Individual Economists

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims Decrease to 221,000

Calculated Risk -

The DOL reported:
In the week ending July 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 221,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 227,000 to 228,000. The 4-week moving average was 229,500, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 235,500 to 235,750.
emphasis added
The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims decreased to 229,500.

The previous week was revised up.

Weekly claims were lower than the consensus forecast.

Senate Passes "DOGE" Recissions Bill, Heads For House Vote As Deadline Looms 

Zero Hedge -

Senate Passes "DOGE" Recissions Bill, Heads For House Vote As Deadline Looms 

The Senate passed a $9 billion rescissions package backed by the White House—targeting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which partially funds National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)—in a 51-48 vote in the early morning hours of Thursday.

Despite opposition from two Republicans—Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski—most GOP senators supported the bill, which now heads to the House for a final vote by Friday. The measure was approved in a 51-48 vote at 2:30 a.m. after voting for more than 12 hours on amendments. 

The bill asks lawmakers to claw back $7.9 billion in funding from foreign-aid programs via USAID, as well as rescind $1.1 billion from left-leaning public broadcasters NPR and PBS, defunding them for the next two fiscal years. 

Now the bill returns to the House for final approval, where it must pass by Friday under the budget rules Republicans are using to move the package without Democratic votes. If successful, it will head to President Trump's desk shortly thereafter. 

The win is more symbolic than substantive. It serves as a small tangible result of President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort to defund the bloated federal government. However, the Trump administration must codify more DOGE cuts into law to avoid upsetting the base. 

"It's a small but important step toward fiscal sanity that we all should be able to agree is long overdue," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said ahead of the final vote earlier this morning. 

Related:

Not codifying more DOGE cuts at this point is madness, especially considering the time Elon Musk and others have put into the initiative, and the relentless work of DOGE teams to root out waste and fraud across the federal government. It's time to lock in more cuts and finish the job of draining the swamp of radical leftists.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 08:20

RFK Jr. Fires Top Aides, Appoints New Acting Chief Of Staff

Zero Hedge -

RFK Jr. Fires Top Aides, Appoints New Acting Chief Of Staff

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired several top advisers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed on July 16.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

“Secretary Kennedy has made a leadership change within the Immediate Office of the Secretary,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

The fired aides are Heather Flick Melanson, who was the HHS chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, who had been the department’s deputy chief of staff for policy, according to Dr. Robert Malone, a close ally of Kennedy whom the health secretary recently appointed to a federal advisory committee.

Melanson did not return a request for comment by publication time.

Anderson could not be reached.

Melanson has worked in two different presidential administrations, according to her profile on the Republican National Lawyers Association website.

Anderson was, until January, a director at the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit that has been supportive of many of President Donald Trump’s policies, according to her LinkedIn page. She had also been an adviser to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which is chaired by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

Melanson, who is still listed in the HHS employee directory, was removed on July 16 as being listed as the HHS chief of staff on the main HHS website. Matt Buckham is now listed as the acting chief of staff.

Buckham, who is also Kennedy’s White House liaison and oversees recruiting and onboarding of political appointees across HHS, “brings valuable experience in personnel strategy and organizational management to this new role,” according to the HHS spokesperson.

The spokesperson said, “Secretary Kennedy thanks the outgoing leadership for their service and looks forward to working closely with Mr. Buckham as the Department continues advancing its mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

Contact information for Buckham could not be found.

Departures from HHS have been rare in Trump’s second term, although Thomas Corry, Kennedy’s top spokesperson, resigned in March after a short stint with the department that started before Kennedy was confirmed.

“I want to announce to my friends and colleagues that last Friday I announced my resignation effective immediately,” Corry said in a brief LinkedIn post at the time. “To my colleagues at HHS, I wish you the best and great success.”

Corry did not outline why he left HHS but thanked a commenter who said he was proud of Corry “for standing up for your convictions.”

Kennedy has also brought on a number of personnel with whom he shares connections, including Lyn Redwood, a nurse who was previously president of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that Kennedy once chaired and that speaks out regularly against current government vaccine recommendations, and Stefanie Spear, who was press secretary for Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 08:05

Futures Flat As Tech Stocks, Dollar Rise

Zero Hedge -

Futures Flat As Tech Stocks, Dollar Rise

US equity futures are flat, trading in a narrow range overnight, with SPX unchanged, while Nasdaq futs rise after TSMC beat on sales guidance. Since yesterday’s close, incremental macro headlines were muted, but earnings reports were solid (TSM, UAL). As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are unchanged, Nasdaq futs are up 0.1% boosted by a positive outlook from TSMC, and Rusell 2000 futs are down 0.4%. European stocks also advance with the Stoxx 600 up 0.7%, led by gains in industrial, construction and auto sectors. In Pre-market trading, megacap tech is higher, with NVDA (+0.8%) leading gains, followed by META (+0.7%) and AAPL (+0.3%) as TSMC’s raised outlook is a good sign that spending on AI is holding up; on sector basis, Health Care and Real Estate are outperforming. Yields are 1-2bp higher and the dollar staged a comeback as dip-buyers stepped in, following Wednesday’s brief bout of panic over the future of Powell. Commodities are mixed, with oil and iron ore higher, while base and precious metals are lower. Today, markets will focus on Retail Sales (8:30am), Jobless Claims (8:30am), Philly Fed Business Outlook (8:30am), NAHB Housing Mkt Index (10am), Fed speakers Kugler (9:15am), Daly (12:45pm), Cook (1:30pm), Waller (6:30pm). We also get earnings from ABT, CFG, CTAS, ELV, FITB, GE, MAN, MMC, PEP, TRV, USB before the market; while after the close we get: IBKR, NFLX, SFNC, WAL.

In premarket trading, Magnificent Seven are mixed (Nvidia +0.5%, Meta Platforms +0.4%, Tesla +0.2%, Apple +0.1%, Amazon +0.1%, Microsoft -0.5%, Alphabet -0.4%). Here are some other notable premarket movers:

  • Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) falls 6% after President Trump said Coca-Cola has agreed to use “real cane sugar” in Coke soda in the US.
  • General Electric Co. (GE) rises about 1% after the company boosted its full-year financial guidance and topped Wall Street’s profit estimates for the second quarter as rebounding demand in the aviation market softened the impact of a global trade war.
  • MP Materials (MP) falls 5% after the rare-earth producer said it was offering $500 million in common stock to fund its expansion.
  • PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) rises 2% after maintaining its annual outlook and reporting sales growth that beat Wall Street estimates, citing strong international growth.
  • Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) surges 30% after the company said it was cutting more than a third of its workforce and that its gene therapy for a fatal muscle disorder would stay on the market with warnings about the potential for liver failure.
  • United Airlines (UAL) slips 1% after the carrier narrowed its profit range for this year, saying the outlook has become more predictable than in the first six months, a period punctuated by flight disruptions, trade tensions and fighting in the Middle East.
  • Union Pacific (UNP) falls 2% after Semafor reported that the railroad is working with investment bankers at Morgan Stanley to explore an acquisition of an unknown rival, citing people familiar; CSX (CSX) rises 6%
  • US Bancorp (USB) drops 3% after the lender reported net interest income that missed analysts’ estimates in the first earnings report under new Chief Executive Officer Gunjan Kedia.

Speculation over Powell’s future rattled markets on Wednesday before US President Donald Trump downplayed the prospect of replacing him. Trump, who has long pushed for lower interest rates, has made no secret of his frustration with the Fed Chair. Overnight newsflow returned focus back on tariffs, after Trump said “we could possibly make a deal with the EU… The European Union has been brutal, and now they’re being very nice." He also said he would send letters to more than 150 countries notifying their tariff rates maybe 10% or 15%. New York Fed President John Williams said he expects tariffs to have a bigger impact on inflation in the months ahead, making the Fed’s restrictive stance “entirely appropriate.” And yesterday’s headlines on Powell prompted several top Wall Street bank CEOs to emphasize the importance of an independent central bank. A record share of American firms in a recent survey froze investments in China as trade ties worsened. Fewer than half of the companies surveyed by the US-China Business Council between March and May said they plan to invest in China in 2025, a drop from 80% last year.

“It’s a clear symptom of the resistance developed by markets for the roller coaster of headlines that have characterized Trump’s term so far,” wrote Francesco Pesole, a currency strategist at ING Groep NV. “After yesterday’s scare, the bar will be even higher to take Fed independence threats seriously.”

Meanwhile, Trump softened his rhetoric toward China in hopes of arranging a summit with President Xi Jinping and reaching a trade agreement with the world’s second-largest economy. He also said he would send letters to more than 150 countries to notify them about tariff rates that could be 10% or 15%. “Markets have learned to largely ignore what Trump says,” said Francois Rimeu, strategist at Credit Mutuel Asset Management in Paris. “Markets believe that he wants them to rise and as long as it remains the case, the trend is higher. The only possible problem coming forward in this favorable macro backdrop is inflation.”

Elsewhere in micro Taiwan chip giant TSMC rose +3.8% pre mkt, after printing better 2Q results along with a better guide for Q3/FY25 citing stronger than three months ago data-center/server/sovereign AI orders; as Goldman notes, this "should help AI spend narrative stay intact."

Attention now shifts to Retail Sales this morning which will give clues about how tariffs are affecting demand for various goods. The headline number was likely flat in June, after a 0.9% drop in May, due to a slower decline in auto sales.  “What we are hearing from JPMorgan, from Goldman Sachs, from most of US investment banks, is that the US economy is holding up,” Emmanuel Cau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays Plc, told Bloomberg TV. “Despite all this uncertainty, we have corporate resilience acting as a backstop to the equity market.”

We also get another slew of earnings reports: Pre mkt we get earnings from ABT, CFG, CTAS, ELV, FITB, GE, MAN, MMC, PEP, TRV, USB; while after the close we get: IBKR, NFLX, SFNC, WAL. Focus today will be on Retail Sales (8:30am), Jobless Claims (8:30am), Philly Fed Business Outlook (8:30am), NAHB Housing Mkt Index  (10am), Fed’s Kugler (9:15am), Daly (12:45pm), Cook (1:30pm), Waller (6:30pm). What to watch into NFLX eps: NFLX: according to Goldman, positioning skews (very) long and feels like Bulls are in set-and-forget / do-no-harm mode. Investors looking for a beat on quarter with FY guidance raise, especially given FX tailwinds. Other focus items will be capital return pacing and future strategic commentary (Ads, Live, Sports, EU/TF1).

Elevated US valuations, a depreciating dollar and rising volatility suggest it may be time to look abroad for high-quality growth, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. BI’s analysis shows 27 stocks that screen better than the Mag 7 on growth, value and quality and have significantly outperformed US stocks this year.

European stocks also advance with the Stoxx 600 up 0.7%, led by gains in industrial, construction and auto sectors. Most major markets are higher with tech stocks leading the advance after Taiwan’s TSMC reported strong earnings. This morning, UK Unemployment Rate prints 4.7% vs. 4.6% survey vs. 4.6% prior. Thematically, Electrification, AI Datacentre and semis are among the best performing baskets. Among individial movers, many significant advancers are triggered by earnings, including Ocado and ABB, as well as decliners such as Nordea and Wise.  Here are the biggest movers Thursday:

  • ABB shares soar as much as 8%, the most in over three months, after the Swiss company posted record orders with strength in US, particularly in process automation unit
  • European semiconductor stocks rebound from Wednesday’s selloff after TSMC raised sales outlook for the year, seeing resilient demand for chips used for AI computing workloads
  • AAK shares rise as much as 12%, the most since October 2023, after the Swedish vegetable oil manufacturing firm reporting second quarter operating profit that beat the average analyst estimate
  • Ocado shares soar as much as 13% after the grocer and technology company posted sales that beat expectations, while reiterating its guidance. Earnings from its Technology Solutions segment were also comfortably ahead of consensus
  • Swatch shares rise as much as 5.4% after the Swiss watchmaker pointed to “first positive signs of improvement” in China in an otherwise worse-than-expected first-half results statement
  • Legrand shares are trading at a record high this morning after jumping as much as 8.4% as the electrical device specialist posted organic growth well ahead of expectations in the second quarter and raised its outlook for the full year
  • Evolution shares rise as much as 7.8%, to the highest intraday level since April. The casino operator reported second-quarter results which were better than expected, analysts note, and maintained its margin forecast for the full year
  • Assa Abloy gains as much as 7.3%, the most since April, after the Swedish lock and entrance systems group impressed the market, with its key Global Technologies division a key outperformer
  • Wise shares drop as much as 10% after the payments software firm posted results that fell short of expectations in the first quarter, which analysts blamed on foreign exchange headwinds and light payment volumes
  • DKSH shares drop as much as 5.2% after the market expansion specialist reported sales slightly below expectations, which Vontobel blamed on challenging market conditions
  • EasyJet shares slide as much as 8.1%, the biggest drop since July 2024. Analysts cut their estimates on the travel firm due to headwinds from French air traffic control strikes and higher fuel costs
  • Nordea Bank declined 3.4%, the worst performer among European lenders, after the Nordic bank reported a slight miss on net interest income for the second quarter and a capital headwind, according to Morgan Stanley
  • Ashtead Technology shares fall as much as 26%, the most since its initial public offering in 2021. The British industrial equipment company cut its earnings outlook, citing disruption in the US market and foreign-exchange moves
  • Coats Group tumbles as much as 12%, the most in over five years, after the textile company sold £246m of stock at a discount to help fund the acquisition of insole maker OrthoLite
  • Frasers Group shares drop as much as 5.7%, the most since April 7, after the UK owner of retail outlets such as Sports Direct and House of Fraser reported revenue for the full year that missed the average analyst estimate

Earlier in the session,  Asian stocks traded in a narrow range as investors weighed ongoing US tariff risks and uncertainty around Federal Reserve leadership. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 0.3%, with Samsung Electronics and Sony the biggest boosts. Seven & i slid after Couche-Tard abandoned its $46 billion bid for the Japanese 7-Eleven operator. Benchmarks climbed in Thailand and Indonesia, while Australian stocks hit a new record after the latest jobs data bolstered the case for further interest-rate cuts. Volatility remains muted as traders await further trade developments. President Donald Trump said he plans to send letters to more than 150 countries, outlining prospective tariff rates of 10% or 15%. Uncertainty around the Fed also lingers, as tensions flared again between Chair Jerome Powell and Trump. Chinese onshore stocks climbed as Trump softened his tone amid an effort to secure a summit with President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, the government continues to seek ways to boost consumption while also curbing destructive price wars spreading through various industries. Notable Asian movers:

  • Seven & i shares sank in Tokyo after Alimentation Couche-Tard withdrew the buyout offer. Mitsui E&S shares soared after SMBC Nikko upgraded to outperform.
  • Thailand’s benchmark SET Index rises as much as 2.9%, to the highest since May 21, as foreign investors begin pouring money back into the nation’s stocks as sentiment improves ahead of the central bank governor nomination.
  • Akeso leads Chinese biotech stocks higher after the company announced some positive results from its clinical trial for a cancer drug. Electric vehicle shares like Geely rise as authorities pledge to rein in “irrational competition” in the sector undergoing an intense price war.
  • Tech Mahindra’s stock falls as much as 2.2% after the company’s reported net income for the first quarter missed the average analyst estimate. Analysts said they remained apprehensive of meaningful growth in the current industry environment.
  • Seven & i shares fell as much as 9.6%, the most since April 7, after Alimentation Couche-Tard withdrew its ¥6.77 trillion bid to buy the convenience store operator.
  • Baidu drops in Hong Kong on Thursday, after Morgan Stanley said the firm’s core ads may see further downside in 2Q given limited monetization from AI search and the drop may widen further.
  • Mitsui E&S shares climbed as much as 19%, the most since May 13, after SMBC Nikko raised its rating to outperform from neutral on expectations rising shipbuilding demand from the US will boost profit growth.
  • Singapore Telecommunications’ shares rise after a consortium led by the company won a contract from NEC Corp. for a submarine cable system.
  • Naver shares fall as much as 2.4% in Seoul, as Goldman Sachs downgrades the stock to neutral from buy, citing more conservative outlook for the company’s most profitable business, Search.
  • CAR Group shares drop as much as 5.8%, the most since April 7, after the Australian online auto retailer announced that CEO Cameron McIntyre will be stepping down and reported preliminary profit for the full year that missed the analyst estimate.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar spot index rose 0.3%, paring declines seen on Wednesday after President Donald Trump downplayed the prospect of replacing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell amid speculation over Powell’s future. EURUSD dropped as much as 0.6% to 1.1573, erasing Wednesday gains; the euro headed for its sixth daily drop in seven as interbank demand to fade its latest retreat was offset by real money selling. The Aussie dollar is the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.9% after Australian unemployment unexpectedly climbed to a four-year high in June.

In rates, treasuries dip, pushing 10-year yields up 1 bp to 4.47% while 2-year yields rose the same amount to 3.90%, bouncing of 3.86% touched on Wednesday, its lowest in nearly a week, as investors continued to signal that the Fed’s wait-and-see approach to policy easing is likely to prevail. Swaps are pricing fewer than two quarter-point cuts this year, down from the possibility of three at the start of the month as US policymakers continue to argue for a patient approach to further easing. Traders are betting that the Fed will deliver a total of 44bps of cuts by year-end, little changed from levels in late US trading. New York Fed President John Williams said he expects tariffs to have a bigger impact on inflation in the months ahead, making the central bank’s current restrictive stance “entirely appropriate.” Short-end Gilts lead a selloff in European government bonds after some mixed UK jobs data. UK 2-year yields rise 3 bps to 3.89%, limiting losses in the pound against the greenback to just 0.2%.

In commodities, oil prices are treading water with Brent near $68.50 a barrel. Spot gold falls $18 to around $3,329/oz. Bitcoin dropped ~1% to near $119,000.

Looking to the day ahead now, retail sales for June, import and export prices for June, weekly jobless claims and Philadelphia Fed index for July are all scheduled for 8:30am ET, followed by NAHB housing index for July at 10am. Central bank speakers include the Fed’s Kugler, Daly, Cook and Waller, along with the ECB’s Villeroy. Finally, earnings releases include Netflix, General Electric, PepsiCo, and Abbott Laboratories.

Market Snapshot

  • S&P 500 mini little changed
  • Nasdaq 100 mini +0.2%
  • Russell 2000 mini -0.2%
  • Stoxx Europe 600 +0.7%
  • DAX +0.9%
  • CAC 40 +0.9%
  • 10-year Treasury yield +1 basis point at 4.47%
  • VIX little changed at 17.14
  • Bloomberg Dollar Index +0.3% at 1207.9
  • euro -0.4% at $1.1598
  • WTI crude +0.3% at $66.61/barrel

Top Overnight News

  • Trump said he’d send letters to more than 150 countries notifying them their tariff rates may be 10% or 15%, though claimed he’s “indifferent” to a trade deal with the EU. BBG 
  • Trump says would love if Fed Chair Powell resigns and noted it would disrupt markets if he removed Powell.
  • The House late Wednesday advanced a trio of cryptocurrency bills and a 2026 Defense spending measure after a group of GOP hard-liners dropped their opposition to the effort following a chaotic day of turnabouts and negotiations with Republican leaders. Politico 
  • The Senate passes a bill codifying some DOGE cuts, sending it to the house: BBG
  • Trump said in an interview that the US is very close to a trade deal with India, while an agreement could possibly be reached with Europe as well, but it is too soon to say whether a deal can be agreed with Canada. RTRS 
  • US lawmakers are introducing a bill to nearly double the number of export control officers stationed around the world, according to Punchbowl. Punchbowl notes: "The bill comes during a heightened focus on export controls of American-made AI chips. While the Trump administration is relaxing some of those restrictions, many on Capitol Hill want to see a tougher approach regarding U.S. technology going to geopolitical rivals." The bill would mandate that there be at least 20 export control officers globally. There are currently 11 stationed in consulates across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
  • US intelligence found that US strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities mostly destroyed the Fordow site and only partially damaged the other two at Natanz and Isfahan. BBG 
  • The Chinese government is reportedly threatening to block the sale of over 40 ports to BlackRock (BLK) and Mediterranean Shipping Co by CK Hutchinson (0001 HK), unless Cosco is an equal partner and shareholder, via WSJ citing sources.
  • Japan’s mounting debt burden and pending election are fueling debate over whether its sovereign credit rating may be cut before long. 
  • Japan’s opposition parties played down concerns over plans to cut taxes that have contributed to recent rises in bond yields ahead of Sunday’s upper house election. BBG 
  • TSMC (+3.8% premkt) boosted its revenue growth outlook for the year to 30% and reported second-quarter earnings that beat, highlighting resilient AI spending. BBG 
  • UK unemployment rose to a four-year high of 4.7% in the three months through May. Separate tax data showed the number of employees on payrolls dropped by over 41,000 in June, worse than the expected decline of 35,000. The pound fell. BBG 
  • NY Fed President Josh Williams suggested he is reluctant to support lowering interest rates ahead of the central bank’s next meeting this month, arguing that tariffs are likely to driver further inflation. Williams said that price data are already showing that new trade barriers put in place by the Trump administration are lifting the cost of some consumer goods. WSJ 
  • Fed's Williams (Voter) said current modestly restrictive monetary policy is appropriate and the current state of interest rate policy allows Fed time to analyse data, while he added that the tariff impact is modest so far but will increase over time and tariffs should boost inflation by one percentage point for the rest of 2025 into 2026. Furthermore, he said they will need to watch data to understand tariff impact he still needs to see more data before deciding what’s next for policy.
  • BofA Institute total card spending (w/e July 12th): +4.5% Y/Y (vs +0.2% June avg.); notes online retail saw largest Y/Y spending growth due to Prime Day timing shift.

Trade/Tariffs

  • US President Trump said they are very close to an India tariff deal and could possibly make a deal with Europe, while he stated regarding Canada tariffs that it is too soon to say, and he will probably put 10% or 15% tariffs on smaller countries.
  • US Treasury Secretary Bessent to pay visit to Japanese PM Ishiba on Friday, according to Japanese government.
  • EU is reportedly preparing a list of potential tariffs on US services alongside export controls, via FT citing sources; in the scenario that trade talks with the US fail. Brussels is also considering export controls if trade talks with Washington fail. One official made clear that the list would not only focus on US tech firms.
  • Japanese trade negotiator Akazawa spoke with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick by phone, while Japan and the US reconfirmed each side's position on US tariff measures and engaged in deep interaction, according to Japan's government.
  • Japanese Government says Top Tariff Negotiator Nakazawa is to travel to Osaka to host US delegation at expo on Saturday.
  • EU reportedly stalls probe into Elon Musk's X amid US trade talks, according to FT.
  • UK is said to be pushing the US to drop a key sticking point in the steel deal, according to FT.
  • Canada is to lower tariff-rate quota levels from 100% to 50% of 2024 volumes for steel products from non-free trade agreement countries.
  • Chinese Foreign Ministry says the responsibility with Fentanyl lies with the US itself, tariffs seriously impacted China's dialogue with the US on drug control.
  • China-linked hackers are increasingly targeting Taiwan's chip industry, according to cybersecurity firm Proofpoint.

Earnings

  • TSMC +4% pre-market: Q2 beat/above prior. Q3 Guide: Revenue 31.8-33.0bln (exp. 30.7bln), Operating Margin 45.5-47.5% (Q2 49.6%), Gross Margin 55.55-57.5% (Q2 58.6%). FY25 Guide: Revenue increase of +30% (prev. exp. mid 20s%). Commentary: more conservative about Q4 due to tariffs and other uncertainties; no change in customer behaviour so far, there is risk and uncertainty from tariffs, demand for chips will continue to be robust.
  • ABB +6.4%: Rev. beat, guides strong growth.
  • Volvo Car +5.5%: Rev beat, new EVs expected to have better margins, turnaround plan on track.
  • Novartis -1.6%: Strong results, CFO to retire & Cosentyx misses sales exp.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were somewhat mixed following the two-way price action stateside where the major indices ultimately gained, although price action was choppy amid Fed independence concerns due to reports regarding a potential firing of Fed Chair Powell, which President Trump refuted. ASX 200 advanced with gains seen in nearly all sectors while stocks were unfazed by disappointing Australian jobs data. Nikkei 225 declined at the open amid currency- and data-related headwinds but gradually clawed back its losses as the JPY resumed its weakening trend. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp lacked conviction in the absence of any pertinent fresh macro catalysts.

Top Asian News

  • Chinese electric vehicle shares mostly rise as authorities pledge to rein in “irrational competition” in the sector undergoing an intense price war. Analysts remain divided over the effectiveness of such regulatory scrutiny.
  • Shares of Chinese companies related to the low-altitude economy rise after a report that local electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) maker TCab Technology signs a $1 billion deal with UAE-based Autocraft.
  • SK Hynix Inc. shares declined Thursday after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. downgraded the Korean chipmaker for the first time in over three years, on expectations it may suffer as competitors make advances.
  • Chinese retailer stocks advance as the government vows to boost consumption and fully unleash the potential of domestic demand.
  • Chinese shares connected to Tesla’s suppliers such as Tuopu rise after the electric vehicle maker confirmed its upcoming release of Model Y L — a longer, six-seat version of its Model Y sport utility vehicle — in China in the autumn.
  • Chinese biotech stocks rise, led by Akeso after the co. announced the successful enrollment of the first patient in the registration Phase III clinical trial of ivonescimab in first-line treatment for advanced metastatic colorectal cancer.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.6%) opened firmer across the board and have traded sideways at elevated levels throughout the morning. European sectors hold a strong positive bias, with only a couple of industries holding marginally in negative territory. Industrials take the top spot, lifted by post-earning strength in ABB. Followed closely by Autos (post-earning strength in Volvo Car) and then Tech (TSMC results).

    Top European News

    • Pantheon Macro, on the UK labour market data, "So we shift our call. We now look for a one-and-done cut in August. We are still torn.".
    • Germany's VCI reports H1 production down 1% Y/Y. Sales decline 0.5% to EUR 107 bln. Producer prices remain flat Y/Y. VCI maintains 2025 outlook. Lack of orders continues to pose a significant challenge for the chemical industry amid ongoing market tension, with no signs of recovery emerging this year.
    • Citi now expects the ECB to lower rates in September and December (vs. previous view of July and September).

    FX

    • After a volatile session on Wednesday, USD is attempting to recoup lost ground and resume its broader recovery seen since early July. A soft PPI report and sources that President Trump is set to fire Fed Chair Powell sent the Dollar lower; investors feared 1) the perceived likelihood of a lower FFR going forward and 2) the subsequent credibility loss in the US. Attention today will turn back to the data slate with retail sales and weekly claims both on deck. Elsewhere, TIC data due at 21:00BST will be eyed for any signs of foreign investors shunning US assets. Fed speak also on the agenda.
    • It remains the case that the USD leg of the pair is providing the bulk of direction for EUR/USD with incremental drivers from the Eurozone on the light side. Traders await any breakthroughs in EU-US trade talks after US President Trump threatened a 30% tariff on the EU over the weekend. On the fiscal front, Germany has rejected the EU's proposed EUR 2tln budget, setting up a negotiation phase with the European Parliament and European Council. EUR/USD has slipped onto a 1.15 handle but remains within Wednesday's 1.1562-1.1772 range.
    • After some fleeting upside vs. the USD on account of the Trump-Powell drama seen yesterday, USD/JPY has resumed its recent uptrend. The latest reporting noted that Japanese trade negotiator Akazawa spoke with US Commerce Secretary Lutnick by phone, while Japan and the US reconfirmed each side's position on US tariff measures and engaged in deep interaction. USD/JPY is currently tucked within Wednesday's wide 146.91-149.18 range.
    • GBP softer vs. the USD but to a lesser extent than most peers. Macro focus for the UK has been on the labour market with the latest jobs data showing an unexpected uptick in the unemployment rate to 4.7% from 4.6%, another contraction in the HMRC payrolls change and stubborn wage growth. Cable has slipped back onto a 1.34 handle but is holding above Wednesday's low at 1.3365.
    • Antipodeans have both have fallen victim to the USD with greater losses seen in AUD following the latest Australian jobs data. The release showed an unexpected jump in the unemployment rate to 4.3% from 4.1%; highest rate in 3.5 years. Accordingly, AUD/USD has slipped back onto a 0.64 handle and moved back below its 50DMA at 0.6491 with a session low at 0.6462.
    • PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1461 vs exp. 7.1703 (Prev. 7.1526).

    Fixed Income

    • USTs are lower by a handful of ticks. Gradually drifting overnight after being driven to a 110-21+ peak in the US afternoon, a high that occurred in a continuation of the post-PPI move and as USTs picked up after the Powell reporting and subsequent pushback by Trump. Thus far, down to a 110-13 base which takes them back to roughly where they were before the first Powell reports hit. Today's focus will be on US data (Retail Sales, Jobless Claims, Atlanta Fed will update its GDPNow tracker), and a number of Fed speakers.
    • Bunds are modestly lower. Slipped earlier doors, hit marginally by TSMC’s Q2 report and then more significantly when the name provided strong guidance for Q3 (see Equities) as the broad risk tone picked up. Over the early European morning, Bunds fell from the c. 129.60 level that they had been meandering around overnight to a 129.47 low before the European cash equity open and since to a 129.38 base. Supply from Spain passed without reaction as is usually the case, though the b/c for the 2048 line was weaker than normal. France, was strong overall though some modest pressure was seen in OATs on the results, potentially driven by the sub-3x b/c for the 2031 line.
    • Gilts are underperforming. Hit at the open given the bearish bias from peers (see above), and also the morning’s jobs data. In brief, the series showed that the labour market is continuing to weaken with the Unemployment Rate unexpectedly ticking higher and another negative print for the HMRC Payrolls Change. However, this is caveated by a significant revision to the prior HMRC figure. Opened at 91.33, 20 ticks below yesterday’s close, and then slipped further to a 91.14 trough. No move seen on the DMO’s 2030 sale, results broadly in-line with the last outing.
    • Spain sells EUR 5.7bln vs exp. EUR 5.0-6.0bln 2.70% 2030, 3.20% 2035 & 2.70% 2048 Bono.
    • France sells EUR 12bln vs exp. EUR 10-12bln 2.40% 2028, 2.50% 2030 and 2.70% 2031 OAT.
    • UK sells GBP 4.75bln 4.375% 2030 Gilt: b/c 3.12x (prev. 3.26x), average yield 4.078% (prev. 4.06%) & tail 0.2bps (prev. 0.2bps)

    Commodities

    • WTI and Brent are trading on either side of the unchanged mark, but have held a negative bias throughout the European morning, up until a geopolitical update. Al Arabiya reported of a drone attack on the Taouki oil field (80k bpd) in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. An update which has lifted the crude benchmarks more concertedly into the green, albeit did respect earlier highs. Brent Sept’25 currently trades around USD 68.50/bbl in a USD 68.34-69.01/bbl range, which is well within the prior day’s confines.
    • Precious metals are broadly in the red, with losses all generally to a similar extent as each other. Spot gold traded rangebound overnight, finding some footing after extending higher on Wednesday amid reports that US President Trump would fire Chair Powell. This morning, the yellow-metal has traded with a downward bias thanks to the firmer Dollar and positive risk-tone across European equities. Currently in a in a USD 3,325.10-3,351.11 range.
    • Base metals hold a negative bias, in part due to the firmer Dollar. 3M LME Copper posts very mild losses, in continuation of the rangebound trade seen overnight amid the somewhat mixed risk appetite in APAC trade. 3M LME Copper is incrementally in the red and trades in a USD 9,593.05-9,643.9/t range.
    • Qatar set August-loading Al-Shaheen crude term premium at USD 2.48/bbl and raised September Al-Shaheen crude term price to USD 3.33/bbl above Dubai quotes, according to sources cited by Reuters.
    • "March attack targeting the Taouki oil field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq", via Al Arabiya.
    • Indian oil minister sees potential for fuel price cuts if crude remains at current levels for next 2-3 months.

    Geopolitics: Middle East

    • Senior US official said they are very close to an agreement that will lead to halting the escalation between Israel and Syria, according to Axios' Ravid.
    • New US assessment finds US strikes destroyed just one Iranian nuclear site, according to NBC; strikes degraded two other sites. One of the three sites was mostly destroyed, setting work there back significantly. The two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next several months if Iran wants it to. Officials believe the attack on Fordo, which has long been viewed as a critical component of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, was successful in setting back Iranian enrichment capabilities at that site by as much as two years, according to two of the current officials. Trump rejected a military plan for more comprehensive strikes that would have lasted for weeks.

    Geopolitics: Ukraine 

    • Russia's Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Medvedev says Russia should respond to West to full extent, with preventative strikes in needed, via Tass
    • Russian air defence units downed two Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow, according to the city's mayor. It was also reported that Russian air defence systems destroyed 122 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to RIA.
    • NATO's Top Military Commander Grynkewich says even if there is a peaceful solution in Ukraine, Russia will remain a threat.

    US Event Calendar

     

    DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

    Central bank independence was back in the spotlight yesterday, with a huge market reaction after several outlets reported that President Trump might be about to fire Fed Chair Powell. That led to a major selloff for long-end Treasuries and the US Dollar, but the moves mostly unwound after Trump said that he was “not planning” on firing Powell and that it was “highly unlikely”. So despite all the volatility in the middle of the session, the 30yr Treasury yield (-0.7bps) ultimately saw a marginal decline on the day to 5.01% and the S&P 500 (+0.32%) closed less than -0.3% below its record high last week. Even the dollar index (-0.23%) recovered most of its intraday losses, and is up +0.15% this morning, so it’s clear that Powell’s removal is still a prospect that markets view as unlikely for the time being.

    The question of Powell’s removal had risen up the agenda over recent days, particularly given Trump’s regular calls for lower rates. But for the most part, this really wasn’t being priced in much, particularly given Trump himself had said on several occasions that he wasn’t planning to do it. However, that changed yesterday after CBS reported that Trump had indicated to Republican lawmakers that he’d remove Powell. So that triggered a more meaningful market reaction, which got further momentum after Bloomberg reported that a White House official said Trump was likely to fire Powell soon. Then shortly after that, the reaction became even more aggressive as the New York Times said that Trump had drafted a letter to fire Powell and waved a copy in front of lawmakers in the Oval Office. 

    Very soon after that NYT report, Trump spoke in the Oval Office and said that he wasn’t planning to fire Powell. So that quickly unwound the market reaction, even though he still left the door open to Powell’s removal, saying “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud”. So for about an hour we had a brief glimpse of the likely market reaction as investors started to view Powell’s removal as a serious prospect. Notably, there was a huge steepening in the yield curve as investors ramped up the prospect of a near-term rate cut. Indeed at one point, a rate cut by September was priced as an 80% chance, having been at 57% the previous day. And at the lows, the 2yr yield was down -8.2bps on the day at 3.86%, whilst the 30yr yield surged by over 10bps in under an hour to an intraday peak of 5.07%. Meanwhile, the dollar index slumped too, down -0.91% at the lows. 

    Ultimately, the bulk of those moves unwound after Trump’s comments. But the extent of the unwind varied across asset classes, and there were still clear jitters in markets that lingered after Trump’s remarks. While the S&P 500 (+0.32%) posted a full recovery, the dollar index closed -0.23% lower, its first decline in two weeks. The Treasury curve saw a sizeable bull steepening, as 2yr yields closed -4.8bps at 3.89%, while the 10yr (-2.6 bps to 4.46%) and 30yr (-0.9bps to 5.01%) yields saw more modest declines. And in a sign of the rising risk premium for long-term Treasuries, the 5s30s curve steepened to 102bps, its steepest level since October 2021. For more thoughts on the issue, our US economists published a note yesterday evening.

    It feels like ancient history now, but before the Powell story, markets had seen some positive momentum after the US PPI report was softer than expected. So that helped to ease fears about inflation, and investors viewed the release as enough to keep Fed rate cuts in play for this year. Specifically, headline producer prices were unchanged in June (vs. +0.2% expected), which meant the year-on-year rate fell back to a 9-month low of +2.3% (vs. +2.5% expected). Moreover, core PPI was also subdued, and came in unchanged on the month as well (vs +0.2% expected). So the release pushed back against the more inflationary narrative from Tuesday’s CPI print, where strength among certain core goods led to fears that the tariff impact was becoming more obvious on inflation. 

    Inflation was also in the spotlight in Europe, as the UK CPI print was notably higher than expected, which led to an underperformance for UK gilts. The release showed headline CPI moving up to +3.6% in June (vs. +3.4% expected), whilst core CPI also rose to +3.7% (vs. +3.5% expected). So that was the fastest headline CPI print since January 2024, and it led investors to dial back the likelihood of rapid rate cuts from the Bank of England. For instance, the amount of cuts priced in by the November meeting came down -3.1bps on the day to 43bps. And it meant yields on 10yr gilts rose +1.5bps, in contrast to the declines elsewhere in Europe, which meant yields on 10yr bunds (-2.5bps), OATs (-2.7bps) and BTPs (-3.0bps) all moved lower. For more on inflation, I put out a note yesterday on how markets are still underestimating the risk of a further rise (link here).

    For equities, it was also a volatile session, with the S&P 500 down -0.68% at the intraday low around the Powell news. But those losses were then pared back and the index ultimately closed +0.32% higher. Banks had been particularly hit by the initial Powell headlines, with the KBW bank index falling as much -1.51% but this also recovered into positive territory (+0.30%) by the close. The small cap Russell 2000 (+0.99%) outperformed while the Magnificent 7 (+0.27%) posted a 6th consecutive advance for the first time this year. And there was also decent economic data, with industrial production up +0.3% in June (vs. +0.1% expected). In Europe, the STOXX 600 (-0.57%) fell for a 4th consecutive session, but the index closed right before Trump’s comments about not firing Powell, so that came before the recovery in US equities. Indeed, European equity futures are clearly positive this morning, with those for the DAX (+0.41%) and FTSE 100 (+0.40%) both rising.

    Overnight in Asia, the major equity indices have all posted modest gains, with advances for the Nikkei (+0.16%), the Hang Seng (+0.07%), the KOSPI (+0.03%) and the Shanghai Comp (+0.09%). Meanwhile, the CSI 300 (+0.31%) has been one of the stronger performers, and is currently on track for its highest closing level of 2025 so far. Another has been Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (+0.68%), which comes after some disappointing labour market data overnight, with employment up just +2k in June (vs. +20k expected), and the unemployment rate also up to 4.3% (vs. 4.1% expected). So that’s led investors to price in a growing probability of rate cuts from the RBA this year, and the country’s 10yr government bond yield is down -4.6bps as well. The Australian Dollar is also the weakest G10 currency this morning, having fallen -0.64% against the US Dollar. Looking forward, US equity futures are pointing to a somewhat more negative performance, with those on the S&P 500 down -0.19% this morning. 

    To the day ahead now, and data releases include US retail sales for June, the weekly initial jobless claims, the NAHB’s housing market index for July, and UK unemployment for May. Central bank speakers include the Fed’s Kugler, Daly, Cook and Waller, along with the ECB’s Villeroy. Finally, earnings releases include Netflix, General Electric, PepsiCo, and Abbott Laboratories.

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 07:58

    'No Kings' In America - Unless They Answer To 'Your Honor'

    Zero Hedge -

    'No Kings' In America - Unless They Answer To 'Your Honor'

    Authored by Samantha Flom via RealClearPolitics,

    "In America, we don't do kings."

    That was the message of the leftist protesters who swarmed the streets nationwide on June 14 in opposition to President Donald Trump and his agenda.

    "Trump must go now!" they chanted, waving signs that likened the president to a dictator and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to his Gestapo.

    Their complaint was alleged despotism. But if Democrats really opposed authoritarianism, they wouldn't be celebrating its emergence in the courts.

    When U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani brazenly overstepped her authority on July 7 to block Congress from stripping Planned Parenthood's Medicaid funding through the budget reconciliation bill – a clear usurpation of the legislative branch's power of the purse – the response from the Left wasn't outrage but praise.

    "Good," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote on X. "Democrats will never stop fighting this backdoor abortion ban from the Republicans."

    Schumer's apparent admission that Medicaid funds abortions aside, his comments also belie his party's disingenuous indignation over supposed federal overreach.

    That selective outrage was on full display in April amid the arrest of a Wisconsin judge for allegedly escorting Eduardo Flores-Ruiz – an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported – out the back jury door of her courtroom to help him evade federal immigration authorities.

    The ICE agents in question had a valid administrative warrant for Flores-Ruiz's arrest, yet leftists railed against efforts to hold Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan to account for her alleged obstruction.

    "By arresting a sitting judge over routine courthouse management, the Trump regime has signaled its eagerness to weaponize federal power against members of the judiciary who do not align with its political agenda," writer Mitchell Sobieski fumed in a Milwaukee Independent op-ed.

    If impeding federal law enforcement now qualifies as "routine courthouse management," that's a big problem.

    Meanwhile, Milwaukee's Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson's complaint was that the Trump administration was "scaring people" by enforcing federal immigration law.

    "They're scaring people in this community; they're scaring people in immigrant communities all across the United States," Johnson told the press.

    Never mind the law-abiding U.S. citizens who remain scared that their daughters, sisters, or mothers could be the next Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, or Rachel Morin – all victims of murderers in the country illegally.

    Apparently their fears are irrelevant.

    As for Dugan, her claim that "judicial immunity" precludes her from prosecution for alleged obstruction of justice is as authoritarian as it gets.

    Judges are but one facet of the American justice system, and as Democrats once loved reminding us all: "No one is above the law."

    Of course, the left's disinterest in reining in the judiciary is nothing new. After all, the Democratic Party has long relied on activist judges to impose its will on the American public.

    With Roe v. Wade in 1973, leftists leveraged a sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court to force nearly a half-century of unregulated abortion onto a country that was – and still is – deeply divided on the procedure.

    In 2015, leftists used the same playbook to mandate same-sex marriage nationwide via Obergefell v. Hodges.

    In the age of Trump, however, judicial activism has become an even more flagrant problem.

    Last year, then-candidate Trump was frequently forced to split his time between the campaign trail and the courtroom as he fended off contrived criminal indictments and lawsuits, nearly all of which were conveniently presided over by liberal judges.

    At the same time, radical judges in Colorado and Illinois – and Maine's Democratic secretary of state – attempted to strip voters of their right to decide the presidential election by removing Trump's name from the ballot.

    Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to quash that authoritarian plot. Unfortunately for the justices, it's a move they've had to repeat several times since the president's inauguration in January.

    In a litany of cases challenging Trump's various policy changes, rogue district court judges have issued sweeping injunctions blocking him from implementing his agenda nationwide in cases without a class certification – a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court has now admonished as "likely" judicial overreach.

    Still, lower court judges are finding other ways to overstep their authority.

    U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, for example, appears to have decided that his court, not the nation's high court, reigns supreme in the land.

    Even after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted his nationwide block on third-country deportations in June, Murphy continued to insist that the Trump administration give six defendant illegal immigrants an opportunity to challenge their removal before deporting them to a third-party country.

    That move even rankled liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who had initially sided with Murphy.

    "I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed," Kagan wrote, concurring with the majority that the deportations could proceed.

    Yet not even the top court is immune to political activism, it seems.

    In her dissent from the court's ruling against blanket injunctions, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described the majority's decision as "profoundly dangerous." In her view, containing temporary judicial relief to those requesting it somehow grants the president "unchecked, arbitrary power" and "undermines our constitutional system."

    Jackson's words were acrimonious enough that Justice Amy Coney Barrett included a stinging rebuke in the court's ruling.

    "We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself," Barrett wrote. "We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary."

    An imperial judiciary, indeed.

    No, there are no kings in the United States – just a bunch of black-robed activists who seem to have forgotten the difference between "Your Honor" and "Your Majesty."

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 07:20

    10 Thursday AM Reads

    The Big Picture -

    My morning train WFH reads:

    Shake the Valuation Fixation: Whatever their level and whichever flavor you prefer, price-to-earnings ratios say little about markets’ future direction. (Fisher Investments)

    Jamie Dimon Says Private Credit Is Dangerous—and He Wants JPMorgan to Get In on It: Bank puts $50 billion toward lending to riskier companies to compete with nonbank giants; Walgreens deal the payoff. (Wall Street Journal) but see Is the PE Machine Broken? Private equity firms want investors to pony up $1.5 trillion more than they are giving back in distributions, which are running 50 percent below normal. (Institutional Investor)en

    The Streaming Wars Come Down to 2: YouTube vs. Netflix: The two giant video companies have far different strategies, but the same goal: controlling your TV set. (New York Times)

    Forget Kitchens—Zillow Says This is Where Homeowners Are Spending Big in 2025: In a year of surging costs, curb appeal improvements, such as an upgrade to your mailbox, seem to top the list of places homeowners are still willing to invest, regardless of resale value. (Though, let’s be honest: we know how important first impressions are, hence better curb appeal usually leads to a better sale price!) (Country Living)

    • Declining immigration weighs on GDP growth, with little impact on inflation: Unauthorized immigration surged sharply in 2021–24 but has since declined abruptly with negative implications for economic growth. Estimates based on historical data and a structural vector autoregression model suggest gross domestic product growth in 2025 is 0.75 to 1 percentage points lower than in a benchmark simulation using the Congressional Budget Office’s immigration projections through November 2024. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)

    It’s No Bluff: The Tariff Rate Is Soaring Under Trump: The president has earned a reputation for bluffing on tariffs. But he has steadily and dramatically raised U.S. tariffs, transforming global trade. (New York Times)

    Freedom over death: Death is a certainty. But choosing how and when we depart is a modest opportunity for freedom – and dignity. (Aeon)

    At 66, I Decided to Get Healthy Again. Was It Too Late? A quest for eternal vigor led to less drinking, more exercise and an epiphany about the parts of life that make physical decline bearable. (Bloomberg)

    He may have stopped Trump’s would-be assassin. Now he’s telling his story. In his first extensive media interview since the assassination attempt, Aaron Zaliponi, a 46-year-old Army combat veteran, recounted firing the “ninth shot.” (Washington Post)

    The Interview The Grody-Patinkin Family Is a Mess. People Love It. the twosome, who have been married for 45 years, recently found a new level of acclaim simply by being themselves. During the pandemic, Gideon Grody-Patinkin, the younger of Kathryn and Mandy’s two sons, began posting zany TikTok videos of his parents bickering, joking, kibitzing, needling and being sweetly affectionate with each other. Those videos found a wide fan base online, at a time when people were hungry for a dose of familial closeness. (New York Times)

    Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Neil Dutta, head of the economic research team at Renaissance Macro Research. Previously, he was Senior Economist NA at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch under Ethan Harris and David Rosenberg. He has a history of making successful contrarian calls, including calling for no recession in 2022, and warning that the FOMC would raise rates aggressively in 2022. He is now expecting a mild recession late 2025/26.

     

    “Bonds always test new Chair… in 3 months following 7 nominations since 1970 (Burns, Miller, Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Powell) yields up every time ..” [Hartnett]

    Source: @carlquintanilla.bsky.social

     

    Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

     

    The post 10 Thursday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

    FDA Commissioner Responds To Critics: 'Be Patient With Us' On COVID-19 Vaccines

    Zero Hedge -

    FDA Commissioner Responds To Critics: 'Be Patient With Us' On COVID-19 Vaccines

    Authored by Zachary Stieber & Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration is responding to critics of the agency’s recent approvals of COVID-19 vaccines, saying the FDA is involved in a process that takes time.

    Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, in Washington on May 5, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    Dr. Marty Makary urged patience after disclosing that he was aware of research indicating COVID-19 vaccines may cause immune system deregulation and described databases with self-reported adverse events as inadequate to determine harms from vaccines.

    I don’t want people to think that we’re blowing off the safety signal[s] that many people have described,” said Makary, who was speaking on July 14 on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” in an interview that will be released soon.

    I personally know of people who have been injured by the vaccine. I personally know of friends who have lost a loved one from the mRNA COVID vaccine. So I think it is reasonable at this time to say we want good, solid, definitive data, and the conditional, limited approval of the COVID vaccines is in that framework that we want to see a proper dataset come to us so we can take a good look at that data.”

    The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines utilize messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology.

    The FDA has, for years, cleared updated COVID-19 vaccines on an annual basis despite there being scant or no clinical trial data demonstrating the effectiveness of the shots. Makary and another top FDA official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, announced in May that regulators would not be issuing new licenses for the vaccines for many Americans unless manufacturers ran trials based on clinical endpoints, such as the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19.

    They also said that testing showing the vaccines trigger antibodies would be sufficient for the elderly, as well as young people with at least one condition the government says places them at higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes.

    The FDA subsequently approved, in addition to Novavax’s vaccine, a new next-generation vaccine from Moderna and an updated version of Moderna’s existing vaccine, Spikevax, for the elderly and people with at least one risk factor. The latter approval also came for those at least 6 months of age who have at least one risk factor; previously, the vaccine was available under emergency authorization for younger children.

    A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email that the approval was based on “a targeted review of the vaccine’s data, focused specifically on protecting children at highest risk” and that the approval “reflects a careful evaluation of the scientific evidence.” Moderna officials said the vaccines provide an important tool to protect people against severe disease and hospitalization. Critics said the FDA should not have cleared the vaccines.

    This move puts America’s children at high risk and is a giant step backward for science-based healthcare,” Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, said in a statement, citing concerns about side effects such as heart inflammation, or myocarditis.

    Makary said in the EpochTV interview that “we have a situation whereby we would love these companies to run a proper randomized, controlled trial. And so if you do nothing—if you reject the COVID vaccines as they come to you for approval—then you have no leverage to be able to ask the company to do that, and those studies may never be done.”

    The FDA does not itself run trials, and trials are large and expensive, the commissioner said. He noted that the original trials ran several years ago and said new ones should be done to show parents whether their children really need an annual COVID-19 vaccine.

    Makary and Prasad wrote in a recent viewpoint that “the burden of proof must be high to vaccinate healthy people at low risk of severe disease” and that the FDA “authorizes specific indications for use only when there is substantial confidence that benefits outweigh risks.”

    While doctors can administer COVID-19 vaccines and other drugs for unapproved purposes, or off-label, they urged doctors who choose to vaccinate young males—the population at highest risk of myocarditis—to consider factors such as recent COVID-19 infection and the risk of myocarditis before administering the shots.

    Makary also said on EpochTV that there’s one stance for healthy people and another when it comes to people with a risk factor, such as people with cancer.

    We are going to be OK with the COVID vaccines in high-risk Americans, which is a much more limited indication,” he said.

    He added later: “For people who think that we approved a COVID vaccine for, say, healthy children, that’s incorrect. That’s not true.”

    Makary also highlighted how the FDA just expanded the warnings for myocarditis for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, both of which utilize mRNA technology, based on a safety study the FDA completed.

    The updated labels state that the highest risk for myocarditis is in males aged 12 to 24, with 27 cases per million doses recorded within seven days of a vaccination.

    The FDA commissioner then turned to how he knows people who were injured by the COVID-19 vaccine, and knows of deaths among others.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website that several factors explain reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination, including requirements that doctors report any deaths after vaccination to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, regardless of the cause.

    The CDC has also said that the only post-vaccination deaths caused by the vaccines were from the now-discontinued Johnson & Johnson vaccine. According to an Epoch Times investigation, the CDC found evidence, such as autopsies, that the available vaccines caused other deaths while looking into deaths reported to VAERS.

    The CDC also says that certain side effects, such as myocarditis, are caused by the vaccines but that most side effects reported after COVID-19 vaccination are rare, and until recently, it recommended that all people aged 6 months and older receive an annual shot. The agency removed recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women to get a COVID-19 vaccine under orders from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    Makary said he believes vaccine injuries are real and that some cases designated as long COVID, or lingering effects from a COVID-19 infection, were actually caused by vaccination.

    “I’m not saying that’s all of them. I don’t want people to read too much into that. But I would like people to be patient with us as we try to approach this methodologically, collecting the proper data,” he said. “It is easy to react. I was very angry when I learned that a friend’s father had died from the COVID vaccine. And look, we’re convinced it was causal until proven otherwise. You can always nitpick and say, ‘Well, this could have been a random event,’ but no, there are many reasons why we are confident that it was causal. Now, when I say we are not the FDA, but me and my circle of friends and loved ones who know this individual who lost their father.

    “So people have a right to be angry. They have been deceived on different aspects of the COVID pandemic. They have been ordered to march into a vaccine line even if they were healthy and low-risk and already had circulating antibodies. People have a right to be upset, but I would ask people to be patient with us as we do this the proper scientific way.”

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 06:30

    Ghislaine 'Ready' To Testify As Trump Triples Down, Slams 'Weakling PAST Supporters Who Believe Epstein Hoax'

    Zero Hedge -

    Ghislaine 'Ready' To Testify As Trump Triples Down, Slams 'Weakling PAST Supporters Who Believe Epstein Hoax'

    While President Trump continues to insist that the "Epstein List" of elites who partook in Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring is nothing more than a Democrat hoax, Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell is 'ready' to spill the beans.

    According to a "source" who spoke to the Daily Mail, "Despite the rumors, Ghislaine was never offered any kind of plea deal. She would be more than happy to sit before Congress and tell her story," adding "No-one from the government has ever asked her to share what she knows. She remains the only person to be jailed in connection to Epstein and she would welcome the chance to tell the American public the truth."

    Maxwell argues she should have been protected from prosecution as part of a Non Prosecution Agreement made by Epstein - her former lover and boss - in 2007 when he agreed to plead guilty to two minor charges of prostitution in a 'sweetheart deal' which saw him spend little time behind bars.

    And now, controversy continues to rage over the Department of Justice's statement that there is no Epstein 'client list' and the release of videos from inside New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center which the DOJ says proves he committed suicide in 2019 while being held in jail on sex trafficking charges. -Daily Mail

    As PJ Media's Matt Margolis opines; If Ghislaine Maxwell is willing to testify, how Congress handles it will speak volumes. The Epstein scandal isn’t just another controversy—it’s a litmus test for whether truth still has a place in American politics. If our elected leaders choose to look the other way, they’ve forfeited any moral claim to the power they hold. The Biden administration was happy to bury it, hoping the story would fade. But Trump made it clear on the campaign trail: he wants the truth exposed, and so does the MAGA movement.

    Trump Slams 'Past Supporters'

    On Wednesday, President Trump tripled down on his claim that the so-called Epstein List is nothing more than a Democrat hoax

    "Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit'," Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding "They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.

    "I have had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax," the post continues. "Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!"

    Trump was asked on Wednesday whether AG Pam Bondi will 'release more documents,' to which Trump replied: "Yeah. Whatever's credible, she can release… He's dead, he's gone. Republicans got duped by the Democrats, and they're following a Democrat playbook. No different than Russia Russia Russia, the other hoaxes."

    (for a temperature check, click into that tweet and read the replies to Benny Johnson - whose followers are bigtime MAGA)

    Democrat Pouncing Intensifies

    Meanwhile, Democrats have seized the moment - as internal (and external) polling suggests that the issue is breaking through to voters. As Politico reports: 

    Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) accused President Donald Trump of “hiding the Epstein list” in a post on X. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries insisted at a press conference Americans “deserve to know the truth.” The Democratic National Committee last week launched an X bot that posts daily, “Has Trump released the Epstein files? No,” and House Majority PAC rolled out a “simp target list” of “complicit” GOP members. And on Tuesday, Democrats attempted to cast a procedural vote as a referendum to compel the release of more Epstein-related material.

    It’s a trollish, conspiratorial-minded response to Republican infighting that Democrats haven’t traditionally engaged in, particularly around Epstein, the accused sex trafficker whose 2019 death in prison was ruled a suicide. Just six years ago, the DNC lambasted “baseless conspiracy theories.” But now, as the Trump administration has tied itself in knots over the Epstein case, Democratic leaders have stopped holding back as they work to capitalize on fissures threatening Trump’s relationship to his MAGA base.

    “I just want to remind the American people that in February of this year, Attorney General Pam Bondi acknowledged the existence of Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. In fact, she said that Jeffrey Epstein’s client list is ‘sitting on my desk right now.’ Where is that client list? What is Attorney General Bondi hiding?” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) told reporters on Tuesday. “This is the case of the powerful protecting the powerful. We need to have those files released.”

    The outlet spoke with a dozen Democratic elected officials, strategists and aides, who say that the controversy is helpful - not only in dividing Trump's base, but also illustrating the president's tendency to flip-flop on something he vowed to do on the campaign trail. 

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 06:25

    These Are Richest People In Every US State

    Zero Hedge -

    These Are Richest People In Every US State

    From tech moguls to retail tycoons, the richest person in each U.S. state reflects the industries driving wealth across the country.

    Some are household names, while others have built quiet fortunes in their home states.

    This map, via Visual Capitalist's Kayla Zhu, shows the richest person in U.S. every state and their estimated net worth, as ranked by Forbes.

    Net worths are calculated as of April 25, 2025.

    Who is the Richest Person in Every State?

    Below, we show the richest person in each U.S. state, their estimated net worth, city of residence, and industry.

    Name State Estimated Net Worth (Billions) Age City Industry/Company Elon Musk Texas $388.0 53 Austin Tesla, SpaceX Jeff Bezos Florida $206.0 61 Miami Amazon Mark Zuckerberg California $189.0 40 Palo Alto Facebook Warren Buffett Nebraska $165.0 94 Omaha Berkshire Hathaway Steve Ballmer Washington $118.0 69 Hunts Point Microsoft Rob Walton & Family Arkansas $113.0 80 Bentonville Walmart Michael Bloomberg New York $105.0 83 New York Bloomberg LP Charles Koch & family Kansas $67.5 89 Wichita Koch, Inc. Jeff Yass Pennsylvania $59.0 66 Haverford Trading, investments Lukas Walton Illinois $39.0 38 Chicago Walmart Jacqueline Mars Virginia $39.0 85 The Plains Candy, pet food John Mars Wyoming $39.0 89 Jackson Candy, pet food Abigail Johnson Massachusetts $31.5 63 Milton Fidelity Phil Knight & family Oregon $29.0 87 Hillsboro Nike Miriam Adelson & family Nevada $28.6 79 Las Vegas Casinos Thomas Frist Jr & family Tennessee $26.8 86 Nashville Hospitals Daniel Gilbert Michigan $23.7 63 Franklin Rocket Mortgage Diane Hendricks Wisconsin $21.9 78 Afton Building supplies Steve Cohen Connecticut $21.3 68 Greenwich Hedge funds Harold Hamm & family Oklahoma $18.5 79 Oklahoma City Oil & gas Ernest Garcia II Arizona $17.3 67 Tempe Used cars Todd Graves Louisiana $17.2 53 Baton Rouge Fast food Philip Anschutz Colorado $16.9 85 Denver Energy, sports, entertainment Rick Cohen & family New Hampshire $11.5 72 Keene Warehouse automation David Steward Missouri $11.4 73 St. Louis IT provider Bubba Cathy, Dan Cathy, & Trudy Cathy White Georgia $10.7 71, 72 & 69 Atlanta, Atlanta, Hampton Chick-fil-A Harry Stine Iowa $10.2 83 Adel Agriculture Pierre Omidyar Hawaii $10.0 57 Honolulu EBay, PayPal Carl Cook Indiana $9.9 62 Bloomington Medical devices James Goodnight North Carolina $9.8 82 Cary Software Tamara Gustavson Kentucky $8.1 63 Lexington Self storage Les Wexner & family Ohio $7.8 87 New Albany Retail Dennis Washington Montana $7.4 90 Missoula Construction, mining John Overdeck New Jersey $7.4 55 Millburn Hedge funds Annette Lerner & family Maryland $5.5 95 Chevy Chase Real estate Robert Faith South Carolina $5.0 61 Charleston Real estate management Gail Miller Utah $4.4 81 Salt Lake City Car dealerships Susan Alfond Maine $3.7 79 Scarborough Shoes Jonathan Nelson Rhode Island $3.4 68 Providence Private equity Frank VanderSloot Idaho $3.2 76 Idaho Falls Nutrition, wellness products Thomas Duff & James Duff Mississippi $3.0 64 & 68 Hattiesburg Tires, diversified Glen Taylor Minnesota $2.9 84 Mankato Printing T. Denny Sanford South Dakota $2.1 89 Sioux Falls Banking, credit cards John Abele Vermont $2.0 88 Shelburne Healthcare Ron Corio New Mexico $1.7 63 Albuquerque Solar Jimmy Rane Alabama $1.5 78 Abbeville Lumber Gary Tharaldson North Dakota $1.2 79 Fargo Hotels Brad Smith West Virginia $0.9 61 Huntington Intuit Elizabeth Snyder Delaware $0.8 77 Wilmington Gore-Tex Jonathan Rubini & family Alaska $0.4 70 Anchorage Real Estate Leonard Hyde & family Alaska $0.4 68 Anchorage Real estate

    Elon Musk is the richest person in Texas, and the world, after moving to the Lone Star State from California in 2020. The Tesla CEO has an estimated net worth of about $338 billion.

    Other high-profile business leaders who are the richest individuals of their respective state include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in California with an estimated net worth of $189 billion, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in Florida with $206 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett in Nebraska with $165 billion.

    Other notable tech leaders on the map include former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Washington with a net worth of $118 billion. He overtook his former boss, Bill Gates, after Forbes revised its estimate of the 2021 divorce settlement awarded to Gates’ ex-wife, Melinda French Gates.

    In all but three states (Alaska, Delaware, and West Virginia), the richest individual was at least a billionaire.

    Brad Smith, the retired CEO of Intuit and current president of Marshall University of West Virginia is almost at the billionaire mark, with an estimated $900 million net worth.

    To learn more about some of the richest areas of the U.S., check out this graphic that visualizes the top U.S. cities by number of centi-millionaire residents.

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 05:45

    High Court Ends UK Govt's £7B Afghan Resettlement Cover-Up After Data Leak

    Zero Hedge -

    High Court Ends UK Govt's £7B Afghan Resettlement Cover-Up After Data Leak

    Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

    The High Court has lifted a super-injunction obtained by the UK government that had concealed a massive £7 billion secret resettlement program for thousands of Afghan nationals, following a damning judgment that accused ministers of suppressing democratic accountability and misleading Parliament.

    The injunction, originally imposed in September 2023, blocked not only media reporting on a major data breach involving thousands of Afghan collaborators with British forces, but also the very existence of the injunction itself. Now, nearly two years later, Mr. Justice Chamberlain ruled that the order must be discharged, citing “serious interference” with press freedom and a failure to justify continued secrecy.

    The leak, which occurred in early 2022, exposed personal details of tens of thousands of Afghans who had applied to relocate to the UK following the Taliban takeover. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) learned of the breach more than a year later, in August 2023, when names appeared on Facebook. Instead of acknowledging the error, the government initiated a covert admissions scheme to bring thousands of affected individuals — and their families — to Britain, while silencing any media inquiry under the cover of national security.

    With the approval of family reunification for all those affected, the true number of Afghans imported into Britain could be significantly higher than the number directly affected by the data breach.

    During closed hearings, Mr. Justice Chamberlain expressed alarm over the scale of the deception. At a behind-closed-doors hearing in November 2024, reported on Tuesday by The Telegraph, he remarked, “When you are dealing with public expenditure of that magnitude — £7 billion — it’s not possible to lose that amount of money down the back of the sofa.” He went on to highlight internal communications in which government officials discussed using a statement to Parliament as “cover” for the scheme, rather than providing full disclosure.

    “Am I going bonkers? This is a very, very striking thing,” the judge said. “The statement to Parliament will ‘provide cover’. It is a completely unprecedented situation.”

    The judge condemned the use of the courts to facilitate what barrister Jude Bunting KC called a deliberate effort “to mislead the public.” The super-injunction, Bunting argued, prevented public scrutiny on key political issues such as immigration and public spending: “It is corrosive of democracy. It prevents the public from being informed about the reason for billions of expenditure, at a time when immigration is at the forefront of debate.”

    Mr. Justice Chamberlain echoed this concern, saying the order had “the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy.” He added: “It not only prevents public discussion of the full reasons for the government’s policy. It prevents the public from knowing of the very existence of the policy.”

    As reported by The Times, he told the government’s barrister at one of the secret hearings, “You’re going to have to say something about all of this, because you’re spending £7 billion and you’re letting in many thousands of people that you wouldn’t have been letting in before.”

    The U.K. newspaper noted: “Almost 24,000 Afghans affected by the breach have been brought to the UK already or will be in the future.”

    Despite the magnitude, the government had not informed the public, Parliament, or even many of the individuals whose data was leaked until now.

    The judgment published on Tuesday also criticized the way intelligence assessments had been used to justify the injunction. In a review that ultimately led to the order’s lifting, a retired civil servant concluded that the leaked dataset posed only marginal risk to individuals and that the Taliban were unlikely to use it to identify targets. The judge found this “fundamentally undermines the evidential basis” for continued secrecy.

    Super-injunctions, usually associated with celebrities, were never intended to shield vast immigration schemes from public oversight. “When the government obtains one,” Chamberlain said, “it is likely to give rise to understandable suspicion that the Court’s processes are being used for the purposes of censorship.”

    In the wake of the judgment, the government has been forced to admit that the data leak occurred in 2022 but was not publicly acknowledged until now; that it included a database of 33,000 records; that a new secret relocation program was launched in response, moving thousands of foreign nationals to Britain; and that the individual responsible for the leak has not been publicly identified or disciplined.

    In Parliament on Tuesday, Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” and confirmed that affected individuals were only informed this week, over three years after their data had been exposed.

    While the government has now applied for a narrower injunction to prevent publication of sensitive personal data, the broader secrecy has been irreversibly broken. As Mr. Justice Chamberlain concluded, “There is no tenable basis for the continuation of the super-injunction. This is particularly so given the serious interference it involves with the rights of the media defendants to freedom of expression and the correlative right of the public to receive the information they wish to impart.”

    Read more here...

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 05:00

    Italy Is The Country With The Most World Heritage Sites

    Zero Hedge -

    Italy Is The Country With The Most World Heritage Sites

    The UNESCO Committee has inscribed 26 new cultural and natural properties to the UNESCO World Heritage List this year, bringing the total figure to 1,248 sites.

    As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, Italy remains home to the largest number of UNESCO world heritage sites, with 61 in total, including the new addition of the “domus de janas” or “fairy houses”, a group of rock-cut tombs in Sardinia, created between the 5th and 3rd millennia BCE.

     Italy Is the Country With the Most World Heritage Sites | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    China is the runner-up behind Italy, with a total of 60 properties.

    One of these sites, the Xixia Imperial Tombs, which is the imperial cemetery of the Xixia Dynasty, was added this year.

    Germany stands in third place, with one additional site added this year, the Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, Schachen and Herrenchiemsee, raising the tally to 55 sites.

    The top five is rounded out by France with 54 sites, including the newly-added Megaliths of Carnac and shores of Morbihan, as well as Spain with 50 sites.

    In total, the UNESCO list includes properties across 170 countries as world heritage sites. 

    The United States stood at 26 listed sites after the 2024/2025 council session - rank 11.

    The listed properties include the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the Taos Pueblo and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. 

    The United Kingdom came in rank 8 with 35 sites.

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 04:15

    70% Of Spaniards Want Mass Deportation Of Illegal Immigrants

    Zero Hedge -

    70% Of Spaniards Want Mass Deportation Of Illegal Immigrants

    Via Remix News,

    The vast majority of Spain’s citizens want mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and there are even majorities for this policy amongst left-wing voters, according to a new poll.

    This time, Sigma Dos, which conducted its poll for Spanish newspaper El Mundo, found that 70 percent of Spaniards support the deportations of illegal immigrants from Spain. The pollsters referenced the “flagship” Vox party proposal which called for mass deportation of all illegal immigrants, with the pollsters asking respondents whether they would support such a proposal.

    For voters of the conservative PP party, 92 percent supported the proposal, which shockingly, is even higher than amongst Vox supporters, who support the proposal at a rate of 89 percent.

    Even among Socialist party (PSOE) supporters, 57 percent said they backed mass deportations.

    However, for the far-left Sumar party, 67 percent reject the proposal, the only party which saw majority support against mass deportations. However, the party is far smaller than the other major parties in Spain.

    In recent years, Spain has become a gateway for mass immigration. The country is no longer primarily a transit country, and on many Spanish streets, the impact of mass immigration has become apparent. The demographic profile of Spain is also shifting rapidly. As Remix News reported, Spain has seen a 650 percent increase in family reunification visas since 2020.

    In 1991, Spain’s foreign-born population was still under 1 percent, but this has jumped to 20 percent in 2025. While 75 percent of Spain is still made up of ethnic Spaniards, by 2039, this is expected to drop to 60 percent unless immigration restrictions policies are implemented.

    El Mundo writes that the issue has become a flashpoint for Spain:

    “The enormous complexity of immigration policy and the failure of the formulas implemented to try to regulate it have become a major problem for countries like Spain, which are gateways to the EU. Citizens are revolting against illegal immigration, viewing it as a source of inconvenience rather than a potential driver of opportunity. So much so that an overwhelming 70% of Spanish voters support the proposal of far-right parties, in Spain’s case championed so far solely by Vox: mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and all those who, despite having them, commit crimes.”

    The paper further writes that the most striking aspect of the poll is that traditional conservative and center-right voters, along with more left-leaning socialist voters, appear to be rapidly shifting towards the ideas usually presented as “far right,” namely mass deportations and a strict immigration policy.

    “This is the most striking conclusion emerging from the survey conducted by Sigma Dos for El Mundo, which highlights how citizens, at least on paper, seem to prioritize negative consequences over positive ones, and criminal cases, even if they are a minority, over the arguments of solidarity and humanity that, paradoxically, the population does apply when faced face-to-face and in person with the problem.

    The migration phenomenon and its lack of regulation have thus become a powerful electoral issue that the far right has been quick to champion.”

    As a result, the center-right PP party is looking to shift towards a strict immigration policy in order to head off Vox. A year ago, Vox was at 10 percent in the polling, and now is averaging 15 percent. Meanwhile, PP’s support has remained steady, going from 35 percent to 34 percent within a year.

    However, voters are growing disillusioned with the left, with constant headlines showing migrant crime rising and the border crisis worsening. The Canary Islands have seen a record number of illegal migrants arriving by the thousands in the Canary Islands, which has led to a 400 percent jump in violent crime in 2025.

    Across Europe, poll after poll shows a desire for mass deportations of illegal immigrants and immigration restriction, yet the political class and the court systems remain either powerless to implement this desire or actively working against it.

    In France, 48 percent want zero immigration, including a halt to all legal immigration. Another poll found 67 percent want stricter immigration policies, including ramped-up deportations. Yet another poll found that 64 percent of French are against non-European immigration.

    Almost three-quarters of Germans consider immigration from Islamic countries to be a high security risk, according to an Insa poll commissioned by Bild newspaper.

    The poll found that 71.1 percent of respondents believe immigrants from countries with a strong Islamic influence pose a “security risk for Germany.” On the contrary, only 9.1 percent answered in the negative. Another 19.8 percent gave no answer.

    According to the 2022 Europe Project poll conducted by the Századvég Foundation based in Budapest, almost four in five respondents (78 percent) are concerned about the continuous influx of illegal immigrants into Europe, while a smaller majority of 56 percent think it’s important to preserve Europe’s Christian heritage.

    Read more here...

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 03:30

    Is Easter Canceled In France?

    Zero Hedge -

    Is Easter Canceled In France?

    Via Remix News,

    French Prime Minister François Bayrou has unveiled a comprehensive plan for sweeping financial reforms designed to tackle the nation’s burgeoning budget deficit. However, the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen is already threatening to topple the government after the details were announced.

    A key component of these reforms involves the elimination of two public holidays: Easter Monday and Victory Day (May 8th). Additionally, the government plans to introduce a new solidarity contribution for its wealthiest citizens.

    “We must as a nation work more,” Bayrou said. 

    Le Pen has been propping up Macron’s minority government over the last weeks, which requires at least one party to vote alongside it to pass laws. However, she was quick to trash the budget proposals, noting that there are no cuts to the billions flowing to France’s exploding foreign population.

    “After seven years of catastrophic mismanagement, Emmanuel Macron and François Bayrou are incapable of making real savings and present yet another bill to the French: nearly 20 billion euros in taxes and deprivations. No savings on the cost of immigration, subsidies for uncontrolled intermittent energies, seven billion in increased contributions to the European Union, nothing on bureaucracy in hospitals or education,’ she wrote.

    This government prefers to go after the French, workers and retirees, rather than hunt down waste. As for boosting production, apart from eliminating regulations in collaboration with grassroots stakeholders, as proposed by the National Rally, these are mere pious wishes. If François Bayrou does not revise his approach, we will censure him,” she added.

    During his announcement, Prime Minister Bayrou issued a stark warning about the nation’s rapidly growing debt, stating it was increasing at a rate of €5,000 per second. He described the current financial situation as “the last stop before the abyss,” stressing the urgent need for France to curb its public spending, which he believes has become excessive.

    The government’s austerity measures are projected to generate a total of €44 billion. This will be achieved through various initiatives, including reducing public employment as well as implementing spending and cuts across numerous sectors.

    In 2024, France’s public deficit reached 5.8 percent of GDP, significantly surpassing EU limits. The government’s objective is to progressively reduce this deficit to 5.4 percent in 2025, 4.6 percent in 2026, and ultimately below 3 percent of GDP in subsequent years.

    However, the implementation of these reforms faces potential obstacles due to a divided parliament. The National Rally has already voiced its opposition to Bayrou’s proposals and is calling for another no-confidence motion against his administration. The prime minister has successfully survived eight such votes to date.

    President Emmanuel Macron is urging parliament to take responsibility and support increased defense spending by at least €6 billion. These changes are expected to be incorporated into the draft budget for 2026. This initiative likely stems from France’s defense and security doctrine, which anticipates the possibility of a large-scale armed conflict in Europe by 2030, namely over claims that Russia could invade further into Europe. France, however, acknowledges that a full-scale war with Russia on its own territory is unlikely.

    Read more here...

    Tyler Durden Thu, 07/17/2025 - 02:00

    The Wearables Trap: How The Government Plans To Monitor, Score, & Control You

    Zero Hedge -

    The Wearables Trap: How The Government Plans To Monitor, Score, & Control You

    Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead,

    When the states legalize the deliberate ending of certain lives... it will eventually broaden the categories of those who can be put to death with impunity.

    - Nat Hentoff, The Washington Post, 1992

    Bodily autonomy—the right to privacy and integrity over our own bodies—is rapidly vanishing.

    The debate now extends beyond forced vaccinations or invasive searches to include biometric surveillance, wearable tracking, and predictive health profiling.

    We are entering a new age of algorithmic, authoritarian control, where our thoughts, moods, and biology are monitored and judged by the state.

    This is the dark promise behind the newest campaign by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, to push for a future in which all Americans wear biometric health-tracking devices.

    Under the guise of public health and personal empowerment, this initiative is nothing less than the normalization of 24/7 bodily surveillance—ushering in a world where every step, heartbeat, and biological fluctuation is monitored not only by private companies but also by the government.

    In this emerging surveillance-industrial complex, health data becomes currency. Tech firms profit from hardware and app subscriptions, insurers profit from risk scoring, and government agencies profit from increased compliance and behavioral insight.

    This convergence of health, technology, and surveillance is not a new strategy—it’s just the next step in a long, familiar pattern of control.

    Surveillance has always arrived dressed as progress.

    Every new wave of surveillance technology—GPS trackers, red light cameras, facial recognition, Ring doorbells, Alexa smart speakers—has been sold to us as a tool of convenience, safety, or connection. But in time, each became a mechanism for tracking, monitoring, or controlling the public.

    What began as voluntary has become inescapable and mandatory.

    The moment we accepted the premise that privacy must be traded for convenience, we laid the groundwork for a society in which nowhere is beyond the government’s reach—not our homes, not our cars, not even our bodies.

    RFK Jr.’s wearable plan is just the latest iteration of this bait-and-switch: marketed as freedom, built as a cage.

    According to Kennedy’s plan, which has been promoted as part of a national campaign to “Make America Healthy Again,” wearable devices would track glucose levels, heart rate, activity, sleep, and more for every American.

    Participation may not be officially mandatory at the outset, but the implications are clear: get on board, or risk becoming a second-class citizen in a society driven by data compliance.

    What began as optional self-monitoring tools marketed by Big Tech is poised to become the newest tool in the surveillance arsenal of the police state.

    Devices like Fitbits, Apple Watches, glucose trackers, and smart rings collect astonishing amounts of intimate data—from stress and depression to heart irregularities and early signs of illness. When this data is shared across government databases, insurers, and health platforms, it becomes a potent tool not only for health analysis—but for control.

    Once symbols of personal wellness, these wearables are becoming digital cattle tags—badges of compliance tracked in real time and regulated by algorithm.

    And it won’t stop there.

    The body is fast becoming a battleground in the government’s expanding war on the inner realms.

    The infrastructure is already in place to profile and detain individuals based on perceived psychological “risks.” Now imagine a future in which your wearable data triggers a mental health flag. Elevated stress levels. Erratic sleep. A skipped appointment. A sudden drop in heart rate variability.

    In the eyes of the surveillance state, these could be red flags—justification for intervention, inquiry, or worse.

    RFK Jr.’s embrace of wearable tech is not a neutral innovation. It is an invitation to expand the government’s war on thought crimes, health noncompliance, and individual deviation.

    It shifts the presumption of innocence to a presumption of diagnosis. You are not well until the algorithm says you are.

    The government has already weaponized surveillance tools to silence dissent, flag political critics, and track behavior in real time. Now, with wearables, they gain a new weapon: access to the human body as a site of suspicion, deviance, and control.

    While government agencies pave the way for biometric control, it will be corporations—insurance companies, tech giants, employers—who act as enforcers for the surveillance state.

    Wearables don’t just collect data. They sort it, interpret it, and feed it into systems that make high-stakes decisions about your life: whether you get insurance coverage, whether your rates go up, whether you qualify for employment or financial aid.

    As reported by ABC News, a JAMA article warns that wearables could easily be used by insurers to deny coverage or hike premiums based on personal health metrics like calorie intake, weight fluctuations, and blood pressure.

    It’s not a stretch to imagine this bleeding into workplace assessments, credit scores, or even social media rankings.

    Employers already offer discounts for “voluntary” wellness tracking—and penalize nonparticipants. Insurers give incentives for healthy behavior—until they decide unhealthy behavior warrants punishment. Apps track not just steps, but mood, substance use, fertility, and sexual activity—feeding the ever-hungry data economy.

    This dystopian trajectory has been long foreseen and forewarned.

    In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932), compliance is maintained not through violence but by way of pleasure, stimulation, and chemical sedation. The populace is conditioned to accept surveillance in exchange for ease, comfort, and distraction.

    In THX 1138 (1971), George Lucas envisions a corporate-state regime where biometric monitoring, mood-regulating drugs, and psychological manipulation reduce people to emotionless, compliant biological units.

    Gattaca (1997) imagines a world in which genetic and biometric profiling predetermines one’s fate, eliminating privacy and free will in the name of public health and societal efficiency.

    In The Matrix (1999), written and directed by the Wachowskis, human beings are harvested as energy sources while trapped inside a simulated reality—an unsettling parallel to our increasing entrapment in systems that monitor, monetize, and manipulate our physical selves.

    Minority Report (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg, depicts a pre-crime surveillance regime driven by biometric data. Citizens are tracked via retinal scans in public spaces and targeted with personalized ads—turning the body itself into a surveillance passport.

    The anthology series Black Mirror, inspired by The Twilight Zone, brings these warnings into the digital age, dramatizing how constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear.

    Taken collectively, these cultural touchstones deliver a stark message: dystopia doesn’t arrive overnight.

    As Margaret Atwood warned in The Handmaid’s Tale,  “Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it.” Though Atwood’s novel focuses on reproductive control, its larger warning is deeply relevant: when the state presumes authority over the body—whether through pregnancy registries or biometric monitors—bodily autonomy becomes conditional, fragile, and easily revoked.

    The tools may differ, but the logic of domination is the same.

    What Atwood portrayed as reproductive control, we now face in a broader, digitized form: the quiet erosion of autonomy through the normalization of constant monitoring.

    When both government and corporations gain access to our inner lives, what’s left of the individual?

    We must ask: when surveillance becomes a condition of participation in modern life—employment, education, health care—are we still free? Or have we become, as in every great dystopian warning, conditioned not to resist, but to comply?

    That’s the hidden cost of these technological conveniences: today’s wellness tracker is tomorrow’s corporate leash.

    In a society where bodily data is harvested and analyzed, the body itself becomes government and corporate property. Your body becomes a form of testimony, and your biometric outputs are treated as evidence. The list of bodily intrusions we’ve documented—forced colonoscopies, blood draws, DNA swabs, cavity searches, breathalyzer tests—is growing.

    To this list we now add a subtler, but more insidious, form of intrusion: forced biometric consent.

    Once health tracking becomes a de facto requirement for employment, insurance, or social participation, it will be impossible to “opt out” without penalty. Those who resist may be painted as irresponsible, unhealthy, or even dangerous.

    We’ve already seen chilling previews of where this could lead. In states with abortion restrictions, digital surveillance has been weaponized to track and prosecute individuals for seeking abortions—using period-tracking appssearch histories, and geolocation data.

    When bodily autonomy becomes criminalized, the data trails we leave behind become evidence in a case the state has already decided to make.

    This is not merely the expansion of health care. It is the transformation of health into a mechanism of control—a Trojan horse for the surveillance state to claim ownership over the last private frontier: the human body.

    Because ultimately, this isn’t just about surveillance—it’s about who gets to live.

    Too often, these debates are falsely framed as having only two possible outcomes: safety vs. freedom, health vs. privacy, compliance vs. chaos. But these are illusions. A truly free and just society can protect public health without sacrificing bodily autonomy or human dignity.

    We must resist the narrative that demands our total surrender in exchange for security.

    Once biometric data becomes currency in a health-driven surveillance economy, it’s only a matter of time before that data is used to determine whose lives are worth investing in—and whose are not.

    We’ve seen this dystopia before.

    In the 1973 film Soylent Green, the elderly become expendable when resources grow scarce. My good friend Nat Hentoff—an early and principled voice warning against the devaluation of human life—sounded this alarm decades ago. Once pro-choice, Hentoff came to believe that the erosion of medical ethics—particularly the growing acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, and selective care—was laying the groundwork for institutionalized dehumanization.

    As Hentoff warned, once the government sanctions the deliberate ending of certain lives, it can become a slippery slope: broader swaths of the population would eventually be deemed expendable.

    Hentoff referred to this as “naked utilitarianism—the greatest good for the greatest number. And individuals who are in the way—in this case, the elderly poor—have to be gotten out of the way. Not murdered, heaven forbid. Just made comfortable until they die with all deliberate speed.”

    That concern is no longer theoretical.

    In 1996, writing about the Supreme Court’s consideration of physician-assisted suicide, Hentoff warned that once a state decides who shall die “for their own good,” there are “no absolute limits.” He cited medical leaders and disability advocates who feared that the poor, elderly, disabled, and chronically ill would become targets of a system that valued efficiency over longevity.

    Today, data collected through wearables—heart rate, mood, mobility, compliance—can shape decisions about insurance, treatment, and life expectancy. How long before an algorithm quietly decided whose suffering is too expensive, whose needs are too inconvenient, or whose body no longer qualifies as worth saving?

    This isn’t a left or right issue.

    Dehumanization—the process of stripping individuals or groups of their dignity, autonomy, or moral worth—cuts across the political spectrum.

    Today, dehumanizing language and policies aren’t confined to one ideology—they’re weaponized across the political divide. Prominent figures have begun referring to political opponents, immigrants, and other marginalized groups as “unhuman”—a disturbing echo of the labels that have justified atrocities throughout history.

    As reported by Mother Jones, J.D. Vance endorsed a book by influencer Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec that advocates crushing “unhumans” like vermin.

    This kind of rhetoric isn’t abstract—it matters.

    How can any party credibly claim to be “pro‑life” when it devalues the humanity of entire groups, stripping them of the moral worth that should be fundamental to civil society?

    When the state and its corporate allies treat people as data, as compliance issues, or as “unworthy,” they dismantle the very notion of equal human dignity.

    In such a world, rights—including the right to bodily autonomy, health care, or even life itself—become privileges doled out only to the “worthy.”

    This is why our struggle must be both political and moral. We can’t defend bodily sovereignty without defending every human being’s equal humanity.

    The dehumanization of the vulnerable crosses political lines. It manifests differently—through budget cuts here, through mandates and metrics there—but the outcome is the same: a society that no longer sees human beings, only data points.

    The conquest of physical space—our homes, cars, public squares—is nearly complete.

    What remains is the conquest of inner space: our biology, our genetics, our psychology, our emotions. As predictive algorithms grow more sophisticated, the government and its corporate partners will use them to assess risk, flag threats, and enforce compliance in real time.

    The goal is no longer simply to monitor behavior but to reshape it—to preempt dissent, deviance, or disease before it arises. This is the same logic that drives Minority Report-style policing, pre-crime mental health interventions, and AI-based threat assessments.

    If this is the future of “health freedom,” then freedom has already been redefined as obedience to the algorithm.

    We must resist the surveillance of our inner and outer selves.

    We must reject the idea that safety requires total transparency, or that health requires constant monitoring. We must reclaim the sanctity of the human body as a space of freedom—not as a data point.

    The push for mass adoption of wearables is not about health. It is about habituation.

    The goal is to train us—subtly, systematically—to accept government and corporate ownership of our bodies.

    We must not forget that our nation was founded on the radical idea that all human beings are created equal, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    These rights are not granted by the government, the algorithm, or the market. They are inherent. They are indivisible. And they apply to all of us—or they will soon apply to none of us.

    The Founders got this part right: their affirmation of our shared humanity is more vital than ever before.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the task before us is whether we will defend that humanity—or surrender it, one wearable at a time. Now is the time to draw the line—before the body becomes just another piece of state property.

    *  *  *

    Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 23:25

    AI Sucks Up A Growing Chunk Of VC Funding In The US

    Zero Hedge -

    AI Sucks Up A Growing Chunk Of VC Funding In The US

    Thanks to a record-breaking $40-billion funding round announced by OpenAI on March 31, VC-backed companies based in the U.S. raised $80 billion in the first quarter of 2025.

    That’s the highest total for venture capital investment in the U.S. since Q1 2022 and more than double the amount invested in Q1 2024.

    While that’s sounds great on paper, VC investment was on track to fall quarter-over-quarter and wouldn’t have looked nearly as impressive without OpenAI’s latest mega round.

    Over the past few years, AI-related startups have attracted an increasingly large chunk of VC funding in the U.S., as investors were eager to get in on the ground floor and participate in the artificial intelligence gold rush.

    As Statista's Felix Richter shows in the chart below, according to Crunchbase data analyzed by EY, AI-related investments accounted for 71 percent of VC funding in Q1 2025, up from 45 percent in 2024 and 26 percent the year before.

     AI Sucks Up a Growing Chunk of VC Funding in the U.S. | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Including the OpenAI deal, there were six AI-driven investments in the top 10 for the quarter. Looking ahead, AI investments will likely continue to dominate the venture capital space, as there’s still an abundance of investment opportunities for VC firms to pick from.

    While plenty of investment is still going towards building the foundation for the AI-centric future, e.g. developing and training AI models and building the necessary infrastructure, EY notes that investors are gradually shifting their focus on the application layer as the next step in the AI value chain.

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 23:00

    Education Department Investigates Foreign Funding At University Of Michigan After Arrests of Chinese Scholars

    Zero Hedge -

    Education Department Investigates Foreign Funding At University Of Michigan After Arrests of Chinese Scholars

    Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

    The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) over concerns about undisclosed or improperly disclosed foreign funding.

    In a letter sent on July 15, the Education Department’s legal wing gave the university 30 days to hand over more than five years’ worth of records related to foreign donations, foreign research collaboration, international students and scholars, as well as the names and contact details of university officials overseeing those areas.

    The letter states that since January 2021, UM has submitted foreign funding disclosures totaling approximately $375 million, but with about $86 million of that money reported late, in “possible violation” of federal law mandating institutions to disclose foreign gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more each year.

    “As the recipient of federal research funding, UM has both a moral and legal obligation to be completely transparent about its foreign partnerships,” Chief Investigative Counsel Paul Moore said in a statement on Tuesday.

    “Unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars in foreign funding in UM’s disclosure reports have been reported in an untimely manner and appear to erroneously identify some of UM’s foreign funders as ‘non-governmental entities’ even though the foreign funders seem to be directly affiliated with foreign governments.”

    Moore’s letter also cited two recent federal criminal cases involving Chinese nationals affiliated with UM.

    In one case, a doctoral candidate from Huazhong University of Science and Technology was arrested on June 8 and was charged with smuggling roundworm-related materials into the United States.

    In a separate case that same month, a doctoral student from Zhejiang University and her boyfriend were accused of smuggling restricted biological materials into the United States. A criminal complaint filed on June 2 alleged that she received funding from the Chinese communist regime to study Fusarium graminearum, a fungus that can cause head blight in crops such as wheat and maize, and is considered a potential agroterrorism agent.

    The letter points out that UM continues to engage in significant research collaborations with Chinese institutions, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Fudan University, and Zhejiang University, noting that they are all “deeply involved in China’s emerging science and technology research efforts directly linked to military programs.”

    The university did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

    In response to the initial charges, the University of Michigan issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to fostering research that benefits society while upholding national security.

    “We strongly condemn any actions that seek to cause harm, threaten national security or undermine the university’s critical public mission,” the university said on June 3.

    “It is important to note that the university has received no funding from the Chinese government in relation to research conducted by the accused individuals.

    “We have and will continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement in its ongoing investigation and prosecution.”

    Earlier this month, UM launched what it calls a “centralized webpage” to share information on research security policies, compliance training, and lab safety protocols. University leadership also pledged to “fully comply with all applicable laws and regulations and take all necessary actions” to safeguard research integrity.

    In a separate development, UM terminated a 20-year joint research partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in January, following federal charges against five UM students affiliated with the Chinese institution. The students were allegedly caught photographing Northern Strike, a 2023 military training exercise at Camp Grayling in northern Michigan.

    This decision also came after Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, raised national security concerns about Shanghai Jiao Tong’s close ties to the Chinese military.

    According to Moolenaar, the joint UM–Shanghai Jiao Tong institute has contributed to Chinese military technological breakthroughs, including projects on propellant combustion modeling, solid rocket fuel, anti-corrosion technology for military aircraft, and CT imaging to detect flaws in advanced weapons systems.

    Some of this work, the congressman said, appeared to have leveraged Pentagon-funded research conducted by UM faculty.

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 22:35

    Huckabee Condemns West Bank Settlers' 'Terrorist' Murder Of Tampa Man

    Zero Hedge -

    Huckabee Condemns West Bank Settlers' 'Terrorist' Murder Of Tampa Man

    In a departure from his usual role as a de facto PR agent for the State of Israel, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has condemned West Bank settlers' "terrorist" murder of a Florida-born-and-raised American citizen, and called on Israel to "aggressively investigate." 

    Last week, 20-year-old Sayfollah "Saif" Musallet was visiting relatives on their farms in the town of Sinjil, where residents say they've been enduring a settler violence campaign for two months. After Friday prayers, Musallet was among dozens of Palestinians driving back to their land in Sinjil when settlers surrounded them for three hours and attacked with guns, clubs and rocks, witnesses say.

    Florida native Saif Musallet co-owned an ice cream shop in Tampa and was weeks from turning 21 when he was beaten to death while visiting family

    Musallet was viciously beaten with sticks or clubs. For two hours after he was beaten, ambulances couldn't reach Musallet, as settlers roamed the area and the IDF refused to allow an ambulance to pass their roadblock, according to witnesses. Adhering to a typical pattern, the IDF focused its aggression on the Palestinians, firing tear gas at them. 

    “They prevented the ambulance and allowed the settlers to do what they do anytime they want to,” Musallet's father Kamel Musallet told CNN. “I hold the Israeli military just as responsible as the settlers, and the American government for not doing anything about this. You know, why are you not telling the IDF? Why are you not preventing settler terrorism?” 

    Settler violence and harassment against West Bank Muslims and Christians has been a problem for decades, but it has ramped up since the Oct 7 2023 invasion of Israel by Gaza's Hamas militants. According to a UN tally, almost 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by settlers or the IDF over that time span. 

    Settlers rampaged on this Palestinian village near Ramallah in the West Bank in June 2023 (Reuters / Ammar Awad via Brookings)

    In an opinion piece published earlier this month, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert condemned settler violence, saying "Israel's real enemies are the violent, murderous terrorist militias that are...responsible for the murder of at least 140 West Bank Palestinians this year. Many of the dead were children." After the killing of Musallet, American Muslims for Palestine called for President Trump to intervene:

    “Will he uphold his ‘America First’ promise when it’s a Palestinian-American whose life was taken? Or will he once again bow his head to Israel, no matter the cost in blood?”

    According to his family, both of Musallet's grandfather's immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. Teaming up with cousins, Musallet bought a Tampa ice cream shop where locals appreciated his generous scoops and readiness to replace dropped cones. “Everyone who met him fell in love with him,” his uncle told the Tampa Bay Times.

    According to Middle East Eye, Huckabee's statement seemingly represented his first-ever condemnation of settler violence. Before Musallet's killing, Christians had been demanding that the demonstratively-religious Huckabee take action on behalf of his fellow Christians besieged by settlers in Taybeh, the last 100% Christian village in the West Bank.

    Church leaders there have repeatedly called out to the world for help, saying, "We do not live in peace but in daily fear and siege...Since last October, more than 10 families have left Taybeh due to fear from ongoing violence and harassment." In addition to setting fire to houses and vehicles, settlers are also accused of stealing farm equipment, and destroying crops with fire or by releasing settlers' cattle to devour themCatholic News Agency reports. Last week, they started a fire next to the cherished, 1,500-year-old Byzantine church of St. George al Khader, and burned a cemetery.

    The aftermath of an arson attack on a resident's farmland in the Christian town of Taybeh (via Vatican News)

    Huckabee, a self-described "unreformed Zionist," has long taken zealously pro-Israel stances, to include endorsing Israelis' expansionist claims to the West Bank. For example, in one of his many trips to Israel over the years, Huckabee in 2017 said

    "There is no such thing as a ‘West Bank,’ it’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”   

    His spotlight on Musallet's murder may boost the odds of justice being served. However, if history is any guide, there's very little chance of that happening. According to a database maintained by human rights group Yesh Din, out of 1,700 investigations into violence directed against West Bank Palestinians between 2005 and 2024, 93% of the cases were closed with no charges filed.  

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 22:10

    RFK Jr. And Other Trump Officials Embrace Psychedelics After FDA Setback

    Zero Hedge -

    RFK Jr. And Other Trump Officials Embrace Psychedelics After FDA Setback

    Via Headline USA,

    For decades, proponents of psychedelic drugs have come to Washington with a provocative message: Illegal, mind-altering substances like LSD and ecstasy should be approved for Americans grappling with depressiontrauma and other hard-to-treat conditions.

    A presidential administration finally seems to agree.

    “This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting and we are working very hard to make sure that happens within 12 months,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently told members of Congress.

    His suggested timeline for green-lighting psychedelic therapy surprised even the most bullish supporters of the drugs. And it comes as psychedelics are making inroads in deep red states like Texas, where former Trump cabinet secretary and ex-governor Rick Perry has thrown his full support behind the effort.

    The administration’s embrace of psychedelics has sparked both excitement as well as concern from those in the field, who worry the drugs might be discredited if they appear to be rushed onto the market.

    “I’m quite optimistic,” says Rick Doblin, whose organization has pursued the medical use of MDMA (or ecstasy) since the 1980s. “But I’m also worried that the message the public might get is ‘Well, RFK likes psychedelics and now it’s approved.’”

    FDA may reconsider MDMA

    Under President Joe Biden, the FDA rejected MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing flawed data and questionable research. Regulators called for a new study, likely taking several years. It was a major setback for Doblin and other advocates hoping to see the first U.S. approval of a psychedelic for medical use.

    But the agency appears ready to reconsider. FDA chief Marty Makary, who reports to Kennedy, has called the evaluation of MDMA and other psychedelics “a top priority,” announcing a slate of initiatives that could be used to accelerate their approval.

    One new program promises to expedite drugs that serve “the health interests of Americans,” by slashing their review time from six months or more to as little as one month. Makary has also suggested greater flexibility on requirements for certain drugs, potentially waiving rigorous controlled studies that compare patients to a placebo group.

    That approach, considered essential for high-quality research, has long been a stumbling point for psychedelic studies, in which patients can almost always correctly guess whether they’ve received the drug or a dummy pill.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and FDA also recently hired several new staffers with ties to the psychedelic movement.

    “These are all very promising signs that the administration is aware of the potential of psychedelics and is trying to make overtures that they’re ready to approve them,” said Greg Ferenstein, a fellow at the libertarian Reason Foundation, who also consults for psychedelic companies. “We didn’t hear anything about that in the Biden administration”

    A spokesperson for HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

    As a presidential candidate, Kennedy discussed how his son and several close friends benefited from using psychedelics to deal with grief and other issues.

    A number of veterans lobbying for psychedelic access have already met with Trump’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins.

    “What we’re seeing so far is positive,” Collins told House lawmakers in May.

    But some experts worry the hope and hype surrounding psychedelics has gotten ahead of the science.

    Philip Corlett, a psychiatric researcher at Yale University, says bypassing rigorous clinical trials could set back the field and jeopardize patients.

    “If RFK and the new administration are serious about this work, there are things they could do to shepherd it into reality by meeting the benchmarks of medical science,” Corlett said. “I just don’t think that’s going to happen.”

    Texas goes all-in on ibogaine research

    As officials in Washington weigh the future of psychedelics, some states are moving ahead with their own projects in hopes of nudging the federal government. Oregon and Colorado have legalized psychedelic therapy.

    And last month, Texas approved $50 million to study ibogaine, a potent psychedelic made from a shrub that’s native to West Africa, as a treatment for opioid addiction, PTSD and other conditions. The research grant — the largest of its kind by any government — passed with support from the state’s former GOP governor, Perry, and combat veterans, some who have traveled to clinics in Mexico that offer ibogaine.

    Ibogaine is on the U.S. government’s ultra-restrictive list of illegal, Schedule 1 drugs, which also includes heroin. So advocates in Texas are hoping to build a national movement to ease restrictions on researching its use.

    “Governmental systems move slowly and inefficiently,” said Bryan Hubbard of Americans for Ibogaine, a group formed with Perry. “Sometimes you find yourself constrained in terms of the progress you can make from within.”

    Ibogaine is unique among psychedelics in both its purported benefits and risks. Small studies and anecdotal reports suggest the drug may be able to dramatically ease addiction and trauma. It was sold for medical use in France for several decades starting in the 1930s, but the drug can also cause dangerous irregular heart rhythms, which can be fatal if left untreated.

    Some veterans who have taken the drug say the risks can be managed and ibogaine’s healing properties go far beyond antidepressants, mood stabilizers, counseling and other standard treatments.

    Marcus Capone struggled with anger, insomnia and mood swings after 13 years as a Navy Seal. In 2017, at the urging of his wife Amber, he agreed to try ibogaine as a last resort. He described his first ibogaine session as “a complete purge of everything.”

    “But afterward I felt the weight just completely off my shoulders,” he said. “No more anxiety, no more depression, life made sense all of a sudden.”

    A nonprofit founded by the Capones, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, or VETS, has helped over 1,000 veterans travel abroad to receive ibogaine and other psychedelics.

    But federal scientists have looked at the drug before — three decades ago, when the National Institute on Drug Abuse funded preliminary studies on using it as an addiction treatment. The research was discontinued after it identified “cardiovascular toxicity.”

    “It would be dead in the water,” in terms of winning FDA approval, longtime NIDA director Nora Volkow said.

    But Volkow said her agency remains interested in psychedelics, including ibogaine, and is funding an American drugmaker that’s working to develop a safer, synthetic version of the drug.

    “I am very intrigued by their pharmacological properties and how they are influencing the brain,” Volkow said. “But you also have to be very mindful not to fall into the hype and to be objective and rigorous in evaluating them.”

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 21:45

    DHS Secretary Suggests Liquid Carry-On Limits On Flights Might Be Eased

    Zero Hedge -

    DHS Secretary Suggests Liquid Carry-On Limits On Flights Might Be Eased

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    More changes could be coming to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), including on whether more liquids can be taken through airport security, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested on July 16.

    Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a news conference at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on July 8, 2025. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

    But I will tell you—I mean the liquids—I’m questioning. So that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be,” Noem told NewsNation in a live interview with The Hill published on July 16, referring to the amount of liquids people can transport through security in their carry-on bags. “We’re looking at our scanners.”

    The TSA website says that you “are allowed to bring a quart-sized bag of liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and pastes in your carry-on bag and through the checkpoint,” but are “limited to travel-sized containers that are 3.4 ounces (100 milliliters) or less per item.”

    Noem’s comment comes just days after she announced that the TSA has lifted its mandate for travelers to take off their shoes at security checkpoints.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary said that her office is “working with several different companies with technologies to give us competitive bids on what they actually do.”

    She added that DHS is “working to see what we can do to make the traveling experience much better and more hospitable for individuals, but also still keep safety standards.”

    “It is still a process that is protecting people who are traveling on our airlines. But it has to make sense. It has to actually do something to make you safer,” Noem told the outlet.

    Noem did not elaborate on when the TSA might change its rules on liquids in carry-on bags or how much travelers would be able to carry.

    This past week, Noem said that travelers no longer have to remove their shoes, a policy that was put in place about 20 years ago. She also said that the TSA plans to review how airport screenings can be simplified and expedited.

    It will be a much more streamlined process,” the secretary said.

    Some travelers still may be asked to take off their footwear “if we think additional layers of screening are necessary,” she added.

    The TSA was created in 2001 under the administration of then-President George W. Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since then, the TSA has hired federal employees as agents to replace private companies that airlines had used to handle security.

    The rule limiting liquids in carry-on bags has been in effect since 2006. It came after a foiled terrorist plot that year involving liquid explosives on an aircraft traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada.

    The TSA imposed the shoes-off rule at checkpoints after a man tried and failed to detonate an explosive in his shoes in a December 2001 transatlantic flight.

    All passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 were required to remove their shoes, which were scanned along with carry-on bags and other separated items such as outerwear. Travelers previously were able to skip the shoe requirement if they participated in the TSA PreCheck program, which costs around $80 for five years.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 21:20

    US Has Launched Over 50 Airstrikes In Somalia In 2025 But Virtually No MSM Coverage

    Zero Hedge -

    US Has Launched Over 50 Airstrikes In Somalia In 2025 But Virtually No MSM Coverage

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    US Africa Command has announced that it launched two separate airstrikes in Somalia on Sunday, as the Trump administration is continuing to bomb the country at a record pace, an air war that is receiving virtually no coverage in US media.

    AFRICOM said that the strikes targeted the ISIS affiliate in Somalia’s northeastern Puntland region, to the southeast of the port city of Bossaso. The command offered no further details, as it has stopped sharing estimates of casualties or assessments of potential civilian harm.

    Prior US strike aftermath, illustrative via Reuters/NY Times

    AFRICOM confirmed to Antiwar.com in an email that the latest attack marked the 51st US airstrike in Somalia of the year, putting the Trump administration on track to easily break the annual record, which President Trump set at 63 in 2019. Antiwar.com is also seeking details on casualties from AFRICOM, but so far hasn’t received a figure.

    The US has been backing local Puntland forces against ISIS in battles in the Cal Miskaad mountains in Puntland’s Bari region. Puntland Counter-Terrorism Operations announced on Sunday — the day the US launched two airstrikes — that it was conducting a “clearance operation” against ISIS remnants in the mountains and said the area being targeted was “last used by terrorists as a hideout with their foreign women and children.”

    Puntland’s forces announced a new military operation on June 30 against ISIS-affiliated militants, and since then, the US has launched at least four airstrikes in the area. The ISIS affiliate in Somalia started in 2015 as an offshoot of al-Shabaab, a group the US has also been bombing in southern and central Somalia.

    In the war against al-Shabaab, the US is backing the Mogadishu-based Federal Government, which controls little territory inside Somalia’s internationally recognized borders. Somali media reported on Tuesday that government forces killed 15 al-Shabaab fighters in the central Hiraan region, an operation that was supported by “international partners,” likely a reference to US AFRICOM.

    Al-Shabaab has been making significant gains against the government and reportedly captured a town in the Hiraan region on Monday. Fighting has also been ongoing in the southern Jubaland region, where the US carried out multiple airstrikes from June 27 to June 30 to support a battle that the government claimed killed 50 al-Shabaab fighters.

    Al-Shabaab’s offensive has been successful enough that US officials recently discussed the possibility of Mogadishu falling to the militant group.

    The New York Times reported on April 10 that State Department officials suggested closing down the US embassy in Mogadishu and evacuating most US personnel due to the threat. But other officials, including Sebastian Gorka, the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council, called for the US to escalate in Somalia and double down on its policy of propping up the government, and they appear to have won the internal debate.

    Hawks who favor continued intervention in Somalia portray al-Shabaab as a major threat to the US due to its size and al-Qaeda affiliation, but it’s widely believed the group does not have ambitions outside of Somalia.

    Al-Shabaab was born out of a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006 that toppled the Islamic Courts Union, a coalition of Muslim groups that briefly held power in Mogadishu after ousting CIA-backed warlords. Al-Shabaab was the radical offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union. The group’s first recorded attack was in 2007, and it wasn’t until 2012 that al-Shabaab pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda.

    Tyler Durden Wed, 07/16/2025 - 20:55

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