Republican California Sheriff Seizes Ballots In Election Probe Authored by Evgenia Filimianova via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running to be the next California governor, has seized more than half a million ballots from a November 2025 special election on redistricting, triggering a political and legal confrontation with state officials. Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County […]

US PMIs Signal Stagflation Fears Accelerating As War Started With ‘hard’ US macro data having drifted weaker all year, consensus was expecting only a modest decline in S&P Global’s US Composite index in preliminary March data (that presumably will be affected in some part by the war and its consequences). The consensus was right, but the picture was mixed with Manufacturing PMI surprising to the upside (52.4 vs 51.5 exp vs 51.6 […]

“Awful News”: Nintendo Shares Get ‘Donkey Konged’ After Switch 2 Production Cut Nintendo shares in Tokyo tumbled overnight after Bloomberg reported that the gaming company has slashed production of the Switch 2 handheld amid soft holiday-season demand and underwhelming U.S. sales. *NINTENDO CUTS SWITCH 2 OUTPUT BY OVER 30% ON WEAK HOLIDAY SALES wait, wasn’t this thing supposed to be as popular as chatgpt? — zerohedge […]

Art Of The Dream By Bas van Geffen, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank Trump’s 48-hour deadline turned into a weeklong one. Yesterday, the US president announced that he has “instructed the department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five day period.” President Trump says he delayed the actions following “very good and productive conversations” […]

Iranian Missiles Pound Israel Overnight After US Claims Progress On Talks; Tehran Appoints Larijani Successor, Cuts Gas Flows To Turkey Summary Backchannel diplomacy vs skepticism: Abbas Araghchi reportedly signaled openness to negotiations with the US via envoy Steve Witkoff, but Israel has appeared cool on deal prospects or offramp. Heavy exchange of fire and testing red lines: Iran continues missile and drone waves […]

Futures Drop As Oil, Yields Rise On Relentless War Headline Ping-Pong Futures are lower but well off session lows, as overnight headlines induced another bout of aggressive choppiness: those headlines include strikes on Iranian gas facilities, Saudi and UAE considering entering the war, Iranian lawmaker ruling out US negotiations, and then reports of Iran / Egypt discussions on the region pointing toward mediation.As of 8:00am ET, […]

Senators Close To Deal To End Airport TSA Crisis As Americans’ Fury Mounts With no-shows by unpaid TSA agents imposing hours-long security-line waits and missed flights on flyers at major airports across the country, senators on Monday night signaled that a deal to end the TSA crisis is finally within sight. The leap toward a deal followed a White House meeting of a group of Republican senators hosted by President Trump. “It […]

Dry Van Spot Rates Highest Since 2022 As Spring Tightens Capacity Submitted by FreightWaves, The freight market momentum is building at a rapid clip. National dry van spot rates — tracked via the SONAR National Truckload Index, the 7-day moving average of booked rates including fuel — have broken out to a new cycle high of $2.89 per mile. This represents the strongest level since 2022 and confirms the market’s shift […]

Wall Street’s Trillion-Dollar Bet On “Tax Alpha” Tax alpha — the practice of improving investment returns by reducing taxes — has become one of the fastest-growing strategies on Wall Street, according to Bloomberg.  Rather than focusing only on beating the market, many investment firms now design portfolios to minimize taxes, often producing higher after-tax returns even if pre-tax performance is similar to traditional […]

Amazon Data Centers “Disrupted” Across Bahrain After Drone Activity Brent crude futures are back in triple-digit territory as fighting in the Middle East continued overnight, even as President Trump claimed that talks are underway with Iran to resolve the conflict, which has now entered its fourth week. Overnight, the Amazon Web Services in the Bahrain region was severely “disrupted,” according to Reuters, citing an Amazon […]

Israel, US Strike Gas Facilities In Iran’s Isfahan, Possibly Triggering Retaliation Against Gulf Summary Israel, US strike gas pipeline, distribution station in Iran Trump announces “productive” talks with Iran, “postpones” military strikes for 5 days Iran Foreign Ministry + Parliament speaker say no talks have happened, after Trump said “speaking with a top person in Iran”, says will “just keep bombing” if Iran talks […]

International Energy Agency Pushes Rationing Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times, The International Energy Agency in Paris has released a new and urgent document that it wishes all nations with energy struggles to adopt. Many are doing that now. The website even maintains a spreadsheet updated daily to celebrate the countries that are following its plan for controlling energy use. Before explaining why none of this […]

America’s Top War Unicorn To Begin Combat Drone Production As Next-Gen Startups Challenge Big Defense Primes Weaponized AI, interceptor drones, automated kill chains, ground robots armed with machine guns, humanoid robots, and FPVs equipped with shaped charges all offer a scary preview of what warfare in the 2030s was expected to look like. Instead, four years of war in Ukraine, followed by the U.S.-Iran conflict, have sharply […]

Iceland Strips Father Of Custody After Questioning Gender Transitioning Of His Minor Child Authored by Jonathan Turley, We just discussed the horrifying story of a Christian family in Sweden who have been unable to regain custody of their daughters after the government declared them religious extremists. In Iceland, a father has been stripped of his parental rights after speaking out against his 11-year-old autistic son‘s sex […]

Watch: McDonald’s Restaurant Rolls Out Robots To Greet, Serve Customers A McDonald’s restaurant in Shanghai is trialling a team of humanoid robots as staff, offering a glimpse into what is likely to be the future of fast-food, Digitaltrends reports. The robots, developed by Keenon Robotics, were spotted at a McDonald’s in the Shanghai Pudong New Area, where they picked up orders from customers at the front counter using a […]

Russia-Linked Arms Trafficker, Corrupt African Officials Tried To Supply Mexican Cartel With Surface-To-Air Missiles Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper (emphasis our own),  Federal prosecutors in Virginia have charged four men — a Bulgarian arms trafficker with ties to the notorious Russian weapons dealer Viktor Bout, and several African co-conspirators with connections to the governments of Uganda and Tanzania — with […]

Chinese Containership Is First To Pay Iran For “Safe Passage” Through Strait As Iraqi Tanker Crosses With Signal Off The blockaded Strait of Hormuz is getting progressively less “blockaded” by the day. Over the weekend we reported that “Iran was Ready To Let Japanese Ships Use Hormuz As Chinese, Indian Tankers Already Allowed Passage.” We can now add Iraq to the growing list of nations whose vessels are transiting the infamous […]

Second Youth-Center Gang-Rape Case Emerges As Cover-Up Fears Grow In Germany Via Remix News, A mother in Lower Saxony who found a disturbing video on her daughter’s phone that revealed that she was gang raped inside a church-run youth center by three teens, including a Syrian, Iranian, and Dutch national, in Gnarrenburg. However, once the story came out, it only grew darker, as it was revealed that staff, church officials and […]

Oil Jumps After Explosion And Massive Fire At One Of The Largest US Oil Refineries An explosion and large plumes of smoke at the Valero refinery in Port Arthur prompted officials to order west-side residents to shelter in place according to 12 News Now.  🚨 Jefferson Co. Commissioner says “I’m asking people to stay tuned because if this chemical is deemed to be toxic or carcinogenic … then I guarantee we’re going to order […]

Israel’s Mossad Promised It Could Ignite Regime Change In Iran: Report Via Middle East Eye Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad had a plan to ignite public protests that would lead to the collapse of Iran’s government, the New York Times has reported. David Barnea, Mossad’s chief, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu days before the US and Israel began their war on Iran and told him that the agency would be […]

Working While You’re Collecting Social Security Authored by Anne Johnson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Choosing when to collect Social Security retirement benefits is a consequential decision. It will affect your finances for the rest of your life. You’ll be able to claim reduced retirement benefits as early as 62. Claiming Social Security early could cost you—especially if you’re still working. Rix Pix […]

Apollo Private Credit Fund Is Latest To Gate Investors As KKR Fund Gets Junked By Moody’s Amid the ongoing fracturing of the private credit industry, which after enjoying years of stable, levered growth (and when it ran out of institutional greater fools, it aimed lower, toward HNWs and retail) finally hit a brick wall thanks to the Claude-inspired SaaSpocalypse, which has led to a historic surge in redemption requests across the […]

Bovard: The Late Robert Mueller, Bill Of Rights Executioner Authored by Jim Bovard Obituaries on eminent Washingtonians usually omit the dreadful precedents they set that will vex Americans long after their death. Not this piece. Former FBI director Robert Mueller died last week at the age of 81. The New York Times eulogized him as a “button-down, lockjawed, rock-ribbed exemplar of a vanishing caste.” In reality, Mueller […]

FCC Bans Foreign-Made Wireless Routers The FCC has banned the import of all new foreign-made consumer wireless routers, citing “severe national security risks”. The decision, announced today, follows a White House-convened inter-agency review that determined these devices – primarily those manufactured overseas – pose unacceptable threats to US households, critical infrastructure, and the economy. Major brands like TP-Link […]

Chicago Approves 19% Hotel Tax To Fund Tourism Push The Chicago City Council has approved a plan to boost tourism marketing by raising hotel taxes. Under Ordinance 2026-0022544, the total tax rate on hotel rooms will increase from 17.5% to 19% in downtown and nearby areas, according to Fox News. The higher rate will apply to hotels with more than 100 rooms that choose to participate. The report says that alongside the tax […]