The Daily Digest

The Strait of Hormuz is on fire — literally. Iranian gunboats fired on merchant vessels attempting to transit the strait, with Iran reimposing restrictions and accusing the US of violating a ceasefire deal. Oil supply lines for a significant chunk of global trade are now in active dispute, and Trump has reportedly convened a Situation Room meeting to figure out what comes next.

What Matters Today

• Hormuz is hot: Iran has reimposed restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz and gunboats are firing on tankers. About 20% of global oil flows through here — this is not a drill, and Albanese has already flagged the situation as "very fragile." SBS News
• Insider trading stench around the Iran war: Traders placed over $1 billion in suspiciously well-timed bets ahead of US strikes on Iran back in February — including 16 separate wagers that nailed the timing of the airstrikes to the day. Lawmakers are raising alarms. Guardian AU
• US lifts Russian oil sanctions: Washington quietly dropped sanctions on Russian oil exports despite earlier assurances it wouldn't — while simultaneously being in a standoff with Iran over oil shipping. The geopolitical whiplash is real. r/worldnews
• Anti-AI sentiment turning violent: A long-simmering cultural backlash against AI is escalating beyond online discourse into physical incidents. Unions are getting louder too, and OpenAI just lost three senior executives amid internal restructuring. r/technology
• Kyiv shooting attack: A gunman killed six people in Kyiv, taking hostages in a supermarket before being shot dead by police. Ukrainian investigators are examining whether Russia directed the attack — the suspect was a Ukrainian national born in Moscow. BBC World
• Coal lobby astroturfing exposed: The "independent" group Energy for Australians — which ran anti-Labor ads during the election — received over $1 million from the coal lobby. Critics are calling it a textbook astroturf operation. Guardian AU
• Melbourne pedestrian incident: A car mounted a kerb and struck pedestrians in Melbourne, killing one person. A man has been arrested. Details still emerging. BBC World

Markets

Everything ripped today — the S&P 500 surged 6.1%, the NASDAQ an eye-watering 8.85%, and the ASX 200 closed nearly 4% higher at 8,947. The Nikkei added almost 9%. The most likely driver: some combination of de-escalation signals around the Iran ceasefire earlier in the session (before the gunboat news broke) and short-covering after weeks of tariff-driven pain. The AUD pushed back above 0.717 on the risk-on wave. Gold pulled back 2.4% as haven demand eased — for now. Bitcoin caught the bid too, jumping over 6% to sit just under $76K, with ETH not far behind.

Worth a Read

• A $5 Bluetooth tracker hidden in a postcard exposed a $585M warship's location for 24 hours — A Dutch Navy vessel was tracked by a mail-delivered AirTag-style device for a full day. Absolutely wild OPSEC failure, and a reminder that physical security is often the weakest link. r/technology
• Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war — The Guardian's deep-dive on the prediction market activity around the Iran strikes is genuinely alarming. Whether it's insider trading, intelligence leaks, or something worse, someone knew something. r/Economics
• Failed companies are selling your old Slack chats to train AI — When startups go bust, their data assets get sold. Turns out that includes years of internal Slack messages and emails — and AI companies are buying. Worth thinking about what you've typed at work. r/technology
• When are we going to talk about how blatant the insider trading has been under this administration? — A Reddit thread that's blowing up with receipts. Pairs well with the Guardian's prediction market story above. The pattern is hard to ignore. r/stocks