Balance Imbalance..

The U.S. deficit with its global trading partners tumbled by the largest amount on record in April as companies and consumers no longer rushed to get imports ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Following a record-breaking surge in the trade imbalance, the deficit slid to $61.6 billion, a decrease of $76.7 billion from the prior month and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for $66.3 billion, according to a Commerce Department report Thursday.

The move reverses a massive surge in imports that came ahead of Trump’s April 2 “liberation day” announcement.

Imports slowed sharply in April, falling 16.3% to $351 billion. At the same time, exports accelerated, rising 3%.

On a year-to-date basis, the deficit has risen 65.7% from the same period in 2024.

The largest goods imbalance came with China, at $19.7 billion, followed by the European Union ($17.9 billion) and Vietnam ($14.5 billion).

Theft..

 

Randolph Dominguez, 58-year-old is sentenced to 15 months in prison for stealing and misappropriating COVID funds and social security benefits. 

He stole benefits for over 22 years and was sentenced in federal court in Boston. In January 2025, he pleaded guilty to one count of stealing government money and wire fraud.

Coming to stealing Social Security benefits, he did this from April 2001 to 2023. He received payments of more than $163,642 by not reporting his father’s death. Instead, he changed the address to his own place and continues to receive the checks. 

He used his father’s debit card to get the money for more than two decades after his death. This is not one standalone case but several people do this. The verdict of the case is an example of what’s coming for them in the future.

Comment:

its time for the Department of efficiency DOGE to play its role.   Just a thought.

Loosing alone..

 

(Reuters) -Ukraine's government has criticised a decision to take billions of euros of Russian wealth frozen in Europe and hand it to Western investors, warning that it weakened Europe's stand against Moscow.

The criticism follows a move last month by Belgium's Euroclear to take 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of Russian investor cash held at the clearing firm to pay Westerners who lost out when Moscow seized their money held in Russia.

Comment:

Ukraine's government wants war, you will get one and will lose alone.

 Just a thought.

Try..

After combing through extensive data, epidemiologist Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and her colleagues noticed that many individuals start off active but lose momentum by middle age.

This decline appears to drive up the risk of developing hypertension, a medical condition marked by above-normal blood pressure levels that can result in heart disease and other complications.

Researchers took regular physical measurements and tracked each person’s exercise routines over three decades to see how consistent physical activity influenced blood pressure later in life.

At each stage, participants who logged more hours of physical effort ended up with better circulatory readings.

Those who managed five hours of moderate exercise per week saw a meaningful reduction in their chances of having high blood pressure.  Just a thought.

Neither do..

Doomed..

 

Lifted..

The Supreme Court on Friday lifted a lower court order blocking the Social Security Administration from granting access to the agency’s sensitive data to affiliates of the Department of Government Efficiency.

The ruling, a win for the Trump administration, means that DOGE will be able to access data on millions of Americans as part of what it has described as an effort to rout out fraud and “modernize outdated systems,” but that critics say appears to be a fishing expedition.

Drones..

Russia’s Molniya drone mothership carries FPV attack drones' tens of kilometers behind Ukrainian lines, marking the first confirmed use of this Ukrainian-pioneered technology by Russian forces.

The innovation, which Ukrainian forces developed, and Russia has now embraced, extends the range of smaller explosives-laden drones from mere miles to dozens of kilometers. It’s essentially a smaller-scale, aerial version of the drone deployment method the Ukrainian state security agency, or SBU, used to devastate five Russian air bases on Sunday.

The SBU operation, involving more than 100 small quadcopter drones smuggled across Russia in specially modified truck trailers, ended with the destruction of more than a dozen Russian warplanes including irreplaceable Tupolev Tu-22M and Tu-95 bombers and Beriev A-50 radar planes.

Comment:  The cost of war.!!  Just a thought.

Switched..

State Sen. Jessica Ramos turned her back on fellow progressive mayoral candidates Friday — making the shocking move to endorse frontrunner Andrew Cuomo despite previously questioning his mental acuity.

Ramos, a Queens rep since 2019, joined the former governor at a campaign event in Manhattan, where she made a veiled dig at socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who has been ranking second in the polls.

The endorsement marked a sharp about-face from Ramos’ repeated public criticism of Cuomo — including questioning whether he was senile, telling The Post in April that New Yorkers couldn’t afford a “Joe Biden moment.”

Comment:

Wonder what happened to make a huge opinion change.  Just a thought.

D. B.

The Notorious skyjacker D.B. Cooper may finally be unmasked.

RadarOnline.com can reveal the criminal mastermind is suspected to be Richard Floyd McCoy II, a decorated Green Beret who met an untimely end just three years after the infamous 1971 heist.

In an unprecedented move, agents are reportedly seeking to exhume McCoy's remains to obtain DNA in an effort to connect him definitively to the unsolved case. 

The aim, as Gryder revealed, is to compare this genetic material with DNA found on a black J.C. Penney tie left on the plane a crucial clue that could finally crack the decades-old mystery.

The content maker stated: "I just want the truth out there. I want to explain what truly happened.   Just a thought.