Trump Says He’ll Help Pick Iran’s Next Leader As Tehran Signals Readiness For US Ground Invasion Summary: President Trump told Axios in an interview Thursday that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran’s next leader — just as he was in Venezuela. Trump supports Kurds launching an offensive in Iran, tells Reuters: “I think it’s wonderful if they want to do that.” Little Azerbaijan talks big: President […]

The Spell Of Woke Is Broke: Let’s Keep It That Way Authored by Thomas F. Powers via American Greatness, It is too early to know with any precision what the long-term effects of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts will be. We might take our bearings on that score by considering the fate of essays written by prominent law professors in the 1950s and 1960s touting this or that discrete step in the unfolding of the civil […]

Israel Targets Iran’s Protest-Crackdown Forces With New Airstrikes Israel is striking Iran’s internal security apparatus in an effort to weaken the regime’s ability to suppress dissent and potentially open the door to a popular uprising, according to the Wall Street Journal. Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday targeted figures and facilities tied to domestic repression, including members of the Basij paramilitary and senior […]

Anthropic In Chaos: CEO Tries To Salvage Pentagon Contract After Slamming Trump, Altman In Leaked Letter Things over at Anthropic are getting wild. On Friday, the Trump administration ‘fired’ the woke serial copyright infringer, industry disruptor and software-engineer-extinctor after a bruising dispute with the Pentagon came to a head over ethical concerns surrounding Claude’s military use – specifically, domestic surveillance […]

Wall Street Desperately Seeks Details On Trump’s Plan To Unclog Hormuz Chokepoint It’s been wild ride in crude over the past few days with Brent crude futures were capped near $84 a barrel on Tuesday afternoon before sliding down to the $81 level late Wednesday afternoon, only to surge back up to $84 this morning… …as shipping industry insiders and Wall Street analysts await exact details on the Trump administration’s […]

Debate: What Should Trump Do Now In Iran? Tonight at 7pm ET on the ZH homepage, we host a debate on the ongoing war with Iran. Joining the discussion: Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, the magazine founded by Pat Buchanan and a prominent voice for the original America First right.   Max Abrahms, Northeastern University professor and widely cited scholar on terrorism and international security. […]

There Is A Growing Willingness By Europe To Contribute To Regional Security By Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy at Rabobank Losing One’s Innocence A degree of calm seemed to return to energy and financial markets yesterday, helped by tentative signs – reinforced by US and Israeli statements – that intensified military operations against Iranian targets are degrading Iran’s air defense, missile, and drone capabilities. […]

Iran War Puts Ukraine Peace Talks On Hold, As Gulf Venue Under Attack The Russia-Ukraine war, having just last month entered its fifth year, continues experiencing spillover effects from the Trump-ordered Operation Epic Fury in Iran. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has newly announced (overnight) that trilateral peace talks with Russia and the United States are on hold due to the Iran war. In his nightly address, Zelensky […]

Good Riddance, Jasmine Crockett Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance The results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Texas delivered a clear political message: voters are tired of listening to Rep. Jasmine Crockett. And thank f**king god she lost, because I am too. Crockett, who spent much of her short national career cultivating a reputation as the politician who can constantly be wrong the loudest and with the most attitude, […]

Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Open As China-Linked Ship Transits Maritime Chokepoint “Some are criticizing us [Iran], saying that we have closed the Strait of Hormuz. We do not believe in closing the Strait of Hormuz at all,” Iranian military commander Amir Heydari told Iranian state TV on Thursday. Iran military says it has not closed Strait of Hormuz. “We do not believe in closing the Strait of Hormuz at all,” military commander […]

Erratic Futures, Oil Jittery As Iran Newsflow Drives Markets US futures are mixed, first dropping overnight to session lows after Iran vowed to escalate its retaliation against US strikes and avenge the US sinking of an Iranian warship as the conflict entered its sixth day, before spiking to session highs after Bloomberg reported that Iran had previously signaled a willingness to eliminate its uranium stockpiles in return for […]

‘No Hire, No Fire’ Economy Rolls On As Job Cuts Plunge, Jobless Claims Hover Near Multi-Year Lows U.S.-based employers announced 48,307 job cuts in February, down 55% from the 108,435 job cuts in January. It is down 72% from the 172,017 cuts announced during the same month last year, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “February’s dip is […]

Precious Metals Plunge As Poland Weighs Gold Sales To Fund Defense Poland’s central bank chief laid out a proposal to generate as much as 48 billion zloty ($13 billion) from the sale of gold reserves to finance defense spending as part of a plan backed by the nation’s president, according to people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reports that Governor Adam Glapinski outlined the proposal in a meeting with President Karol […]

In “Historic Day For Nuclear Industry”, Novel Technology Reactor Gets First Federal Permit In A Decade To Start Building In a move that’s got America’s energy bureaucrats finally moving at something approaching market speed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has handed TerraPower – the Bill Gates-backed outfit pushing the Natrium advanced reactor – the first commercial nuclear construction permit issued in nearly a decade. After […]

Macron Declares Attacks On Iran Violate International Law, Spanish MEP Calls For Spain To Leave NATO Via Remix News, French President Emmanuel Macron, while initially supporting the war in line with Germany and the United Kingdom, has since declared the attacks outside of international law while also committing to support Cyprus and increase its own nuclear arsenal. “The United States of America and Israel decided to launch […]

Futs Jump On Reports About Iran’s Willingness To Give Up Uranium Stockpile U.S. equity futures jumped around 4:00 a.m. ET after Bloomberg News reported that Iran had previously signaled a willingness to surrender its highly enriched uranium stockpiles in high-stakes negotiations, just before the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury. Although the Bloomberg story relates to last week’s U.S.-Iran developments, the market is extremely […]

China Halts Diesel, Gasoline Exports As Paralyzed Hormuz Risks Energy Shock Less than one week into Operation Epic Fury, Beijing has ordered its top refiners to halt gasoline and diesel exports as the Strait of Hormuz remained paralyzed on Thursday morning. The move exposes how China is one of the biggest losers in a prolonged Hormuz shutdown, with Beijing appearing to brace for an oil shock. Beijing is scrambling after panicking […]

Ex-OpenAI Researcher’s Hedge Fund Reveals Big Bitcoin Miner Bets In New SEC Filing Authored by Christina Comben via cointelegraph, Leopold Aschenbrenner has built a US stock portfolio heavily concentrated in companies that supply the power and infrastructure behind the artificial intelligence boom. The former OpenAI researcher, who left the lab’s superalignment team to launch San Francisco-based hedge fund Situational […]

Map Shows Latest U.S. Robotaxi Deployment Goldman analysts, led by Eric Sheridan, updated clients this week on the latest developments in the North American autonomous vehicle rideshare market. They point out that the AV rideshare market continues to expand as Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Zoox roll out AV operations nationwide. Readers will notice that the commercial AV deployments this year, including Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Zoox (Tesla […]

Iran Signals ‘Prolonged War’ As US Strikes Go Deeper, Tanker Hit By “Large Explosion” Off Kuwait, Leaking Oil Here are some of the most critical developments unfolding in the US-Iran conflict:  A “large explosion” took place on a tanker 30 nautical miles south east off Mubarak Al Kebeer, on the coast of Kuwait. The tanker, which was at anchor in the Khor al-Zubair lightering zone – a critical area for loading Iraqi heavy fuel […]

Free Speech Victory In Germany After Top Court Issues Landmark Rulings For ‘Insults’ Via REMIX News, The wave of police searches and prosecutions in Germany may be facing a new hurdle after Germany’s top court, the Constitutional Court, issued two landmark rulings strengthening freedom of expression. However, Fatina Keilani, editor in Welt’s freedom of expression department, said that these two decisions have gone largely […]

US, Ecuador Launch Joint Military Operations Against Terrorist Organizations US Southern Command on Tuesday stated that the US military had conducted a joint operation with Ecuadorian forces against “designated terrorist organizations” in Ecuador, as the Trump administration continues to fight narco-terrorism.  U.S. Marine Corps. Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan looks on during a Senate Armed Services Committee Confirmation Hearing on […]

How Likely Is It That Pakistan Joins The Third Gulf War In Support Of Its Saudi Ally? Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Pakistan could set into motion a sequence of events that restores its role as the US’ top regional ally, returns US troops to Afghanistan’s Bagram Airbase if they later team up against the Taliban, and therefore build a new regional order at the geostrategic crossroads of South and Central Asia. […]

China Is Scrambling Authored by Zineb Riboua via Beyond the Ideological, The men in Zhongnanhai do not rattle easily. Decades of patient statecraft, a foreign policy built on studied ambiguity, and an economy engineered to absorb external shocks have granted Beijing’s leadership a remarkable tolerance for turbulence. Operation Epic Fury, the American-Israeli air campaign now dismantling Iran’s military architecture, has […]

501 Afghans Sue Germany Over Revoked Resettlement Promises, Demand Entry Into Europe Authored by Thomas Brooke via REMIX, A total of 501 Afghan nationals are currently suing the German government after previously granted commitments to admit them into the country were withdrawn. The cases are directed against Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which revoked earlier pledges by the previous federal […]