US Govt Settles With Former NYT Reporter In Biden/Twitter Censorship Case Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, The U.S. government has reached a settlement with a former New York Times reporter who was kicked off Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic for posts about vaccines. Officials in a settlement agreement dated May 11 and obtained by The Epoch Times said that the government “did in fact violate the First […]

Cuba Depletes Fuel As Blackouts Worsen, Putting Havana’s Communists Under Pressure Ahead Of U.S. Talks Today’s news cycle centers on President Donald Trump’s summit and state banquet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with early messaging from both sides pointing to a constructive first day. Once Trump concludes his China trip, if a peace deal emerges to de-escalate the Iran conflict – likely with Beijing leaning on Tehran to […]

Florida & Texas Lead Jobless Claims Rebound From Near Record Lows The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time rose last week to 211k (more than the 205k expected), but remain well within the range of the last five years, near record lows… Source: Bloomberg Florida and Texas saw the biggest rise in initial claims while California and Michigan saw the largest declines… Continuing jobless […]

Iran Proclaims Safe, Toll-Free Passage For 30 Chinese Tankers Amid Xi-Trump Summit During President Trump’s ongoing state visit to China, he and President Xi Jinping agreed that the ‌Strait of ‌Hormuz must be open for ‌the ⁠free flow of energy. They along with their senior officials have expressed agreement that no country can ​be allowed to exact shipping tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. Following this, Thursday saw […]

Despite Record Low Sentiment, US Retail Sales See Strongest Annual Gain In 8 Months After a big jump in March, retail sales likely cooled in April, according to BofA’s almost omniscient forecast as they see spending on gasoline providing a smaller boost and auto sales moderating, after an early Easter pulled forward some seasonal demand into March. The “holiday shift” dynamic also may have contributed to softer activity after […]

Futures At New Record High On Tech, Tehran, Trade, Taiwan And Tariffs US futures are higher as we await color on the Trump-Xi summit and US- Iran negotiations, which are said to be ongoing, and as the tech meltup continues. What is known so far is that Trump / Xi agree that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, Hormuz should reopen without a toll or militarization; the countries will look to increase investment in each other as NVDA […]

‘Lost Confidence In Leadership’: UK PM Starmer ‘Out’ Odds Jump As Wes Streeting Resigns With UK PM Starmer’s leadership under increasing scrutiny, UK Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has issued a statement via social media that he is resigning his post. Streeting says that while there are good reasons to remain in post, he has lost confidence in Starmer’s leadership: “As you know from our conversation earlier this week, […]

Netflix Sued By Texas For Allegedly Spying On Children Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times, Global video streaming service Netflix has been sued by the Texas attorney general’s office for allegedly collecting consumer data from children and adults without their knowledge or consent. In a May 11 statement, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Netflix of spying on consumers by intentionally tracking and logging […]

Rate Hikes Are Coming… Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance What a week for macroeconomic data. We got two horrific datapoints this week that, when combined with some key comments from days ago, seem to be pushing the Fed closer to rate hikes than they’ve been in a long while. The case for rate hikes is no longer some fringe tail risk like it felt it was a year ago as inflation numbers (though still high) appeared to be coming […]

Europe’s Dependence On US LNG Set To Surge By Irina Slav of OilPrice.com The European Union’s dependence on liquefied natural gas from the United States is set to rise significantly, reaching 80% of all LNG imports in two years, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has warned. In a report cited by Reuters, IEEFA noted that the European Union already imports significant volumes of U.S. liquefied gas, […]

Trump, Xi Put Hormuz, Iran, Trade, Taiwan At Center Of Historic Beijing Summit President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are currently seated at the main table at a state banquet. President Xi called the visit historic, and said U.S.-China ties are “stable” amid talks with Trump’s team. President Xi offers a toast at the state banquet dinner in Beijing: “To the bright future of China-U.S. relations, and the friendship […]

Why UBS Is Bullish On Take-Two Ahead Of Grand Theft Auto VI Launch UBS analysts reiterated that Take-Two Interactive is their top U.S. gaming pick, with the highly anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI still scheduled for early November. “We recently framed TTWO as our top pick in the U.S. interactive gaming space,” analyst Christopher Schoell told clients. Schoell said, “Concerns around AI and the potential for a new wave […]

Bessent’s “Suffocating” Iranian Regime Strategy Materializes In Kharg Island Satellite Imagery Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s description of “suffocating” the Iranian regime through economic and financial pressure, whether via sanctions or the US military blockade of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoint, now appears to be showing up in the data. New geospatial intelligence indicates that Iran’s main crude export […]

“It’s Either Us Or Them’: Far-Left French Mayor Calls For Insurrection If Conservatives Win Presidential Election Via Remix News, If the National Rally (RN) candidate wins in the French presidential election next spring, far-left mayor Bally Bagayoko of multi-cultural Saint-Denis has said it will be invalid, calling for a “popular insurrection” if this were to occur. One social commentator on X, Alain Weber, posted frankly […]

The US Has Restarted Jungle Warfare In Panama After 25 Years For the first time in roughly 25 years, the US has restarted jungle warfare training in Panama, signaling a broader return of American military activity in Latin America, according to a new Bloomberg feature. At a rainforest training center near Colón, US troops practice survival techniques, patrol operations, casualty evacuations, and combat drills with Panamanian […]

Scientists Intentionally Trigger 8,000 Earthquakes Deep Beneath Swiss Alps Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Scientists at ETH Zurich university in Switzerland have deliberately induced around 8,000 seismic events deep underground in the Swiss Alps as part of an experiment called Fault Activation and Earthquake Rupture (FEAR-2). The team injected 750,000 litres of water into the ground via two boreholes over […]

US Wants To Restore Nord Stream & Purchase From Europeans At Steep Discount: Lavrov The Nord Stream pipelines have long slipped from headlines, apart from the occasional whodunnit narratives, and they have remained damaged and offline. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombings occurred on September 26, 2022 – but their future fate is still up in the air and being wrangled over, including by Washington. Russian […]

Dutch Asylum Center Burns On First Day Of New Arrivals After Weeks Of Protests Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, A fire was started in bushes outside an asylum center in the Dutch town of Loosdrecht on Tuesday evening, prompting a major police response after weeks of local protests against the facility. Protesters threw flares and fireworks onto the grounds of the building, which is located at the town hall on De […]

Emmanuel Macron Says France’s Fate Is “Tied To The African Continent” For anyone who doubts that “Multiculturalism” is the preeminent political religion of the new age, the rhetoric of the majority of the European ruling class consistently proves the case.  French President Emmanuel Macron was the co-host (with Kenyan President William Ruto) at the Africa Forward Summit this week in Kenya, where he repeated multicultural rhetoric […]

The UK’s New Multinational Naval Initiative Aims To Contain Russia In The Arctic & Baltic Authored by Andrew Korybko, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, head of the British Royal Navy, announced that his counterparts from the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Taskforce comprised of the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands agreed to create “a family of allied fleets”. Officially […]

Neocon Grandee Robert Kagan Issues Surprise Scathing Critique Of Iran War Via Middle East Eye Robert Kagan, one of the United States’ most prominent neoconservative voices and a long-time pro-Israel hawk, has warned that Washington is heading towards “total defeat” in its war on Iran – a setback he says “can neither be repaired nor ignored”. Writing in The Atlantic, Kagan said the damage inflicted by the conflict cannot […]

Mass Casualty Event After Israeli Airstrikes On Beirut Highway Another mass casualty event has occurred in Lebanon, as national media says that on Wednesday eight people died, including two children, when Israeli strikes targeted cars on a highway south of Beirut.  Israeli media itself described that “The three separate airstrikes were carried out well beyond the main theater of conflict in the south, targeting vehicles on the […]

The Hidden Cost To The American Worker From The AI Boom Authored by Steven Edginton via American Intelligence, While many warn that artificial intelligence itself will displace American workers, far less attention is paid to the fact that the very companies building AI are already replacing American employees with cheaper foreign labor. In many cases, though, the immediate threat to American workers is not the technology itself, […]

Israel’s Netanyahu Made Clandestine Trip To UAE During Height Of Iran War Amid the fog of the Iran conflict, some serious geopolitical chess moves were happening in the shadows, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu having slipped behind what were once enemy lines, into the the quarters of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for a clandestine summit which could help realign the region. “This visit has led to a historic […]

Trump Says Cuba Is Seeking Help: ‘We Are Going To Talk’ Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times, Cuba wants help, and the United States will hold talks with the communist island nation, President Donald Trump announced in a Tuesday post on Truth Social. He did not specify when those talks would take place. “No Republican has ever spoken to me about Cuba, which is a failed country and only heading in one direction—down! […]