Watch: Tech Entrepreneur Claims His AI Agent Built Itself A Face While He Slept In what could mark a new milestone in the evolving saga of personal AI agents, social media entrepreneur Alex Finn claimed on Tuesday that his self-hosted Clawdbot autonomously designed and animated a visual representation of itself, complete with an animated owl body, while he slept. The clip depicts an owl-bodied figure moving across a persistent […]

Trump-Era Uncertainty Lingers: EU-India Deal Quietly Seeks To Redraw Global Trade Map Without US Update(1620ET): EU officials have describe the new EU-India agreement, after many years of negotiations, as one of the most ambitious trade pacts the bloc has ever negotiated, significantly lowering India’s historically high tariff barriers. Brussels estimates tariffs will be eliminated or reduced on nearly all EU exports to India, […]

Censorship & The Ratchet Effect: Threats To Free Speech Outlast Supposed Crises Authored by Julian Adorney via TheDailyEconomy.org, Late last year, YouTube announced plans to reinstate accounts that had been banned at the behest of the Biden Administration for posting alleged COVID-19 misinformation. The announcement likely came as a relief to groups like the Children’s Health Defense Fund, a group associated with Robert […]

“Mother Nature Stops For No One”: All Eyes On Next Winter Storm Threat For US East A day or so after the historic winter blast buried much of the eastern half of the US in snow and ice and unleashed dangerously cold air that strained power grids from ERCOT to PJM, forecasters are now tracking another winter threat with potential impact on the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast later this weekend. Frigid across much of the […]

Government Steams Towards Partial Shutdown Amid Democrat Demands Over ICE As a Friday deadline approaches for a partial government shutdown, Republicans are backed into a corner following national uproar over two deadly ICE shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis amid growing concern over the agency’s tactics.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to move forward with a six-bill spending package, which includes […]

White House Expects Largest Tax Refund Season As IRS Opens 2026 Filing Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, The IRS announced on Jan. 26 the opening of the 2026 tax filing season. “The IRS expects about 164 million individual tax returns for tax year 2025 to be filed ahead of the Wednesday, April 15, federal deadline. Taxpayers can find a range of tools and filing options on IRS.gov to help them prepare and file […]

Person In Critical Condition After Border Patrol-Involved Shooting In Arizona A person is in critical condition following a shooting incident early Tuesday morning in Pima County, Arizona.  Photo via KVOA Emergency responders from the Santa Rita Fire District (SRFD) and American Medical Response arrived on the scene around 7:30 a.m., where they found one individual in custody who was in critical condition, KVOA reports. First […]

Ugly 5Y Auction Tails Amid Faltering Demand If yesterday’s 2Y auction was stellar, today’s 5Y sale was the opposite. Just after 1pm, the US completed the sale of $70BN in 5Y paper at a high yield of 3.823%, up from 3.747% one month ago and the highest since July. It also tailed the When Issued 3.820% by 0.3bps, the 7th tail in the last 8 auctions. The bid to cover of 2.34 was essentially unchanged from last month’s 2.35 and […]

US Weighs Precision Strikes On Iranian Officials As Govt Is ‘Weakest’ Since 1979 On the one hand there are reports that the Trump administration “is open for business” when it comes to negotiations with Iran. “If they want to talk, and they know our terms, we are open to have a conversation,” a senior US official has told Axios. But on the other, amid this ‘openness’ toward cutting a deal (presumably on the nuclear and ballistic […]

Los Angeles Homeless Services CEO Charged With Defrauding Taxpayers To Pay For Luxury Lifestyle Via Headline USA, The CEO of a Los Angeles homeless services charity faces federal and state fraud charges after prosecutors said he lived a luxury lifestyle that included lavish vacations and designer clothes paid for with $23 million in public money meant to keep people off the streets. Alexander Soofer, 42, was arrested Friday […]

Guns, Grenades, Killer Drones, & The Hulk: Highlights From The 2026 SHOT Show Last week was the annual SHOT Show – an industry-only convention held in Las Vegas, Nevada that’s notoriously difficult to get into. Fortunately, we were able to call in a favor and walked 25 miles over four days. We met (or almost met) all sorts of interesting folks, including Deputy AG Todd Blanche, Harmeet Dhillon, FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin, […]

Karoline Leavitt Torches The Left’s Hypocrisy On Deportations At her first briefing since the Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Democratic leaders for refusing to enforce federal immigration law. She described Pretti as an armed left-wing agitator and said the administration’s message was clear: the Biden-era approach to immigration enforcement is finished. Leavitt accused […]

The Gold Move Is A Vote Of No Confidence In The Entire Global Financial Architecture By Michael Every of Rabobank As Axios puts it, ‘Wall Street’s playbook for 2026 already needs to be rewritten’. Many players’ do. Gold is through $5,000 and silver up 5.5% at over $109 – it was even higher intraday. You might not trade either, and I remain sceptical that we are moving back to a gold or silver standard, even for limited […]

Federal Officials Refer Minnesota To DOJ For Allowing Boys In Girls’ Sports Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times, Federal officials have referred Minnesota to the Justice Department (DOJ) over alleged civil rights violations stemming from the state’s refusal to halt male participation in female sports. The referral came from the Education Department (ED) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which […]

Southwest Airlines Ends Open Seating, Moves To Reservation-Based System Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times, Southwest Airlines’ era of offering passengers open seating is officially ending, as the passenger carrier transitions its seating policy to a reservation-based system common with other airlines starting on Jan. 27. Southwest announced last summer that it would end its open seating policy to offer customers a wider […]

GM Shares Surge 7% After Surpassing Q4 Estimates, Raising Guidance, Planning $6B Stock Buyback General Motors exceeded Wall Street’s fourth-quarter earnings expectations and forecast another year of “strong financial performance” in 2026. While revenue fell slightly short, the company announced a 20% dividend increase and a new $6 billion stock buyback program, according to CNBC and GM. GM reported adjusted earnings per share […]

Conference Board Consumer Confidence Crashes To 12 Year Lows After Boomers and Gen X dragged The Conference Board Confidence measure down to eight month lows to end 2025, expectations were for a rebound to start 2026. But, reality was far worse with the headline plunging from 94.2 (revised up from 89.1) to 84.5 (well below the 91.0 expected) – the lowest since May 2014. The Present Situation Index – based on consumers’ […]

“Did The White House Just Blink?” Border Patrol Boss ‘Demoted’ As Minneapolis Mayor Says Feds Are Leaving On the heels of President Trump’s reconciliatory statement earlier hailing his “very good call” with Governor Tim Walz, and decision to send Tom Homan to the frontlines in Minnesota… “…we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said. “I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what […]

Trump Admin Wins Appeal Of ICE Injunction In Minnesota Authored by Jonathan Turley, In a significant victory for the Trump Administration, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit lifted the injunction of U.S. District Judge Katherin Menendez, who prevented officers from arresting, detaining, pepper-spraying or retaliating against protesters in Minneapolis without probable cause. In her Jan. 16 […]

From Bad To Worse: UnitedHealth Posts First Annual Revenue Drop In Three Decades Things have gone from bad to worse for UnitedHealth Group since late Monday. First, the Trump administration’s plan to keep Medicare Advantage rates roughly flat next year (read the report) sent shares tumbling during the after-hours session on Monday evening. The selloff intensified in premarket trading after the 2026 outlook and quarterly earnings […]

The Grid Will Hold – Maybe – But The Bill Will Rise Authored by Terry L. Headley via RealClearEnergy, Americans are about to pay a lot more for electricity anyway — not because the grid fails, but because of how we now power it. As another deep winter cold snap presses across much of the eastern United States, grid operators are doing what they always do in these moments: watching reserve margins, issuing conservation guidance, […]

US Home Prices Surged In November As Mortgage Rates Tumble For the fourth straight month, US home prices rose on a MoM basis in November (according to the admittedly lagged and smoothed Case-Shiller data released today). The 0.47% MoM rise is the hottest since Dec 2024 Source: Bloomberg On a year-over-year basis, there is a very modest inflection higher in the price appreciation (up from +1.32% to +1.39%). “November’s results […]

Futures Rise Ahead Of Tech Earnings As Gold, Silver Resume Surge US futures are higher, led by Tech, and approaching record levels from earlier this month as geopolitical and headline risk subsides while the market focuses on looming Mag 7 earnings and Wednesday’s Fed decision is expected to be a non-event. Equities are poised for another attempt at 7k. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.2% and set for a fifth day of gains; […]

The Bullish And Bearish Case For 2026 Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, The year ahead presents both a bullish and bearish case for investors. Will 2026 be another year of above-average returns, or will it be a year of disappointment? The bulls argue that the key ingredients for a sustained rally are in place. A powerful technology cycle, aggressive corporate spending, and supportive policy measures all point […]

Power Diverted From Data Centers To Households Across PJM Network Amid Historic Freeze The massive winter storm that disrupted US energy production, sparked the most flight cancellations since Covid, and paralyzed much of the eastern half of the country for days is finally over. BofA chief economist Aditya Bhave has warned that the winter blast could deliver a meaningful hit to first-quarter GDP. However, the eastern half of the US […]