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US Intelligence Believes China Weighing Sending Iran Advance Radar Systems

US intelligence is flagging early signs that Beijing may have been eyeing a move into the Iran conflict - quietly considering sending advanced radar systems, which it is said to have been mulling since near the opening of the US-Israel war which kicked off last month.

These anti-Beijing allegations are contained in fresh CBS News reporting, citing analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), who conclude China was actively weighing whether to equip Tehran with upgraded radar capabilities.

via GT

It should be recalled that earlier parallel reports said Moscow was feeding Iran intelligence on US military positions across the Middle East - raising the specter of a broader shadow alignment forming behind the scenes.

"This technology would significantly enhance Iran's ability to detect and track incoming threats, like low-flying drones and cruise missiles, and could help protect its air defense systems against advanced strikes," CBS writes.

The report continues, "It remains unclear whether China ultimately moved forward with the transfer but the assessment underscores Washington's concern that the Iranian war is drawing in not only regional adversaries but also global competitors willing to provide critical support, short of direct military involvement, the officials said."

The ability of the Iranians to hit faraway precision targets, including for example an expensive US radar base in Jordan, suggested it may have already had some external satellite and targeting help. Any new China radar transfer could help Iran rebuild its largely decimated defenses.

The significant Iranian retaliation against US regional bases and against Gulf facilities last month came as a surprise or even shock to the US administration, which appeared somewhat unprepared - and this has been subject of much recent reporting. For example:

Such anti-China allegations have been previewed before, but the idea of advanced Chinese radar technological on the ground in Iran might have been a game-changer in terms of preserving more of its own anti-air and missile capabilities.

All of these allegations, which come anonymously via unnamed US intel officials, must be treated with appropriate skepticism, however - given that war propaganda will inevitably be thick in such a hot conflict.

China, for its part, has been vehemently denying these repeat charges of some kind of deepened support for the Islamic Republic amid the war. It says it stands for peace and dialogue, and has called for urgent de-escalation and the unblocking of the Hormuz Strait.

Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 10:05

Kodai Senga will help lead the struggling Mets past the host Cubs on Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, Stitches predicts.

The Colorado Avalanche will enter the postseason as the Stanley Cup favorite.

Hulu's new Richard Russell documentary addresses men's mental health with empathy and nuance.

"This is sad. This was a go-to place for many of my family celebrations. Thank you for everything. You’ll be missed."

The selloff came as a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon raised hopes that disrupted supply could return to market.

Julia Roberts, Oprah and Katie Holmes are also brand fans.

Julia Roberts, Oprah and Katie Holmes are also brand fans.

Everyone thought Arch Manning was Scrooge McDuck, but Texas’ head coach revealed they are actually getting a hefty discount. “Arch could have dragged us over the coals for six million, seven million, whatever he wanted,” Steve Sarkisian told On3 on Thursday. “That’s an extra five million that I can go get a Cam Coleman, go...

Auroras could appear on Friday and Saturday night — mostly throughout Northern and Midwestern states, including New York.

Trump Says Admin Investigating Deaths, Disappearances Of US Scientists

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to look into reports of multiple U.S. scientists who have either died or gone missing in recent months.

“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” he told reporters, adding that “I just left a meeting on that subject.”

The reports, he added, are serious, because “some of them were very important people, and we’re going to look at it over the next short period.”

The president provided an update a day after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration is investigating.

A reporter asked Leavitt about 10 scientists who died or disappeared over the past several years, with some of them having access to nuclear or aerospace material.

“I haven’t spoken to our relevant agencies about it. I will certainly do that, and we’ll get you an answer. If true, of course, that’s definitely something I think this government and administration would deem worth looking into,” she said in response.

At least one House lawmaker, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), asked the FBI to investigate the reports.

“The disappearance of multiple scientists and military personnel with ties to advanced research is deeply concerning. I’ve already requested FBI involvement, and we will keep pressing for answers,” Burlison wrote in a post on X in late March.

Another, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), also called for an investigation into the disappearances.

“The numbers seem very high in these certain areas of research. I think we’d better be paying attention, and I don’t think we should trust our government,” he told the Daily Mail in March.

Burchett also made reference to the disappearance of a former Air Force general, William McCasland, who vanished from his New Mexico home without his phone or glasses in February. Media reports said that a colleague of his, Monica Reza, a rocket scientist, went missing in June 2025 after she did not return home from hiking in the Angeles National Forest in Southern California.

The lawmaker appeared to suggest that McCasland’s disappearance was linked to his aerospace or UFO research, saying that “those folks are very secretive about what they know” and he believes that McCasland “was involved in some of that.”

A former Department of State analyst, Marik von Rennenkampff, told NewsNation on Wednesday that the disappearances are unusual and could be connected.

“It’s bizarre,” he said. “I go through various potential scenarios. These are large organizations. Could these be coincidences? I think we might have passed that threshold.”

The Epoch Times contacted the FBI for comment Thursday.

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Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 09:45

Just as CinemaCon was starting to wrap up in Las Vegas last night, planes carrying some of Hollywood's most diehard Phish Heads were touching down at Harry Reid International Airport.

On Tuesday, we told you about an eyebrow-raising tech startup dubbed SuperFile that has attracted Hollywood investors Patricia Heaton and Jason Derulo and with Ryan Kavanaugh at the center of the intrigue. 

Theatrical exclusivity windows finally had their moment in the sun at this week’s CinemaCon. While it doesn’t sound like the sexiest topic, execs from Sony, Warner Bros., Amazon MGM, Paramount and Disney all dedicated portions of their showcases to ensuring theater owners that movies would stay on their screens for longer.

Miller also revealed exactly when she got a heads-up about the couple's bombshell statement.

Miller also revealed exactly when she got a heads-up about the couple's bombshell statement.

The company's claim the AI tool can outperform humans at some hacking and cyber-security tasks has sparked fears in the financial world.

Prices are slashed so lashes can lash.

U.S. Navy Spy Drone Circles Cuba As Report Says Pentagon Weighing Possible Military Ops

With President Trump signaling on Thursday that a deal with Tehran could be close, and indicating that another round of talks may take place this weekend, the focus is already beginning to shift beyond the Gulf region and back toward the Gulf of America, where reports earlier this week suggested the U.S. military was preparing for some form of intervention against the communist regime in Cuba.

USA Today reported on Wednesday that the Department of War is preparing for a possible operation in Cuba. The report was based on two sources.

The DoW responded to the outlet, saying it plans for a range of contingencies and remains prepared to execute the president's orders as directed.

By early Friday, X user OSINTdefender reported that a U.S. Navy high-altitude, long-endurance maritime surveillance drone "flew an over-12-hour mission off the coast of Cuba."

BLKCAT6, a U.S. Navy MQ-4C “Triton” High-Altitude Surveillance Drone flew an over 12-hour mission yesterday off the coast of Cuba, flying rounds over the Gulf of America and Northern Caribbean, taking a particularly close look at both Havana and the area near Guantanamo Bay,… pic.twitter.com/X8UahG4Z0Y

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 17, 2026

The drone in question was a U.S. Navy MQ-4C Triton, used primarily for maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It is also used for target detection and tracking.

Importantly, the maritime surveillance drone provided the Navy with a wide-area view of what was happening along the Cuban coast. It is often paired with a P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

Also on Thursday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed a crowd of communist supporters, saying he does not want conflict with the U.S. He also boasted that Cuban forces would defeat the U.S. military.

Díaz-Canel told the crowd: "We have to be ready to resist serious threats, including military aggression. We do not seek it, but it is our duty to prepare to avert it, and, should it prove inevitable, to win it."

The Trump administration has been calling on the communist regime in Havana to open the island economically so it can thrive, rather than remain trapped in its current state of economic collapse - a byproduct of failed communism. Oddly enough, some Democrats and left-wing NGOs continue to praise communism in Cuba and claim that it works well.

President Trump's march across the Western Hemisphere and into the Gulf region appears to be ushering in a new order, one in which the U.S. maintains its dominance for another generation by controlling energy flows. China is certainly angered.

Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 09:30

There Is No "Fair Share"... There Is Only "More"

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

In April 1971, Keith Richards loaded his family and his Bentley onto a cross-Channel ferry and drove south until he hit the Mediterranean. He rented a 19th-century villa called Nellcôte on a hillside above Villefranche-sur-Mer, and converted the basement into a recording studio.

Over the following year the rest of the Rolling Stones rotated through the house and nearby properties to record the double album that became Exile on Main St., while staying deliberately out of reach of the British tax authorities.

The top marginal income tax rate in Britain at the time was 75%, and a surcharge on the highest earners pushed the effective rate on the wealthiest past 90%.

Three years later, under Denis Healey’s 1974 budget, the top rate on earned income would climb to 83% and the rate on investment income would reach 98%.

Britain would spend the rest of the decade watching capital flee and begging the IMF for emergency loans.

David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, and a long line of less famous wealthy Britons eventually ran the same arithmetic as the Stones and reached a similar conclusion. Capital left the country in every form it could fit into, including bonds, businesses, luxury cars, and rock stars.

But politicians never learn.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey has backed legislation that would push the top federal income-tax rate to 43%.

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is pushing a version that lands at 49%.

Both men describe it, as they always do, as wealthy Americans finally paying their “fair share.”

What exact percent is their fair share? Are we to believe they will be satisfied at 43% or 49%?

As always, that phrase is deliberately left undefined.

Never-mind that the top 1% of filers already paid 40.4% of all federal income taxes in 2022 while the bottom 50% paid roughly 3%.

They are also conveniently ignorant of the fact that raising the top marginal rate doesn’t actually raise revenue at all.

Since the end of the Second World War, U.S. federal tax revenue has averaged around 17% to 18% of GDP, dipping toward 15% in deep recessions and climbing near 20% in booms. The swings track the business cycle, not tax policy.

The top marginal rate, over that same stretch, has been all over the map: 91% under Eisenhower, 28% under Reagan by 1988, 39.6% under Clinton, 37% today. Yet regardless of whether tax rates were 91% or 37%, the IRS always collects around 17% of GDP.

The conclusion is obvious: if the government wants to collect more tax revenue, they should focus on setting the right conditions for an economic boom.

In short, make the pie bigger for EVERYONE, and hence the government’s slice will grow as well.

Making the pie bigger isn’t that hard, either. America’s private economy is legendary.

All Congress has to do is get out of the way. Attempt to run a balanced budget. Restore credibility. Make it easier for businesses and individuals to be productive. REMOVE idiotic laws instead of creating new ones.

But they’re not interested in any of those things.

Congress has documented evidence of hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud. Yet they  do nothing. They have also pledged to do nothing about Social Security— which is set to run out of money in six years.

The regulatory code in the Land of the Free already runs over 188,000 pages. Yet they expand it every session.

This is the opposite of what they should be doing. And instead of figuring out how to live within their means, they just demand more resources… even though it never works.

Britain tried its 98% tax experiment in the 1970s and spent a decade regretting it.

Ironically the current Labour government has forgotten that painful lesson; they recently abolished the 110-year-old “non-dom” regime, and more than 10,000 millionaires have already left the country.

In the United States, Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax proposal does not just impose a wealth tax. It bundles her wealth tax with an additional 40% exit tax on anyone who renounces US citizenship.

You do not create a 40% tollbooth at the border unless you fully expect people to try to walk through it.

These are not serious ideas to grow an economy.

Rather, they are insidious policies designed to trap people in a system which steals their prosperity.

That is why a Plan B makes so much sense.

Tyler Durden Fri, 04/17/2026 - 09:00