SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS RESTING COMFORTABLY: Iran Is Hiding a Nuclear Weapons Development Site: Report.

READER FAVORITE: Magnetic Fidget Pen – Stress Relief Toy & Multifunctional Writing Pen. #CommissionEarned

ANOTHER HEART OF STONE MOMENT: Poetic Justice Came for Letitia James, and It’s Glorious.

WHIPLASH: US weighs plan to slash China tariffs to as low as 50% — down from 145% — as soon as next week.

The Trump administration is weighing a plan to slash the 145% tariff on Chinese imports by more than half — effective as soon as next week — as top US and China officials head to Switzerland for high-level trade negotiations, The Post has learned.

Specifically, US officials are discussing a proposal to lower President Trump’s punishing levy on China goods to between 50% and 54% as they begin what promise to be lengthy talks to hammer out a trade agreement, sources close to the negotiations said.

Meanwhile, trade taxes on neighboring south Asian countries would be cut to 25%, the source added.

“They are going to be bringing it down to 50% while the negotiations are ongoing,” the source said of the trade tax on China.

There are almost too many moving pieces in these negotiations to keep track.

DON’T FORGET YOUR UMBRELLA TOMORROW:

Stay on the lookout for the failed 1972 Soviet Venus lander Kosmos 482. The forecast date & time of reentry is May 10, 2025 06:26 UTC (08:26 CEST).

It has a titanium casing and can withstand the extreme acceleration, heat, and pressure of entering Venus's atmosphere.

It weighs… pic.twitter.com/Sgvy0gzrQh

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 9, 2025

THAT REALLY OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN AN EASY A: College President Flunks Test on Whether It’s Wrong to Celebrate Hamas Murders of Jews.

GLOBAL MILITARIES TO STUDY INDIA-PAKISTAN FIGHTER JET BATTLE.

The aerial clash is a rare opportunity for militaries to study the performance of pilots, fighter jets and air-to-air missiles in active combat, and use that knowledge to prepare their own air forces for battle.

Experts said the live use of advanced weapons would be analyzed across the world, including in China and the United States which are both preparing for a potential conflict over Taiwan or in the wider Indo-Pacific region.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was high confidence that Pakistan had used the Chinese-made J-10 aircraft to launch air-to-air missiles against Indian fighter jets.

Social media posts focused on the performance of China’s PL-15 air-to-air missile against the Meteor, a radar-guided air-to-air missile produced by European group MBDA (AIR.PA), opens new tab, (BAES.L), opens new tab, (LDOF.MI), opens new tab. There has been no official confirmation these weapons were used.

“Air warfare communities in China, the U.S. and a number of European countries will be extremely interested to try and get as much ground truth as they can on tactics, techniques, procedures, what kit was used, what worked and what didn’t,” said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“You have arguably China’s most capable weapon against the West’s most capable weapon, if indeed it was being carried; we don’t know that,” Barrie said.

I don’t think anybody really considers the French-built Rafale to be “the West’s most capable weapon.”

But the point stands about Chinese jets and missiles — the days of China making nothing but cheap copies are long over.

WHAT’S THAT BIT ABOUT “A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH?” Sources Say the Biden Crime Family Is Going Broke.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: You Know, a Letitia James Perp Walk Sure Would Be Fun to See. “The big difference between the current Department of Justice and the previous one is that it’s actually going after people who have broken the law, rather than just making things up to persecute political enemies. The Dems don’t see it that way, of course. They say that Trump is weaponizing the DOJ. They are known for their projection issues.”

HMM: Trump eying Fox News host Jeanine Pirro for top prosecutor in DC.

President Donald Trump is strongly considering installing Fox News host and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The potential selection comes as Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that Ed Martin, who is currently serving as D.C.’s interim top prosecutor, would not be taking the position permanently after losing support among top Republicans in the Senate.

An announcement about a new interim U.S. attorney could come as soon as Thursday, sources said. Sources caution that plans could always change and a decision is never final until publicly announced by the president.

She’d be good, but can she get past Sen. Thom Tillis?

Oh, and kudos to Tillis for his promotion by ABC News to “top Republicans in the Senate.”

SKYNET SMILES: ‘It will probably lead to the end of the world’ — what tech bros really think about AI.

Sam Altman is one of the most powerful men there has ever been. He runs OpenAI, the lab that gave us ChatGPT. He’s just turned 40 and he looks like he was AI-generated to run a tech company: casual clothes, big salesman eyes, furrowed brows. He tries not to think too much about artificial intelligence turning on us, he has said. But if it does, “I have,” he told The New Yorker in 2016, “guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defence Force and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.” He also once said, “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there’ll be great companies.”

So we got that going for us, which is nice.

LOSING THE PLOT: NYT: West Point Is to Educate, Not Indoctrinate, Says Professor Who’s Quitting.

ICYMI [VIP]: Thursday Essay: Skynet Might Be Fiction, But It’s Coming for Our Jobs. “Please note that Europe and the UK — which gave us the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith, English liberty, and the World Wide Web — aren’t even in the running. By the time the European Commission on the Correct Use of Foreign Things We Don’t Like But Still Need convenes its Third Plenary Discussion on Proper AI Regulation and Taxation, private firms in the U.S. and China will have made three more leaps.”

MICHAEL WALSH INTERVIEWS VDH.

THE NEW ANTIFASCISM LOOKS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE THE OLD FASCISM: I Tried to Cover a May Day Protest. Antifascists Had a Problem With That.

Last week, I was hounded out of a protest by a pair of authoritarians opposing fascism.

Billed as a “May Day” rally on behalf of workers, the event, which began in Foley Square in downtown Manhattan, was one of dozens of such protests promoted by 50501. This one was organized by a coalition of unions and other progressive groups, including the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. I attended the rally and had spent about an hour interviewing participants and onlookers when the trouble began.

My questioning a DSA member about the idea that private ownership was the root of our nation’s troubles had evidently aroused the suspicions of a cadre of masked, yellow-vest-clad organizers bearing arrow signs reading “Right-Wing Troll,” which they then deployed to warn any future interview subjects from speaking with me.

Two of these people followed me doggedly, eventually driving me from the event to a nearby side street, where they continued to monitor me until I eventually whipped out my phone and made a contribution to the GOP.

Heh. Read the whole thing.

LIMITED TIME DEAL: Craftsman VERSASTACK Mechanics Tool Set. #CommissionEarned

THAT WAS FAST: Pope Leo XIV ‘looked the other way’ when confronted with child sex abuse allegations against priest in his Chicago church.

WAIT, WHAT? Georgia Man Files Suit Against the NFL Over Shedeur Sanders’ Draft Slide.

LEST WE FORGET:  A VE Day story.

CHINA IS ‘A RIDDLE, WRAPPED IN A MYSTERY, INSIDE AN ENIGMA …’  Cities stand empty as the Chinese population goes into reverse.

I’M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN COLORADO WAS AMERICAN:  Exposed: Scandal Over ‘Sex Ed’ Camp for Young Kids in Colorado.

FROM THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” DEPT:  Bernie Sanders Unapologetically Defends Flying Private Jets.

THEIR LOVE OF AMERICA IS AKIN TO A DOMESTIC ABUSER’S LOVE OF SPOUSE:  ‘It Is Our Job to Destroy the United States,’ Says…

SO BE IT. THE WAR SHOULD CONTINUE UNTIL THEY CHANGE WHAT LITTLE MINDS THEY HAVE:  Poll: 59% of Palestinians in West Bank Say October 7 Massacre Was ‘Correct Decision’.

OBVIOUSLY TRUMP IS RUBBER AND SHE’S GLUE:  Report: FBI Opens Case Against Letitia James for Alleged Mortgage Fraud.