Hegseth Calls Inflating the Pentagon Budget by 50% to $1.5 Trillion a ‘Fiscally Responsible Investment’

AirGas Declares Force Majeure On Helium Shipments As Qatar Production Collapses Earlier this week we reported that global chip production was in peril as "Qatar Warns Helium Exports Set To Collapse." Best known as the gas that makes party balloons float, helium is far more important as a key input in chipmaking, space rockets and medical imaging. The problem is that Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, and the Gulf nation had to halt production after Iranian strikes against the region’s energy producing infrastructure crippled its LNG production which is...

Denver Leaders Reject Justice Department's Demand That City Repeal 'Assault Weapons' Ban Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times, Denver is refusing to repeal its 37-year-old ban on certain types of firearms known as “assault weapons.” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent a demand letter on April 28 to Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and City Attorney Miko Brown, requesting the city repeal the ordinance, which has been in place since 1989. In a May 4 response letter, Brown stated that the ordinance has withstood legal...

A Pause To Negotiate A Deal? Some Caveats... Authored by Peter Tchir via Academy Securities, Basically we wound up at the better end of our “base case” in yesterday’s Spaghetti Western, and you could argue we made it all the way into our best case of “ceasefire” (I’m reluctant to label it that, as you will see, but it is touching on that end). I do think we are far from a “real deal”. In any case, markets are responding according as both sides send people to Pakistan to negotiate a deal. Stocks are...