The Great Retreat: Beijing’s Digital Currency Ambitions Are Faltering Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), For years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has positioned the digital yuan (e-CNY) as the ultimate weapon of financial totalitarianism. It was intended to be the crowning achievement of the surveillance state. With a programmable, traceable digital currency, Beijing thought it would finally break the […]

Federal Appeals Court Allows Pentagon To Designate Anthropic As A Supply-Chain Risk In a significant development for the intersection of artificial intelligence policy and national security, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled on April 8 that the Department of War may designate Anthropic as a supply-chain risk while a full judicial review plays out. The decision came after the AI company sought an emergency stay to block the […]

Liberals Advance Bill That Could Criminalize Quoting The Bible As Hate Speech Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Canada is barreling toward a chilling new reality where quoting certain Bible passages could be treated as a criminal hate speech offense. Bill C-9, the so-called Combatting Hate Act, cleared the House of Commons on March 25 and now moves to the Senate.  Critics say the legislation guts a decades-old legal […]

China Produces “Baby Shahed” Kamikaze Drones For $500 China’s manufacturing base is now churning out short-range, low-cost kamikaze drones priced at under $500 per unit, which X user PLA Military Updates has described as “Baby Shahed” drones. According to the post, the so-called Baby Shahed costs around 3,000 yuan (about $450), has a range of 20 to 30 kilometers, flies at roughly 200 kilometers per hour, and can be launched by […]

Raising A Child Now Costs About $303,000: Study Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times, Parents who start raising a child in 2026 will spend around $303,418 from birth to 18 years old, according to a study published April 6 by Lending Tree. The cost increased 1.9 percent from last year. The average annual cost works out to about $16,857 over 18 years, pushing this year’s estimate over $300,000 for the first time […]

“Shocking Levels Of Distress”: CMBS Delinquencies Unexpectedly Soar To Covid Highs With market focused on private credit as the next credit market crisis vortex, many have forgotten that CMBS, the asset class that was smashed in the aftermath of covid as hundreds of office buildings were suddenly left vacant, has been teetering on the edge for years. For some, it proved to be a lucrative bet as the “next big short” after various […]

“It’s Our Nature”: Colorado Doubles Down On New Assaults On The First Amendment Authored by Jonathan Turley, Colorado’s tourism slogan, “it’s our nature,” has a menacing meaning for free speech advocates. Colorado is now arguably the most anti-free speech state in the union, pushing an array of measures attacking those with opposing social and political views. The irony is that the state has proved a bonanza for free speech […]

S&P Slashes New Orleans’ Credit Rating On “Structurally Imbalanced Operations” New Orleans, home to Mardi Gras and muffulettas, has been governed by Democrats for decades, so it should come as little surprise that S&P Global Ratings has slashed the city’s obligation rating to the third-lowest level of investment grade and placed it on a negative outlook. S&P Global Ratings cut New Orleans’ general obligation rating by […]

SAVE America Act Has Failsafe To Ensure Enforcement Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Tucked away in the stalled SAVE America Act is a provision meant to ensure that its proof-of-citizenship requirement would be enforced even if future administrations would choose not to. The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on March 17, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times The bill, which passed the House in February […]

“There Goes Your Inventory”: Disgruntled Worker Sets Fire To Million-Square-Foot Toilet Paper Warehouse Dramatic footage appears to show an act of industrial sabotage at a one-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark distribution center in Ontario, California. A third-party warehouse worker was arrested on suspicion of felony arson shortly after the devastating six-alarm fire on Tuesday morning, which destroyed all of the warehouse’s […]

Our Post-Truth, Post-Trust World Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, A system that comes to depend on synthetic signaling for its “information” is doomed to Model Collapse, as its signaling has completely detached from the real world. That we inhabit a post-truth world seems to accepted wisdom. But that’s only half of it. We also live in a post-trust world. In a post-truth world, everything is shaped by the […]

Trump Mulls Punishing NATO Allies By Pulling US Troops Over Lack Of Iran Help The Trump White House is mulling ways to ‘punish’ NATO allies for not stepping up to support the US Iran campaign, and for staying on the sidelines after Trump’s repeat appeals to create a coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. This could include pulling protective American forces, and US military hardware, from NATO partner countries. It would impact […]

California Supreme Court Orders “Rogue” Sheriff To Pause Election Fraud Probe Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco was ordered by the California Supreme Court on April 8 to halt his investigation into 2025 election fraud allegations so the judges can review the legal challenges that his probe faces. Bianco, a Republican who is running for California governor, seized more than half a […]

Exxon Warns Of $6.5 Billion Hit From Iran War As Q1 Earnings Set To Print Slightly Below Consensus In an early clue how the Iran war will impact energy earnings, ExxonMobil warned of a $6.5bn hit to Q1 earnings from the Iran war but said the bulk of this was the result of unfavorable timing for its accounting of hedging contracts, which would be offset as underlying transactions were eventually completed. The US supermajor also […]

Justice Department Counters Russian Military Intelligence Unit Attack On US Targets Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Justice Department and FBI on Tuesday revealed they have conducted a court-approved technical operation to neutralize part of a network of small office and home office routers in the United States that become commandeered by a unit of Russia’s military intelligence. The Department […]

Sen. Graham Urges Congressional Iran Vote…On Approving Peace, Not War This is definitely in you really can’t make this up(!) territory… Sen. Lindsey Graham is actually calling for a Congressional vote, but not concerning a War Powers Resolution.  Instead, he has called for Congress to review and vote on any diplomatic agreement ending the war with what he described as the “Iranian terrorist regime.” That’s right, the NeoCon […]

The New Financial Iron Curtain: Taxes, Capital Controls, & The War On Your Wealth Authored by Chris Macintosh via InternationalMan.com, There is a term called “gating” in the fund management world. It refers to blocking investors from redeeming their funds. Funds do this sometimes as a precaution… and other times when they are in the poo. Well, governments are the same. When they are in the poo, they also resort to […]

No Real People Were Polled: AI Is Now Fabricating What “The Public Thinks” The other day Axios ran a piece that cited “findings” that a majority of people trusted their doctors and nurses. Turns out, those “findings” were completely fabricated by a company called Aaru – using AI (causing Axios to issue an editor’s note and ‘clarification’)Aaru uses something they call “silicon sampling,” where large language models (the AI) […]

Why China Might Have Pressed Iran To Compromise With The US Authored by Andrew Korybko, The sequence that Trump threatened if no deal was reached before the expiry of his deadline would have cut China off from half of the oil that it imported by sea last year and likely set Afro-Eurasia aflame in resource wars for the indefinite future that would have derailed China’s superpower rise. Three unnamed Iranian officials reportedly […]

Vance Warns Iranians Ahead Of Pakistan Talks: US “Has All The Cards” & “We Want The Nuclear Fuel” Summary:  Vice President Vance (who’s been tapped to lead talks) warns Iranians: Trump “has all the cards” and cannot have a nuclear weapon. Follows Pentagon/WH declaring “total victory”. Iran says it has upper-hand. US, Iran agree to meet for first direct talks in Islamabad. Situation fragile given that Iran is […]

Stablecoin Yields Won’t Harm Banks, White House Economists Say Authored by Amin Haqshanas via CoinTelegraph.com, A White House report found that banning yield on stablecoins would have a marginal impact on bank lending while creating clear economic downsides. According to the Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member agency within the Executive Office of the President tasked to offer the president economic advice, moving […]

Mexico Truckers Block Key Freight Routes In Nationwide Strike By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves, A nationwide strike by Mexican truckers and farmers blocked major highways and freight corridors across Mexico on Monday, disrupting access to Mexico City, industrial zones and several U.S.-Mexico border crossings. The protest, organized by the National Association of Transporters (ANTAC) and the National Front for the Rescue of the […]

Kevin Plank’s Unsellable Thoroughbred Race Farm Sees Another Deep Price Cut Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank has once again cut the asking price on his massive thoroughbred racing farm in northern Baltimore County, Maryland, as the historic farm – once owned by the Vanderbilt family – continues to sit on the market amid a series of deep price cuts. Plank has been winding down his sprawling real estate portfolio, offloading everything […]

FOMC Minutes Signal Fed Saw “Dual Sided” Risks From Iran War Since the last FOMC meeting (March 18th), a lot has happened (war, more war, and now less war), and rate-change expectations hawkishly surged, then dovishly normalized today… And given the last 24 hours, perhaps this information is more useful now, as we return to macro-fundamentals from geopolitical chaos running markets. The minutes, released three weeks after the […]

Trader Makes $23 Million In One Day With Massive S&P Call Purchase Hours Before Ceasefire A trader who made a large bet on a stocks rocketing in the coming weeks is up about $23 million in paper profit today, according to Bloomberg. The unknown trader spent $12 million premium on 6800 lots of 6950 S&P 500 Index Options (SPX) calls for May 8 expiry, when the index was at 6556.21; the trade was executed around 10:20 a.m. […]