Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Monday, April 13, 2026
Travere's FILSPARI wins FDA full approval as first and only treatment for FSGS
Travere's FILSPARI wins FDA full approval as first and only treatment for FSGS, expanding label beyond IgA nephropathy
- Approval specifically targets reduction of proteinuria in FSGS patients without nephrotic syndrome.
Hong Kong And The Quiet Rewiring Of The Dollar System
by Peter C. Earle, Ph.D,
Hong Kong’s decision to move forward with its first stablecoin issuer licenses may prove to be about far more than digital payments. With HSBC and a Standard Chartered-led venture among the first approved issuers under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s new framework, the city is placing major regulated banks at the center of the next phase of monetary technology. Stablecoins remain overwhelmingly USD- and US Treasury-denominated, with more than 90 percent of the market’s roughly $300 billion capitalization tied to the US Treasury by one or the other, but the more important long-term story may be Asia’s role in transforming stablecoins from simple crypto settlement tools into the foundation of a real-time, on-chain foreign exchange and collateral ecosystem. In monetary terms, this is one more step in the migration of fiat liabilities from legacy banking rails onto programmable bearer-like instruments, a development with potentially profound implications for currency competition, reserve demand, and the future topology of the international monetary order.
The immediate effect of Hong Kong dollar stablecoins is easy to see: faster, cheaper, and programmable movement of HKD liquidity across exchanges, wallets, and cross-border commercial networks. The more consequential implication is that Asia may become the proving ground for blockchain-native FX and eurocurrency-style offshore liquidity markets, but in tokenized form. The region already hosts the world’s densest trade, remittance, and supply chain corridors, making it the natural venue for the next generation of synthetic money markets. Once local currency stablecoins begin operating under credible legal frameworks - HKD today, possibly Singapore dollars, offshore yuan proxies, and other regional currencies tomorrow - firms could increasingly swap tokenized fiat claims instantly on shared rails instead of relying on correspondent banks, delayed settlement windows, and multiple layers of intermediary fees. Economically, this reduces transaction frictions, compresses spreads, and lowers the velocity drag traditionally imposed by cross-border settlement risk.
Yet this is what makes Hong Kong’s move strategically significant: Hong Kong’s currency board peg to the US dollar gives an HKD stablecoin an unusual dual identity. It remains a local currency instrument that borrows much of its credibility from its dollar link. That makes it a natural bridge between the existing dollarized stablecoin universe and a more plural currency architecture. Hong Kong is not really challenging dollar stablecoin dominance so much as creating a regulated side door into it, while also building optionality should regional trade blocs increasingly seek invoicing diversity. Because the HKD already trades in a tightly managed band against the greenback, an HKD token can function akin to a dollar settlement instrument – a quasi-dollar - for Asian commerce while preserving local currency denomination. In the larger dedollarization trend, it’s less about displacing the dollar as reserve money than about disaggregating the mechanisms through which dollar liquidity is accessed, transferred, and rehypothecated.
A more interesting take is that Asia may not be driving dedollarization so much as a competitive fiat pluralization under “shadow dollar” pricing. Dollar stablecoins such as Tether and USD Coin succeeded because users in emerging markets wanted a portable, digitally native dollar substitute - effectively a market response to weak domestic monetary institutions. What Hong Kong now points toward is the next evolutionary step: using the same blockchain infrastructure not merely to store dollars, but to exchange among currencies continuously, cheaply, and at near-instant speed. That could make foreign exchange itself – paradoxically, one of the world’s largest and most liquid but still infrastructure-heavy markets - more programmable, accessible, and dramatically faster. In that sense, stablecoins increasingly resemble a privately intermediated digital version of the classical gold exchange standard’s layered settlement logic: local claims circulating atop a trusted reserve anchor, except the anchor today is fiat credibility rather than specie.
There are, as always, risks. HKD stablecoins inherit not only the strengths but also the vulnerabilities of their native Hong Kong peg. Any future reassessment of the linked exchange rate system, however unlikely in the near term, would immediately raise questions about reserve composition, redemption certainty, duration mismatch, and collateral quality/sufficiency. That is precisely why Hong Kong’s emphasis on high-quality liquid reserves, segregated accounts, and bank-led issuance matters so much. The intent is clearly to make stablecoins an extension of trusted monetary plumbing rather than an exogenous, arguably speculative, parallel system. For sound money observers, the key issue is whether these instruments remain genuinely redeemable claims on short-duration, high-quality assets, or whether they gradually become another layer of maturity transformation disguised as digital certainty.
The larger point is that Asia’s real comparative advantage in stablecoins may not lie in issuing yet another dollar token. It may lie in building the first credible internet-native foreign exchange market, where local currencies, dollar proxies, and trade settlement instruments move across the same interoperable rails. Viewed this way, Hong Kong’s recent action is less a crypto story than a primal blueprint for how Asia could modernize the foreign exchange architecture of global commerce while subtly reshaping the channels through which dollar dominance is exercised. This is one important piece of the broader reserve currency puzzle: not the end of dollar primacy, but the emergence of new transactional layers beneath it.
A more provocative angle is that the future of stablecoins in Asia may not be about replacing the dollar, but about forcing a competition between fiat systems, gold-linked alternatives, and dollar proxies on rails where settlement quality, collateral transparency, and convertibility matter more than empty rhetoric or hopeful economic projections. In that sense, Hong Kong’s move is only the latest in an ongoing global search for a post-Bretton Woods III monetary architecture; one in which trust is increasingly measured not by sovereign declaration alone, but by the quality, liquidity, and auditability of the assets standing behind digital claims.
Peter C. Earle, Ph.D is Director of Economics, AIER
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/hong-kong-and-quiet-rewiring-dollar-system
California Lawmakers Introduce The "Stop Nick Shirley Act"
It would appear that independent journalist Nick Shirley's expose on medical subsidies fraud in California, largely perpetrated by immigrants, was more devastating to Democrats than anyone could have guessed.
After making waves in Minneapolis by revealing rampant daycare fraud run by Somali migrants feeding on millions in government subsidies (and likely funneling some of that cash to Democrat politicians), Nick Shirley traveled to the Golden State only to find more fraud, including voting scams and medical care scams.
🚨 California is the breeding ground for voter fraud in America, as millions of people vote with no ID, month-long election processes, inaccurate voter rolls, dead people caught voting, even a dog successfully registered to vote, and voter verification is all based on your… pic.twitter.com/7nOIZe5x9D
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) February 16, 2026
The investigation has apparently led to at least 21 arrests associated with medical fraud just after Shirley published his report, though no official sources have confirmed a direct connection.
This brand of taxpayer theft is an ever present problem within blue states where Democrats and migrants seem to work hand-in-hand. But the real giveaway is the fact that Democrats, NGOs and leftist activist groups respond with such hostility to any efforts to expose migrant fraud.
In Minnesota, the state government and NGOs enabled violent leftist mobs in order to distract from the Somali fraud issue and prevent ICE agents from making arrests. This is how important these scam networks are to the political left.
In California we find similar behavior, but this time lawmakers are actually pushing legislation that would help to prevent future journalists like Nick Shirley from identifying the locations tied to taxpayer theft schemes.
Shirley Responds
"California is trying to pass a bill that would criminalize investigative journalism with misdemeanors, $10,000 fines, imprisonment, and content takedown," Shirley posted on X. "Under AB 2624, government-funded entities like the Somali “Learing” Daycare centers would be protected from being exposed if they operated inside California."
California is trying to pass a bill that would criminalize investigative journalism with misdemeanors, $10,000 fines, imprisonment, and content takedown.
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) April 13, 2026
The proposed bill is titled AB 2624 and was made after I exposed mass fraud by immigrant groups in America.
Under AB 2624,… pic.twitter.com/4p0SjO7hOZ
Is the Bill Real and Current?
Yes - AB 2624 (2025-2026 session) is an active, real piece of legislation titled "Privacy for immigration support services providers." It was introduced on February 20, 2026, by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D), and it was amended on April 9, 2026. As of April 13, 2026, it has advanced through committee (read second time and amended) and remains in progress in the Assembly.
What the Bill Actually Does
The bill extends an existing address confidentiality program (modeled after protections for reproductive health care and gender-affirming care providers) to "designated immigration support services providers," their employees, volunteers, and household members.
Key provisions include:
- Prohibiting anyone from knowingly posting, displaying, disclosing, or distributing on the internet or social media the personal information or images of these individuals with the specific intent to incite violence, threaten harm, or enable a crime involving violence against them.
- Banning soliciting, selling, or trading such information/images with the same harmful intent.
- Penalties: Misdemeanor violations carry fines up to $10,000 per violation, imprisonment (typically up to 1 year), or both. It also creates civil remedies, including potential damages.
- Confidentiality: It shields home addresses in public records and allows affected individuals to seek removal of threatening content.
Officially, the bill aims to protect workers at nonprofits and service providers (potentially including daycares serving immigrants) from doxxing and harassment amid rising threats of violence. It creates new crimes and state-mandated local programs but does not explicitly mention "journalism" or ban filming in public.
Nick Shirley walks up to 6 consecutive government-funded hospice providers in California—and finds NONE of them are open.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) March 17, 2026
Miracle Healing - “Not a single piece of furniture.”
SX Home Health - Closed
Alpha Omega Ventana Hospice - “Grandma’s not going to Alpha and Omega.”… pic.twitter.com/3D49hLvo1v
DeMaio Punches Back
Critics, led by Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R), argue the bill is a direct response to Shirley's viral investigations. Shirley has documented alleged widespread fraud in taxpayer-funded programs run by certain immigrant groups, including empty or minimally staffed daycares and hospices claiming millions in government reimbursements (one series alleged over $170 million in California fraud). His on-the-ground videos - often filmed publicly - have gone massively viral and prompted scrutiny.
During a recent Assembly committee hearing, DeMaio directly confronted the bill’s author, Mia Bonta, over language that would allow individuals affiliated with certain organizations to demand the removal of video recordings - even if taken in public - and even impose costly financial penalties against those who publish the videos online.
“California Democrats are trying to intimidate citizen watchdog journalists and protect waste and fraud happening in far-left-wing NGOs. AB 2624 can only be described as the ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ — a bill designed to silence citizen journalists exposing fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars..."
DeMaio's calls AB 2624 the “Stop Nick Shirley Act”:
“AB 2624 would allow activists and taxpayer-funded organizations to demand the removal of video evidence — even if it captures misconduct in plain view — and threatens journalists with massive financial penalties… If this bill becomes law, the message is clear to every journalist in California: expose corruption and you will be punished. AB 2624 is an unconstitutional direct attack on transparency and the First Amendment.”
CA Democrats Caught Protecting Fraudsters with the "Stop Nick Shirley" Act (AB 2624)
— Carl DeMaio (@carldemaio) April 13, 2026
Learn More: https://t.co/NXcKrcLb1z pic.twitter.com/l4HFXbeP0y
The law would be a direct violation of the 1st Amendment, which is why Democrats included language of "violence and threats", giving them a legal loophole which they hope will help them to circumvent freedom of speech protections. If passed, it would allow any organization or fraud group involved in taxpayer theft to simply declare that they "feel threatened" or "have been threatened" and ostensibly force a citizen journalist to censor videos and articles that discuss the group's criminal activities.
In other words, Democrats are creating laws designed to protect criminals and criminalize free speech, but what else is new. They didn't seem to have a problem with CNN harassing MAGA grannies.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-lawmakers-introduce-stop-nick-shirley-act
Rubio to chair Israel-Lebanon talks
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio will oversee direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the official schedule.
Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad are expected to meet with Rubio in Washington to begin talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Rubio-to-chair-Israel-Lebanon-talks/66059583
United Airlines CEO Explores Merger with American Airlines
On April 13, 2026, United Airlines' CEO Scott Kirby suggested the possibility of a merger with American Airlines, a move that would face intense scrutiny even under a business-friendly administration. The stock ticker for United Airlines is UAL.
The suggestion of a merger between United Airlines and American Airlines is a significant development in the airline industry, which is already characterized by a high level of competition and market concentration. Both airlines rank among the top four in the U.S., collectively commanding over one-third of the market share. A merger would create the world's largest airline, raising serious antitrust concerns that could lead to opposition from consumers, politicians, and other airlines. Given the current regulatory environment, even under a business-friendly administration, such a merger would likely face intense scrutiny.
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/8790854/united-airlines-ceo-explores-merger-with-american-airlines