Lithuania To Lift Ban On Nuclear Weapons, Following Finland

PayPal Soars On Reported $53 Billion Buyout Bid From Stripe And Advent PayPal shares surged the most on record in premarket trading in New York after Reuters reported that payment company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have offered more than $53 billion to acquire the struggling payments platform. PYPL shares are up 20% premarket...  It's biggest single-day jump since at least 2015 (which is near the lows where it is currently trading)... The proposed $60.50-a-share bid represents a roughly 28% premium to PayPal's Tuesday close, though it remains 80% below...

Iraq's Oil Collapse Sparks Race For New Export Routes Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com, Iraq's oil production has collapsed to just 1.39 million bpd after the Strait of Hormuz blockade stranded exports. Baghdad is urgently trying to revive northern export routes through Turkey, including the Kirkuk-Ceyhan system and a new Kirkuk-Nineveh pipeline. China is re-emerging as a major strategic player in Iraq's energy infrastructure, with Chinese firms heavily involved in Baghdad's new north-south pipeline expansion. April was indeed the cruellest month for decades for Iraq's crude oil production, with an average of 1.389...

Record Ground Beef Prices May Finally Be Breaking Consumer Demand Last week's retail sales report provided fresh evidence that the K-shaped economy is buckling, with national average gasoline prices still printing above $4 a gallon and discretionary spending weakening. Consumer stress is now surfacing in the grocery aisle: as beef prices hover near record highs, Americans are beginning to trade down to cheaper proteins. Bloomberg cites new data from Chicago-based market research company Circana, showing that beef sales volumes declined .3% during the 13 weeks through mid-July. Volumes had risen about...