Goldman Flags Troubling Mortgage Delinquency Rise Across This U.S. Region Mortgage delinquencies fell slightly in March, with the first-lien delinquency rate declining to 3.35%, down 37 basis points from February, as seasonal factors and tax refunds supported borrowers. The real estate and mortgage industry outlet HousingWire cited Intercontinental Exchange’s May 2026 Mortgage Monitor report, which showed that while the overall […]

Treasury Department Alerts US Banks To Suspected Iranian Money Laundering Efforts Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes ​Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on May 11 issued an alert to financial institutions warning them of efforts by ​the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to evade sanctions. The U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington […]

Palmer Luckey’s Anduril Secures $5B At $61B Valuation To Supercharge Killer Drone Production Palmer Luckey’s Anduril announced a $5 billion Series H funding round at a $61 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. This comes as President Trump’s ‘war economy’ and the rise of ‘war unicorns’ gain momentum. Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf wrote in a statement about the Series H funding round, indicating the […]

Ireland Convicts 78-Year-Old Preacher For Preaching Near Abortion Clinic Authored by Jonathan Turley, Ireland is finally safe. Clive Johnston has been convicted and can no longer menace the public. Johnson, 78, is a retired pastor who committed the heinous offense of preaching near the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine. That was considered within the “safe access zone” under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access […]

U.S. Wheat Crop Forecast To Hit Half-Century Low As Drought Hits Breadbasket Chicago wheat futures surged on Tuesday, hitting two-year highs after the USDA’s latest WASDE report signaled a much tighter U.S. supply outlook than traders had anticipated. Production stress across America’s breadbasket is now converging with a megadrought and mounting fertilizer constraints, adding upward pressure on prices at a time when global food […]

IEA Revises 2026 Forecast: Global Oil Supply To Plunge Below Demand This Year Global oil demand is set to exceed supply in the current year amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, reversing previous projections of a surplus, OilPrice reports citing the latest IEA data. “With Hormuz tanker traffic still restricted, cumulative supply ​losses from Middle East Gulf producers already exceed 1 billion barrels with more than 14 […]

‘Obvious Dangers’: Gabbard Probing US Funding To International Biolabs Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other intelligence officials are investigating U.S. funding to overseas laboratories handling biological research. Initial searches of intelligence files showed that the U.S. government has provided money to more than 120 biolaboratories in more than 30 […]

WTI Holds Gains Despite Biggest SPR Drawdown In 45 Year History, Production Jumped Oil prices are higher this morning (extending its 8%-plus surge of the last three days) as Middle East tensions simmer and global stockpiles shrink at a record pace. WTI topped $103 and Brent crude traded near $108 a barrel, erasing its retreat earlier on Wednesday, after the IEA said global observed oil inventories declined at a rate of about 4 […]

Chinese Supertanker Sails Out Of Hormuz In Rare Exit As president Trump was on his way to China, a Chinese tanker appears to have exited the Strait of Hormuz as it sails toward an area where the US has enforced a blockade, ahead of talks between US President Donald Trump and counterpart Xi Jinping, Bloomberg reported today, citing ship-tracking data showing the VLCC moving south along the eastern side of the chokepoint. The […]

Two Empty Qatari LNG Tankers Head Toward Gulf After Weekend Hormuz Transit Breakthrough Bloomberg ship-tracking specialist Stephen Stapczynski has identified two empty Qatari LNG tankers, Al Gattara and Fraiha, transiting north toward the Gulf area after idling near Mauritius. This movement comes just days after a Qatari LNG carrier successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that Doha may be engaged in backchannel […]

Trump Says ‘Open Up China’ Before Landing In Beijing For Pomp-Filled Red Carpet Airport Welcome President Trump and his Air Force One entourage have arrived in Beijing on Wednesday, greeted by a lavish red carpet welcome. The American president was received by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, China’s ambassador to Washington Xie Feng, Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxuong, and US envoy to Beijing David Perdue. Reports […]

Trump Mulls ‘Operation Sledgehammer’ If Ceasefire Collapses, But Iran Has Re-Armed The Pentagon is considering renaming the war with Iran from “Operation Epic Fury” to “Operation Sledgehammer” if President Trump orders a renewed full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, according to an NBC News report published Tuesday. The report came on the eve of day 75 since the US and Israel launched the conflict. US sources touted to NBC that […]

Yields Spike As Producer Prices Explode Higher In April After yesterday’s hotter than expected CPI (driven in large part by Energy, but seeing some contagion into Services costs), this morning’s Producer Price print for April was expected to show a major surge in annual wholesale inflation. With the eight straight monthly increase, PPI rose by a massive 1.4% MoM (vs +0.5% MoM exp) – the biggest MoM jump since March 2022, lifting […]

UK Risk Spreads Oddly Calm As PM Starmer Faces Growing Threat Of Ouster Wes Streeting is reportedly poised to resign as UK health secretary and launch a formal challenge to UK PM Keir Starmer in a Labour Party election. Following a meeting with Starmer in Number 10 (which lasted just 16 minutes), an “ally” of the health secretary told The Times that Streeting was “going to go for it”. Around 100 Labour MPs have publicly […]

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 […]

Futures, Yields And Oil All Rise As Trump Arrives In China US equity futures are up (alongside oil and yields, go figure), reversing yesterday’s modest losses, as optimism around the earnings potential of AI outweighs concerns over hot inflation readings bringing dip buyers back to drive tech stocks higher, with traders betting that the tech rally has further room to run while also hoping on good news from the Trump-Xi summit set to […]

Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US Iran on Tuesday revealed its demands in a counteroffer to the United States that President Trump shot down on Sunday, which has put the whole conflict and Pakistan-mediated talks in a holding pattern and stalemate, as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked. The demands hinge on war reparations, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to US […]

Anthropic Eyes $30B Raise At $900B Valuation As UBS Says Claude Is “Gaining Ground” AI is still where the money is flowing… A Bloomberg report late Tuesday revealed that Anthropic, the maker of Claude, is in early discussions with investors to raise at least $30 billion at an eye-popping valuation of nearly $900 billion. Clearly, this could become the largest funding round to date for founder Dario Amodei. The Claude maker […]

Parents Sent To Prison After Isolating Kids For Four Years Over COVID Fears Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A court in northern Spain has sentenced a couple to prison after they kept their three children confined indoors for nearly four years due to intense fears of Covid. The isolation, which began in December 2021 and continued until the children were rescued in April 2025, left the youngsters with significant […]

The Overhyped Nuclear Hazard America Has Mastered Nuclear waste remains one of the most misunderstood aspects of modern energy production in the United States. Critics continue to portray it as a dangerous, unsolvable problem, yet the country has managed it safely and effectively for decades with an impeccable safety record.  Spent fuel from commercial reactors sits securely in pools and dry casks at more than 70 sites across 35 […]