Via Middle East Eye

Iran is loading almost three times the amount of oil it normally does onto tankers in the Persian Gulf in a sign it is anticipating a US attack that could prevent its oil from hitting the market. 

Iranian oil exports from Kharg Island reached nearly 20.1 million barrels between 15 and 20 February, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing Kpler data. That is the equivalent of more than three million barrels per day (bpd) and almost three times the amount loaded over the same dates in January, Bloomberg said. For comparison, Iran’s previous three-month average of loadings was 1.54 million bpd.

One week after WIRED reported that things were pretty dismal over at Jack Dorsey's payment processing company Block (formerly Square), the company announced that they are cutting 4,000 employees - nearly half of their headcount - in order to invest 'heavily' in artificial intelligence tools to run more efficiently, including its own called Goose, Bloomberg reports. 

Via White Papers Policy Institute,

Sixty-plus years of unchecked mass immigration have eroded the fabric of American society to the point where Americans are beginning to wonder if the country can survive. The focus of the media, left and right, when it comes to immigration, has been on the Minneapolis riots over the arrest and detention of illegal aliens.

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Leaders in big tech are expected to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House next week to pledge that their data centers will not increase the energy bills of Americans living near the facilities.

Global automakers are zeroing in on a controversial waypoint in the autonomy race: “eyes-off” driving, known in the industry as Level 3, according to a new report by Reuters.

The idea is simple but provocative — motorists could look away to send a message or work on a laptop until the vehicle signals them to retake control.

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday announced a new licensing policy to streamline the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, with the goal of supporting the island’s private sector and bolstering humanitarian efforts amid ongoing fuel crises.

Politico is out with a crazy story on Thursday, but which will make sense to those following the trajectory of US foreign policy over the past couple decades plus.

Senior US officials want Israel to strike Iran before Washington launches a renewed assault in order to build domestic backing for war. Advisers to President Donald Trump are "privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a U.S. strike," the outlet writes, citing two people familiar with the discussions.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

This week, most Americans found a moment of rare unity in our pride over the performance of our athletes in the Winter Olympics.

After years of rage politics, there was a brief respite as we joined in cheering our team in representing the United States in Milan and Cortina.

Robert Edwards, the inventor of the "Squatty Potty" and a contestant on the show "Shark Tank", has been charged with the possession of a digital hoard of child pornography materials including videos and images. 

Edwards, 50, was arrested for allegedly buying and receiving countless images of child sexual abuse between March 2021 and November 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Utah announced Monday.  The entrepreneur was indicted by a federal grand jury Feb. 10 and arrested Feb. 12 in Washington County, Utah.

Hillary Clinton told members of Congress on Feb. 26 that she does not have knowledge about crimes carried out by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

After yesterday's mediocre 5Y auction, we had just one coupon sale left: 7Y paper at 1pm today. And with today's wholesale post-Nvidia, risk-off move it was expected to be an easy sale, which is more or less what it was.

The Treasury sold $44 billion in 1 Year notes at a high yield of 3.790%, down sharply from 4.018% last month, and the lowest since November. The auction also priced on the screws with the When Issued, which was also at 3.790%. It followed 5 auctions in the past 6 months which tailed so relatively speaking, an improvement. 

The U.S. State Department has lifted its "shelter in place" alerts for Americans after Mexican special forces, aided by U.S. intelligence, killed a top drug cartel boss, sparking cartel-related chaos across at least one key tourism town in the third-world country just south of the U.S. southern border.