United States

A trying day for the Trump administration has turned more bizarre, when shortly after Donald Trump Jr. released the chain of emails released ahead of his correspondence with the Russian lawyer who had promised to deliver anti-Clinton information with the implied blessing of the Russian government, a free-speech group sued President Donald Trump for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account, arguing the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

When we discussed last month's JOLTS report - Janet Yellen's favorite labor market indicator - we used one word to describe it: "schizophrenic", because while the BLS reported that job openings in April soared to the highest on record, hiring crashed, confounding not only economists, but also the supervisors of BLS goalseekers who "came up" with the number. Fast forward to today, when moments ago the latest JOLTS report summarized, with its usual 2 month lag, the labor situation in the US.

When Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland last December, in response to alleged Russian interference in the election, Putin just smiled and said Russia would not retaliate, expecting that relations between Russia and the US would normalize under president Trump.

The U.S. successfully test fired a THAAD anti-ballistic missile system on Tuesday from Alaska that intercepted a target missile launched from an Air Force Cargo plane north of Hawaii, Fox news reported. The drill, which was scheduled in June, comes a week after North Korea successfully test-launched an intermediate, not intercontinental as it previously claimed, range ballistic missile capable of hitting Alaska. This was the 14th consecutive successful test of the THAAD, which has had a perfect record on each of the previous 13 intercepts.

“Silver’s Plunge Is Nearing Completion”