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The musician announced he was “a proudly gay man” in May.

DETROIT — The first time he came to the plate Sunday afternoon, Teoscar Hernández epitomized everything that has been wrong with the Dodgers’ offense lately. The following two trips up after that, however, the previously slumping veteran slugger injected the team — and his season — with some much-needed, long-awaited life. In the Dodgers’ 6-1...

The National Park Service was searching for those who were in the Bright Angel Canyon and Phantom Ranch area.

Opportunity Lost? Gained? Squandered?

Submitted by Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Another week with so many competing narratives driving markets. The information flow was coming so fast and furious that it is difficult to believe that Economic D-Day kicked off the week (it already seems longer than that).

Today, we will take a quick romp through how things seem to be playing out.

Opportunities Lost?

As anyone reading recent T-Reports knows, I was hopeful Warsh would take the stage on Friday and try to “shake things up.” Try to drive home some new (and in my view, much needed) paradigms. We got to discuss this ahead of Warsh’s speech on Friday morning on Bloomberg TV.

Warsh does deserve some credit for using the word “hike” three times at the start of his speech (but all in reference to the activity involving walking outdoors, rather than anything to do with rates). Not sure it was wise, as it likely set the algos off on the 2-year note, but I do applaud the effort to mislead the algos and speed readers.

In the end, bonds bear flattened. Stocks fell a little bit, but the bear flattening was the big takeaway from what I found was quite a boring speech, that really didn’t provide any new information.

The 30-year bond rallied initially and tried to hold on to those gains, but finished the day with higher yields. Part of that afternoon selling on longer-dated Treasuries could well be hedging (yield locks) for some IG new issues on Monday. As we wrote about in Yields Behaving Normally, both Bessent and Warsh need to pay far more attention to the massive supply of long-duration bonds (primarily from corporates in the “compute” space) and bonds in general (including increased global sovereign/quasi-sovereigns).

Had he gone down the path I would have liked to see, Friday might have even been messier than it was, but at least we’d have something interesting to discuss. Instead, I expect by the middle of next week, we will be back to lamenting the lack of specificity on the reaction function.

As the chair of the Fed, he has plenty of opportunities to speak, and people will listen, but the set-up for something more exciting than we got was almost perfect on Friday. An Opportunity Lost, in my view, but one that will be re-addressed as nothing is going to stop the data from coming in and the Fed from having to make decisions.

Opportunities Gained?

Every major news source is reporting increased oil flows out of the Middle East. Between alternative routes and increased passage through the Strait, pressure on the crude market is being relieved.

The blockade remains incredibly successful, preventing trade with Iran via the Strait. 

CENTCOM’s Commander, Admiral Brad Cooper, announced the Strait has been cleared of mines. Another very positive development on reducing the leverage Iran has.

The U.S. is also increasing staffing at embassies in the Gulf States, which is another step towards our view that neither the U.S. nor the Gulf Region has any interest in re-escalating “kinetic” warfare (the “cool” way to say shooting and blowing things up).

If we see renewed escalation, it seems likely to be initiated by Iran, and they don’t seem to have the will, or ability to do much at the moment (they have allegedly disabled some ships trying to transit, but no large-scale attacks on infrastructure in the region – which is the main fear). 

While we haven’t seen diesel or gasoline drop materially, the more oil that can make its way to refineries, the better.

Bessent’s announcement of Economic Outcast on Monday was a bit disappointing. Well, disappointing from launching concrete, obvious effects, that would really pressure the regime to give up (really needs to be tough on China to do that). But that also soothed markets which have less to worry about if we aren’t ramping up the rhetoric with China. A bit of a catch-22.

Basically, Bessent saying that we’ve put everyone on warning/high alert (and they have some time to change their behavior before we come down with the hammer) seems logical. It will take longer that way, but if the threat of the “hammer” works, then it will have accomplished the mission.

On the other hand, what happened to “Sanctioning a Major Financial Institution” on Friday? Maybe it is taking longer to get the legal side of things right, before implementing the sanctions? Maybe the “guilty party” has come to the table to negotiate a deal favorable to the U.S.? Those would be good outcomes and are plausible. But why make such a “direct statement” and not live up to it? On that topic, why didn’t this press conference happen the prior week, which seemed to be the initial target for launching the Economic Armageddon?

As a whole, the direction of travel on the issue of oil and energy products in the Middle East is heading in the right direction (less clear on nuclear deals and change of regime behavior).

Stories are hitting the tape this weekend about a major deal between the U.S. and Venezuela. We continue to see success in working with Venezuela since Maduro has been captured. Having said that, it is difficult to tell from the details provided so far, what the real impact is with this potential “deal.” If it is as good as the Truth Social posts say it is, that could be very good (primarily in the medium to longer term). But as we discussed last week, in the section Done Means Done, we have seen social media pronouncements, or soundbites (even soundbites from the Oval Office), that don’t always materialize the way they were initially touted.

Would be a great win, and I do think Venezuela can be a hub for processing, refining, and smelting materials that the U.S. needs.

Opportunities Squandered?

Since the trade negotiations fell apart (wow, that was only last Friday, that seems even longer ago), there has been a lot of discussion about who caused the deal to break down. Some argue that Carney views it as politically in his interests to not do a deal, even if he could have had a “good” deal. Others discuss last-minute demands on the U.S. side, which seems to fit in with the “art of the deal.” Where this all winds up, who knows.

We are going to lump this into the Opportunities Squandered section, though maybe not in the way you think this is going.

Let’s start with Canada. Let’s start a decade or so ago.

On Friday on Bloomberg TV (during the second segment), I say something that will probably get me in trouble, but once in a while you need to take that risk to get a soundbite across.

I argue that Canada cannot have BOTH a Green Economy and a Real Economy right now. I am not saying that over time you cannot achieve both a robust economy and one that is sustainable for your own nation and the world. I am saying that even if the ultimate end goal skews heavily towards sustainable and green, the priorities in the near term may have to be adjusted. You might never get to the “green” economy if you don’t survive long enough. We argued that the “energy companies of the future are the energy companies of today” during peak “Hopium.” By Hopium, I meant that the vision drove everything and ignored certain realities, that were really needed to turn that vision into reality. I’m not sure I’ve dug myself out of any hole I’ve dug myself into with this attempt at explaining my view, so I’ll just move on.

LNG exports. The U.S. has built a robust business around LNG. Not only is it bringing in revenue for America, and creating jobs, in America and abroad, but you could argue it is helping importers diversify away from LNG imports from less trustworthy, or reliable counterparties.

While there are a myriad of reasons why the U.S. can do better than Canada, and has done better, there is truth to the concept that Canada regulated themselves out of business. Or, more precisely, in this case, regulated themselves out of creating a new business.

This to me, is just another example of why ProSec needs to go global (and is going global).

• If you have the resources, why not extract them?
• Once you’ve extracted the resources, why not refine them?

As we’ve seen with the Strait, the bottlenecks occur primarily around the refined versions of oil. Yes, oil in itself is troublesome, but it is the refined products that are even more important.

Whether Canada listens to this wake-up call (and there are signs that they have been doing it — heck, we even have a tiny blip in the export line from Canada) is yet to be determined. As we’ve highlighted recently, Australia is planning on their first refinery in 60 years!

ProSec is going global. It is in every nation’s interest to ensure that their supply chains for things that are imperative to their existence are as stable, safe, reliable, and resilient as possible.

Having said that, we will discuss two other subjects in this section, even though I’m not sure they are squandered.

• Trade with Canada.
  • At least some of what the U.S. needs for reshoring and, possibly more importantly, the compute build, does or could come from Canada. Aluminum. Data centers need it. Canada has it. There is very little evidence of domestic production that can come on-line quickly, hence, the cost of compute build will go higher. If I’m Canada, I’m trying to harness all the things at my disposal that go into compute and will try to maximize that revenue source (whether in the U.S. or elsewhere). Not sure Canada will do that, but I’m not sure why the U.S. is doing anything making it more difficult or expensive for the compute build, when they are facing enough cost, energy, and NIMBY hurdles.
  • Farming. Potash. The U.S. imports it at scale. It is an important cost to farmers. Canada has it. The U.S. may have it, but it isn’t readily available. I’ve lost track of what the U.S. is doing on some ag things. Importing ground beef from somewhere (presumably Argentina). Changing how the processing is done. Food costs are a key issue for many voters, so not sure what the nation gets more benefit from – tariffs or coordinated effort?
• The China Summit.
  • While it is simplistic, my “working view” is that:
    • China is aiming to catch up on compute, faster than the U.S. can catch up on processing, refining, and smelting.
      • We are purposely avoiding the term – rare earths and critical minerals, because that tends to make people think about the rare earths and critical minerals themselves, rather than what is more important, which is processing, refining, and smelting. Not just rare earths and critical minerals, but even some basic commodities and metals.
  • If we think back to the “cards” on the table when the trade teams were negotiating in Geneva, to now, who has improved their hand?
    • I am not sure. Our compute is growing, but China seems to keep popping up as well. The admin is doing some great work on the processing, refining, and smelting side, but we started so far behind China that we need to continue to operate at lightning speed!

It will be interesting to see if I’m correct and ProSec truly moves global, or if countries will remain content to let others do the heavy lifting, even if it risks their economic future.

Bottom Line

I continue to like owning “compute” bonds on a yield basis (no rate hedge).

The Treasury bear steepener likely has more room to run, but we did have downward revisions to the prior year’s worth of jobs data. Not as draconian as last year, but another hint that the job market might be something the Fed needs to keep an eye on (especially as I don’t see how hiking helps war-related inflation or compute-build inflation). Will want to be adding to the front end. I remain indifferent on the long end, but suspect the global supply of debt will outweigh what Bessent has announced so far, and ultimately, the Fed will need to implement some form of Operation Twist to really shift the pricing of the long end.

If oil keeps coming down, it will help rates and equities. I remain concerned how much (in either direction) equities are being driven by the semis where the number of leveraged ETFs astounds me (creating mechanical buying and selling, amplifying every move).

I do think even with oil prices coming down, energy companies, globally, should remain a key overweight in portfolios (XLE is up 42% YTD) and global demands to harness and deliver energy are only increasing!

I don’t think I “squandered” the summer, but have to admit it went by a lot faster with a lot more work and angst than I would have hoped for! Enjoy this last week of summer and hope you have great plans for Labor Day weekend! (which is a holiday both in Canada and the U.S. though it is spelt differently).

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 17:30

Apparently, Rams fans have Erica Donald to thank for getting No. 99 back on the field. Shortly after Aaron Donald’s stunning return to Los Angeles became official Sunday, his wife delivered perhaps the best explanation yet for how the three-time Defensive Player of the Year ended a two-year retirement. “I let him out the house...

The deal could be announced as early as Monday, the report said.

"When [Mamdani] won [the mayor's race], it was just insane, the messages I was getting."

Musk responded early Saturday in an X post, writing, "I couldn't care less."

“Every Jewish child deserves access to a safe place to learn, and every individual deserves to worship in peace."

The sure-handed Beckham’s 33-year-old body, which has been through the ringer during his career, held up through the grind of training camp.

"I doubt anyone would have noticed they’d left if it hadn’t been reported in the news."

"I doubt anyone would have noticed they’d left if it hadn’t been reported in the news."

Aaron Donald’s return to join Myles Garrett caps a historic Rams offseason that also added Trent McDuffie, Jaylen Watson and Ty Simpson to a Super Bowl contender.

The investment comes as Canada's auto sector grapples with 25% U.S. tariffs on vehicles, with President Trump pledging to double them to 50% on Jan. 1.

State Department Revokes Visa Of Iraqi National On FBI Terror Watchlist

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The State Department has revoked the visa of an Iraqi national who was placed on the FBI's Terror Watchlist, ending her ability to enter the United States years after she received a high-profile award from the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of State in Washington on March 28, 2025.Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Taif Sami Mohammed Al Shakarchi is no longer present in the United States, according to a statement released Friday by Assistant Secretary Dylan Johnson.

The revocation followed her placement on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Terror Watchlist. No further details on the underlying intelligence were provided in the department's announcement.

"Under President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suspected terrorists will never be allowed to remain in the United States," the statement read.

Al Shakarchi was given the International Woman of Courage Award in 2022 by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and then-First Lady Jill Biden. The department said she had been recognized for her purported role in fighting corruption and her advocacy for "gender equity."

The award recognized "women from around the globe who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equity and equality, and the empowerment of women and girls, in all their diversity."

Al Shakarchi, also referred to in State Department materials as Taif Sami Mohammed, had served as Iraq's deputy finance minister. She was described at the time of the 2022 award as a longtime official in the Ministry of Finance who started out as a budget analyst in 1985 and rose to director general of the Budget Department. Officials then called her a front-line leader against corrupt practices and noted she was known as the "Iron Woman." She was listed as a political independent.

The 2022 ceremony, held virtually, was hosted by Blinken with Jill Biden delivering remarks. Twelve women from various countries received the honor that year.

The Trump administration has made clear it prioritizes removing individuals it views as security risks. In recent months, the State Department has revoked hundreds of visas in targeted efforts, including nearly 900 people targeted by a birth tourism task force launched in early August. Broader continuous-vetting operations have led to more than 175,000 visa revocations for a range of violations, crimes, and national security concerns.

The International Women of Courage Award itself continues under the Trump administration. First lady Melania Trump and Rubio presented the 2025 honors in April, recognizing women from countries including Burkina Faso, Israel, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Romania, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Yemen. The department has noted that more than 200 women from over 90 countries have received the award since it began in 2007.

Al Shakarchi's case stands apart due to the later watchlist designation. The State Department says its visa action is a straightforward application of its policy against allowing suspected terrorists to stay.

The department's release did not specify where she is now or provide additional biographical updates beyond the watchlist status and her departure from the United States.

Visa decisions rest with the executive branch, with courts offering limited recourse to many such revocations, a principle reinforced in prior Supreme Court rulings on related immigration matters.

The move arrives amid wider efforts by the administration to tighten scrutiny of foreign nationals already inside the country or seeking entry. Officials tie those steps to national security priorities under the Trump administration.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/30/2026 - 16:55

With a nice breeze blowing in The Bronx and the worst of the summer heat just a memory, Sunday felt like an appetizer for the fall to come.

His failed Titans era is over.

Residents said the stench is especially noticeable when afternoon sundowner winds sweep through the neighborhood, while some have also reported an increase in flies.

The Giants are taking advantage of a loophole.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the attack that reportedly killed and wounded several people, but did not provide further details.