Submitted by Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

Russia is getting an unexpected windfall from the war in the Middle East. The Kremlin’s oil revenues this month hit a four-year high as oil prices jumped to $100 per barrel amid the Iran war and the de facto closed Strait of Hormuz.

Moscow expects so much additional revenues from the oil price spike that authorities are unlikely to downgrade Russia’s economic prospects, hold off on planned budget cuts, and even boost military spending on the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

A month ago, Russia was considering lowering the oil price level above which it sends the proceeds to its wealth fund as oil and gas revenues were plummeting with widening discounts and key Russian buyers like India pulling out of the spot market.

But the Middle East war and the worst disruption in the history of the global oil market pushed oil prices above $100 per barrel and prompted the United States to give buyers a free pass on Russian oil purchases.

As a result, the price of Urals, Russia’s flagship crude, has now nearly doubled to about $100 per barrel as demand for Russian oil in India is soaring again.

The oil price spike has already given Russia a reason to postpone the planned budget tightening.

Moscow has now scrapped plans to make a substantial downgrade to its economic growth forecast for 2026, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

Russian oil revenues have steadily increased in March, thanks to higher shipments and soaring oil prices, according to tanker-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg. In two of the weeks this month, Russia was estimated to cash in the highest amounts of oil revenues since 2022, just after its invasion of Ukraine drove prices above $100 per barrel.

Russia is cashing in on the Iran war even as it cannot take full advantage of the oil price spike as Ukraine targets its key Baltic Sea ports in an attempt to undermine Moscow’s oil export capabilities.

The Department of War confirmed to Reuters that it deployed Ukrainian-style drone boats to the Middle East as part of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. This move signals that the DoW is quickly learning a major lesson from the four-year Russia-Ukraine war: inexpensive autonomous systems, from drone boats to kamikaze drones, are necessary and are becoming core assets (very cheap) on the modern battlefield.

Tim Hawkins, a DoW spokesperson for Central Command, told the outlet that the drone boats deployed in the operation were built by Baltimore-based BlackSea and are known as the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC. He said the drone boats are being used for reconnaissance missions.

“U.S. forces continue to employ unmanned systems in the Middle East region, including surface drone assets like the GARC. This platform, in particular, has successfully logged over 450 underway hours and more than 2,200 nautical miles during maritime patrols in support of Operation Epic Fury,” Hawkins said.

BlackSea’s high-speed drone boat is described as a modular, autonomous, and remotely operated USV (unmanned surface vehicle) built for missions such as ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), communications relay, mine countermeasures, survey, interdiction, and potentially strike roles.

The DoW’s push for inexpensive, scalable autonomous air, ground, and maritime systems has only been reinforced by Operation Epic Fury and appears to take a page from Ukraine’s playbook in its war of attrition against Russia, where FPVs and killer ground bots have dominated ‘no man’s land.’

In addition to drone boats, U.S. forces have deployed kamikaze drones based on the Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone – yet another acknowledgment by the DoW that autonomous systems are the future of warfare.

None of this should surprise readers, as we have outlined how four years of rapid development in war technology across Ukraine, Russia, and China have provided a glimpse of 2030s warfare.

AI’ Kill Chains’ And Rise Of Skynet-Like Weapons Offer Glimpse Of 2030s Battlefield

Latest snapshot of the two wars across Eurasia: we overlaid natural gas pipelines on the map.

Next up are humanoid robots as physical AI on the battlefield.

*  *  *

Grab our favorite knife. Hand-made in the USA. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, has agreed to pay $800,000 in attorney fees to settle a case with a Christian photographer who fought to protect her religious and free speech rights over the years of litigation.

Louisville ultimately spent a fortune to force Chelsey Nelson to photograph same sex marriages under its nondiscrimination laws.

When combined with its own litigation costs, the case likely cost the city and the courts millions to deny Nelson her constitutional rights.

In prior columns, academic articles, and my book, “The Indispensable Right, I discussed the never-ending litigation targeting Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who declined to make cakes that violated his religious beliefs.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict.

I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other cases) under the religious clauses rather than treating it as a matter of free speech.

In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a maddening 2018 decision that technically ruled in favor of Phillips based on a finding that the Commission showed anti-religious bias against Phillips.

In 2023, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis, when it ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse to provide services for a same-sex marriage.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”

In the September ruling, the court cited 303 Creative:

“That 2023 decision confirmed this Court’s 2022 interpretation of the First Amendment to bar the City of Louisville from enforcing an ordinance prohibiting wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson from stating her traditional (now dissenting) views on traditional marriage or declining to participate in those ceremonies.”

Louisville is only the latest blue city to spend millions trying to force individuals to create products — from cakes to wedding albums — that violate their religious, speech, and associational rights.

The settlement is a victory not just for Nelson but also for the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Earlier this week President Putin weighed in on America’s Iran operations, and as we detailed his comments were predictably a bit guarded. He had compared the war and the Hormuz Strait closure – and subsequent impact on global energy – to the massive widescale impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. But fundamentally he highlighted the “unpredictable” nature of the conflict in terms of where it’s headed, as Washington appears to be searching for an offramp on its terms.

On Friday Dmitry Medvedev weighed in, and as expected the former Russian president and current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council was much less guarded in his assessment. He warned at a moment thousands of US Marines and Airborne troop are en route to the Middle East that if the US enters a ground war in Iran it will be another “Vietnam”.

American boots on the ground so far from US shores “threatens roughly the same consequences as what happened in Vietnam,” Medvedev said as quotes in NBC and others.

“When Washington intervened in a foreign country, located a thousand miles away, and for ten years was unable to find a dignified way out of this conflict,” he told the state-run RIA news agency.

He added that a potential ground operation in Iran would have “fatal consequences” for the broader region and for all involved in the war.

Size comparison: Vietnam overlaying Iran

The White House has been insistent that Trump’s Iran “excursion” is not a quagmire. It has especially been Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth who has repeatedly denied that this conflict can be comparable to the start of ‘forever wars’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

But clearly the US doesn’t have good track record when its forces must endure extended asymmetric warfare and insurgency conditions. Yet that’s exactly where things will likely head if the White House introduces ground forces.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has actually seized on this historic theme as well, earlier writing on X: “Americans haven’t forgotten how (in 1967), even as hundreds of U.S. soldiers were dying in Vietnam, and the outcome was already clear, General William Westmoreland was flown home to reassure everyone that the war was going well – that the U.S. was ‘winning’.”

“The media haven’t forgotten either; those briefings full of fantasy from the frontlines became infamous as the ‘Five O’Clock Follies’,” he said. The “same script, different stage” is now unfolding, Araghchi insisted, adding: “Hegseth steps up, and the message is still detached from reality.”

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Protein – your daily usual + peptides

Authored by Brian Quarmby via CoinTelegraph.com,

US President Donald Trump is set to become the first sitting president in history to have his signature put on US paper currency.

In an announcement on Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury said the move would mark the 250th anniversary of the US.

It will put both Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s signatures on future US notes.

“There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial,” Bessent said.

Until now, the tradition has been to put the signatures of the treasurer and the Treasury secretary on US paper currency.

This move would mark the first time in history that a sitting president is placing his signature on US currency.

Source: Brandon Beach

According to a report from Reuters on Thursday, the first $100 bills with Trump and Bessent’s signatures will be printed in June, with other bills following in later months.

Trump’s name and likeness have also made their way to cryptocurrencies, famous landmarks and commemorative coins.

Alongside the Treasury’s plans to put Trump’s signature on US notes, there are also potentially $1 coins with the president’s face on them that could enter circulation as part of the US’s 250th anniversary.

In late 2025, the US Mint released three proposed designs bearing Trump’s face and the caption “In God We Trust.”

Proposed $1 coin designs. Source: US Mint

Trump has also helped oversee the renaming of major US landmarks such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

The board of the Kennedy Center, reportedly filled with Trump appointees, voted in late December to change the name to the “Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

This has prompted pushback, however, with lawmakers arguing that the move is illegal when done without authorization from Congress.

In the crypto world, Trump has a memecoin named after himself and he has also released multiple NFT projects, including the Trump Digital Trading Cards. 

Submitted by Michael Kern of OilPrice.com

Asian refiners have started pricing their orders for U.S. crude oil against the ICE Brent benchmark instead of the typical pricing on Dubai crude, as the Middle Eastern benchmark has seen wild fluctuations amid choked physical supply from the Persian Gulf.

Dubai crude prices soared last week to an all-time high of $169.75 per barrel, and were around  $130 a barrel early on Friday.

These highly volatile prices and the uncertainty about supply from the Middle East have prompted refiners in Asia to seek pricing against Brent, instead of the Dubai benchmark which has traditionally been the marker dictating the price of imports into the world’s top crude-importing region.

Some Japanese refiners have already bought U.S. crude cargoes for delivery in July priced against ICE Brent, sources at trading and refining firms told Reuters on Friday. Taiyo Oil, for example, has purchased 2 million barrels of U.S. light crude via a tender at a premium of $19 per barrel over ICE Brent for July delivery, according to Reuters’ sources. Taiyo Oil usually buys U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude priced against the Dubai benchmark.

The major shift in Asian pricing shows the market’s unwillingness to price trades against Dubai crude, whose prices have been severely distorted in recent weeks due to the major physical supply disruptions with the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Asian refiners are also forced to pay massive premiums for non-Middle Eastern crude, especially for the sour variety suitable for Asian refineries geared to process the sulfur crude from the Persian Gulf. The most suitable grade from Norway, Johan Sverdrup, was being bid last week at record-high double-digit premiums over Dated Brent.

Refiners in Asia are also cutting processing rates due to a lack of crude, fuel prices are skyrocketing, and governments are implementing fuel-saving measures such as four-day work weeks, work from home, and extended national holidays. Many Asian countries are also banning exports of fuels, which ripples through the global fuel supply, especially in jet and diesel markets.

A disturbing browser game called Five Nights at Epstein’s is spreading in schools, with students playing it during class and sharing videos online, according to Bloomberg.

In the game, players take on the role of victims trapped on Jeffrey Epstein’s island, trying to survive five nights by avoiding assault. Its popularity has been fueled by social media, where clips of students playing have drawn large audiences and, in some cases, even demonstrate how to bypass school restrictions. The game’s accessibility through web browsers makes it especially easy for students to access on school-issued devices.

Parents and educators are alarmed not only by the game’s content but by how casually students engage with it.

One parent noted that classmates seemed “disconnected to the reality that there were real victims,” often joking about the scenario in ways that felt dehumanizing.

Photo: Bloomberg

Bloomberg writes that despite platform policies that prohibit harmful or exploitative material, videos and links continue to circulate, frequently disguised with misspellings to avoid detection. The game reflects a broader pattern of meme-driven parody content that turns real-world abuse scandals into entertainment, blurring the line between satire and harm.

Educators warn that repeated exposure to this kind of content risks desensitizing young people to serious issues like sexual violence.

As one librarian put it, “That’s not kids being kids; that’s kids hiding from being sexually assaulted,” emphasizing concerns about how such media may shape attitudes and empathy.

Schools are attempting to respond through stricter device monitoring and usage policies, but many believe these measures alone are insufficient. Addressing the issue, they argue, requires a coordinated effort between tech platforms, parents, and educators to help students better understand the real-world consequences behind what they see on screens.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“The people we care about most, the undocumented migrants…”

– Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)

Cult Classics

Tensions rise as the green fuse drives the flowers of springtime (and thank you, Dylan Thomas, for the loan.)

Too many things are out of whack. Some are actually breaking.

A physics of events is at work that will bring our affairs back to true, but expect it to be painful.

Okay, you’ve been warned.

Asia, especially, suffers bigly with the Persian Gulf shut-down.

For decades these countries took the oil flows for granted without having to do anything. No thoughts of maritime security. No cares for the chaos Iran sowed across the region (and beyond). Leave the tanker insurance to London.

Now, they are rationing the diesel, gasoline, natgas, and aviation fuel.

For the moment they are just stunned. Soon, they’ll be hollering, stomping, jumping up and down crying woo-woo-woo.

Europe, for years, has garishly, and in plain sight, planned its own journey to a de-industrialized neo-medieval Palookaville.

The poster-child, Germany, destroyed its energy prospects with lunatic glee, in thrall to retarded climate change politics, while the European Union turned into a devouring mother, stole her children’s sovereign agency, and herded them into a Klaus Schwab death camp.

No more atomic energy for you! No more cheap gas from Russia. No more heat in wintertime. Jihad for entertainment. The lights are going out and it might be too late to make other arrangements.

Don’t think for a moment that Iran was not a threat to the world, and especially to The Great Satan, as they styled us.

The Persians have been hostage to a cult for half a century, and all cults are crazy. This one, the reign of the Shia ayatollahs, was apocalyptic in the pure sense of the word. They prayed and labored avidly for the destruction of others and relished their own martyrdom. The craziest part was thinking that the USA under Donald Trump might possibly roll over for them.

Quit swallowing those black pills, everybody.

Iran is not some super-monster out of the Marvel Comics movies. Iran doesn’t have the mojo to shut down the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely. It will run out of missiles, drones, torpedoes, mines, launch sites, and a command structure for deploying any of that.

It has converted the other neutral Gulf states into raging enemies eager to help the US — and by extension, most ironically, Israel, too.

This rearrangement of interests in the Middle East would have been unthinkable a mere month ago.

We have way more to worry about here in America with our own apocalyptic coteries and claques.

And our broken institutions. Is it not obvious that the Democratic Party exists now solely to punish half of the country that would prefer to not wreck our republic?

The Democratic Party has no other program. It’s just another death cult.

That’s why you were made to wait four and half hours in some far-off precinct of the airport for a flight that you were guaranteed to miss.

Well, at least that’s over for now, since the Senate passed a spending bill at two o’clock in the morning today and DHS will be up-and-running again — while Congress takes two weeks off for Easter.

Now consider those figures and factions in the Republican Party who won’t lift a finger to allow election reform.

Thune, McConnell (what little is left of him), Murkowski, Tillis, maybe Collins.

What possible calculus judders their brains?

They are about to be drowned in a tsunami of revelation about organized ballot fraud in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

How will they explain that?

Maybe “election denial” wasn’t a thing all along. Thune’s game is plain stupid. He’s engineering his own downfall as majority leader as he attempts to usher the SAVE Act into a ditch. Our election procedures are patently insane, and only the insane fail to notice. So, failing to notice is an option, at least.

Tomorrow, Saturday, brings another Neville Roy Singham production of “No Kings” demos across the nation, a field-day for the senile.

They want to abolish ICE. They want illegal aliens to stay here and they want them in the voting booth.

Go out and ask them why that’s a good idea.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Golf pro Tiger Woods has reportedly been involved in a “rollover crash” on Jupiter Island, just north of Palm Beach County in Martin County, according to local media outlet WPTV.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said the accident occurred near 281 Beach Road on Jupiter Island in Hobe Sound. Property records from Zillow show the closest house to the accident is valued at $14.8 million.

The sheriff’s office has yet to say what happened or whether Tiger was injured.

If the report is correct, this would mark Tiger’s third car crash. Here are his prior two:

November 2009 in Florida, when he hit a fire hydrant and a tree outside his home.

February 2021 in Southern California, a serious single-car rollover that caused major leg injuries.

Sheriff John Budensiek will hold a press conference at around 1700 local time.

*Developing… 

Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Surging LNG prices amid the war in the Middle East are set to lead to the lowest monthly LNG imports into China in eight years as Qatari and UAE supply is off the market and Chinese buyers look to raise supply from domestic gas production and pipeline deliveries.

China is on track to import about 3.7 million tons of LNG in March, per tanker-tracking data by Kpler cited by Bloomberg. That would be the lowest monthly import level in the world’s top LNG importer since the spring of 2018, as well as a 25% slump compared to March 2025, according to Bloomberg data and analysis.

The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has stranded all Qatari and UAE supply of LNG. Additionally, Qatar’s LNG capacity has been severely damaged by Iranian missile attacks, which forced state firm QatarEnergy to declare force majeure on contracts and start quantifying the losses.

The Iranian missile attacks on Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC) dashed hopes of quick resumption of Qatari LNG flows even if the Strait of Hormuz were to open to unimpeded and safe traffic today. QatarEnergy last week said the damage from Iranian missile strikes on the Ras Laffan LNG complex, the world’s single largest LNG-producing facility, would cost it about $20 billion per year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair.

As a result, Asian LNG prices have nearly doubled this month and Asian buyers are outbidding Europe for spot supply.

China had some buffer to allow itself not to spend too much on costly LNG imports this month. The country’s LNG storage was estimated by Kpler at about 51% by end-March, and this buffer allows Northeast Asian buyers to draw on existing inventories.

The effect would shift peak restocking season in China, Japan, and South Korea to June–July rather than April–May, according to Kpler.