"Firing On All Cylinders, But..." US Manufacturing Surveys Send Mixed Signals In May

Violent Crime Rate Drops In Major US Cities Authored by Timothy Frudd via The Epoch Times, A new report shows that violent crime dropped in many of the United States’ largest cities during the first half of 2026, and there was a more than 17 percent decline in the number of homicides. A Major Cities Chiefs Association survey, which gathered data from 66 of the largest cities in the United States, was released on Aug. 5. It showed that levels of multiple categories of violent crime decreased from Jan. 1 to June 30,...

An Aspirational Tech Right–Populist Right Alliance Authored by Nate Fischer via American Intelligence, The relationship between the tech right and the populist right is a central question of our day. After an initial alliance in the lead-up to the 2024 campaign, fissures quickly appeared. The first prominent one was the Christmas H-1B fight. Others followed, both in and out of the administration. In many ways, the divide has been growing -- with Bannon leading tech critiques, and Republican politicians like DeSantis staking out tech-skeptical stances. Trump has managed to keep things together,...

Tanker Rates Nearly Halve As Hormuz Shipping Normalizes The recent spike in the cost to hire a supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia to China is now being sharply reversed, as more shippers send vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and normalization trends continue to improve. Bloomberg reports that tanker rates for the Saudi Arabia-to-China route tumbled to about $287K on Friday, down 44% from more than $514K on Tuesday. That data came from the Baltic Exchange. Rates remain elevated and still highly profitable for owners, but...