Geopolitics & US Politics:

Elections & Disinformation: U.S. intelligence reports that Russia is conducting covert online disinformation campaigns to influence the upcoming midterm elections and undermine public trust in American democracy.
US-China Trade: The U.S. and China are in talks to reduce or eliminate China's 15% tariff on U.S. LNG as part of a broader energy and agriculture deal, which could be announced during President Xi's visit.
Foreign Policy Statements: Trump made several statements regarding foreign affairs, noting that "war will end soon" regarding Iran, stating Poland "has it under control" regarding potential Russian threats, and confirming he expects "a lot of different deals" from his upcoming meeting with Xi.
Middle East: Arab sources reported explosions heard in Jazan and Abha, Saudi Arabia, while a senior Houthi member claimed Saudi Arabia asked Iran to mediate.

Markets & Finance:

US Market Summary: Stocks fluctuated as the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5% amid inflation concerns driven by near-$100 oil prices. Semiconductor stocks rallied, Bitcoin climbed past $81,000, and trading volume spiked due to "triple witching" options expirations.
Corporate & Banking: French credit rating was downgraded to A+ from AA- by Scope; U.S. bank deposits rose to $19.657 trillion.
Commodities: Brent Crude settled down 0.91% at $103.87/bbl, and NYMEX Natural Gas settled at $2.912/MMBtu.

Nscale Deals: AI infrastructure firm Nscale entered a multi-billion GPU services agreement with Anthropic (up to ~$44.6B) and secured an unsecured convertible loan note agreement with Nvidia as it targets an IPO valued around $30 billion led by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley.
Anthropic Revenue: Anthropic projects exceeding $100 billion in annualized revenue this year.
OpenAI & UN: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is scheduled to brief the UN Security Council next week.