Liberal Opposition Leader Projected To Win South Korean Presidential Election Liberal opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is projected to win South Korea’s presidential election, according to projections by broadcasters in the country on Tuesday.  Lee Jae-myung celebrates after winning the Democratic Party nomination as presidential election candidate in Goyang, South Korea, on April 27, 2025. Lee Jin-man/AP Photo In a joint exit poll […]

More Details: Kerch Bridge Explosion In Crimea, What Did Trump White House Know? Update(1208ET): More details have emerged of what marks the third major Ukrainian sabotage bombing of the key bridge linking the Russian mainland to the Crimean peninsula, as the pace of the war heats up: Ukraine said it attacked the Crimean Bridge with explosives as Russia closed traffic on the route linking the annexed Black Sea peninsula with the […]

Trump Vows ‘Large Scale Fines’ After Transgender Athlete Wins In California Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump vowed to place “large-scale fines” on California after a transgender athlete competed in a girls’ high school track and field event and won gold. “A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do […]

Russia Seeks Victory, Not ‘Delusional’ Compromise, In Talks With Ukraine: Medvedev It seems Dmitry Medvedev has once again said the quiet part out loud. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and former president has said Tuesday that Moscow is engaged in peace talks with Ukraine in order ultimately to ensure a swift and complete Russian victory. “The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone […]

TACO Tuesday By Michael Every of Rabobank TACO Tuesday(?) As always at turning points – more so with under-funded and/or politicized stats services – data show a Mexican stand-off or are a salsa confusion. There was a huge reduction in the US trade deficit for April from $162.3bn to $87.6bn; monthly personal income gains in 2025 so far of 0.5%, 0.8%, 0.7%, and 0.8% vs. 0.4% average in 2024 (0.3% excluding a bumper 1.3% in January […]

Bankrupt Microsoft-Backed ‘AI’ Company Was Using Indian Engineers To Fake It: Report Last week, British AI startup backed by Microsoft and the Qatar Investment Authority, Builder.ai, filed for bankruptcy after its CEO said a major creditor had seized most of its cash.  Valued at $1.5 billion after a $445 million investment by Microsoft, the company claimed to leverage artificial intelligence to generate custom apps in ‘days or […]

AI Data Center Boom Requires A Lot Of Natural Gas  UBS expects the AI data center construction boom, which was ignited during the Trump era, to generate structural tailwinds for the U.S. economy starting in 2026. In a recent conversation, one asset manager backing a mega data center project in Texas explained it’s going to be “sprint” mode for the industry through the end of the decade. Adding this all up is not rocket science, […]

The Russian-Ukrainian Talks Are At An Impasse That Only The US Or Brute Force Can Break Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, The second round of the newly resumed Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul on Monday resulted in no progress being made towards peace. Both sides simply exchanged their respective memoranda about their predictably envisaged zero-sum military-political endgames and agreed to yet another prisoner […]

US Labor Market JOLTed By Sharp Rebound As Job Opening Rise, New Hires Surge One month after the BLS reported that in March the labor market reverted to its deteriorating trendline, when the US sported some 7.192 million job openings (revised to 7.2 million), a drop from 7.480 million in February, moments ago the latest JOLTS report showed that in April the labor market unexpectedly stabilized with the number of job openings rising […]

US Factory Orders Plunged In April After surging in March – tariff-frontrunning dominated with the largest MoM rise since July 2020 – US Factory Orders tumbled 3.7% in April (worse than the 3.2% MoM decline expected). Also, the 4.3% rise in March was revised down to a 3.4% MoM rise… Source: Bloomberg The MoM drop was the biggest since Jan 2024 as tariff-frontrunning faded, dragging the headline orders down to just +0.9% YoY. […]

 US Rejects Any Uranium Enrichment By Iran, Trump Clarifies  A lot of contradictory information and signaling has come out of Washington on the Iran nuclear issue of late. This is especially true already this week, amid reports in Axios and others that the White House is ready to allow the Iranians limited uranium nuclear enrichment.  “The nuclear deal proposal the U.S. gave Iran on Saturday would allow limited low-level […]

Dutch PM Announces Gov’t Collapse After Geert Wilders Quits Coalition Over Immigration Failure Update (0940ET): Well, we said it was imminent and now it’s confirmed… Prime Minister Dick Schoof has just announced that he would offer his resignation from the Netherlands’ ruling coalition while continuing in a caretaker government, setting the stage for a likely snap election. “Wilders has plunged the Netherlands into another […]

No Deductions To Social Security To Offset Defaulted Student Loans: Education Department Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times, The Department of Education announced a policy change on June 2, saying it will not garnish Social Security payments to collect unpaid federal student loans. Education Department spokeswoman Ellen Keast told The Epoch Times that the department has “put a pause on any future social security […]

Meta Signs Nuclear Power Deal With Constellation To Fuel AI  Nuclear stocks moved higher in premarket trading after Meta Platforms signed a power contract with Constellation Energy for emissions-free nuclear energy from the Clinton Clean Energy Center in Clinton, Illinois.  The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp announced that it has entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation Energy […]

US Futures Drop After Ugly China PMI Print, OECD Cuts Global Outlook US equity futures follow European markets lower, although off session lows, amid more tariff gloom confronting traders this morning: the pressure of Trump’s tariffs pushed China’s manufacturing PMI survey to its lowest since 2022, while the OECD cut its 2025growth outlook for a second time. As of 8:00am, S&P futures are down 0.2%, erasing almost a 0.7% […]

Russia’s Pipeline Gas Supply To Europe Rose In May By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com Russia’s natural gas deliveries via pipeline to Europe jumped by 10.3% in May compared to April, data calculated by Reuters showed on Monday. Last month, Russia’s gas giant Gazprom sent 46.0 million cubic meters of natural gas via the only remaining route to Europe – TurkStream, per the Reuters estimates based on data from Entsog, the […]

Boeing 737 MAX Production Tops 38 Jets Per Month For First Time In Years Boeing’s 737 MAX production reached 38 jets in May, according to a new report, marking a stabilization at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) monthly production cap. The company’s best-selling aircraft has seen monthly output fluctuate between the single digits and 30s amid a series of crises that have battered its finances and strained employee […]

“Tether Will Be The Biggest Bitcoin Miner In The World”, CEO Paolo Ardoino Said Authored by Oscar Zarraga Perez via BitcoinMagazine.com, On Friday at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, the CEO of Tether Paolo Ardoino talked about the investments, inventions and Bitcoin mining of Tether. Paolo Ardoino began his speech by saying, “last year we made $13 billion in profit. We keep a $120 billion blast in US treasuries as […]

Space Is The Most Undervalued Industry In The World Authored by Rainer Zitelmann via RealClearMarkets, The most undervalued industry in the world is the space industry. It is particularly unappreciated in Europe, which has now fallen hopelessly behind the United States and China. The US carried out 153 launches last year, China 68 and Europe three. The science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke wrote back in 1977: “The impact of […]

These Are The US Cities Gaining And Losing The Most Corporate HQs Today, public companies based in Dallas-Fort Worth hold a combined $1.5 trillion in value—a figure doubling in the past five years. Owing to its pro-business policies and lower cost of living, Texas is attracting scores of corporate headquarters, particularly from California. As a result, states are losing billions in tax revenues as the corporate landscape shifts […]

“We Must Not Hesitate” – German Justice Minister Open To AfD Ban Via Remix News, Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig, of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), is keeping the hope for a ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) alive, saying a ban should still be on the table. She told German newspaper Rheinische Post a ban should not be “dismissed for political reasons alone.” She also brushed away concerns that the […]

UK Defense Stocks Hit Record On Warfighting Buildout Begins British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a significant overhaul of the U.K.’s defense posture, warning that the British Armed Forces must be prepared to fight a future war in Europe or the Atlantic Ocean.  “We are moving to warfighting readiness,” Starmer said while unveiling the government’s 130-page “Strategic Defence Review,” which calls for strengthening […]

Ukraine “Stinks Of Authoritarianism” – Kiev Mayor Klitschko Hits Out At Zelensky Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, The former mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko has blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and bluntly stated that the country is plagued by authoritarianism. The former world heavyweight champion boxer told the Times of London that Kiev City Council essentially cannot operate because of “raids, […]

The Military Imbalance In The Taiwan Strait U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew some controversy over the weekend after he called China a “real” and potentially “imminent” threat and said that the country was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific”. The comments were made Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore. In the chart […]

Resurgent ISIS? Terror Cells Launch Deadly Attacks On Syria’s Kurds Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com, At least three members of the Kurdish Asayish security forces were killed on Sunday in northeastern Syria, according to the group. They said they were targeted by an ISIS cell during a patrol on the road between Raqqa and Hasakeh. The patrol was targeted with a landmine, according to some sources. The official statement […]