NANO Nuclear Soars On Strategic MOU With Supermicro For Powering AI Data Centers 

NANO Nuclear and Supermicro have agreed to explore the integration of NANO’s KRONOS microreactor system with Supermicro’s AI server and data center platforms for scalable nuclear-powered solutions. The news of the strategic collaboration - a critical moment in the integration of alternative energy source within the AI rollout - sent the stock soaring in pre-market

We anticipate the shorts are also taking notice with over 22% of shares loaned out…

“The AI revolution is fundamentally an energy challenge,” said Jay Yu, Chairman and President of NANO Nuclear, “and we believe nuclear power is the only scalable solution capable of meeting that demand.”

Through this MOU, NANO Nuclear and Supermicro will explore opportunities to:

• Deploy NANO Nuclear's microreactors to provide dedicated, on-site nuclear power for data centers.
• Integrate Supermicro's AI server racks, cooling systems, and infrastructure with nuclear-powered energy solutions.
• Develop joint go-to-market strategies for hyperscale, enterprise, and edge data center customers.
• Enable a new class of self-powered, grid-independent AI infrastructure.

"This is exactly where the future is heading compute and power becoming a unified solution," said James Walker, Chief Executive Officer of NANO Nuclear. "By aligning with Supermicro, NANO Nuclear is stepping directly into the center of one of the fastest growing and most capital-intensive markets in the world."

By partnering with Supermicro, NANO Nuclear gains direct alignment with a company at the forefront of the AI infrastructure buildout, providing:

• Access to global data center customers and hyperscale operators.
• Integration pathways with state-of-the-art AI hardware ecosystems.
• A channel into one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy.

NANO is able to lean into their significant progress of deploying a KRONOS microreactor at the University of Illinois. The company recently submitted their construction permit application for the project and is well into the site preparation phase.

The company has also made strides with new partnerships in the Asian market, and has an agreement with BaRupOn for up to 1 GW of KRONOS microreactors for a data center campus in Texas. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 09:00

OpenAI Co-Founder Greg Brockman Defends Company's For-Profit Pivot... And His Own $30 Billion Payday

Authored by Beige Luciano-Adams via The Epoch Times,

In the second week of a high-profile jury trial that could have profound impact on the race for artificial intelligence, OpenAI president Greg Brockman rejected allegations that he and other co-founders betrayed the company’s philanthropic mission and illegally enriched themselves by flipping the non-profit lab into a for-profit corporation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2024 sued Brockman and CEO Sam Altman, alleging they bilked him of $38 million in donations then restructured as a for-profit corporation by exclusively licensing their flagship product to Microsoft—betraying a founding mission to operate as an open-source charity that would counter the risks of profit-driven AI.

OpenAI and Microsoft deny the allegations, arguing that Musk abandoned the company in 2018 to start his own for-profit competitor, xAI, when other founders rejected his bid to take full control of the operation.

“I think we’ve been very consistent on the mission,” Brockman told a federal court in Oakland.

“If you look at what we’ve accomplished—currently the foundation has $150 billion worth of OpenAI equity value. That’s something we’ve built through hard blood, sweat, and tears through all this time since Elon left.”

The company’s nonprofit foundation has a 27 percent stake in OpenAI’s for-profit corporation; Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion since 2019, owns 26 percent.

Called as an adverse witness for the plaintiff, Brockman over two days May 4–5 offered testimony outlining an alternate narrative and timeframe than the one Musk presented the week prior.

Brockman also attempted to add context to what he has claimed were “cherrypicked” segments of his personal diary, unsealed during the discovery process.

He often spoke in incomplete sentences, punctuated by stock phrases like, “We were solving for the mission.”

Arguably, this had less zing to it than, “You can’t just steal a charity”—a phrase Musk favored in his own testimony.

‘Morally Bankrupt’

Musk’s attorney Steven Molo grilled Brockman on a series of diary entries from 2017 and 2018, a time of intense negotiations with Musk over the future structure of the company.

In one from 2017, Brockman muses, “It’d be wrong to steal the nonprofit from [Musk] and turn it into a B-Corp without him—doing so would be pretty morally bankrupt.”

Brockman denied this contradicted his commitment to OpenAI’s mission. “I think I meant it would actually serve the mission, but it would be hard to look at yourself in the mirror,” he told the court.

Under cross-examination, he explained he was referring to the idea of voting Musk off the board of directors, which he had considered at the time.

“It had been made clear to us,” he said, “that if we didn’t come to [Musk’s] terms, he was going to start an AGI competitor.”

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the hypothetical point at which digital intelligence reaches or surpasses human cognitive abilities and can operate autonomously.

Some, including Musk, believe we have already achieved an early version of it, and that AGI advancement in the wrong hands poses the greatest existential threat to humanity. Musk testified that this threat was the express motivation for creating OpenAI as an open-source, nonprofit lab.

From late 2017 to early 2018, Musk, Altman, Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever, another OpenAI co-founder and its former chief scientist, floated various ideas as they debated how to fund the project at a competitive level.

Musk, the main donor, rejected an even equity split among the four co-founders, instead proposing a deal that would give him majority stake, to be diluted as more investors joined.

Brockman said he and Sutskever were willing to accept Musk being CEO and having a majority stake. “But the one thing we could not accept was to hand him unilateral total control over the AGI.”

Musk was the wrong man for the job, according to Brockman.

“Look, he knows rockets, he knows electric cars, he did not and I believe does not know AI,” Brockman said of the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

“And Ilya and I did not think he was going to spend the time required to actually get good at it.”

Brockman alleged Musk “didn’t recognize that spark” in early language models underlying the GPT technology. “It was there, a working version, we could see the promise. … We really needed someone running the company that had that effect.”

Molo pressed the witness, pointing to emails from Musk proposing a 16-person board for the new corporation, in which Musk would have a 25 percent influence.

“This is the man you’re saying wanted to be the AI tyrant and have absolute and total control?” Molo probed.

“He wanted a board, and conducted in a way you were not familiar with because you didn’t have the experience of corporate governance, did you?”

Brockman acknowledged, “Definitely, this is something I was new to,” but maintained that there was never a real plan for Musk to relinquish control.

In a January 2018 email to Musk and others, Brockman stressed that a moral high ground was “our best tool,” and to maintain it, the company should endeavor to remain a nonprofit. “AI is going to shake up the fabric of society, and our fiduciary duty should be to humanity.”

But back in November 2017, Molo pointed out that Brockman’s diary entries show he was worried about how it would look if the founders continued to say they were committed to a nonprofit while planning to convert to a for-profit.

“Cannot say that we are committed to the nonprofit. Don’t wanna say that we’re committed. If three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie,” Brockman wrote. “Can’t see us turning this into a for-profit without a very nasty fight.”

When Musk issued an ultimatum in 2018 to “either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit,” Brockman said he was “devastated.”

“It felt like we were so close to something that could actually succeed at the mission … and it was all blown up.”

$30 Billion Question

Molo accused Brockman of plotting to use OpenAI to become a billionaire, this time referencing journal entries made six days after he’d told Musk he wanted to continue to fundraise for the nonprofit, in which he asks, “What will take me to $1 billion?”

“There’s a lot of context here,” Brockman said. “It was expression of a frustration, not a plan.”

He described it as a “fork in the road,” where he would either accept Musk’s terms or part ways with him.

The road without Musk led Brockman to a $30-billion equity stake in OpenAI’s for-profit corporation. But Brockman said it was not about the money: “I think I’d be happy with either of those routes,” he said in court.

Molo pounced. Why then, if he was “good with a billion,” would Brockman not donate the extra $29 billion to the nonprofit to which he had a fiduciary duty?

“That was really about picking between these two roads … which one will I actually be happy with? ... Feel enthusiastic getting out of bed, and do [sic] the work every day?” Brockman said.

“It takes $30 billion to get you out of bed in the morning, but $1 billion doesn’t get you out of bed?” Molo asked. “You had a fiduciary duty. … You took the assets from the nonprofit, you moved them into the for-profit to create this money-making machine that resulted in you having $30 billion.”

Implying that he raided the charity to enrich himself was “a deep mischaracterization,” Brockman said.

Molo also grilled Brockman on a commitment he made to donate $100,000 to the nonprofit but never delivered—and on billions in deals that OpenAI has secured with at least three other companies in which Brockman has an ownership stake.

The plaintiff’s attorney also highlighted a 2017 “side deal” in which Altman gave Brockman around $10 million of equity in the company holding assets of his personal family office.

When pressed, Brockman said he didn’t conceal this from Musk.

“Elon’s time was relatively hard to get, there were a lot of decisions to make that we weren’t able to broadcast to him,” he told the jury.

Sam Altman listens as OpenAI President Greg Brockman testifies during Elon Musk's lawsuit trial over OpenAI's for-profit conversion before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers at a federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on May 4, 2026, in a courtroom sketch. Vicki Behringer/Reuters

Origins

Under cross-examination, Brockman told a story about the beginnings of OpenAI—from which Musk was conspicuously absent.

The spark, he said, began at a small dinner party in Menlo Park, where attendees considered whether it was too late to create an AI lab that could compete with Google’s Deep Mind project—at the time, the world leader in AI. That was in July 2015.

Musk was there, Brockman said, but the real catalyst was an agreement between himself and Altman, the same night, that “this was the most important thing we could imagine doing.”

He got to work, acting along with Altman as “the main drivers” of the project.

By November, they had assembled a list of 10 names for an “offsite” event in Napa Valley, nine of whom ended up joining OpenAI’s team. “It was an amazing day of creative energy, people really clicked,” Brockman said. So much so that, as their van remained stalled in traffic for 1.5 hours, “no one noticed because the conversation was so good.”

Brockman said he had no contact with Musk between the dinner and the offsite. “I expected he would donate,” he said of the Tesla founder, suggesting his role was relegated to little more than closing calls and occasional advice.

Under re-direct, Molo challenged this characterization.

“I know he wasn’t in the van with you guys on the highway, but he was instrumental in founding and kickstarting OpenAI, was he not?” Molo said, noting that Musk provided the dominant funding, vision, and leveraged his formidable relationships to recruit talent and resources.

Mission Creep

Brockman also denied that Musk was concerned with open-sourcing the company’s technology, or keeping it as a non-profit forever.

By the time the company made its public launch in December 2015, Brockman said, Musk was already considering they might need to add a for-profit corporation in order to be competitive. But the Tesla CEO’s concurrent pledge to donate $1 billion never materialized.

Musk donated an estimated $38 million to OpenAI from 2015 through 2020.

OpenAI’s mission statement, posted in 2015, notes a goal of advancing digital intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”

Brockman edited the original, in which Musk had used the word “unencumbered.”

“I understood this as a lack of constraint, we had a lot of freedom. We had not made commitments,” Brockman said Monday.

In 2023, the year Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary (the company restructured in 2025 to its current form, a public benefit corporation), Brockman wrote the board with a proposed change to the OpenAI charter, indicating he had been “wrong at times” about the original set up, and that “we’ve grown to regard capitalism not as a constraint, but instead, as a positive force,” according to evidence presented by Musk’s attorneys.

The Board never approved the updated charter, but Musk’s team argues it articulates a marked shift—away from OpenAI’s mission.

“No way Microsoft is giving that as a donation in any kind of charitable way,“ Musk testified last week, recalling his thoughts at the time. ”This is a bait and switch.”

Realizing that the non-profit would be “subservient” to the for-profit, he said, “This is when I thought there had been a breach of charitable trust.”

Brockman testified he never made any commitments to Musk that OpenAI would remain a nonprofit, nor that it would continue to open source its technology.

Musk is asking that OpenAI be reverted to a nonprofit, that more than $100 billion in damages be returned to it, and that Altman and Brockman be removed from their leadership roles.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers told the jury on May 5 that she expects all evidence to be presented by early next week, at which point they may begin their deliberation.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 08:45

Corning Shares Erupt On Nvidia Deal To Supercharge Fiber Optics Output By 10x

U.S.-based glass company Corning soared in premarket trading in New York after announcing a new mega deal with Nvidia to expand manufacturing capacity for fiber optic production used in AI data centers.

"Corning will increase its U.S.-based optical connectivity manufacturing capacity by 10x and expand its U.S. fiber production capacity by more than 50% to meet the accelerating demand driven by AI factory buildouts," Nvidia wrote in a press release. 

The expansion includes three new manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Texas and is expected to create more than 3,000 high-paying U.S. jobs.

In a filing, Corning disclosed that Nvidia is making a $500 million equity-linked investment.

Under the deal, Corning issued Nvidia two warrants:

• Traditional warrant: Nvidia can buy up to 15 million Corning shares at $180 per share.

• Pre-funded warrant: Nvidia can buy up to 3 million Corning shares at a nominal exercise price of $0.0001 per share.

Both warrants are exercisable immediately and expire within three years, unless earlier triggered by the termination of the partnership agreement or a major M&A transaction.

Nvidia noted, "Corning's expanded capacity will supply the optical connectivity hyperscale data centers use to deploy NVIDIA-accelerated computing at scale." 

In premarket trading, Nvidia shares are up 2.4%, while Corning shares are ripping higher, up 20%.

The Corning-Nvidia deal to expand fiber-optic production to supply data centers comes as hyperscalers are set to spend $700 billion this year alone on data center buildouts.

UBS trader Robert Ruple told clients last week that "there was a mixed bag of hyperscaler prints that leaned generally constructive and nothing he would call out that really shifts the narrative. Most critical was that Microsoft, Alphabet, and META all lifted capex forecasts, which should be enough to keep the AI thesis in play." Read the full note here.

However, we must point out: "Banks Are Choking": The AI Debt Bubble Has Started To Burst ... 

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 08:30

Deja Vu All Over Again: Futures Surge, Oil Tumbles On Iran Deal Optimism, Tech Rally

US equity futures are up big this morning and making fresh all time highs, led by tech companies, while oil prices and bond yields fell sharply on optimism that the US and Iran are nearing a peace deal. As of 8:00am Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 1.7% while those for the S&P 500 gained 1%, with both gauges set to build on record highs. Iran is evaluating a new proposal from the US to end their near 10-week war, according to an Axios report. If Tehran accepts the terms, it will lead to a gradual reopening of Hormuz and lifting of the American blockade on Iranian ports. Brent tanked 11% to below $98 a barrel. That comes as US gasoline prices topped $4.50 a gallon for the first time since July 2022. The yield on 10-year Treasuries dropped eight basis points to 4.35%. In the UK, the rate on two-year UK gilts tumbled 17 basis points. The dollar hit the lowest level since February, while gold topped $4,700 an ounce. Bitcoin rose for a seventh straight day. US economic data calendar slate includes April ADP employment change at 8:15am. Fed speaker slate includes Musalem (9:30am) and Goolsbee (1pm)

In premarket, most Mag 7 names are higher: Alphabet (GOOGL) climbs 1.6% after the Information reported that AI startup Anthropic plans to spend about $200 billion with Google over five years (Amazon +1%, Apple -0.5%, Nvidia +2.5%, Meta +0.5%, Microsoft +0.1, Tesla +0.6%)

• Miners, cruise operators and airline companies gain, while energy and fertilizer stocks fall, after a report on the US and Iran nearing a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war.
• Semiconductor, power equipment and data center stocks rally after solid results from Advanced Micro Devices and Super Micro — in a sign of robust end-to-end artificial intelligence-related demand.
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) rallies 19% after the chipmaker gave an outlook that is stronger than expected, a sign of robust AI-related demand.
• Alphatec Holdings (ATEC) sinks 16% after the medical device company posted sales for the first quarter that disappointed Wall Street. TD Cowen calls the report a “tough start to 2026.”
• Apollo Global (APO) rises 3% after the alternative asset manager eclipsed $1 trillion of assets under management on record first-quarter inflows and reported earnings that beat Wall Street estimates.
• Compass Inc. (COMP) gains 31% after the real estate brokerage platform reported first-quarter revenue that beat average analyst estimates. The firm’s second-quarter revenue forecast is ahead of consensus.
• CVS Health (CVS) rises 5% after the health insurer boosted its adjusted earnings per share guidance for the full year. The firm also posted adjusted profit and comparable sales for the first quarter that topped the average analyst estimate.
• Geo Group (GEO) gains 11% after the private correctional facilities company boosted its adjusted Ebitda guidance for the full year, with the guidance beating the average analyst estimate.
• Klaviyo (KVYO) falls 18% after announcing Amanda Whalen will step down from her role as CFO. The application software company reported first-quarter results that beat expectations and the outlook was raised on key metrics.
• Kraft Heinz Co. (KHC) rises 2% after reporting quarterly sales that beat Wall Street expectations, as higher prices and the company’s investments in its lagging brands helped boost North American sales.
• Primoris Services (PRIM) slumps 31% after the construction and engineering services company cut its adjusted earnings per share guidance for the full year.
• Super Micro Computer Inc. (SMCI) leaps 13% after the company reported improved margins and gave a profit forecast that suggested it’s controlling the costs of getting powerful AI servers into customers’ hands.
• TransMedics (TMDX) falls 21% after the medical equipment firm reported adjusted earnings per share that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. It also reaffirmed its revenue forecast for the full year.
• Uber Technologies (UBER) gains 9% after providing a better-than-expected forecast for bookings, signaling that robust demand from US commuters and travelers will offset impact from geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
• Veracyte (VCYT) rises 14% after the diagnostics firm reported revenue for the first quarter that beat the average Wall Street analyst estimate.

In other corporate news, Novo Nordisk’s new Wegovy obesity pill fueled sales in the first quarter and the drugmaker said this year’s proft and sales declines won’t be as bad as previously expected. BMW expects profitability to remain broadly stable this year as the automaker offsets a downturn in China with robust sales in Europe. Samsung reached a $1 trillion market valuation after shares more than quadrupled over the past year on booming demand for AI chips. And the FT reported that China’s main chip-sector investment fund is in discussions to lead a fundraising round for DeepSeek at a valuation of about $45 billion. 

Risk assets soared and oil tumbled, as geopolitical and micro tailwinds fueled risk-on sentiment broadly across the market. On Geopolitics, Brent tanked 11% to below $98 a barrel following an Axios report that US & Iran are working on a memorandum that would set a framework for more nuclear talks (and said US expects Iranian responses on key points in the next 48 hours). Here are the details from the Axios report:

• A Pakistani source has confirmed that the US and Iran are closing in on a one-page memorandum to end their conflict, Reuters reports.
• US and Iran are reportedly closing in on one-page memo to end war, Axios reported citing officials; White House believes it is close to an agreement to end the war and establish a framework for detailed nuclear negotiations.
• MoU details, as it stands: Declare an end to the war in the region and the start of a 30-day period of negotiations, which could occur in Geneva or Islamabad. Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment (at least 12-15 years). US agreeing to lift sanctions and release billions in frozen Iranian funds. Both sides lifting restrictions through the Strait of Hormuz, to occur gradually during the 30-day negotiation.
• If talks collapsed, US forces could restore the blockade or resume military action.
• Uranium Component: The duration of the moratorium is being actively negotiated. Sources suggest at least 12yrs and one suggesting 15yrs is likely; Iran sought five, the US wanted 20. Suggested that Iran would agree to its highly enriched uranium being removed from Iran, potentially to the US.
• Timeline: Iran is expected to respond within 48 hours. While nothing has been agreed upon, sources indicate this is the closest the parties have been to a deal since the war began.
• Issues: Some US officials remain sceptical that even an initial deal will be reached. Fractures within the Iranian leadership.

Separately, last night Trump paused “Project Freedom” in the Strait citing “great progress” towards an agreement. 

“The market continues to price in de-escalation and an easing in supply constraints,” said Geoff Yu, senior macro strategist at BNY. “The road ahead is bumpy, but the direction of travel seems clear.”

AI euphoria is also helping the rally. Alphabet is up in premarket trading after the Information reported Anthropic plans to spend about $200 billion with Google over five years. AMD was priced for perfection ahead of results, but managed to deliver, with shares soaring after the chipmaker gave robust predictions for longer-term growth. That’s adding to nerves about how Nvidia will retain its grip on the AI processor market in the face of intense competition.  

Meanwhile, looking under the hood, while both US stock benchmarks are set to extend Tuesday’s record highs, the S&P 500 Equal-Weight Index hasn’t posted a new high since February. This thin leadership is raising “yellow flags” for Goldman Sachs strategist Ben Snider, while Barclays’ Emmanuel Cau also noted earlier that stocks seem “increasingly disconnected from signals coming from the rates and oil markets.”

In politics, voters in Ohio handily backed Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy’s bid to be the Republican nominee for governor, while Democrat Sherrod Brown will get another shot at returning to the Senate after being defeated in 2024. Ken Griffin said he plans to make Citadel’s Miami tower even bigger after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani name-checked the billionaire in his pledge to charge more taxes on second homes.

In private credit, Oaktree Capital cut the value of one of its funds by almost 4% as the firm marked down its software assets. A New Mountain Capital private credit fund that sold almost half-a-billion-dollars of assets at a discount earlier this year and used some of the cash to scoop up beaten-down loans says the strategy is already paying off.

Elsewhere in geopolitics, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Iran to keep negotiating in pursuit of a lasting truce with the US, as he hosted Tehran’s top diplomat just days before Trump is scheduled to arrive in Beijing. The clash between Trump and Pope Leo XIV has flared up again, complicating a delicate diplomatic mission by Marco Rubio to the Vatican this week.

Looking at earnings, of the 375 S&P 500 companies to have reported so far this earnings season, 84% have beaten analysts’ forecasts, while 11% have missed.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 is up 2.3% with breadth strong. Mining and automobile shares are leading gains, while energy and utilities stocks are the biggest laggards. Here are the biggest movers Wednesday:

• The Stoxx 600 basic resources sector rallied as much as 4% as gold and copper edged higher after US President Donald Trump touted progress on a final agreement with Iran
• Novo Nordisk shares jump as much as 9.2%, the most since Dec. 23, after the Danish drugmaker raised its 2026 guidance ranges for adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit
• Demant surges as much as 17%, the most since October 2008, after the firm delivers sales ahead of consensus expectations in the first quarter
• Pandora shares rise as much as 11%, continuing a rally from March’s 3.5-year low, after the Danish jewelry maker’s first-quarter Ebit margins beat estimates, partly due to a change in the timing of certain costs
• Kongsberg shares rise as much as 11%, their steepest jump since February, after the Norwegian defense technology firm posted what Morgan Stanley called strong results across all metrics
• Diageo shares gain 6.6% after the British maker of Johnnie Walker and Guinness reported organic net sales for the third quarter that beat analyst estimates and maintained its full-year guidance
• Vestas shares rise as much as 2% as the Danish wind turbine maker reported 1Q Ebit before significant items that beat the average analyst estimate
• Equinor declined as much as 6.3%, its biggest drop since April 17 after the energy company reported total revenue for the first quarter that missed the average analyst estimate
• Wolters Kluwer falls as much as 14%, the most since 2003, after 1Q results that were broadly in line but did little to resolve the AI debate that has weighed heavily on the stock
• Orsted shares drop 4.4% after the Danish wind farm operator reported 1Q Ebitda that beat the average analyst estimate, while after-tax profit missed

Tech optimism saw the Kospi hit another record high in APAC trade as Samsung joined the $1 trillion valuation club.  Asian stocks jumped to a record, with technology shares leading gains after positive company forecasts reinforced confidence in continued growth tied to artificial intelligence. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained as much as 2.6% to a record high, with Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and MediaTek providing the biggest boosts. Equities in South Korea, Thailand and China led the advances, while Japan’s market was closed for a holiday. Chinese stocks posted gains after the market reopened after a five-day holiday, with tech shares leading the rally. The government estimated more than 1.5 billion passenger trips took place during the break, while box office grew to 758 million yuan ($111 million). Sentiment was also lifted by improvement in a private gauge of services activities in April. Investors will also keep their eyes on the expected summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump next week for potential signs of easing tensions.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot index is down 0.8% as expectations of a Fed hike by year-end have been fully unwound.  The yen surged after a 4th consecutive intervention by the BOJ/MOF but a large portion of the initial dip in USD/JPY has retraced.      

In rates, sovereign bonds are rallying around the world and treasuries hold a strong bid in early US session, with futures on session highs amid a slump in oil prices after Axios reported Washington and Tehran are working on a memorandum that would set a framework for further nuclear talks, with nothing agreed upon yet. Subsequent reports indicated Iran is evaluating a new US proposal to end the war. US front-end and intermediate yields dropped at least 10bp, long-end yields about 7bp, steepening 2s10s and 5s30s spreads by 3bp-4bp; 10-year fell 9bp to 4.33%. Fed-dated OIS contracts flipped back to pricing in chance of a rate cut this year, with around 6bp of easing priced in for September, and trimmed pricing for a rate hike in 2027. Treasury quarterly refunding announcement at 8:30am, with consensus expectation for unchanged coupon auction sizes, however some banks anticipate new forward guidance, shortening the time frame for stability from “at least the next several quarters” IG dollar issuance slate includes three deals so far. Six names priced $5.25 billion on Tuesday with issuers paying less than 2bps in new issue concessions on deals that were 7.2 times covered — nearly double the year-to-date average. At least two borrowers elected against moving forward

Measures of US corporate-credit risk improved in the opening minutes of trading, with the gauge for high-grade notes at its tightest in over two months. The environment coming into the US session was already positive for debt capital markets, with investment-grade spreads matching their tightest level since Feb. 20 on Tuesday and leveraged-loan prices at their highest level since then. Though there have been 15 high-grade bond sales to start the week, just $13.6 billion has been raised

In commodities, crude prices are sliding with Brent down over 9% and just below the $100/bbl mark. Spot gold and silver post respective gains of 3.4% and 6.5%. Bitcoin is higher by 0.7%.

US economic data calendar slate includes April ADP employment change at 8:15am. Fed speaker slate includes Musalem (9:30am) and Goolsbee (1pm)

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 mini +0.9%,
• Nasdaq 100 mini +1.2%,
• Russell 2000 mini +1.5%
• Stoxx Europe 600 +2.2%,
• DAX +2.4%,
• CAC 40 +2.5%
• 10-year Treasury yield -7 basis points at 4.35%
• VIX -0.7 points at 16.72
• Bloomberg Dollar Index -0.7% at 1187.12,
• euro +0.7% at $1.1769
• WTI crude -6.6% at $95.52/barrel

Top Overnight News

• The White House believes it's getting close to an agreement with Iran on a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war and set a framework for more detailed nuclear negotiations. Axios
• Trump posts: If Iran agrees to deal, the blockade of the Hormuz Strait will be lifted. "If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before. "
• Donald Trump earlier said he would pause US efforts to move ships through the Strait of Hormuz as he seeks an agreement with Iran, citing “great progress.” The blockade on Iranian ports remains. BBG
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met w/his Iranian counterpart on Wed and called for a swift reopening of Hormuz. BBG
• China Is Still Supplying Drone Factories in Iran, Russia Despite U.S. Sanctions. Obscure Chinese companies are openly shipping dual-use goods such as engines and batteries, defying American controls. WSJ
• The US will implement its 25% tariffs on cars and trucks from the EU “relatively soon” if the bloc doesn’t swiftly ratify a long-delayed trade deal, the American ambassador to the bloc Andrew Puzder said. BBG
• China’s biggest state-backed semiconductor investment vehicle is in talks to lead the financing of DeepSeek’s first fundraising that could value the AI group at about $45bn. FT
• Novo shares jumped as its new Wegovy pill boosted sales, and the company guided to a smaller-than-expected revenue decline this year. The oral version had the best US launch of any GLP-1. BBG
• Alphabet outperformed its Magnificent Seven peers premarket after the Information reported that Anthropic plans to spend about $200 billion with Google over five years. BBG
• The yen hit a two-month high, spurring fresh intervention speculation. BBG
• While both US stock benchmarks are set to extend Tuesday’s records highs, the S&P500 Equal-Weight Index hasn’t posted a new high since February. BBG

Axios report on MOU between the US and Iran

• A Pakistani source has confirmed that the US and Iran are closing in on a one-page memorandum to end their conflict, Reuters reports.
• US and Iran are reportedly closing in on one-page memo to end war, Axios reported citing officials; White House believes it is close to an agreement to end the war and establish a framework for detailed nuclear negotiations.
• MoU details, as it stands: Declare an end to the war in the region and the start of a 30-day period of negotiations, which could occur in Geneva or Islamabad. Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment (at least 12-15 years). US agreeing to lift sanctions and release billions in frozen Iranian funds. Both sides lifting restrictions through the Strait of Hormuz, to occur gradually during the 30-day negotiation.
• If talks collapsed, US forces could restore the blockade or resume military action.
• Uranium Component: The duration of the moratorium is being actively negotiated. Sources suggest at least 12yrs and one suggesting 15yrs is likely; Iran sought five, the US wanted 20. Suggested that Iran would agree to its highly enriched uranium being removed from Iran, potentially to the US.
• Timeline: Iran is expected to respond within 48 hours. While nothing has been agreed upon, sources indicate this is the closest the parties have been to a deal since the war began.
• Issues: Some US officials remain sceptical that even an initial deal will be reached. Fractures within the Iranian leadership.

Other Iran News

• US President Trump posted that Project Freedom will be paused for a short period to see whether or not the agreement with Iran can be finalised and signed, blockade will remain in full effect.
• Journalist Mallick posted "...i would not be surprised if there is an incoming Iranian proposal to Washington via Islamabad, soon.". Full post:"As what I understand, while the ball largely lies in Iranian court when it comes to US - Iran negotiations, i would not be surprised if there is an incoming Iranian proposal to Washington via Islamabad, soon.".
• Iranian and Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministers held a phone call; stressed continuing diplomacy and prevent escalation of tensions.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian said US demands from Iran are impossible and unattainable.
• US Secretary of State Rubio spoke with Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov, in which the US-Russia relationship, Russia-Ukraine war and Iran was discussed.
• Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson denies the UAE's accusation that Iran fired missiles and drones at it, stating that Iran's defensive actions were exclusively directed at the US, according to a statement. UAE is cooperating with the US and Israel against Iran.
• Israeli Ambassador said relations with the UAE are growing.
• IRGC denies any involvement with the attacks on the UAE earlier in the week.
• Pakistan's PM thanks the US President for pausing Project Freedom, in response to a request from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, among others.
• "Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Ali al-Zaidi held a telephone conversation with US Secretary of War Hegseth about bilateral relations in various fields", Tasnim reported.
• The two US commercial ships that crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Monday had military security aboard, NBC reported citing sources.
• A French bulk carrier was hit by a cruise missile in the waters near the UAE, CBS reported citing officials.
• CMA CGM confirms a vessel was the target of an attack on Tuesday while it was crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asia-Pac stocks traded entirely in the green, following on from the gains stateside and the positive update from President Trump, stating that Project Freedom is to be paused for a short time to see whether or not the agreement with Iran can be finalised and signed. ASX 200 neared last week’s peak of 8787, rebounding after two consecutive days of losses. The bounce was supported by Financials and Industrials, while Energy lagged as oil prices fell. KOSPI surged at the open, breaking the 7000 handle, and even activated the buy-side sidecar within the first 5 minutes of trade. Tech giants helped the surge in the index, with Samsung Electronics (+15%) being the latest Co. to join the USD 1tln market cap group. Shanghai Comp. and Hang Seng followed the positive risk-on tone as Shanghai returned from holidays. CK Hutchison gained after the Co. agreed to sell its 49% stake in VodafoneThree, while Wuliangye Yibin underperformed after a double downgrade at Goldman Sachs. On the data front, RatingDog services PMI beat estimates, which further supported the indices.

Top Asian News

• China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi, Xinhua reported.
• BHP (BHP AT) CFO said new investors are buying into the Co. on copper exposure and AI demand.
• KOSPI sidecar activated after KOSPI 200 futures rise by 5%.

European bourses are stronger across the board, buoyed by optimism surrounding US-Iran peace. Opened higher as markets reacted to Trump’s decision to temporarily pause “Project Freedom”, and then took another leg higher to make fresh peaks on an Axios report which suggested that the US and Iran are closing in on an MoU to end the conflict. European sectors are entirely in the green, except for Energy and Utilities; the latter, unsurprisingly, is hampered by losses in underlying oil prices. The top of the pile consists of Basic Resources (lifted by strength in metals prices), Autos and Consumer Products. The Autos sector has been driven higher by post-earning strength in BMW (+5%, beat exp. but faced fierce price competition in China) and Continental (+5.5%, Q1 results topped exp. and confirmed guidance). The Consumer Products sector has benefited from gains in jewellery-name Pandora (+9%) after Q1 revenue beat estimates, but did experience weakness across North America and Europe.

Top European News

• EU PPI MoM (Mar) M/M 3.4% vs. Exp. 3.3% (Prev. -0.7%, Low. 0.8%, High. 3.7%).
• EU PPI YoY (Mar) Y/Y 2.1% vs. Exp. 1.8% (Prev. -3%, Low. -0.5%, High. 2.1%).
• EU S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Apr) 48.8 vs. Exp. 48.6 (Prev. 50.7).
• EU S&P Global Services PMI Final (Apr) 47.6 vs. Exp. 47.4 (Prev. 50.2).
• UK S&P Global Services PMI Final (Apr) 52.7 vs. Exp. 52 (Prev. 50.5).
• UK S&P Global Composite PMI Final (Apr) 52.6 vs. Exp. 52.0 (Prev. 50.3).

FX

• Snapshot: G10s are stronger against the USD this morning, to varying degrees. Antipodeans outperform, given the risk tone; JPY is also towards the top of the pile, following likely intervention overnight. SEK is a touch weaker vs EUR, after a cooler-than-expected inflation report, but is unlikely to shift the dial for the Riksbank on Thursday.
• DXY is weaker this morning, and currently trades at the lower end of a 97.79 to 98.34 range. Pressure facilitated by the risk-on mood, amidst optimism surrounding progress towards US-Iran peace. This stems from a post from the POTUS, who announced that the US would pause Project Freedom to allow time for negotiations to occur. The move lower was then exacerbated after an Axios report suggested that the US and Iran are closing in on an MoU to end the conflict. In its current form, it would declare and end to the war with Iran. Potential JPY intervention also facilitating the pressure this morning
• Focus overnight was on USD/JPY, where an aggressive move lower took the pair to a 155.00 handle, before bouncing back towards 156.00. There is currently no confirmation that the move was intervention, but markets should begin to get some details on recent moves late in the Japanese session. Time will tell whether these attempts of intervention proves effective, given the volatile nature of the Middle Eastern conflict. A near-term resolution will help the USD/JPY trundle lower, a factor which Japanese Officials would probably require to achieve any lasting strength in the JPY.

Central Banks

• ECB's Cipollone said the EZ inflation trend is moving towards adverse.
• ECB Wage Tracker: 2026 annual 2.282% (prev. 2.270%). Q1 1.847% (prev. 1.887%). Q2 2.131% (prev. 2.10%). Q3 2.553% (prev. 2.521%). Q4 2.597% (prev. 2.574%).
• BoE Governor Bailey said we must be mindful of risks of private credit.
• NAB sees the RBA hiking in June to take the cash rate to 4.60%.
• RBNZ Governor Breman said banks are resilient under stress tests.
• RBNZ Financial Stability Report: New Zealand's financial system is resilient and well positioned to support households and businesses even if economic conditions soften. The global risk environment has worsened over the past six months, as conflict in the Middle East threatens world energy supply.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.8562 vs exp. 6.8160 (prev. 6.8628).
• BoK official said inflation is seen higher in May and are closely monitoring inflation trend as uncertainty is high over the Middle East situation.

Fixed Income

• Unsurprisingly, a bullish start for fixed income as the marked energy retreat has allowed yields to ease. Pressure in energy facilitated by a) Trump pausing Project Freedom to allow time for negotiations, b) Axios report suggested US-Iran are close to an MoU. (See geopols section for details).
• USTs to a 110-28+ peak, with gains of 15 ticks and breaching Monday's WTD 110-26+ best. For the US, aside from geopols, we are attentive to ADP ahead of NFP on Friday; ADP is seen at 79k from 62k, vs a 73k (prev. 178k) consensus for Friday's Payrolls. Additionally, we get the full Treasury Quarterly Refunding announcement after Monday's projections, before remarks from Fed's Musalem (2028) and Goolsbee (2027).
• Bunds post gains in excess of 80 ticks and currently hold just off a 125.88 peak. A high that printed in proximity to the above geopolitical updates this morning, and after a slew of Final PMIs, which were subject to modest revision. Of note for policymakers, the ECB's latest wage tracker showed upside across the year. Though, the ECB will at this stage likely welcome the relatively modest level of upside and particularly that the Q4-2026 figure remains shy of the 2.709% reported in February.
• Gilts gapped higher by 48 ticks before climbing another 30 ticks to an 87.32 peak, notching a new high for the week, but remain shy of last week's 87.03 closing price. Potentially capping a return to and test of that level is the ongoing scrutiny around PM Starmer, as UK press continues to brief that the challenge against Starmer is increasing, with the Welsh Labour leader seemingly primed to call for Starmer to step down on Friday and reports that the party is working to get Burnham back in the Commons.
• Germany sells EUR 2.662bln vs exp. EUR 3.5bln 2.50% 2032 Bund Auction: b/c 2.4x (prev. 1.1x), avg. yield 2.8% (prev. 2.78%), retention 23.94%.

Commodities

• Energy on the backfoot after US President Trump paused Project Freedom to allow time for talks and potential progress with Iran. An update that weighed on crude overnight, sending WTI below USD 100/bbl and Brent beneath USD 108/bbl. Thereafter, the complex took another hit after an Axios report which suggested that the US and Iran are closing in on an MoU to end the conflict (see geopols section for details).
• As it stands WTI Jun’26 and Brent Jul’26 are holding towards session lows at USD 93.96/bbl and USD 101.46/bbl, respectively. Brent now eyes USD 100/bbl to the downside, and a further leg lower could see a retest of the low from 27th April 2026, at USD 99.58/bbl.
• Gold is benefiting from the energy and USD downside, XAU as high as USD 4,708/oz, matching its 21 DMA. Base metals are also firmer, cheering the general risk tone and welcoming the return of Mainland China. 3M LME Copper above USD 13.2k, with gains in excess of USD 150 as things stand.
• China has ordered its oil refineries that purchase crude from Tehran not to comply with or enforce US sanctions on Iranian oil, CNN reported.
• Australia's PM Albanese said that they are to lift minimum stockpiles of every type of fuel by around 10 days, the fuel reserve is to be around 1 billion litres and the package is to cost more than AUD 10bln.
• Weekly private inventory data (bbls): Crude -8.1mln (exp. -2.8), Gasoline -6.1mln (exp. -1.7mln), Distillates -4.6mln (exp. -2mln), Cushing -1.1mln.

Trade/Tariffs

• Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin said China and the US are in communication on Trump's trip.
• US Ambassador Puzder wants the US-EU trade agreement to be agreed on before July, Bloomberg TV.
• US Envoy to India said Indian companies plan to invest over USD 20.5bln in the US tech, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

US Event Calendar

 

d

 

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 08:28

ADP Employment Report Signals Biggest Job Additions In 15 Months In April

With non-farm payrolls looming, we get another glimpse at the labor market today from the ADP Employment Report which shows the US economy added 109k jobs in April (a slight disappointment relative to +120k exp). That is the tenth straight month of job additions and strongest monthly addition since January 2025...

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, Goods-producing jobs rose 15,000 while Service-providing jobs rose 94,000.

"Small and large employers are hiring, but we're seeing softness in the middle," said Dr. Nela Richardson Chief Economist, ADP.

"Large companies have resources to deploy, and small ones are the most nimble, both important advantages in a complex labor environment."

Health care's continued strength, along with a rebound in trade, transportation, and utilities, fueled last month's acceleration in hiring. 

Pay growth for job-stayers slowed slightly to 4.4 percent, but for job-changers, year-over-year pay gains were steady at 6.6 percent.

Is the economy transforming from 'no hire, no fire' to 'higher hire, still no fire' gains (see JOLTS' record hiring).

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 08:23

Novo Nordisk Soars After New Obesity Pill Momentum Lifts Guidance

Novo Nordisk shares jumped as much as 9% in Copenhagen, suggesting the stock may finally be bottoming out after a vicious multi-year bear market. The move followed the Danish drugmaker's decision to raise its 2026 guidance ranges for adjusted sales and adjusted operating profit, citing solid momentum in Wegovy sales.

Novo now expects full-year sales and profit declines of around 12%, down from a previous forecast of around 13%. The upgraded outlook was "driven by increased expectations for GLP-1 product sales," according to the company.

Here's a snapshot of the new full-year forecast, courtesy of Bloomberg:

• Sees adjusted change in sales at constant exchange rates -4% to -12%, saw -5% to -13%, estimate -7.63% (Bloomberg Consensus)

• Sees adjusted change in operating profit at constant FX -4% to -12%, saw -5% to -13%, estimate -8.26%

The key bright spot was momentum in the Wegovy pill:

• Wegovy pill was launched in the US on 5 January 2026, and for the week ending 17 April, total weekly prescriptions exceeded 200,000. Coupled with total prescriptions for Q1 2026 of around 1.3 million and now more than 2 million since launch, it marks the strongest-ever GLP-1 volume launch in the US. Q1 2026 sales for the Wegovy pill reached DKK 2,256 million, impacted by pre-launch pipeline fill with wholesalers and telehealth partners.

• Pending regulatory decisions, the first Wegovy pill launches outside the US are expected during the second half of 2026.

"We have seen more than 1 million people using the Wegovy pill," CEO Mike Doustdar told analysts on an earnings call earlier. He noted that patients are switching from competing products, with "limited cannibalization" of Novo's other drugs.

Still, Novo's overall business remains under pressure. First-quarter sales fell 10% to 70.1 billion Danish kroner, while adjusted operating profit dropped 15%. Diabetes drug sales fell 18%, with Ozempic hitting its lowest level in two years.

Novo is trying to regain momentum after losing market share to Eli Lilly's Zepbound injection.

Novo shares in Copenhagen jumped as much as 9%. Shares have been locked in a vicious, nearly two-year bear market, down 70% from their peak.

Analyst commentary, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Barclays (equal weight)

• Oral Wegovy was "off to a strong start," analyst James Gordon writes in a note.

• Sees questions on supply capacity when the pill launches in other countries, expected in 2H

• Sees FY consensus expectations being increased by low single- digits

BMO Capital Markets (market perform)

• The Wegovy pill "makes a splash" in its debut, analyst Evan Seigerman writes in a note.

• It's encouraging that roughly 15%-16% of pill patients are filling scripts for the highest dosages.

• This "could be a leading indicator for improved revenue going forward, given their higher price."

• Wegovy and Ozempic injectables also beat expectations, "showing more resilience in the face of competition within class"

Jefferies (hold)

• Although the 2026 guidance was nudged higher, it still leaves consensus expectations at the upper end of the range, analyst Michael Leuchten writes in a note.

• The change in guidance probably won't have a positive impact on consensus estimates.

• It could actually drag pretax profit and EPS expectations down a couple of percent.

Intron Health (sell)

• Sales beat expectations by 1%, driven by Wegovy pill stocking of ~$125m, analyst Naresh Chouhan writes in a note

• Meanwhile, gross margin was 30 bps worse than expected

Morgan Stanley (equal weight)

• 1Q sales were a "small" beat, driven by the Wegovy pill — helped by stocking — and international operations, analyst Thibault Boutherin writes in a note

• Lower operating costs helped the adjusted EBIT beat

• Still sees the bottom end of the guidance as "conservative" and expects the company to finish the year "in the upper half of the guidance."

Did Novo finally bottom?

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 06:55

There Needs To Be A Stronger European Element In NATO, Says Starmer

Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on May 4 that there needs to be a stronger European element in NATO, as the United States reconsiders its relationship with the defense alliance and pivots toward other security priorities domestically and globally.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Jan 6, 2026. Ludovic Marin/AP

Starmer acknowledged during a panel discussion at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, Armenia, that, in terms of defense and security, Europe has “got behind over many years, now.”

“We’re not where we need to be,” he said.

The British prime minister alluded to the impact of the Ukraine–Russia war and, more recently, the Iran conflict on global security and economic stability, saying that Europe, especially, had to come together around these issues.

“There needs to be a stronger European element in NATO. I have no doubt about that,” he said.

Starmer said that while there needed to be a stronger European element in defense and security, “we’ve been behind the curve for too long: over dependencies, over reliance, and assumptions about the world that we live in—they’ve gone.”

“We now need to lead out of this, and we need to do it at pace because these impacts are real,” Starmer said.

“The alliances that are under tension are real, and how we, as a group of leaders, respond now will likely define what goes on for many years—arguably for a generation.”

US Reorients Defense Priorities

U.S. President Donald Trump has long maintained that Europe should rely less on the United States for its security and that European NATO allies should increase their defense spending. This approach was formally accepted by NATO when, in June 2025, allies agreed to raise defense spending targets from 2 percent of gross domestic product to 5 percent by 2035.

The United States has also reoriented its defense and security priorities.

The Pentagon on Jan. 23 released its National Defense Strategy, which outlines the U.S. plan to prioritize homeland defense, including by “defending America’s interests throughout the Western Hemisphere,” according to the document.

It also said the United States would encourage partners in other parts of the world, including Europe, to take primary responsibility for their own defense “with critical but limited support from U.S. forces.”

Tension Over Support in Iran Conflict

In recent weeks, Trump has expressed frustration with the lack of support from NATO allies during the Iran war, prompting him to consider pulling out of the alliance.

Trump told British newspaper The Telegraph in an interview published on April 1 that his request for assistance in the Strait of Hormuz was a test that allies did not pass.

The president’s remarks followed similar comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio said on March 30 that one of the benefits of U.S. membership in the alliance is that it gives Washington access to station troops, aircraft, and arms in other parts of the world—including much of Europe.

However, during Operation Epic Fury, “we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our—of their bases,” Rubio said, adding that “there are other countries that have done that as well.”

Rubio said that while he supported NATO, his backing of the alliance was based on the assumption that there are reciprocal arrangements.

“But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked, but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement,” he said.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte delivers a speech at Aselsan Defence company as part of his official visit to Turkey, in Ankara on April 22, 2026. Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images

This week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that NATO members had received Trump’s message about agreements allowing the United States to access European bases.

“Yes, ​there has been some disappointment from the U.S. side, but Europeans have listened,” Rutte told reporters at the same European Political Community summit in ​Armenia on May 4.

“They are now making sure that all the bilateral ​basing agreements are being implemented.”

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 06:30

Carbon Neutral, Speech Negative: Amsterdam Bans Ads Featuring Meat & Fossil Fuels

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about how censorship often becomes an insatiable appetite once countries go down the road of speech regulation. There is no better example than the Dutch and their recent ban on public ads for meat and fossil fuels. Activists have imposed similar limitations on advertising for products in the United States, from alcohol to tobacco. However, the Dutch law reflects how this tendency can metastasize into shielding citizens from unhealthy choices or influences.

It appears that Dutch painters such as Pieter Aertsen (with his work A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms, above) were promoting harmful imagery in their work. As for Rembrandt’s “Slaughtered Ox,” the Dutch master is now little more than a climate change denier.

Starting on May 1, the ban on such images became part of Amsterdam’s push to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. While purportedly neutral on carbon, it is manifestly negative on free speech.

As with other anti-free speech measures in Europe, this push again came from the left. The GreenLeft Party’s Anneke Veenhoff explained “I mean, if you want to be leading in climate policies and you rent out your walls to exactly the opposite, then what are you doing?”

The answer is engaging in free speech.

This is, of course, commercial speech, which is often subject to a lower level of protection. However, this shows the danger of using the differential standard to target products or industries viewed as unhealthy or ill-advised for consumers.

In Amsterdam, the ban will cover industries such as airlines, including KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, one of the largest employers and revenue generators in the country.

Notably, activists compare this to cigarette advertising bans, confirming the very slippery slope danger that those companies raised when they were targeted.

Hannah Prins, a paralegal at Advocates for the Future, is quoted as saying, “I don’t think it’s normal to see murdered animals on billboards. So I think it’s very good that that’s going to change.”

Other Dutch cities are now following suit, including Haarlem, Utrecht, and Nijmegen.

Of course, prostitutes still advertise live in Amsterdam and marijuana is a major industry for tourists.

If you want drugs, there are ample choices.

However, if you want a steak, you will have to rely on word-of-mouth directions.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/06/2026 - 05:00

Industry Leaders Warn Chinese EV Imports Will Undercut Canada's Auto Sector, Bring Major Security Risks

Authored by Paul Rowan Brian via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A number of industry leaders and policy experts are warning that the government’s permission of importing Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) into Canada at low tariff rates will undermine Canada’s auto sector and cause a number of substantial national security risks.

Models stand next to a latest EV car from Chinese automaker BYD showcased at the Auto China 2026 in Beijing on April 25, 2026. Andy Wong/AP Photo

The warnings came in testimony before the House Committee on Industry and Technology, where the speakers said that Ottawa’s quota-based access to Chinese EV makers will make Canada vulnerable to unfair trade practices from Beijing, hollow out the country’s already-struggling auto industry, and bring along a host of security risks associated with data collection and surveillance.

“Let’s be clear, this is not the approach Canada wanted,” Michael Kovrig, head of the Global Network for Strategic Effects, said while testifying May 4 before the committee.

EV Deal

The import of Chinese-made EVs comes under the terms of an agreement between Ottawa and Beijing signed in January of this year that allows the import of up to 49,000 Chinese-made EVs in the first year at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, down from 100 percent.

Ottawa has indicated the quota could rise to approximately 70,000 vehicles per year over the next five years.

As part of the agreement, Beijing moved to cut tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports, slashing tariffs from 84–100 percent on Canadian canola products to 15 percent and relaxing restrictions on other products including seafood and peas.

Ottawa also said it expects China will invest in the Canadian auto sector and possibly set up auto manufacturing inside Canada as part of the wider agreement.

Canada opened permits for Chinese-made EVs on March 1, under which 24,500 will be allowed until August under the 6.1 percent tariff rate. Permits are issued by Global Affairs Canada and last 60 days before expiry. Importers are required to be Canada-based automakers or agents of them, and vehicles must comply with Canadian safety standards.

Ottawa said it plans to review and potentially change how the import system works after the first six months.

‘Trifecta of Risks’

Kovrig said that allowing Chinese-made EVs into Canada causes a “trifecta of risks,” which he described as creating “structural dependence” on China, along with “unfair competition [that] erodes industrial capacity” and imposing a “systemic pressure” on government policy going forward.

“The real question is not, ‘don’t we want cheaper EVs?’” Kovrig said. “It’s whether Canada wants to be a producer in the future auto economy, or merely a consumer market for vehicles produced by China’s industrial system.”

Kovrig’s concerns were echoed by Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.

“There are no guardrails in this agreement to ensure a level-playing field for manufacturers that have invested in Canada, or to protect Canadians from cybersecurity risks,” Kingston told MPs.

Kingston added that demand for EVs is closely tied to government incentives rather than free-market forces, and that serious harm could be done to the North American auto supply chain.

“Demand for EVs is directly related to rebates, and we saw it when the previous federal government rebate went away, we saw demand for EVs decline quite significantly,” he said, adding that import of Chinese-made EVs “will undermine the auto sector and presents risks to the North American auto supply chain.”

Canada’s auto sector remains a major part of the economy and directly employs roughly 125,000 workers, the majority of whom are employed in Ontario. More than 90 percent of Canadian-made vehicles are exported to the United States.

Kingston also said that keeping access to the U.S. market is crucial for Canada and “there is no industry without U.S. access,” saying that opening up to Chinese imports could undermine North American integration.

In mid-January, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada’s deal with China was “problematic.” This was followed on Jan. 24 by U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to put 100 percent tariffs on Canadian goods in response to the deal.

Controls

Several Liberal MPs on the committee asked questions about the economic and security issues related to importing Chinese-made EVs, stating that it could help Canadian consumers access more affordable vehicles and move Canada closer to climate goals.

For her part, Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner asked whether Canada could put conditions on Chinese firms, such as on domestic labour, security, and standards, in order for them to be allowed to import the vehicles.

Kingston said such an approach won’t work.

“If you say that you have to have a local supply chain and use local unionized labour, the response from a Chinese OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer] is, ’thanks, but no thanks,'” he said.

“The moment they want more access, they will restrict our exports of canola. They'll come up with other reasons to leverage more access into the market. This is the Chinese trade playbook. You can see it in sector after sector in different countries,” he added.

Kovrig shared this view, saying that Beijing tends to use a quota as a “ratchet” to force more market access.

“What begins as a capped quota becomes a ratchet that only expands. Concentrated sectoral economic dependence also constricts federal policy-making autonomy,” he said.

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] weaponizes technology, supply chains, and market access to coerce independence to its geopolitical agenda.”

He added that “forced labour” is also part of the Chinese EV supply chain and cited evidence from Sheffield Hallam University linking forced labour of China’s ethnic Uyghur population to key battery and EV production stages.

Kingston added that even if China were to build a factory in Canada, it would likely be a human rights and economic disaster.

“If they build a plant, they bring in labour from China. And as we’ve seen in Hungary, the conditions have been characterized as slave-like conditions,” he said, referring to a Chinese-operated factory in Hungary.

Benefits of EVs

Several industry leaders who testified before the committee said EVs would be a net positive for Canada.

Jeff Turner, director of Mobility at Dunsky Energy and Climate Advisors, said EVs would help Canadians in various ways, including by bringing “almost $2,000 per year in fuel savings per household and reductions of GHG emissions and other emissions that have significant health impacts for Canadians.”

Cherith Sinasac of the Electro-Canada Foundation also emphasized her view of the positive role that EVs could have and said their origin is much less important than infrastructure readiness.

“Canada needs a strong long-term EV charging infrastructure strategy,” she said, adding that there must be a coordinated investment strategy by provinces and economic sectors.

“EVs and their battery storage have the potential to be a national energy asset for our grid,” Sinasac said.

Security Risks

Kingston and Kovrig both said that in addition to economic damage, bringing in Chinese-made EVs could pose security risks, including potential data access concerns and dangers to national security.

“China’s 2017 National Intelligence law compels any Chinese firm, including from overseas operations, to share data with Beijing on demand,” Kovrig said. “There’s no judicial review and no challenge mechanism.”

Kovrig described Chinese-made EVs as “a rolling computer with cameras” that are “state-linked data platforms.”

This echoed similar concerns from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who stated his opposition to allowing Chinese-made EVs into Canada this past January, writing on X that such vehicles “function like roving surveillance systems on our streets [and] should not be allowed in Canada - collecting data, tracking Canadians and exposing us to a foreign regime.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 22:35

Figure CEO Says Humanoid Robots Could Soon Enter Homes For $600 A Month

Figure's CEO told Sourcery's Molly O'Shea that the humanoid robotics company is preparing for a "near-term" push to bring humanoid robots into homes, where they would perform basic household tasks under a consumer subscription model that could cost "hundreds per month," similar to a car lease.

Molly O'Shea asked Figure CEO Brett Adcock:

"In the near term, what do you see as the first commercial application for these robots? Like, is it gonna be in the home? Is it gonna be in the factory?"

Adcock responded:

"In the near term, we're gonna be selling these into the home. So you can lease a Figure 03 for something like $600 a month."

He continued:

"Yeah. You can plug it into a wall outlet, and it'll go to its dock and charge. I want it to do the laundry every day, dishes every day, and tidy the house multiple times a day. That's what I want."

.@adcock_brett says in the "near term" @Figure_robot will sell humanoid robots for the home for ~$600/month:

"You can plug it in a wall outlet, it'll go to its dock and charge."

"I want it to do the laundry every day, dishes every day, and tidy the house multiple times a day." https://t.co/z1GlCILVW9 pic.twitter.com/n8lFocjUy1

— sourcery (@sourceryy) May 5, 2026

Adcock posted a chart on Threads showing, he said, "Humanoid robots manufactured at Figure by month," revealing a clear production ramp.

However, the chart lacked a Y-axis, leaving the actual shipment numbers unclear.

Forbes pointed out that shipments may have climbed from roughly 60 units in February to 120 in March and 240 in April. However, those shipment numbers remain far below China's Agibot, which reportedly shipped 5,000 humanoids over three months.

Our latest note on the humanoid robot space, including UBS's delivery estimates, is available here.  

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 22:10

The Golden State Has Fallen: Welcome To The Islamic Republic Of California

Authored by Rabbi Michael Barclay via American Greatness,

On April 8, the California Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement voted 19–0 to adopt AB2017, followed on April 22 by the California Assembly Committee on Appropriations, which voted 7–0 to adopt the bill. And with those votes, all that is left for this to become California law is the passing of it by the State Assembly and Senate and approval by the governor.

And with it, the state of California will no longer exist as we know it, but will become the Islamic Republic of California.

Introduced by California Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco 17th District) at the behest of CAIR, the bill seeks to officially recognize the Islamic holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as California state holidays.

There are no holidays from other religions that are recognized as state holidays in California.

Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Epiphany are all extremely important holidays in Judaism and Christianity.

But none of them are recognized as California state holidays.

But according to Haney and the California legislature, apparently, Islamic holidays are much more important to the state than either Judaism or Christianity.

This bill is clearly unconstitutional, as it is in direct contradiction to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .”

By placing two Islamic holidays as official state holidays, they are respecting the establishment of a specific religion. But the problem is greater than just their violation of the Constitution in attempting to pass this bill.

The holidays themselves, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, are expressions and manifestations of the very worst aspects of Islam.

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan and is the penultimate celebration of the month and its meanings. Ramadan is the month-long holiday commemorating Mohammed’s first vision in 610 CE, in which he supposedly was visited by the angel Gabriel (named Jibril in Arabic) in a cave near Mecca and given a revelation that ultimately became the Quran. It is a month of fasting and a national holiday in countries such as Iran, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim theocracies.

It is also traditionally the month of war in Islam. Although war is forbidden in the Quran during four other months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th), it is not only allowed during Ramadan; it has historically been encouraged to be a month of initiating war against “infidels.” The Yom Kippur War against Israel in 1973 was started by the Arabs during Ramadan. Three years ago, Ismail Haniyeh, who was considered the political leader of Hamas (and who lived in Qatar until killed in July of 2024 and had a net worth of over two billion dollars), called for all Arabs to attack Israel during Ramadan and to siege and blockade the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and have continual mass riots there. Ramadan, going back to Mohammed himself, is the time to start wars on non-Muslims and is a source of Islamic pride as the time to forcefully convert the world to Islam. The Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s official arm in Syria, has even described Ramadan as “a month of conquests.”

Some historical examples of the Islamic intention during Ramadan include the Battle of Badr, a victory led by Mohammed himself in the second Ramadan; the conquest of Mecca, 6 years after Badr; the war for Andalusia in 711 CE; the Battle of Ain Jalut against the Mongols; and the Battle of Hattin during the Crusades.

And that’s just in the first 200 years of Islamic history.

But Matt Haney and the California Legislature want to make this holiday, which is about military victory over non-Muslims, into an official state holiday!

And then there is the second Islamic holiday that they want to make an official state holiday: Eid al-Adha, the “Feast of the Sacrifice.” This is a holiday about being willing to violently sacrifice and kill if it is commanded by Allah. It includes throwing stones at a wall to symbolize the willingness to fight for the “will of God” by stoning Satan and exemplifies the observant Islamic belief in stoning when “required.” Animals are also sacrificed as part of this holiday’s celebration. And this is not a small sacrifice of one chicken for an entire community, but rather, the expectation is that each Muslim will perform animal sacrifices.

In Bangladesh, 13 million animals are sacrificed each year; in Pakistan, more than nine million; and globally, it is estimated that approximately 50 million animals are sacrificed each year for this Islamic holiday.

Each year, this holiday causes the death of 50 million animals and encourages the practice of stoning anything that is contradictory to the Quran, Hadith, and Islamic theology. And this is the holiday that Haney and his Democratic colleagues in the California State Legislature want to make into an official state holiday.

War, stoning, and animal sacrifice—these are the values that have been unanimously approved by the committee, and are on track to becoming approved by the California government.

Yom Kippur is a Jewish holiday about the value of being self-reflective and atoning for our personal sins. Epiphany is a Christian holiday celebrating the baptism of Jesus; Good Friday deepens the Christian faith as it honors the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for all of humanity; and Ash Wednesday reminds Christians of the journey of Jesus during Lent that leads to the Resurrection on Easter. Atonement, spiritual awareness, faith in God: these are values that the State of California rejects as holidays while honoring the Islamic values of war and death.

With the passing of this bill, which is not certain but is highly likely, California will officially have gone off the cliff, rejecting Western civilization in favor of officially adopting Islamic practices and values.

Rest in peace, California. We will miss you.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 21:45

US Intelligence Only Sees Limited Additional Damage To Iran Nuclear Program Since Last June

A widely circulating fresh report in Reuters has raised eyebrows and serious questions related to the effectiveness of the 38-day aerial campaign which saw US-Israel bombs unleashed in the many thousands (combined: some 20,000+ munitions expended) on the Islamic Republic.

"US intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a US-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year, according to three sources familiar with the matter," the report lays out.

"The assessments of Tehran's nuclear program remain broadly unchanged even after two months of a war that US President Donald Trump launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb," it continues.

via Fox

The Israelis are believed to have done most of the direct targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities in the late February through April air campaign. This after already since last June, the White House insisted Iran's nuclear program was 'obliterated'.

Again, one wonders what nearly 40 days of record-levels of bombardment of Iranian cities and military sites actually accomplished in terms of degrading Iran's nuclear enrichment capability - which has emerged as the primary US goal (stalled negotiations have centered on the demand that Tehran given up its nuclear material). It seems the needle may have hardly moved in terms of degrading Iranian nuke sites since last June?

The Reuters report gives the following additional conclusion: "The unchanged timeline suggests that significantly impeding Tehran’s nuclear program may require destroying or removing Iran’s remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium, or HEU."

And that of course brings the situation back to the square one dilemma of whether to launch ground operations to recover what Trump calls the 'nuclear dust' - which further raises the prospect of utter disaster and endless quagmire (and there are signs of quagmire already, even without ground forces).

In shifting from 'Epic Fury' to 'Project Freedom' - the US administration seems to want to find a way out of this without a protracted ground war, which would mean serious losses in blood and treasure. The below is the official latest White House position:

While Operation ⁠Midnight Hammer obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, Operation Epic Fury built on this success by decimating Iran’s defense industrial base that they ‌once leveraged as a protective shield around their pursuit of a nuclear weapon,” said White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales, referring ‌to the June operation and the latest war that began in February.

"President Trump has long been clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon – and he does not bluff."

But Iran has countered that it considers its enriched uranium stockpile a matter of national sovereignty, and will 'never' allow it to be transferred outside the country.

Next round of US-Israeli bombing being planned?

An Israeli official told CNN:

The coordination between Israel and the United States includes preparations for a round of strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure and senior officials.

“The intention is to carry out a short operation aimed at pressuring Iran to make further…

— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) May 5, 2026

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei two weeks ago denied reports at the time which said Tehran had agreed to transfer its highly enriched uranium abroad, saying "enriched uranium is sacred to us, as is Iranian soil." The Iranians have since repeatedly made clear that the issue is a non-starter, and wants to focus talks on opening Hormuz and ending the war.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 19:40

How A Musk Victory Vs. Altman Would Reset America's AI Roadmap

A courtroom victory for Elon Musk in his high-stakes federal trial against Sam Altman and OpenAI would deliver one of the most disruptive blows to the artificial intelligence sector in its brief but explosive history - potentially forcing the $850-billion-plus company to unwind its for-profit empire, ousting its top leaders, and handing Musk a symbolic and financial hammer to reshape the global race for AGI while weakening one of its fiercest competitors.

The case is now being argued in a federal courtroom in Oakland, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The trial opened on April 28 and entered its second week on Monday, when OpenAI president Greg Brockman took the stand and confirmed his personal stake in the company is worth roughly $30 billion. Musk's counsel returned to the figure more than a dozen times in two hours of questioning.

The Case

Musk co-founded OpenAI in late 2015 as a nonprofit and contributed roughly $38 million in its early years. He left the board in 2018. The following year, OpenAI created a capped-profit subsidiary to attract the capital that frontier AI now requires; Microsoft has since invested more than $13 billion. ChatGPT launched in November 2022. By 2025, OpenAI was preparing for what would have been one of the largest initial public offerings in history.

Musk sued in 2024. The original complaint contained twenty-six claims; only two survive - breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment - while the fraud claims were dismissed before trial. Microsoft is named as a co-defendant for allegedly aiding and abetting the breach, a detail often elided in summary coverage.

The remedies sought are unusually sweeping. Musk wants OpenAI's for-profit structure unwound and its assets returned to the nonprofit foundation. He wants Sam Altman and Brockman removed from leadership. And he is seeking up to $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft combined, with any award flowing directly to OpenAI's charitable arm rather than to Musk personally.

Structure of the Trial

Judge Gonzalez Rogers has bifurcated the proceedings into a liability phase, expected to conclude around May 21, and a separate remedies phase that would follow only if the defendants are found at fault. A nine-person jury sits during liability alone, and its verdict is advisory. Structural remedies - including any order to dissolve the for-profit subsidiary - fall solely to the judge.

This procedural detail matters more than it may appear. Coverage that casts the jury as the decisive actor misreads the case. The jury can shape narrative momentum and offer a finding the judge may weigh, but it cannot order OpenAI to unwind anything. Whatever the verdict, Gonzalez Rogers writes the remedy.

What a Musk Win Would Actually Mean

Setting aside the $150 billion headline - which is a ceiling, not a floor, and is divided across defendants - three concrete consequences would follow a substantive ruling against OpenAI.

The first is restructuring. A finding that the 2019 capped-profit conversion and its 2025 successor breached a charitable trust would, at minimum, force a reorganization placing the nonprofit foundation back in unambiguous control. The IPO would be delayed indefinitely, if not foreclosed. Investor returns would be capped or rewritten. Microsoft's roughly $13 billion stake, and the larger commitments that followed from Amazon, SoftBank, and Nvidia, would all face revaluation.

The second is leadership. Musk's complaint seeks the removal of Altman and Brockman. Whether the court orders that remedy in full is uncertain; partial governance reform is the likelier outcome. Either way, the result would be destabilizing for an organization whose competitive position rests substantially on the people at the top of it.

The third is precedent, and it may prove the most durable. A ruling for Musk would establish that nonprofit-to-commercial transitions in American technology can be reversed years after the fact, once the entity has grown large enough to be worth reversing. Founders, donors, and investors in mission-driven labs would have to reckon with a previously hypothetical risk: that the structure they signed up for is the structure they will be held to, indefinitely.

The Defense

OpenAI's response, articulated by lead counsel William Savitt, is that Musk himself supported a for-profit restructuring as early as 2017 - as long as he was placed in charge of it. When the other founders declined, he left, predicted the company's failure, and later launched a competitor. The obvious angle here is that the lawsuit is a delayed instrument of competitive harm rather than a vindication of charitable principle.

The defense will lean on contemporaneous evidence: Musk's own emails proposing for-profit structures; his instruction to associates to register a for-profit corporation in OpenAI's name; and Brockman's private journal, which Musk's team has used to suggest financial motive but which also records the founders' resistance to handing OpenAI to Musk.

What Remains

Several witnesses are still to come. Altman has not yet testified. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella is expected. Stuart Russell, the Berkeley computer scientist, will appear as Musk's expert on AI risk; the judge has already declined a request from Musk's counsel that Russell be permitted to range beyond his written report into extinction scenarios.

Two days before the trial began, Musk texted Brockman to gauge interest in settlement. When Brockman proposed mutual dismissal, Musk replied that he and Altman would be the most hated men in America by week's end. The judge declined to admit the exchange. No settlement has materialized.

The trial is expected to run another two to three weeks. The remedies phase, if it comes, will follow.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 18:00

ISO New England Trims 10-Year Forecast Based On Electrification Outlook

By Robert Walton of UtilityDive

Electricity consumption in New England will grow about 9% over the next decade, driven by electrification of buildings and vehicles, the region’s independent system operator said in an annual report published Friday. While significant, the rise in consumption is lower than its forecast in the two previous reports, reflecting changes in “government policy,” ISO New England said.

The “2026-2035 Forecast Report of Capacity, Energy, Loads, and Transmission,” or CELT report, estimates annual consumption will rise from 116,679 GWh this year to 127,660 GWh in 2035, an increase of about 0.9% annually.

In 2024, the ISO said it anticipated a 17% rise in annual energy use by 2033. In 2025, it reduced its 10-year outlook to an 11% rise by 2034.

The energy forecast “reflects more conservative assumptions around future adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps in light of government policy changes,” the ISO said in a blog post.

New England’s net annual energy use has trended downward since 2005, “mainly due to more efficient heating and cooling systems, appliances, and lighting,” as well as growth in behind-the-meter solar, the grid operator said. Now, it predicts “that trend will reverse over the next decade.”

“Steady growth in net annual energy use is expected as state policy goals for carbon emissions reductions continue to incentivize electrification of heating systems and transportation in the region,” the ISO said.

Notably, the ISO said sustained load growth means it will soon be a dual-peaking system.

While New England has typically seen electricity demand peak during the hot summer months, the addition of electric heating load means that by 2035, the ISO expects winter and summer peaks to be roughly the same, around 26.5 GW. ISO New England’s all-time peak of 28.1 GW was set in summer 2006.

The grid operator anticipates peak demand of 25.2 GW this summer and 20.5 GW this upcoming winter season.

Heating electrification is projected to contribute 5,533 MW to the winter peak in 2035/2036, ISO said, while transportation electrification is forecast to contribute 1,509 MW. In the ISO’s previous CELT report, it estimated electric vehicles would account for 1,764 MW of the winter peak in 2034/2035, while heating electrification was is expected to account for 4,765 MW that season.

The ISO said it revised its EV adoption forecast down to account for the removal of federal incentives and revisions to state policies and expectations for each vehicle class. Its heat pump forecast was similarly adjusted to account for expiring federal tax credits.

Behind-the-meter solar is forecast to have a growing impact on winter peak demand, reducing it by an expected 316 MW in 2035/2036, the ISO said in its latest report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 17:40

From DEI To Equal Protection: A New Direction In Civil Rights Policy

Authored by Kenin M. Spivak via RealClearPolitics,

The Trump administration is restoring the core value of equal opportunity to civil rights enforcement. It is eviscerating the race-baiting, intersectional policies of the Biden and Obama administrations, and giving substance to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (2025) that whites, men, and heterosexuals are not held to a higher standard in discrimination cases.

This is a time for rejoicing, tempered by concern that the administration will not have time to complete its work, and that its reliance on executive orders, rather than legislation and consent decrees, will allow the next Democratic president to rip asunder President Trump’s laudable accomplishments.

Despite more than a century of Supreme Court decisions forbidding discrimination on the basis of race, Democrats generally, and progressives specifically, have inverted President John F. Kennedy’s executive order establishing affirmative action. Intended to bring an end to discrimination because of race, creed, color, and national origin, progressives instead transformed affirmative action into a system of preferences based on melanin content, and absorbed this once hopeful construct into radical philosophies used to justify bias, including Critical Race Theory (CRT), intersectionality, disparate impact theory, and ultimately DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion).

They oppose Trump’s effort to dismantle their race-addled policies with every lever available to them. Ivy League universities have to be bludgeoned into enforcing equal rights. Blue city mayors continue their fight to sideline white males. Hollywood artists and programmers refuse to work for studios and tech companies that recognize political and legal realties. Liberal Supreme Court justices bemoan the majority’s refusal to rule based on the intersectional hierarchy of so-called “marginalized” minorities, and Obama- and Biden-appointed federal judges enjoin proper exercises of executive power.

CRT originated in the 1970s as a tortured rationale advocating that colorblind laws inevitably serve the interests of white people.

Intersectionality has become a cornerstone of CRT. Developed principally by Columbia Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, it utilizes a hierarchy of social oppression to allocate benefits and burdens, providing the doctrinal basis for DEI policies, transgender activism, and antisemitism. The latter shows the bankruptcy of the dogma: Despite hundreds of years of oppression, pogroms and the Holocaust, as a result of educational and business achievements, Jews are seen as powerful oppressors, while Palestinians and other Muslims are seen as marginalized minorities.

Disparate impact is a central tenet of progressive litigation strategy. Its premise that marginalized communities must receive their proportionate share of opportunities is the progenitor of the “equity” prong of DEI. Liability is established if there is a shortfall, regardless of whether that shortfall is caused by discrimination.

DEI is the fusion of these philosophies, a malevolent form of affirmative action that allocates benefits based on race, sex, and gender identity. To ensure pre-determined outcomes, progressive decisionmakers and courts have tampered with and eliminated entry exams, waived criminal background checks, and watered down academic, disciplinary, admissions, graduation, employment, and promotion standards.

In 2024, the Biden administration took a bow for more than 650 actions that required federal, state, and local government agencies and contractors to award and allocate burdens, opportunities, and benefits based on race, sex, and gender identification.

Progressives defended these manifestly unconstitutional and unlawful actions by claiming that while the words of the 14th Amendment, federal civil rights statutes, and President Johnson’s executive order on equal employment opportunity prohibit the use of race in government actions, their true meaning was the opposite – that race and other innate characteristics must be used to achieve outcomes based on these characteristics.

The Biden administration also targeted people of faith, with abuses ranging from FBI infiltration of Catholic churches to weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-life Americans. And it adopted rules requiring that universities treat biological males who identify as women as actual women, and ended due process for any grievances filed for allegedly violating their rights, or in sexual harassment cases. Respondents were denied notice, the right to examine the complainant, or a right of appeal. The university investigator was permitted to serve as the hearing officer.

Progressives justified the administration’s attack on religion, female athletes, and due process as necessary to protect the rights of marginalized minorities.

Underscoring the left’s situational ethics, as the Biden administration embarked on a whole-of-government censorship enterprise to silence its critics, the ACLU abandoned its 100-year commitment to free speech, declaring that speech that denigrates marginalized groups can “inflict serious harms and is intended to and often will impede progress toward equality.”

Upon taking office for his second term, President Trump revoked Biden’s executive orders impacting race, sex, and gender. He issued orders prohibiting DEI, other race-based programs, and disparate impact in federal government hiring, promotion, and contracting; terminated federal employees hired for the Biden administration’s massive DEI apparatus; and ordered “appropriate action” to pressure K-12 schools into abandoning race-based disciplinary policies. He rescinded an executive order that required federal contractors to utilize affirmative action in their hiring practices.

Rejecting intersectionality, Trump issued orders tying federal funding to elimination of extreme gender ideology, proclaiming, “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” and protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation – positions belatedly adopted by leading medical organizations. He also ordered the Department of Education to take all appropriate action to keep biological men out of women’s sports.

Trump directed federal agencies to improve security vetting for international students and to prioritize civil rights protections for Jewish students. He eliminated collection and publication of data used in a misguided effort to claim that environmental harms targeted minorities because manufacturing facilities are concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods, and he issued an order to pressure the Smithsonian Institution to restore balance to its depiction of American history.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Harmeet Dhillon and Education Department under Linda McMahon launched enforcement actions against Ivy league universities to protect Jewish students and restore viewpoint diversity. The Justice Department also commenced investigations, filed and intervened in lawsuits, and reached settlements with public and private institutions to protect Americans of all backgrounds and faiths – just last week forcing Colorado to abandon a law that favors AI algorithms that promote “diversity.” It investigated the Biden administration’s weaponization of the FACE Act, issued an 882-page report exposing the abuses, and eliminated them. The Education Department ordered universities to bring back due process in university grievance procedures.

The left is vigorously fighting back. Universities have slyly rebranded DEI offices, legal challenges have been filed against Trump’s executive orders and related regulations, Democrat-appointed judges have issued injunctions, and Democratic Party officials have doubled down on racial and gender politics. For the most part, the administration has prevailed in lower courts or secured stays of adverse rulings pending appeals.

Some progressives support intersectionality, disparate impact, and DEI to harm straight white Americans. Many are so caught up in innate characteristics that they believe individual opportunity and fairness is determined at a group level, while other progressives delude themselves into believing they can choose winners without creating losers. The administration must hold firm against the left’s vitriolic counterattacks. As Donald Trump restores the American dream of equal opportunity, his challenge with just eight months until the probable loss of the Republican legislative majority is to create enduring change, rather than an interregnum in progressive rule.

Kenin M. Spivak is founder and chairman of SMI Group LLC, an international consulting firm and investment bank. He is the author of fiction and non-fiction books and a frequent speaker and contributor to media, including RealClearPolitics, The American Mind, National Review, television, radio, and podcasts.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 17:00

Alberta Separatists Say They Have Enough Signatures To Force Referendum On Leaving Canada

A group pushing for Alberta to break free from Canada announced Monday that it has submitted nearly double the number of signatures required to force a referendum -- which could come as early as October. While Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opposes independence, she has assured Albertans that she will not try to thwart a referendum if the signature hurdle were cleared.  

A signature in support of an independence referendum is collected atop a mountain in Alberta (via Stay Free Alberta)

Triggering a referendum requires 178,000 signatures, but the separatist organization Stay Free Alberta says it amassed more than 301,000. As in the United States, referendum organizers usually aim to far overshoot the required number so as to survive challenges on the validity of individual signatures.

On Monday, the group's leader, Mitch Sylvestre descended on Alberta's election offices in Edmonton with the petitions, aboard a convoy seven trucks strong. Celebrating the accomplishment, he likened it to Canada's favorite sport. “This day is historic in Alberta history,” he said. “It’s the first step to the next step — we’ve gotten by Round 3 and now we’re in the Stanley Cup final.”

Despite Sylvestre's triumphalism, the independence drive could hit a snag this week, as a judge may rule on a challenge of the referendum filed by a First Nations group. That term is used to describe indigenous people who are not Inuit or Métis. Their legal challenge centers on the claim that Albertan independence would deny them privileges afforded them by treaties. The verification of referendum-support signatures has been stayed pending the decision. However, Stay Free Alberta attorney Jeff Rath said these are mere speed bumps. "As far as we're concerned, whatever the court does or whatever Elections Alberta does at this point is meaningless,” he told CBC, given the premier can't ignore more than 300,000 signatures.  

Alberta has been on the wrong end of a Canadian policy called "Equalization" -- a more palatable term than what it should be called: "Wealth Redistribution." According to the Canadian government's official description, Equalization "address[es] fiscal disparities among provinces." It does so by distributing the fiscal fruits of federal taxation to provinces in such a way that poorer provinces get more money than more-prosperous ones. Alberta is easily Canada's best-off province on a per-capita basis. 

Alberta (AB) is easily Canada's wealthiest province, and sees its wealth redistributed throughout the country under the "Equalization" scheme (via Canadian government)

A victory for the "yes" side of the referendum won't guarantee independence, as more legal challenges will certainly sprout up, to say nothing of the thorny negotiations with the Canadian government that would be required -- negotiations that could be slow-walked by Albertan leaders who aren't enthused about breaking away.  

For those and other reasons, some who support independence are wary of how the referendum will play out. For example, even if the pro-independence side prevails, the waters could be muddied by the results of concurrent referendum questions. Writing at the Brownstone Institute earlier this year, Bruce Pardy painted a picture: 

If voters support independence but also other constitutional changes, what do they mean? Which should be pursued first? Which is the last resort? What if voters support independence but also support Alberta having the right to opt out of federal programs while retaining federal funding? Both of those things cannot happen. One requires that Alberta be a province, and the other requires that it not be. Any referendum result that requires interpretation is not clear.

A pro-unity group called Forever Canadian has been active too, racking up more than 400,000 signatures on a petition that asked, "Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?” Meanwhile, polls show an uphill climb for the separatists, with huge differences between United Conservative Party and New Democratic Party voters: 

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 16:40

AMD Dumps & Pumps (To New Record High) After Beat-And-Raise

Just wow...

AMD shares initially puked after results dropped showing top- and bottom-line beats:

• EPS: $1.37 vs. $1.29 adjusted expected

• Revenue: $10.25 billion vs. $9.89 billion expected

But now they are exploding higher after the second-largest AI chipmaker raised estimates:

• For the second quarter, AMD said it expects about $11.2 billion in revenue, versus expectations of $10.52 billion, according to LSEG

That is a new record high...

Revenue jumped 38% from $7.44 billion a year ago, the company said in a release on Tuesday, beating in every segment...

• Data center revenue $5.78 billion, +57% y/y, estimate $5.61 billion

• Gaming revenue $720 million, +11% y/y, estimate $668.6 million

• Client revenue $2.89 billion, +26% y/y, estimate $2.73 billion

• Embedded revenue $873 million, +6.1% y/y, estimate $868.4 million

“Looking ahead, we expect server growth to accelerate meaningfully as we scale supply to meet demand,” Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su said in the statement.

“We delivered an outstanding first quarter, driven by accelerating demand for AI infrastructure, with data center now the primary driver of our revenue and earnings growth.”

Oh and in case you didn't see enough beats...

• Capital expenditure $389 million, +83% y/y, estimate $215.2 million

• Adjusted operating income $2.54 billion, +43% y/y, estimate $2.41 billion

• Adjusted operating margin 25% vs. 24% y/y, estimate 24.3%

• Free cash flow $2.57 billion vs. $727 million y/y, estimate $2.35 billion

• R&D expenses $2.40 billion, +39% y/y, estimate $2.26 billion

Tonight's gains come AFTER AMD's stock has more than tripled over the past year, including a 66% jump so far in 2026.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 16:29

NIH Virologist Vincent Munster Caught Smuggling Deadly Viruses Into U.S., FBI Investigating

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

Since the COVID pandemic landed on American shores in early 2020, virologists and allied science writers have engaged in a vociferous propaganda campaign to deny the dangers of virus experiments. When Nature Magazine published a 2021 article minimizing a Wuhan lab accident as the pandemic’s cause, science writer Amy Maxmen quoted Vincent Munster, a virologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in Montana.

Munster told Nature’s Maxmen that there was nothing suspicious about a novel coronavirus popping up in the same city as the Wuhan Institute of Virology which was studying coronaviruses. Labs tend to specialize in the specific viruses found around them, Munster explained, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology focuses on coronaviruses because many circulate in China and neighboring countries.

“Nine out of ten times, when there’s a new outbreak, you’ll find a lab that will be working on these kinds of viruses nearby,” Munster told Nature.

Well, kind of. Sort of. But really not.

In fact, virologists regularly collect viruses from far away countries and bring them back to their own cities to study. And according to emails I have seen that are now circulating inside the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), one of those virologists is the NIH’s Vincent Munster.

“We are unable to comment as this is under investigation,” wrote HHS spokesperson, Andrew Nixon in an email. “So we will refer you to the FBI.”

When contacted about their investigation into Munster and his NIH researcher, the FBI press office replied by email, “We decline to comment.”

While on a trip back from the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this year, Munster and a scientist in his NIH lab were pulled aside for an airport security inspection. Inside their luggage, one of the two had a hard-shelled protective case used to transport sensitive property such as electronics and firearms. When the protective case was opened, it was found to contain pathogen samples collected from patients.

However, the human pathogens, which included monkeypox virus, may have been inactivated by reagents and rendered no longer infectious.

Munster and his NIH research fellow Claude Kwe Yinda published a February study in a Lancet journal that cited monkeypox as a global threat. Without any hint of irony, they warned about “multiple travel-associated cases reported since 2024, including seven in the USA.” The Democratic Republic of Congo has been considered the global epicenter of monkeypox virus, with over 100,000 cases as of October last year.

HHS regulates monkeypox as a “select agent”—microorganisms and toxins that pose a severe threat to public safety. Federal programs control their possession and use, while Department of Transportation regulations manage their shipment and transport.

Munster and his lab scientist did not have paperwork required by law to transport deadly pathogens from Africa to his NIH lab in Montana. Both NIH scientists were placed on leave. Contact information for both Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe Yinda have been removed from the HHS employment directory.

Last year, the Department of Justice charged two Chinese nationals with criminal conspiracy for smuggling a dangerous plant fungus through a Detroit airport so they could study it in a lab at the University of Michigan.

Munster did not return repeated requests for comment sent to his NIH email asking him to explain if the monkeypox and potentially other viruses he was transporting had been inactivated or were still infectious. According to his bio at NIH’s Rocky Mountain Labs in Montana, Munster has field study sites in the Republic of the Congo to study Ebola virus with collaborators at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Laboratoire National de Santé Publique in Brazzaville.

Rocky Mountain Labs is an integral part of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the institute once led by Tony Fauci. The Montana facility has a BSL-4 lab where virologists study the world’s most deadly viruses including Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa Fever.

Andrea Marzi, the Acting Chief of Virology at Rocky Mountain Labs, did not return emails asking if the monkeypox and other possible viruses Munster was transporting had been inactivated or were still infectious. Nor did she reply to requests asking if Munster’s lab had been secured.

Senator Rand Paul sent the NIAID director a letter two years ago regarding Munster, who was listed as a partner for a project called DEFUSE that was submitted in 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As part of DEFUSE proposal to DARPA, virologists planned to engineer novel viruses by taking the backbone of a bat virus and inserting a spike protein with a furin cleavage site. A furin cleavage site allows viruses to infect the cells of human lungs.

DARPA denied funding for DEFUSE, but the following year, a novel bat virus with a furin cleavage site began infecting humans in Wuhan. No other virus closely related to the COVID virus has this furin cleavage site.

Shortly after the COVID virus began infecting Americans, Columbia University virologist Vincent Racaniello sent Munster an alarming February 2020 email, saying he had heard that the new COVID virus had a furin cleavage site “that might have been engineered.”

“If true this is very bad for all of virology research,” Racaniell wrote to Munster.

“And the fun begins,” replied Munster.

The news about Munster hits during an especially hard media cycle for virologists. I reported last week for RealClearInvestigations that the federal government had quietly removed University of North Carolina virologist Ralph Baric from all his NIH grants; UNC also placed Baric on leave. A senior HHS official, who reviewed the government’s classified material, told me that UNC is terrified the public will learn that they were complicit in starting the COVID pandemic.

“Baric designed the gun,” he said. “But the Chinese built it, and then they pulled the trigger.”

That same day, the Department of Justice indicted Tony Fauci’s senior advisor, David Morens, for concealing federal records concerning funding for virus research during the COVID pandemic. The indictment listed Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance as “CO-CONSPIRATOR 1” and Boston University virologist Gerald Keusch as “CO-CONSPIRATOR 2.”

Last month, I reported on newly unearthed emails that show Morens, Daszak, and Keusch plotted against me for writing a 2021 investigation for the BMJ that concluded virologists had conspired in a misinformation campaign to cover up a possible Wuhan lab accident as the COVID pandemic’s cause.

In emails discussing me and my 2021 article, Keusch asked Morens and Daszak if they knew how to get in contact with former BMJ editor Peter Smith to complain. Daszak emailed back that contacting the BMJ about me was “a really good move” as my reporting was “pretty offensive stuff.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 16:20

Trump Pauses Project Freedom Amid "Great Progress" Towards 'Complete & Final' Agreement With Iran Summary

• Trump announce 'pause' to Project Freedom amid optimism of a "complete and final" deal with Iran; French ship confirmed hit in cruise missile attack, crew members injured

• Rubio declares 'offensive' actions of Operation Epic Fury are over, and now Project Freedom is in swing. Another vessel comes under attack in Hormuz.

• UAE under attack again, confirmed in state sources - however which Iran denies doing - instead saying its actions were directed at the United States. White House still hasn't declared end of ceasefire.

• Pentagon addresses whether ceasefire over or violated: Caine says Iran's Monday operations were "all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point."

• Contradictory statements out of Tehran on UAE attack, amid reports of division between IRGC & civilian leaders.

• Two US Navy destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf.

• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travels to Beijing to discuss crisis with Chinese counterpart.

The odds of a peace deal being completed just jumped...

*  *  *

Trump Pauses Project Freedom

There is a knee-jerk wave of optimism across assets with WTI crude futures lower, US equity contracts and Treasury futures higher after President Trump said Project Freedom will be paused.

Trump also said there is progress toward a final agreement with Iran which is what investors really want to see as it could potentially mean a reopening of Hormuz. 

Trump statement on his TruthSocial feed (emphasis and spacing ours):

Based on the request of Pakistan and other Countries, the tremendous Military Success that we have had during the Campaign against the Country of Iran and, additionally...

...the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran...

...we have mutually agreed that, while the Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed. 

WTI crude futures are testing back below $100...

Polymarket odds of Hormuz traffic returning to normal has jumped to better than a coin-flip...

Don't hold your breath though as there have been several false starts of this kind before, and traders will soon lose faith unless there are more details from the Iranian side.

Additionally late Tuesday, a French cargo ship was confirmed hit in a missile attack, injuring crew members:

A cargo ship in the Gulf region was hit by a possible land-attack cruise missile, causing several injuries among the ship's Filipino crew, two U.S. officials told CBS News.

The hit on the CGM San Antonio — which is owned by a French firm — took place late Tuesday evening local time, the officials said. The ship was near Dubai as of midday on Tuesday, but it is not clear whether the vessel has moved since then, according to public ship tracking data.

Rubio Declares Conflict in New Stage

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced Tuesday afternoon that offensive stage of Iran war is 'over'. He further said that ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz are facing a humanitarian crisis and accused Iran of holding the world hostage by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is denying that it attacked the United Arab Emirates, with the foreign ministry saying its 'defensive actions' were 'exclusively directed at the U.S.'

Operation Epic Fury is over, now Project Freedom.

The remarks were issued just as a new attack is unfolding on a foreign cargo ship in the strategic waterway:

UKMTO WARNING 055-26

Click here to read the full warning⤵️https://t.co/J5B2EilFQE#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/EGcKTpsHtN

— UKMTO Operations Centre (@UK_MTO) May 5, 2026

Reaction in oil...

...as the goalposts keep shifting:

BREAKING: REPORTER: But 10 weeks in, are we any closer to get rid of Iran's nuclear materials?

RUBIO: They no longer have a conventional shield. They have no Navy left. They don't have an Air Force. That's a very substantial achievement. That was the purpose of this. pic.twitter.com/bD33XPARVH

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) May 5, 2026

Trump Asked Whether Ceasefire is Dead

A revealing exchange in the Oval Office strongly suggests that even amid a second Iranian attack wave on the UAE Tuesday, the White House is unwilling to say that the ceasefire has collapsed - also given there's yet been no direct exchange of fire between US and Iranian forces: 

President Trump, taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, would not specify what Iran would need to do to violate the cease-fire. Asked by a reporter what would constitute a violation, considering that the country has fired on U.S. ships several times, Trump said: “Well, you’ll find out, because I’ll let you know.”

He added that “they know what to do,” and “they know what not to do, more importantly.”

Earlier the Pentagon clearly indicated that the ceasefire is still active, from Washington's point of view. 

The Iranian government is meanwhile trying to bat down rumors of a division between the presidency and the IRGC/military apparatus.

Second UAE Attack Wave Active

The country's Ministry of Defense has just released official statement of inbound projectiles out of Iran:

• The UAE's air defenses are currently dealing with missile and drone attacks originating from Iran.
• The Ministry of Defense confirms that the sounds heard in scattered areas of the country are the result of the UAE's air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.
• UAE Air Defences system are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats MOD asserts that the sounds heard across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations of missiles and UAV's

Air defense systems are currently responding to a missile threat. Please remain in a safe location and follow official channels for warnings and updates. pic.twitter.com/1srVYlQgI0

— NCEMA UAE (@NCEMAUAE) May 5, 2026

There are meanwhile reports of explosions being heard on Iran's Qeshm Island, and questions raised about scenes like the following:

Fire at a commercial complex in Andisheh, #Iran, which is in Tehran Province. pic.twitter.com/JxSwgSoRng

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) May 5, 2026

Is Ceasefire Over? Pentagon Answers Definitively 

In the Tuesday morning Pentagon presser led by War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine stated very clearly that the US views Monday's escalation (the attack on UAE and some vessels in the Strait of Hormuz) as actions which are "all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point."

The Trump administration has argued that it doesn't have to seek congressional approval to continue military operations beyond a 60-day limit because there is a ceasefire in effect. But the question raised Monday is: does the fresh Iranian cross-Gulf mark the end of ceasefire? Clearly the Pentagon and Trump administration are saying no. "No adversary should mistake our current restraint for a lack of resolve," Caine then emphasized.

The ceasefire with Iran is not over, according to U.S. Secretary of War Hegseth.

Project Freedom is "separate and distinct” from Operation Epic Fury, Hegseth added.

The Iranian fire is recent days was described as "harassing" and "below the threshold of restarting major combat…

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) May 5, 2026

Below are some of the latest top developments from various MSM sources:

—Trump’s desire to end the Iran war is being put to the test after Tehran fired at American warships on Monday and violently disrupted a U.S. effort to revive shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Still, Trump wants to avoid a fresh bombing campaign, officials say, preferring a negotiated end to Tehran’s nuclear advancements and the weekslong war that has raised gas prices and hurt the global economy. (WSJ)

—U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year. The unchanged timeline suggests that significantly impeding Tehran's nuclear program may require destroying or removing Iran's remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium. (RTRS)

—Trump says war could stretch 3 more weeks, claims US 'already won.’ (ABC)

Below: Pentagon slide in Tuesday's briefing showing Iranian attacks on Hormuz shipping: "Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships since the ceasefire was announced" (Gen. Caine).

And this puts things in perspective...

In a Pentagon briefing, top U.S. General
Dan Caine says Iranian attacks on shipping and U.S. vessels is currently below the threshold of restarting major combat operations. (This included 9 attacks on commercial vessels and 10 against U.S. forces) pic.twitter.com/CU0gQVSvzJ

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) May 5, 2026

Internal Iranian Schism Over Monday UAE Attacks(?)

There's a lot of chatter that Iran's civilian government and the IRGC are at direct odds over Monday's attack on UAE, which resulted in a large blaze at the Fujairah oil facility and the three injured Indian nationals. Al Jazeera for example observes:

By targeting the facility, Iran is sending a direct message to UAE saying: “We can target your most important economic points even if you think you can get around the Strait of Hormuz,” said Turak.

Iran’s government has not confirmed or denied responsibility for the attack. Turak noted there are "quite contradictory" statements coming out of Iran, however.

And Saudi-funded Iran International claims the following dramatic schism and internal rupture over the risky cross-Gulf operation, which could signal the end of the ceasefire (though curiously President Trump himself has not said it is broken):

Exclusive information obtained by Iran International points to a growing clash between Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and its military leadership over Monday’s escalation in the Persian Gulf and attacks on the United Arab Emirates.

According to sources familiar with Tehran’s deliberations, Pezeshkian has expressed strong anger at actions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, led by Ahmad Vahidi, describing missile and drone strikes on the UAE as “completely irresponsible” and carried out without the government’s knowledge or coordination.

Pezeshkian is said to have described the IRGC’s approach to escalating tensions with regional countries as “madness,” warning of potentially irreversible consequences.

This certainly isn't the first time that Iran International, a London-based publication seen as also 'close' to Israeli intelligence, has alleged severe internal division in Iran's wartime decision-making, but the viewpoint is beginning to be echoed and reported on more broadly.

Two US Navy Destroyers Successfully Transit Strait

To review of Monday's major escalation, US Central Command said its forces had intercepted missiles targeting US Navy and commercial vessels, and also said American helicopters sank six small Iranian boats that officials said were targeting civilian vessels under American protection.

And also came a big milestone in terms of Washington aims to enforce Trump's newly announced Project Freedom plan to provide military escort for ships through Hormuz. Two US Navy destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf on Monday and overnight after navigating an Iranian barrage, according to defense officials.

CBS reports, "The USS Truxtun and USS Mason, supported by Apache helicopters and other aircraft, faced a series of coordinated threats during the passage, the defense officials said. Iran launched small boats, missiles and drones against them in what officials described as a sustained barrage." The report underscores further that "Despite the intensity of the attacks, neither U.S. vessel was struck."

Apaches, Centcom handout 'No Military Solution'

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has issued an interesting statement decrying Trump's attempt at escalation in Hormuz, warning that there's no “military solution” to the crisis, while warning the US, UAE, and other regional countries against being drawn into a “quagmire” in the region.

"Events in Hormuz make clear that there’s no military solution to a political crisis," Araghchi wrote on X. "As talks are making progress with Pakistan’s gracious effort, the US should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers. So should the UAE. Project Freedom is Project Deadlock," to top Iranian diplomat asserted.

Also of note is that Araghchi will travel to Beijing on Tuesday for discussions with his Chinese counterpart. "During the visit he will meet his Chinese counterpart [Wang Yi] to discuss bilateral ties and regional and international developments," Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Below: Graham says you either pay now or you pay later. “They tried to get a nuclear weapon. If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive.”

Lindsey Graham says Americans deserve higher gas prices because many doubted Iran was going to get a nuclear weapon.

Graham says you either pay now or you pay later.

“They tried to get a nuclear weapon. If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive.” https://t.co/1dDx1PVACv pic.twitter.com/Uma2pETYt7

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) May 5, 2026

Officially at least, Beijing has a policy of "noninterference" in other countries’ internal affairs, and has claimed to not be involved in the Iran conflict - while Washington has consistently accused China of providing intelligence to Tehran, and even possibly military hardware or weapons.

Elsewhere in the region, South Korea’s presidential secretary Choi Soung-ah says "the safety of international maritime routes and freedom of navigation should be protected under international law" and that Seoul is "watching President Trump’s remark related to this," according Reuters. This after ann explosion and fire on a South Korean-operated ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, which Trump blamed on an Iranian attack.

More Geopolitical Developments

via Newsquawk...

•  US President Trump said Iran war could go on for another two to three weeks; time is not of the essence.
• IRGC military source told Tasnim that the US shot two small boats carrying civilians instead of shooting IRGC speedboats.
• "Iranian Defense Council member Ali Akbar Ahmadian: Our security does not accept negotiations, and Washington obstructed global navigation and energy security", Al Jazeera reported.
• Iranian President Pezeshkian has requested an immediate and emergency meeting with Supreme Leader Khamenei to ask him to stop IRGC attacks on Persian Gulf nations and prevent a recurrence, Iran International reported.
• Pezeshkian reportedly outlined that the IRGC attack on the UAE occurred without the knowledge of the government.
• US intelligence suggests strikes from the start of the war led to limited new damage to Iran's nuclear programme, Reuters sources say.
• US State Department official to Al Jazeera said the President is clear that direct communication between Israel and Lebanon is the best path toward peace; We are working to prepare the necessary conditions and political momentum to move forward with this
• Two US Navy destroyers transited the Strait of Hormuz and entered the Persian Gulf after navigating an Iranian barrage, according to defense officials who spoke to CBS News; "Iran launched small boats, missiles and drones against them".
• Maersk (MAERSKB DC) said its subsidiary's US-flagged vehicle carrier, Alliance Fairfax, exited the Gulf via Strait of Hormuz on May 4th.
• US Treasury Secretary Bessent had a "fierce row" with UK Chancellor Reeves last month over her outspoken criticism of the Iranian war, FT sources say.
• US CENTCOM posted "US warships and aircraft deployed to the Middle East are enforcing the naval blockade against Iran while executing Project Freedom to support the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.".
• US officials say military closer to resuming combat operations than 24 hours ago, Fox reported.
• US President Trump reiterates he feels Europe has been "very disappointing".
• Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi posted "As talks are making progress with Pakistan's gracious effort, the US should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers. So should the UAE.".
• Full post:"Events in Hormuz make clear that there's no military solution to a political crisis. As talks are making progress with Pakistan's gracious effort, the U.S. should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers. So should the UAE.Project Freedom is Project Deadlock.".
• Mehr News Agency said a fire broke out in two commercial ships and spread to two others in Dayyer port south of Iran; cause not clear.
• "Explosions were heard tonight in the port of Bandar Abbas (Iran) and on Qassem Island (Iran) in the Persian Gulf", N12 journalist reported citing sources in Iran.
• IRGC political deputy said traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will only be done with Iran's permission, ISNA reported; "Any kind of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, if it is from the enemy, will be met with a decisive and crushing response".
• Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ghalibaf said the new equation of the Strait of Hormuz is being solidified.
• Actions of the US and allies have threatened the security of shipping and energy.
• UNSC resolution prepared by the US, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait opens the door for potential enforcement measures, AsharqNews reported citing the resolution "to be distributed tomorrow".

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 16:00

From DOJ To Ballot Box: The Rise Of Lawfare Candidates

Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClearInvestigations,

One of the beneficiaries of Virginia’s aggressive attempt to gerrymander the state for Democratic advantage could be a former federal prosecutor whose campaign for Congress hinges on his efforts to use the law to target President Trump and his supporters.

When a slim majority of Virginia voters gave the legislature authority last month to create congressional districts that could give Democrats a 10-1 advantage, J.P. Cooney cheered the outcome in a message on social media, boasting that the new district he was running in had been drawn “expressly for the purpose of standing up to Donald Trump’s and MAGA’s corruption.”

Although the fate of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District remains unclear – a state judge immediately blocked the measure, and the issue is expected to end up before the Supreme Court – Cooney’s candidacy represents a small but growing wave of former prosecutors who are running on their anti-Trump bona fides. So far, at least two other former Justice Department officials are seeking office by touting their work against the president, his supporters, and his current administration. All are running as Democrats.

J.P. Cooney is hoping to ride the anti-Trump credentials he accrued as a federal prosecutor to Congress. LinkedIn

To their supporters, these candidates represent a principled stand against what they see as the lawless excesses of the Trump administration. To many Republicans, the entry of supposedly neutral federal prosecutors into the brass knuckle world of politics confirms their suspicions that the DOJ is filled with partisans who used their power to target the president and the MAGA movement in general. 

Ryan Crosswell, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, resigned from his position as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York last year, after the Justice Department sought to drop the indictment against then New York City Mayor Eric Adams on corruption charges. Crosswell’s superiors decided the case should be dropped over evidence suggesting the Biden DOJ had targeted the mayor because he was a vocal critic of the administration’s immigration policies.

In what has become a popular tactic by anti-Trump DOJ lawyers, Crosswell issued a public resignation letter: “I cannot fathom how anyone would do this to the public servants he is supposed to be leading. And the damage done was not limited to two offices – it appalled prosecutors throughout the Department and our alumni.”

In his video announcement, Crosswell showed a clip of Trump walking into a courthouse (followed by now acting Attorney General Todd Blanche) and denounced the president for forcing prosecutors to “drop a case against one of his friends.” (It is unclear whether Adams is actually a “friend” of Trump’s.)

In Minneapolis, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Le is using her opposition to Trump’s immigration policies in her bid to replace another fierce Trump critic, Rep. Ilhan Omar, in the Democratic primary. Le gained national attention in February when she had a meltdown before the judge. “What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need,” Le said, referring to the DOJ’s overwhelming caseload. Le also told the judge, “We have no guidance or direction on what we need to do.”

Impeccable Anti-Trump Credentials

Le was quickly fired. She told the Washington Post that “she had never voted for Trump and opposed his brash enforcement style.” While Croswell and Le are hoping their anti-Trump credentials will help usher them into office, their record of resistance pales in comparison to Cooney’s, whose record of anti-Trump activity goes back a decade. 

Cooney – a Notre Dame grad where he served as the president of the College Democrats club before earning a law degree at the University of Virginia – launched his campaign in a crowded field by boasting about his key role in several anti-Trump prosecutions pursued by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith between 2021 and 2025. After Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith as special counsel in November 2022, Cooney became his top deputy in the DOJ’s Jan. 6, 2021-related indictment against the president in Washington. They pushed for a quick trial before Election Day. Cooney also successfully sought a gag order against the president one year before the 2024 presidential election, banning the president from making any public statements about potential witnesses in the case, which included former administration officials such as Vice President Mike Pence and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who were at the time criticizing Trump’s plan to again run for office.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who sought ot prosecute Trump on multiple fronts, has endorsed Cooney. AP

Cooney, then chief of the fraud and public corruption section of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, drafted the initial plan for how the DOJ could pursue Trump, as well as several figures and organizations who had participated in the events of Jan. 6. But Cooney’s plan was so aggressive, according to a 2023 Washington Post article, that it alarmed top FBI and DOJ officials and was immediately scuttled.

Trump fired Cooney shortly after Inauguration Day.

The J6 case against the president was dropped after Trump won the 2024 election, but Cooney wants to finish the job. “We have the evidence to convict this president,” Cooney said, pointing to the White House, in one social media post. “That justice can still come.” Cooney also insists that if Trump hadn’t “escaped trials by winning the election,” the president right now “would be in prison.”

“Cooney was the mastermind of the J6 case against the president,” John Lauro, the president’s trial counsel in the J6 case in Washington, told RealClearInvestigations. “Smith and Cooney used the sacred powers of the DOJ against Trump and political movement. Now we see the ultimate fruition of that with Cooney running for office as a far left Democrat and to use his experience as a persecutor against Trump to get an advantage in the far left wing of the Democratic party.” 

Jack Smith Endorsement

Jack Smith is endorsing his longtime colleague – the pair worked together at the Obama DOJ’s public integrity unit – calling Cooney “a man of integrity who has committed his career to upholding the rule of law, and he’s the model of who our country needs in public service.”

The president and congressional Republicans disagree. Cooney is currently the subject of both House and Senate investigations for allegedly abusing his authority at the DOJ to pursue Trump and his allies. During an April 21 hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley accused Cooney and other former Biden DOJ officials of “literally trying to destroy” the country; Grassley, an Iowa Republican, released an extensive trove of text messages and emails between Cooney and Molly Gaston, his co-counsel in the J6 case against Trump.

Sen. Chuck Grassley has accused Cooney and other former Biden DOJ officials of “literally trying to destroy” the country. AP

Immediately following the events of Jan. 6, Cooney worked with Gaston to also investigate a handful of Republican House members for allegedly conducting “reconnaissance tours” on Jan. 5. That accusation was made by then Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherill, now the governor of New Jersey. Sherill claimed groups of individuals, some perhaps tied to Republican lawmakers, were walking inside the Capitol the day before the protest in an effort to scope out the building.

In a Jan. 16, 2021, text to Gaston, Cooney said he believed the “tour/map thing has legs.” He stated that Sherill’s allegations “made perfect sense” to him. “I am fairly confident that we are going to put a map or some other information relevant to coordinated activity in the hands of an extremist group and trace it back to a congressional office.”

Gaston replied, “yep.” A week later, the FBI Washington field office opened “Operation Rampart Twelve” to investigate Sherill’s accusations; the inquiry initially focused on Reps. Lauren Boebert and Paul Gosar based on groups of individuals walking near each representative on Jan. 5, 2021. (Sherril also made a similar allegation against Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who was cleared by Capitol Police after a separate investigation.)

FBI headquarters closed “Operation Rampart Twelve” a year later, after finding no evidence to support Cooney’s claims.

Cooney’s anti-Trump fingerprints stretch from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to “Arctic Frost,” the Biden DOJ’s investigation into Trump and hundreds of Republican organizations, donors, and officeholders for the so-called “fake electors” plan. Emails released last year by Grassley’s committee showed Cooney’s central role in obtaining the toll records of several Republican members of Congress related to the probe.

Cooney's team prosecuted Roger Stone for lies and obstruction in connection with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russiagate probe. AP

“It’s impossible to buy Democrats’ claim that Arctic Frost was a nonpartisan, by-the-book investigation when Jack Smith’s top henchman is now openly campaigning as a Democrat and running on a platform of impeaching President Trump,” a spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee told RCI. “Cooney’s campaign is saying the quiet part out loud. Arctic Frost was never about justice – it was always about using the federal justice system to take down President Trump and the Republican Party. Thanks to Chairman Grassley’s oversight, which has exposed the Biden administration’s internal records, Americans are seeing the dark reality of the weaponized Arctic Frost investigation.”

But three ongoing federal criminal investigations into the president, a year before the 2024 election, were not enough for Cooney. A few months before Smith handed down his first indictment against the president in Florida for allegedly taking classified documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, Cooney wanted to open yet another line of inquiry into Trump’s involvement in a song produced by the so-called “J6 Prison Choir,” a group of inmates detained at a special prison in Washington. Cooney wanted to know whether Trump was profiting from sales of the song. “Can we do some work on this to nail down Trump’s role in this?” Cooney wrote to his colleagues at the special counsel's office in March 2023, referring to a Forbes article about the project.

“The special counsel’s team was filled with inbred ideologues,” Lauro said 

Excessive Sentences, False Rumors

After longtime Trump confidant Steve Bannon was found guilty by a D.C. jury in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress, Cooney sought excessive prison time for Bannon’s refusal to cooperate with the Select January 6 Committee. He filed a 24-page sentencing memo for two misdemeanors that are rarely, if ever, prosecuted in the nation’s capital; he asked Judge Carl Nichols to send Bannon to prison for six months and pay a $200,000 fine. “The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 did not just attack a building – they assaulted the rule of law upon which this country was built and through which it endures. By flouting the Select Committee’s subpoena and its authority, [Bannon] exacerbated that assault,” Cooney wrote.

Nichols sentenced Bannon to four months in prison and imposed a $6,500 fine.

It was another sentencing request in a separate Trump-related case that offended both the DOJ’s inspector general and House Republicans. Cooney was part of the government’s team prosecuting Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, for allegedly interfering in the bogus Russia collusion investigation. Just like Bannon, Stone was found guilty by a D.C. jury of all charges, including obstruction and making false statements.

Cooney attempted to throw the book at Stone, asking for a sentence of between seven and nine years in prison. But the following day, Cooney’s boss at the office, who had already sparred with Cooney over what he saw as an excessive sentencing request, filed a separate sentencing recommendation, informing Judge Amy Berman Jackson that the initial memo “does not accurately reflect the Department of Justice’s position on what would be a reasonable sentence in this matter.” 

That prompted Cooney, according to then-DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, to start rumors claiming President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr had intervened to help Stone obtain a lower sentence. A report issued in 2024 by Horowitz, following an extensive investigation into the Stone sentencing controversy, “did not identify documentary or testimonial evidence that the actions and decisions of those involved in the preparation and filing of the first and second sentencing memoranda were affected by improper political considerations or influence.” House Judiciary Chairman James Jordan subsequently opened a congressional investigation into Cooney’s false claims of political interference in the matter.

While serving as the DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz found that Cooney had spread false rumors about Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr. AP

Attempts to reach Cooney’s and Crosswell’s campaigns were unsuccessful. Despite repeated requests, a DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment on their candidacies.

Cooney’s years-long pursuit of the president and everyone around him, Lauro insists, helped Trump get elected in 2024. “Because of [Cooney’s] efforts, President Trump won the presidency. So he was terrific for the president and the MAGA movement in that regard.”

Still, Cooney’s anti-Trump legacy may not be finished yet. If Cooney wins his Virginia race and Democrats retake the House in the fall midterm elections, the former prosecutor could play a central role amid reports that his party is already planning to impeach Trump.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 15:40