Iran’s Ghalibaf Tells Iranians ‘Unify’ As US Blockade Seeks To ‘Make Us Collapse From Within’ Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has since the war’s start and prior assassinations of top leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei become the most visible figurehead representing the Islamic Republic to the world, has continued trolling the United States even as President Trump is renewing fresh military strikes amid […]

GDP Shocker: 75% Of US Growth In The First Quarter Was Due To AI On the surface, today’s Q1 GDP print was unremarkable: Real GDP grew 2.0% annualized in the first quarter, somewhat below consensus expectations of 2.3% and reflecting a surprisingly small rebound in government spending after the shutdown drag in Q4. Federal government spending contributed only half as much to real GDP growth in Q1 (+0.6%) as it subtracted in Q4 […]

DeSantis Rolls Out Redistricting Map – Partisan Framing May Put It In Legal Peril Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rolled out a proposed redistricting map for the state this week, but the way he did it could give ammunition to lawyers mounting inevitable legal challenges that will follow the map’s expected approval by the legislature, both Democratic and Republican observers say. Some Republican legislators are uneasy with DeSantis’ […]

Breaking The Stalemate By Bas van Geffen, Senior Macro strategist at Rabobank Energy prices continue their ascend –with Brent futures trading above $124/barrel – after media report that the US may try to break the stalemate in the US-Iran war by force. Axios reports that military leaders will brief Trump on potential military options today. Reportedly, the Pentagon is preparing a wave of “short and powerful” strikes on […]

Fidelity, Vanguard Halt Donations To SPLC After Federal Indictment Fidelity and Vanguard have stopped processing donations to the Southern Poverty Law Center through their donor-advised fund platforms, citing the organization’s recent federal indictment on fraud charges. The moves came April 29, eight days after a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted the SPLC on 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a bank, and […]

The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles In America Authored by Wolf Richter via Wolf Street, In 27 of the 33 big and expensive cities we track here, mid-tier home prices in March were down from their respective peaks in prior years, led by Austin (-26%), Oakland (-25%), and New Orleans (-19%). Now also filtering into these mid-tier home prices is the “mansion shortage” in San Francisco, the epicenter of the AI investment bubble. […]

Caterpillar’s Parabolic Rise Continues As AI Boom Supercharges Generator Sales Hyperscalers are deploying as much as $725 billion in capital expenditures this year, primarily on AI data center buildouts, and it comes as no surprise that Caterpillar posted solid first-quarter earnings, as surging on-site power demand has created a boom for the company’s power-generation business. CAT is one of the world’s biggest makers of machines […]

Political Violence And The Willful Self-Deception Of The Left Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearPolitics, Violence motivated by political differences has emerged as a defining, if alarming, feature of 21st -century American civil life. Neither side in our nation’s increasingly dangerous ideological divide has a monopoly. But one side, the Democratic Party and its allies, refuses to acknowledge the increase in mayhem from […]

Oil Spikes As Israeli Defense Chief Says ‘Required To Act Again’ In Striking Iran, Achieving Objectives Summary Israeli Defense Minister Katz: “soon we will need to act again in Iran to ensure that the regime cannot threaten Israel for years to come.” Oil spikes on this and new reports of Israeli defense build-up at ports, air hubs. Not giving up nuclear program: Iran will “guard” its “advanced technologies” like it does its […]

California Gas Tops $6 As “Big Prices Hike Expected” Across Great Lakes Region The statewide average for 87-octane gasoline in California has topped $6 a gallon as the Iran-war-driven global energy crunch ripples across the West Coast, the hardest-hit U.S. region. Meanwhile, the national average remains above the politically sensitive $4-a-gallon threshold, hovering around $4.30, according to AAA data as of Thursday morning. It’s […]

Senator Finds More Evidence Federal Officials Evaded FOIA Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A U.S. senator and his team say they have uncovered additional evidence that federal officials worked to evade requests made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks during an interview with The Epoch Times at his office in the Hart Senate office building in Washington on […]

Japan Intervened In FX Market To Buy Yen With Brent surging to a new post war high overnight, rising as high as $125 on fear of an imminent resumption of hostilities in Iran, which dragged yields higher, and also pushed the USDJPY above 160 for the first time since late March, overnight Japan made clear – again – it wouldn’t take it any more, with the usual round of jawboning. *KATAYAMA: WE ARE MONITORING FX MARKET WHILE YOU ARE ON […]

In Major Victory For Gun Owners, ATF Unleashes 34-Rule Reform Package – Brace Rule Dead In what can only be described as one of the biggest single-day victories for the Second Amendment in decades, the DOJ and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives dropped a bombshell yesterday: a landmark package of 34 regulatory actions designed to slash red tape, repeal overreaches, modernize outdated rules, and refocus the agency on […]

Education Department Probes Stanford Over Alleged Racial Discrimination Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has initiated an investigation into Stanford University to determine whether one of its programs is racially discriminatory and violates Title VI. Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on July 31, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times […]

“Low Hire, No Fire”: Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Plunge To Record Low We have gone from a “low hire, low fire” economy to “AI chatbot hire, no fire.” We joke, but really there is no other way to explain what is going on here: this morning the Dept of Labor reported that in the week ended April 25, jobless claims fell 26k to 189k (from an upward revised 215k), compared with median est. 212k. And… are you sitting down… this was […]

Heavily Shorted Hertz Soars On Uber Robotaxi Deal Heavily shorted shares of rental-car company Hertz are soaring in premarket trading after the company announced a partnership with Uber Technologies to scale both autonomous robotaxi and driver-led rideshare operations. Hertz’s Oro Mobility unit will be used as a fleet-management system for Uber’s next-generation mobility network of autonomous robotaxis. This means Oro will […]

Core PCE Rises Most In 3 Years; Savings Rate Tumbles As Spending Far Outpaces Income The Fed’s favorite inflation indicator – Core PCE – rose 0.3% MoM in January (as expected), a dip from the 0.4% sequential increase in February, with YoY rising by 3.2% (also as expected), slightly higher than the 3.0% in Feb. That is the highest annual increase in Core PCE since Nov 2023.  The headline PCE jumped notably more, as expected […]

Those Big, Beautiful Bonds Authored by Robert Aro via the Mises Institute, The U.S. Government sells debt on a revolving door basis, yet most people aren’t aware of the mechanism by which this is done. Luckily, ZeroHedge covers the debt auction results, which allows us to articulate one of the structural problems in the Federal Reserve system. As reported last week: The week’s lone coupon auction priced at 1pm when the […]

Russia Says UAE’s ‘OPECxit’ Won’t Spark Immediate Price War Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, downplayed fears that the UAE’s planned OPEC exit will trigger an immediate oil price war and race to the bottom.  “In the current situation, what kind of price war can there be when there is a shortage in the market?” Novak said, adding with the Strait of Hormuz remaining all but […]

ECB Holds Rates At 2%, As Expected, With Stagflation Looming The European Central Bank kept interest rates unchanged, as expected, with officials signaling they need more time to assess the extent of the Iran war’s jolt to the economy. The deposit rate was left at 2%, where it’s been since June 2025 and in line with the predictions of all analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The ECB offered no guidance on future decisions, […]

Futures Jump After Overnight Rollercoaster Session As Oil Unexpectedly Tumbles, Yen Soars Futures erase an overnight slide, and have resumed their ascent trading near all time highs, despite a hawkish Fed statement but stronger Mag7 earnings. The hawkish Fed followed by a less hawkish press conference, plus the news that Powell is staying on seemingly removing a cut, actually have bond yields lower pre-mkt by 2-4bp as the Dollar […]

Growing Division In Iran’s ‘Hardline Camp’ Emerges Over Halting All Talks With US It remains difficult to know what’s really going on inside Iran, and to accurately assess the state of the country’s internal politics, but Financial Times describes a situation of hardliners vs. moderates duking it out to see whether negotiations with the United States should continue. The report comes well after President Trump and the White House […]

Welcome To Another Diverse Day In The UK… Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Two shocking incidents unfolding on the same day lay bare the consequences of unchecked mass immigration and a multiculturalism experiment gone wrong in Britain. In Crewe, police mounted a massive raid on an Islamic sect accused of running a compound rife with modern slavery, forced marriages, and sexual abuse. Meanwhile, in London, a […]

Humanoid Robots Enter The Workforce. How Long Before Workers Revolt? The emergence of the humanoid robotics industry worldwide continues to gather pace. UBS analyst Phyllis Wang noted some of the most recent developments: The 2026 Beijing Humanoid Robot Half-marathon Race reflected the advancement of hardware technology; We are seeing financing accelerate among some companies, including several OEMs focusing on robotics AI and […]

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 […]