HMM: The world’s hottest AI stock market has gone cold.

South Korea’s stock market has gone from the world’s hottest to its coldest in just a few months.

The Kospi, the world’s best-performing major stock benchmark in the first half of 2026, has since fallen about 24%, making it the worst-performing major market in the second half. It’s still more than 50% higher this year.

The AI trade isn’t losing its appeal. But investors are increasingly looking beyond South Korea’s memory-chip giants to companies with broader exposure to the AI hardware boom.

Every time a headline seems to say that, yes, there’s a bubble and it’s finally deflating, it turns out just to be another bump in the road.

THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Norwegian soldiers discovered that Chinese-owned Volvo rental cars recorded and stored videos during a major military exercise in Oslo from September 14–18.

The footage captured soldiers entering and leaving vehicles, their movements, locations and even security codes used to… pic.twitter.com/urBILFkhKE

— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 12, 2026

“Despite the discovery, the military continued using the cars due to a lack of alternatives.”

Europe, SMH.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Pakistani Christian Accused of Blasphemy, Properties Burned, Other Christians Flee.

HOWARD KURTZ: The blue wave looks real until you look a little closer.

It’s like watching some sci-fi game with players competing on 470 different fields. Which is your basic definition of crazytown. No human being, without mainlining AI into his or her arm, could possibly track so many contests, so we bounce from one race to the next, with buzzers and bells, like a pinball machine.

Look! Charlie Cook is moving 18 House races in the Democrats’ favor! This is o-vah! The blue wave is getting stronger. Put a cork in this one, it’s done!

But wait a minute. The Republicans have a huge cash advantage. Big-time Democratic donors, for whatever reason, are sitting on their checkbooks. Don’t they realize the stakes? Are they all blinded by the sun on their private islands?

No cockiness, please.

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

If you didn't want the DOJ to prosecute jihadist Congresswomen who illegally obtain citizenship and commit criminal immigration fraud, perhaps you should not have rifled through Melania's underwear drawer at 3 a.m.

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) October 12, 2026

RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY: Houthi Attacks and New Archaeological Discoveries in Israel.

THAT’S A LOT TO UNPACK IN ONE HEADLINE: DHS Issues Statement After ICE Arrests Illegal Alien from Nigeria Who Exposed Himself in Public While Working for Congressional Campaign in Pennsylvania. “According to local reporting, Igbojekwe was working as a canvasser for Janelle Stelson, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district, at the time of the incident. He was arrested after he was caught in public with his pants off, fully exposing himself, in a residential neighborhood near a park with residents, including children, in the area.”

HMM…:

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump alludes to possibly appointing Ron DeSantis to a CABINET POSITION

“I like him a lot!”

I’m ALL for this. Ron DeSantis is one of the best executives in America, and his term is up in just months. pic.twitter.com/o8NpzPTIQq

— Eric Trump 🇺🇸 (@Eric_TrumpRv) October 11, 2026

DON’T LET ILHAN STEAL ALL THE SPOTLIGHT: So the FBI Did Another Big Raid You Might Have Missed…

AUTOMATION: Waymo’s driverless rides debut in Denver. “Before Waymo could carry a single paying passenger in Denver, two Colorado taxi companies asked the Public Utilities Commission to block part of its permit. Their complaint? That Waymo would get to compete without the regulatory burdens placed on large taxi companies. The PUC ultimately approved Waymo’s license, but the episode is a preview of the fights ahead.”

MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE COST SAVINGS ARE RADICAL:

Catching both the Ship and Booster gives SpaceX its biggest payoff not by lowering the cost of getting to LEO, but by massively increasing launch cadence through reuse and breaking the production bottleneck.

Right now, Starship V3 is flying about once every two months, with a… https://t.co/Iu3VmlU1fm pic.twitter.com/FUtBOnBp25

— Lunar Citizen (@LunarCitizens) October 11, 2026

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE COULD NOT BE REACHED: El-Sayed’s Sister Said Their Family Has ‘Long Been’ Muslim Brotherhood.

ALL THE BEST PEOPLE ASSURED ME BEIJING HAS EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL: China’s debt interest costs are soaring above U.S. levels and growing faster than any other budget category as Beijing struggles to prop up growth.

The world is flooded with debt, but while the U.S. and Europe have caused angst on global markets lately, China’s fiscal situation isn’t looking so great either.

In fact, China’s debt has shot up so much in recent years that interest payments on all its borrowing are commanding a bigger share of public spending.

Debt-servicing payments will account for 19.2% of the central government’s general public budget this year, up from 12% in 2014, according to new Conference Board estimates cited by the Financial Times.

That tracks with a separate report earlier this year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which also found that 19% of Beijing’s spending is earmarked for interest on debt. That’s more than the 14% of the U.S. federal budget that goes to interest costs.

Ouch.

THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Told you that searching the homes of opposing politicians was going to suddenly become bad. https://t.co/iVR18US0dK

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 12, 2026

SQUEEZE TEHRAN HARDER: Funny How the ‘One State’ Crowd Gets Loud Whenever Tehran Gets Squeezed.

EXCLUSIVE: Montana AG Asks Supreme Court to Revive Case Against DEI Training That Allegedly Declared ‘All Caucasians’ Racist. “The training insisted, among other things, that all Caucasians are racist, that they perpetuate white supremacy, that the very notion of race was invented by white people to justify the oppression of people of color, that white supremacy is an ever-present feature of daily life in the United States, and that Caucasians who deny their own racism are merely ‘fragile’ racists who cannot accept their own prejudice.”

WOW:

Just so we’re clear…

A federal judge in D.C. signed off on the search warrant for Ilhan Omar’s home. The DOJ had to show probable cause as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into her immigration paperwork. In a district full of liberal judges, that doesn’t happen without…

— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) October 12, 2026

More here: Federal Agents Raid Ilhan Omar’s D.C. Home.

HEH: ‘Hi, Gestating’: Trump Mocks Hochul, and It’s a Riot.

UGH: Is 8% next? Why mortgage rates have surged, and may stay higher for longer.

Apart from oil prices themselves, general uncertainty about the situation in Iran is also pushing rates higher, as investors want more compensation for unknown risks, said Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com.

“The geopolitical uncertainty is a huge part of it,” Krimmel said. “We’re talking about supply shock. That doesn’t just touch oil, but probably everything else with trade.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has tried to lower bond yields via buybacks to little effect, has blamed much of the rise in bond yields and mortgage rates on energy prices.

It sure would help if Congress weren’t putting $2,000,000,000,000 on the national MasterCard every year.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…:

Jacqueline and the NYT have tracked down a disputed bakery bill from 6 years ago…but let James Talarico disappear this month for 12 days with no curiosity.

Journalism is dead. https://t.co/KFGFBwMcYE

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 11, 2026

…it’ll never be enough.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Columbus Day Always Puts Me in a Land-Stealing Mood. “These federal Monday holidays always catch me by surprise because I’ve never had a normal job that got days off like that. However, I have a particular fondness for Columbus Day because it triggers the grievance fetishists on the left. True, it doesn’t take much to trigger them — especially these days — but the ghost of Christopher Columbus has been living rent-free in their heads for a very long time.”

THEY SHOULD BE: Majority of voters concerned about socialists running for office.

The Center Square Voters’ Voice poll found that 55% of American voters are concerned about Democratic Socialist candidates running for and winning elected office in the U.S., while 37% aren’t concerned.

A slew of candidates running as democratic socialists appears to be raising alarms with a majority of American voters.

Of the 55% who are concerned, 35% are very concerned, while 20% say they are “somewhat concerned.”

Those are rookie numbers — or would be, if we explained socialism better.

MONEY LAUNDERING AND ILLEGAL DONATIONS, ALL THE WAY DOWN:

No BS Newshour Episode #427
El-Sayed Scampaign Donors

Elizabeth is a true believer in liberal causes and continues to make small political donations by way of ActBlue—the Democrat online fundraising platform.

(4:36) But somehow, those few dozen small donations she has made have… pic.twitter.com/eW3N6xN5Y6

— Charlie LeDuff (@Charlieleduff) July 22, 2026

More:

(4:36) But somehow, those few dozen small donations she has made have transmogrified into 14,696 donations totaling more than $150,000—the equivalent of eight donations a day, every day for the past five years averaging $9.18.

She says she has contributed to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Socialist running for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat, but not 47 times spanning the last TWO YEARS, as federal filings show.

Shut it down.

BLUE ON BLUE: The Democratic Socialists Are Furious With That Far-Right Extremist, Zohran Mamdani.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Several universities cut ties with foreign groups following Department of War audit.