Greetings! Happy National Chopsticks Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

🇨🇳 Critical-minerals club targets China’s chokehold. Earlier this week, Vice President JD Vance pitched a tariff-backed trading bloc. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted ministers at the State Department to trade preferentially, while outsiders face higher duties. Backers want price floors, pooled buying, and financing for new processing plants. Officials say the minerals power missiles, electric vehicles, and smartphone circuits. The administration says China mines about 70% of rare earths and processes 90%. Vance accused Beijing of dumping supply cheaply, then squeezing prices later. Greenland and Denmark skipped the meeting as Trump’s territorial talk still rankles. China’s spokesman Lin Jian called it a “small clique,” and the project rolled on.

🇯🇵 Sony’s profit climbs on sensors and PlayStation sales. Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation ($SONY) said quarterly profit rose 11%. Net profit was ¥377.3B, and sales totaled ¥3.71T. The company credited strong image sensors and steady game demand. It raised its full-year profit forecast to ¥1.13T. Music and film licensing helped smooth out the quarter. Network services offset softer console hardware momentum. Sony is reshaping its finance business after buying back listed shares. Executives said spending discipline matters as artificial intelligence (AI) competition intensifies. Investors heard a simple message: the game maker’s profitable IP portfolio still prints.

🇺🇸 President Trump deletes Obama post after backlash. President Donald Trump removed the video after criticism surged. The clip depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as primates in a jungle. It ended with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan stamped across the screen. Earlier, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the backlash fake outrage. Later, spokesman Steven Cheung blamed a social media staffer and a mistaken repost. The White House said the post should not have been shared. Critics said the imagery recycled racist tropes with a long history. The Obamas did not publicly respond as the post vanished from Trump’s account. In politics, deletion is not apology, but rather, crisis management containment.

🚨 Luigi Mangione’s murder trial is set for June 8th. Judge Gregory Carro set the date in New York state court. Mangione, 26, is charged in the killing of Brian Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group ($UNH). Prosecutors say the killing comprised domestic terrorism aimed at a corporate target. In court, Mangione protested what he called political and inhumane treatment. Officials said guards searched his cell after a complaint about a missing towel. His lawyers argue he is being punished because the case went viral. A federal case runs in parallel, and double jeopardy limits overlap. For now, June 8th locks the date, not the narrative.

🧠 Google cashes in while spending big on artificial intelligence. Google parent Alphabet ($GOOGL) reported $26.5B profit on $105.2B revenue. Advertising rose 10% to $72.5B, still the main engine. Google Cloud revenue climbed 30% to $12.0B as workloads shifted. CEO Sundar Pichai credited growth due to surging demand for Gemini, and a deal with Apple. Alphabet said Gemini now sits inside core products. Investors fixated on costs, with 2026 capital outlays projected at $75B. Shares fell after hours despite the beat. Analysts want proof artificial intelligence (AI) spending turns into durable margin. The quarter argued the search box can still bankroll the future.

📈 Dow breaks 50,000 as markets stage a fierce rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 50,115.67, up 1,206.95 points for the day, while the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 jumped 2% to 6,932.30. The Nasdaq composite rose 490.63 to 23,031.21. The rebound followed three rough sessions fueled by tariff fears and earnings. Bitcoin snapped its considerable 6-day skid and climbed back above $70K. Gold rose 1.8% to $4,979.80 per ounce, and silver also gained. Small-company stocks in the Russell 2000 index surged 3.6%. One drag was Amazon ($AMZN), down 5.6% after forecasting heavy spending. Wall Street loves round numbers, and it bought this one hard.

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That’s all for today!

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