Zerohedge

Actor Jon Voight and his manager, Steven Paul, are preparing to present President Donald Trump with proposals to boost U.S. film and TV production as soon as this week, according to Bloomberg.

Beyond traditional state tax credits, their plan could include incentives for infrastructure, job training, and tax code changes.

“It’s important that we compete with what’s going on around the world so there needs to be some sort of federal tax incentives,” Paul said. He added that their goal is to curb the current state-by-state competition for productions and bring business back from overseas.

Bloomberg writes that film and TV production has declined in California and across the U.S. as studios cut back and other countries like the UK, Australia, Hungary, and Spain lure projects with tax incentives.

“It’s been very, very difficult here,” Paul said. “We’re feeling the cries of people in town.”

A California bill aiming to more than double state film incentives to $750 million annually is moving through the legislature. Voight, alongside actors Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, was named by President Trump in January as a special ambassador to Hollywood. Scott Karol, president of SP Media Group, said Voight’s team has consulted studio executives, union leaders, and state officials for input.

One proposal could involve extending and expanding Section 181 of the U.S. tax code, which currently allows $15 million in accelerated deductions for productions but is set to expire this year.

Another idea is to incentivize long-term investments like sound stage construction, similar to Netflix’s 10-year deal in New Jersey. Paul, who produced Man With No Past with Voight, said he plans to shift three upcoming films to California and invest in a Los Angeles studio.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The peace process might go kaput if they can’t resolve these issues…

Trump speculated that Russia’s bombing of civilian areas might signal that “maybe [Putin] doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along”, and then reiterated his earlier threat to impose “secondary sanctions” against those who violate the US’ primary ones, which was analyzed here. This followed Trump’s latest meeting with Zelensky, who might have negatively influenced over his hitherto largely positive perceptions of Putin, and comes after reports that the US has finalized its peace plan.

Five significant disagreements that have emerged throughout the course of negotiations account for Trump’s volte-face toward Putin.

• The first was referenced by Trump in his post where he condemned Russia’s bombing of civilian areas. Putin argued earlier in April that Russia is targeting Ukrainian troops there, but the optics of continued Russian strikes against civilian areas amidst peace talks with the US evidently left a very negative impression on Trump, who now doubts Putin’s commitment to peace.

• The second concerns European peacekeepers in Ukraine, which the US’ reportedly finalized peace plan suggests despite Russia opposing it. Although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth already declared that the US won’t extend Article 5 mutual defense guarantees to NATO countries’ troops in Ukraine, Russia fears that the US could be manipulated by the Europeans into mission creep if the latter deploy there. Putin therefore prefers for there to be no ambiguity about this and for Trump to scrub it from his plan.

• Third, it’s unclear whether Ukraine will be obligated to at least partially demilitarize like Kiev provisionally agreed to do during spring 2022’s ultimately failed peace talks, which is one of Russia’s explicitly declared goals in the conflict. Trump is reluctant to support this since he seems to believe that it could embolden Putin to recommence hostilities in the future, especially in the absence of European peacekeepers, but this demand isn’t something that Putin could easily walk away from.

• The fourth disagreement is over the US’ refusal to accede to Russia’s demand for coercing Ukraine into withdrawing from the disputed territories that are still under Kiev’s control. The New York Times cited a source who described this as “unreasonable and unachievable”, but it’s imperative for Russia after the Kremlin recognized the entirety of these regions as Russian following September 2022’s referenda. Just like with demilitarization, Putin also can’t easily walk away from this either, hence the disagreement.

• And finally, the US’ reportedly finalized peace plan also requests that Russia hand over the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and Kakhovka Dam to the US, which is as unacceptable for Putin as the preceding points of accepting European peacekeepers, dropping demilitarization, and curbing his territorial claims. All five disagreements, including the first-mentioned one about Russia’s continued strikes against military targets in civilian areas, collectively contributed to this impasse right before the diplomatic finish line.

If Putin and Trump can’t resolve these issues, after which Trump would then also have to get Zelensky to agree to their new deal, then the peace process will probably go kaput. 

Putin and Trump are incentivized to resolve their disputes due to how mutually beneficial the nascent Russian–US “New Détente” is while Zelensky would struggle to continue fighting if the US once again cuts off military aid as punishment for rejecting whatever those two agree to. Be that as it may, it’ll still be very difficult to break this deadlock.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump said on April 27 that he would bring Columbus Day back “from the ashes,” as he accused the Democrats of tarnishing the reputation of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

Columbus Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the second Monday of October to honor Italian-Americans and Christopher Columbus, whose 1492 expedition from Spain reached the Caribbean and marked the beginning of sustained European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

On Oct. 8, 2021, then-President Joe Biden issued two separate presidential proclamations commemorating both Indigenous People’s Day and Columbus Day.

Trump said that he plans to commemorate Columbus Day “under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before,” suggesting that he won’t follow Biden’s practice.

“I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes. The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” Trump stated on Truth Social.

“They tore down his Statues, and put up nothing but ‘WOKE,’ or even worse, nothing at all!”

The federal holiday was still known as Columbus Day during Biden’s term, but also as Indigenous Peoples Day. 

That was a longtime goal of activists who wanted to shift the focus from commemorating Columbus’ navigation to the Americas to his and his successors’ exploitation of the indigenous people he encountered there.

In his 2021 Columbus Day proclamation, Biden said he acknowledged “the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

Biden said it should serve as a reflection of “the courage and contributions of Italian Americans throughout the generations,” as well as “the dignity and resilience of Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.”

During his first term, Trump stated in a 2020 proclamation that “radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy” amid reports of vandalism targeting statues of the Italian explorer in some states.

“These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions,” he stated. 

“Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister.”

There have been reports of Columbus statues being vandalized in several states in recent years. 

In October 2019, vandals threw red paint and sprayed graffiti on two Columbus statues in Rhode Island and California.

The first wave of the trade war shock will arrive this week, with the Port of Los Angeles bracing for disruptions that will ripple through Southern California’s Inland Empire warehouse network and pile new pressure onto the struggling trucking industry. Depending on inventory levels at importers and retailers, high-volume Chinese-made staple goods may soon be disappearing from store shelves or racks at e-commerce warehouses, as 145% tariffs on Chinese goods entering the US have triggered a massive slowdown in trans-Pacific shipping activity. 

Let’s begin with our reporting that started about one week ago:

• “West Coast On Tipping Point”: Los Angeles Port Set For Steep Drop In Traffic

• First Tariff Shock Set To Hit Port Of Los Angeles, With Ripple Effects Across The Broader Economy

• Trade War Shock Looms For Port Of Los Angeles As Goldman Identifies Most-Impacted Products

After a weekend of … 

• All Quiet On The Western Ports… Is This The Calm Before The Trade War Storm?

The latest data from Port Optimizer, a tracking system for vessel operators, shows that scheduled import volumes at the Port of Los Angeles began sliding on Sunday and are expected to worsen through mid-May. The slowdown in shipments from China reflects a lag: from when a Chinese factory halts shipments to when goods complete the trans-Pacific journey on a container ship, typically taking around 30 days or slightly longer.

In a note to clients, Goldman analysts Patrick Creuset, Theodora Beadle, and others published a chart pack highlighting the latest global shipping data.

Two charts stood out, including this one, citing data from the US National Retail Federation showing expected import cargo volumes to plunge over the next two months.

Inventories remain stable for now, but that could change once the trade impacts on imported cheap Chinese junk become widely publicized. 

In a separate report, the Financial Times quoted Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container shipping lines, as saying Chinese exporters have canceled about 30% of their bookings out of the world’s second-largest economy because of the trade barriers—the highest in a century—to entering the US market.

Last week, Goldman’s Jack McFerran provided clients with a “China Export Tracker” produced by Trina Chen, head of China research and Asia commodities at Goldman. 

“She has created a tracker and working with 46x corporates with products representing 70% of the China export value to gauge the speed and size of changes as they happen,” McFerran said.

Trina Chen’s export tracker shows clients which products from China are most likely to be impacted if shortages materialize over the next couple of months. 

“Luxury goods are the least likely to be impacted. It’s the high volume staples that are about to dry up,” FreightWaves CEO Craig Fuller wrote on X. He offered good news: “Good news, however, is that food and gasoline are largely unaffected.”

Luxury goods are the least likely to be impacted. It’s the high volume staples that are about to dry up.

Good news, however, is that food and gasoline are largely unaffected. https://t.co/4KZACyMAhz

— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) April 28, 2025

Fuller continued:

China was 2% of global GDP in 1980. Today it is 18%.

The vast majority of the industries that China now leads were created in the United States and Europe, often through the theft of intellectual property by American and European companies.

China would steal our intellectual property, avoiding all the research and development in technology and market research, and then sell us the same products back at a much cheaper price.

China was able to grow its economy so rapidly because of the peacetime dividend afforded by America’s unchallenged superpower status and global policing—the age of Globalization.

That world ended in 2022, and we are now transitioning into a multipolar world, where increased conflict is expected.

The Second Cold War is here, and Supply Chains are the front lines.

China was 2% of global GDP in 1980. Today it is 18%.

The vast majority of the industries that China now leads were created in the United States and Europe, often through the theft of intellectual property by American and European companies.

China would steal our…

— Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) April 28, 2025

The takeaway is that the trade war shock for imported Chinese goods is underway. Imported volumes of high-volume staples are likely to crater through the end of June, which may spark shortages. 

The days of choosing from 150 different types of Chinese Bluetooth speakers on Amazon are ending. And, Oh, what a shame for the consumer. Maybe it’s back to a time when there were just a few dozen – and many of those speakers were of great quality – not today’s junk that fuels the ‘plastic throw away culture’. Shouldn’t the ‘green’ activists be all about this?

Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Daily Mail,

In my trade I have long grown used to the way governments lie and get others to lie for them. 

It is what they do.

But I have seldom seen such a cloud of lies as we face now. Hardly anyone in this country knows the truth about Ukraine. 

There has been nothing like it since we were all lied to about the Iraq invasion, with bilge about fictional ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. The liars were caught out. 

And they learned from it. They learned to lie more skillfully.

Meanwhile, many of those in our society who knew how to challenge such lies died off or retired and were not replaced.

We have never had a debate about the Ukraine crisis which started from the beginning. Did anyone in power ever tell you truthfully how, when or why this war began? No. Did anyone in power explain why Britain, crime blighted, decrepit, rubbish-strewn, rat-infested, broke Britain, had to get involved in it? Never.

You have just been fed propaganda rubbish about ‘democracy’, freedom and an invented Russian menace. Here are some of the lies you have repeatedly been told.

The war, they say, was not provoked. Seldom in history has a war been more provoked.

Russians, nice ones like the liberal, democratic politician Yegor Gaidar, and nasty ones like the bloody despot Vladimir Putin, begged the West to stop trundling its military alliance, Nato, eastwards towards Russia.

ALL Russians, including the great anti-Communist author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, had been shocked and angered when Nato in 1999 abruptly gave up its defensive posture and launched attacks on Yugoslavia – which had not attacked a Nato member.

These protests reached their peak in February 2007, when Putin made a dramatic speech in Munich. He said Nato expansion was ‘a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. We have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?’

Look, if someone as gaunt as Putin spoke to you like that in a pub late in the evening, you’d take it as a warning that he was seriously riled. And unless you wanted a fight, you’d back off. But we didn’t back off.

US President George W.Bush, the genius who invaded Iraq, deliberately raised the temperature the following year. Can it be that Bush likes wars?

In April 2008, Bush said that Ukraine should be placed on the path towards joining Nato. Even the Guardian, the Liberal Warmonger’s Gazette, conceded that this was ‘likely to infuriate the Kremlin’. And so it did. I suspect we were on the path to war from that moment.

I am always accused, when I say that, of making excuses for Putin. I am not. 

I think he was stupid as well as wrong to be provoked. Wise men ignore provocations. But to claim he was not provoked is just to lie.

Another lie we are repeatedly told is that Russia attacked Georgia later in 2008. But anyone can find, on the web, a 2009 Reuters news agency story headlined ‘Georgia started war with Russia: EU-backed report’.

The dispatch summarises an inquiry by the respected Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini. She had been asked by Brussels to look into that war. That is what she said. But, somehow or other, a lot of Western media outlets failed to find space for it. I still meet supposedly informed people who have never heard of Ms Tagliavini or her report.

And then there is the claim that this is about democracy and freedom. It isn’t. The more the West claims to care for these things, the less it does to help them.

Some examples: 

Ukraine’s elected president was lawlessly overthrown by a mob in 2014. Britain and the USA condoned this shameful event because they preferred the illegal rebels to the elected government. You just can’t do that and pretend to be the guardian of democracy. But then, we aren’t anyway.

You will search in vain for protests against the treatment of Romania’s presidential candidate, in a country that is in the EU and Nato.

CALIN Georgescu’s election was annulled by judges in December when he looked like winning the first round. And he has been banned from standing in the second round – all because he has the wrong kind of politics. And if that’s not enough, look at the West’s deep, shaming silence over the frightening, thuggish behaviour of Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan.

A few weeks ago, this Turkish Putin arrested and jailed Ekrem Imamoglu, an opposition politician who looked likely to beat him at the polls.

Mr Imamoglu joined the many journalists and democrats who already rot in Turkish prisons.

Erdogan has crushed free media, free speech and the freedom to protest. But his country is still allowed to stay in Nato, and Western states have made less noise than an angry vole guarding its nest. They’re scared of Erdogan.

I won’t even try to explain how Germany recently recalled its old, dead parliament to push through laws the newly elected parliament would not pass. This was done to allow the spending of extra billions on the Ukraine war. But I hope you get my drift.

Demand proper debate. Demand the truth. Don’t be dragged into more stupidity, or we will end up with bomb craters as well as potholes.

*  *  *

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

The ‘soft’ data decoupling from strengthening ‘hard’ data just went to ’11’ as this morning’s Dallas Fed Manufacturing survey results were in a word – atrocious.

While Current Production remained positive, manufacturers in the Dallas Fed region have a dour outlook for business activity ahead (printing -35.3, below the lowest analysts expectation)…

Stagflationary trends persist under the hood as New Orders plunged as Prices Paid surged:

The respondents all had one thing on their minds – tariffs!

• “This has been a crazy few weeks in the news.”

• “There is really no way to predict anything accurately six months out or even six weeks out now for our industry due to the tariff and trade uncertainty.”

• “President Trump, tariffs and maximum business uncertainty [are issues affecting our business]. [We see a] probable recession soon.“

• “There is no stability in business, so it is difficult to plan. “

• “The current economic environment is confusing. President Trump keeps things in turmoil, and we do not know what he will do next. “

• “Tariffs and tariff uncertainty are wreaking havoc on our supply lines and capital spending plans.”

• “Due to tariffs, we do not know what to expect.“

• “There is too much uncertainty all over for any increases [in business] soon.”

• “Tariffs may drive us out of business.”

• “Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs. There was a better way to do this.“

• “The tariff issue is a mess, and we are now starting to see vendors passing along increases, which we will have to in turn pass along to our customers. Because of this, we are very concerned about general business activity for the next six to nine months or until these trade agreements get worked out.”

DOGE was also mentioned:

“Chaos at the federal level, tariffs and resulting raw ingredient costs, decimation of partner relationships due to canceled contracts “for convenience” along with stagflation concerns [are issues affecting our business]. 

DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] is needed.

The DOGE without a follow-up plan does nothing for the domestic tranquility needed (stable arena for business to function within).“

And finally, one respondents reached out to The Fed directly for relief:

“Please lower interest rates. We need it in order to boost the economy due to the uncertainty and tariffs.”

“There is too much uncertainty, including a possible recession. Interest rates are too high. The Federal Reserve always seems to be late for their own party.“

Interestingly, these responses were receiuved AFTER the ‘pause’ on reciprocal tariffs were announced (and stocks rebounded from post-Liberation Day lows).

Update (1126ET):

Portugal’s grid operator, REN (Rede Eléctrica Nacional), claimed that the massive power outage affecting Portugal and Spain was sparked by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” specifically “extreme temperature variations” in the Spanish electricity grid. 

British media outlet LBC News provided more color on REN’s claim:

Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration'”.

“These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”

. . . 

REN added that normalisation of the system could take up to a week.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas noted:

Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia.

Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78%
Nuclear: 11.5%
Co-generation: 5%
Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW)

Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm) pic.twitter.com/fF7FiIB6UD

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

And this:

It’s a race against the sunset to restore power in Spain.

In about four hours, Spain will lose ~1/3 of its current electricity generation (sunset is ~9pm Madrid time).

Spanish national grid is trying to reactivate (black start) as much spinning generation before that.

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

Additional BBC News headlines of the chaos unfolding across Europe’s Iberian Peninsula:

• Delays at Spanish and Portuguese airports

• In London, Gatwick reports delayed flights to affected areas

• Portugal blames outage on ‘fault in Spain’s electricity grid’

• ‘Extreme temperature variations in Spain’ contributed to outage – Portuguese grid officials

• Restoring power across Portugal ‘could take up to a week‘

• No indications of any cyber attack, says European Council president

• Power back on in some substations, says Spain’s electric operator, but railways still suspended

• French operator supplying electricity to Spain

• Grid operator says power returning in parts of Iberian peninsula

Disruptions…

BREAKING 🚨: Spain, Portugal and a few other EU countries are in total blackout.

Train passengers in Spain got stuck in the middle of nowhere. This is insane.

(This video is from a friend of mine) pic.twitter.com/i7FObGPngS

— Solana Sensei (@SolanaSensei) April 28, 2025

Portugal’s grid operator claims the blackout that shut down much of Portugal, Spain and France today was caused by Spain’s electricity grid malfunctioning “due to a rare atmospheric phenomenon” pic.twitter.com/IzY1MFhF9n

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 28, 2025

“I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved,” one X user told Javier. 

I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved..

— Jordan B (@JayStew21721754) April 28, 2025

The blackout highlights just how fragile the new digital and “green” society has become.

 

*   *   * 

Large swaths of Spain and Portugal plunged into darkness on Monday. 

Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica wrote on X:

• Plans activated to restore electricity supply in collaboration with sector companies following the blackout that occurred in the peninsular system.

• The causes are being analyzed, and all resources are being dedicated to resolving it.

“Parts of France also appear to be affected, according to Spanish media reports, which said Seville, Barcelona and Valencia were hit by the outage,” SKY News reported.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas called the power outage “Massive — really, massive.” 

“Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona). Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw.”

BREAKING: Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona).

Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw. pic.twitter.com/KwvDxOOLQJ

— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025

Cloudflare reported that internet connectivity dropped “by as much as 30% in Portugal and 37% in Spain” due to the power outages. 

Ongoing nationwide power outages in Portugal and Spain are impacting Internet traffic. Traffic dropped by as much as 30% in Portugal and 37% in Spain at 10:30 UTC. We are continuing to monitor the situation. pic.twitter.com/7yD2V48Ybj

— Cloudflare Radar (@CloudflareRadar) April 28, 2025

Outages have begun to affect air travel. 

Diversions have begun #power #spain #portugal #electricity #bcn pic.twitter.com/csIg2WIqYQ

— Alex Krstanovic (@acabgd) April 28, 2025

Footage:

Major power outage across parts of France, Spain and Portugal.

Causing some chaos at the Madrid Open.

Fans streaming for the practice courts (which have now hit capacity), food stalls operating with torches and cash, portions of the venue in complete darkness. pic.twitter.com/4B1NAPX13A

— Connor Joyce (@connorjoyceb) April 28, 2025

Total power outage across Spain and Portugal. Currently waiting for a train and all trains suspended. pic.twitter.com/tF9Feo1lRr

— Crypto Trader Simon (@cryptotrader_si) April 28, 2025

is this what caused the spain and portugal power outage? #spain #Portugal #power #poweroutage pic.twitter.com/IVXiZfX1NS

— Josh2809 (@Josh28091) April 28, 2025

Red Electrica provided no details about what caused the nationwide blackout. 

How long until Brussels blames the Russians? 

* Developing

Russia on Monday made clear that it is sticking by initial demands raised by Moscow at the start of the war in February 2022, after President Putin last week issues statements which appeared open to compromise for the sake of peace talks.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has declared that Russia will never give up its hold over Crimea, as well as the annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts. He named as a condition for peace negotiations that Russia’s control and sovereignty over these territories is vital and essentially non-negotiable.

“The international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is another imperative,” he said. “All the commitments Kiev assumes must be legally binding, contain enforcement mechanisms and be permanent,” Lavrov added.

“Russia proceeds from the premise that Kiev’s non-accession to NATO, as well as reaffirming its neutral and non-aligned status as per the 1990 Declaration on Ukraine’s State Sovereignty – these factors form one of the two pillars for a final settlement to the Ukraine crisis that would meet Russia’s security interests,” he continue.

The top Russian diplomat also demanded that Ukraine enact legislation that restores and protects Russian language, culture, and churches and monasteries in Ukraine. Some one-third of the country has long spoken Russian as their first language, and many more know it as a second language.

Zelensky has been waging a state persecution campaign against the largest Orthodox Church in Ukraine, because it has not broken spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, at times outright seizing monasteries and churches, and arresting bishops and priests. Russian media broadcasts and media have also long been banned.

Lavrov detailed of Moscow’s demands, “The second pillar consists of overcoming the legacy of the neo-Nazi regime which took power in Kiev after the February 2014 putsch, including the initiative by its perpetrators to eradicate and cancel, in both physical and legislative terms, everything Russian, be it the Russian language, media, culture, traditions, or the canonical Orthodox faith,” as conveyed in TASS.

“Demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine is also on the agenda, along with lifting sanctions, withdrawing lawsuits and cancelling arrest warrants, as well as returning Russian assets subjected to the so-called freeze in the West,” he emphasized.

Of course, there’s also the ban on Ukraine ever becoming a member of NATO, which is a key compromise already being offered by the Trump administration.

Again, all of this is essentially identical to the demands articulated by Putin at the very beginning of the full-scale war. President Trump, coming off the brief Rome meeting with Zelensky, thinks he’s ready to give up Crimea:

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, despite his Ukrainian counterpart’s previous assertions on the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey on Sunday a day after meeting with Zelensky at the Vatican, Trump said “Oh, I think so,” in response to a question on whether he thought Zelensky was ready to “give up” the territory.

But is the Ukrainian leader really ready to do this and face attacks – possibly even assassination attempts – from within his own far-right paramilitaries and even army commanders? 

A Ukrainian Army brigade commander openly threatens Zelensky on a Ukrainain TV show.

He warns him not to negotiate with Russia, not to concede territory, or he will “Regret it”

Open threats to the commander in chief from his own troops, Ukraine is a lawless basket case. pic.twitter.com/McN1GjlkIM

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) April 28, 2025

While the common Ukrainian populace is likely more willing to find compromise for the sake of peace, there are still Azov militants and their associates running the show in many places – and their position remains that no compromise whatsoever should be made and the fight must continue, even as Ukrainian forces are being beaten back.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned in a media interview that if Washington imposes more sanctions on Russia, this basically assures more war for years to come. “The minute you start doing that kind of stuff, you’re walking away from it, you’ve now doomed yourself to another two years of war and we don’t want to see it happen,” he said.

He added: “There is no other country, there is no other institution or organization on the Earth that can bring these two sides together, no one else is talking to both sides but us and no one else in the world can make something like this happen but the president.”

* * *

More headlines via Newsquawk… Geopolitics: Ukraine

• US President Trump met with Ukrainian President Zelensky at the Vatican for 15 minutes which Zelensky’s staff said was constructive, covered a lot of ground and they agreed to meet again, while the White House said the meeting was very productive.
• US President Trump said the meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky went well and we’ll see what happens in the next days, while Trump is very disappointed with Russia and wants Russian President Putin to stop shooting and reach a deal. Furthermore, Trump said the confines of a deal are there and that Zelensky is calmer now and wants to make a deal, while it was separately reported that President Trump said he thinks Ukrainian President Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, according to Al Arabiya.
• US President Trump said there was no reason for Russian President Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns over the last few days which makes him think that Putin doesn’t want to stop the war and is just ‘tapping’ him along, while Trump added too many people are dying and this has to be dealt with differently through banking or secondary sanctions.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said Russia and Ukraine are generally closer to a peace deal than in the last three years and a peace deal needs to happen soon, while he added that the US has options to hold responsible those that don’t want a Ukraine peace deal, according to NBC.
• Russian President Putin confirmed Russia’s readiness to negotiate with Ukraine without preconditions during a meeting with US envoy Witkoff, according to IFAX.
• Russian President Putin said Kyiv’s adventure in the Kursk region completely failed and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov said Ukrainian saboteurs in Russia’s Belgorod region have been liquidated. Furthermore, Russia’s military commander told Russian President Putin that scattered remnants of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region will be destroyed soon, according to RIA.
• Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia will continue to target sites used by Ukraine’s military, foreign fighters and military instructors sent by Europe, while he added that Russia would be willing to store Iran’s enriched nuclear material if both the US and Iran believe that was useful.
• Ukrainian military said Moscow’s assertion it has ended Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region is not true and operations inside Kursk continue, while its forces are still on active operations in the Belgorod region.
• French President Macron said he had a very positive exchange with Ukrainian President Zelensky and that Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire, while the coalition of the willing will continue working on a ceasefire and lasting peace in Ukraine.
• German Defence Minister Pistorius said US demands for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia are going too far.
• North Korea confirmed troop deployment to Russia and said it will faithfully implement its agreement with Russia, according to Yonhap. Furthermore, South Korea said North Korea’s confirmation of Russia troop deployment is an admission of a criminal act and the US State Department noted it is concerned by North Korea’s direct involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine, while it added that North Korea’s military deployment to Russia and any support provided by Russia to it in return must end.

Authored by Ciaran Lyons via CoinTelegraph.com,

SEC Commissioner and head of the crypto task force, Hester Peirce, says US financial firms are navigating crypto in a way that’s similar to playing the children’s game “the floor is lava,” but in the dark.

“It is time that we find a way to end this game. We need to turn on the lights and build some walkways over the lava pit,” Peirce said at the SEC “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25.

The lava is crypto, says Peirce

Peirce explained that SEC registrants are forced to approach crypto-related activities like “the floor is lava,” where the aim is to jump from one piece of furniture to the next without touching the ground, except here, touching crypto directly is the lava.

“A D.C. version of this game is our regulatory approach to crypto assets, and crypto asset custody in particular,” she said.

Peirce said that, much like in the game, firms wanting to engage with crypto must avoid directly holding it due to unclear regulatory rules. 

“To engage in crypto-related activities, SEC-registrants have had to hop from one poorly illuminated regulatory space to the next, all while ensuring that they never touch any crypto asset,” Peirce said.

Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission

Peirce said that investment advisers are often unsure which crypto assets qualify as securities, what entities count as qualified custodians, and whether “exercising staking or voting rights” could trigger custody violations.

“The twist in the regulatory version is that it is largely played in the dark: burning legal lava and no lamps to illuminate the way.”

Peirce also said that a broker or ATS that cannot custody or manage crypto assets will struggle to facilitate trading, making it unlikely for a “robust market” to develop.

Echoing a similar sentiment, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said at the event that as more SEC registrants work with crypto assets, it’s essential that they have access to custodial options that meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Uyeda said the agency should consider letting advisers use “state-chartered limited-purpose trust companies” with the authority to hold crypto assets as qualified custodians.

Meanwhile, the recently sworn-in chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, said that he expected “huge benefits” from blockchain technology through efficiency, risk mitigation, transparency, and cutting costs.

He reiterated that among his goals at the SEC would be to facilitate “clear regulatory rules of the road” for digital assets, hinting that the agency under former chair Gary Gensler had contributed to market and regulatory uncertainty.

“I look forward to engaging with market participants and working with colleagues in President Trump’s administration and Congress to establish a rational fit-for-purpose framework for crypto assets,” said Atkins.

After three consecutive days of reports of mutual gunfire at army outposts along the Line of Control (LOC) disputed border area, Pakistan’s defense minister declared Monday that a military incursion by India is imminent.

“We have reinforced our forces because it is something which is imminent now. So in that situation some strategic decisions have to be taken, so those decisions have been taken,” Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Reuters from Islamabad. This confirms Pakistani Army build-up along the border.

A severe war of words has been on since last Tuesday’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Kashmir, which saw 26 Indian tourists get executed after the gunmen sought to identify Hindus among the group. The Indian government promptly accused Pakistan of harboring the Islamist terrorists which committed the atrocity, which Islamabad angrily rejected.

The nuclear-armed neighbors have already fought two historic wars over the Kashmir region, and fears are rising that another one may soon be on the horizon – also after both sides have sent military reinforcements to the respective regions they administer. Amid a massive manhunt, India identified two detained suspected militants as Pakistani.

“Asif said India’s rhetoric was ramping up and that Pakistan’s military had briefed the government on the possibility of an Indian attack,” Reuters continues of the defense chief’s statements. “He did not go into further details on his reasons for thinking an incursion was imminent.”

And very alarmingly, the question of use of nuclear weapons was broached in the interview:

Asif said Pakistan was on high alert and that it would only use its arsenal of nuclear weapons if “there is a direct threat to our existence”.

The Indian army over the weekend announced there has been “unprovoked” firing “initiated by Pakistan” along the Line of Control (LOC) which divides Kashmir into two. Pakistan in the aftermath of the accusation neither confirmed nor denied.

The New York Times described Saturday that “Pakistani solders fired at an Indian position first and India responded in kind, according to local news reports, which said that “the exchange was brief and that there were no casualties.” Precise locations of these live fire incidents have not been disclosed.

Soon after the crisis land borders were been shut, visas and military exchange programs mutually canceled, and a landmark water treaty was suspended. Pakistan blasted India’s cancelation of the Indus Water Treaty as an “act of war” and warned it would respond accordingly if water flows are violated among the two rivals’ shared rivers.

Unverified videos like the below have been widely circulating online:

Non stop Pakistan military movement to India’s border. pic.twitter.com/tUDsmhhHnI

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 28, 2025

But if gunfire continues to be exchanged between the two militaries, also amid reports that Pakistani visa holders are being promptly booted from the country amid the diplomatic crisis – clashes could accelerate toward open war. 

India’s Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah has meanwhile said there must be a “decisive fight against terrorism and its origin.” Indian officials have continued to heap accusations that ultimately Islamabad either supports these groups or at least turns a blind eye.

Air Force and army activity along the border ramping up?

Pakistan has activated its Swat & Skardu airbases amid tensions with India. The Airforce were seen conducting sorties today. pic.twitter.com/U5GK17xLAd

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 27, 2025