In the latest blow to Democrats from the recent ‘Epstein files’ released by House Republicans, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced that he’s stepping back from public commitments after new documents reveal he was asking for Jeffrey Epstein’s advice on how to bang a female mentee behind his wife’s back. 

Summers – who was Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary and later president of Harvard University, repeatedly messaged Epstein about a woman codenamed “peril” in 2018 and 2019. 

In one January 2019 text exchange, Summers told Epstein that the woman was unlikely to leave him due to his position of power and the professional connections that might come with it – to which Epstein replied, “She is doomed to be with you.“

“Think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor,” Summers wrote in November 2018. “I think I’m right now in the seen very warmly in rear view mirror category.”

“She must be very confused or maybe wants to cut me off but wants professional connection a lot and so holds to it,” Summers then wrote to Epstein in March 2019 – explaining why he believed she continued to engage with him despite tensions, the Harvard Crimson reports. 

In at least some of his exchanges with Epstein on the relationship, Summers appears to refer to macroeconomist Keyu Jin ’04, a tenured professor at the London School of Economics at the time, who is mentioned in a series of late 2018 messages between the two men.

In one, Summers forwarded Epstein an email from Jin asking for feedback on a paper. Summers mused to Epstein that it was “probably appropriate” to hold off on responding.

“She’s already begining to sound needy 🙂 nice,” Epstein replied. -Crimson

Jin earned her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. at Harvard between 2000 and 2009. Based on the messages, she makes no mention of a romantic relationship with Summers – and it’s unclear whether she knew her mentor and the sex offender were discussing her. 

In later messages, Summers and Epstein appeared to joke about the possibility that Summers would have sex with her. 

In another exchange, Summers and Epstein discussed Summers’ relationship with Jin’s father – a former high-ranked official in the Chinese Communist Party and founding president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which Summers had long been close with.

When Jin emailed Summers on Dec. 22 to thank him for his support of her and her father — minutes after she sent Summers an outline of an academic paper — Summers forwarded the exchange to Epstein, explaining that he had recently “sent a comment in mtg w her father flattering her father and saying other China officials had flattered him as well.”

Summers continued to detail his interactions with the woman — who appears to be Jin but is not named in the Epstein emails after December 2018 — throughout March 2019, now expressing frustration that she was canceling or shortening plans and appeared to be interested in another man. -Crimson

Larry Summers pursuing the daughter of a top Chinese official involved with Belt and Road and supporting him in order to sleep with his daughter is…I mean what do we even do with this?

The Center for American Progress wants to put Summers in charge of major parts of its goofy… https://t.co/2PfLyPILZu

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 17, 2025

Larry Summers was texting Epstein up to July 5, 2019, the day before his arrest.

Summers wanted advice on leveraging into bed a Chinese economist whose father is a senior CCP official Summers supported & flattered🤦‍♂️

She was almost certainly playing Summers.

Per @thecrimson https://t.co/Oxate4VSVL pic.twitter.com/zvCNBAaYoj

— Michael Lucci (@Michael7ucci) November 17, 2025

He’s Sorry (he got caught)

“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said on Monday evening, adding “I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”

Summers says he takes responsibility for his “misguided” decision to stay in touch with Epstein, and that he would continue teaching students while stepping back from the public domain. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) – a former DEI-hire Harvard Law Professor, urged the university to cut ties with Summers, saying that he “cannot be trusted to advise our nation’s politicians, policymakers and institutions — or teach a generation of students at Harvard or anywhere else.”

Harvard student here. His office at the Harvard Kennedy School seems to be gone, empty, no name tag.

— The Legal Smeagol (@TheLegalSmeagol) November 17, 2025

In response to the scandal, the Economic Club of New York postponed a discussion with Summers this week, hours after the Crimson published its article – telling FT that it was “postponed due to an unavoidable change in schedule. (lol)

“Do you see what happens Larry when you f*ck a stranger in the ass” (too perfect) https://t.co/mLnTdXs4rk

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 18, 2025

*  *  * TOP SELLERS

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On X, meteorologists are citing new forecasts indicating a shift toward sustained colder-than-normal temperatures across the Lower 49 by late this month or early next month. If heating degree days begin to climb and model confidence strengthens around a significant cold blast, the setup would provide upside continuation for natural gas prices. 

Here’s what meteorologists are saying:

The European AIFS says Winter comes in like a Lion 🦁 with an arctic cold front charging East across the United States, and I would agree 👍

Those temperature anomalies look brutally cold behind this front. In some cases over 40° below the Dec 1st averages, but more… pic.twitter.com/hDGj8VW3Hx

— Mark Margavage (@MeteoMark) November 17, 2025

The AIFS-EPS ENS is much colder than the traditional EPS/GEFS to close November.

Given big blocking over Alaska and the Arctic setting up the colder signal makes more sense for the Central US.

Likely remaining more variable on the East Coast with warmth SE (for now).

Watch… pic.twitter.com/nfoFkl2zKK

— BAM Weather (@bam_weather) November 17, 2025

Meteorologists talk about “cold pool” intensity when judging the potential of “Polar Vortex” Arctic blast

In mid-atmosphere (500 mb) the coldest air may exceed -40°C but can approach -50°C during most extreme situations like GFS 00z (I know)
–> This would be the “whole load” pic.twitter.com/aPjxs6xRW6

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) November 17, 2025

Colder and snowier than ‘normal’ in December? While I think that is going to end up being true, you have to take it with a grain of rock salt. 🙂 Baltimore only averages 2.5″ of snow in the month of December! So that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be Monster Snow. As a… pic.twitter.com/6xAlS2kTZn

— Tony Pann (@TonyPannWBAL) November 17, 2025

In NatGas markets, traders are shrugging off the new extended range outlook across the Lower 48. In recent weeks, prices have spiked on the first round of cold blast observed one week ago (read here). 

That said, these models should become more accurate in the coming days, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on natural gas prices.

Warsaw authorities have now laid official blame on the sabotage attack on Poland’s rail network which was uncovered Sunday, and could have led to the derailing of a train. As everyone expected, they are looking squarely at Moscow.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Tuesday that an investigation at the scene points to two Ukrainian citizens who have “long worked for Russian intelligence” as the prime suspects in the case.

A train track linking the Polish cities of Warsaw and Lublin had been destroyed in an “unprecedented act of sabotage”. Tusk described the damaged railway is as crucially important for delivering aid to Ukraine.

“The goal was to cause a rail catastrophe,” Tusk told members of Polish parliament in a briefing on Tuesday. He identified that at one of the two specific sabotage sites a military-grade C4 explosive charge was used.

BBC reports that “Another incident further down the line near Pulawy forced a crowded train to stop suddenly and damage was found to overhead cables.”

An “explosive device” blew up the rail track, with the the act “directly (targeted) the security of the Polish state and its civilians” – Tusk has also said.

Follow-up statements by Polish investigators said that “everything points to them being Russian special services” – in reference to the pair of Ukrainian nationals believed behind the plot. Tusk says that one of the men lives in eastern Ukraine and another is living in Belarus.

Additionally, Poland’s security services minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, has described attack on a section of the track near Mika village as “a new stage of threatening the railway infrastructure.” The severe damage was found some 80 miles from the Ukrainian border.

While Polish investigators say they’ve identified the perpetrators, it doesn’t look like they are in custody, and are likely still on the run. Some regional observers have raised the possibility of a ‘false flag’ – as it remains hard to independently verify any information coming out of NATO countries’ authorities.

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kristen Michal had condemned the apparent sabotage op, writing on X that he and his country stand with Poland. “Those behind hostile acts against (European Union) and NATO members must be exposed. Our response must be united.”

European countries have long complained of Russian-sponsored ‘hybrid warfare’ against EU critical infrastructure. They also say that Russia is behind mystery drone incursions which have at times disrupted busy commercial airports as as well as military flights.

Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Monday the Senate is taking up legislation that would sanction Russia’s trading partners, in order to ramp up the pressure on Moscow to end the war with Ukraine.

The announcement came after President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday night the proposed legislation would be “OK with me” – which marked his strongest signal yet that he’s planning on signing off on it.

Graham, a Russia hawk (and pretty much hawkish on all other conflicts and official US ‘enemies’ in the world) unveiled the move forward on the legislation “with President Trump’s blessing.”

He described the necessity of yet more sanctions in order to “continue the momentum to end this war honorably, justly and once and for all.”

“This legislation is designed to give President Trump more flexibility and power to push Putin to the peace table by going after both Putin and countries like Iran that support him,” Graham wrote. “I appreciate the strong bipartisan support for this legislation in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.”

“The Senate will move soon on a tough sanctions bill — not only against Russia — but also against countries like China and India that buy Russian energy products that finance Putin’s war machine,” Graham additionally stated. “The Senate bill has a presidential waiver to give President Trump maximum leverage.”

“When it comes to Putin and those who support his war machine, it is time to change the game,” he continued. Further, Graham again verified that Trump “is looking at [the bill] very strongly.” But Trump wants the ultimate final say-so:

Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a co-sponsor of the bill, worked to include the presidential waiver to satisfy a White House request to give Trump more options, according to Politico.

US media is framing this as part of Trump “losing patience” with Putin over ending the war; however, the reality remains that Kiev and its Western backers have been unwilling to offer territorial concessions. Finally ceding Crimea hasn’t even been on the table.

“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,” Trump recently told reporters. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” And Graham responded to Trump’s words by saying the president “is spot on about the games Putin is playing.”

Lately, amid a ‘civil war’ in MAGA-land in the wake of the Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes interview, many of Trump’s supporters have vehemently complained that Trump is too much in neocon Lindsey Graham’s corner on foreign policy. His administration certainly didn’t start off like that.

Two months ago, when nobody was talking about the coming AI debt tsunami needed to bankroll trillions in data-center capex, and nobody was paying attention to Oracle’s CDS quietly blow out, and well ahead of the Bank of England’s AI valuation warning, we published “The Stunning Math Behind The AI Vendor Financing “Circle Jerk,” essentially laying out all the weakest links in the swelling global AI bubble.

In the report, we laid out the ridiculous circle-jerk vendor financing schemes concocted by the handful of top players to pretend their revenue is growing at a rapid pace. We also called it an “infinite money glitch”…

Most notably, the players.

Fast-forward to Tuesday: the AI bubble keeps deflating, hyperscalers are under pressure, Bitcoin trading in the $92k range, and Microsoft and Amazon were just downgraded to neutral by Rothschild & Co. and Redburn’s Alexander Haissl. Now comes fresh news from Microsoft and Nvidia, attempting to revive the AI hype with yet another round of circle-jerking. 

Bloomberg reports Microsoft and Nvidia will invest up to $15 billion in Anthropic. As part of the agreement, Anthropic will purchase $30 billion of compute from Microsoft’s Azure, which only confirms more circle-jerking. 

“We are increasingly going to be customers of each other — we will use Anthropic models, they will use our infrastructure, and we will go to market together,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated in a video, adding, “Of course, this all builds on the partnership we have with OpenAI, which remains a critical partner for Microsoft.”

Satya Nadella explains how the circle jerk works: “We are increasingly going to be customers of each other — we will use Anthropic models, they will use our infrastructure, and we will go to market together”

And the US taxpayer will bail out everyone.

The end. https://t.co/WIHEzmZOlz

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 18, 2025

To support the AI-infrastructure buildout, Anthropic plans to spend $50 billion building AI data centers across multiple states. The AI company is simultaneously partnered with Google, which agreed in October to supply up to 1 million AI chips. 

Earlier, analyst Haissl warned that the bullish case around generative AI is no longer clear and hyperscalers should be approached with caution. 

He noted the industry’s “trust us – Gen-AI is just like early cloud 1.0” pitch is flawed and that the underlying economics are far weaker than assumed.

Building on Haissl’s warning, we’ve been very early in covering Oracle’s CDS blowout, even offering warnings about AI debt and valuations well before the Bank of England. 

Bad news for the AI stocks. 

With all free cash flow going into chatbot data center capex, there is nothing left for buybacks and dividends. pic.twitter.com/RcqzDhHLv6

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 3, 2025

As we’ve previously joked. 

at this rate tomorrow morning we will get this headline

*OPENAI SIGNS DEAL WITH OPENAI TO BUY AND SELL $100 TRILLION WORTH OF STUFF TO AND FROM ITSELF

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 4, 2025

Morgan Stanley analysts need to add Anthropic to the circle jerking.

How does all this end? Trump’s AI advisor, David Sacks may have offered a clue: “There will be no federal bailout for AI. The U.S. has at least five major frontier-model companies. If one fails, others will take its place.”

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

China stockpiled crude oil at elevated rates in October, at a daily rate of some 690,000 barrels, up from 570,000 barrels daily in September, Reuters’ Clyde Russell reported today, citing calculations derived from official Beijing data.

Refinery throughput in October averaged 14.94 million barrels daily, the official data showed, while imports ran at a rate of 11.39 million barrels daily, Russell reported.

The refinery throughput figure was a 6.4% increase on the year, suggesting healthy demand for oil, but it was also a decline on September’s 15.26 million bpd average.

The September figure was a two-year high.

Imports, meanwhile, averaged 11.39 million barrels daily in October, adding to local production of 4.24 million barrels daily for a total daily supply rate of 15.63 million barrels.

The difference between supply and demand, as based on refinery runs, is assumed to be going into storage, although some of it might be processed by small refineries that are not included in the official data, Russell notes in his regular reports on the state of China’s oil market.

This stockpiling on the part of China has become a major reason for the relative stability of oil prices.

It is based on the rather reasonable assumption that if China, the world’s largest oil importer, has built a supply cushion in case of disruption, then a surge in demand following such a disruption is unlikely. This assumption has acted as one more lid on prices, along with regular reports about electric vehicles replacing internal combustion engines in the world’s biggest car market.

Over the first ten months of the year, China was stockpiling crude at a daily rate of 900,000 barrels, the Reuters report also said, giving a rather comfortable size to that supply cushion in case of disruption, such as the latest U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft and Lukoil.

We raised the question back in 2023: was the Topgolf mania just another consumer hype bubble?

Turns out that may have been the case. Topgolf Callaway Brands had been trying to unload or spin off the Topgolf unit for some time, and now they have.

Bloomberg reports that Callaway has sold a 60% stake in its Topgolf and Toptracer division to Leonard Green & Partners in a deal valuing the business at about $1.1 billion. This means the 60% stake will generate about $770 million for Callaway. 

Callaway originally acquired Topgolf in 2020 for about $2 billion. After the sale closes in 1Q26, the company will rebrand itself as Callaway Golf Company under the ticker “CALY” and refocus on its core golf equipment brands, stepping away from the struggling golf-experience chain.

In September, Golf Digest published a report based on conversations with former Topgolf executives Devin Charhon and Michael Canfield, revealing that Topgolf never achieved a stable flow of returning customers (cost was a major factor).

The former execs left the company to start Blue Jeans, which created the “Golf Ranch” brand, modernizing aging driving ranges and making it more of an actual practice facility for golfers rather than the Togolf experience of fancy screens and lights. It turns out golfers just want to practice.  

Well, that wasn’t as planned. 

Golf Ranch sounds more reasonable. 

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The Polycene and the Monocene

For over a decade our global strategy has warned the ‘liberal world order’ would collapse. Now, the New York Times’ Tom Friedman, in ‘Welcome to Our New Era. What Do We Call It?’, shares that “For the past few years, I have had to ask myself a question I never asked before in my life: What should we call the era we’re living in today?” He’s running with ‘The Polycene’, which in Greek means “There’s so much going on that a ‘Monocene’ focus on data won’t help.”

In markets stocks, tech, crypto, and even gold are down. Japanese 20-year JGB yields just hit the highest since 1999, prompting a meeting at 15:30 Japan time today between PM Takaichi and BOJ Governor Ueda – but what can be done endogenously that doesn’t smash either the JGB market or JPY? There are also warnings over private credit – yet we also continue to see circular-investing / vendor-financing mega deals in the AI space.

In geopolitics, the USS Ford has arrived in the Caribbean: what does that mean for Venezuela, as Chile is expected to see a US-friendly shift in its presidential election? In Asia, the US pulled a missile system from Japan as the Beijing–Tokyo row over Taiwan deepens despite the latter’s attempts to deescalate. In Europe, Berlin and Paris may scrap a planned joint fighter as France plans to supply Ukraine with 100 Rafales, upping the ante with Russia; Brussels warns the EU’s proposed €140bn Ukraine loan could have a “knock-on” impact on financial markets; Poland says a rail explosion there was an “unprecedented act of sabotage”; and the FT warns ‘The scramble for Europe is just beginning’, where “as the EU struggles to defend its interests, outside powers play divide and rule,” putting a new spin on ‘DM = EM’. In the Mid-East, the UN Security Council backed Trump’s plan for postwar Gaza, as the US intends to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, whose more cash-strapped MBS will visit the White House today for arm twisting on expanding the Abraham Accords.

As military spending surges, the fiscal picture is worrying. Russia is raising VAT by 2 percentage points. The US is talking $2,000 cheques for working families paid for by tariffs. France still hasn’t agreed a budget. Germany is about to splurge on arms. Canada is borrowing far more, but not for that. The UK just saw market volatility over suggestions taxes wouldn’t be raised when the market had previously disliked the idea that they would. China is rolling out stimulus. Japan’s PM also wants fiscal stimulus… to lower inflation.

Supply chains are geopolitically squeezed. Both GM and Tesla say they won’t use Chinese parts in the US. German is freezing out Huawei and will bring in new tech controls aimed at China. The Dutch-Chinese Nexperia row rumbles on, and a new row has started. The US still hasn’t formally secured the China rare earths deal it wants. Positively, India says a US trade deal is closer after agreeing to take much more US LNG. Negatively, the US just warned Europe over trade foot-dragging, and the Chair of UBS has talked to Scott Bessent about moving the bank to the States.

Affordability remains a key issue in the West: there’s a Trump summit on it today. The situation is similar in other DM – and worse in EM. House prices are sky high: the average age of a US home buyer has risen to 59(!) A top Aussie banker says housing heat is raising concerns and calls to ‘Put the brakes on’ follow a record A$40bn investor blitz into property as everyone –but the central bank– predicted would follow RBA rate cuts. Moreover, the AFR warns ‘China’s debt shock is coming. Our high house prices won’t protect us’, and “Australia’s economy isn’t ready.”

The threat of AI job losses is soaring. That’s as MAGA politicians are demanding transparency on AI job losses, where “Protecting US workers collides with need to outpace China”, and ‘Notices of Impending Layoffs by US Companies Surged in October’ (Bloomberg). Yet Elon Musk states his robots could end poverty and provide universal high incomes. So, what’s next: mass unemployment or ‘abundance’ or both? Which central bank has either in their models?

Political populism keeps rising. Mamdani won in New York. Trump has been forced to agree to release the Epstein files, as a far-right (and libertarian) ‘America First’ faction challenges MAGA. In Australia, the Nats/Libs Coalition is down sharply in the polls after it dropped a commitment to net zero and says it wants much lower immigration, as populist One Nation surges. In the UK, the Reform party says it would cut off benefits for EU citizens and slash overseas aid to save £25bn: the UK press says the police are preparing for civil war. On Friday, PM Takaichi announced she may change the corporate code to force Japanese firms to invest more or pay higher wages rather than return profits to shareholders. In Nepal, Indonesia, and Mexico Gen-Z protests just tried to bring down their governments. Again, central banks can’t capture this – but may be captured.

Indeed, D.L. Jacobs argues the Fed’s Miran aims to challenge the foundations of US monetary policy “because the world [Fed] forecasts are trying to measure no longer exists.” Keynesianism emerged in the Great Depression of the 1930s; monetarism with the Great Stagflation of the 1970s; hyper-neoliberalism in the post-Cold War 1990s; central bank QE in the post-GFC 2000s; and Miran argues the Treasury and Fed de facto merged in the 2020s so “The pretence of central bank independence has collapsed. Monetary policy is now politics conducted by other means.” And the US faces a panoply of (geo)political challenges.

“For Miran, the answer is not to restore a lost neutrality. It is to make that power accountable… the goal of central bank independence can be achieved only by new means.” We are seeing similar rhetoric from Reform in the UK and the RN in France. (As former Fed Governor Kugler is accused of violating trading ethics, current Governor Cook is in court to fight charges of mortgage fraud, ex-governor Clarida was forced to step down in 2022 over stock trading, and for-now current Governor Bostic was warned over the same.)   

New means means new thinking – and for Miran that’s part of the Mar-a-Lago Accords that also involves trade, the US dollar, and US Treasuries. The current account deficits required to give the world demanded Eurodollars mean US financialisation, polarisation, deindustrialisation, and de-hegemonisation – which the US now intends to resist, not accept.

As such, the boundaries dividing political, monetary, fiscal, trade and other policies are gone (as we had flagged) and, as Jacobs puts it, “Miran argues that coordination should be made deliberate and accountable. He’s on a mission to modernize US-led capitalism, turning ad-hoc crisis management into a coherent framework for political economy.”

But is there one and will it work? We think yes, and it remains to be seen. But that needs to be the market debate, not what payrolls, PMIs, or CPI will be. However, it’s also true that the worse those data are, the greater the pressure for revolutionary policy changes ahead of the key US mid-term elections.

For now avoiding all these debates, the RBA minutes of its November policy rate meeting showed one member pushing back on the idea that its unemployment and inflation goals bear equal weight –so which matters most?– and the overall message was that the Reserve Bank will only consider cutting rates again if the labor market shows a serious deterioration. That’s the kind of deep Monocene thinking for which one is, or at least was, paid the big bucks. But in the world that exists today, is it possible that such an outcome could also correlate with a further surge in house prices anyway? And if so, then what?

That question doesn’t get asked anywhere near enough in anywhere near enough contexts.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

There is one magazine that represents the interests of the global elite more than any other.  It is known as “The Economist”, and each year it puts out an issue that is dedicated to what is coming in the year ahead.  As we have seen so many times before, these issues tend to be alarmingly accurate.  The reason why they are so accurate is because the ultra-wealthy elite have an enormous amount of influence over the course of human events.  If they are absolutely determined to make something happen, there is a good chance that it is going to happen.  Ominously, it appears that they are anticipating a great deal of global chaos in 2026.

The Economist has been around since 1843, but it has never had a very large readership among the general population.

Ultimately, it is a publication by the elite and for the elite.

According to Wikipedia, it has editorial offices all over the planet but it is primarily based in the city of London…

The Economist is a British news and current affairs journal published in a weekly print magazine format and daily on digital platforms. Variously referred to as a magazine and a newspaper,[6][7] it publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. Mostly written and edited in London,[8] it has other editorial offices in the United States and in major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.[9][8] The publication prominently features data journalism, and has a focus on interpretive analysis over original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim.

Many of the wealthiest families in Europe are among the shareholders of the company, and Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild was actually the chairman from the early 1970s to the late 1980s…

Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild (21%), Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a number of staff and former staff shareholders.[37][43] A board of trustees formally appoints the editor, who cannot be removed without its permission. The Economist Newspaper Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Economist Group. Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild was chairman of the company from 1972 to 1989.

If you want to know what the global elite are thinking, this is the publication that you need to be reading.

And the cover for “The World Ahead 2026” issue is perhaps the most ominous that they have ever published…

When you look at that cover, what stands out to you?

To me, the fact that there are so many symbols relating to war really got my attention.

There is a huge red tank on one side of the cover, and another huge red tank on the other side of the cover.

At the top there are several large missiles that look like they are ready to be launched, and at the bottom there are more large missiles.

Also, right in the middle we see two enormous swords that are crossed.

That is clearly meant to symbolize war.

Obviously they believe that war will continue to be a major theme in 2026, and that is something that I have been consistently warning about.

And they also seem to think that certain individuals will continue to be major players in world affairs during the coming year.

Volodymyr Zelensky is clearly visible in the upper right hand portion of the cover.

Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be depicted on the left hand portion of the cover.

And just like last year, Donald Trump is right in the middle.

On Monday, Trump refused to rule out the possibility of sending U.S. ground troops into Venezuela…

Asked if he would rule out US troops on the ground in Venezuela, Trump replied: “No I don’t rule out that, I don’t rule out anything.

“We just have to take care of Venezuela,” he added. “They dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country from prisons.”

Personally, I think that this is a trap.

If we go to war with Venezuela, a large portion of our military forces will be tied up and our relations with the rest of the world will greatly suffer.

And Trump is also suggesting that military strikes in Mexico and Colombia could be coming…

President Trump hinted at being open to sending military strikes to Mexico and Colombia in order to stop drugs on Monday, sending chills across the region.

The president made the comments during a press conference on Monday as he hosted a meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the White House task force on the 2026 World Cup at the Oval Office.

“Would I launch strikes on Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs. Mexico is…look I looked at Mexico City over the weekend. There’s some big problems over there. If we had to would we do there what we’ve done to the waterways? You know there is almost no drugs coming through our waterways anymore. Isn’t it down like 85%?” the president said.

On the other side of the globe, I expect the conflict between Israel and Iran to erupt again, I expect the war in Ukraine to continue to escalate, and I will be watching China very, very closely.

Getting back to the magazine cover, I also noticed that there is a chart that seems to depict some sort of a financial crash right under the crossed swords.

And not too far below that chart, there is a red image of a broken dollar sign.

In addition, throughout the bottom half of the graphic it looks like paper currency is falling everywhere.

Wow.

Obviously they are trying to communicate something about the global economy, and it certainly isn’t good.

Will 2026 be a year of financial collapse?

We won’t have to wait too long to find out.

I also noticed two gigantic syringes near the bottom of the cover.

And throughout the cover there are lots of “pills” floating around.

I started to count them, but there are just too many.

So what does this mean?

Are they suggesting that another global pandemic is on the way?

Will 2026 be a year when people are taking shots and pills to try to protect themselves from a major pestilence that has broken out?

Interestingly, an outbreak of the Marburg virus has just been confirmed in Ethiopia…

Ethiopia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in the south of the country, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Saturday.

The Marburg virus is one of the deadliest known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhea and has a 21-day incubation period.

Also like Ebola, it is transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and has a fatality rate of between 25 and 80 per cent.

The head of the World Health Organization, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed on Friday that at least nine cases had been detected in southern Ethiopia, two days after Africa CDC was alerted to a suspected haemorrhagic virus in the region.

Personally, I am convinced that pestilence will be a major theme in 2026.

I hope that all of you have been getting ready for that.

Lastly, I wanted to mention the giant raised fist near the top of the cover.

A raised fist has been the primary symbol of resistance to the Trump administration.

And I don’t think that it is an accident that the giant raised fist has been placed right on top of the American flag in this graphic.

Are the global elite planning civil unrest in major U.S. cities in 2026?

We know that they have been lavishly funding far left protest groups in this country.

Will 2026 be a year when mass protests against Trump go to the next level?

I think that is their plan.

I think that they fully intend to unleash chaos, and that fits perfectly with what I am expecting too.

Unfortunately for the elite, I do not believe that they will be able to control the chaos that is coming.

We really are right on the brink of a global nightmare, and once it starts nobody is going to be able to wake up from it.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

California-based reactor developer Valar Atomics announced the milestone achievement of obtaining criticality under Project NOVA in collaboration with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Los Alamos National Lab (LANL). Criticality was achieved at 11:45 AM PT on November 17th.

Zero-power criticality, or “cold criticality”, is the foundational milestone which precedes nuclear operation with power. It is a self-sustaining chain reaction of uranium-235 within a nuclear core, but without reaching full operating temperatures or actively removing heat with a working fluid. Zero-power criticality allows a greater understanding of the neutronic characteristics of the core and a verification of assumptions about fuel, moderators, active reactivity control, and burnable poisons.

Valar Atomics is a relatively new nuclear startup that has secured $130 million in funding, with participation from Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, among other investors. Valar’s business model involves mass-producing small modular reactors and clustering them at large sites, or “gigasites,” to power data centers and industrial processes independently of the traditional electricity grid. Unlike many of its peers, Valar is developing advanced nuclear reactors that use a high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR) design with TRISO fuel and helium as a coolant.

Valar’s Project NOVA (Nuclear Observations of Valar Atomics) is currently being conducted at LANL’s National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) in Nevada. The criticality test began five days earlier on November 12th, as the approach to initial criticality is a slow and controlled process. The reactor being tested is a “zero-power” design, meaning it’s not intended to output thermal energy for conversion to electricity. The primary purpose is to obtain physics data to confirm design characteristics of the Ward250, their reactor included in the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Project.

Adam Stein, the Director for Nuclear Energy Innovation at The Breakthrough Institute, commented “achieving cold criticality represents a milestone for Reactor Pilot Program participants and meets the goal outlined in the recent executive order. This is one step of many toward a functional commercial product”.

NCERC has been used for decades to perform reactor and nuclear weapon physics testing. The recent core physics testing with the Deimos experiment laid the foundation for the NOVA testing. Deimos was the first test in decades using TRISO fuels pellets with HALEU fuel. The benchmarks developed from the Deimos test, along with some of the core’s outer structure, enabled Valar to rapidly achieve this criticality-focused project.

“Valar Atomics provided the reactor core, TRISO fuel, and system configuration.

LANL/ NCERC provided the critical assembly, facility safety envelope, experimentalists, test instrumentation, experiment platform and reflectors, data analysis, and validation oversight”

Valar’s announcement hasn’t discussed the licensing or regulatory pathways that were utilized to enable the criticality testing, but it can be assumed the company coordinated the required permissions and certifications through the DOE, not the NRC. They also likely leveraged the previous data from the Deimos experiment and the lower risk nature of a zero-power reactor to obtain authorization faster.

The other leading reactor developer of micro-HTGRs, Radiant Nuclear, submitted its DOE Authorization Request for Kaleidos (DARK) to the DOE for review. Approval is anticipated by the end of the year. Radiant is pursuing reactor testing at the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).

To provide the comparison between the Project NOVA test and the DOME test — Valar is performing the precursor testing that would be done prior to a test like the one Radiant is about to do at INL. Similar to the testing Valar’s Ward250 reactor will perform in Utah, Radiant will be performing testing for their Kaleidos reactor design add a higher power level than what Project NOVA is achieving, for which the collected data will be used for the eventual NRC licensing of their commercial designs.

In May, President Trump announced the goal of three reactors obtaining criticality prior to July 4th, 2026. The DOE is pursuing this goal by providing 11 reactor projects expedited licensing pathways to take their reactors from powerpoint to actual operations. Valar’s designated reactor, the Ward250, is a High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) designed for 100kW. They recently broke ground at their construction site in Utah and claim to be on track to meet the President’s target.

The initial criticality achievement is the first of six total configurations that will be tested for physics data collecting, enabling the eventual testing of the Ward250, as well as future research at the NCERC.