PJM Capacity Auction Results Compound “Alarm Bells”: FERC Chairman Swett By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive The PJM Interconnection’s just-held capacity auction cleared nearly 7 GW below its reliability target and only drew roughly 500 MW of new power supply, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Laura Swett said Thursday. “These numbers compound the alarm bells for a call to action in PJM,” Swett said during the […]

Apple And DOJ In “Early Settlement Talks” Over 2024 Antitrust Lawsuit Apple and the U.S. Department of Justice are reportedly in early discussions to settle the government’s 2024 antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker, though no agreement has been reached and no trial date has been set, Bloomberg reported today. Apple has made multiple settlement offers this year in an effort to resolve the case, but negotiations remain ongoing […]

DOJ, DHS Launch Election Integrity Website Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday launched a joint website featuring an interactive map of federal enforcement actions aimed at election security, transparency, and integrity. “Excited to launch the joint @TheJusticeDept @DHSgov election integrity website, an […]

HSBC Upgrades Apple To Buy, Sees “AI Boost” Sparking Device-Upgrade Cycle Days after KeyBanc analysts Brandon Nispel and John Vinh downgraded Apple over concerns that soaring memory chip costs and rising iPad, Mac, and iPhone prices could spark a growth slowdown, HSBC analysts took the opposite view, upgrading the stock to a “Buy” rating to end the week. HSBC analyst Nicolas Cote-Colisson upgraded Apple to “Buy” from “Hold” on […]

Meta Eyes $10 Billion Deal To Lease AI Computing Power To Anthropic Meta is standing up a cloud business to sell excess computing capacity from its massive data-center buildout, as we detailed earlier this month. The new business line would put Meta in direct competition with industry leaders such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Meta is in talks to rent computing power from its AI data centers to […]

Pentagon Chief Backs Blue Angels Pilots Following Low-Altitude Pass Over Florida Beach Crowd Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, War Secretary Pete Hegseth offered support for U.S. Navy Blue Angels pilots on Thursday after a review of a low-altitude jet maneuver over Pensacola Beach, Florida, the day before. Dramatic video shows the U.S. Navy Blue Angels making a low-altitude flyover above Pensacola Beach, Florida, […]

Musk Buys Florida-Based Energy Company Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times, Elon Musk has acquired a power company based in Jacksonville, Fla., paying $1 billion for the mobile gas-turbine provider as a possible solution to data center energy needs. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lists Musk as the acquiring party, with New APR Energy, LLC listed as the acquired entity. Neither party issued public statements on […]

US Sends Dozens More Refueling Planes To Israel Amid Widening Iran War, Oil Climbs Summary Surge in more large US refueling planes headed to Mideast, signaling likely expansion of strikes on Iran. US attacks hit Iranian energy and transport infrastructure. Iran threatens stronger retaliation and claims strike on US base in Qatar – and deepens attacks to include US outposts in Jordan, Syria. Iran urges power conservation; Hormuz […]

NY Times Asks Court To Throw Out Subpoena Of Its Reporters Authored by Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times, The New York Times on July 15 asked a court to toss out grand jury subpoenas of three of its reporters who published a story about the new Air Force One plane that Qatar gifted to President Donald Trump. The paper published the story earlier this month alleging the new plane lacked some defensive features of the older Air […]

IRGC Targets US Command Center In Syria In Unprecedented Attack Iran’s large-scale ‘retaliation’ on US bases and Gulf states overnight included a rare first if confirmed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it conducted a missile or drone attack on an American special operations command center at al-Tanf in Syria on Friday. The action came after the US bombed Iran for a sixth consecutive night, and while Iranian […]

Toxic Wildfire Smoke Begins To Disrupt Local Economic Activity As GOP Senator Readies Canada Sanctions Bill Summary: Questions Swirl Whether Ecoterrorism May Have Accelerated Wildfires  Economic Activity Impacted in Some States  WaPo Warns Smoke Plume To Worsen  GOP Members Blast Canada Over Toxic Smoke; Sanction Bill Against Canada Set To Be Introduced   Toxic Smoke Plume Over Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, […]

Apple’s OpenAI Trade-Secret War Ramps Up With Preservation Letters To Dozens Of Ex-Employees Apple’s legal fight with OpenAI is spilling well beyond the courtroom. A week after suing the ChatGPT maker over alleged theft of its hardware secrets, Apple’s lawyers have sent personal document-preservation letters to about 40 former Apple employees now working at OpenAI, according to the Financial Times – roughly 10 percent of the some […]

Trump To Attend World Cup Final Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump plans to attend the final game of the 2026 World Cup, the White House said on July 16. Trump was traveling on Friday to New York City to attend a FIFA reception at Trump Tower, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in Washington. He is then slated to take in the Spain–Argentina final on Sunday at […]

Zelensky’s Cabinet Reshuffle Backfiring As He Names New Defense Minister Amid a continuing status of martial law in Ukraine, one European headline underscores that President Zelensky’s significant cabinet and defense ministry reshuffling has ‘backfired’. Public outrage and rare protests have ensued in the capital and across various cities after he sacked popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who many Ukrainians see as having […]

UMich Sentiment Extends Bounce From Record 46-Year-Lows As Gas Prices Ease Having rebounded from record (46 year) lows in June, University of Michigan’s preliminary July Sentiment survey was expected to show further improvement as gas prices fell since the US-Iran ‘peace’ MoU signing (before rising modestly in the last few days of the reignited conflict). And indeed it did, headline Consumer Sentiment jumped from 49.5 to 54.4 […]

Burnham Is Facing The Same Dilemma That Has Trapped British Politics Over The Past Decade By Stefan Koopman, senior macro strategist at Rabobank To Govern Is To Choose  Today, Andy Burnham will formally be confirmed as Labour leader. Barring any last-minute surprises, he will become prime minister on Monday. The UK will then have had seven prime ministers in a decade, with five taking office without a general election: May in […]

Houston, We Have Shareholders Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance SpaceX’s highly anticipated Starship test flight never made it off the pad Thursday evening. Instead, the launch was scrubbed after what appeared to be an automatic abort during engine startup, marking the first major operational disappointment since the company became publicly traded just weeks ago. As of this writing, the company has not released a detailed […]

US Industrial Production Disappoints (Again) In June US Industrial Production rose just 0.1% MoM in June (less than the 0.2% MoM rise expected), after also disappointing in May. That slowed the annual growth in production from 1.6% YoY to +1.1% YoY… The recent blip higher in Capacity Utilization faded last month (76.1% vs 76.2% exp) with the down-trend seemingly still in tact… If ‘soft’ survey data is in any way predictive […]

Historic NYC Church Torched In Confirmed Arson – City Rejects Save Plan As Demolition Ordered Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, The FDNY has now confirmed what many suspected from the start: the massive fire that gutted the historic South Bushwick Reform Church in Brooklyn was intentionally set. The 1853 landmark, a Greek Revival structure that served generations of worshippers as both a house of faith and a community […]

Watch: Trump Reveals ‘Shocking’ Election Vulnerabilities Including 278,000 Fraudulent Voters Update (2110ET): Trump has released several major election-related findings:  Mass declassification event – The White House just released previously classified Intelligence Community assessments and reports on election infrastructure spanning January 2020 through June 2026. Adversary capability finding – A quoted IC assessment states […]

Renter Nation Returns? Massive Jump In Multi-Family Unit Starts Despite Builder Sentiment Slump US Housing Starts exploded higher by 19% MoM in June, dramatically more than the already large 11.2% MoM expectation and rebounding from the prior two ugly monthly declines. This was the biggest monthly increase in Starts since May 2023. On the other side, the more forward-looking Building Permits declined for a second straight […]

Futures Tumble As Latest Chinese “DeepSeek Moment” Sparks Chip Meltdown A surprise breakthrough from Chinese AI startup Moonshot (which is now at the top of the Frontend code benchmark on Arena) rumbled through global markets, sending chip stocks reeling, as queasiness returned about the industry’s unprecedented spending spree (something we have been warning about for the past year). Moonshot claims its new Kimi K3 model rivals […]

Live Cattle Futures Tumble To Seven-Month Low, But Bernstein Says Beef Prices Will Stay Elevated Despite our view that beef prices will remain elevated this year amid the smallest US cattle herd size in more than 60 years and mounting concerns over New World screwworm detections in Texas, live cattle futures in Chicago have tumbled this month as speculative traders unwind bullish bets. Chicago live cattle futures have dropped to […]

Private Credit: The New Junk Bond Market Authored by Ed Dowd via Beyond the Narrative, Private Credit: The New Junk Bond Market…Except It Lacks Transparency, Liquidity & Is About To Be Stress Tested History Private credit was born from the ashes of the Great Financial Crisis. In the aftermath of that debacle, regulators moved to limit the risks banks could take. Loans deemed too risky were no longer being originated by […]

Bromance Breaks Out Between “Man of Peace” Trump And Azerbaijani President Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev lavished praise on President Donald Trump’s diplomacy, telling a group of journalists at the 4th Shusha Global Media Forum that the president achieved peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia in mere months, a historic feat that both Democrat and Republican administrations had failed to accomplish over nearly 30 years. White […]