Stock Futures Slide As Doubts Over Ceasefire Send Oil Higher Stocks resumed their drop and oil erased about a third of its Wednesday drop as traders watched the fragile US-Iran ceasefire shatter by the hour, with both sides accusing the other of breaches while the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed and Israel intensified strikes on Lebanon. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures fell 0.4% after Bloomberg strategists said a […]

Pro-Iranian Hackers Breached US Infrastructure, Feds Say Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Pro-Iranian hackers have breached critical U.S. infrastructure, according to a joint warning issued Tuesday by several federal agencies. High voltage power lines run through a sub-station along the electrical power grid in Miami on Jan. 14, 2026. Joe Raedle/Getty Images The advisory came only hours ahead of […]

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 […]

Iran’s Tolling Regime On Hormuz Chokepoint Would Set “Dangerous Precedent,” IMO Warns The ceasefire deal in the six-week US-Iran conflict remained in doubt by late week, as Israel intensified its bombardment of Beirut, Tehran kept the Hormuz chokepoint closed, and negotiators prepared to meet on Friday even as both sides declared victory. Reports of attacks on one of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports, alongside the continued closure of […]

Even A 1% Bitcoin Allocation Can Drastically Reshape Portfolio Risk, Schwab Finds Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, A new research note from Charles Schwab is challenging a simple question many investors still ask: how much cryptocurrency is “right” for a portfolio. The answer, the firm argues, is less about prediction and more about psychology—specifically, how much volatility an investor can […]

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 […]

Iryna Zarutska’s Accused Killer Found Incompetent To Stand Trial In Charlotte Stabbing In a development that has reignited outrage over North Carolina’s handling of violent repeat offenders and the mentally ill, the man accused of savagely murdering Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train – saying “I got that white girl” – has been declared “incapable to proceed” with his state murder trial. […]

Is The Dollar Collapsing? 8 Key Indicators You Can’t Ignore Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com, There are eight key indicators to watch as the US government falls deeper into the self-perpetuating debt spiral. Indicator #1: Federal Budget Deficits The chart below shows the actual and projected federal budget deficits. It’s important to note that these projections rest on the ridiculous assumption that […]

Meteorologists Warn About Super El Nino Event Weather forecasters are sounding the alarm about what could become a “super” El Niño event, potentially one of the strongest on record. “Strongest El Niño on record this year?!” meteorologist Ben Noll wrote on X. Noll said the latest ECMWF outlook indicates a 75% chance of a super El Niño by October, with “some scenarios suggesting the most intense event in more than a century.” […]

Will Europe Have Its Own FBI? Polish MEP Sounds Alarm Over EU’s Planned Expansion Of Powers For Europol Via Remix News, Polish Law and Justice (PiS) MEP Mariusz Kamiński raises alarm about the European Commission’s plans to change Europol’s operations, warning that “the European Commission is quietly building EU law enforcement agencies,” reports Do Rzeczy. There are now fears that Europe could have its own FBI, with […]

Cost Of Living Dominates Many Nations’ Biggest Worries According to Statista Consumer Insights, prices and the cost of living are considered the biggest challenge in around half of the 32 countries included in a recent survey.  This is also true for United States, where the issue ranks first among the 18 surveyed options, with 50 percent citing it as a main concern. As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz shows in the chart below, the […]

Germany’s Energy Crisis And The National-Conservative Turn Submitted by Thomas Kolbe If the Union had been waiting for a favorable moment to save face and quietly escape the energy-policy fiasco, that moment has probably arrived. On Thursday, the European Parliament formed a broad coalition of the Union-backed EPP faction with the national conservatives. The goal: initiate a migration turnaround, prevent citizen chat controls, and […]

Sea Change: ‘Very Unfavorable’ Views of Israel Triple Among US Adults Amid a major war on Iran waged in partnership with the United States, Israel’s reputation among Americans has continued to deteriorate, with 60% of US adults viewing Israel unfavorably. That’s a hefty 18-point increase from 2022, according to a new survey from Pew Research. Over the same stretch, Israel’s “favorable” share cratered by 18 points.   While the […]

VP Vance Says Brussels’ Attempt To Sway Hungarian Vote Is “Worst Foreign Election Interference He’s Ever Seen” Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance used a high-profile appearance in Budapest alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to accuse Brussels of carrying out “one of the worst examples of foreign and election interference” he had ever seen, claiming EU officials had targeted Hungary […]

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 […]

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 […]