Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

More than 450 Transportation Security Administration agents have quit since the start of the partial Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.

Travelers wait in long security lines at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on March 23, 2026. Ronaldo Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

The partial shutdown has been ongoing since March 15, when funding for the agency lapsed without additional funding in place. 

Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary for Public Affairs at DHS, told the Epoch Times in an emailed statement that as of day 38 of the partial shutdown, American travelers are facing hours-long waits at airports across the country.

“More than 450 TSA officers quit and thousands have called out sick from work because they are not able to afford gas, childcare, food, or rent,” Bis said. 

“President [Donald] Trump is taking action to deploy hundreds of ICE officers, who are currently funded by Congress, to airports being adversely impacted. This will help bolster TSA efforts to keep our skies safe and minimize air travel disruptions.”

The department stated that callout rates for TSA agents remained elevated, reaching almost 11 percent on March 23, representing 3,200 officers absent from duty. The recorded high callout rate for the shutdown was nearly 12 percent the day before.

Major airports saw higher than average absences among agents, including 33.7 percent at John F. Kennedy International Airport, 30.4 percent at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, and 27.5 percent at Pittsburgh International Airport

LaGuardia Airport’s callout rate was 20.3 percent, 37.4 percent at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, 34.9 percent at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, and 40.3 percent at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.

Federal immigration agents were deployed to 14 U.S. airports starting on March 23.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents went to the international airport in Atlanta, airports in New York City, and a dozen others to help TSA personnel as long lines formed due to a lack of agents. 

As part of the deployment, ICE agents have been sent to Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York), LaGuardia Airport (New York), Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Newark Liberty International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers, Florida), and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Senate Republicans are working on a plan to fully fund DHS, but that would exclude ICE enforcement and removal activities. The lawmakers say they would then look to fund the remainder of ICE through the reconciliation budget, which could be accomplished through a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed for the current funding plan.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) is cautiously optimistic but said the proposal needs to be in writing.

“I think the deal is possible, but we’re down to that point where, like lots of people are talking, but you’ve got to reduce it to writing, and you’ve got to actually trade paper,” he told reporters.

Coons said he won’t support a bill that doesn’t include reforms to ICE’s detention and deportation operations.

“Conversations are ongoing, but this deal seems to be acceptable,” a White House official told The Epoch Times on March 24.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “All I can say is that the discussions have been very positive and productive, and hopefully headed in the right direction.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) offered a similar sentiment, telling reporters, “Both sides are working in a serious way.”

Jackson Richman and Nathan Worcester contributed to this report. 

The left-wing one-party rule in Baltimore City can barely govern its own imploding metro area. Parts of downtown are ghost towns; the resident exodus has been severe; taxes are through the roof; industry has left; and decades of progressive policies have helped transform large parts of the metro area into crime-ridden no-go zones. Yet somehow, city officials still found the time to weaponize local agencies and go after Elon Musk. 

Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott and the City Council of Baltimore, represented by the Baltimore City Law Department and DiCello Levitt, filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against Elon Musk’s xAI, claiming Grok users were able to create non-consensual sexual deepfakes, including images involving minors, and that the defendants violated Baltimore’s Consumer Protection Ordinance.

The core claim in the lawsuit is that Grok was marketed as a general-purpose AI chatbot with supposed safeguards, but in reality, it allegedly allowed users to “undress,” sexualize, and manipulate photos of real people, including children, with minimal prompting and without meaningful guardrails or age verification.

“Beginning in late 2025, x.AI expanded Grok’s image-generation and image-editing features, which ‘edit’ existing photographs, including images of private individuals and children, into photorealistic, sexually explicit, or otherwise degrading content. These features allow Grok, with minimal prompting, to ‘undress,’ sexualize, or otherwise manipulate images uploaded by or depicting third parties,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit claims xAI knew the chatbot could be abused on a large scale. It cites allegations that millions of sexualized images were generated in a short period, including thousands that appeared to depict children, and argues users in the metro area were exposed either to the content itself or to the risk that their own images could be turned into deepfakes. 

“These deepfakes, especially those depicting minors, have traumatic, lifelong consequences for victims, who are left with no way to prevent the spread of disturbing, sexualized images created of them without their consent,” Mayor Scott wrote in a statement.

The only image in the lawsuit: 

DiCello Levitt Founding Partner Adam Levitt stated, “The City is setting a powerful example for municipalities nationwide in confronting a novel and rapidly advancing technology, and an emerging area of law, where accountability has not yet caught up with innovation.”

Baltimore is seeking civil penalties, injunctive relief, restitution, disgorgement, and a jury trial.

What’s odd is that Baltimore City officials weirdly found the time to hyperfocus on all things Elon Musk while ignoring all other chatbot companies. This lawsuit is merely a copy of how anti-free-speech Europeans went after Grok over nonconsensual deepfake images while failing to address other chatbots.

We wonder why Baltimore was chosen to target Musk. Let’s not forget this is political warfare from the high-ups of the Democratic Party.

Mayor Scott appears to have Soros connections. 

The Govenor of Maryland with Alex Soros … 

Perhaps the lawsuit from Baltimore is merely a shakedown of the world’s richest man. These local Democrats have badly mismanaged the city’s finances due to overspending and deficit woes. This mismanagement and failed progressive policies have sparked an exodus of residents, and since 2000, the metro area’s population has declined by 1% per year, according to the city’s own data.

This is political warfare. Shouldn’t Baltimore focus on rebuilding the Key Bridge or stopping the mass hemorrhaging of residents, or perhaps the power bill crisis?

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

A Black Lives Matter activist in Boston was ordered on March 23 to pay back more than $224,000 in pandemic relief funds and donations to her nonprofit.

Monica Cannon-Grant, 44, pleaded guilty last fall to multiple fraud charges and filing false tax returns. She was sentenced to serve six months of home confinement, 100 hours of community service, and four years of probation.

Federal District Court Judge Angel Kelly in Boston set the monetary judgment equal to the amount of money Cannon-Grant admitted taking from nonprofit Violence in Boston, which Cannon-Grant founded and where she formerly served as CEO.

In March 2023, a grand jury handed down a 27-count indictment against Cannon-Grant and her husband Clark Grant, charging them with fraud in connection to Violence in Boston, which they founded in 2017. Grant died in a motorcycle crash three weeks after the indictment was served while driving about 30 minutes east of Boston.

Federal prosecutors said Cannon-Grant paid herself about $25,100 in 2020 and more than $170,000 in 2021 from the nonprofit’s account, according to the charging documents.

About $181,037 of the total funds in question were donated to the organization and diverted for her personal use, $33,426 was obtained from pandemic unemployment assistance benefits, and $12,600 were from rental assistance funds, according to the judge.

In September, Cannon-Grant admitted to diverting thousands of dollars in donor money earmarked for the nonprofit for her own personal use, according to federal prosecutors.

In one instance, prosecutors say after receiving about $54,000 in pandemic relief funds from the city of Boston, Cannon-Grant withdrew about $30,000 in cash from the nonprofit’s account and made deposits of $5,200 and $1,000 into her personal checking account. She also made payments on her personal auto loan and car insurance policy.

Cannon-Grant also pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns for two years, among other tax charges.

“Monica Cannon-Grant repeatedly scammed multiple public financial programs and stole money donated by members of the public who believed their donations would aid in reducing violence and promote social awareness,” U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in September in a statement. “She betrayed the trust of everyone who donated and the public who supported her fraudulent charity.”

Cannon-Grant’s attorneys asked the judge for a lighter sentence of two years of probation, no fine, and a special fee of $1,650. They described their client as a “loving mother, wife, and daughter who had dedicated her life to advancing social justice and serving communities in need.”

Black Lives Matter activists in Los Angeles on Dec. 30, 2020. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

“She has inspired a generation of social activists to speak out against injustice and to support those around them who need a voice and access to daily essentials like food and housing,” her attorneys wrote in a sentencing memo to the judge.

“Ms. Cannon-Grant made fundamental errors in judgment. She is deeply sorry and has now taken full responsibility for her actions.”

Her attorneys also described Cannon-Grant’s home life as traumatic and violent. She grew up in deep poverty and subsidized housing, and lived on welfare and food stamps with a violent and alcoholic father, according to court documents.

Her attorneys didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

A fresh NBC report has alleged that President Trump is being presented with a very incomplete picture of how the Iran war is going, with the conflict now approaching its first month, and as Washington struggles to find an offramp amid global oil market disruptions.

The report says that his daily military briefing provided by the Pentagon features a roughly 2-minute long video update for President Trump that shows the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets of the prior 48 hours. Negative developments frequently get omitted or glossed over.

via Associated Press

Anonymous US officials have voiced fears that the video briefings, which the president tends to respond positively to, fail to represent the full scope of what’s going on. Also, Trump’s aides have reportedly voiced greater approval for the briefings, which feature Iranian military equipment and bases and sites getting blown up.

The NBC report, which has been rejected by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in essence suggests Trump is not getting properly briefed on major negative developments.

Or in other words, the fear is that briefers are simply favoring information that he wants to hear, and too afraid to deliver bad news. According to NBC:

They said the videos are also driving Trump’s increasing frustration with news coverage of the war. Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can’t better influence the public narrative, asking aides why the news media doesn’t emphasize what he’s seeing, one of the current U.S. officials and the former U.S. official said.

Again, Leavitt has called all of this “an absolutely false assertion” from people who aren’t in the briefing room; however NBC does offer the following example which seems consistent with its reporting:

One example came this month when five U.S. Air Force refueling planes were hit in an Iranian strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, according to one of the current U.S. officials. Trump wasn’t briefed about the strikes, and he learned what had happened from media reports, the official said. When Trump inquired, he was told the planes weren’t badly damaged, the official said.

The official said Trump reacted angrily behind the scenes to the news coverage. Publicly he posted on Truth Social calling coverage of the strike misleading and accusing media organizations of wanting the U.S. “to lose the War.”

Given the initial projections by the administration that Operation Epic Fury would be rather quick (a mere ‘days’ was initially floated at the opener), there’s been growing criticism concerning strategy, tactics, and vision – even from former Trump officials. For an example:

Former U.S. Sec. of Defense Jim Mattis on Iran War:

15,000 targets have been hit.

There have been significant military successes, but they are not matched by strategic outcomes.

Now, some of the strategic outcomes floated early on — unconditional surrender, regime change,… pic.twitter.com/mxuO1fpB4W

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 25, 2026

Many independent analysts have been pointing out, amid the effort to drum up some level of official Washington-Tehran peace talks, that Iran is in fact in a position to impose a high cost on the United States – particularly on the economic and political fronts. 

But still, official US military statements seem to just provide fodder for Trump’s ‘We Won’ statements, which have lately been repeated by the president more and more. Pentagon/DOD spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement, cited by NBC: “Operation Epic Fury has been an overwhelming success, with our forces executing the mission with unmatched precision and achieving every objective set out from the beginning. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is in constant communication with President Trump regarding every aspect of Operation Epic Fury. We are proud of the exceptional performance by our warfighters and remain fully confident in the commander-in-chief’s decisions.”

Authored by Dave DeCamp via Antiwar.com,

Pope Leo XIV suggested on Monday that aerial bombing campaigns should have been “banned forever” following the atrocities committed from the sky during the 20th century, as he continues pushing an antiwar message following the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

“Airplanes should always be carriers of peace, never of war,” Leo said while hosting executives and staff from ITA Airways, Italy’s national airline, and the Lufthansa Group, according to Vatican News.

“No one should be afraid that threats of death and destruction might come from the sky.”

The Vatican News report said the US-born pope recalled the bombing campaigns of the World Wars and other conflicts.

“After the tragic experiences of the twentieth century, aerial bombings should have been banned forever,” he said.

“Instead, they still exist, and technological development, positive in itself, is being placed at the service of war. This is not progress; it is regression.”

Since World War I, the Vatican has been highly critical of modern war.

“The combatants are the greatest and wealthiest nations of the earth; what wonder, then, if, well provided with the most awful weapons modern military science has devised, they strive to destroy one another with refinements of horror,” Pope Benedict XV said in an encyclical in November 1914, a few months after the outbreak of the First World War.

“There is no limit to the measure of ruin and of slaughter; day by day the earth is drenched with newly-shed blood, and is covered with the bodies of the wounded and of the slain,” Benedict added.

Pope Pius XII, who led the Catholic Church during World War II, was outspoken about the impact that the strategic bombing campaigns and the war in general had on civilians.

“We have had to witness the harrowing scene of death leaping from the skies and stalking pitilessly through unsuspecting homes, striking down women and children,” Pius said in a 1943 letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt after US warplanes bombed Rome.

The Second Vatican Council’s 1965 document Gaudium et Spes strongly denounced strategic bombing campaigns aimed at destroying cities, saying:

“Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation.”

Leo has made opposing war a major theme of his pontificate since his election as pope on May 8, 2025.

Since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, he has repeatedly called for an end to the conflict and suggested Christian leaders involved in starting wars should examine their conscience and go to confession, remarks seen as aimed at the Trump administration since Leo is American.

As most Americans are now well aware, national retail theft has seen a significant spike since 2021, with total shoplifting incidents increasing by roughly 53% between 2021 and 2024 based on industry data.  This has led to sweeping policy changes to retail businesses, specifically in urban locations, and long aisles of locked glass cases are only the beginning.  

In the case of Walgreens, the company has closed a significant number of locations in high crime areas since 2024 as part of a broader plan to shutter underperforming stores nationwide. The company announced in October 2024 that it would close approximately 1,200 stores across the U.S. over three years (through 2027), with about 500 targeted for fiscal year 2025. 

This decision is not unique. Hundreds of larger retailers are also shutting down stores in risky neighborhoods, and critics argue that these closures are directly targeting areas in predominantly black and minority neighborhoods.  They complain that this trend is leading to “food deserts” where minorities do not have easy access to convenient shopping.

The problem, of course, is that these are the areas with the worst crime rates.  Furthermore, to keep said stores open in such places also puts employee safety at risk and makes the companies vulnerable to liability. 

In 2024 there was a 17% spike in violent assaults on retail employees. In 2025, around 83% of businesses said incidents have stayed the same or slightly increased.  Retail currently accounts for a disproportionate share of workplace homicides (nearly 30%). 

In response, Walgreens is testing out a pilot program in a number of stores which gives employees access to body cameras.  They say that this tool will help to defuse potentially violent encounters with customers.  

“Walgreens is piloting the voluntary use of body-worn cameras in select stores to help promote the safety of both customers and team members,” a spokesperson said, “Body cameras can help de-escalate conflicts, ultimately contributing to a safer environment for everyone.”

There are a number of legal hurdles for Walgreens in some areas, depending on the types of cameras they use.  Under data privacy laws in some states, the company would have to provide written notice to employees before using video surveillance, but not to customers. If Walgreens were using the video to collect biometric data or other sensitive information on customers, it would be required to post notices and obtain “informed consent” from shoppers.  

In the meantime, Walgreens continues to close up stores in neighborhoods they consider high risk.  

Democrat leaders say they plan to stop the retail exodus from urban areas through lawsuits and other measures, while others argue in favor of “city run” grocery stores (socialized grocery stores paid for with taxpayer money).  None of these progressive advocates have thought to address the actual reason why companies are leaving.  The combination of shoplifting loses and the danger of lawsuits due to safety concerns is making it impossible for these outlets to make a profit. 

Contrary to what Democrats seem to believe, retailers are not a charity service for “marginalized” communities.       

Authored by Peter C. Earle, Ph.D,

Artificial intelligence may well be the most important technological development of the coming decade-and that is exactly why the current capital surge around it warrants skepticism. History is littered with transformative innovations that were nonetheless disastrously overbuilt and mispriced in their early phases. Austrian Business Cycle Theory was never a children’s story in which every boom ends with clowns, ashes, and worthless machinery; its real claim is subtler and nastier. When the price of time is falsified-when interest rates are pushed below their natural rate-often proxied, however imperfectly, by modern estimates of the neutral rate-entrepreneurs are encouraged to undertake projects that are more roundabout, more capital-intensive, and more time-sensitive than underlying saving and final demand can actually support. The neutral rate is a policy construct; the natural rate is an economic reality. Some of those projects may still embody genuine innovation.

The problem is not that AI must be fake; it is that a very real technological advance can be financed, priced, and physically built in ways that are wildly uneconomic.

That distinction matters because AI is about as roundabout as modern capitalism gets. This is not a boom in apps and slogans alone; it is a boom in data centers, power, cooling, transformers, specialized semiconductors, fiber, land, and the commodities and construction needed to house and feed all of it. Reuters reports that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft are expected to spend more than $630 billion combined on AI-related infrastructure in 2026, up sharply from 2025, while separate Reuters reporting says Amazon alone projects roughly $200 billion of 2026 capex. Analysts also expect the hyperscalers’ debt issuance to keep climbing, with BofA lifting its 2026 forecast to $175 billion after Amazon’s jumbo deal and Reuters noting that these firms issued $121 billion in bonds in 2025 versus a 2020–2024 annual average of just $28 billion. In Austrian terms, this is not consumption drunkenness; it is higher-order production marching deep into the structure of capital with a flamethrower and an Excel model.

Now add the monetary backdrop. The Fed cut the federal funds target range to 0 to 0.25 percent in March 2020 and kept it there until liftoff began in March 2022. By contrast, the New York Fed’s r-star framework defines the natural rate as the real short-term rate consistent with full employment and stable inflation, and its recent research says global and U.S. r-star rose by about 1 percentage point after COVID; the New York Fed’s DSGE model in late 2025 put the short-run U.S. real natural rate around 2.0 percent for 2026. Today the policy rate sits at 3.5 to 3.75 percent, but that is after the incubation period. The relevant Austrian point is that the seedbed for this boom was years of money priced as if capital were infinite, patient, and nearly free: precisely the sort of signal that makes entrepreneurs think the economy has more real savings available for long-gestation projects than it actually does.

That does not prove AI is all, or even mostly, malinvestment. It does, however, establish favorable conditions for it. The most charitable case is that AI is a genuine general-purpose technology whose economics are merely messy in the early innings. OpenAI says ChatGPT had more than 900 million weekly users as of late February, and Bloomberg reports OpenAI’s annualized revenue topped $20 billion in 2025 while Anthropic is tracking near that level as well. There are also signs of real productivity gains in narrow use cases, especially coding and selected support tasks. But the bill is arriving much faster than the profits: Bain estimated the industry would need roughly $2 trillion in annual revenue by 2030 to support projected compute demand, yet expected a gap of about $800 billion. That is not a business model; that is a promissory note written in GPU ink.

The more worrying Austrian angle is not simply overvaluation in public equities, but miscoordination in the capital structure. If chips depreciate economically faster than accountants admit, if grid interconnections lag by years, if open models compress pricing power, and if customers love AI demos more than they love paying enterprise invoices, then the industry has a classic ABCT problem: complementary capital arrives in the wrong proportions and at the wrong times. And though not easily captured in formal models, technological history is clear: infrastructure-heavy systems rarely stay that way for long, and early capital often pays the price. The New York Fed warns that r-star is an estimate, not an oracle, but the larger point survives that caveat: if market rates were held too low relative to the economy’s true intertemporal balance, then the resulting investment pattern will look profitable only until bottlenecks, replacement cycles, and cost of capital reassert themselves. Bloomberg reports OpenAI has discussed infrastructure commitments above $1.4 trillion, while Anthropic has announced a $50 billion U.S. data-center push; meanwhile, the IEA has warned of grid-connection queues, transformer shortages, and permitting delays for the power build-out data centers require. A boom can survive many indignities, but not all of them at once.

So: does AI constitute malinvestment? The best answer is that AI almost certainly contains both real innovation and a large malinvestment component. The technology is plausibly important enough to reshape production (and possibly upend labor markets) but that does not mean that every dollar spent on it is wisely spent, that every hyperscaler moat is durable, or that every valuation can be rescued by the word “transformational.” Austrian theory would suggest that when cheap money meets prestige competition, fear of missing out, and the intoxicating moral cover of “the future,” capital does not merely flow-it stampedes. AI may yet justify a great deal of what is being built. But prices, debt, and capex have very likely run ahead of demonstrated end-user value, which means the eventual disappointment-if and when it comes-will not prove AI was imaginary. It will merely prove that even a brilliant technology can be overcapitalized, overpromised, and purchased at a monetary hallucination.

The two-year anniversary of the catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the Port of Baltimore is on Thursday.

Gubernatorial candidate Ed Hale criticized Democrats in the one-party-ruled state for their inability to properly manage the reconstruction of the Key Bridge, which is critical to the port and local economy and regional supply chains across the Mid-Atlantic region. 

Hale described the Democrats as exhibiting a “failure of leadership” and cited “unacceptable delays” in rebuilding one of Maryland’s major freight networks, which links to broader regional supply chains.

“Two years. And what do the people of this community have to show for it?” Hale asked reporters earlier. 

He said, “As a Maryland developer, I know what it takes to move projects forward. These delays are unacceptable, and Maryland families and businesses are paying the price every single day.”

Two years later. Where is the bridge?

It’s now been 2 years since Key Bridge fell in Baltimore. This is how much is rebuilt: pic.twitter.com/Gnc7uslGjq

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 24, 2026

Meanwhile, Maryland Democrats in Annapolis have prioritized providing “appropriately sized tampons” for men’s bathrooms while advancing a failed left-wing agenda that has sparked a massive exodus of residents, as the state’s fiscal status deteriorates.

Maryland Delegate Kathy Szeliga (R) EMBARESSES Democrats who want to force “appropriately sized tampons” into men’s bathrooms.

Szeliga: “I’ve never heard of such a thing… what do you consider appropriate???”pic.twitter.com/jjasHIMtRE https://t.co/gsjXEzXVre

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 24, 2026

Baltimore City is broken. Maryland is broken. This is the direct result of one-party-ruled, left-wing politicians who masquerade as competent managers but are, in fact, incompetent DEI activists.

*  *  *

Click pic, add to cart, sleep like the dead with no grogginess

The long-anticipated Trump-Xi meeting will take place in Beijing on May 14 and 15, the White House said Wednesday, after the bilateral summit was previously pushed back due to the Iran war.

This marks a roughly six week postponement compared to when it was earlier supposed to happen. President Trump indicated in a fresh social media post that US representatives are “finalizing preparations for these Historic Visits.” He added that “I look very much forward to spending time with President Xi in what will be, I am sure, a Monumental Event.”

Since the war kicked off on Feb.28, White House officials have offered an ever-evolving timeline for offramp and exit from the war, vowing the whole time that it’s not a “forever war” and “not like Iraq and Afghanistan” – to quote from Hegseth’s latest Pentagon briefings. 

The latest administration assessment is that it will last around five weeks, and prediction markets are adjusting for that… 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was specifically asked Wednesday whether Trump’s China trip means Washington expects the war will be wound down by mid-May. She responded: 

“We’ve always estimated approximately four to six weeks, so you could do the math on that.”

Should the war not be over by then, Beijing is likely to see Trump as being in a weakened position for Washington-Beijing negotiations. By then the media might also start increasingly applying the word ‘quagmire’ to the whole ordeal – and Trump may start losing political support at home if there’s no wind down, even among Republicans.

At the moment things aren’t looking great, given on Wednesday Iran’s Foreign Ministry sought to make clear “there are no talks with the US.” It also declared that the US and Israel have “failed” in their “war goals including quick victory and change of regime.”

There also remains another lingering potential complication from China’s perspective:

Behind the scenes, however, there remains caution. The summit may still “not necessarily happen as planned,” with the possibility either China or the US decides to pull out of talks, according to two Chinese sources familiar with the matter, speaking under the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivities surrounding the meeting.

“If the war in Iran causes major casualties of Chinese citizens, or major damage of Chinese assets in the region, then Trump would not be able to come,” said a source, describing one of Beijing’s apparent red lines.

Beijing meanwhile earlier in the day Wednesday commented on the Pakistani offer to host US-Iran talks aimed at ending the war, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian telling reporters in Beijing: “Ceasefire and peace talks are more important tasks at hand.” 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt:

Trump’s meeting with Xi in China will now take place in Beijing on May 14–15. pic.twitter.com/6kfu8xMCTp

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 25, 2026

“China supports all efforts conducive to easing tensions, de-escalating the situation and restoring dialogue,” the statement added. On Iran’s continued control of the Strait of Hormuz, Lin said: “Maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East and keeping shipping routes safe serves the common interests of the international community.”

News that SpaceX may file an initial public offering prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week or next sparked a rally across SpaceX-linked names, satellite broadband providers, space transportation firms, and even publicly traded closed-end funds that hold private SpaceX shares.

The Information reports that SpaceX is set to file an IPO prospectus with the SEC this week or next, with plans for shares to begin trading on U.S. exchanges sometime in June.

Wall Street advisers expect the offering to be the largest ever in the U.S., generating $75 billion for the space company leading the world’s rocket race and propelling the U.S. to the number one spot. The company’s final valuation and deal size would be set closer to the listing, but as of right now, the total market capitalization is north of $1 trillion.

Bankers are expected to pitch the SpaceX IPO to clients around three themes: its rocket-launch business, which has become a revenue driver; its rapidly expanding Starlink satellite internet business; and its prospects as a provider of orbital data centers. Hype around the stock will build as future Moon and Mars missions unfold.

🚨BREAKING: Goldman Sachs projected to lead SpaceX IPO. pic.twitter.com/Hg0y6zRok6

— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) March 25, 2026

Latest reports: 

Data Centers In Space Are Coming: Here’s How To Profit

SpaceX IPO Hype Ignites Blast Off For This Korean Broker Stock

Goldman Turns Bullish On Starlink Satellite Parts Supplier As Space Race Accelerates

Morningstar released a note earlier this month forecasting that SpaceX will generate nearly $16 billion in revenue in 2025 and $7.5 billion in EBITDA, driven “almost entirely by explosive subscriber growth” from its Starlink satellite internet unit, which had 10 million active customers as of last month. The company forecasts revenue of $150 billion in 2040, with EBITDA of $95 billion.

In February, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, xAI, was acquired by SpaceX in an all-stock transaction, making the AI chatbot company a wholly owned subsidiary and pushing the rocket company’s valuation to $1.25 trillion.

In public markets on Wednesday, wireless spectrum firm EchoStar, which owns a 3% stake in SpaceX, jumped more than 10%. Space transportation company Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile both soared more than 11%. Other moves included Globalstar up 20% and Viasat up 4.5%.

Karman Holdings does not appear to have a clearly disclosed direct ownership stake in SpaceX, but shares are 4% higher in the session because it is a space-and-defense supplier.

A newly listed fund, Fundrise Innovation Fund (VCX), which holds private shares in SpaceX and Anthropic PBC, jumped 64% in the session. 

Tesla shares were up 2% on the session. 

Rocket garden at Starbase.

You can see this from the public highway. https://t.co/hvlSOHkLr0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 16, 2026

It seems that the meme stock trading crowd is finding out about the space theme.