A Chinese research team has successfully tested a wireless power transfer system that beams energy from the ground to a drone in flight using microwaves.
The setup relies on a mobile emitter that directs energy to an antenna array mounted beneath the aircraft, enabling continuous power delivery without physical connections. Notably, the experiment maintained stable transmission even while both the drone and the ground unit were moving, marking a step beyond static demonstrations.
Analysts have compared the concept to a “land-based aircraft carrier”, where an armoured vehicle could act as both a launch platform and an energy hub, sustaining drone operations in a manner similar to how naval carriers support aircraft at sea.
New system keeps drones flying for over three hours
The concept could significantly expand how long drones remain in the air, supporting continuous surveillance, strike missions, and electronic warfare without frequent landings. The results, published in the peer-reviewed journal Aeronautical Science & Technology, come from a research team at Xidian University, an institution closely associated with defense-related technologies.
During trials, the vehicle-mounted system sustained fixed-wing drones in flight for up to 3.1 hours while operating at an altitude of about 49 feet, demonstrating stable power delivery under real-world conditions, the South China Morning Postreported.
According to project lead Song Liwei, one of the main technical hurdles was keeping the microwave emitter precisely aligned with the drone while both were in motion. The team addressed this by combining GPS positioning, a real-time tracking mechanism, and onboard flight control systems to continuously correct the beam’s direction. This coordination allowed stable energy transfer despite movement and environmental variability.
As unmanned systems have become increasingly central to modern ground warfare, militaries and defense researchers have intensified efforts to develop wireless charging and in-flight power delivery technologies. Now, the goal is to reduce dependence on landing cycles and extend the operational endurance of drone fleets in contested environments.
US, China race to develop in-flight drone charging systems
Beyond extending flight endurance, the technology could also reshape drone design by reducing reliance on large onboard batteries, thereby freeing up space and weight for heavier payloads and additional sensors. In practical terms, this would allow smaller platforms to perform more complex missions without sacrificing range or endurance.
In the US, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has already backed multiple efforts investigating wireless energy transfer, including radio-frequency and laser-based systems. Furthermore, private companies are also demonstrating laser-based charging concepts, highlighting a parallel push toward airborne energy delivery systems.
Compared with other wireless energy approaches, laser-based systems offer higher precision and longer transmission ranges, but they are vulnerable to disruption from environmental factors such as fog, dust, and atmospheric turbulence. They can also create detectable infrared signatures, which may reveal a drone’s position to adversaries.
Microwave-based transmission takes a different trade-off, as it is generally more robust in poor weather conditions and less affected by line-of-sight degradation. In addition, a single microwave emitter could potentially supply energy to multiple drones at once, which makes the approach more suitable for dense operational environments or contested battlefields where resilience and scalability are critical.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a Senate panel Wednesday that passing comprehensive crypto legislation is essential to securing U.S. financial leadership and protecting the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, using an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to amplify a push for legislation that has stalled on Capitol Hill for months.
Bessent testified at a hearing reviewing President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request for the Department of the Treasury. During the session, a senator on the Agriculture Committee raised Bessent’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed on crypto policy, noting support for the market structure bill that cleared the Agriculture panel in January.
“When the United States leads in best practices, safety and soundness in the financial world — whether it’s our banking system, our securities, or now digital assets — it’s important for the U.S. to lead,” Bessent said.
He framed U.S. leadership in digital assets as both an economic and national security imperative, arguing it would reinforce the primacy of the dollar as the global reserve currency and bring cryptocurrency activity under domestic anti-money laundering and know-your-customer frameworks.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells the Senate we need to pass Bitcoin & crypto market structure legislation.
“The US has to lead here. We’re the technological leader in the world, we should be the payments leader in the world.” pic.twitter.com/1hlfrYeToY
Bessent also characterized digital assets as a critical payments technology, calling blockchain a “payment rail” where American dominance is achievable and necessary.
“We are the technological leader in the world. We should be the payments leader in the world,” he said during the hearing.
Where current crypto legislation stands
The road to a comprehensive crypto market structure law remains fractured.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — commonly known as the CLARITY Act — passed the House in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote and was referred to the Senate Banking Committee that September.
Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its own version, the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act, in a party-line vote of 12-11 in January 2026. That bill would expand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s authority to regulate digital commodity spot markets.
The two chambers’ versions must ultimately be reconciled before a final bill can reach the president’s desk. The Senate Banking Committee has not yet scheduled its markup, having delayed action while focused on housing legislation. The senator in the hearing acknowledged ongoing work to ensure the CFTC is fully constituted and adequately resourced before a final deal is reached.
In his April 8 Wall Street Journal opinion piece — referenced in the hearing exchange — Bessent warned that regulatory uncertainty has pushed crypto development to jurisdictions with clear rules, citing Abu Dhabi and Singapore as examples. “A growing share of crypto development has relocated to places with clear rules,” Bessent wrote, adding that “the benefits of domiciling in the U.S. rarely outweighed the risks”.
Wednesday’s testimony reflects a broader strategy by the Trump administration to build on momentum from the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin regulation law signed into law in July 2025.
Bipartisan support remains a central challenge. The Senate Agriculture Committee’s January vote advanced along party lines after months of negotiations between Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) and ranking Democrat Cory Booker (D-N.J.) failed to produce a deal.
Bessent, in the hearing, said he believed outstanding issues — including CFTC staffing and resources — could be resolved to produce bipartisan agreement, calling that outcome “very, very important.”
U.S. Deploys Ukrainian Acoustic Sensors, Interceptor Drones At Prince Sultan Air Base
Last month’s Iranian drone strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia appears to have inflicted a costly toll on U.S. forces in the region. The attack destroyed a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft and damaged multiple KC-135 refueling tankers, highlighting a major gap in U.S. air defenses against cheap attack drones.
Nearly a month after the drone strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, and following multiple reports that Ukrainian drone forces had been shifted into the region, Reuters confirmed Wednesday morning that the U.S. has deployed Ukrainian counter-drone technology to defend against Iranian-developed Shahed drones.
At the center of this new security effort to fortify the airspace above Prince Sultan Air Base against low-cost Iranian one-way attack drones is Sky Map, a Ukrainian command-and-control platform used to detect incoming drones. The coordinated response to Shaheds is the use of interceptor drones.
“There have been longstanding gaps in U.S. air and missile defense coverage around the world,” said Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute think tank. “This has been well understood. However, it hasn’t been addressed.”
Ukrainian drone experts reportedly traveled to the base in recent weeks to train U.S. personnel on Sky Map and the use of interceptor drones.
Sky Fortress, the Ukrainian company behind Sky Map, has been active extensively in the Eastern European theater, with more than 10,000 acoustic sensors deployed to detect Russian drone attacks.
The bigger story here is that Ukraine is emerging as a major dealer of the latest low-cost weapon technology forged through four years of war with Russia:
Our assessment is that, if we had to get granular, passive acoustic counter-drone detection will become a standard layer of air defense for U.S. military bases, data centers, critical U.S. infrastructure, and government buildings in the years ahead. As cheap attack drones proliferate, adopting passive acoustic sensing systems for early warning will help close the air-defense gap against them. Just wait until these early-detection systems are paired with ‘micro’ sentry guns and fully automated AI kill chains.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the agency overseeing Medicaid and Medicare, announced Tuesday that his agency’s anti-fraud effort will come to every state.
During an interview at a Politico-hosted event, Oz said that every U.S. state can expect anti-fraud activities involving funds received through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS).
“We are going to announce this week that all 50 states are going to be requested to give us a plan over the next 30 days of how they’re going to re-validate providers in high-risk areas in their states,” Oz said.
Oz explained that it would involve proving whether individuals who are enrolled in CMS programs “really exist” or not, and whether the states “have a right to provide these services.”
“We’re asking the states to own that problem … red and blue, all of them,” he said, responding to a question from the Politico moderator about whether it involves every state.
He later added that if states “don’t take it seriously, it indicates to us that we might have to take the audits … more aggressively.”
When asked about a possible deadline, he said CMS is asking the states to provide the agency with a plan over the next month.
Oz, a medical doctor better known as the moniker Dr. Oz from when he was a television personality, oversees the nation’s largest health insurance programs as the administrator of CMS. To date, Oz has sent letters to California, Florida, Maine, and New York alleging fraud in the states’ Medicaid programs.
At the Tuesday event, the Politico interviewer mentioned CMS having issued a statement earlier this month to correct a comment made by Oz on social media that 5.1 million beneficiaries received personal care services, which include things like help with eating, bathing, and dressing.
However, the real number receiving services was about 450,000, the CMS spokesperson said.
Oz’s comment drew criticism from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, with a spokesperson saying that it was “patently false” and her office is “glad they now admit it.”
During the interview, Oz emphasized the Trump administration’s efforts to address fraud around the country, which federal officials say is needed to rein in runaway spending and protect taxpayers.
With many midterm voters concerned about the cost of living in the United States, President Donald Trump has ramped up efforts to address it, announcing last month that Vice President JD Vance would help balance the nation’s budget by spearheading a national “war on fraud.”
The Trump administration has sought to withhold funding from some Democrat-led states in recent months, citing fraud concerns. This has included child care subsidies and other social services programs in Minnesota, New York, and three other states and with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 22 states that have declined to hand over data that the federal government says is needed to root out fraud.
Lawsuits have been filed in response to the he anti-fraud efforts led by the federal government. In several cases, judges have ruled that the federal money must continue to flow for the time being.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, in response to claims of widespread hospice fraud in Southern California, blamed the Trump administration, in part, for entitlement fraud in the state.
In January, Newsom’s office said in a statement the administration has “dismantled the federal government’s ability to prevent and address fraud.”
“California didn’t wait—we’ve identified and cracked down on hospice fraud for years, taking real action to protect patients and taxpayers,” Newsom said in a statement.
US Blocks Regular $500 Million Cash Pallets Flown To Iraq, Over Pro-Iran Militias
In confirmation of some early reporting we featured at the start of this week, The Wall Street Journal has verified something that Iraqi officials themselves were denying just days ago: the US is blocking Iraq’s regular dollar shipments in order to pressure it’s Iran-backed militias.
“The Trump administration has suspended U.S. dollar shipments to Iraq and frozen security cooperation programs with its military, escalating the pressure on Baghdad to dismantle powerful Iranian-backed militias,” said Iraqi and US officials interviewed in the report.
Pallets of cash and the Middle East should ring familiar, stretching from the Bush-Cheney years to even the Obama years (and Iran sanctions relief as part of the original nuclear deal). In this case, like with the Obama/Iran deal saga before, this is actually Iraq’s own oil revenue money.
In this latest case, a US military plane carrying a half-billion dollars has been delayed on its regularly scheduled delivery.
“A cargo-plane delivery of nearly $500 million in U.S. banknotes, the proceeds from Iraqi oil sales from Federal Reserve Bank of New York accounts, was blocked recently by Treasury Department officials because of U.S. concerns about the militias,” WSJ continues, citing the officials.
The publication details, “It was the second scheduled shipment of dollars to the Central Bank of Iraq delayed by the U.S. since the start of the Iran war in late February, the U.S. and Iraqi officials said.”
During the height of the March fighting between Iran and Israel, several American facilities across Iraq came under attack, even including the US Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Typically these were drones, or rocket fire, and Erbil and northern Iraq in particular came under heavy fire.
To review from the backgrounder we previously featured: since 2003, a decision issued by Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul Bremer has required that all Iraqi oil revenues be paid into an account at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York, giving the US the ability to control how many US dollars are returned to the CBI.
From that point until today, the Iraqi Ministry of Finance has had to submit funding requests to the US Treasury, which then approves or denies them based on its own criteria.
This monthly transfer of US dollars, flown into Baghdad in pallets of hard cash, determines Iraq’s ability to pay for basic needs such as salaries, food, and medicine.
Whenever Washington believes that Iraq is not aligned with US regional goals, including enforcing economic sanctions on Iran, Baghdad’s major trading partner and a source of natural gas for electricity production, these fund transfers can be delayed or reduced.
The US halted $13 billion in annual cash shipments to Iraq to pressure Baghdad to act against Resistance groups, the second such suspension since the start of the war on Iran.
Currently the Coordination Framework (CF), which is the largest Iran-aligned parliamentary bloc of Shia parties, is racing to pick a new prime minister for the country – but reportedly neither of the two main candidates are acceptable to Washington.
There’s a huge lasting irony to the Iraq war and the Bush-Cheney legacy. The US overthrow of Baathist Sunni Saddam Hussein effectively handed the country over to pro-Tehran leadership. And the US has been dealing with the fallout in the region from the ‘Shia axis’ ever since.
Voting rights groups filed a lawsuit on April 21 seeking to block the Department of Justice (DOJ) from collecting, compiling, and analyzing state voter registration lists.
As of April 1, the DOJ has sued 30 states, including Washington, for failing to turn over voter rolls. The department has said the U.S. attorney general has congressional authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to seek election records from states to check for improper voter registrations.
The groups filed a complaint on April 21, accusing the DOJ of seeking to use the sensitive data to build what they described as a “sprawling new voter surveillance and purging apparatus” without congressional authorization.
The complaint alleges that the department attempted to usurp states’ authority to oversee election administration and impose its own “secretive ’verification procedures’” to identify ineligible voters.
“Never before has a federal agency centralized this volume of Americans’ voting data in a single system of records,” it stated.
“And in doing so, DOJ has flouted statutory safeguards designed to ensure transparency and public participation in the federal government’s collection of Americans’ personal information.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by advocacy group Common Cause and four individual members of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The data requested by the DOJ includes voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, political party affiliations, and voter participation history, according to the filing.
The groups are seeking a court order requiring the DOJ to delete any voter rolls it has obtained from states and to bar the department from compiling or disclosing voter data.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said on April 1 that the department has a duty to ensure state compliance with election laws.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Sept. 29, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,” Dhillon said in a statement
“Many state election officials, however, are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work. We will continue to verify that all States are carrying out critical election integrity legal duties.”
Dhillon added that the Civil Rights Act allows the attorney general to “demand the production, inspection, and analysis of statewide voter registration lists that can be cross-checked effectively.”
In an April 21 statement, Common Cause CEO Virginia Kase Solomon said the DOJ’s efforts to collect voter rolls amount to “a blatant, partisan power grab.”
“By attempting to interrogate and exploit voter data for political purposes, President Trump’s DOJ isn’t just threatening the privacy of every American—they are building a system designed to imprison the ballot box and silence millions of eligible voters,” Solomon said.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the DOJ for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
Not So Fast: Virginia Judge Blocks Redistricting Referendum
Update (1835ET): A Virginia judge ruled on Wednesday that the state’s redistricting referendum approved by voters a day earlier was invalid, nullifying the election results.
“Virginia voters have spoken, and an activist judge should not have veto power over the People’s vote,” said Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, adding that the state would appeal.
As American Greatness notes further, Tazewell County Judge Jack Hurley Jr. ruled that the referendum was likely unconstitutional as it violated procedural requirements in the Virginia Constitution, including the timing of the vote and the failure to publish the amendment three months before the prior general election.
The Tazewell Circuit Court also ruled the ballot language was misleading, specifically the phrase “restore fairness,” which Hurley determined could improperly influence voters by implying opposition is unfair.
The constitutional amendment was framed on the ballot as a vote “to restore fairness in the upcoming elections.” It narrowly passed Tuesday night by a margin of 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent.
In his written ruling, Hurley said the plaintiffs had an “extraordinarily high likelihood of success on the merits.”
The contested measure would allow Democrats to re-draw the state’s congressional maps from a 6-to-5 advantage to 10-to-1 majority, disenfranchising potentially millions of Republican voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The temporary restraining order was requested by the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and U.S. Reps. Ben Cline (R-Botetourt County) and Morgan Griffith (R-Salem).
In the emergency motion, the plaintiffs asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Virginia’s commissioner of elections, members of the State Board of Elections and several Tazewell County election officials. They contend the court should intervene immediately to “preserve the status quo” and prevent what they describe as “irreparable harm” before a hearing can be held.
“The Democrats’ unfair redistricting scheme is illegal. We are grateful that the court has agreed and swiftly applied justice to stop this unconstitutional power grab that would disenfranchise millions of Virginia voters by reassigning them members of Congress from other parts of the state,” said Cline. “This ruling is an important victory in our fight to make sure that politicians don’t get to select their own voters.”
Hurley’s ruling declares that any and all votes for or against the proposed constitutional amendment in the April 21, 2026 special election are ineffective and enjoins Defendants and their successors from certifying the results of the election.
Additional legal challenges argue the amendment violates the single-subject rule and was improperly advanced during a special legislative session. Although the Virginia Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed while reviewing the case, if it upholds the lower court’s findings, the referendum results could be invalidated.
President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social Wednesday morning, claiming the referendum itself was “rigged.” In his post, Trump wrote:
“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! Six to five goes to ten to one, and yet the Presidential Election in November was very close to a 50-50 split. … Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’”
Trump’s comments focused on the overnight counting of mail-in and absentee ballots — which flipped the initially reported lead — echoing his past criticisms of election procedures. The referendum was extremely close (roughly 51.4% Yes / 48.6% No), and in Virginia it is standard for in-person votes to be tallied first on election night while mail ballots are counted later.
Virginia’s Republican-hating Attorney General Jay Jones (D) has already vowed to appeal the ruling.
“My office will immediately appeal the ruling issued by the Tazewell County Circuit Court,” Jones said. “These arguments are already before the Supreme Court of Virginia, the proper forum to consider the arguments, which has set a schedule for receiving arguments and has justifiably allowed the vote to proceed during this time.”
Virginia Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle (R-Hanover) and House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore (R-Scott) issued a joint statement saying the ruling was “a necessary step to protect Virginia voters from an illegal and rushed” redistricting referendum.
“The Constitution sets clear rules for how amendments must be advanced. Those rules were not properly followed. Plain and simple. Virginians deserve transparency, fairness, and adherence to the law — not backroom deals,” they said.
Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli predicted on the Scott Jennings Show, Wednesday that the Virginia redistricting measure won’t survive the legal challenges.
“Here’s my prediction,” Cuccinelli posted on X. “The referendum gets tossed out in May.”
Now they care about activist judges!
We are having quite the night in the courts. A Virginia judge just blocked the state from certifying the results of Tuesday’s congressional map referendum as unlawful. Judge Jack Hurley Jr., ruled that Democrats did not follow the correct procedure for a constitutional…
Democrats’ decisive win in Virginia Tuesday night has dealt a significant blow to Republican hopes of retaining control of the House.
By persuading voters to dismantle the state’s independent redistricting commission – created just six years ago – Democrats wiped out four Republican-held congressional districts. This means Virginia’s House delegation is now on track to shift to a 10-to-1 Democratic advantage, a dramatic reversal for a state that remained firmly in GOP hands not long ago.
That said, Democrats dropped $65 million on the races (though the final tally was uncomfortably close), while Punchbowl reports that Republicans are trading blame internally – second-guessing whether they let a chance slip away to blunt the Democratic surge.
And with midterms right around the corner, there are few indications that President Trump or House Republican leadership possesses either the strategic focus or message discipline needed to protect their narrow majority. Fresh off Trump’s 2024 presidential win, Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, clung to control by the slimmest of margins. Pulling off a repeat performance now looks considerably tougher.
Betting markets are already pricing in a Democratic win in the House.
While party leaders insist a third Trump impeachment is off the table, the shift would almost certainly unleash a barrage of investigations and subpoenas aimed at the White House and Cabinet agencies – with major legal and political ripple effects. Lawmakers could also face even more protracted government shutdowns than the record-length appropriations lapses seen in the current Congress.
“I told Mike Johnson in July of last year that, ‘If you go down this road, it’s not going to work out for you,'” Jeffries told Punchbowl Tuesday night.
He added: “And at the end of the day, his best-case scenario was that he would net zero seats, but force at least 10 Republicans, who are incumbent members of his conference, into premature retirement. And that is exactly what has happened.”
Jeffries earned significant credit for orchestrating Tuesday’s outcome – as Virginia Democrats first had to steer the ballot measure through the state legislature twice, beat back multiple court challenges, and then win over voters. A nonprofit aligned with Jeffries poured $38 million into the effort to secure passage, and he personally managed the operation from beginning to end – designing the referendum strategy, recruiting staff and directing on-the-ground coordination. Many Virginia Democrats initially resisted the high-stakes gamble, requiring Jeffries to personally persuade both the state delegation and the warring legislative chambers to fall in line.
True to form, Jeffries remained measured when asked whether Tuesday’s result clinched the majority or signaled an impending blue wave. He did, however, declare victory in the broader redistricting battle.
“When you line up the congressional map in Texas and compare it with the response in California, they’re going to lose seats and would be fortunate if in Texas, they win two or three of the five seats that they claimed they were going to steal from Democrats,” Jeffries said.
The biggest wild cards left for both sides are Florida and the future of the Voting Rights Act, which is up to the Supreme Court. Tuesday’s result intensifies pressure on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to advance an ambitious congressional map next week capable of delivering Republicans a net gain of three to five seats. Yet DeSantis is encountering pushback from the state’s Republican congressional delegation and the GOP-controlled legislature, many of whom doubt such an aggressive redraw is feasible. Several Florida Republicans caution that Latino voters are not reliably in the GOP column and may not show up for the party the way they did in 2024, urging caution.
Spending in Virginia was wildly lopsided. Democrats poured $56.4 million into television and digital ads; Republicans mustered just $24.6 million. Republicans still lost by fewer than 90,000 votes out of more than 3 million cast.
According to the report, GOP strategists insist they deliberately avoided nationalizing the contest to keep from energizing the Democratic base. They argue that heavier spending would simply have provoked an even larger Democratic response. They also note that the “No” side outperformed Trump’s 2024 numbers in the state. Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and onetime House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who helmed the opposition effort, pledged to keep fighting the new map in court.
House Republicans, however, were already firing off frantic messages Tuesday night. Several told reporters they had been assured that additional money would make no difference in Virginia – yet the narrow margin suggests otherwise.
The American Action Network, a nonprofit close to Johnson, quietly funneled money to the group bankrolling the “No” campaign, according to a person familiar with the transaction. Meanwhile, only one solidly Republican seat remains, in the state’s southwest corner. GOP Reps. Ben Cline and Morgan Griffith may find themselves forced into a member-versus-member primary.
Given the eight straight days of gains for Software stocks, one could argue that the death of code-base companies was greatly exaggerated (cough -dead-cat bounce – cough), but not every boat is being lifted by this massive short-squeeze rebound
JPMorgan Trader Brian Heavey said earlier that it “seems we are moving from ‘SAAS is dead’ to ‘maybe they can co-exist'”, but it appears one software firm is indeed ‘no more’.
Thoma Bravo and its co-investors contributed roughly $5 billion of equity, while Blackstone and other private-credit lenders provided $1.8 billion of debt.
The deal reflected the era’s sky-high software valuations and Thoma Bravo’s aggressive playbook of buying mature SaaS platforms with heavy leverage.
But…
By 2026, the investment had become one of private equity’s most visible busts.
Medallia’s growth stalled in a crowded CX market where survey-based platforms faced commoditization and slower enterprise spending.
PE Insights reported two weeks ago that debt servicing costs ballooned to nearly $300 million (carrying around $3 billion in total debt).
Annual earnings hovered around just $200 million – insufficient to cover interest – leaving the company struggling to deleverage.
Around a month ago, Barron’s reported that lenders were under serious pressure as Blackstone, the lead creditor, repeatedly marked down its large loan position: from par to the high 80s in mid-2025, then to roughly 70 cents on the dollar by February 2026, with further declines reported into the 60s.
Other lenders including Apollo and KKR followed suit.
All of which brings us to today…
Reuters reports that, according to two people familiar with the matter, Thoma Bravo is nearing an agreement to hand over software firm Medallia to its lenders, wrapping up months of restructuring negotiations.
The move will wipe out $5.1 billion in equity for Thoma Bravo and its co-investors.
Medallia provides software that collects and analyzes customer and employee feedback for companies, and has like other software/SaaS companies, seen its valuation hit in recent months over concerns that its services will eventually be supplanted by artificial intelligence.
Will this prompt markdowns across other SaaS firms in PE books? We suspect it might force some hands to admit the painful truth.
With a literal tsunami of supply on its way this year – most notably Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all pushing to IPO in 2026 at massive valuations – some investors may see parallels to the classic 2021-vintage risks exposed by Medallia today: overpayment at peak multiples, excessive leverage, and sector headwinds that private ownership could not fix.
For Thoma Bravo and other large-scale investors, it stands as a cautionary tale of how quickly high-priced software bets can sour when growth assumptions prove overly optimistic.
Researchers at Harvard have developed a fleet of robotic ants that mimic the self-organizing behavior of social insects to build and dismantle structures without blueprints or central leadership.
Dubbed “RAnts”, these robotic ants have been designed by researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).
These are simple, decentralized robots that can spontaneously organize to build — and just as easily destroy — complex structures.
Instead of chemical pheromones, these robots use light fields (photormones) to communicate.
“Our new study shows how simple, local rules can lead to the emergence of complex task completion that is self-organized and thus robust and adaptive,” said Professor L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Physics at SEAS and FAS.
“We also introduce the concept of exbodied intelligence, where collective cognition arises not solely from individual agents, but from their ongoing interaction with an evolving environment,” Mahadevan added.
Digital pheromones
Ants prove that you don’t need a big brain to be a great builder. All that is needed is a great team. Without blueprints or supervisors, these tiny creatures construct some of nature’s most complex habitats.
And now, experts are taking this cue. In recent years, AI development has obsessed over faster chips and bigger digital brains.
But Professor L. Mahadevan and his team looked elsewhere, particularly exbodied intelligence.
In this model, the smart systems aren’t located inside the robot’s hardware. Rather, the intelligence emerges from the interaction between the robot and its surroundings.
This study demonstrates that decentralized agents can achieve complex goals by following minimal physical rules and responding to environmental cues.
In the wild, ants communicate via pheromones — chemical breadcrumbs that signal where to walk or where to dig. To replicate this, the Harvard team used photormones.
Using a biological concept called stigmergy, in which individuals respond to environmental changes made by others, the team created “RAnts” that communicate through light fields known as photormones.
These digital signals act as a substitute for natural pheromones, allowing the robots to coordinate their actions by sensing and modifying their surroundings in a continuous feedback loop.
Diverse use
Following simple gradients in a “photormone” light field, these robots create a feedback loop that coordinates the entire swarm.
These operate on just a few basic rules, like tracking signals, transporting blocks, and depositing them at specific thresholds.
The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity. Interestingly, the swarm can switch roles instantly by adjusting just two parameters: the intensity of the light-following behavior and the setting for dropping or picking up blocks.
One minute, the robots are a construction crew, and the next, a demolition team.
This development offers a new model for autonomous robotics, proving that sophisticated, large-scale tasks can be managed through simple, self-organizing interactions.
It suggests that collective intelligence isn’t just in the robots’ brains, but arises from the constant interaction between the agents and their evolving environment.
These findings pave the way for diverse applications, ranging from autonomous construction in hazardous zones and planetary exploration to the creation of advanced experimental models for analyzing animal behavior.
The study findings were detailed in the journal PRX Life.
Embassy Tells Americans Still In Lebanon Depart Now While Flights Available As Ceasefire Collapsing
The US-mediated Lebanon ceasefire is unraveling fast amid intensified fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday.
This has resulted in the US embassy in Beirut issuing an urgent renewed security alert, urging US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial flight options are still available.
The statement explained the security situation “remains complex and can change quickly.” It further said that those who don’t or cannot leave must be prepared to encounter emergency situations, and also warned of unexploded ordnance which has resulted in the recent war.
A 10-day ceasefire is still technically in effect – which began about six days ago after it was brokered between Lebanese and Israel officials in Washington D.C.
However, Hezbollah did not sign on, while also Israel said it would continue going after the Iran-allied paramilitary group, chiefly in the south of the country, where it has its main outposts.
At this point about 2,300 Lebanese have been killed since fighting intensified, including civilians, according to Beirut officials – and on the Israeli side, at least 13 soldiers and two civilians have died.
Lebanese media reported Wednesday that two journalists, Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, were wounded in an Israel airstrike in the village of A-Tiri in southern Lebanon. According to the reports, Red Cross teams were dispatched to evacuate them. Later reports said two bodies and Faraj were recovered, while Khalil remained trapped, with Lebanese officials blaming Israel for difficulties in reaching her.
Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, said he was following developments and instructed the Red Cross to continue rescue efforts. A senior Lebanese army official told Reuters that an Israeli drone dropped a grenade near rescue teams, adding that Lebanon had appealed to Israel through the United States to allow access to the area.
And Israel has charged Hezbollah with breaching the ceasefire by sending drones and rockets into Israel lately.
Lebanon: The U.S. Embassy in Beirut is closely monitoring the security situation in Lebanon. The security environment remains complex and can change quickly. We urge U.S. citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial flight options remain available. We recommend that U.S. citizens… pic.twitter.com/RwHBB4DKpC
While the Lebanon ceasefire is separate from the US-Israel-Iran ceasefire, it certainly is parallel, and typically when Iran and Israel are locked in direct battle, so is Hezbollah.
Israeli officials are now warning the ceasefire in Lebanon could collapse “at any moment” – and precautions are also being taken in northern Israel.
