Chinese Refiners Pay Record Premiums For Russian ESPO Crude Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, Chinese refiners are paying a hefty premium for Russia’s ESPO crude to replace Iranian crude that independent refiners were importing before the U.S. installed its naval blockade on the country. East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude, or ESPO, for delivery in November is trading at a premium of over $7 per barrel, with offers reaching […]

Bibi Makes Crystal Clear That Toppling Iran Is Israel’s ‘Central Mission, Within Reach’ The Trump White House is reportedly looking to try and keep things ‘quiet’ related to the Iran war and Strait of Hormuz leading into the November midterms, after an intense flare-up in fighting this week. “Top aides to President Donald Trump are pushing to keep the Iran war from escalating before November’s midterm elections to staunch […]

China-Linked Hackers Hid In Cisco Routers, Stole Administrator Credentials: Report Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times, A China-linked cyberespionage group compromised Cisco routers and hid its activity from the network administrators who managed them, cybersecurity firm Sygnia said in an Aug. 27 report. The Cisco logo is displayed in front of Cisco headquarters in San Jose, Calif., on Feb. 9, 2024. Justin Sullivan/Getty […]

Democrats Cry Foul As DHS Launches Voter Fraud Probe In 9 States The Department of Homeland Security opened a coordinated voter fraud investigation across nine states this week, and Democratic election officials are not taking the news well… CNN reported that internal federal guidance directs Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to build criminal cases against people […]

Asian LNG Prices Surge To Highest Since 2022 As Iran War Escalates Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, Spot LNG prices for Asian buyers went up to almost $26 per million British thermal units yesterday for a 5% weekly gain following the resumption of strikes between the United States and Iran. Spot LNG for Asia traded at $25.908 per mmBtu late on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed traders, after President Donald […]

Mamdani Has A Nearly 200 Person “Influencer Network” Sometimes Paid Using Taxpayer Money A new investigation is putting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s social media operation under scrutiny after revealing that City Hall has cultivated a network of nearly 200 online creators to help distribute information about the administration, according to the New York Post. The Columbia Journalism Review reports that members of the network receive […]

1,000 Days Of Milei Authored by Michael Talbot via BondVigilantes.com, One thousand days is a long time in politics… When I wrote about Javier Milei’s first 100 days in office, Argentina was embarking on yet another attempt to break free from a cycle that had become painfully familiar: fiscal excess, monetary financing, inflation, capital controls and, eventually, crisis. Markets were optimistic, but they had been optimistic […]

Biden Judge Blocks Trump’s Latest Birthright Citizenship Order Two months after the Supreme Court gutted President Trump’s first-day order ending automatic citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors, a Maryland federal judge has now blocked the narrower follow-up that targeted the actual business model: birth tourism. Migrants, including a pregnant Haitian woman seeking to give birth in the United States, are […]

DOJ Adds Walmart, Costco, Amazon To Beef Price Probe Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times, The Justice Department has added eight major grocery chains to its beef affordability investigation. Ground beef for sale at a supermarket. Nata.dobrovolskaya/Shutterstock The announcement came Tuesday in a post from the department’s official X account. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward sent the retailers the letters […]

Putin Floats ‘Chance’ At Peace, While Ukraine Cites ‘New Dynamic’ To Get To Table Russian President Putin is this week attending the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where he has issued key statements and at times fielded questions from the press. Among the most important questions asked from the press pool were on the matter of whether peace in the Ukraine conflict is still possible, given that this very week things have […]

OpenAI President Declares The “AGI Era” Has Officially Begun OpenAI President Greg Brockman said Thursday that he believes the company has reached artificial general intelligence, and that its latest model, GPT-6 Astra, marks the beginning of the so-called “AGI era,” according to Axios. Greg Brockman Photographer: Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg Speaking to reporters, Brockman called Astra a “generational leap” and said it could […]

Leon Black Sues Congress To Avoid Epstein Testimony Between 2012 and 2017 – after Jeffrey Epstein got out of prison – billionaire Leon Black paid him roughly $170 million. Black has not provided a credible explanation as to why he paid Epstein amounts vastly exceeding those paid to other professional advisors – and instead of sitting down to explain it to Congress on Thursday, he sued the House Oversight Committee.  Recall, […]

FBI Investigating Report Of Millions Of Driver’s Licenses Sold On Dark Web Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times, The FBI said Wednesday it is investigating a site on the dark web after reports it was selling more than 150 million U.S. and Canadian driver’s licenses. Among them was the license information of the assistant director of the FBI. Driving licenses from different USA states. Shutterstock “The FBI can confirm […]

Dave Smith: “Israel Is On The Ballot And Israel Is About To Deliver Us Socialism” Last night’s debate on the Iran war brought together Alan Dershowitz and libertarian Dave Smith for a wide-ranging clash over Iran, Israel, and … you guessed it: Antisemitism!  Dershowitz defended the case for confronting Iran while calling Smith a racist, bigot, and an important part of the “2000 year history” of antisemitism. Smith made a […]

The Elephant In The Canadian Room Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness, At first glance, the current American-Canadian trade “war” is absurd. We are neighbors with a long history of close friendship, speak the same language (for the most part), and spring from the same British civilization. Nearly one million Canadians reside in the United States. Given the two countries’ natural affinities, Canadians are […]

Is Uber Weaponizing Labor Unions To Slow Robotaxi Rivals Ride-hailing giant Uber is reportedly aligning with drivers’ unions in several cities to slow robotaxi deployments and promote regulations requiring “hybrid networks” that combine autonomous vehicles with human drivers, according to the Financial Times. The unholy alliance is taking shape in states and cities including New Jersey and Washington, DC, where Uber and organized […]

Is Geothermal Energy The Next Hidden AI Power Trade Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance Before I get into today’s idea, let me remind readers that I believe there is a very real chance that the AI boom could be coming to an end later this year and into early next year. I detailed my thoughts on why the AI boom could end in an article called “The Real AI Crash Will Start This Year” that I published two weeks ago. I […]

Trump Rages Against ‘Treasonous Scum’ In Media For Iran War Coverage President Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to rage against US media coverage of the Iran war (not for the first time), following Treasury Scott Bessent giving similar scathing remarks earlier this week. Trump particularly singled out recent and ongoing reports of US missile and interceptor shortages, which he has slammed as false. He called out the […]

All Bubbles End In Deflation Authored by Bill Bonner via DailyReckoning.com, We begin this week’s perambulations with a stroll into the future. So far…the Bubble in the US is broader than any in history. It has been inflating everything it touched for the last 30 years. All bubbles pop, of course. How they pop is the confusing whirlwind we enter today. But don’t worry. Even in the worst crash, real wealth doesn’t […]

‘Crisis Preparedness’: Dutch Move Billions In Gold Out Of US As Goldman Warns Of ‘Geographic Concentration Risk’ The Netherlands’ central bank transferred nearly 90 metric tons of gold bars from the United States and Canada to Britain amid growing concerns of “increasing geopolitical unrest,” according to CNBC. “With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves. We expect that we will never need to use […]

Rogan To Lindsey Clancy Fans: Look At The Crime Scene Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News, Joe Rogan has had enough of the women lining up outside a Massachusetts courthouse in pink to cheer a mother who strangled her three children to death. Sitting with comedian Brian Simpson, he refused to accept the “Free Lindsay” spectacle as a mental-health awareness campaign. He treated it as a grotesque inversion of basic human […]

‘Non-Market’: The One Word That Blew Up The G20 Communiqué On Tuesday we reported that China had derailed the G20’s joint communiqué in Asheville, with a senior US official telling the FT the impasse “came down to a few words.” It turns out one word did most of the damage. According to Bloomberg – operating out of Hong Kong because they were banned from the event by Treasury – the decisive sticking point was the term “non-market” […]

Baltic Dry Index Nears Breakout As “Perfect Storm” In Global Shipping Emerges The daily benchmark measuring the cost of shipping raw materials across major global maritime routes is breaking out to a nearly three-year high this week, as Bloomberg reports that typhoons are squeezing the supply of Capesize vessels just as mining companies increase iron ore shipments across the Pacific and Atlantic. The Baltic Dry Index, which tracks […]

NYC Bans AI For Public Elementary, Middle Schools For 2026-2027 Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has placed a one-year moratorium on classroom use of generative artificial intelligence tools for pre-K-8 grades, and all public high school students will be required to complete AI awareness refresher courses twice a year. “Just because technology is everywhere, doesn’t mean it […]

“Save Us From Our Traitor Gov’t”: Massive Madrid Protests Erupt Over Socialist Regime’s Handling Of Ceuta Invasion Spain’s Ceuta border invasion has morphed into a major political headache for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Tens of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid to protest the government’s handling of the crisis, potentially accelerating the political shift identified by Nomura analysts, who expect […]