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Save on a manufacturer-certified refurbished Dell 15 featuring a 15.6-inch HD display, Windows 11, and 8-hour battery life.

Despite a rocky patch in April, Arsenal has regained control at the top of the EPL table.

A business exec allegedly hurled vile racist and homophobic slurs at passengers and cabin crew after he was blocked from opening a plane door, according to a report.

A crippling Long Island Rail Road strike is throwing New York commuters into chaos as President Trump and Governor Kathy Hochul trade blame over the disruption. With hundreds of thousands affected, the political fallout is growing fast. Meanwhile, a California transgender athlete controversy is reigniting the national debate over girls’ sports after officials awarded duplicate...

"Scale Matters": NextEra, Dominion To Merge In Utility Megadeal Aimed At Grid Expansion To Power AI Boom

As power demand surges on the back of data-center buildouts, with hyperscalers expected to unleash about $700 billion in capex this year to expand AI infrastructure and maintain an edge over China in the AI compute race, NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy are moving to scale up. The utilities agreed to a $67 billion all-stock merger that would create the world's largest regulated electric utility network.

Dominion shareholders will receive .8138 NextEra shares for each Dominion share, leaving NextEra investors with about 74.5% of the combined company and Dominion holders with 25.5%. The merged utility would be more than 80% regulated, serve 10 million customer accounts, and control about 110 gigawatts of generation capacity across the U.S. East Coast, from Florida to a cluster of data centers in Northern Virginia.

NextEra positioned the merger with Dominion as a way to quickly scale power grids along the East Coast while lowering power bills, as the era of AI data center buildouts only begins to accelerate: 

With growth drivers evenly balanced between regulated and long-term contracted businesses and more than 130 GW of large-load opportunities in its pipeline, the combined company will have a broader opportunity set, more ways to grow and the scale, balance sheet and best-in-class operating, supply chain, construction and technology capabilities to deliver the generation, transmission and grid investments needed to serve customers, support economic growth and cost-effectively meet surging power demand while keeping bills affordable.

"The transaction is structured as a 100% stock-for-stock transaction and is expected to be tax-free to shareholders. The combined company will operate under the NextEra Energy name and trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol NEE," NextEra wrote in the press release.

NextEra CEO John Ketchum said the merger is a "historic moment" and comes as "electricity demand is rising faster than it has in decades."

Ketchum continued:

We are bringing NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy together because scale matters more than ever— not for the sake of size, but because scale translates into capital and operating efficiencies. It enables us to buy, build, finance and operate more efficiently, which translates into more affordable electricity for our customers in the long run.

The way the merger is framed appears aimed at federal regulators, who have seen growing resistance to data centers at the local level amid soaring power bills. It is worth noting that on some grids, especially in the Mid-Atlantic, backfiring green policies have collided with data-center buildouts and surging demand, sending power prices sky-high.

This earnings season was an eye-opener, as we noted that hyperscalers will deploy $700 billion in capex this year to support AI infrastructure.

In markets, shares of Dominion Energy soared 15%, while shares of NextEra remained flat.

Evercore ISI analyst Nicholas Amicucci noted that the merger will "likely face a significant amount of regulatory scrutiny."

The way the merger is framed, as a means of scaling grids and supporting data-center buildouts while pitching affordable household power prices, is music to the ears of federal regulators.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 10:45

The Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed the positive test after British Columbia’s top public health officer previously described the case as a "presumptive positive."

Anderson Cooper appeared to take a thinly veiled dig at Bari Weiss and the future direction of “60 Minutes” during an emotional farewell Sunday night — offering up a pointed defense of the legendary newsmagazine’s “independence.” Cooper, who announced earlier this year that he was stepping away from the show after nearly two decades as...

"I definitely spend a good amount of that time sort of despondent somewhere in my house."

The excavation centers around the Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis, the ruins of an ancient Macedonian city in northern Greece, about 60 miles northeast of Thessaloniki.

Know everything about your dog, it may save their life.

Iran claimed the US has made a major concession, but the White House has not commented.

"Shockingly Bad" Chinese Econ Data Stuns Wall Street, Sparks Hard Landing Concerns

Confirming our Sunday preview, overnight China reported growth data which slowed across the board in April with investment resuming declines, retail sales missing sales and growing at the weakest rate in 4 years while industrial production rose at the slowest pace in three years, calling into question Beijing's reluctance to add stimulus to the economy as a global energy crisis hits factories and consumers across the world.

China's Monday data dump of official data on Monday painted a picture of an economy where booming exports no longer offset deteriorating consumption at home, prompting analysts at banks including Nomura and SocGen to urge bolder measures in support of growth.

As shown in the chart below, fixed-asset investment unexpectedly shrank 1.6% in the first four months of 2026 from a year earlier, while industrial production grew just 4.1% last month, the weakest in almost three years. Retail sales also missed forecasts and rose just 0.2% in April, the worst reading since they contracted in December 2022, when China reopened from Covid.

What is shocking is that it is common knowledge that Beijing traditionally massages its economic data to present itself in the rosiest possible light: the fact that it allowed data this ugly would suggest that the picture on the ground is much uglier. 

Goldman's Delta One head Rich Privorotsky captured this sentiment well, writing this morning that "overnight news from China showed economic data materially below expectations. Industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment all missed meaningfully. It’s hard to tell whether this reflects genuine demand destruction but perhaps it helps explain how the oil market has managed to balance despite ongoing supply concerns. I genuinely can’t remember a period when Chinese data, which tends to be heavily massaged, missed by anything close to this magnitude. Negative read through for consumption related categories."

Remarkably, not a single economist surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted as pessimistic a reading for industry, retail sales and investment. The disappointing performance of the world’s second-biggest economy last month is a reminder of its domestic vulnerabilities, after a global artificial intelligence investment boom sent trade soaring.

The breadth of the acute slowdown in April has put the prospect of a more aggressive stimulus back on the agenda after China stood out in its resilience to the fallout from the Iran war. The government pulled back on fiscal spending in March, while the central bank has steered clear of even hinting at any further loosening in policy, amid ample market liquidity and weak demand for credit. 

Fu Linghui, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, described the deterioration of economic indicators as “a normal fluctuation from month to month.” But he also highlighted challenges such as a persistent imbalance between supply and demand as well as a complex global environment.

Investment plunged by around 8% in April from a year earlier, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs and Capital Economics, returning to a similar pace of decline seen in the second half of 2025. Manufacturing and infrastructure investment both weakened, while private investment plummeted

In response to the dismal data, Nomura economists wrote that authorities “might need to step up policy support for stabilizing growth,” adding that “Beijing has no room for complacency.”

A rising number of economists has been forecasting the People’s Bank of China won’t lower interest rates this year after the oil shock pushed up inflation expectations, though many still expect a cut to lenders’ reserve requirement ratio. The PBOC last lowered the policy rate and the RRR at the peak of the trade tensions with the US a year ago. 

Authorities are still likely to take a patient approach and avoid rushing out response to just one month of data. The Communist Party’s decision-making Politburo will convene in July to review economic growth and policies, making it the next potential window for any adjustment in stimulus. 

“The stance still seems to be to play cautiously,” said Jing Liu, chief economist for Greater China at HSBC in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “Our base case is no extra stimulus for the economy for the time being.”

Even though many manufacturers are struggling to cope with higher raw material costs, overall exports soared as Chinese tech products found willing buyers abroad. Greater demand for green energy products is also benefiting China. But a sustained weakening of investment and consumption at home could still bring risks to Beijing’s goal of achieving 4.5% to 5% artificial growth this year.

The April data suggest gross domestic product may expand as little as 4.1% on-year in the second quarter, which could prompt incremental policy easing, according to Macquarie Group Ltd. For now, Goldman is maintaining its forecast for a GDP gain of 4.7% in April-June, compared with 5% in the first three months of the year.

The data “should keep PBOC easing – RRR and even rate cuts – firmly on the table, while fiscal top-up may come later,” SocGen's head China economist Wei Yao wrote in a note.

The plunging manufacturing data comes at a time of continued dismal credit demand and heavy rainfall in southern China, which could be behind the sharp fall in capital spending, Goldman economist Lisheng Wang said in a note (available to pro subs here).

Statistical adjustment is another potential factor. Many economists believe authorities took measures to correct over-reporting of the data in late 2025. Such a change may have exaggerated the volatility of the figures recently, as the on-year contraction in steel and cement output narrowed in April, according to Goldman Sachs. 

The consumer economy has meanwhile continued to struggle as households spent less on items as varied as autos and furniture. Car sales plunged 15% in April from a year earlier, the worst contraction since mid-2022, when the country was under Covid restrictions. The government has scaled back subsidies for electric vehicle purchases this year, while the Iran oil shock hurt sales of gasoline-powered cars. 

Purchases of home appliances and furniture — products that used to be buoyed by government subsidies — declined at a double-digit pace. Gold, silver and jewelry sales plummeted 21% — a huge reversal from earlier this year and 2025, when soaring prices for precious metals led to a speculative investment frenzy.

The industrial sector is also getting more lopsided as export-driven sectors lead the growth while industries that relied on domestic sales lagged. The production of electronics, lifted by soaring global demand for AI chips, expanded 15.6% in April, the fastest pace in two years.

The auto industry also expanded briskly at 9.2%, as overseas EV sales took off. Meanwhile, commodities linked to real estate and construction — such as cement, glass and steel — recorded declines, while crude oil processing volume fell, which ING Bank economist Lynn Song attributed to the war’s impact

Soaring chip prices may partly explain why factory output weakened even as exports surged.  While industrial production is reported after an adjustment made for inflation, sales abroad are calculated in nominal terms, making it hard to separate movements in prices versus volumes. Surging costs of chips and electronics accounted for about half of April’s 14% headline export growth, according to Nomura. 

“China still looks like a two-speed economy: strong in strategic manufacturing and exports, but weak where household confidence matters most,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets in Singapore. “The concern is not just that activity missed, but that the weakness is broadening across the domestic side of the economy.”

There is one silver lining when it comes to the Chinese economy: exports are expected to remain strong after climbing 15% in the first four months from a year ago. Stabilizing trade ties with the US, reinforced by President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing, further bolster the outlook.

But a turnaround is nowhere in sight for domestic consumption. Chinese households net repaid the most loans in April since comparable data going back to 2010.

“Policy space remains ample,” said Hao Zhou, chief economist at Guotai Junan International Holdings. “The April data are less a sign of deterioration than a trigger for more proactive easing — which should help anchor growth and support a gradual recovery into the second half of the year.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/18/2026 - 10:30

After a month-and-a-half in this theaters, this smash hit is coming to digital platforms.

Those letters weren't meant to be swapped.

Two Americans were arrested in Japan on Monday after breaking into the enclosure of the beloved Punch the monkey, the 9-month-old internet sensation, police said.

Jurors at Luigi Mangione’s murder trial will get to see the 3D-printed pistol and alleged “manifesto” found inside his backpack, a judge ruled Monday — handing prosecutors a key legal win.

The 31-year-old won his first major championship Sunday, along with a $3.69 million first-place prize.

Years ago, before Rick Pitino’s arrival, St. John’s doggedly recruited Kyle Cuffe Jr. 

The Grammy-winning singer celebrated her acquittal via her laweyer after "an eight-year ordeal that has taken an unacceptable toll."

The Grammy-winning singer celebrated her acquittal via her laweyer after "an eight-year ordeal that has taken an unacceptable toll."