houses. Bessent issues pressure points against Iranian ‘rats’. Trump on […]

OPEC Just Signaled A Historic Gold Tailwind Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold, The United Arab Emirates’ headline departure from OPEC this week has now made the case for precious metals almost too obvious. In fact, the critical USD-Petrodollar-Gold triangle just sent us one of the most important gold signals in over 50 years. And for anyone paying attention, this should come as no surprise. Warnings from 2022 […]

As Anthropic Entertains Offers At $900 Billion Valuation, OpenAI CFO Swears There’s A ‘Vertical Wall Of Demand’ Anyone that’s ever spent serious time with Anthropic’s Claude – particularly after being a GPT user – can understand why the Trump administration just did a major about-face after a Pentagon spat led to the company’s blacklisting as a “supply chain risk.”  Two months after the Pentagon moved to several all ties with […]

Top US General Signals Russia Is Helping Iran In War Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, The highest-ranking U.S. general on Thursday signaled that the Russian government is assisting the Iranian regime in its war with the United States. In comments before Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Dan Caine, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded in an affirmative manner to a question from the panel’s […]

Robot Dives 1.5 Miles, Maps French Shipwreck With 86,000 Images And Recovers Artifacts Authored by Neetika Walter via Interesting Engineering, A remotely operated robot has retrieved artifacts from a 16th-century shipwreck more than 1.5 miles beneath the Mediterranean, offering a glimpse into how precision deep-sea robotics is transforming underwater exploration. Guided from a support vessel above, the system used camera-fed […]

Tune In To Tonight’s Fertilizer Debate: How Bad Will It Get? As we covered earlier this week, Goldman Sachs analysts now say the fertilizer disruption is larger than expected, with nitrogen markets taking the brunt. Urea prices have risen 50% to 70% since the conflict began. Goldman’s Duffy Fischer wrote that “nitrogen fertilizer is the most impacted chemical chain,” adding that the scale of disruption is “greater than we […]

Trump Escalates Tariffs On EU Vehicles To 25%, Accusing Bloc Of Trade Deal Violations President Donald Trump announced Friday that the United States will raise tariffs on cars and trucks imported from the European Union to 25% starting next week, citing the EU’s failure to comply with a 2025 bilateral trade framework. “I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to […]

Google DeepMind Veteran Raises $1.1 Billion For AI That Doesn’t Train On Human Data Authored by Jason Nelson via decrypt.io, In brief DeepMind veteran David Silver raised $1.1 billion for his new startup Ineffable Intelligence at a $5.1 billion valuation. Silver says reinforcement learning, not large language models, is the best path to superintelligence. The startup aims to build AI “superlearners” that learn through […]

Trump Says Spirit Airlines Rescue Still In Review, Final Proposal Coming Summary:  Trump says Spirit received the final proposal for the lifeline deal  WSJ reported that bankrupt Spirit Airlines was preparing to shutter operations  📰Spirit Airlines is reportedly preparing to cease operations soon, unless a last-minute intervention changes the course, according to CBS News. We’re currently tracking 50 Spirit […]

Beijing Bad: Chinese Nationals Charged Building Meth Super Factory Two Chinese citizens were indicted on by the DOJ on charges of conspiring to flood the United States with methamphetamine through a sophisticated, factory-style production operation, federal prosecutors announced this week. Wenfeng Cui, 41, also known as “Vincen,” (no “t’) and Fan Pang, 26, also known as “Jerry,” both nationals of the People’s Republic […]

Chevron, ConocoPhillips Warn About “Critical Shortages” Of Oil, Soaring Prices And Demand Destruction This morning, most of the world’s energy giants including Exxon and Chevron, reported stellar earnings as surging oil prices more than offset curtailed output. They also issued several loud warnings about the ongoing Hormuz blockage which is no closer to resolution.  ConocoPhillips was first, warning of imminent “critical […]

Oracle Joins Growing List Of AI Firms Supporting Pentagon National Security Work Summary: Oracle Joins the growing list  OpenAI, Google, SpaceX/xAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Reflection AI to deploy AI tools in “classified settings” at the Department of War Oracle Added  Department of War CTO posted on X that Oracle has officially joined the list of AI companies deploying AI tools to America’s warfighters.  […]

US Mortgage Debt Hits $13.2 Trillion, Average Household Owes Nearly $109,000 Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times, America’s mortgage debt continues to escalate, hitting the $13.2 trillion mark, according to an April 30 WalletHub report. The personal finance website and app indicated that the average U.S. household owes nearly $109,000 in outstanding mortgage balances and that mortgage debt has remained on an upward […]

Memory Stick Prices Refuse To Come Back To Earth Apple CEO Tim Cook’s warning during Thursday evening’s earnings call about the deepening global memory shortage sent us back to review memory stick prices. Let’s review what Cook said… “We believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business,” Cook told analysts, while also warning about “supply constraints.” He added, “We’ll continue to evaluate this.” It wasn’t […]

Three Fed Officials Explain Why They Dissented, Blasting Fed’s “Easing Bias” This morning, three Fed officials said they dissented over this week’s policy statement because it was no longer appropriate to signal the Fed’s next move was still likely to be an interest-rate cut. “I believe the FOMC should offer a policy outlook that signals that the next rate change could be either a cut or a hike, depending on how the economy […]

Manufacturing ISM Misses As Prices Surge Most Since April 2022, Employment Slides To Worst Print Of 2026 Amid the fog of war and fading ‘hard’ data, the final April S&P Global Manufacturing PMI printed 54.5, a small gain from the flash 54.0 print, and higher than the 52.3 February final print, although it came with a warning from Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence: “The surge in […]

Final Warnings By Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank Some headlines write themselves. Tokyo has already delivered one – and likely acted on it. Tehran may be waiting for its turn. The bond market, meanwhile, could have issued another warning to the Fed. As for the long-held consensus that 2026 would bring smooth disinflation, gentle policy easing, and AI-driven multiple expansion, that narrative has been under […]

Medicaid Withholds Additional $91 Million In Funding For Minnesota Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times, In his latest action targeting Minnesota fraud, Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said his agency would delay paying $91 million in Medicaid claims to the state. “This is about protecting patients and respecting taxpayers,” Oz said in a video posted April 30 on X, […]

Roblox Shares Crash As Engagement Headwinds Blindside Wall Street Online gaming platform Roblox crashed the most in four years in premarket trading to the tune of 24%, after the company reported weaker-than-expected first-quarter user metrics and slashed its full-year bookings outlook. One of the major problems plaguing Roblox has been that new child-safety features, including age-verification requirements and limits on platform […]

Futures Rise, Oil Slides On Iran Ceasefire Optimism After Best Month For Stocks Since 2020 US equity futures are higher, set for a new all time high, as the rally that’s pushed Wall Street to record highs on strong megacap tech earnings continues, after the S&P posted its best monthly increase since November 2020. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.3% (spiking moments ago on a report that Iran submitted its latest […]

US Pledges $100 Million To Repair Chornobyl Nuclear Plant Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The U.S. Department of State intends to offer up to $100 million in foreign assistance toward a G7 initiative to repair the Chornobyl nuclear plant’s protective structure that was damaged in Russian strikes. A visitor touring the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant takes a photo through a window looking […]