United States

Modeled after similar programs in Europe, Australia and Canada, Seattle is on track to become the first city in the United States where heroin addicts can legally shoot up at a supervised healthcare facility.  The controversial program is intended to reduce the number of overdose deaths by bringing users out of the alleys and into "safe places" where overdoses can be treated immediately, all at taxpayer expense, of course.  This new concept goes one step beyond needle exchange programs that exist in other cities intended to decrease the spread of disease through dirty needles.

Citing "current and former U.S. officials," all anonymous of course, the Washington Post has just reported that President Trump revealed "highly classified information" to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week which jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.  Per WaPo, the sensitive information allegedly relayed by Trump had been provided by a U.S.

Cyber Attacks Show Vulnerability of Digital Systems and Digital Currencies

In April 2014, just as the Ukraine conflict (and proxy civil war) was hitting its climax, in the process undermining US-Russian relations for years, some 2,066 Americans were asked to show where the Ukraine was on a map. The result, while leaving something to be desired, was not terrible.

Fast forward to this weekend, when the NYT repeated the same exercise with the latest geopolitical hotspot: North Korea. In an experiment led by Kyle Dropp of Morning Consult, he asked 1,746 American adults to point to where North Korea is on the world map. This was the raw result:

With the French election in the rearview mirror, Europe's anti-establishment wave seemingly receding, and Merkel's crushing victory (and stunning defeat for the SPD) in this weekend's North Rhine-Westphalia election in Germany, some strategists have gone so far as to say there is virtually no political risk left in Europe (and certainly looking at a chart of Eurostoxx50 Vol or European credit spreads, this appears to be the case). To be sure, stocks have been ahead of the curve, with European YTD returns trouncing those in  the US, and some pundits saying there is much more upside to come.