Gold prices jumped up to 3% to more than US$4,550/oz on Friday, heading for their first weekly gain since the Iran conflict began, after weeks of war-driven volatility and earlier price weakness. During his first Cabinet meeting since the US strike on Iran over three weeks ago, President Donald Trump called himself “a gold person” and backed the metal as “real stuff” that “you can’t imitate”, reinforcing bullion’s safe-haven narrative. A federal arts commission has also approved a 24‑karat commemorative coin design bearing Trump’s face for the US 250th anniversary.

Paragon Advanced Labs has launched a British Columbia laboratory that combines Chrysos PhotonAssay™ with Veracio’s rapid, non-destructive core scanning to deliver near-real-time whole-rock geochemistry. The service targets BC’s tight exploration windows and assay backlogs by generating gold and multi-element data quickly enough for decisions while drilling is still under way. For geologists and drill planners, this enables dynamic hole steering, earlier vectoring towards mineralised structures, and reduced reliance on delayed conventional fire-assay workflows.

Atlantic Nickel and Appian Capital Advisory have fired the inaugural blast for the first underground access portal at the Santa Rita nickel mine in Bahia, Brazil, marking the physical start of the open-pit to underground transition. Portal and associated preliminary works are progressing in parallel with completion of the underground Definitive Feasibility Study, allowing mine design, scheduling and ground support assumptions to be validated against actual rock conditions. For geotechnical and planning teams, this sequencing reduces schedule risk and enables earlier refinement of underground development and ventilation layouts.