Bitcoin’s ‘Last Resort’ Quantum-Safe Solution Just Got 79% Cheaper: StarkWare Authored by Felix Ng via Cointelegraph, The estimated computational cost to prepare a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has fallen below $67 after a week of optimization, down from the roughly $320 spent on the first such mainnet transaction in August, according to StarkWare. The results came after participants in the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin […]

Supreme Court Clears Trump Admin To Use Voter Citizenship Verification Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, The Supreme Court on Sept. 25 said the Trump administration can use an updated immigration database to verify the citizenship of voters. A majority of justices agreed to stay pending the outcome of an appeal of a June order from a federal judge that barred the use of a revamped database called the Systematic […]

Iran State Media Denies Technical Talks With US Are Happening Summary Tehran denes reports of ‘technical talks’ after it proposed 7-day roadmap to end the war and (eventually) restart nuclear talks. Hormuz reopening discussed in exchange for US concessions in NY, including lifting the blockade.  Tehran seeks sanctions relief, declares will hold to conditions, including restored oil exports and access to frozen funds. […]

US Cybersecurity Agency Releases Election Security Plan Ahead Of November Midterms Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The nation’s cybersecurity agency released its election infrastructure security plan on Thursday, ahead of the November midterms set for Nov. 3. Voters cast their ballots in the primary for midterm elections at Sanbornton Town Hall in Sanbornton, N.H., on Sept. 8, 2026. CJ […]

Woke Developer Bungie Apologizes To Gamers…But Not Really The mass conservative boycott against woke companies and far-left content has been wildly successful.  While the political left has repeatedly attempted such boycotts and “cancellations” over the years, not one has ever been as effective as the “Chud” revolution against woke media.   It took a few years (along with a slowdown in outside funding from ESG programs and […]

Canada’s Oil Patch On Track For Biggest M&A Wave In A Decade Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com, Nearly a decade ago, the Canadian Oil Patch recorded a major asset sale and consolidation wave as oil majors exited the oil sands in favor of higher margins in U.S. shale oil as well as environmental concerns amid the ESG investing craze. To wit, Shell Plc (NYSE:SHEL) sold the majority of its oil sands interests to Canadian […]

“Moving The Goalposts”: BofA Downgrades Nike, Slashes Target As Turnaround Story Delayed Nike shares fell 2% in New York premarket trading after BofA retail analyst Lorraine Hutchinson downgraded the world’s largest athletic footwear and apparel company, warning that its “turnaround is taking longer” than expected. With shares trading at 2014 levels, the downgrade adds new woes to a recovery story that might not materialize until […]

Suspected US Drone Strike Kills Alleged Al-Qaeda Member In Yemen Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, A suspected US drone strike hit a vehicle carrying two alleged al-Qaeda members in Yemen’s southeastern Hadramout province on Tuesday, China’s Xinhua news agency has reported. A local security source told the news agency that one of the men in the vehicle was killed while the other was wounded. So far, there’s been no […]

Chinese Hacking Groups Used Shared Attack Tool Against US Aerospace Firms, NGOs Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times, Chinese cyber-espionage groups used the same sophisticated hacking tool in campaigns targeting U.S. aerospace companies, nongovernmental organizations, mining companies, and commodity traders, according to two cybersecurity firms that separately investigated the activity. A member of a hacking group is […]

Zelensky Claims ‘Final Decision’ Made To Let Ukraine Build Patriots, After Trump Reversed Pledge Back in July President Trump strongly signaled that he was greenlighting the ability of Ukraine to produce its own patriot anti-air defense missiles. Trump declared in the context of a Turkey-hosted NATO summit that Washington would give Ukraine “the right to make Patriots” – after Zelensky had been relentless in his requests, framing […]

Efforts To Curb Data Center Speculation Gain Ground Across The US By Brian Martucci of UtilityDive, “A fraction of proposed data centers will get built. Utilities are wising up.” That was the headline on a May 2025 Utility Dive article that explored the conundrum speculative data center requests pose for U.S. electric utilities. More than a year later, it’s unclear how much has changed. Sections of the Stargate Oracle AI […]

Appeals Court Backs Department Of War’s Anthropic Blacklisting In Blow To Dario The Trump administration scored a legal victory Friday morning after a federal appeals court rejected Anthropic’s challenge to its designation as a national-security supply-chain risk. This means the Department of War can blacklist the AI frontier firm from all contracts. In a 2-1 decision today, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found […]

Senate Narrowly Defeats Iran War Powers Resolution Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com The Senate narrowly defeated a War Powers Resolution on Thursday that would have directed President Trump to end the war with Iran, though the vote doesn’t negate the Iran War Powers Resolution that was passed by both the Senate and the House several months ago. The resolution failed Thursday in a 49-50 vote, with four Republicans — […]

Jefferies, Goldman, Now Stifel: Wall Street Races To Cover Almonty As “Owning The Bottlenecks” Theme Gains Momentum A sense of urgency is building across Wall Street as notable desks push clients toward the critical materials theme we already laid out for readers, as the Trump administration accelerates efforts to rebuild conflict-free supply chains and reduce dependence on China. Resource nationalism and the looming rearmament […]

Netanyahu Brings Ominous Prop To UN Speech, Blasts ‘Moral Cowards’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday issued a fiery address to the UN General Assembly in New York, raging against his international critics and batting down genocide allegations. He slammed widespread accusations that the Israeli army conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza as “the biggest lie of the century” while calling his decision to […]

“More Signaling, Less Substance”: Barclays Pours Cold Water On Trump-Xi Summit President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a White House state dinner late Thursday, calling for closer ties while offering limited details on progress in addressing trade and geopolitical disputes. This was Xi’s first White House visit in over a decade. On Friday morning, Trump issued a fresh Truth Social post related to the evening […]

Frenemies: “China May Be Exporting Two Pandas, But It Would Much Rather Export Millions Of Cars” By Molly Schwartz, cros-aset macro strategist at Rabobank  Frenemies The US-China summit officially began after Xi arrived in Washington, DC, late on Wednesday. Topics including trade, the Strait of Hormuz, and the AI (AGI?) races are expected to arise, but little tangible progress is anticipated. After all that, Trump and Xi agreed […]

UMich Consumer Confidence Slides In September As Republicans Lose Faith After July’s rebound to pre-war levels, a re-escalation in the MidEast (and soaring fuel costs) has sent confidence back towards YTD lows. Today’s final September data was expected to show UMich headline sentiment sliding further (and inflation expectations re-accelerating). And while sentiment is lower overall (month to month), it did actually pick up modestly […]

New York Audits Utility AI Use, Cites Risk In “Growing Dependency” By Robert Walton of UtilityDive The New York Public Service Commission last week launched an inquiry into public utility use of artificial intelligence, noting that AI systems “create risk for organizations” but are also increasingly used to perform basic tasks. The Sept. 17 order requires electric, gas and water utilities to respond within 60 days with “a […]

Citizenship Is Not A Product: Rubio Hits Birth-Tourism Fixers After SCOTUS Blocked Broader Ban The United States is no longer pretending that a tourist visa plus a delivery room equals a legitimate path to American citizenship. On September 23, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa-restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act aimed at the people who actually run the business: […]

Yen Jumps As Japan PM Admits Weak Currency “Problematic” President Trump reportedly expressed concern over the weakness of the yen when he met Japan’s prime minister this week as the currency came under more pressure against the dollar. The FT reports that Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama Satsuki Katayama told reporters in Tokyo that Trump and Sanae Takaichi discussed the yen in talks in New York on Tuesday. The US president […]

Ukraine Drone Strike Knocks Out Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk Refinery Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.ocm, Another Russian refinery was taken offline on Friday following a Ukrainian drone attack, in a sign that Ukraine and Russia continue to trade strikes on energy infrastructure despite separate talks with U.S. officials in New York aimed at de-escalation. The Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the southern Russian region of […]

AI Spend Lifts Core US Durable Goods Orders Rise For 17th Straight Month In August With PMIs soaring to multi-year highs earlier in the week, US durable goods orders were expected to be mixed in preliminary August data. And mixed it was (with plenty of revisions)… the headline print was unchanged MoM (better than the 0.3% MoM decline expected) with a small revision lower for July. Boeing reported fewer orders in August […]

Futures Rise As Oil, Yields Drop On Iran Diplomacy Hopes US futures erased earlier losses and are trading at session highs led by tech, as bonds steadied (with the 10Y at multi-decade highs of 5.17%) after oil’s latest rally lost steam, helping US stocks to extend gains for the week. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.4% setting up the benchmark to post its first weekly advance in three; Nasdaq futures gain 0.7% with […]

Xi Presses Trump For Taiwan Policy Shift As $14 Billion Weapons Deal Hangs In Limbo Following our earlier coverage of Barclays senior China economist Yingke Zhou’s view that Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit delivered “more signaling, less substance,” attention turns to Taiwan, where Xi pressed President Donald Trump to oppose Taiwan independence. According to China’s official Xinhua News Agency, Xi urged Trump to “adhere to […]