In this week’s recap, Marcello talks about a new deadly bacteria that has arrived to the US. This Bacteria is likely to kill upt to 50% of the infected. The government has resumed its brawl against the cryptos by suing Coinbase alleging the company & its co-founder Changpeng Zhao commingled billions of dollars of investor funds with their own & violating securities laws. Harsh climate has reduced the production of several raw materials needed to produce certain foods (like Olive Oil).
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission is suing crypto-exchange Coinbase in New York federal court on Tuesday morning, alleging that the company was acting as an unregistered broker & exchange & now demands that the company be permanently restrained & enjoined from continuing to do so. The SEC has alleged that at least 13 crypto assets available to Coinbase customers were considered crypto asset securities by the regulator. Shares plunge another -16% in the U.S. pre-market, after dropping -9% on Monday.
Oil posted another weekly decline, as demand concerns continue to dominate market sentiment even after Saudi Arabia’s unilateral pledge to cut production. U.S. crude settled near $70 a barrel, closing out the week lower than where it last stood before Saudi Arabia’s surprise announcement, a -2% weekly decline even with international headlines. Saudi Arabia’s surprise decision to cut output by about 1M barrels caused a short-lived rally that was soon whittled away by demand fears by investors. July/August Futures: U.S. Crude -1.57% at $70.17 & Brent -1.54% at $74.79.
Iran claimed on Tuesday that it had created a hyper-sonic missile capable of traveling at 15 times the speed of sound, with the missile having a range of up to 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) thus adding a new weapon to its arsenal, as tensions remain high with the United States & Europe over Iran’s nuclear program. The new missile, could pose crucial challenges to Western missile defense systems because of speed and maneuverability.
A deluge of water burst through a massive dam on the Dnipro River that separates Russian & Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war zone & forcing numerous villagers to flee. Ukraine & its Western allies accused Russia of blowing up the dam in a deliberate war crime. The Russian government said it was Ukraine that had sabotaged the dam, to distract attention from a counteroffensive that Russia claims is faltering.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained enormously in the polls, to the alarm of mainstream parties & is on track to win 3 Lander (state) votes in the east of the country, with calls to stop migration & curb what it sees as a costly green agenda. AfD is polling 17-19% nationally, around a record high for the party that now vies with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats for 2nd place in some surveys, up from 5th in the 2021 election, when it secured +10.3% of the vote.
Scientists document the 1st-known instance of a virgin birth by a crocodile, which had been living in isolation for 16 years at a Costa Rican zoo. The female American crocodile laid 14 eggs within her enclosure, a not uncommon phenomenon among captive reptiles. The more puzzling fact, however, came after 3 months of incubation when 1 egg was found to contain a fully formed stillborn baby crocodile. The American crocodile is considered vulnerable & at risk of extinction in the wild.
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