US Official Cites ‘Glimmer Of Progress’ On Ceasefire After Trump Warns ‘A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight’ Summary:  Tehran Times: All communications with US side suspended – THEN ISSUES CORRECTION, REVERSES. This after Trump’s Tues. morning threat: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Axios cites “glimmer” of progress on negotiations. In a call with FOX’s Bret Baier, Trump says 8 […]

Russia, China Veto UN Res Authorizing Military Force To Reopen Hormuz Strait On Tuesday a UN Security Council resolution on opening the Strait of Hormuz failed due to Russia and China vetoing it. It was drafted by Bahrain and authorized countries to use military force if necessary to open the strait for the free flow of shipping and commerce. The resolution garnered 11 votes in favor, but permanent veto-wielding members China and […]

NY Fed: Inflation Expectations Jump, Driven By Surging Gas Ahead of Friday’s CPI report, inflation fears are already rising, with the NY Fed’s latest monthly survey of consumer expectations reporting that Inflation expectations at the one-year horizon were higher at 3.42% in March from the previous month’s 3.00%, matching the highest since April ’25. Inflation expectations also increased by 0.1% to 3.1% at the three-year-ahead […]

IMF Panics, Warns Tokenization Could Bring Crypto Risks Into Global Financial Markets Authored by Francisco Rodrigues via CoinDesk.com, Tokenization could reshape finance by enabling instant settlement and cutting out intermediaries, and introduces new risks that regulators are not yet equipped to manage, the IMF said. Tokenization could amplify volatility through automated markets and smart contracts, the report said. […]

VP Vance Visits Hungary To Support Orban Ahead Of Election, Blasts EU “Interference” Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, U.S Vice President JD Vance arrived in Budapest on April 7 for a two-day visit aimed at bolstering Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s campaign, ahead of Hungary’s parliamentary elections on April 12. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, were greeted at the Budapest airport by Hungarian Foreign […]

Trump Calls Artemis II Astronauts After Record-Breaking Flight Around The Moon Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times, For the first time in more than 50 years, the president of the United States had a phone call with astronauts around the moon. President Donald Trump spoke with the crew of Artemis II on April 6, shortly after they completed their historic, record-breaking flight around the moon, saying he wanted to be the […]

Foldable Apple iPhone Hits Engineering Snags, Raising Risk Of Delays; Odds Of 2027 Release 80% Apple is about 8 years late to the foldable smartphone space, with Samsung’s Galaxy Fold released in October 2018. Now, Tim Cook’s big launch of Apple’s first foldable smartphone could face “delays in its mass production and product shipment schedule,” according to new Nikkei Asia sources deep within the handset supply chain. Supply chain […]

Today Is “Bridge Day” By Benjamin Picton, Senior Market Strategist at Rabobank As traders return from the Easter break markets are again counting down to an ultimatum deadline set by President Trump. Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to warn the Iranian regime to make a deal, threatening that Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day” and “Bridge Day” where infrastructure of that kind will be targeted by American forces if […]

Gunmen Attempt To Storm Israeli Consulate In Istanbul Terror Attack Israel’s foreign ministry confirmed that on Tuesday there was a “terrorist attack on the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul” and has thanked Turkish security forces for stopping it before the attackers were able to make it into the building. “We appreciate the Turkish security forces’ swift action in thwarting this attack,” a statement from the ministry on X said. It […]

Trump, Rubio Eye Visa Revocations For Nearly 4,000 Iranian Elites Living In America Podcaster Katie Miller, who is also the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, said on Fox News overnight that the Trump administration and the State Department, under Secretary Marco Rubio, are planning to revoke the visas of thousands of Iranian elites living in the U.S. “You look at the UK, and look what Keir Starmer has in his […]

US Core Durable Goods Orders Surge For 11th Straight Month After recent string ‘soft’ survey data, this morning we get some ‘hard’ data and it’s mixed…ish… Preliminary headline durable goods orders for February fell 1.4% MoM (worse than the -1.2% MoM exp). That is the third monthly decline in a row (the first 3-month decline since Nov 2019) Source: Bloomberg The monthly decline of the headline print largely reflected a […]

Futures Slide, Oil Jumps After US Attacks Kharg Island Ahead Of Trump’s 8pm Iran Deadline US futures reversed earlier gains and oil advanced following reports that Iran’s Kharg island was targeted earlier on Tuesday, while the market was largely paralyzed ahead of Trump’s 8pm ET deadline for Iran to agree to a ceasefire or face escalation. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are down 0.4%, and Nasdaq futures slide 0.6%. In premarket […]

Polymarket Unveils Exchange Overhaul, Native Stablecoin As US Expansion Looms Authored by Micah Zimmerman via Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin and crypto focused prediction market platform Polymarket is preparing its most significant infrastructure upgrade to date, rolling out a rebuilt trading system alongside a new native stablecoin designed to replace bridged collateral and streamline on-chain activity. The […]

US Already Spent Over $42 Billion & Counting On Iran War This week will see the Iran war reach 40 days of fighting, which is a far cry from the mere “four days” some US administration officials offered as a possible ‘optimistic’ timeline at the very opening of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. According to the Iran War Cost Tracker portal, the US military operation has cost more than $42 billion thus far. The tracker has arrived at […]

Marc Andreessen Calls AI Job-Loss Fears ‘Fake’, Expects Employment Gains It is not the first time that the venture capital guru has questioned some of the fundamentally dystopian scenarios being proposition in an AI world.  In February, we noted that amid an armada of dystopian futurists, projecting linear thoughts into a future of ‘AI uber alles’, Marc Andreessen stands as a beacon of potential utopian light, seeing a future […]

Trump Threatens To ‘Take Out Entire Country Of Iran’ Tomorrow Night, Demands ‘Free Traffic Of Oil’ In Hormuz Summary:  Trump threatens “Iran can be taken out in one night… maybe tomorrow”; Warns ‘every bridge and power plant’ will be destroyed WSJ reports US military is making preparations for potential strikes on energy targets in Iran. Universities and airports are already being hit. A Sunday night Axios report on […]

Germany’s Debt Spiral: Bundesbank Chief Breaks Silence Submitted by Thomas Kolbe It’s not every day that top officials of the German Bundesbank take an explicit stance on daily politics. Nagel’s stark warnings about Germany’s debt and the government’s creative accounting were surely met with grim recognition in Berlin’s corridors of power. Open criticism is rare there, and when it comes from credible insiders, it stings […]

Death Of Hollywood In Two Charts The nightmare story for Hollywood is playing out in real time for the world to see, as a century-old entertainment economy implodes and bears all the hallmarks of what happened to Detroit after the auto industry went bust. A new Wall Street Journal report describes the Hollywood job market as being in “collapse” mode, with employment in the industry down 30% from its late-2022 peak, while […]

Iranian Kurdish Groups Deny Receiving US Arms After Trump’s ‘Guns For Protesters’ Remark Via The Cradle Several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups on Monday denied reports that the US had armed them during anti-government protests and riots that erupted in January, leaving over 3,000 Iranians dead. Mohammed Nazif Qaderi, a senior official from the opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), called the reports […]

RQ-180 Spy Drone Reappears Again In Greece As Larissa Air Base Backs U.S. Recon Ops New footage of what appears to be the highly secretive Northrop Grumman RQ-180 stealth surveillance drone has surfaced near Larisa, Greece, according to the aviation outlet The Aviationist. The RQ-180 apparently appeared in daylight hours on approach to landing at Larisa Air Base, home to the Hellenic Air Force’s 110 Combat Wing. The footage […]

Europe’s Climate Policy Forces Industry Into Retreat; Even Its Critics Are Folding Submitted by Thomas Kolbe In the media business, five months is an eternity. And it does indeed seem like an eternity has passed since Christian Kullmann, CEO of the German chemical giant Evonik, sharply criticized European climate policy at the end of October. At the time, Kullmann gave an interview to Süddeutsche Zeitung, in which he called—if […]

British Official Admits UK Not Capable Of Rescuing Their Own Lost Airmen Europe has been dancing on the edge of a knife, flirting with notions of war with a battle hardened Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.  As these tensions escalate, questions are being raised about the actual combat readiness and capabilities of countries that have relied on the US for their security for so long. The primary division between the Trump […]

France’s Debt Spiral: Tax Hikes Mask A Looming Crisis Submitted by Thomas Kolbe On both sides of the Franco-German border, the same problem persists: overburdened and reform-averse politicians struggle against a rapidly accelerating debt spiral. Their preferred tool: higher levies. Last week, France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure reported a revision of the projected budget deficit for the current year. Initial estimates for […]

How Modern Influence Operations Work, Part 1: The New Influence Stack Authored by Charles Davis via The Epoch Times, On a Tuesday night in a dorm room, a student opens TikTok for a “five-minute break.” The first clip is a montage of rubble and sirens. The second is a professor-style explainer, neatly captioned, delivering a single moral conclusion. The third is a shaky phone video of a confrontation on another […]

China Introduces Pistol-Like Coil-Gun Based On Electromagnetic-Launch Systems Authored by Bojan Stojovski via Interesting Engineering, A new handheld coil gun developed in China is designed for discreet, non-lethal use, including law enforcement operations, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Capable of firing between 1,000 and 2,000 rounds per minute, the weapon can penetrate wooden boards from distances of several dozen yards. Its […]