Canada’s manufacturers produced less in June for the fifth consecutive month, according to S&P’s purchasing managers index (PMI) for the country’s industrial sector.
ECONOMIC UPDATE—MARKET OVERVIEW
Love Trump, hate Trump, believe him, don’t believe him, by his deeds you shall know him.
ARTIFICIALLY SUPPRESSED RATES ARE A FINANCIAL LIE—A SYSTEM DEVOURING ITSELF TO SURVIVE
When central banks lower rates, borrowing becomes easy and cheap. Governments, corporations, and consumers pile on debt.
WALL STREET INCREASINGLY ALARMED BY U.S. DEBT CRISIS
With the annual U.S. budget deficit already climbing toward $2 trillion, Republicans in Congress dug the budget hole even deeper by passing Donald Trump’s “big beautiful” tax-cut legislation, which the latest projections say will add $3.4 trillion to the national debt by 2035.
THE ENDPOINT OF TECHNOCRACY
OpenAI’s Sam Altman says humans will soon live with a 24/7 AI companion. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is betting people will wear it as part of an augmented reality experience in some version of AR “smart” glasses that will supplant smartphones.
TRUMP BRUSHES OFF MUSK’S AMERICA PARTY PUSH, SAYS THIRD PARTIES ‘NEVER WORKED’
President Donald Trump seemed to brush aside Elon Musk’s decision to fund a viable third party in the U.S., saying the world’s richest man could have “fun with it,” but called the idea “ridiculous.”
RUSSIA LAUNCHES BIGGEST AERIAL ATTACK ON KYIV, MAKES GAINS IN THE EAST
Russia carried out its largest aerial attack on Kyiv since the start of the war on Friday as its forces applied new pressure on Ukrainian troops in Kostiantynivka, a strategically important city in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Global Economy
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
Stock market churn, geopolitical strife, and Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff war have not hobbled the U.S. market for corporate mergers and acquisitions.
SPECIAL REPORT: TRUMP TARIFF WAR
On 7 July, Donald Trump revealed new tariff rates ranging from 25 to 40 percent on 14 countries but delayed their onset from 9 July until 1 August to give those nations time to negotiate a trade deal.
SPECIAL REPORT: CRYPTO IS BECOMING THE NEW NORMAL
Chinese consumers are using mobile payment systems almost exclusively now, French newspaper Le Monde reported, so much so that cash “has dwindled to near extinction,” it said.
The Israel War
TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE CONTRIBUTED TO POST-GENOCIDE GAZA PLANS THAT CONSIDERED A ‘TRUMP RIVIERA,’ MUSK ‘SMART MANUFACTURING ZONE’: FT
Employees from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) participated in a slide deck that was shared with the Trump administration that considered a post-genocide Gaza that included the concept of a “Gaza Riviera” after half a million Palestinians were paid to leave the battered enclave, according to the Financial Times.
SAUDI ARABIA-IRAN RAPPROCHEMENT: RIYADH APPEARS TO BACK TEHRAN AFTER WAR WITH ISRAEL
Saudi Arabia appeared to back Tehran after Israel decided to launch its unprovoked war last month, which was seen as the latest setback for President Donald Trump’s effort to get Riyadh to normalize relations with Tel Aviv in his Abraham Accords.
IRAN IN ‘STATE OF FULL READINESS,’ BELIEVES ISRAEL WANTS NEW WAR, TRUMP WILL HELP
The Israelis want to restart the war with Tehran and President Donald Trump “appears to be on board,” Iranian sources told Press TV.
Trends in AI
IS AI MORE EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT THAN HUMANS ARE?
A group of European scientists recently put leading AI models from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI through a battery of commonly used tests of emotional intelligence (EI).
ZUCKERBERG DISCUSSES DETAILS OF META’S AI PUSH
Last week, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailed a restructuring of his company’s AI operations around a push to create an AI "superintelligence" that can outperform humans in virtually all fields.
TOP EUROPEAN CEO’S ASK EU TO PAUSE LAW GOVERNING AI
The chief executives of 44 major European corporations, including Airbus, BNP Paribas, and Philips, have signed a letter to European Union (EU) president Ursula von der Layen, urging the union to pause for two years its landmark law governing AI set to take effect next month.
Hi-Tech Science
MICE REGROW MISSING EARS WHEN AN EVOLUTIONARY MISSTEP IS CORRECTED
By turning on a gene that evolution had turned off, researchers at the University of Beijing have enabled mice to regrow missing ear tissue.
GENETICALLY ALTERED E. COLI TURN PLASTIC WASTE INTO PAINKILLERS
Biologists at the University of Edinburgh have figured out how to reprogram the genome of e. coli, a common bacterium, so it eats waste PET plastic—the material commonly used in plastic bottles and packaging—and yields acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, the painkiller in popular brands such as Excedrin, Panadol, and Tylenol.
HOW TO KILL A HURRICANE IN ITS TRACKS
Evidence shows hurricanes are becoming steadily more intense and, therefore, more damaging over time. What if a hurricane could be drained of its energy before it could come ashore?
