Accidental Discovery May Be America’s Biggest New Critical Minerals Find

Massive mineral discovery in Utah

Musk and Bezos in space data center race

Feds confirm debanking

Ionic MT, while mining halloysite clay for battery-grade nanosilicon at its Utah Silicon Ridge site, unexpectedly uncovered high-grade concentrations of 16 critical minerals—including lithium, alumina, germanium, rubidium, cesium, vanadium, niobium, and aerospace-essential scandium.

The deposit is a rare halloysite-hosted ion-adsorption clay formation, geologically similar to China’s dominant rare-earth provinces.

The company has drilled over 600 acres to 100 feet and says it has only begun delineating the deposit across its fully permitted 8,000-acre district, with existing infrastructure and a nearby Provo processing plant ready to accelerate production.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by a quarter percentage point for the third time this year, bringing the federal funds target range to 3.5% to 3.75%. (INV)

U.S. private-sector workers' total compensation climbed 3.5% annually through September, outstripping 3% inflation for a fifth straight quarter of real-wage gains. (BN)

Global trade flows have shown surprising resilience despite higher U.S. tariffs, with commercial exchanges continuing to rise. (WSJ)

Mexico approved tariffs of up to 50% on products from non-FTA nations including China. (RTS)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Brown-Forman, the whiskey and bourbon powerhouse, trades at a 25% discount to Morningstar's $40 fair-value estimate, prompting a buy recommendation for long-term investors. (MS)

Sprott Energy Transition Materials' Eric Nuttall highlighted Whitecap Resources and Peyto Exploration as top picks, touting their 65% to 78% upside potential amid a bullish 2026 outlook for oil and natural gas. (BBG)

Victoria's Secret earned Zacks' Bull of the Day nod, as analysts forecast 2026 earnings growth of 25%. (ZCK)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Microsoft pledged $17.5 billion for India data-center expansion, as the company lays off Americans and seeks H-1B visas. (BN)

Trump said that any sale of Warner Bros. Discovery must include a new owner for CNN—"the most dishonest network"—to curb its bias. (NYP)

McDonald's pulled an AI-generated Christmas advertisement after viewer uproar over its "creepy" and "depressing" tone. (FUTR)

Cracker Barrel diners are up in arms over lapses in food quality like chilled biscuits baked in bulk, oven-reheated sides and vanishing menu staples. (FBN)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Trump announced the U.S. seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker off the country's coast for a "very good reason" tied to illicit activities funding terrorism. (FOX)

Trump's Ukraine peace plans envision substantial U.S. investments in Russian rare earth minerals and Arctic oil, and the resumption of Moscow's energy exports to Europe. (WSJ)

America's uranium renaissance is gaining momentum as firms like Myriad Uranium revive long-dormant Wyoming mines such as Copper Mountain. (PWM)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Crypto casinos enlist celebrities and livestreamers to hook young gamblers into addictive, unregulated betting frenzies, an investigation found. (NYT)

Crypto's millionaires, once flaunting their fortunes, now enlist security firms to scrub digital trails amid a surge in violent "wrench attacks.” (BBG)

The CFTC granted Gemini a license that will support a prediction market launch and possible expansion into crypto futures, options, and perps. (TB)

Andreessen Horowitz's crypto division announced its inaugural Asian outpost in Seoul, led by former Monad executive Sungmo Park. (X)

Blue Origin has quietly spent over a year developing orbital AI data-center technologies, while SpaceX pitches AI-equipped Starlink satellites.

Proponents argue that space-based compute sidesteps Earth’s crippling power and cooling constraints for AI training and inference.

Google and Planet Labs plan early 2027 test satellites carrying Google’s TPU chips to prove the concept.

Bezos declared in October that abundant power in orbit makes space-based compute inevitable and cost-competitive within two decades.

A fast-growing ecosystem—including Sam Altman, Eric Schmidt, Axiom Space, Red Hat, Aetherflux, and Starcloud—is coalescing around the idea.

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Instacart is testing AI-driven pricing experiments that charge different customers varying amounts for identical groceries at the same store on the same day, with up to 23% disparities. (LAT)

Meta is pivoting from its hallmark open-source AI ethos to a proprietary, revenue-generating model dubbed Avocado. (BBG)

An alleged leaked cover for Time's 2025 Person of the Year spotlights "The Architects of AI," a collective of tech titans including Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman. (IH)

Google DeepMind will establish its first automated science laboratory in the U.K. to accelerate materials discovery for semiconductors, superconductors, and solar cells. (FT)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: The House approved a $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act on a 312-112 vote. (FOX)

China conducted the maiden flight of the Jetank, the world's first 16-ton drone mothership capable of launching swarms of smaller unmanned aircraft mid-air. (IE)

Zelensky claimed that the Ukrainian military fired its first domestically developed Sapsan ballistic missile in combat against Russia. (TWZ)

Iran unveiled the Hadid-110, its fastest stealth suicide drone to date, capable of speeds up to 320 miles per hour. (JPOST)

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Harness, the software platform automating code testing, raised $240 million in a Series E round led by Goldman Sachs, boosting its valuation to $5.5 billion. (PRW)

Runware, the developer platform for real-time AI-generated images, videos, and audio, secured a $50 million Series A funding round led by Dawn Capital. (TC)

Bobyard, the AI startup revolutionizing construction estimating with computer-vision blueprint analysis, raised $35 million in Series A funding led by 8VC. (WSJ)

Former Meta executive Nick Clegg joined Hiro Capital as general partner, with Yann LeCun as adviser, as the firm raises an $800 million fund. (FT)

Nine major U.S. banks—JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD, and BMO—were required to disclose whether they have terminated client relationships in sectors including coal, firearms, tobacco, oil and gas, and private prisons.

Acting Comptroller Jonathan Gould stated that certain banks appeared to misuse their federally granted charters and market dominance to disadvantage lawful industries.

The OCC report pointed to prior ESG and climate-related policies that discouraged lending and banking services to politically disfavored sectors.

The inquiry follows Trump’s August executive order accusing financial institutions of discriminating against conservative and cryptocurrency clients and threatening penalties for politically motivated “debanking.”

⭐ Editor’s Pick: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado fled in disguise—donning a wig, navigating military checkpoints, then escaping via fishing boat to Curaçao and a jet, and arriving in Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. (WSJ)

Justice Department sued Minneapolis Public Schools, alleging that its collective-bargaining agreement with teachers' unions discriminates against white and male educators in hiring. (UPI)

Florida sued Starbucks, alleging the coffee giant's DEI policies unlawfully discriminate in employment decisions based on race. (FOX35)

Consumers' Research accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of spearheading "woke corporate America" through DEI initiatives and left-leaning climate advocacy, straying from its free-market origins. (FOX)

David Deutsch warned that Wikipedia’s slide into wokeness signals a wider technological and political stagnation. (SPEC)