James O'Keefe OUT From Project Veritas, After Being Placed on Paid Leave By the Board

Existing US Home Sales Plunged In March, Despite Falling Mortgage Rates Affordability-aiding lower mortgage rates battled a sentiment-sapping surge in geopolitical panic in March, with analysts expecting the latter to outweigh the former with a modest 0.7% MoM decline (after January's plunged - weather? - and February's modest rebound). The analysts under-estimated the fear from war-mongering as existing home sales plunged 3.6% MoM (down bigly from an upwardly revised 2.7% MoM jump in Feb). That is the second biggest drop in existing home sales since Nov 2022... Source: Bloomberg That dragged Existing Home...

Alarming West Texas Oil Theft Emerges As National Security Threat Criminals are exploiting weak points across the West Texas oil production region, which accounts for 15% of the world's energy resources. This emerging wave of oil theft is burning a multi-billion-dollar hole in the budgets of oil and gas operators across the Permian Basin and is becoming a national security threat. Bloomberg reports that oil and gas producers are losing at least $1 billion, if not more, per year due to oilfield theft in what the outlet describes as something...

"The National Security Premium": US Plan To Counter China In Critical Miners Could Drive Up Global Prices The US is pressing its allies to rethink how they source essential minerals, urging them to accept higher prices if it means reducing reliance on China, which currently dominates much of the global supply, according to a new report from Financial Times. According to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, countries working with Washington should expect to pay extra for materials obtained through a proposed network of trusted partners. He framed this added cost as...