CIA Used "Ghost Murmur" To Locate Missing F-15 Airman From 40-Miles Away

In combination with the downed F-15 weapons systems officer, known publicly only as "Dude 44 Bravo," activating Boeing's Combat Survivor Evader Locator, or CSEL, U.S. forces were reportedly able to narrow the search area and then locate the second crew member shot down over southern Iran using a secret CIA reconnaissance tool known as "Ghost Murmur."

The New York Post reports that the long-range quantum magnetometry surveillance tool, powered by AI, was used in the U.S. search-and-rescue operation for the second crew member from the downed F-15 fighter jet.

Sources described Ghost Murmur as able to detect something as faint as a human heartbeat's magnetic signal at long distances in complex environments using AI to filter through the noise.

President Trump and CIA Director John Ratcliffe hinted at the new super-surveillance tool at a White House press conference on Monday afternoon. This was Ghost Murmur's first operational field use, or at least the first publicly known one.

"It's like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert," a source briefed on Ghost Murmur told the NYPost. "In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you."

Ghost Murmur was reportedly developed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works and has been tested on Black Hawk helicopters, with possible future use on F-35 stealth fighter jets.

"The name is deliberate. 'Murmur' is a clinical term for a heart rhythm. 'Ghost' refers to finding someone who, for all practical purposes, has disappeared," another source said.

The source continued:

It was "about as clean an environment as you could ask for" because of low electromagnetic interference, "almost no competing human signatures, and at night the thermal contrast between a living body and the desert floor," which "gave operators a secondary confirmation layer."

"Normally this signal is so weak that it can only be measured in a hospital setting with sensors pressed nearly against the chest."

"But advances in a field known as quantum magnetometry — specifically sensors built around microscopic defects in synthetic diamonds — have apparently made it possible to detect these signals at dramatically greater distances."

"The capability is not omniscient. It works best in remote, low-clutter environments and requires significant processing time." 

Before Ghost Murmur went operational, Dude 44 Bravo activated Boeing's Combat Survivor Evader Locator, or CSEL, a secure communications device that can transmit encrypted location and status bursts without exposing his position to enemy forces.

"It's like finding a needle in a haystack, finding this pilot, and the CIA was unbelievable," Trump said Monday, referring to Ghost Murmur. 

Trump: I'm going to introduce the head of the CIA and he is a man who is central casting. If we cast a movie, he's gonna play the head of the CIA. The CIA was very responsible for finding this little speck. They use an expression. It's like finding a needle in a haystack pic.twitter.com/LZg22AJgSv

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) April 6, 2026

"The CIA was very responsible for finding this little speck," the president said, adding that the CIA spotted the missing American from "40 miles away."

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 20:30

Cyber Crimes Costing Americans Nearly $21 Billion: FBI

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The FBI released its 2025 Internet Crime Report, revealing that Americans were being defrauded to the tune of nearly $21 billion, with artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency crimes behind some of the massive losses.

“Americans who submitted complaints involving cryptocurrency reported the highest losses, with 181,565 complaints totaling more than $11 billion,” the agency said in an April 6 statement.

Roughly 70 million American adults, around 30 percent of the country’s adult population, own a cryptocurrency, with one in three owners being between the ages of 30 and 44, according to Security.org.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said that total losses of $20.87 billion in 2025 are more than 20 times higher than the $1 billion loss reported in 2015. The number of complaints has also surged during this period, rising from 288,012 complaints to more than a million.

“For the first time in its nearly 25-year history, the IC3 report features a section on artificial intelligence, which accounts for 22,364 complaints, costing Americans nearly $893 million,” the report said.

The losses reported in 2025 were 26 percent higher than in the previous year, with the average loss at $20,699.

The FBI noted that scammers rely on pressure techniques to defraud Americans. The agency advised people to assess the situation carefully before turning over money or personal information.

“IC3 receives nearly 3,000 complaints per day. If you believe you or someone you know may have been a victim of a fraud or scam, contact your local FBI office or submit a complaint at ic3.gov as soon as possible,” the FBI advised.

“You should document the name of the scammer/company, methods of contact, dates of contact, methods of payment, where funds have been sent, and a thorough description of the interactions.”

Artificial Intelligence

The FBI report said that AI-enabled synthetic content is now becoming more difficult to detect and easier to make.

This allows criminal actors to “potentially conduct successful fraud schemes against individuals, businesses, and financial institutions,” it said.

In business email scams, malicious actors use AI chat generators to create official-sounding emails mimicking a company’s CEO or other officials. These emails may contain phishing links or directions to wire funds.

The technology can also be used in romance or investment scams to dupe people into transferring their money.

Crypto Fraud

Complaints involving cryptocurrency were up 21 percent from 2024, with the average loss being $62,604. People may be targeted by scammers who direct them to make payments via crypto ATMs. In some cases, fictitious law firms target cryptocurrency scam victims and exploit them with fake offers of recovering funds.

In January 2024, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service initiated Operation Level Up to identify victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud and notify them about the scam.

As of December 2025, the FBI has notified 8,103 victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud, with 77 percent of them unaware that they were being scammed.

The timely notification by the FBI is estimated to have resulted in more than $511 million in savings to victims, the agency said.

Elder Fraud

The IC3 report also highlighted the issue of elder fraud, listing 201,266 complaints from individuals aged over 60 last year, which is the highest number of complaints filed by any age group.

This age group suffered more than $7.7 billion in losses, up 59 percent from 2024. The average loss was $38,500, with nearly 12,500 individuals losing more than $100,000 in funds each.

In November 2025, the Department of Justice reported charging 608 defendants between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, for allegedly stealing more than $2.36 billion from more than 1 million elderly American victims.

Some of the top schemes targeting elders involved investment fraud, government impersonations, and romance scams, the department said.

To avoid being a victim of elder fraud schemes, the U.S. Secret Service advises people to be wary of unsolicited communications from unknown people or businesses.

The agency warned against handing over personally identifiable information, online passwords, or bank access codes to individuals or businesses they have not verified as legitimate.

Regarding scams involving impersonation of government agencies, the Secret Service said: “Note that government agencies will never call you on the phone to threaten you or your loved ones with arrest or legal action if you do not agree to remit payment for things like debt collections, release from jail, or immigration status issues.

“Official notification from U.S. government agencies will almost always initially involve an official letter sent via regular mail.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 20:05

Iraqi Protesters Overrun Kuwait Consulate, Angry Over Role In US Actions

Close US ally Kuwait finds itself under growing political pressure from its neighbor Iraq, related to the ongoing Iran war.

Angry crowds stormed the Kuwaiti consulate in Iraq's southern Basra governorate on Tuesday after rockets which came from the direction of Kuwait killed three people, according to police sources cited by Reuters and Al Arabiya.

BREAKING: Supporters of Iraq’s pro-Iranian Popular Mobilization Militias storm the Kuwaiti Consulate in Basra Province, Iraq, in protest against Kuwait's role with the U.S. in the war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/pyxtxjlzeU

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) April 7, 2026

Neither Kuwaiti nor Iraqi officials issued immediate public statements, and the rocket incident remains a mystery in terms of its origin or the motives behind the attack.

It may have been a missile fired on Kuwait from Iran, which errantly crossed the border and landed on Iraqi homes:

At least three ​people were killed ​and five others wounded when ‌rockets ⁠fired from the direction of Kuwait hit a house in ​Khor ​al-Zubair ⁠near Basra, security and health officials ​told Reuters.

Protesters are angry at Kuwait's role in the war, as it has played host to American forces, and reportedly has been a staging ground for US raids into Iran.

The crowds seem to have effective control over the Kuwaiti consulate in Basra...

NOW: Pro-Iran protestors in Iraq STORM Kuwait’s Consulate and remove Kuwaiti flag pic.twitter.com/EtBeSeQwfk

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) April 7, 2026

This marks a sharp escalation along the sensitive Iraq-Kuwait border as the wider Gulf region faces sustained fallout from weeks of Iranian drone and missile strikes targeting neighboring states, including Kuwait. Iraq has a majority Shia population, and its major political players remain sympathetic to the plight of Iran.

Meanwhile Kuwait is telling its some 5 million citizens to shelter in place amid President Trump's threat to obliterate civilian infrastructure inside Iran:

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior urged those in the country to shelter in place for six hours early Wednesday, which overlaps with President Trump’s 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday deadline for the Iranian government to lift restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz.

In a Tuesday post on social platform X, the ministry instructed Kuwaiti citizens and residents to “remain in their homes and avoid going out, except in cases of utmost necessity” from midnight to 6 a.m. local time Wednesday. Trump’s deadline hits at 3 a.m. in Kuwait.

The Gulf states have bore the brunt of Iran's retaliation, along with Israel, after over a month since the start of Operation Epic Fury. Tehran says that if its critical infrastructure is hit, such as water desalination plants, then it will do the same to America's allies in the region.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 19:40

Massive "Treasure Trove" 3,000-Year-Old Silk Road City Discovered In Uzbekistan

Authored by Maria Mocerino via Interesting Engineering (emphasis ours),

A Chinese-Uzbek archaeological team has discovered a remarkable 3,000-year-old city along the Silk Road that is rich with artifacts, providing new insights into urban development during the early Iron Age in Central Asia.

Surkhan State Reserve. Sherobod District, Surxondaryo Region, Uzbekistan. (Wikimedia)

Originally discovered in 1969, the expansive Bandikhan II site, covering 107,639 square feet, is located in the Bandikhan oasis. The Surxondaryo region in southern Uzbekistan is known as an archaeological treasure trove, containing multiple ancient settlement mounds. It was only recently, in 2023, that a team began excavations at Bandikhan II, which served as a crucial hub on the legendary Silk Road.

During the excavation, archaeologists uncovered remnants of an eastern wall, numerous structures, and interconnected rooms, along with a wealth of artifacts. These findings enabled researchers to identify the city as belonging to the Yaz culture, further enhancing our understanding of their role within ancient Bactria, according to TV Brics.

Though a section of this major urban center of the ancient Bactrian kingdom has been excavated thus far, the findings are providing key evidence “for understanding the form of early Iron Age city-states in southern Central Asia and the evolution of urban layouts from Bronze Age to the early Iron Age,” as per Global Times.

A Silk Road city

So far, archaeologists have explored only 3,229 square feet of the 107,639-square-foot site in the eastern section of the ancient city. However, they have confirmed that it is the largest and best-preserved settlement in the Bandikhan oasis, with foundations dating back to the early Iron Age. Researchers have begun to understand the city’s layout and how it was constructed and used during that time.

The well-preserved eastern wall features a trapezoidal cross-section, demonstrating the construction techniques employed. Inside the city, they found a detailed snapshot of daily life, including five interconnected rooms. One of these rooms was used for sleeping and contained a niche where a lamp was placed, as reported by Heritage Daily. This conclusion was drawn from the hardened interior, which indicated repeated burning and revealed the niche’s function.

Among the recovered artifacts were pottery pieces, including carinated jars, bowls, and flat-bottomed dishes. The forms and decorations of these items matched those found at other Yaz sites, such as Kuchuktepa and Yaztepa, clarifying who built this advanced urban center. While Bandikhan II shares structural similarities with these sites, it also displays notable differences, particularly in the absence of semicircular defense towers along its exterior walls.

An assortment of stone tools, including grinding slabs, mullers, pestles, and mortars, suggested that grain was processed on-site. Additionally, bronze knives and arrowheads were identified, along with seashells.

What will they find next?

The initial excavations at this Silk Road city have yielded impressive findings, generating excitement for future digs as researchers plan to expand their work in upcoming seasons. This flourishing city, with its enduring legacy, continues to be uncovered.

In response to these discoveries, a two-week training program on Silk Road archaeology has been established, aimed at promoting the protection and transmission of Silk Road cultural heritage, as concluded by The Global Times.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 19:15

Synagogue In Tehran 'Completely Destroyed' In US-Israeli Strikes On Area

The AP, AFP, and others have cited Iranian state media to say that US-Israeli strikes have "completely destroyed" a synagogue in Tehran, as attacks have intensified overnight and into Tuesday.

"According to preliminary information, the Rafi-Nia Synagogue … was completely destroyed in this morning's attacks," the Shargh newspaper reported. Mehr news agency describes the synagogue was destroyed when an adjacent residential building in central Tehran was bombed in an aerial attacks.

Jerusalem Post: A reported photo of the damage to the Rafi Niya Synagogue as the result of a strike in Tehran.

Footage from the scene showed Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground and amid the rubble. Rescue efforts searching for bystanders ensued in the area. There have been no initial reports of casualties.

Israeli media, specifically the Jerusalem Post, has actually confirmed the destruction, noting that both Iran's Jewish parliament representative as well as the synagogue's Persian Jewish rabbi have condemned the attack in visits to the scene:

The report said that due to the narrowness of the streets surrounding the building attacked, the exterior and interior of the nearby buildings were also “severely damaged”. There was no immediate report on casualties.

In a video published on Telegram by Iran’s official IRIB News outlet, Homayoun Sameh, a Jewish representative in the country’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, said “the Zionist regime showed no mercy to this community during the Jewish holidays and targeted one of our ancient and holy synagogues.

“Unfortunately, during this attack, the synagogue building was completely destroyed and our Torah scrolls were left under the rubble,” he said.

via Middle East Eye/IRNA

According to more confirmation from JPost, "Footage and reports circulated by Iranian outlets and social media accounts identified the site as the Rafi Niya Synagogue, located near Palestine Square in central Tehran, an area that has seen repeated strikes in recent days."

A US-Israel strike has caused extensive damage to a synagogue in Tehran, according to a video published by Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency.

Footage shows civil defence workers amid the rubble, with Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground. pic.twitter.com/Vpvn2dfjw9

— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) April 7, 2026

"This was confirmed to The Jerusalem Post by independent sources, who told the Post that a member of the Tehran Beit Din, Rabbi David Sasani, had been seen at the site, evaluating the damage," it adds.

Judaism, alongside Christianity, is a minority in Iran but has protected status and even enjoys representation in Iranian parliament. There are over 30 synagogues in Tehran alone, and some 100 throughout the country, with estimates of around 10,000 Iranian Jews. The Rafi-Nia synagogue was built in the 20th century.

A few hours ago, the Jewish synagogue near Palestine Street in Tehran was targeted by Israeli fighter jets.

This synagogue, located near Palestine Square, is known as "Rafi Niya Synagogue," and a significant part of it has been destroyed as a result of the Israeli attack. pic.twitter.com/dBXApQ3omi

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) April 7, 2026

IRNA English, Iran’s official state news agency, has accused Israel of actually targeting it: "a few hours ago, the Jewish synagogue near Palestine Street in Tehran was targeted by Israeli fighter jets," it said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 18:50

No Kings - Except Moloch And Marx And Everyone Else

Authored by Anthony Esolen via American Greatness,

No kings? But millions of little queens of both sexes, tyrants in both public and private life, who would make sure, if they were in the position to do so, that I would pay dearly for the very sentence I am writing right now; who police both what you say and what you would very much like to be left alone not to say; who use exceptional cases to justify surveillance over people who teach their children at home, and who agitate to make that choice more difficult if not illegal; who have in fact made it illegal, by the agency of the national government, for people to refrain, without suffering a stiff financial penalty, from buying health insurance which they may not need or want.

No kings, but millions of people dancing with glee at the assassination of Charlie Kirk and hoping that that’ll teach those rednecks from getting uppity; headsmen glad to lop off inconvenient lives at their beginning, exercising total and tyrannical power against the most vulnerable, whose very existence is owing to the voluntary actions of those who would slay them; shedding crocodilian tears of sympathy if someone who is sad and lonely at any age decides to end his life, corralling a doctor or nurse to assist in suicide, and thus corrupting the profession; eager to embroil the nation in a war with Russia, yet crying out in rage at the prospect that Cuba and Venezuela might now have the chance to pick themselves up out of their socialist miseries; no kings but Moloch and Marx.

Photo: ST PAUL, MINNESOTA - MARCH 28: People gather for a “No Kings” protest outside the State Capitol building on March 28, 2026 in St Paul, Minnesota. This is the third nationwide "No Kings" protest held against the Trump administration. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

No kings, but fantasy queens, all the touchier and more vindictive if anyone should laugh at the fantasy, or even say, hat in hand, scraping and ducking, that maybe, well, maybe, the fantasy isn’t real; wrenching the very definition of marriage away from common law and common sense; glad to compel girls to compete against mentally ill boys in sports, and even gladder to have them invade their locker rooms; continuing, with all the might and weight of schools, colleges, and the media, to thrust upon a still-hesitating populace one experiment after another against sexual reality and against the most reliable means for climbing out of poverty, the family; no king and queen but Baal and Astarte.

No kings, but people with the souls, though not the courage, of tyrants, who, if someone in a favored group is murdered or is alleged to have been murdered by a policeman, will organize en masse to shut down your city, vandalize businesses that get in their way, and block traffic on major highways, stranding ambulances and the desperate people they are carrying, and who will in general carry on so as to make a fair trial impossible; people, including some who hold political office, who issue open threats to judges, demanding the judgment they approve and saying that they will pay for it if they judge otherwise; no kings, but wannabe dictators everywhere, armed with organizational money and power, going after an ordinary fellow with a bakery, making a federal case of it if he declines politely to contribute his efforts toward the celebration of perversion.

No kings, no kings, but people eager to suppress the native population by conniving at the non-enforcement of immigration laws, laws duly passed by the people’s own representatives in Congress; no kings, but people content to make it trivially easy to cast a vote by mail, which you are not authorized to cast; no kings, but people who hate the less populous states and would overwhelm them with the might of numbers, by eliminating one of their few frail signs and guardians of autonomy, the Electoral College.

No kings, whose appetites for wealth were kept in check in old times by the charters they gave to townsmen and their merchants and who could only take what actually existed, but grubby politicians ready to tax notional wealth, which does not even exist but only might exist, wealth not even on paper but floating in the air of suppositions; no kings, but despisers of intergenerational family wealth, ready to soak up all your assets when you die, on the grounds that every generation should begin from scratch, that it is not “fair” for your children to inherit what you have worked so hard to give them after you are gone; no kings, but Jabba the State.

No kings, but NGOs everywhere, with vast resources in wealth and no legal directives or oversight as to how it is spent, and spent not in charity but in political action, orchestrating demonstrations; no kings, but a million verminous thought-controllers in high technology, invisibly promoting or suppressing what they wish, via the algorithms that would govern our collective thoughts; no kings, but Google, and its court jester Disney.

No kings, but schoolteachers and principals who think it is all right to do with a large classroom of boys and girls what would get the creepy man down the street arrested if he did exactly the same thing with but one; no kings, but people who bar the door against parents who want to find out what is going on in school behind them; no kings, but Kinsey set free from all restraint.

No kings, but a tangle of human resource personnel, lawyers, judges, and political interest groups ranged against you if you attempted to hire a Thomas Edison without formal schooling, thus driving up the costs of higher schooling and higher indoctrination, saddling families with exorbitant debt while providing, in return, very little in the way of a truly human education.

No kings, but haters of religion and people of religious faith, the main obstacle to their power, as the family is the fundamental social unit of possible opposition to the ambitions of the non-religious and their aims to mold the minds of other people’s children, especially since they have rather few of their own; no kings but the murderous and atheistical Mao Zedong and his even crueler wife Jiang Qing; Charlemagne, no, Confucius, hell no, but Mao, yes; Washington, no, but Castro, yes.

No kings, no one to join with the middle class in a flanking action against innumerable rapacious aristocrats; insulation for the exercisers of real political and economic power, whatever they happen to call themselves, but exposure of everyone else; no kings from one horizon to the other, but you will hit a duke or duchess wherever you spit, and God help you when you do.

No kings, but politicians and their wealthy or addle-pated enablers, who would, to “save the planet,” compel everyone to draw their power from centralized electrical grids, even the power to travel by car from Mayfield to Springfield; no kings, then, but controllers of artificially established turnpikes, bottlenecks, and checkpoints, with the power to bring an entire nation to its knees; no kings, but a new kind of Andrew Carnegie with ten thousand times the power and none of the bracing experiences of hard manual labor.

No kings, but censors in everyone’s hair, like lice, not to police public morals and keep obscenity from the eyes of children, but to police people who object to the obscenity; Cato everywhere, on the lookout for demands for decency, to punish those who dare to demand it.

No kings, not even God Almighty, but everyone to be a king or a queen only in those matters that enervate and corrupt; free to be weaklings, slaves, louts, and harlots, all true self-reliance lost, along with the nobility of the divine image; “Non serviam,” cries the slave as he submits his hands to the state, ready to clap them in irons; no king but the Self, and the driver of the Self without God, a driver sometimes called Satan.

No kings indeed.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 18:25

Helicopters And Poison? 32 Charged In $20M Mount Everest Rescue Scam

Nepal’s Central Investigation Bureau investigates a large-scale insurance fraud operation in the Himalayan trekking sector. Authorities charge 32 individuals - including trekking company operators, guides, helicopter rescue coordinators, hospital owners, and doctors - with organized crime and fraud. The scheme allegedly triggers unnecessary and expensive helicopter evacuations that insurers foot the bill for.

According to The Independent, the probe focuses on activities between 2022 and 2025 across popular routes that include the path to Everest Base Camp, Annapurna, Manaslu, and Langtang. Investigators examine more than 4,700 international patient cases at implicated Kathmandu hospitals and review thousands of helicopter flights. They identify hundreds of rescues as fraudulent or exaggerated, with operators allegedly inflating symptoms, forging medical records, and billing single flights as multiple separate emergencies to multiply payouts.

Between 2022 and 2025, investigators identified 4,782 foreign patients treated across the implicated hospitals. Of these, 171 cases were confirmed as fake rescues. Over that period, Era International Hospital received deposits of more than $15.87 million linked to these activities. Shreedhi International Hospital received over $1.22 million.

Among rescue operators, Mountain Rescue Service conducted 171 fraudulent rescues out of 1,248 total charter flights, claiming approximately $10.31 million from insurers. Nepal Charter Service carried out 75 fake rescues from 471 flights, claiming $8.2 million. Everest Experience and Assistance was linked to 71 suspicious rescues from 601 flights, with insurance claims totalling $11.04 million.

In one instance that illustrates the brazenness of the scheme, police documented a case in which four tourists were rescued on a single helicopter flight, on the same date, using the same helicopter and manifest. Insurance claims were nonetheless submitted as multiple separate rescues, with the total rescue bill reaching $31,100, plus a separate hospital bill of $11,890. -Kathmandu Post

According to the report, the rescue companies "managed to extract nearly $20m in payouts from international insurance companies for rescues that were unnecessary or, in some cases, completely fabricated."

The fraud centers on paperwork manipulation and kickback arrangements among trekking firms, hospitals, and helicopter companies. A common tactic involves claiming routine ailments - mild fatigue, stomach issues, or early signs of altitude discomfort - as acute emergencies that require immediate airlift. One documented pattern shows four trekkers on a single charter flight billed as four distinct rescue missions, turning a modest private flight cost into a $30,000-plus insurance claim. Hospitals submit charges for treatments that never occur or prove unnecessary. The scheme primarily targets travelers from countries with straightforward insurance policies, such as the UK, Australia, and Canada.

Some witness statements mention guides adding baking powder to food or giving clients excessive medication and water to induce nausea and symptoms that mimic altitude sickness. Media reports highlight these details and fuel speculation about deliberate poisoning on Everest routes. Nepal police, however, state clearly that the official investigation uncovers no evidence of actual poisoning. In their April 2026 public statement, the Central Investigation Bureau declares: “To date, the official investigation has not found any evidence of ‘poisoning.’ No facts have been found to suggest that poisonous substances were mixed into food.”

The distinction matters. The scam primarily affects trekkers on lower-altitude trails rather than the roughly 500 technical climbers who attempt the Everest summit each year. High-altitude summit expeditions operate under stricter medical protocols, oxygen support, and professional oversight that make staged emergencies far more difficult to execute undetected. The Everest name draws global attention, but the bulk of the documented fraud occurs on approach hikes and other regional circuits where helicopter access remains relatively straightforward.

The investigation highlights systemic weaknesses in Nepal’s rapidly growing adventure tourism industry. Helicopter services, essential for genuine high-altitude emergencies, expand quickly but operate with limited oversight. Earlier government attempts to require tourism authority approval for rescues fail to curb the practice. Insurers now face pressure to tighten verification, while legitimate rescues risk greater scrutiny and delays.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 18:00

Texas Investigating Islamic Tribunal For Allegedly Operating Sharia Law Court

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday an investigation into a Dallas-based group accused of operating as a sharia law court.

Protester David Wright (L) speaks with counterprotester Vincent Simon, a Muslim, as Melissa Yassini holds a sign across the street from a mosque in Richardson, Texas, on Dec. 12, 2015. LM Otero/AP Photo

​In a press release, Paxton said he requested documents from the group, known as the Islamic Tribunal, regarding allegations that it was issuing rulings based on sharia law.

According to the release, the Islamic Tribunal has “reportedly sought to replace actual courts of law and to evade neutral, generally applicable state and federal laws.”

Paxton warned, “Anyone or any entity that seeks to subvert the codified state and federal laws of this country will be stopped dead in their tracks. If the Islamic Tribunal is undermining the rule of law or misleading Texans about the legal authority it claims to hold, my office will ensure its operation is shut down.”

​“This is America, and we will not be governed by sharia law,” he added.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Islamic Tribunal for comment.

The organization described itself on its website in April 2025 as a “unique institution” in America. It said its 2014 establishment aimed “to set a precedence [sic] that will be emulated and duplicated throughout the country.”

The organization has since changed the wording on its website, saying it wanted to clarify its operations amid the controversy.

“The Islamic Tribunal wishes to clarify the nature of its work in light of recent public statements,” the group stated. “The Tribunal does not function as a court of law and does not issue legally binding judgments.”

​The website noted the group’s role was limited to mediation and religious arbitration requested by members of the Muslim community.

​“Our experienced imams are here to listen, support, and offer faith-based, non-binding spiritual guidance to anyone seeking clarity or comfort. We provide a welcoming and confidential space rooted in Islamic ethics and in full respect of U.S. and Texas law.”

​Paxton claims the Islamic Tribunal asserts jurisdiction over all aspects of Muslim life, seeks to impose sharia law for Texas Muslims’ disputes, and misrepresents its decisions as final judgments endorsed by the Texas judicial system.

​While the First Amendment allows religious organizations the right to govern themselves, it doesn’t allow a religious organization to act as a court, apply foreign laws that conflict with Texas or federal law, or issue rulings that imply government authority, according to Paxton.

​Doing so would violate Texas law, he added.

The demand for documents is the latest move in targeting what many fear as the establishment of Muslim enclaves and sharia law, which is based on the religion of Islam.

​Paxton has taken a series of legal actions against Islamic groups and Muslim-centric developments in recent months. In December, he filed a lawsuit against a 400-acre Muslim enclave known as EPIC City, named after the East Plano Islamic Center, which is one of its developers.

​EPIC’s developers have denied an intent to establish sharia law or break fair housing laws.

​In the previous year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 4211 and Senate Bill 17 into law. The first bans residential property developers from creating exclusionary compounds, and specifically cited the EPIC project during the signing. The second prohibits transnational criminal organizations and foreign adversaries, including Iran, from purchasing land.

​Abbott also signed a proclamation designating the Muslim Brotherhood, which has ties to the Hamas terrorist group, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.

​CAIR filed a lawsuit against Abbott and Paxton in response, calling Abbott’s proclamation “unconstitutional and defamatory.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 17:40

The Left Is Baffled - But Still Repulsed - By The White Working Class

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

After failing to win Congress and the presidency in 2024, the Democrats conducted an internal postmortem of what went wrong.

While they predictably did not divulge the full results, everyone knew what they had found.

Their obsessions with the low side of 30/70 issues had especially alienated Democrats from white middle- and working-class voters. Yet middle-class whites still comprise about 40–50 percent of the population and are perhaps overrepresented in voter turnout.

Democrats realize that their fixations on biological males competing in women’s sports, open borders and millions of illegal entries, radical green agendas, DEI-driven racial essentialism, and massive government entitlements rife with fraud have alienated the middle classes in general and white middle- and working-class voters in particular.

But since Democrat ideologues cannot shed their ideological straitjackets, they have instead tried to finesse the very problem that cost them the 2024 election.

They recall, in particular, the successful blueprint that won them the 2020 election. During that campaign, Joe Biden largely remained out of public view, hiding in his basement, while his handlers reconstructed him as a kind of waxen effigy of “good ol’ Joe from Scranton,” a throwback to the 1970s.

Once the cognitively diminished Biden was elected, his hard-left, Obama-era operatives behind that ossified, working-man veneer enacted the most radical four-year agenda in modern American history.

On the one hand, Democrats claim they will field candidates who can at least playact as good ol’ boy farmers and salt-of-the-earth welders.

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, Humpty Dumpty lookalike Tim Walz, talked incessantly about driving a pickup truck. He assured us he could change its oil and tried to portray himself as a genuine hunter. Yet these claims often came across as inauthentic, strained, and condescending; the more Walz tried to present himself as a man of the people, the more he appeared buffoonish.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, became a caricature of the sanctimonious, credentialed technocrat—self-righteously and arrogantly projecting expertise without much humility or even a shred of the common touch. As transportation secretary, Buttigieg used to pontificate about racist freeway clover leaves, rather than addressing the more immediate problems posed by the gridlocked and decrepit condition of the nation’s highways.

Now, as the 2028 election looms, Buttigieg has followed Democratic central casting and undergone a complete reboot, reemerging with a beard, a trucker cap, and a flannel shirt.

No matter, he still sounds as pedantic as ever in his riff on green energy and “diversity.”

Wannabe president and lame-duck California governor Gavin Newsom is also suddenly reinventing himself. He is now surrealistically claiming that, as the son of an appellate court judge, and raised as an intimate of the billionaire Getty family, that he scarcely survived on Wonder Bread and macaroni, was disabled by dyslexia, and struggled in a broken home typical of the poor white working classes.

To win back the white working class this time around, Democratic insiders are apparently not content merely to recycle—or astroturf—familiar, anemic candidates into veritable Obama-era “clingers.”

Now they are seeking out brand new faces to present as supposedly more authentic white working men. They believe that they have at last found the real thing in traditionally red Texas state legislator and Presbyterian minister James Talarico.

He talks nonstop like a left-winger, but with the voice of an evangelical Bible thumper. Talarico just won the Texas Democratic Senate primary over radical, racialist bomb thrower Jasmine Crockett. Surely, his handlers believe, he will do the impossible and flip the good old boys of Texas to the new Democratic agenda?

He may yet, but the Harvard-educated Talarico’s Christianity seems more like Latin American left-wing “liberation theology” than Texas-style evangelicalism. Talarico certainly has a long history of radical elite social media commentary, and he urges Texans not to demonize trans people and illegal aliens but instead go after “billionaires and their puppet politicians.”

Perhaps such class warfare is seen as a good start for the Left’s new, supposedly working-man’s radical populist. But it turns out Pastor Talarico is actually to the left of radical left Democrats. In the past, he had pandered to the very wing of the party that had lost its elections, with offerings like “God is non-binary” or notions that Christians have divine guidance to let transgender males play in women’s sports.

But the damning pièce de résistance of this supposedly authentic, blue-collar, white evangelical preacher was a previous post from Talarico: “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.”

Democrat politicos and handlers also perhaps thought they had finally found the real thing in current Maine Senate primary candidate Graham Platner. Despite growing up in affluence and attending the tony Hotchkiss preparatory school, Platner’s makeover seemed far more genuine.

Indeed, The Washington Post gushed about him, saying he was “a rugged guy,” while Politico bragged that at last Democrats had found a MAGA everyman but—better yet—to the left of Bernie Sanders.

Platner joined the Marines, saw combat tours, and was variously a bartender and oysterman. But Platner may have gone a bit too far to serve as the Democrats’ new white working-class poster boy.

It was recently revealed that he had been tattooed with a skull that was the exact insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (“Death’s Head Units”). These particular SS units were the worst of the worst of the psychopathic paramilitary organizations of Hitler’s Third Reich, often having been chosen to serve as guards in Nazi extermination camps.

Platner’s past social media postings didn’t help his often-lame excuses for the tattoo—although he knew as a leftist he would survive the brouhaha, given the antisemitic saturation of the new Democrat Party, and the exemptions provided to the “right people.” Indeed, he trumped Talarico’s disdain for the very demographic he was supposed to sew up, with the revelation that he had once described white rural Americans as “racists and stupid” while claiming that he was a communist and calling for armed resistance.

The reason why these white working-class veneers will likely not work is not just that they are strained facades, designed to make palatable an otherwise unpalatable agenda to Middle America.

They also ring untrue because the white working class has been so demonized by the Left that it will likely never return to the Democratic Party.

Consider just the pejoratives that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden have employed to stereotype and ridicule Trump supporters and the social-economical-rural environment that supposedly produced them: clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, dregs, chumps, semi-fascists, and garbage.

In other words, the hatred of and the condescension toward the white working class is baked into the new bicoastal and elitist Left and Democratic Party. It cannot be finessed or masked—as the postings of even their supposedly new working-class heroes attest.

Just recently, liberal comedian Jimmy Kimmel went off on the new Homeland Security Secretary, former Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin, blasting him as a mere “plumber”: “We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now. It worked for Super Mario. Why not Markwayne?”

Aside from the fact that plumbers are among the most skilled and important of all the critical tradesmen, plumbing was just one chapter in Mullin’s rich and varied career. He has an impressive record as a former ten-year congressman and a U.S. senator. He also helped turn his family business into one of the largest plumbing supply services in Oklahoma. But to Kimmel, all that was condensed to being a “plumber,” as if his left-wing audience would likewise see a plumber reaching the highest levels of government as a joke.

The View cohost Joy Behar just trashed Trump by claiming his supporters (half the country) were “poorly educated”—an odd thing to say when her liberal cohost, Whoopi Goldberg, is a high school dropout.

While it is true that leftist news and commentary outlets have greater percentages of college graduates in their audiences, that fact hardly translates into them being better-informed listeners.

Some polls, like the 2021 Heartland Institute’s survey, showed that the conservative talk radio followers, on average, were better at answering factual questions about politics than their leftist counterparts. That sounds reasonable given the current epidemic of campus grade inflation, nonmeritocratic admissions, therapeutic curricula, and the ubiquity of off-topic, left-wing faculty propagandists on campus.

In truth, the new radical left-wing Democratic Party is an elitist entity with a poorly disguised contempt for the white working class. That hatred is omnipresent and so emerges in the most unexpected fashion.

Remember the private text exchanges between disgraced FBI paramours Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, in which Trump voters were casually caricatured as Walmart shoppers defined by their supposed stench?

Or recall CNN reporter Marc Caputo’s snide jab at Trump rally attendees: “If you put everyone’s mouths together in this video, you’d get a full set of teeth.”

The locus classicus target of this bias was the vice-presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin, who, throughout the 2008 campaign, was smeared by leftists as “poor white trash.”

To New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Palin was nothing more than a “gun-toting hockey mom.” Talk show host David Letterman joked that Palin had bought makeup from Bloomingdale’s to update her “slutty flight attendant look.” The smug Letterman then added, “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Palin’s daughter Willow was 14 years old at the time.

The Left simply does not get it, or rather, has it backward. You do not need to look or act like the white working class to feel genuine affinity with it. Billionaire and former Manhattanite Donald Trump is proof enough of that.

The key is not whether you wear a suit or a trucker’s hat or grow a beard, but whether you show sincere concern for an often now-demonized demographic long written off by coastal elites as losers during globalization’s heyday.

So far, the smugness and lack of any such genuine empathy will doom the latest silly Democrat gambit. Sincerity cannot be finessed with tattoos, beards, or trucker caps—not by the media or Hollywood, and certainly not by the likes of Pete Buttigieg, Tim Walz, or James Talarico.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 16:20

Consumer Credit Grows Less Than Expected On Subdued Credit Card Usage

While the monthly jobs report has become a veritable economic random number generator, with every monthly print coming either well below or above the forecast stack, the weekly initial claims report has become its foil - a study in boring reporting, with numbers barely budging week to week, and usually falling right on top of Wall Street estimates. A similar dynamic is emerging for the monthly consumer credit report: following a volatile 2025, when revolving credit swung around wildly in unexpected ways dragging the broader print with it, the last few months have been surprisingly steady, printing right around the consensus expectations with barely any volatility.

The latest, February, report published minutes ago by the Fed was no surprise: with expectations for a modest increase from last month's $8.05 billion to $10.25 billion, the reported number was just shy of the estimate, printing $9.484 billion, up from a downward revised $7.665 billion.

Revolving credit rose a modest $709 million - the weakest monthly increase since November - to $1.328 trillion, the highest since November 2024. 

Non-revolving credit (student and auto loans) rose a more substantial $9.2 billion to a record $3.789 trillion.

Broken down by its two core components, Student Loans were $1.838 trillion as of Dec 2025, up $5.4 billion for the quarter, while Auto Loans rose a modest $1.5 billion to $1.562 trillion.

Finally, and this may come as a surprise, following 1.75% in rate cuts by the Fed since September 2024, a move which did nothing for the average rates on credit card accounts through Dec 31, 2025, there was finally a notable drop in the average credit card interest rate, which dropped to 21.52% on March 31, 2026 down from 22.30% three months ago. It appears that all the noise surrounding exorbitant credit card rates in recent months is starting to have an impact. 

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 15:52

Tehran-Aligned Militia In Iraq Frees American Journalist In Prisoner Swap

An Iran-backed militia in Iraq has announced it will release an American freelance journalist kidnapped in Baghdad a week ago. Shelly Kittleson was abducted on March 31, and her captors in Kataib Hezbollah announced Tuesday that she can go free as long as she exits Iraq immediately.

Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official in the group, has been cited in international reports as saying, "In recognition of the national stances of the outgoing prime minister, we have decided to release the American defendant Shelly Kittleson."

Image source: Wausau Pilot & Review

This constitutes direct confirmation that the group is indeed responsible for her kidnapping, which happened after weeks of the US-Israeli attacks in Iran.

At the time of the 49-year-old’' abduction, Iraqi authorities said security forces pursued the suspects, resulting in one of the kidnappers’ vehicles overturning and one arrest.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa al-Sudani days ago intensified the search, ordering security forces to track down those responsible for abducting foreigners.

Kataib Hezbollah has claimed that it has a recording it is ready to release, supposedly showing Kittleson’s "role and activities in Iraq" - and at least one such video while in captivity has appeared.

In the past when Westerners or Israelis have been abducted in Iraq, they are typically accused of spying on behalf of foreign governments.

The NY Times says she has gone free, after an exchange:

Ms. Kittleson, who has reported on the Middle East for more than a decade for various outlets, was set free in exchange for the release of several imprisoned Kataib Hezbollah members, according to the two Iraqi security officials. They asked not to be identified in order to discuss sensitive negotiations.

AMERICAN JOURNALIST KIDNAPPED IN BAGHDAD

Rapid Report footage/Iraq Interior Ministry confirms Shelly Kittleson abducted pic.twitter.com/XzdPkEHT0s

— SilencedSirs◼️ (@SilentlySirs) March 31, 2026

Starting in March the State Department urged all Americans to leave the country immediately, after which the US Embassy in Baghdad came under repeat drone fire. Other US sites, as well as oil facilities, have come under fire either from Iran or its allied groups in Iraq.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 15:40

Antares Earns DoE's First Ever Microreactor Approval As Modi Heralds 'Defining Step In India's Nuclear Energy Journey'

Antares Nuclear reached the most significant regulatory milestone to date for a microreactor. The company announced that its Mark-0 reactor became the first advanced reactor to receive Department of Energy approval for a Documented Safety Analysis under the new DOE-STD-1271. 

DSA approved. ✅

Antares is the first advanced reactor to receive DOE approval of a Documented Safety Analysis under DOE-STD-1271.

Our Mark-0 reactor now moves to Readiness Review.

Onward. pic.twitter.com/DovqJsVVwz

— Antares (@AntaresNuclear) April 6, 2026

The company will now proceed with preparations for taking the reactor critical for the first time. This includes forming a joint test group to oversee the startup planning and execution. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright holds permission for starting up the reactor as the Startup Approval Authority. 

Bob Boston, manager of the DOE Idaho Operations Office, granted the approval of the DSA on Monday afternoon and clarified “The Department of Energy DSA is equivalent to an NRC license”.

We have closely tracked Antares and other reactor developers in the rapidly advancing microreactor race. The company's R1 design is a sodium heat pipe cooled microreactor engineered to provide up to one megawatt of flexible, carbon-free power. It targets applications including remote communities and military installations where conventional power infrastructure is limited. BWXT is completing TRISO fuel fabrication for the pilot with a planned criticality date before July 4th.

The company stands out as an early leader in securing formal safety analysis approval ahead of other contenders such as Radiant, Valar, Aalo Atomics, and Oklo.

This development occurs just after we highlighted the Department of Energy’s requested $45 billion in nuclear funding for fiscal year 2027, and recent discussions from Jay Yu of Nano Nuclear pointing out nuclear energy's new spotlight in light of the Iran conflict. 

Today, India takes a defining step in its civil nuclear journey, advancing the second stage of its nuclear programme.

The indigenously designed and built Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam has attained criticality.

This advanced reactor, capable of producing more fuel…

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 6, 2026

In related international news, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India's 500 megawatt Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam has attained criticality. The sodium-cooled fast reactor designed by BHAVINI advances the second stage of India's three-stage nuclear program and brings the country closer to utilizing its large thorium reserves in the final phase.

These advancements in both advanced microreactors and large-scale fast breeder technology reflect growing worldwide interest in expanding reliable clean baseload nuclear capacity.
 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 15:20

Stellar 3Y Auction: 2nd Most Foreign Buyers On Record, Highest Stop Through Since Feb 2025

After several weeks of decidedly ugly auction which saw a notable drop in foreign demand amid what we reported a week ago was rampant selling of US debt by foreign central banks, moments ago the Treasury sold 3Y notes in what may have been the best auction since the start of the war.

Just after 1pm, the US treasury sold $58BN in 3Y notes at a high yield of 3.897%, up sharply from 3.579% a month ago and the highest since last June's 3.972%. More importantly, the auction stopped through the When Issued 3.909% by 1.2bps, the biggest stop through since Feb 2025 and the 7th stop through in the past 8 auctions.

The bid to cover bounced nicely from last month's 2.546 to 2.682, the highest since November. 

The internals were even stronger: indirects, or foreign central banks, came back in droves after aggressively selling US paper in recent week, and were allotted 74.8% of the auction - the highest since Sept 2024, and the second highest on record.

And with Directs awarded just 11.9%, the lowest since Sept 2024, Dealers were left holdings 13.3% or roughly in line with the recent average of 12.3%.

Overall this was a blockbuster 3Y auction, and one of the stronger for the tenor on record, although with every push higher in oil moving yields along with it, we doubt that the market cares much about the quality of today's issuance.

 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 13:33

Trump Endorses Steve Hilton In California Gubernatorial Primary

Authored by Dave Mason via The Center Square,

President Donald Trump has endorsed former Fox News anchor Steve Hilton in California’s Republican gubernatorial primary.

Trump picked Hilton over the other prominent GOP candidate – Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is an outspoken Trump supporter.

Sunday night’s endorsement on social media comes as Democrats face the risk of being shut out of the general election for the first time in the Golden State’s history.

Besides the two Republicans, there are eight prominent Democratic candidates. Under California law, the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the June 2 primary, regardless of party affiliation, will face off in the Nov. 3 election. Hilton and Bianco could get more votes if Democrats spread their votes among the eight candidates. 

And a recent University of California, Berkeley poll shows Hilton, a small business owner in addition to being a former commentator, and Bianco are ahead of the Democratic candidates.

According to the poll, Hilton has 17% of the vote, and Bianco, 16%. The leading Democratic candidates are U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell of San Francisco with 14%, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County with 13% and billionaire and consumer protection advocate Tom Steyer, who financed the successful campaign to pass congressional redistricting in California, with 10%.

The poll says none of the five remaining prominent Democrats – former Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, former state Controller Betty Yee and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan – has more than 5% of the vote.

Prediction markets see it a different way to the polls...

The Democratic Party is taking the risk seriously, with California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks urging Democrats with less support to drop out. So far, no one has budged. Hicks has said the risk of shutout is “relatively low but not impossible.”

Hicks wasn’t available for further comment on Monday, and the state Republican Party and Bianco or his campaign staff didn’t respond to The Center Square’s requests for comment. 

Hilton also wasn’t available for an interview, but his spokesperson Hector Barajas emailed The Center Square a statement saying Hilton was honored to be endorsed by Trump. The candidate’s statement noted California has the nation’s highest poverty, unemployment and cost-of-living rates after 16 years of “one-party rule” by Democrats. Hilton promised to cut electric bills by half, have no taxes on the first $100,000 of income, make house purchases more affordable and reduce the cost of gas to $3 a gallon.

California consistently has had the nation’s highest gas taxes for several years, and the tax has grown more than $1 a gallon since the Feb. 28 start of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. On Monday, California’s average price was $5.93 a gallon, above the national average of $4.12 a gallon, according to AAA.

Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, told The Center Square that under the top-two primary system, Democrats have spent a lot of money to help Republican candidates they think they can beat in November.

“We as a party have not gotten to choose our standard bearer for a long time, from state Senate all the way up to governor,” Hoge said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. ”The fact that for the first time in hundreds of races they [Democrats] might be shut down does not fill me with great empathy or concern.”

She added two Republicans and no Democrats in the general election’s gubernatorial race would be the best outcome for California.

“I’m firmly of the opinion that either Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco — or any Republican — would be a vast improvement over the public-sector-union puppets we have running our state now,” she said.

In his endorsement on his social media platform TruthSocial, Trump said he has known and respected Hilton for many years. 

“People are fleeing, crime is increasing, and Taxes are the highest of any State in the Country, maybe the World,” Trump’s post said.

“Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so! With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before!”

There’s the question of whether Trump’s endorsement of Hilton could pull enough votes away from Bianco to mean Hilton would face a Democrat in the general election. But Hoge isn’t willing to predict that would happen.

“Republicans are first and foremost rugged individuals,” Hoge said. “For me to know what they’re going to do would be a fool’s errand.”

Porter, one of the leading Democratic candidates, commented on Trump’s endorsement of Hilton on social media.

“If there was any doubt what this race is about, now it’s certain: It’s California values against MAGA,” Porter posted on X. “I’m running because voters are tired of the same old political games when the stakes are so much higher. They deserve a governor they can trust to fight for regular people, not just push policy agendas that only benefit corporate interests and the richest of the rich.”

Campaign staffs for some of the other leading Democratic gubernatorial candidates did not respond to The Center Square’s requests for comment Monday. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 13:05

The post Mr. Arithmetic Helps Donald Trump on “Taking Iran’s Oil” appeared first on CEPR.

 

 

The transcript from this week’s MiB: Songyee Yoon, Principal Venture Partners, is below.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including azny podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Bloomberg, YouTube (video), and YouTube (audio). All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

 

~~~

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio.

[00:00:15]  Barry Ritholtz:  On the latest Masters in Business podcast, my conversation with Songyee Yoon. She is founder and managing partner at Principal Ventures, an AI-focused venture capital investment firm. She has a fascinating background — MIT Corporation Advisory Board, 50 Women to Watch in Business from the Wall Street Journal, named to the advisory board for the Center for Asia Pacific Policy, as well as the National Academy of Engineering of Korea. She has a fascinating background in gaming, telecom, and AI.

[00:00:56]  Barry Ritholtz:  I found this conversation to be fascinating and I think you will also. With no further ado, my discussion with Songyee Yoon. That is quite a CV I went through. Let’s roll back though to where it all began. You get a Bachelor’s in Science from Korea’s Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and then a PhD in computational neuroscience from MIT. That’s such a fascinating area.

[00:01:27]  Barry Ritholtz:  What was the original career plan?

[00:01:31]  Songyee Yoon:  That’s a very good question. I mean, I think growing up in South Korea, I didn’t know what the career options were that I had. I just really enjoyed learning science and engineering subjects. So when I was young, I realized for some people, like singing is very natural. Some people dancing is natural. I cannot sing, I cannot dance, but speaking to computers and programming was very natural to me. So I started programming when I was nine, and that led me to major in electrical engineering as an undergrad at KAIST.

[00:02:18]  Songyee Yoon:  To be a better engineer, you need to understand how the human brain works. So for example, I was studying signal processing algorithms, and those algorithms look best to your eyes when it’s not necessarily mathematically the best, but takes into consideration what frequencies are most sensitive to human eyes. So understanding human brain and human perception will enable you to become a better engineer. That was kind of the exploration — what subject or major could I pursue to have a better understanding of both engineering and the human brain and perception.

[00:03:00]  Songyee Yoon:  That led me to study computational neuroscience at MIT.

[00:03:03]  Barry Ritholtz:  So computational neuroscience isn’t so much about using computers to understand people, as opposed to understanding neuroscience to create better software, better interfaces, better human interaction with technology. Is that fair?

[00:03:19]  Songyee Yoon:  That’s right. Exactly. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:03:21]  Barry Ritholtz:  Huh. So pretty fascinating — early in your career you’re at McKinsey for a few years, and then you eventually move into SK Telecom. Tell us your focus at both places.

[00:03:32]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah, so I mean, I think after my PhD I wanted to go into the business world instead of staying in academia, and going to McKinsey was the best way to transition from being a PhD student to going into the real world. So it was a really fascinating experience — very fast-paced, able to work with big conglomerates and the leaders of businesses in the areas of strategy and corporate finance, et cetera. And SK was one of the firm’s clients, and I don’t want to date myself. It was a time that everyone was rushing into 3G rollout. If you remember —

[00:04:23]  Barry Ritholtz:  Oh, sure.

[00:04:24]  Songyee Yoon:  It was an interesting transition, just like we see today, because in 2G, telecommunication is all about voice communication, and 3G — what was promised — was data transmission, including videos and images and high-fidelity audio.

[00:04:41]  Barry Ritholtz:  If I’m remembering correctly, it was voice and text, and then it was image and some video. And then eventually, what was it — 4G or 5G — was full internet, right?

[00:04:52]  Songyee Yoon:  Right. Yeah, that’s right. So as telcos are one of the big CapEx investors in making that transition, we were thinking about how we could do content delivery in the most personalized way — because personalized content delivery was one of the challenges that requires artificial intelligence and a data-driven delivery system. So I thought that was an interesting challenge to take on. So I moved to SK Telecom to lead that effort.

[00:05:26]  Barry Ritholtz:  And then you end up at NCSoft where you’re president and chief strategy officer. I’m curious what those experiences taught you, not just about corporate governance and culture, but about these big institutions that tend to have legacy technology. There tends to be some group that really wants to move forward rapidly and adopt all the latest greatest tech, and then another group that says, hey, this is expensive — what’s the ROI? How did you find yourself navigating a big telecom like SK or a smaller, more nimble gaming company like NCSoft?

[00:06:09]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah, I mean, that’s a really great question. I think it’s about learning to be persistent and resilient and patient in both places. I was criticized for suggesting something that was not the norm at the time. So for example, when I was at NCSoft, one of the things that was very obvious to me was that it was full of data. The gaming business was offered entirely in a digitized form — you have transaction data, you have behavior data of the gamers and everything. So it was possible to do a lot of things in a data-driven way, which — it’s a lot of companies doing it today, but back then it was not very common to have understanding in both gaming business and AI and data-driven business process modeling.

[00:06:41]  Songyee Yoon:  So when I suggested things like churn prediction — because you can see the customer player behavior within the game, see how much they’re engaged, and predict if that player is about to churn out or continue — and that some interventions could help them stay engaged. That was one application area I identified, which could be very straightforward, but I was told there was strong pushback from the developers and even the business people. They said, ‘Oh, you’re saying it because you don’t understand the gaming business.’ You’re not a heavy gamer enough, or whatever. But —

[00:07:48]  Barry Ritholtz:  But you understand: hey, it costs us this much to acquire a client or a gamer. And if we see this behavior, a high percentage of those folks are tapping out. What can we do to keep them in and paying monthly fees?

[00:08:01]  Songyee Yoon:  Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So even with very clear data and the case presented, it was not an easy task to get everyone’s buy-in. But I think it gradually — the reason I mentioned that tangible example: it was a small, very tangible area where we could apply technology. And once you show success, gradually, one by one, we were able to adopt and integrate that into our business process, ending up with a large AI lab that does all of those things in a more centralized way.

[00:08:36]  Barry Ritholtz:  So what I’m hearing from you is a very systems-oriented framework, both for gaming and telecom, right? I know the big mobile companies in the US are constantly fighting their own churn rate. So having a top-down systems approach sounds like you could be really proactive in terms of maintaining clients. You would think there’s buy-in from everybody, but it sounds like there’s a little salesmanship involved to get everybody behind that approach, right?

[00:09:09]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:09:11]  Barry Ritholtz:  So let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world of AI. I’ve heard you discuss various things that are just short-term hype. How do you figure out, when you’re evaluating an AI system — either for an investment or just to use the technology in a company — how do you figure out what’s valuable and what’s just hype?

[00:09:39]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, I think we talk a lot about the hype cycle and bubble being built up in this AI era, but I think it’s not unheard of in every platform shift. There was overcapacity built, not just in AI infrastructure, but it happened with the internet, with fiber optics — you remember the railroad?

[00:10:02]  Barry Ritholtz:  Yeah. Railroad, electrics, telegram — wherever you go.

[00:10:04]  Songyee Yoon:  So there is always excess capacity that gets built. But on the other hand, if you talk about application of the technology, if you find the application and real business problems that you can apply this technology to solve — to be more efficient or bring out insights that humans were not able to — I think there is a great area to apply the technology, and there are so many of them out there. So that’s why we are so excited about the development of this technology and the prospect of it going forward.

[00:10:47]  Barry Ritholtz:  So I’ve heard you discuss various priorities — durability, defensibility, real-world impact. Explain what those three things mean.

[00:11:10]  Songyee Yoon:  In making that adoption of the technology, there are two ways to think about it. One is adopting the technology without really changing the current work process — for example, there’s a lot of talk about copilot, or augmenting what we do, making it faster. That’s one way of applying it, and there will be some ROI realized from such approaches. The other is a complete redesign of the workflow. And I think that’s — we’re at a very early stage of witnessing that, but I think that will be the more interesting area to look out for, and could produce more tremendous transformation and value.

[00:12:15]  Barry Ritholtz:  So tell us what you did at NCSoft, because a lot of the work you put in there was about transforming them to use AI. Was it, hey, we’re just going to make all our developers and gamers a little more efficient? Or did this require a clean-sheet rethink of everything the company was doing?

[00:12:37]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah, I mean, it was like 15 years ago, and back then the technology was not ready to fully redesign the game development workflow. It was more about augmenting the existing process — things like churn prediction, NLP specialized for gamer language, an animation tool that helped animators animate four-legged monsters as efficiently as bipedal creatures. So it was more focused on augmenting existing processes back then. But the technology has advanced today to the point where there are more opportunities to completely redesign and come up with new AI-native companies — AI-native entertainment firms rethinking what new types of entertainment and engagement look like.

[00:13:56]  Barry Ritholtz:  So I keep reading that Claude is writing its own code and updating its own code. If you were at a gaming shop today — do you replace coders? Do you have copilot work with coders? There was a Wall Street Journal article last week about coders in Silicon Valley just sitting around watching Claude rewrite their code. What is going on in the world of software development now that Claude is capable of updating itself?

[00:14:34]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah, I think it’s really fascinating. A lot of the coding is done using tools like Claude, and it certainly makes things more efficient and productive, which means we need a lot less people in the loop in certain areas — such as reviewing code and detecting errors. But there are other areas that need more heavy involvement, like redesigning the schema and structure and how things are going to work and how it’s going to provide an engaging experience for gamers.

[00:15:26]  Barry Ritholtz:  So my bias is that humans are very creative and very innovative. I’m thinking in terms of the storylines we see on streaming shows and interesting novel gaming narratives. Is that what people are going to focus on, and just the blocking and tackling of putting code in place — we’re going to let AI do? Is that a today thing or is that going to change over the next couple of decades?

[00:16:05]  Songyee Yoon:  I think that’s a really good question. If you look at today, a lot of jobs — like YouTubers, podcasters — these are types of jobs that didn’t exist 10 years ago. I don’t know what other jobs are going to be created in a world where things that needed a hundred people’s attention can be done with a fraction of those people. There could be other types of jobs, other types of roles. But that’s an evolution we’ll have to see how it rolls out — I can’t predict exactly what types of jobs will exist 10 years from now.

[00:16:42]  Barry Ritholtz:  Huh. Really, really interesting. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Songyee Yoon, managing partner at Principal Ventures, discussing AI and the modern economy. I’m Barry Ritholtz, you’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[00:17:10]  Barry Ritholtz:  I am Barry Ritholtz, you’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest today is Songyee Yoon, founder and managing partner at Principal Venture Partners, an AI-focused venture capital firm. Previously she was president and chief strategy officer at gaming company NCSoft.

[00:17:30]  Barry Ritholtz:  So before we start talking about AI in more depth, I just have to mention your book, Push Play: Gaming for a Better World. I love the concept that — let’s not forget about play. It’s really significant in terms of innovation and being an engine of change. Tell us a little bit about what motivated Push Play.

[00:17:56]  Songyee Yoon:  Right. I mean, as you just mentioned, I think we have a tendency of not appreciating the role of play in our everyday life. My motto is: we don’t live to work, we live to play — we live to explore. When you have extra time, are you going to do one more line of work or are you going to play? I think play is our natural tendency — homo ludens as opposed to homo sapiens. Play is very important, not only for computer games, but in general play has played a very significant role in human evolution. Whenever there is a new artifact introduced in our culture, we start by playing with it.

[00:19:04]  Songyee Yoon:  And when we have a good understanding of the material and its utility, then we turn that into utility. I think gaming has been playing that role very diligently over the last couple of decades. Gaming has always been the platform brave enough to incorporate new technology and have players try it out. We had a VP of AI since the early 2000s. AI technology was not mature enough for driverless cars 20 years ago, but it was okay in gaming because gaming is a low-risk environment and gamers are inherently early adopters. Not just AI, but Kubernetes, cloud, even freemium business models — all tried out in gaming first before being adopted in other businesses.

[00:20:33]  Barry Ritholtz:  Let me throw you a little bit of a curveball about gaming. When I was growing up, play was totally unstructured — you’d go down to the schoolyard. Computer games like Pong and Space Invaders were very rudimentary. Now it seems kids’ lives are much more scheduled, their play is more structured. How does that affect the sort of experience you want to provide from a gaming company?

[00:21:02]  Songyee Yoon:  That’s a very good question, and there are many aspects to it. One is about what gaming is for today. The reason there’s so much opportunity to play games as a novelty is because computers happen to be the most sophisticated and advanced devices we have today. I think we’re still trying to figure out their limitations and what they can do, and we’re in awe of the experience they can provide. So there are a lot of online digital games out there, and the size of the catalog means kids end up choosing a game or two from that. And a game is not just one thing — there are sandbox games, building games, quiz games, story-based games. Depending on your preference, you can choose different games.

[00:22:18]  Barry Ritholtz:  So let’s stay with kids, with children, and in particular students. There’s been a lot of concern about the impact of AI on education, on learning, on training people to get jobs in the real world. There’s a quote of yours I was intrigued with: ‘Rather than competing with AI, students should be prepared to leverage uniquely human capabilities.’ Explain what that means in terms of the real world.

[00:22:46]  Songyee Yoon:  If you think about education — our education has been optimized over the last couple of hundred years for delivering knowledge. And I think we are witnessing that knowledge delivery and memorization is rapidly being commoditized. What our next generation needs is more creativity and problem-solving skills. We have to think about how we can redesign the classroom to really enhance those skills instead of helping them acquire one more piece of knowledge.

[00:23:31]  Barry Ritholtz:  So there’s a very different set of targets — acquiring skills versus just learning or memorizing things. I’m a big fan of teaching children how to problem solve. How should schools be using AI to teach children new skills — developing expertise, developing problem-solving? What’s the proper role of AI for educational institutions?

[00:24:05]  Songyee Yoon:  I think what I would like to say is that we have to educate and prepare our students to thrive in a world where AI is more prevalent. But the solution to that is not just AI — it could be redesigning the curriculum, redesigning the school system, thinking about how we evaluate their achievement and how we retrain our teachers. AI could be a tool for doing that, but it’s not the solution for everything. I think there is a huge difference there.

[00:24:48]  Barry Ritholtz:  Alright, so let’s bring this out to the world of the economy and business. Successful companies have wide moats and we’re starting to see AI compress those moats over time. Think about industries like lawyers, tax preparers, accountants. There’s a lot of stuff AI can do in a fraction of the time and with greater accuracy. Everybody knows about reading X-rays and MRIs. So if we know our moats are going to get compressed, how should companies be using AI either to protect and expand those moats, or use AI to expand their competitive advantages while they last?

[00:25:51]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, I think there are some industries and professions that will become much more productive and need a lot fewer professionals to solve certain well-defined problems. But that doesn’t mean that as humanity we’re left with no problems to solve. We have so many other problems that AI cannot address — for example, politics, how we’re going to redistribute resources. What is our societal priority in enhancing the agency of everyone and helping them achieve their full potential? Those are things we don’t have good solutions for. While AI can take care of things in a well-defined workforce, we’ll have time to work on other problems to progress humanity forward.

[00:27:12]  Barry Ritholtz:  So I think we’re all in agreement it’s going to be a very disruptive technology. Am I hearing you say essentially: hey, it’s up to everybody to learn how to use these tools and adapt, but the change is coming — you have to be prepared?

[00:27:28]  Songyee Yoon:  Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:27:30]  Barry Ritholtz:  So you’ve operated at the intersection of artificial intelligence, gaming, telecommunication, and social platforms. That’s a great convergence of a lot of different technologies. How is that evolving, and how are both consumers and institutions really adapting to an AI-driven economy?

[00:27:56]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, a lot of people recognize that this is one of the greatest platform shifts in our lifetime, and there’s a lot of excitement. But we are at the very early inning of how it’s going to fully pan out. We don’t even know what’s coming in the next three to five years. And I’m really excited to see all these use cases and applications of technology fully leveraging the creativity of the AI-native generation. The people who think with AI as part of their toolkit will come up with different ideas and apply their creativity.

[00:28:54]  Barry Ritholtz:  So you’ve founded Chameleon as a corporate venture arm, and now you run a fully independent early-stage venture fund. What are the differences between being part of a corporate venture fund versus being independent? What are the strengths and blind spots in each?

[00:29:18]  Songyee Yoon:  I think the objective is different depending on who is providing the capital and what the objective of the firm is. At PVP, I think we focus more on the type of investors who’d like to be at the forefront of innovation and capture the value being created — regardless of the area. It doesn’t have to be confined to entertainment and consumer space. I think we were able to look more broadly.

[00:29:59]  Barry Ritholtz:  So corporate is pure strategic and independent is strictly ROI. So let’s talk about some of the companies you’ve backed — Together AI, Cartia, Sesame. These all seem to be pretty core infrastructure plays. Tell us a little about those. What was it about each of those that made them so appealing?

[00:30:21]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, it’s a really tricky time to make an investment because there is a lot of excitement about this technology and a kind of rushing mentality. So I try to invest in companies that are going to be durable in the coming decades. I really like companies that are building infrastructure technology that has multipurpose utility as this platform evolves. Together AI and Cartia both have great founders with a vision of building infrastructure and foundational technology. And Sesame was an interesting case because it’s building voice applications — and from my gaming experience I know the importance of focusing on certain features that provide certain experiences to users. The founders understood what was important, and their capabilities were singularly focused on making that technology push.

[00:31:36]  Songyee Yoon:  So I really liked what they were doing, and that’s one of the reasons I ended up investing in Sesame. But there are other types of companies as well that we’re excited about. Those are the companies that are in a position to build a data flywheel — because one of the undeniable characteristics of companies that will be durable in this environment are the ones who have appropriate access to data, understanding of customers and consumers and the business, and build unique technology on top of that. So we’re also investing in companies building this data flywheel that will over time build very defensible moats.

[00:32:27]  Barry Ritholtz:  Hmm, really, really interesting. Coming up, we continue our conversation with Songyee Yoon, co-founder and managing partner at Principal Ventures, discussing the state of venture investing into artificial intelligence today. I’m Barry Ritholtz, you’re listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

[00:33:03]  Barry Ritholtz:  I am Barry Ritholtz. You are listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My extra special guest today is Songyee Yoon, founder and managing partner at Principal Venture Partners, an AI-focused VC.

[00:33:21]  Barry Ritholtz:  What is the key problem Principal Venture Partners is trying to solve in the world of AI today?

[00:33:29]  Songyee Yoon:  So we started to back AI-native companies. When we first talked about AI-native companies, that was not a very common phrase — people asked me, ‘What do you mean by AI-native companies?’ I had to explain what it meant. And these days it’s a more widely used term. We’d like to back companies who are fully embracing the technology of today and tomorrow, led by founders who understand the technology and its limitations and are able to come up with an organizational design that reflects the importance of this. In terms of the size of departments, it will be very different from companies built upon last-generation technology stacks.

[00:34:21]  Songyee Yoon:  And I think the type of leaders and talents who are going to lead all these departments are going to be different in terms of the use of technology and their vision for solving problems that are relevant in the AI-native era. Those are the companies that really excite us, and those are the companies we’re focused on investing in.

[00:34:40]  Barry Ritholtz:  So every time there’s a new technology, everybody just kind of sprinkles a little bit on it to catch a little bit of the buzz. We had it with the dot-coms, we had it with the metaverse, we had it with crypto, and now everybody’s claiming they’re an AI company. How do you distinguish between what is truly AI-native and what is just ‘let’s put a little dash of AI salt on this’?

[00:35:06]  Songyee Yoon:  That’s a very good question. I think I have an unfair advantage from working in a gaming company. The gaming industry is like having a lens into the future, right? Because a lot of the technology and innovation happens in gaming first, and it gives us a sense of whether this type of technology is adoptable and whether consumers will accept it. So in terms of application and platform, that’s a really interesting guiding North Star for me. And companies that are fully AI-native are built around that tech stack, whereas if you’re trying to sprinkle AI, you ask: can you do the same thing without AI? Why do you need it? Why is it indispensable?

[00:36:05]  Songyee Yoon:  I think there are businesses using things like agent technology, but for a lot of applications you don’t need an agent — you just need good data analytics. So there are many ways we try to understand how businesses are operating and see their full potential and their strategy.

[00:36:30]  Barry Ritholtz:  So on the one hand, I know AI has been around a long time. When Deep Blue beat Kasparov, that was a big deal. And then the AI app that won Jeopardy — these are 10 and 20 years ago. So it’s not a brand-new technology. However, it feels like we took another level jump with ChatGPT, and — go down the list — Claude, Perplexity, whatever. How do you think about this moment in time? Is this similar to early broadband, early smartphones, early cloud use? For someone who’s a tech investor, they want to know: is it early, is it late? How do you think about where we are today?

[00:37:30]  Songyee Yoon:  That’s great. Actually, it’s older than that. Do you remember — in the sixties there was an application called Eliza? Eliza was a very early incarnation of a chatbot, and there was even a newspaper headline declaring the end of psychotherapists because it was doing so well rephrasing what people were asking. Since then there were a lot of AI winters and summers, ups and downs. And I think what’s surprising to many people about this time is that the AI shift is closer to the introduction of the railroad than the introduction of the PC or the internet. Because the biggest breakthrough that allowed us to get here was actually scale — not a new algorithm, not new software, but scale: let’s pour a lot of resources to make it really big. And that’s where we saw the tremendous jump in AI capability.

[00:39:34]  Songyee Yoon:  I think there will be interesting new businesses that emerge out of it. So yes, I think we are very early in terms of fully appreciating what’s possible on top of this.

[00:39:46]  Barry Ritholtz:  So I love the idea of interesting new businesses. I’m always fascinated with what the public markets know — they’re more or less eventually efficient, and very often when a new technology comes along, they very much underestimate where it can go. So what’s a use case that the public markets might be underestimating? Where might this go? You look at dozens and dozens of new companies — what direction is just mind-blowing that nobody is really anticipating?

[00:40:24]  Songyee Yoon:  I think there are a lot of things happening. One interesting thing is that while this technology has beaten many people’s expectations, there is a lot more innovation coming along in terms of architecture design and fundamental design of the framework. We are not done with what is the most efficient railroad design. I think there could be other types of railroads that come online that will allow faster and more comfortable ride experiences. And once there is a railroad, interesting businesses emerge — like mail order. It’s really hard to make that connection, but that type of new business was made possible because the railroad was in place.

[00:41:40]  Barry Ritholtz:  Well, broadband and fiber optic led to so many things — everything from YouTube to the build-out of Amazon Web Services and online games, online retail, all that stuff.

[00:41:53]  Songyee Yoon:  Exactly. Games, right? That’s why I am really excited about AI-native generations and creativity — what they’re going to build on top of this. I think there will be new types of businesses that we don’t comprehend today that will be enabled by this infrastructure.

[00:42:06]  Barry Ritholtz:  So when you’re sitting with a founder of a company that’s looking for financing, what sort of questions do you ask? What are you trying to figure out about their model, their direction, their team?

[00:42:24]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, it depends on what they’re building. The set of questions I ask when they’re building infrastructure technology versus business applications are different. But especially when they’re building business applications or vertical applications, I always try to ask: what is the real value that’s going to be brought to end users? We’re not investing in companies building amazing tech demonstrations — we’re trying to find companies who are solving real-world business problems and doing it in a way that’s sustainable and more efficient than any other type of technology.

[00:43:11]  Barry Ritholtz:  So you’re looking at infrastructure-type companies. What other types of AI applications are you looking at?

[00:43:18]  Songyee Yoon:  We are looking at companies that are building vertical applications by developing data liabilities and data moats.

[00:43:27]  Barry Ritholtz:  So there’s been a little bit of a lightning rod from a regulatory standpoint — all the LLMs have copyright complaints and issues. When you look at a term sheet today, how do you think about the regulatory risks, the litigation risks? How do you think about the regulatory framework and geopolitics? It seems like there are a lot of novel moving parts.

[00:44:11]  Songyee Yoon:  Yeah, I think that’s a really great question. More than ever, understanding how regulatory bodies think and how policy is going to evolve over time is important in making these decisions — especially in the venture space. We’re making investments that should last over a decade. It comes from the belief and understanding that innovation and research are very precious for all of us as humanity. And the tradition of peer review and open forum has really propelled us to where we are today. It’s going to continue, and I think collaboration and openness will better serve our end customers. We don’t have a crystal ball to say what the policy framework or geopolitical tension will look like in the next one or two years, but we have the belief that humanity’s collective work will converge in a direction that serves humanity positively.

[00:46:15]  Barry Ritholtz:  Alright, so before we get to our speed round, let me ask you one last question: what do you think investors in the AI space are either not thinking about or not talking about, that is important and perhaps they really should be paying attention to?

[00:46:33]  Songyee Yoon:  I think the saying that ‘we are at the very early inning’ means a lot. I hear someone even saying we are still in the car getting to the stadium — we’re not even in the first inning yet. That means all the models and structures can change significantly and can evolve over time, and nothing can be seen as engraved in stone. So I think a lot of the investment decisions have to remain nimble and flexible because we should be able to adjust when those changes and new breakthroughs come around.

[00:47:26]  Barry Ritholtz:  Alright, so I only have you for a few minutes, so we’ll click through these really quickly — our speed round. Starting with: who are your early mentors who helped to shape your career?

[00:47:38]  Songyee Yoon:  I would say I was fortunate enough to have a lot of mentors, but one person that stands out is Dominic Barton, who was the global managing partner at McKinsey. When I first started out as an associate at McKinsey, his office was right next to mine, so he was literally my neighbor and I learned a lot from him as a leader and as a mentor. Still today I reach out to him if I have to make tough decisions, and he has always been very generous with his time. So I’m really appreciative.

[00:48:22]  Barry Ritholtz:  Let’s talk about books. What are some of your favorites? What are you reading right now?

[00:48:26]  Songyee Yoon:  Oh, so I read a lot of books, but I’m the type that reads many books simultaneously — one chapter here and then I jump to another book. But the books I recommend to everyone these days are two: one is The Empire of AI and the other is Power and Progress. And I think those books help us understand the dynamics of what’s happening and what we need to think about as a society.

[00:48:56]  Barry Ritholtz:  So let’s talk about streaming. What are you either listening to or watching these days?

[00:49:02]  Songyee Yoon:  So I listen to music through Spotify a lot. My son is a big fan of Taylor Swift, so I have to listen to Taylor Swift whenever I’m in the car. I also watch K-dramas on Netflix.

[00:49:23]  Barry Ritholtz:  Really, really interesting. Our final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college graduate interested in a career in either artificial intelligence, investing, or gaming?

[00:49:38]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, I think for kids just graduating today — one thing that’s not going to change is that it’s going to be very bumpy and disruptive, and the world they’re going to be working in is not going to look like the world today — that’s the constant. And what I would like to remind them is: don’t try to follow the trend. You really have to stick to what you’re passionate about. You remember in the seventies the most popular major was material science, then chemical engineering, then electrical engineering, then computer science — just to see the popularity of those majors kind of plummeting. We’ve witnessed so many of those cases. So I don’t think it serves you well to follow that fashion or trend.

[00:50:46]  Barry Ritholtz:  So be a generalist and be flexible.

[00:50:50]  Songyee Yoon:  Could be. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:50:52]  Barry Ritholtz:  Alright. And our final question: what do you know about the world of venture investing and artificial intelligence today that might have been useful to know 20 years ago?

[00:51:03]  Songyee Yoon:  I mean, I think patience. The power of compounding is not just in finance, but also in human capital, our understanding of technology, and also in relationships. It seems very slow today, but if you are persistent for 20 years, what you can achieve is really tremendous.

[00:51:29]  Barry Ritholtz:  Well, thank you Songyee for being so generous with your time. We have been speaking with Songyee Yoon, founder and managing partner at Principal Venture Partners. If you enjoyed this conversation, check out any of the 600-plus interviews we’ve done over the past 12 years. You can find those at iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Bloomberg, wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

[00:51:58]  Barry Ritholtz:  I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the crack team that helps us put these conversations together each week. Alexis Noriega is my video producer, Anna Luke is my podcast producer, Sean Russo is my head of research. I’m Barry Ritholtz.

[00:52:14]  You’ve been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

 

~~~

 

 

 

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US Core Durable Goods Orders Surge For 11th Straight Month

After recent string 'soft' survey data, this morning we get some 'hard' data and it's mixed...ish...

Preliminary headline durable goods orders for February fell 1.4% MoM (worse than the -1.2% MoM exp). That is the third monthly decline in a row (the first 3-month decline since Nov 2019)

Source: Bloomberg

The monthly decline of the headline print largely reflected a decline in orders for aircraft.

Boeing said it received fewer orders for its planes in February than a month earlier.

On the other hand, core durable goods orders (prelim for Feb) rose 0.8% MoM (better than expected)...

Source: Bloomberg

That is the eleventh straight month of gains, pulling core orders up 5.97% YoY - the most since Aug 2022.

Bookings for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for investment in equipment, increased 0.6% MoM after a downwardly revised 0.4% decline a month earlier.

Finally, shipments figures (which actually plug into GDP) were comfortably stronger than expected (+0.9% in February versus +0.4% forecast), which suggests upside risks to Q1 forecasts.

It remains to be seen, however, how the war impacted demand for capital goods. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 08:41

Futures Slide, Oil Jumps After US Attacks Kharg Island Ahead Of Trump's 8pm Iran Deadline

US futures reversed earlier gains and oil advanced following reports that Iran's Kharg island was targeted earlier on Tuesday, while the market was largely paralyzed ahead of Trump’s 8pm ET deadline for Iran to agree to a ceasefire or face escalation. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are down 0.4%, and Nasdaq futures slide 0.6%. In premarket trading, all Mag7 names are lower even as AVGO (+3% pre-mkt) is bid after a TPU supply pact with GOOGL (+55bps) while ASML (-80bps) is weaker following a proposed US law that would further curb semiconductor exports to China (targeting ASML’s deep ultraviolet lithography machine ). Managed care is well bid after the final Medicare Advantage rate of +2.48% (vs ~1% bogey) was released last night (HUM +9%, CVS +7%, UNH +6%, ALHC +11%). Bond yields rise 1bp, 10Y TSY yield at 4.34%, the USD is also higher while commodities are mixed with oil reversing earlier losses and rising over 2%. Today’s macro data focus is weekly ADP, Durable / Cap Goods, and NY Fed 1-year Inflation Expectations. Ultimately, expect weaker volumes today with some market swings on unconfirmed ceasefire / deal chatter.

In premarket trading, Mag 7 stocks are all lower (Alphabet -0.06%, Amazon -0.4%, Meta -0.6%, Microsoft -0.4%, Tesla -1.3%, Nvidia -1.2%, Apple -1%)

• Managed care companies including Humana gain after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized a 2.48% rate hike for health insurers in 2027. Investors see the pay boost as a meaningful improvement over the initial rates the agency proposed in January. Humana (HUM) rises 9% and CVS Health gains 6%.
• Broadcom (AVGO) rises 3% after the chipmaker announced a long-term agreement with Google to develop and supply Tensor Processing Units. The companies also confirmed plans to work with Anthropic to power the AI startup’s burgeoning operations.
• Estée Lauder (EL) slips 1% after Spanish newspaper Expansion reported that the the company and Puig owning families are set to hold talks this week in New York over their potential merger.
• Organogenesis Holdings Inc. (ORGO) rises 19% after the company said a randomized controlled trial of 170 patients in a diabetic foot ulcer trial achieved its primary endpoint.
• Wingstop (WING) rises 1.9% as Citi upgrades the fried chicken restaurant operator to buy, saying the valuation offers an attractive entry point.
• Pershing Square proposed a combination with Universal Music Group that would move the listing into a US-based acquisition vehicle. It’s a deal that Bill Ackman’s fund said values the world’s biggest music label at a 78% premium to its last closing price. 

In other news, Samsung reported preliminary operating profit that soared 755% to a record, with memory’s contribution estimated to be close to 90% of total operating profit. Rivals OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet’s Google have begun working together to try to clamp down on Chinese competitors extracting results from cutting-edge US AI models. And Anthropic said its revenue run rate has now topped $30 billion, with more than 1,000 businesses spending over $1 million annually, a rate that has doubled since February. BlackRock is setting its sights on a corner of the $13.7 trillion US ETF industry long controlled by Invesco — tracking the Nasdaq 100 Index. Some Tiger Cub funds incurred losses in March. Maverick Capital’s Long Enhanced Fund and its main hedge fund tumbled 8.1% and 5%, respectively, while Viking Global Investors’ flagship fund lost 4.1%, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Trump has threatened “all Hell” will rain down on Iran if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire that reopens the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Eastern time. The Pentagon canceled the morning press briefing due to be led by Pete Hegseth, giving no reason. WSJ reported last night that hope is fading for a final deal by the deadline and RTRS reported this morning that a Senior Iranian Source said Tehran has rejected any temporary ceasefire with the U.S. and the IRGC warned neighboring countries “restraint is over” and threatened to disrupt regional oil and gas supplies for years to come. Strikes continued overnight. 

“It seems clear that it is extraordinarily difficult to invest on expectations for binary outcomes,” notes Jeffrey Palma at Cohen & Steers. On the other hand, David Kruk at La Financiere de l’Echiquier, set out the dilemma confronting traders, observing that the “market is now set up in such a way that the real pain trade is upwards.”

Investors are watching for any sign of a breakthrough amid a flurry of diplomacy before the 8 p.m. Eastern Time deadline. Trump insists any deal must ensure uninterrupted transit through the Strait of Hormuz — a key artery for Middle East oil flows. He’s threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if no accord is reached. “The market remains volatile,” said Wolf von Rotberg, equity strategist at Bank J Safra Sarasin. “It continues to swing between de-escalation hopes and Trump following through on his threats.”

Oil remains in focus, with WTI crude rising to the highest since June 2022. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts expressed caution over the wide gap between the Brent spot price, which reflects expectations of a resolution, and Dated Brent, which represents actual cargoes assigned specific loading dates. At above $140, the latter signals acute spot scarcity.

Trump’s deadline marks the latest pivotal moment in the war, which has killed thousands of people and triggered the largest-ever disruption to the global oil market. Israel told Iranians to refrain from using their country’s railway network until 9 p.m. local time, the first warning about such infrastructure that usually precedes an attack. Iran launched seven ballistic missiles and several more drones at Saudi Arabia overnight into Tuesday, while the Israel Defense Forces reported two missile volleys from Iran since midnight.

Meanwhile, the technology sector is looking increasingly attractive for investors as valuations fall below those of the wider stock market, according to Goldman strategists. Any lasting shock to the global economy from the war in Iran is also likely to benefit the sector as tech cash flows are less sensitive to economic growth, the strategists said. 

The recent economic numbers aren’t boosting the case for the Federal Reserve to resume cutting rates anytime soon. March CPI on Friday is predicted to show the largest month-over-month increase in headline inflation since June 2022, largely driven by a spike in gasoline prices tied to the Iran conflict. 

Europe's Stoxx 600 is up by 0.6%, with the media subindex leading the way on a jump for Universal Music on a €56 billion takeover proposal. UMG is the biggest gainer after Pershing Square offered to buy the entertainment company, while tech underperforms, weighed down by ASML as US lawmakers propose tighter curbs on chip equipment exports to China. Here are the biggest movers:

• Universal Music Group shares rise as much as 24% in Amsterdam, but trade well below the value of an offer from Pershing Square Capital Management amid doubt over whether the deal will happen
• JCDecaux rises as much as 5.8% as TD Cowen upgrades the outdoor advertising company to buy from hold, seeing a clear inflection point as China returns to growth
• Volati gains as much as 7.2%, the most since November, as Nordea reiterates its buy rating and raises its price target on the Swedish industrial group, saying the company is well-positioned to benefit from a cyclical rebound
• ASML shares fall as much as 4.7% on Tuesday after US lawmakers unveiled legislation aimed at tightening restrictions on chip tool exports to China. The goal is to subject Dutch and Japanese firms to the same curbs that American companies face
• Leonardo shares fall as much as 5.5% on the possibility of a management change at the Italian defense group; Bloomberg News reported that CEO Roberto Cingolani could be replaced as soon as this week
• AddTech falls as much as 5.9% after DNB Carnegie downgraded the stock to hold from buy, saying the Swedish industrial equipment maker could face weakening earnings growth momentum in 4Q
• Ninety One tumbles as much as 14% as BofA Global Research downgrades its rating on the investment management firm to neutral from buy and cuts its target price to 260p from 280p because of lower expected market returns
• Colruyt drops as much as 4.3%, biggest decliner in Belgium’s BEL Mid Index, after UBS downgraded the stock to neutral from buy, saying it looks “fairly valued for modest growth”

Asian stocks advanced for a third-straight session even as the approach of President Donald Trump’s deadline for a peace deal with Iran kept traders on edge. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 1%, with technology shares including TSMC and SK Hynix among the biggest boosts. Stocks climbed in Taiwan and Australia. Hong Kong’s market remained shut for holidays. Stocks also gained in India, while equities traded mixed in Japan, China and much of Southeast Asia. South Korea’s Kospi climbed after better-than-expected results from Samsung Electronics.

“While oil prices remain elevated for now, there is a strong view that the conflict will come to an end within the next one to two weeks, with crude prices returning to prior levels,” said Hideyuki Ishiguro, chief strategist at Nomura Asset Management. “Geopolitical risks themselves have not been resolved, but VIX in Japan, US, and Europe have peaked, suggesting that markets may have largely priced in these risks,” he added.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rises by 0.1%, with Aussie dollar and sterling the outperformers and Swedish krona lagging after a surprise cooling in inflation.

In rates, treasury futures hold small losses after erasing gains amid rising oil prices, with yields across tenors slightly higher on the day. US 10-year yield is less than 1bp higher near 4.34%, and curve spreads are within a basis point of Monday’s closing levels. With European bond markets open for first time since Thursday, German and UK yields are 2bp-5bp cheaper across flatter curves. The US session includes the first of this week’s three Treasury coupon auctions, a 3-year note sale at 1pm. Treasury’s $58 billion 3-year new-issue auction, to be followed by $39 billion 10-year and $22 billion 30-year reopenings Wednesday and Thursday, has WI yield near 3.895%, about 32bp cheaper than last month’s, which tailed by 1.1bp, a notably poor result. 

In commodities, WTI crude oil futures are up about 2% from Monday’s multiyear high close, which followed Trump’s threat to obliterate key Iranian infrastructure if an agreement to end the war isn’t reached by 8pm Tuesday. Gold prices up, though paring back from highs near $4,700/oz.

US event calendar, includes ADP weekly employment change (8:15am), February durable goods orders (8:30am), March New York Fed 1-year inflation expectations (11am) and February consumer credit (3pm). Fed speaker slate includes Williams (8:30am), Goolsbee (12:35pm, 1:45pm) and Jefferson (5:50pm)

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 mini -0.6%,
• Nasdaq 100 mini -0.7%,
• Russell 2000 mini -0.2%
• Stoxx Europe 600 +0.3%
• DAX +0.5%
• CAC 40 +1.0%
• 10-year Treasury yield +1 basis point at 4.34%
• VIX +0.3 points at 24.48
• Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.2% at 1211.85
• euro +0.3% at $1.1571
• WTI crude -0.4% at $111.97/barrel

Top Overnight News

• Negotiators are pessimistic Iran will bend to meet President Trump’s demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz before his Tuesday-night deadline, paving the way for the U.S. to target Iranian bridges and power plants in a fresh escalation of the war. Twice in his second term, Trump set a deadline for a deal with Iran, said he would bomb the country if its leaders didn’t comply, then followed through with military operations. WSJ
• Airstrikes pounded Tehran on Tuesday, and Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants, hours before the expiration of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes on its infrastructure. AP
• Iran on Monday delivered a 10 point proposal to end the war with the US and Israel. The plan was conveyed by Pakistan, which has been acting as a primary intermediary, but appeared unlikely to resolve major questions ahead of Trump’s Tuesday evening deadline for new attacks on Iran. NYT
• A cross-party group of U.S. politicians have proposed ‌a law to impose further restrictions on exports of computer chipmaking equipment to China, affecting companies such as ASML and China's top chipmakers. RTRS
• Japan’s households reduced spending for a third straight month even after real wages turned positive. Outlays by households adjusted for inflation fell 1.8% in February from a year earlier, a faster decline compared with January’s 1% retreat. Real consumption remains weak, with economists citing growing consumer fatigue and inflation pressure as key challenges to domestic demand. BBG
• Taiwan’s opposition leader is set to arrive in China on Tuesday on what she has called a “historic journey for peace” as she hopes for a face-to-face meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the first such contact in a decade. FT
• Anthropic’s revenue run rate has topped $30 billion and the company confirmed partnerships with Broadcom and Google. BBG
• Cleveland Federal Reserve President Beth Hammack and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee both see inflation as a far bigger problem than employment, underscoring their support for tighter rather than looser monetary policy as the Iran war puts upward pressure on energy prices and the job market remains ‌stuck in low gear. RTRS
• Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square offered to buy Universal Music Group in a cash-and-stock deal at a 78% premium to Thursday’s closing price. Ackman cited UMG’s stock underperformance as a trigger for the bid. BBG
• Republicans are reportedly weighing how broadly to structure a party-line bill to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement, with some senators seeking multi-year DHS funding and others favoring a narrower ICE and CBP measure: Semafor 

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded cautiously following the positive lead from the US and with all focus remaining on geopolitics heading into US President Trump's Tuesday evening deadline for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz or face the US destroying its power plants and bridges, although President Trump had also previously stated that he thinks talks are going well with Iran and they would like to be able to make a deal. ASX 200 rallied with tech and miners leading the upside and with almost all sectors in the green aside from industrials and consumer staples. Nikkei 225 failed to sustain its initial advances with the index pressured amid headwinds from higher oil prices and following disappointing Household Spending data. KOSPI surged at the open with strong gains in Samsung Electronics after its preliminary results topped forecasts and showed around an eight-fold jump in Q1 operating profit, although most of the advances were then pared as shares in the index heavyweight also pulled back. Shanghai Comp lacked conviction on return from the long weekend, with upside limited after another meek PBoC liquidity operation and with the Stock Connect still closed as Hong Kong markets remained shut.

Top Asian News

• Japanese Finance Minister Katayama said won't comment on JGB yield levels and will refrain from commenting on levels in the markets, adds impact of Middle East and oil prices on the market is high.
• Chinese President Xi called for new energy system as war on Iran rocks global economy and said China needs to accelerate planning and construction of a new energy system to ensure the country’s energy security.
• South Korean FX Chief said are to deploy bold measures in the FX market, if needed.
• South Korea policy chief Kim said the chip industry secures four month's worth of helium and it is premature to discuss a second extra budget.
• Morgan Stanley cuts its China 2026 GDP growth forecast to 4.7% due to oil shock.

European bourses (STOXX 600 +0.7%) re-open from the 4-day Easter closure with mild gains, as traders countdown to Trump's Iran deadline at 20:00EDT/01:00BST. France's CAC 40 outperforms its peers, while the FTSE 100 underperforms. Worth noting that European indices opened mixed, but then moved higher, without a clear driver. Some may point to reports via a Pakistani journalist which suggested that a "framework of understanding for ceasefire" between US and Iran is “closer than ever”. European sectors are broadly in the green. Media is the clear outperformer, driven by gains in UMG (+12.2%) after Pershing Square announced a EUR 9.4bln bid to take over the media company. Technology sits at the bottom of the pile. Despite the majority of the sector components in the green, ASML (-2.3%) is weighing on the sector. This comes following a group of US politicians proposing a law to impose further export restrictions on computer chipmaking equipment to China.

Top European News

• UK S&P Global Services PMI Final (Mar) 50.5 vs. Exp. 51.2 (Prev. 53.9). "Stagflation risks appear to have increased, with the final Services PMI data signalling slower growth and higher cost pressures than the earlier 'flash' estimates based on data compiled up to 20th March."
• UK S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Mar) 50.3 vs. Exp. 51 (Prev. 53.7).
• EU S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Mar) 50.7 vs. Exp. 50.5 (Prev. 51.9). "The near-stalling of growth in March drags the PMI’s signal for first quarter GDP growth down to 0.2%. More worrying is that there are clear risks of the economy contracting in the second quarter unless there is a swift resolution to the conflict."
• EU S&P Global Services PMI Final (Mar) 50.2 vs. Exp. 50.1 (Prev. 51.9).
• German S&P Global Services PMI Final (Mar) 50.9 vs. Exp. 51.2 (Prev. 53.5).
• German S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Mar) 51.9 vs. Exp. 51.9 (Prev. 53.2).
• French S&P Global Services PMI Final (Mar) 48.8 vs. Exp. 48.3 (Prev. 49.6).
• French S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Mar) 48.8 vs. Exp. 48.3 (Prev. 49.9).

FX

• FX markets saw a sharp risk-on move in the European morning, with no specific headline, but several outlets reporting optimism in US/Iran negotiations ahead of Tuesday's deadline. DXY fell as much as 0.2% from 100.04 to a trough of 99.77, and high-beta FX was helped against the weaker buck, with Aussie the outperformer and Sterling also performing notably well.
• Some participants flagged an Axios article six hours before the move, which quoted a US official, "If the president sees a deal is coming together, he'll probably hold off..." it is unclear whether this led to the reaction, though other reports following this initial move have added to the constructive risk environment, "mediators are close to reaching an agreement" on a "framework of understanding for ceasefire", according to Pakistani reporter Anas Mallick.
• Elsewhere, EUR and GBP were unreactive to mixed European Final PMIs. To recap, the EZ wide composite and services were revised a touch higher while the UK's were revised lower.
• The session ahead sees US ADP Employment Change Weekly, US Durable Goods RCM/TIPP Economic Optimism Index (Apr), Atlanta Fed GDP and President Trump's Iran deadline. Fed speak is expected from Fed's Williams (13:30 BST), Goolsbee (17:35 BST) and Jefferson (22:50 BST). Full primer on the Newsquawk headline feed.

Central Banks

• ECB's Wunsch said he is open to an interest rate rise at the April meeting; a lasting crisis would warrant a series of rate rises.
• ECB's Radev said the ECB must be ready to act if inflation persists, sees a rising likelihood of adverse scenario but too early to say if April rate hike is needed. Inflation expectations at risk of rising too quickly.

Fixed Income

• Initial bearish bias across the fixed income was facilitated by stronger energy prices, as the geopolitical environment remains exceptionally turbulent and as traders count down their clocks to President Trump’s 20:00EDT Iran deadline. However, in recent trade the crude complex took a tumble – but lacked a clear driver. Some market participants pointed towards an Axios piece from overnight, which reported that Trump may hold off from strikes on Iran if he sees a “deal coming together”. Markets also appear to be digesting some relatively positive mood from the Pakistani side, with a couple analysts suggesting a breakthrough could be close; whilst another suggested that a “framework of understanding” for a ceasefire is close. The pressure in energy prices therefore helped to boost fixed benchmarks to session highs.
• USTs were initially lower and were holding near troughs throughout the early portion of the morning, before then surging alongside the pressure in the crude complex. Currently holding at the upper end of a 110-21+ to 110-29+ range. On the data front, weekly ADP jobs figures, durable goods orders for February. On today’s speakers’ slate, Fed's Williams (voter) will speak on Bloomberg TV; Fed’s Goolsbee (2027 voter, dovish) will speak on the outlook for policy and the economy; Fed’s Vice Chair Jefferson (voter, dovish) will speak on the economic outlook and the labour market.
• Bunds followed the above, and currently holding at the upper end of a 125.31-125.73 range – though still remains incrementally in the red. Geopols aside, German benchmarks have had a number of European PMI Final metrics to digest; Spain topped expectations, Italy missed whilst the EZ-wide figure was revised incrementally higher. Interesting commentary from within the German release suggested that, “the lack of pricing power in the service sector is important from a monetary policy perspective, as it limits the amount of upward pressure on core inflation, a measure that the ECB will be closely watching when considering interest rate increases.”
• Gilts are currently flat. As above, initially weighed by stronger energy prices, but UK paper then soared to highs as energy prices dipped. Currently towards the upper end of a 88.23-88.72 range. UK PMI Finals were revised lower, with analysts citing slower output growth as a result of the war in the Middle East. It also highlighted increasing risks to “stagflation”, and increasing costs pressures.

Commodities

• Crude futures gained at the start of the APAC session and held onto gains as European traders stepped in as US President Trump's 20:00EDT deadline approaches. If Iran does not agree to a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he said the US will decimate Iran's bridges and didn't rule out striking power plants. However, Trump did also state that he thinks talks are going well and that Iran has "an active and willing participant on the other side." Further reporting throughout the European morning indicates that an agreement could be near, with Pakistani reporter Mallick suggesting that the interlocutors are 'closer than ever for an agreement' to get a "framework of understanding for ceasefire" between the US and Iran.
• WTI and Brent topped at USD 116.56/bbl and USD 111.80/bbl, respectively, before sinking – a move which lacked a clear driver. However, the move appeared to follow the aforementioned reports from the Pakistani reporter. At the time of writing, WTI May'26 has returned below USD 113/bbl while Brent Jun'26 oscillates on either side of USD 110/bbl.
• Spot gold trades relatively contained within a USD 4617-4691/oz range. Upticks have picked up pace in recent trade as the USD softens amid downside in energy prices. However, the 20-SMA at USD 4,732/oz and last week's high of USD 4,800/oz remain as near-term resistance levels. To add, China added gold to its reserves for a 17th consecutive month, highlighting that demand for the yellow metal is still high. However, UBS lowered its end-June forecast to USD 5,200/oz due to softer investor demand.
• 3M LME copper is rangebound, oscillating in a USD 12.37k-12.46k/t range. This comes as participants remain cautious as the Trump deadline looms.
• Hungary to agree to buy oil from US at Orban-Vance meeting, Bloomberg reported. Hungary’s Mol will agree to purchase 500,000 tons for approximately USD 500mln.
• Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry said the oil shipments via CPC pipeline is stable, IFX reported.
• IRGC's public relations channel reported of "explosion and extensive damage to the Al-Jubeil industrial area".
• Attacks reportedly hit Saudi Aramco's petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia, AFP reported citing sources.
• China has provided Iran with a financial lifeline during the past half decade by purchasing most of its oil, according to WSJ.
• Tanker explosion near the Bridge of Americas in Panama City caused a massive fire.
• Japan's Industry Minister Akazawa said crude oil procurement is progressing.
• China gold reserves at end-March (USD) 342.76bln (prev. 387.59bln).
• UBS lowers end-June gold forecast to USD 5,200/oz, amid softer investor demand amid elevated volatility.
• Goldman Sachs analyst raises 2026 copper price forecast to USD 12,650/ton from USD 11,400/ton and expects copper prices to remain volatile as the market continues to assess impacts of the events in the Middle East on economic growth.

Geopolitics

• Pakistani reporter Anas Mallick suggests that, "to my understanding, the interlocutors (Pakistan, Turkiye and Egypt) are 'closer than ever for an agreement' to get a "framework of understanding for ceasefire" between US and Iran".
• Some geopolitical analysts say signals from Pakistan suggest a possible breakthrough in the coming hours, with Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and reportedly Beijing involved. said that a ceasefire could be near, but the situation remains early and fragile, so caution is warranted.
• Pakistan in last-minute efforts, along with Turkey and Egypt, to convince Iran to agree to the outline proposed by Pakistan, according to I24's Stein.
• Five friendly countries leaders' and eight intelligence agencies have reached out to Iran seeking to open a path for a ceasefire, Fars News reported.
• Israeli Source tells N12 news "The next 24 hours are the most decisive in the war, if it were up to political leadership in Iran, there would have been a ceasefire long ago, there is doubt about their control", N12's Segal reported.
• Iran's Spokesperson of the National Security Commission of the Parliament said "we are making special arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz", via Tasnim.
• Spokesman of Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Parliament said oil exports are going on as usual, and with even more capacity than before, IRIB reported.
• Iran atomic agency said heavy bombs won't halt nuclear tech progress.
• China has provided Iran with a financial lifeline during the past half decade by purchasing most of its oil, according to WSJ.
• Saudi Arabia, UAE and Israel report Iranian drone and missile attacks, according to CBS.
• Israel announces a new wave of strikes on Iran and issues incoming missile alert.
• Iran launches new batch of missiles towards southern Israel.
• Israeli military said it completed airstrike wave aiming to damage Iranian terror regime infrastructure in Tehran and additional areas across Iran.
• US House Democrat Ansari intends to introduce articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Hegseth, cites Iran war and war crimes as grounds for Hegseth impeachment, according to NBC.
• Japanese PM Takaichi said in parliament said in Parliament, want to take next step in talks with Iran and is strongly urging Iran to allow Hormuz safe passage, while she is seeking phone talks with the presidents of US and Iran.
• Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf's adviser Mohammadi said it is Trump who has about 20 hours to either surrender to Iran or his allies will return to the Stone Age, while he added that they will not back down.
• Iran said non-hostile countries can coordinate access to the Strait of Hormuz, according to Press TV.
• US Vice President J.D. Vance is on standby for Iran negotiations, according to POLITICO. "The negotiations are led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner but Vance could be tagged in if there is a direct meeting with Iranian officials.".
• Iran's top joint military command said Trump's threats are 'delusional' and his threat have no effect on operations against US and Israel.
• US data centres of Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Equinix (EQIX) in the UAE are now identified as potential targets for Iran's counter response in the region.
• Iranian securities exchange chief outlines conditions needed to reopen the Iranian capital markets: said outcomes could include a ceasefire with a formal agreement and full reopening, or a ceasefire without agreement and a gradual reopening.
• Explosions reported in eastern regions of Saudi Arabia and alarms sounding in Bahrain, Tasnim reported.
• Israeli reporter Stein said "Unexpectedly: the press conference planned for today with Defence Minister Hegseth and US Chief of Staff was cancelled".
• Fars news citing an informed source said "Trump is clearly looking for a meeting and an agreement. The American proposal includes the removal of "Witkoff" due to his closeness to Netanyahu's circle and negotiations with "Vance" to build a serious path. In the end, this source noted: Americans believe that fuel prices will increase explosively from next week and are not willing to accept this risk.
• The Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan said Pakistan's positive and productive attempt to step the war is approaching a critical and sensitive stage.
• Iranian outlets report that Yazd and Shiraz were shaken by blasts.
• Large barrage of missiles were reportedly headed for Bahrain, with air raid sirens and alerts in multiple areas.
• Drone strike reportedly hit US Victoria base in Baghdad, according to Iraqi sources cited by Fars.
• Missiles hit Saudi Arabia's Jubail which is largest industrial hub in the Middle East where large petrochemical and energy facilities are located.
• IRGC Aerospace Force Commander said they targeted the oil refinery, power plants, ports, and railway lines in Haifa Bay, and no interception of our missiles was recorded, Al Jazeera reported.
• Russia's Yamal LNG ships first cargo to China since November, LSEG data shows.
• Russia's Ministry of Defence reported that air defence forces have downed 45 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight.

US Event Calendar

 

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

US and Asia markets had a decent start to the week yesterday while Europe was off for Easter Monday. However, sentiment has turned more cautious this morning as investors grapple with President Trump’s new deadline of 8pm Eastern Time tonight (1am London) for Iran to agree a deal as he threated to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants. The renewed escalation threat has seen Brent crude move back above $111/bbl this morning after trading as low $107/bbl yesterday. In turn, S&P 500 futures are down -0.44% overnight after posting a fourth consecutive advance (+0.44%) yesterday that saw the index erase half of its decline since the Iran strikes began.

In terms of Trump’s latest ultimatum to Iran, the US President shared the 8pm ET Tuesday deadline on social media on Sunday and then referred to it several times yesterday as he demanded that Iran strikes a deal that “that's acceptable to me”, while threatening intensified attacks against Iran that would destroy “every bridge” and take “every power plant” out of business. Notably, Trump said that a deal should include “free traffic of oil”, calling reopening the Strait of Hormuz “a very big priority”. So a seeming shift from previous suggestions that reopening the straits was not a core objective for the US. The President repeatedly suggested that this evening’s deadline was final, saying that he was “highly unlikely” to postpone it. Recall that Trump had issued an initial 48-hour ultimatum for striking Iran’s power plants back on March 21, first extending this by 5 days and then followed by another 10-day pause that had been due to expire yesterday.

Earlier yesterday, we had heard various reports on talks as other countries in the region have pushed for a ceasefire deal. Iran’s state-run IRNA then reported that Tehran rejected a ceasefire via Pakistani mediators, instead demanding a permanent end to the war as well as lifting of sanctions, reconstruction efforts and a protocol for safe passage through Hormuz. Meanwhile, Trump called Iran’s proposals a “very significant step” but “not good enough” as he threatened the escalatory strikes.

So that left oil markets facing crosswinds from Trump’s escalation threat to possible ceasefire talks as well as news that shipping via the Strait of Hormuz has been edging higher in recent days. Iran said on Saturday that “brotherly” Iraq would be exempt from shipping restrictions in the Strait, and AIS data showed five tankers crossing the Strait that day (possible that more did so with transponders turned off). That was the most since March 1 but still a small fraction of the roughly 60 tankers a day before the war.

Brent crude whipsawed in a relatively tight range yesterday, falling from above $111/bbl at yesterday’s open to as low as $107/bbl early in European hours before closing +0.68% on the day at $109.77/bbl. It is another +1.67% higher at $111.60/bbl as I type.

With oil markets relatively stable, risk assets had a decent start to the week, with the S&P 500 (+0.44%) advancing for a fourth session in a row yesterday, its longest run since January. That left the S&P 500 up +4.22% from last Monday’s closing low, erasing around half of the -7.78% decline it had seen since February 27. The NASDAQ (+0.54%) and the Mag-7 (+0.28%) saw similar gains, while nearly two thirds of the S&P 500 constituents moved higher on Monday with cyclical sectors outperforming. Private investment companies including Apollo (-0.87%) and Blackstone (-0.72%) underperformed amid lingering concerns about private credit. By contrast, US HY credit spreads tightened by -8bps to 291bps, their lowest level since March 5.

In Asia this morning, the Nikkei (-0.38%) is down following a +0.55% increase yesterday after softer Japan household spending data (-1.8% YoY vs -0.8% expected) which posted a third consecutive year-over-year decline in February. Meanwhile, the KOSPI (+0.30%) is continuing its upward trend after a +1.36% rise on Monday. Samsung Electronics was up as much as +4.9% at the open as it projected record quarterly profits due to strong AI chip demand, but its stock is now down -1.98% as I type. Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 (+1.43%) is significantly higher this morning, while the CSI (-0.29%) and the Shanghai Composite (+0.03%) are more subdued. In the US, S&P 500 futures (-0.44%) have lost ground overnight, whereas Euro STOXX 50 (+0.13%) futures are edging higher after yesterday’s US advance.

In terms of yesterday’s other news, the March ISM services release in the US highlighted the inflationary risks stemming from the Iran war. While the headline reading retreated from a post-2022 high of 56.1 to 54.0 (vs. 54.9 expected), the prices paid component saw a stronger-than-expected rise to 70.7, its highest since October 2022. And there were contrasting signals within the details, as new orders rose to a 3-year high of 60.6, but employment fell to a 2-year low of 45.2. Amid this mixed data, the Treasury curve saw a modest flattening yesterday, with the 2yr yield up +0.8bps to 3.85% but 10yr down -1.3bps to 4.33%.

Treasury yields had seen a sizeable rise in Friday’s shortened session, with 2yr up +4.4bps and 10yr up +3.9bps following the strong March employment report. The release saw both headline (+178k vs +65k expected) and private (+186k vs. 78k expected) payrolls come in far above consensus expectations, with the unemployment rate also dropping from 4.44% to 4.29% (vs. 4.4% expected). To be sure, the rebound from strike- and weather-related weakness in February payrolls played a role, with the earlier timing of Easter also possibly bringing forward some payroll gains at the expense of April. Still, averaging through the Q1 employment reports, headline (+68k) and private (+79k) payrolls have been running above estimates of breakeven job gains and well above their subdued pace in late 2025, easing concerns on the employment side of the Fed’s dual mandate. 

Turning to the week ahead, the data highlight will be the March CPI print in the US on Friday where the impact of the energy price shock will be on full display. Our economists expect a roughly 25% increase in gasoline prices to yield a 0.95% monthly gain in headline CPI, raising the annual rate from +2.4% to +3.4%, while core inflation sees a more moderate +0.33% monthly rise. The March CPI reading will also be preceded by the February core PCE inflation print on Thursday, which we expect at +0.39% MoM. That would mark the highest monthly print since last February and bring the 3- and 6-month annualised rates of the Fed’s preferred inflation metric up to 4.5% and 3.5% respectively.

Other notable US data releases this week include the March NY Fed inflation expectations survey and February durable goods orders today as well as the University of Michigan consumer sentiment on Friday. Elsewhere, we have the Euro Area final March services PMIs (today), Germany’s February factory orders (Wednesday) and industrial production (Thursday), and the March inflation reports in China (Friday). From central banks, Wednesday will see the March FOMC minutes and a rates decision in New Zealand (our economists expect a hold). See the full day-by-day rundown below.

And while Iran headlines will dominate the geopolitical news, we also have NATO Secretary General Rutte scheduled to meet with Trump in Washington tomorrow in a visit that comes amid Trump’s vocal criticism of NATO allies over their stance on the Iran war.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 08:30

Polymarket Unveils Exchange Overhaul, Native Stablecoin As US Expansion Looms

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via Bitcoin Magazine,

Bitcoin and crypto focused prediction market platform Polymarket is preparing its most significant infrastructure upgrade to date, rolling out a rebuilt trading system alongside a new native stablecoin designed to replace bridged collateral and streamline on-chain activity.

The overhaul, described by the company as a “full exchange upgrade,” is expected to go live over the next several weeks and includes new smart contracts, an updated central limit order book (CLOB), and a proprietary collateral token called Polymarket USD.

The token will be backed 1:1 by USDC and will replace USDC.e, a bridged version of the stablecoin currently used across the platform.

Last month, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, made a $600 million direct cash investment in prediction market platform Polymarket as part of a broader equity fundraising round, the company announced.

The shift away from bridged assets reflects a broader effort to reduce reliance on cross-chain infrastructure, which can introduce additional risks and inefficiencies.

By moving to a natively controlled collateral token, Polymarket aims to tighten control over settlement, improve liquidity consistency, and simplify the trading experience for users.

At the core of the upgrade is a redesigned matching engine and an improved order book architecture.

The new system is intended to deliver faster execution, tighter spreads, and lower operational overhead. According to developer materials, the updated exchange stack reduces the complexity of order structures while introducing support for advanced features such as EIP-1271 signatures, enabling smart contract wallets to interact more seamlessly with the platform.

Polymarket said most users will experience a smooth transition, with the interface automatically handling the conversion of existing assets into Polymarket USD via a one-time approval. However, more advanced traders and developers will need to manually wrap their holdings using a dedicated collateral onramp contract and update integrations to align with the new system.

As part of the migration, all existing order books will be cleared during a scheduled maintenance window, with the company promising advance notice ahead of the transition. The reset is intended to ensure consistency across the upgraded infrastructure and avoid discrepancies between legacy and new systems.

Prediction markets like Polymarket are booming 

The timing of the overhaul comes amid rapid growth for Polymarket, which has seen trading volumes surge in recent months. The platform reportedly surpassed $10 billion in monthly volume in March, underscoring increasing demand for event-based trading markets across crypto and traditional finance audiences.

Beyond performance improvements, the upgrade signals a strategic shift toward greater vertical integration. Polymarket has historically relied on external systems, including optimistic oracle mechanisms, to resolve market outcomes. However, the company has hinted at future plans for a native token, potentially called POLY, which could play a role in governance and dispute resolution.

If implemented, such a token could allow Polymarket to internalize key functions like market validation and outcome verification, reducing dependence on third-party protocols and giving the platform more direct control over what it defines as “truth” within its markets.

The infrastructure revamp also aligns with Polymarket’s renewed push into the U.S. market. After previously halting domestic operations, the company has since registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and is positioning itself to operate within an increasingly defined regulatory framework.

With its latest upgrade, the company is attempting to evolve from a fast-growing crypto application into a fully-fledged exchange platform, combining improved execution infrastructure with tighter control over collateral, governance, and market integrity.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 08:05

US Already Spent Over $42 Billion & Counting On Iran War

This week will see the Iran war reach 40 days of fighting, which is a far cry from the mere "four days" some US administration officials offered as a possible 'optimistic' timeline at the very opening of Trump's Operation Epic Fury.

According to the Iran War Cost Tracker portal, the US military operation has cost more than $42 billion thus far. The tracker has arrived at this figure largely based on a Pentagon briefing to Congress on March 10, which disclosed that Washington spent $11.3 billion in the first six days of the new war in the Middle East.

USAF file image

The same briefing indicated the Pentagon planned to spend at least an additional $1 billion per day for the remainder of the conflict.

The real cost could be much, much higher given that at this point dozens of ultra-expensive aircraft and radars have been knocked out by Iran's ongoing retaliation, and as the US has begun high risk incursions into the region and into Iranian territory itself.

Axios in a report days ago highlighted that "The U.S. is dedicating significant amounts of firepower to the Middle East as it wrestles with Iran. Some of it — billions of dollars' worth, in fact — will not be returning."

Describing the mounting costs in terms of blood and treasure, Axios wrote that "Hundreds of American troops have been injured and 13 killed" - and also: "Some exquisite weaponry, everything from stealth jets to radars, has been knocked out."

Axios continues, "The high end includes costs associated with radar replacement at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and some fixes to the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which last month suffered an hours-long laundry fire." The laundry room fire narrative has been subject of immense speculation and skepticism, with the supercarrier undergoing lengthy emergency repairs at its current port of Split, Croatia.

Also confirmed damaged or destroyed are the following:

• One Lockheed Martin F-35A
• One Boeing E-3 Sentry
• One RTX AN/TPY-2 radar
• Three Boeing F-15E Strike Eagles
• Multiple Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers
• Multiple General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers

The lost military hardware, some of which may have yet to be disclosed, itself is a loss in the billions.

Here’s what is known so far about U.S. Air Force losses during Operation Epic Fury:

Total losses are estimated to exceed $2 billion, with replacement costs potentially even higher.

— Four F-15E Strike Eagles have been lost, one over Iran and three downed by friendly fire over… pic.twitter.com/OjaR0gzdWv

— Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) April 3, 2026

Despite the immense and growing expense on the American taxpayer, there's still not been a Congressional War Powers resolution passed. As yet, there's really not been any real or robust debate over the merits or justification of the war among the people's representatives in Congress.

Independent journalist (formerly of The Intercept) Lee Fang writes, "We learned from the Afghan papers & SIGAR reports that everything the Pentagon and cable media told us about that occupation was a lie. The U.S. installed hated pedophile drug lords to run that country while contractors ransacked billions. The Iran war is 10x more built on lies." And so the Iran situation could get a lot worse, and could be for potentially years to come.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 07:45