UK Gov’t Promises More Social Media “Restrictions” Authored by Kit Knightly via OffGuardian.org, While embattled PM Sir Keir Starmer takes a pointless grilling on the even more pointless existence of Peter Mandelson, other members of his cabinet were busily paving the way for the next construction phase of our increasingly dystopian society. Speaking to Sky News earlier today, Education Secretary Bridget […]

This Is What Europeans Are Most Proud Of What people take pride in says a lot about how they see their country. Across Europe, those sources range from culture and history to political systems and personal freedoms. But in some countries, a notable share of people say they feel little pride at all. This visualization via Visual Capitalist, by The European Correspondent, based on Pew Research Center data, breaks down the top […]

Berlin And Hamburg Spend At Least €4 Billion On Housing Asylum Seekers Since 2022 Via Remix News, Two German cities, Berlin and Hamburg, have spent at least €4 billion to house migrants since 2022, with the cost of hotels proving to be especially high. In Hamburg, the cost to house asylum seekers alone has amounted to €597 million. In 2025 alone, the costs of hotel accommodation and meals for asylum seekers in Hamburg was […]

Senate Rejects Resolution To Bar Trump From Attacking Cuba The US Senate batted down a resolution on Tuesday that would bar President Trump from being able to attack Cuba without first obtaining Congressional approval. The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on April 22, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times After Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) invoked the 1973 War Powers Act to force […]

US May Deploy Hypersonic Missiles Against Iran As Centcom Set To Brief Trump On New Military Options US Central Command has asked to send the Army’s long-delayed Dark Eagle hypersonic missile to the Middle East for possible use against Iran, seeking a longer-range system to hit ballistic-missile launchers deep inside the country Bloomberg reports.  If approved, this would mark the first time the US will have deployed its […]

Ex-Mossad Chief Stuns By Saying Settler Violence An ‘Existential Threat’ To State Of Israel Via Middle East Eye A former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has said that settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank reminds him of the Holocaust. Tamir Pardo, who served as director of Mossad from 2011 to 2016, made the remarks in an interview with Channel 13 while touring Palestinian villages […]

Private Sector Struggles In Major Chinese Industrial Base As Export Orders Shrink: Local Businessmen Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Amid China’s persistently sluggish economy, Zhejiang Province, a major production and industrial base in eastern China, is seeing a decline in trade orders as private enterprises struggle to stay afloat, according to industry professionals who spoke with The Epoch Times. […]

Governor Powell By Philip Marey, senior US strategist at Rabobank Summary As widely expected, the FOMC remained on hold. Governor Miran dissented again because he wanted a rate cut. However, there were also three dissenters (Hammack, Kashkari and Logan) who wanted to remove the bias toward cutting from the statement. On balance, Powell said that the center of the Committee was moving toward a more neutral place in thinking about […]

Canadian Education Minister Says Parents Have No Rights Over Their Children Canada is losing its collective mind.  During a recent debate in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, Education Minister Brendan Maguire (Progressive Conservative MLA for Halifax Atlantic) responded angrily to concerns about school policies on gender transitioning (without parental notification in many cases) and provincial funding for gender-related medical […]

Iran Announces Fuel Rationing As Brent Sets New War Highs, After Trump Rejects Tehran’s Latest Offer Summary Brent crude reaches $120/barrel – new Iran war high, and highest since June 2022. Simultanously, Iran’s currency has collapsed to a record low, plunging to 1.8 million rial per dollar – also amid mass layoffs in various Iranian sectors. CENTCOM reportedly preparing for “short wave of strikes” on Iran in order to […]

Iran War Cost $25 Billion in First 2 Months, Pentagon Says Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times, Combat operations against Iran have cost the U.S. military about $25 billion in two months, a top Pentagon accounting official told House Armed Services Committee members on April 29. The Wednesday hearing marked the first time Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine have testified […]

“We Can’t Move Forward”: Brookfield-Backed Compass Abandons Virginia Data Center Project Compass Datacenters is abandoning a massive data center project in Northern Virginia after what Bloomberg described as “intense pushback from local residents.” The retreat comes as local opposition to data center buildouts accelerates nationwide, with residents increasingly furious over surging power demand, soaring electricity bills, land-use […]

China Loses Monopoly Over The Rarest Of Rare Earths With less than three weeks to go the Trump-Xi summit in China, the scramble for leverage and superiority – whether in terms of the Iran war or the just as important supply chain of rare earths – is on. That explains why the Pentagon’s push to get its hands on the rarest of the rare-earth elements leads all the way to this small port city in Malaysia. As the WSJ reports, […]

Billionaire Tim Draper: You Should Be Scared If You Don’t Own Bitcoin Authored by Micah Zimmerman via Bitcoin Magazine, Speaking on the Nakamoto Stage, Tim Draper told attendees that bitcoin has entered the financial mainstream and that governments now roll out “the red carpet” for the industry. He said the community is “starting to feel like something is happening” as adoption grows, and he cast that shift as the early […]

KPMG Ends U.S. Gov’t Audit Business After Losing Army Contract KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms, is winding down its federal government audit business after losing a $64 million-a-year U.S. Army audit contract, a major setback as the Department of War under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moves to bring in another accounting firm. According to the Financial Times, the Army’s shift to a new auditor comes as pressure […]

Japan’s Largest Airport Deploys Humanoid Robots For Baggage, Cargo Authored by Jijo Malayil via Interesting Engineering, Humanoid robots will soon assist ground crews in Tokyo as Japan Airlines launches a trial to address growing labor shortages. Starting in May, the Chinese-made machines will assist with moving baggage and cargo on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, working alongside human handlers. The initiative, run […]

Barclays Maintains Bullish Stance On Nuclear Barclays is out with a report on nuclear and how the industry is progressing from conviction to construction. The report highlights year-to-date regulatory developments, demand and execution signals and market pricing across the industry.  Last year, Barclays argued three core points regarding nuclear energy: A nuclear renaissance is underway driven by energy security, decarbonization, […]

The Day The Memecoin Dies Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance I opened Twitter this morning and saw a photo of a group of guys, lanyards swinging, hoodies zipped, shuffling off to a “memecoin conference.” Which is to say we have reached the point in the batshit insanity cycle where people are boarding planes and booking hotels to celebrate coins that started as jokes about dogs. Pause and really sit with that. Memecoins are […]

Putin Presents Victory Day Truce In Ukraine During 90-Minute Trump Call With things in the Persian Gulf and the Iran War ‘stuck’… it’s apparently time to pivot back to that other ‘stuck’ war, in Ukraine. President Trump on Wednesday spoke over the phone with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, with the call reportedly lasting an impressive 1.5+ hours, and the talk centered on finding ways forward both with the Iran and Ukraine […]

Meta Plunges After Boosting Capex Outlook Again On “Higher Component Pricing” The last of the giga-caps to report today, the increasingly more misnamed Meta Platforms, had some good news to report for the just completed Q1. It also had bad news, and judging by the plunge in the stock price, the market is focusing on the latter.  First, the good news: the company reported revenue and EPS both of which beat estimates, and guided Q2 […]

Iranian Currency Hits All-Time Low As Tehran Threatens ‘Unprecedented’ Response To US ‘Maritime Piracy’ Via The Cradle Iran’s currency plummeted to a record low on Wednesday, dropping to 1.8 million against the dollar following the brutal US-Israeli war, coinciding with uncertainty over the fragile truce and rising energy prices worldwide.  The currency began a sharp descent two days ago after several weeks of artificial […]

Is This A Sign That The Schumer Era Is Coming To An End? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spent months cultivating what appeared to be a solid roster of Democratic recruits for 2026. He cleared the field in Ohio, North Carolina, and Alaska — all states where flipping the seats would be a major victory for the Democrats and potentially hand them a majority in the upper chamber in a year with an otherwise brutal map for their […]

Amazon Drops After AWS Growth Misses Whisper Estimates As Capex Soars In our preview of Amazon’s earnings, we summarized sentiment as “Bullish, But Concerns Remain” with JPM noting that client “conversations were heavily AWS-skewed with investor focus on degree of acceleration and cloud $ re-capture driven by core workloads, AI, & new partnerships. Still, some concerns remain on broader AI positioning/strategy, Trainium […]

Alphabet Surges After-Hours On Record Search Queries, Backlog Builds Google shares are rallying after hours as parent Alphabet’s first-quarter earnings report showed strong revenue growth in cloud computing and internet search ads, helping investors look past slowing profits amid huge AI spend. Earnings per share were $5.11, well ahead of Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $2.63, and up from $2.81 last year. Revenue for the […]

MSFT Dumps As CapEx Disappoints, Despite Top- & Bottom-Line Beat Heading into the “biggest earnings day ever”, MSFT was near the bottom of the Mag7 group, down 22% from its 52-week high, with capacity constraints hampering growth and CapEx concerns weighing down the stock. Microsoft has guided to roughly $80 billion in AI data center spending this fiscal year, and the Street wants to know if that money is actually getting […]