BETWEEN THE HEDGES: Today's Headlines

Around X:

Had bullish commentary on (AWI), (ORCL), (WMT), (TGT), (RL), (ROST), (SN), (AMZN), (SLG), (BXP), (GWW), (HPP).
Had bearish commentary on Anthropic IPO.

Weekend markets update: #DAX 25340 +0.06% #DOW 51700 -0.06% #NASDAQ 29642 -0.04% #FTSE 10642 +0.03% #HANGSENG 24737 +0.02% #EURUSD 11486 +0.01% #GOLD 4370 -0.18% #USOIL 9637 +0.50%.
Crypto update: #Bitcoin 81229.00 +0.13% #Ether 2639.50 +0.32% #Cardano 0.2234 -0.04% #BitcoinCash 248.68 -2.75% #Litecoin 57.18 -0.07% #Stellar 0.1920 -0.88% #Dogecoin 0.0872 -1.25% #Uniswap 9.1986 +1.47% #Chainlink 12.4930 +1.22% #Polkadot 1.1193 -1.35% #Solana 111.7800 -1.52% #Avalanche 8.9200 +8.38%.

Putin says some European leaders keep talking like a war with Russia is coming. He says they’re doing it to save falling numbers at home and hide economic messes, and that it isn’t working. He also pointed out that voters already showed they don’t want that fight, and the same leaders keep turning the heat up anyway. He said it today, as Russia opened its own parliamentary vote, so that timing is not a coincidence. Europe really has been talking readiness: drones, sabotage, hospitals on standby. NATO still says no attack is imminent. Both sides use the scare. He calls their warnings a cover, while Europe calls his calm a cover.
US support for Israel plunges 67 points in eight years. Net favorability for Israel sat at a staggering +51 points during Trump’s first term. That has now PLUMMETED to -16 points. Support is disintegrating across the board. Over 55% of Americans now demand the U.S. reduce or completely cut military assistance to Israel. Numbers ain’t on Netanyhu’s side right now. Will it cost Trump? (video)

HOLY SMOKES JUDGE BOASBERG HAS GOT TO GO. Judge James Boasberg has just been exposed for 9 TIMES hosting a Chinese Communist Party-backed program "run by a Chinese spy". Most of it was done while Boasberg was on the FISA court and "TOP SECRET" intel became vulnerable. Rep. BRANDON GILL filed to impeach Boasberg last year. Why isn't this moving? START UP IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVE HIM. (pic)

The holy grail for robotics is being able to generalize: doing work in unseen places. We rented 30 homes in the Bay Area and are doing tasks without any new training. (video)

BREAKING: Exxon Mobil has shut down one of the largest diesel refineries in the Midwest, which produces ~11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel per day, due to outage issues. This comes as diesel prices have already surged nearly 90% this year and the US has entered peak diesel demand season. We expect to see diesel prices push toward $7.00/gallon.

FBI Director Christopher Wray destroyed all the evidence regarding the events of Butler, Pennsylvania and Thomas Matthew Crooks prior to Donald Trump becoming president. Why ?

BREAKING: France is running out of fuel. 11% of France's stations nationwide are now out of petrol or diesel, one in nine, with 16% of stations short in Grand Est, 15% in Pays de la Loire, 14% in Occitanie, and 13% in Centre-Val de Loire, per government figures published this morning. The official count only registers a station as short if it has no petrol at all or no diesel at all, so a station out of one grade but holding another is not counted, meaning the real shortage is much larger. French diesel averages €2.406 a litre, about $10.45 a gallon. Europe is facing its worst energy crisis in history.
BREAKING: The Trump administration is weighing pulling up to 40,000 US troops out of Europe, including air, naval, and ground forces, along with planes, ships and weapons, half of the 80,000-strong US presence and the most significant scaling back since the 1990s, with the cuts set to directly hit Germany, Italy and Spain, per five sources to NBC.

Many of the most vocal politicians now calling for government regulation of AI companies are also among those receiving the most money from the AI companies themselves. What an intriguing coincidence. (graph)

BREAKING: The UK government wants the British to prepare for war — BBC. The UK government wants all of it’s citizens to start preparing for severe disruption to their lives. It wants them to stockpile canned food and drinking water, strengthen their civic resilience, and plan for the possibility of war.

OpenVAERS:

VAERS US COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. 1,033,983 Reports (+264 from prior report) Through July 31th, 2026.

SKirsch.com:

Using the MGH numbers with our own VAERS queries, we have 247 cases per million doses from the MGH study divided by 5.97 cases per million doses from VAERS. 247/5.97 = 41. This suggests that the VAERS under-reporting factor (URF) is 41X.

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