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US rates need to rise soon absent evidence of ongoing drop in inflation, Fed’s Collins says
Republicans squirm as Trump escalates trade war with Canada
President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada is escalating as the midterm elections approach, threatening Republican efforts to address voters’ economic concerns in a year when control of the U.S. Senate hinges on states along the border between the United States and its northern neighbor.
The dispute flared over the weekend after negotiations broke down, leading Trump to raise tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian imports. Canada plans to announce tariffs of its own on Tuesday, and the spiraling conflict could lead to higher prices and scrambled supply chains for Americans already aggravated at the president’s management of the economy.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of Democrats’ top targets this year, warned that fallout from Trump’s approach would hurt U.S. businesses and consumers.
“Imposing new tariffs on Canada is a mistake,” Collins said while campaigning Monday, and she mentioned lobsters, blueberries, lumber and other Maine products that end up in Canadian markets.
The issue also puts pressure on Republicans in Michigan, Ohio and Alaska, states where Canada is an important trading partner. Many Democrats seem eager to capitalize on the matter as they try to regain the Senate majority, despite the party’s own history with protectionist sentiments.
“Trump is escalating a trade war with Canada for his own vanity,” Michigan’s Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed said on social media, adding that his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, is a “rubber stamp” for such policies. A third of the state’s exports go north of the border.
Marc Short, a top adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence during the first Trump presidency, said the issue is a political trap for Republicans.
“It’s hard, obviously, because you don’t want to incur the wrath of the president,” he said. “But at the same time, I think if you’re representing agricultural states, especially, your voters are probably anxious to have somebody representing their interests in Washington right now.”
Trump charges forward on tariffs
It’s possible that Trump will change course or delay his plans. But for now, the president is making no apologies for the economic turmoil.
“Canada has been ripping off the United States for years,” Trump blasted on his Truth Social platform Monday, adding that he will raise tariffs on all Canadian automobiles and auto parts and steel to 50% in 2027. He added, “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!”
Trump’s top trade official more calmly downplayed the dispute. “This is something where we don’t actually expect a huge impact,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters outside the West Wing.
Vice President JD Vance visited Maine on Monday, where he praised “our very independent friend Susan Collins” and assured voters “we’re very mindful of the fact that Maine is a border state with Canada.” He said the administration is trying to make sure Maine “gets a fair deal.”
Collins did not appear with Vance on Monday or during his last trip to Maine. She campaigned on her own as she tries to hold off a challenge from Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, a former state legislative leader.
Jackson, a logger before going into politics, said tariffs are another example of how Collins does not do enough to stand up to the president.
“Troy spent most of his life working along the Canadian border, so he knows how important this relationship is to Maine’s economy,” Jackson spokesman Dan Gottlieb said.
Republicans are trying to defend Senate control
Trump made no secret of his affection for tariffs during his comeback campaign, promising that higher taxes on imports would generate a windfall for the U.S. Treasury and boost domestic manufacturing. But concerns about inflation and affordability have not receded, including in states with key races this year.
Maine, Ohio, Michigan and Alaska boast industries including fisheries, auto parts, lumber and produce that export items across the northern border, while Canadian imports are sold by a range of U.S. retailers.
Iowa, which also has a competitive Senate race, does not border Canada or its waters, but also exports more goods to Canada than any other nation.
Majority Forward, a political action committee tied to Senate Democrats, already ran television advertisements against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska during last year’s partial government shutdown.
“The tariffs are hitting Alaska the hardest,” the ad said. “Call Dan Sullivan and tell him … stop raising our costs.”
Trade is a key issue in Ohio
Former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown is trying to return to Washington by unseating Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Brown has long been a union-friendly protectionist Democrat. But he’s argued against Trump’s approach, saying it’s one thing to get aggressive with an adversarial economic powerhouse like China but another to impose uneven, unpredictable tariffs on neighboring nations.
Husted signed a bipartisan letter earlier this year urging the administration to proceed carefully while renegotiating a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. But he’s also embraced the White House’s economic policies, recently appearing with Vance at an Ohio steel plant to praise the administration’s economic agenda.
“Today is a new day, it truly is,” Husted said. “It’s a new day because of the ‘America First’ agenda.”
Brown has not yet criticized Husted on Canadian tariffs, concentrating instead on the senator’s support for data centers and Trump’s war with Iran. But Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman Lauren French said the Canada tariffs fight fits seamlessly into the broader case that Brown and other Democrats are making about Trump and his allies.
“It’s another proof point for the argument that this is a guy who continues to raise your costs for no reason at all,” she said.
Vance says Trump wants ‘fairness’
Short said Trump’s first-term protectionism was easier to defend because it was more focused on China. In the second Trump presidency, Short said, “we’ve so alienated our normal trading partners that part of their retaliation has been not to buy agricultural products,” thus cutting off replacement markets for any lost trade with Beijing.
In Maine, Vance insisted Trump only wants to level the playing field with Canada.
“They don’t expect anybody to fight back,” Vance said. “We’re sick of that.”
He also criticized Canada as treating China more fairly than the U.S. in trade negotiations.
“It’s over,” Vance said. “We expect fairness in our trade policy.”
Collins shared a different goal.
“I really want us to go back to the very friendly, economically beneficial relationship that we have with our Canadian neighbors,” she said.
___
Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
Hyperliquid Policy Center Calls On SEC And CFTC For Clearer Rules On Perpetual Contracts
The Hyperliquid Policy Center has formally urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to establish a coordinated regulatory approach for perpetual contracts.
In a comment letter submitted on August 24, 2026, the group responded to a joint request from the agencies seeking public input on the definitions of swaps, security-based swaps, and related products under existing US derivatives law.
Perpetual contracts, which lack a fixed expiration date and instead use periodic funding payments to keep prices aligned with the underlying asset, have become one of the most actively traded derivatives globally.
Much of this activity has developed outside the United States due to ongoing uncertainty about how these instruments should be classified under federal law.
The letter argues that classification should focus on a contract’s economic features and trading characteristics rather than solely on the type of underlying asset—whether cryptocurrency, commodity, or equity.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center contends that cash-settled equity perpetual contracts possessing traditional futures traits, such as standardization, fungibility, the ability to offset positions, and mechanisms for price convergence, should qualify for treatment as security futures.
Security futures represent a product category already subject to joint oversight by both the SEC and CFTC.
Under this framework, exchanges primarily registered with one agency can list such products after notice registration with the other, enabling competition between securities and futures venues.
The existing security futures regime, the letter notes, was developed for instruments that remained largely inactive for years.
Although US exchanges have recently begun exploring the category again, updates are needed to accommodate contemporary structures like perpetuals.
Without a consistent taxonomy, disagreements over which regulator’s market participants may list a given product risk ending up in litigation.
A harmonized system, by contrast, would allow platforms to compete on factors such as execution quality and liquidity.
The group outlined four specific requests: confirm that cash-settled equity perpetuals meeting futures criteria may be listed as security futures; maintain flexibility for exchanges in determining product classifications; apply uniform standards so similar contracts receive comparable treatment regardless of the underlying asset; and modernize the security futures framework for newer designs.
These steps could be achieved through interpretive guidance, policy statements, or staff actions rather than lengthy formal rulemaking.
The timing follows the CFTC’s May 2026 approval of the first U.S.-listed perpetual contracts as futures, along with an accompanying policy statement.
That earlier action addressed certain non-equity underlyings but flagged equity-linked products for potential joint review.
Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 markets, which include contracts on oil, metals, currencies, equity indices, and individual stocks, have recorded more than $480 billion in trading volume over roughly ten months, with open interest around $4 billion.
Proponents of clearer rules argue that regulatory certainty would help bring substantial offshore activity onshore under American standards of oversight and investor protection.
Traditional exchanges have expressed concerns about market integrity and the need for appropriate registration of certain platforms.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center maintains that prompt guidance would support competition, innovation, and the return of these markets to regulated US venues. As the agencies review comments, the outcome could shape how perpetual contracts evolve within the domestic financial system and influence the broader treatment of novel derivatives.
Mortgage files are getting harder. That may be good news for brokers
Non-traditional income, declining property values and tighter lender scrutiny are complicating mortgage applications, but they may also strengthen the broker channel’s value proposition.
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Private Credit Funds & the Retail Shift
Private credit is expanding beyond institutional investors into wealth-management and broader retail channels. This report examines how that shift can amplify liquidity, valuation, leverage, governance, and investor-protection risks — and outlines policy responses to support more resilient growth.
5 things to know about Round Hill’s Suno and Anthropic lawsuits: model weights, extraction tools, and a $75M number
Round Hill Music filed two copyright complaints last week, one against Suno and data-scraping firm Bright Data, the other against Anthropic. Both are in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
MBW reported the headline terms: statutory damages of up to USD $150,000 per work, a total Round Hill says would run to hundreds of millions and could approach or exceed $1 billion in each case, and a stated intention to take both to trial.
The Suno filing runs to 24 pages, the Anthropic one to 26. Here is what else is in them.
1. The remedy sought includes impoundment of model weights
Both prayers ask the court to order the defendants to deliver every unauthorized copy of Round Hill‘s works for impoundment or destruction, citing 17 U.S.C. § 503.
The filings define that to cover “copies retained in training datasets, internal repositories, model weights, and server infrastructure,” wording that reaches the trained models, not just the source files behind them.
Each Round Hill complaint also asks for a complete accounting of training data, scraping activity, and datasets involving the works.
The DMCA counts stack on top of the per-work figure: under § 1203, up to $2,500 for each act of circumvention and up to $25,000 for each removal of copyright management information.
For comparison, Anthropic‘s $1.5 billion settlement with book authors in September 2025 committed it to destroying the original files it torrented from Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, and copies originating from them – but not the models themselves. Anthropic certified that no commercially released model had been trained on those datasets.
2. Anthropic’s own court record is the template: Suno is being measured against it
Both Round Hill complaints rest on Bartz v. Anthropic, the authors’ case in the same district.
Each quotes Judge William Alsup‘s June 2025 ruling: “There is no carveout, however, from the Copyright Act for AI companies.”
The Suno filing applies that holding to a company that was not a party to it, alleging “Suno has engaged in the exact same conduct” in retaining unlicensed copies indefinitely.
The Anthropic complaint sources its piracy account to the same case, citing torrenting from Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi), and quotes what it says was a co-founder’s message to colleagues once PiLiMi could be torrented: “[J]ust in time!”
It further alleges that Concord II, the publishers’ second suit filed on January 28, 2026, revealed that Anthropic “had concealed its torrenting during discovery in Concord I,” a claim the publishers first raised in August 2025.
3. Round Hill quotes Anthropic’s own published dataset back at it
Anthropic released a human-feedback training dataset, hh-rlhf, on Hugging Face in 2022.
Round Hill alleges the dataset shows Claude returning copyrighted lyrics during testing, including a response to a Disney songs prompt that quoted from Let It Go.
In a second example, the complaint says, a user asked Claude to build a short story from the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby, and the model did so – while the response logged as rejected instead pointed the user to an article on writing from song lyrics.
“Anthropic deliberately trained Claude to commit copyright infringement,” the complaint says of that exchange.
Neither song is a Round Hill work. Both are cited to argue Claude reproduces copyrighted lyrics generally.
In its section arguing fair use does not apply, the filing reproduces an exchange on X over Moonshot AI‘s alleged distillation of Anthropic‘s Fable model.
Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote that “large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable.”
Sarah Heck, Anthropic‘s head of public policy, replied: “Illicit, adversarial distillation is IP theft and industrial espionage that supports adversary military and intelligence capabilities.”
4. The DMCA case turns on which extraction tool was chosen
The Anthropic complaint alleges the company tested at least three text-extraction programs before ingesting data: Readability, Newspaper and jusText.
It claims jusText was ruled out because it left copyright notices and ownership details intact, which the filing says Anthropic treated as “boilerplate” and “useless junk.”
Newspaper was selected instead, according to Round Hill, for its ability to strip that information.
Round Hill makes the same argument about page layout, saying Bright Data‘s Scraping Browser renders pages without headers and footers, where copyright management information typically sits: “Making the deliberate choice to exclude headers and footers is identical to making the deliberate choice to remove CMI.”
Both Round Hill complaints cite Stevens v. CoreLogic for the double scienter standard: removal must be intentional, and the defendant must have known, or had reasonable grounds to know, it would induce, enable, facilitate or conceal infringement.
They also cite an October 2025 Concord ruling holding similar allegations sufficient at the pleading stage.
5. Bright Data has its own number attached: $75 million
The $1 billion figure in both complaints is a projection, contingent on Round Hill amending its exhibits to cover thousands more works.
The contributory infringement count against Bright Data carries the only fixed arithmetic in either filing: 500 works at $150,000 each, for $75,000,000.
Round Hill also turns Bright Data‘s own litigation record against it, citing X Corp. v. Bright Data, in which the same court rejected its jurisdictional challenge.
The complaint puts Bright Data past $300 million in 2025 revenue, growing 50% year-over-year, citing a report by Asymmetrix that calls the figure annualized recurring revenue.
The filing alleges the services Bright Data provided to Suno “are only good for copyright infringement.”
It also draws on the hacked Suno source code reported by 404 Media on July 15, including a dataset logged as youtube_music holding over two million music clips and 113,879 hours of audio – roughly thirteen years.
What else is in the filings
The Suno complaint quotes co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman, citing a video produced with Oracle, as saying: “Our models are taught to just continue a piece of music.”
Round Hill sets that against Suno‘s marketing of itself as generating songs from whole cloth.
The same filing alleges Suno‘s guardrails are porous, claiming a prompt naming Reba McEntire is blocked while a misspelling of her name is not.
Both complaints name ElevenLabs, Musical AI, Symphonic, Soundverse, GEMA through PLAI, GCX/Rightsify , and Troveo as evidence of a functioning licensing market they say the defendants bypassed.
But PLAI launched on July 23, under a month before these filings, and GEMA says it is built for tools that help creators make music, with generative AI licensing the separate subject of its own Suno case, which GEMA won at first instance on July 31.
The Anthropic filing treats each model release as a fresh act of copying, naming Fable 5 and Mythos 5 (both June 9, 2026), Sonnet 5 (June 30, 2026) and Opus 5 (July 24, 2026).
Exhibit A in each case lists 500 musical compositions, not sound recordings, though Round Hill asserts rights in 16,873 recordings and calls the exhibit a bellwether it will amend to cover both.
MBW has contacted Suno, Anthropic and Bright Data for comment. None of the allegations has been tested in court.Music Business Worldwide
Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller Continues to Load Up on Revolution Medicines. Does He Know Something Wall Street Doesn’t?
Imagine running a fund for 30 years, including during the aftermath of the dot-com bubble bursting and the financial crisis of 2008, without a single losing year. If you’re Stanley Druckenmiller, no imagination is required. He achieved this feat for Duquesne Capital Management between 1981 and 2010, delivering an average annual return of roughly 30%.
Druckenmiller no longer runs Duquesne Capital Management after deciding to close shop in 2010. However, he does manage the Duquesne Family Office, a private investment firm that handles his and his family’s money.
With such an impressive track record, many investors understandably pay attention to which stocks Druckenmiller likes. And the billionaire continues to load up on Revolution Medicines (RVMD +1.01%), a biotech stock for which analysts have only modest near-term growth expectations. Does Druckenmiller know something that Wall Street doesn’t?
Stanley Druckenmiller. Image source: Getty Images.
The billionaire vs. Wall Street
Don’t get me wrong: Wall Street likes Revolution Medicines. Of the 22 analysts surveyed by S&P Global (SPGI +0.96%) in August, 21 rated the stock as a “buy” or “strong buy.” The lone outlier recommended holding it.
However, Revolution Medicines’ share price has skyrocketed over the last 12 months. Analysts don’t seem to think that this impressive momentum can continue. The consensus 12-month price target reflects only around 7% upside.
Today’s Change
(1.01%) $2.12
Current Price
$211.58
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$45BMarket cap calculated using publicly traded shares outstanding only. Does not include unlisted, private, or dual-class non-traded shares. Implied market cap may vary.
Day’s Range
$205.39 – $211.95
52wk Range
$35.62 – $220.34
Volume
284
Avg Vol
2.5M
But Druckenmiller increased his family office’s stake in Revolution Medicines by 26.5% in the second quarter of 2026. He initiated a position in the biotech innovator the previous quarter.
What does the super-successful investor like about Revolution? There’s a simple answer to the question: the company’s pipeline.
Revolution Medicines awaits U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of daraxonrasib for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer. The company filed for FDA approval of the drug earlier this year after reporting positive results from a Phase 3 clinical trial. Revolution has also filed for European approval of daraxonrasib.
Analysts’ peak annual sales projections for the drug range from $5 billion to $7.6 billion, assuming it’s approved to treat pancreatic cancer. Revolution Medicines is evaluating daraxonrasib in a late-stage study to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The company’s pipeline also features other promising candidates. Revolution is evaluating zoldonrasib in late-stage trials for treating both pancreatic cancer and NSCLC. It’s planning to advance elironrasib into a Phase 3 study targeting first-line NSCLC later this year. And Revolution has reported encouraging results from a Phase 1/2 study of RMC-5127 for the treatment of solid tumors.
Does Druckenmiller know a secret?
It’s doubtful that Druckenmiller knows anything about Revolution Medicines that Wall Street analysts don’t know. What he does have that they don’t, though, is a long-term perspective. He is focused on the future rather than the present and the past.
With a market cap hovering around $45 billion and no approved products yet, buying Revolution Medicines stock isn’t for the faint of heart. But Druckenmiller likes to swing for the fence. If daraxonrasib wins approval, his strategy could pay off handsomely.
Staples Selling No-Fee $200 Virtual Visa Gift Cards
Staples No-Fee $200 Virtual Visa Gift Cards
Staples is currently selling $200 virtual Visa gift cards with no purchase fee. The regular $7.95 fee is waived, and customers can purchase up to four cards online.
That means you can buy as much as $800 in virtual Visa gift cards without paying activation fees. With a card that earn 5X points it gets much better. This promotion may not last long, so check the offer page before placing your order.
Offer Details
- Purchase a $200 Visa Virtual eGift Card
- Regular $7.95 purchase fee is waived
- Limit of 4 gift cards.
- Delivered via email
- Valid for online purchases only
- PROMOTION LINK
Consider paying with a card that earns bonus rewards at office-supply stores. The Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, for example, earns 5X Ultimate Rewards points on eligible office-supply purchases, subject to its annual spending limit.
Important Terms
- Email delivery within 24 hours.
- Gift cards are often requested in scams so never give gift card information to someone you don’t know. Never use a gift card to pay a debt. If you would like to learn more or would like report a suspected scam please go to ftc.gov/giftcards | 1-877-FTC-HELP or contact your state attorney general.
- In compliance with Federal anti-money laundering regulations, Staples is unable to process orders for gift cards exceeding $1,000
Guru’s Wrap-Up
This is a good opportunity to purchase virtual Visa gift cards without the normal activation fee. The deal is even better when paying with a card that earns bonus rewards at Staples or office-supply stores, such as the Chase Ink Business Cash.
Just remember that these are virtual cards intended for online purchases. If you plan on purchasing these gift cards, don’t wait long. This promotion will probably end soon.
APM Elevate: August 2026
REACH YOUR GOALS
Small Maintenance Tasks Can Deliver Big Savings
No matter where you live, your home needs seasonal maintenance to continue to look its best. This will also help prevent future repair bills — and some can be more expensive than you realize. Here are a few maintenance tasks you won’t want to overlook.