The Consumer Price Index for July is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, August 12th. 
The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in CPI, and a 0.3% increase in core CPI. The consensus is for CPI to be up 2.8% year-over-year and core CPI to be up 3.0% YoY.

From Goldman Sachs economists:

We expect a 0.33% increase in July core CPI (vs. +0.3% consensus), corresponding to a year-over-year rate of 3.08% (vs. +3.0% consensus). We expect a 0.27% increase in headline CPI (vs. +0.2% consensus), reflecting higher food prices (+0.3%) but lower energy prices (-0.6%). Our forecast is consistent with a 0.31% increase in core PCE in July.
...
Over the next few months, we expect tariffs to continue to boost monthly inflation and forecast monthly core CPI inflation between 0.3-0.4%. Aside from tariff effects, we expect underlying trend inflation to fall further this year, reflecting shrinking contributions from the housing rental and labor markets.

From BofA:

We forecast headline CPI rose by 0.24% m/m in July, and core CPI increased by 0.31% m/m. If correct, core CPI would increase to 3.1% y/y from 2.9%. Tariffs likely drove an acceleration in goods price hikes despite further declines in vehicle prices. Meanwhile, a rise in airfares should contribute to an uptick in core services ex housing inflation.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the month-to-month change in both headline and core inflation since January 2024.

The circled area is the change for last July.   CPI was up 0.14% in July 2024, and core CPI was up 0.19%.  So, anything above those readings for July will push up year-over-year inflation.  
Starting this month, the tariff related inflation is expected to kick in.

A History Of American Recessions

The official designation of a recession comes from a committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private, nonprofit research organization.

The committee considers a wide range of economy-wide, monthly data points, but the NBER views GDP as “the single best measure.”

The committee calls a recession once there is a significant decline across these measures for more than a few months.

The NBER’s official designation of a recession, then, doesn’t happen until there are several months of data, allowing it to be sure both that a recession happened and when exactly it started.

In other words, as Voronoi notes, the NBER looks backward, not at the present moment.

Source: Voronoi

Using this measure, here's a few insights:

• From 1855 to 2020, recessions lasted an average of 17 months. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the average recession has decreased to 14 months.

• The US' longest recession lasted 65 months from October 1873 to March 1879

• The US has gone through 13 recessions since WWII

• The longest recession since WWII was the Great Recession

• The shortest US recession was during COVID-19, from February to April 2020

• Although economic struggles and the Great Depression marked the 1930s, the NBER-defined recession lasted from September 1929 to March 1933.

In other words... there used to be more 'official' recessions.

 

 

 

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/10/2025 - 07:35

Last Line Of Defense: USA Intervenes Against EU Digital Surveillance

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe,

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched a lobbying campaign against the EU’s Digital Services Act. With this step, Americans have become the last line of defense for the free speech rights of EU citizens.

If, in the past, U.S. President Donald Trump often spoke of the European Union as “a tough nut to crack,” he couldn’t have been more accurate. Freedom-loving EU citizens know exactly what he meant. In Brussels, a bizarre mélange of control fetishism, economic dirigisme, and isolation from the outside world has developed—a combination that is no longer tolerable.

Not least, Brussels’s fight against free expression in the digital sphere has revealed the true intentions of the von der Leyen Commission: the recovery of narrative dominance and control over political dissidence—achieved by cold-bloodedly sacrificing citizens’ fundamental freedoms.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance already issued multiple warnings in the spring about a European censorship empire. In a speech in the U.S. Senate, he denounced European digital legislation as an attack on Western liberties. In his address at the Munich Security Conference, he went so far as to suggest cutting ties with the Europeans if they did not reverse their illiberal, dictatorial trajectory.

Criticism Bounces Off

As usual, American criticism fell on deaf ears in Brussels. Although Brussels swallowed the bitter pill of an asymmetrical trade deal with the U.S. two weeks ago, both the hidden protectionism disguised as climate regulation and harmonization standards, as well as the repressive digital laws, remain intact. This is detrimental not only to free speech among Europeans but also for American companies—undoubtedly a key target of the EU censors.

The EU’s discriminatory ambitions through the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the corresponding Digital Markets Act (DMA) primarily target U.S. communication platforms like X, Telegram, and Meta. If these platforms don’t conform to EU rules—granting access to internal communications and aiding Brussels’s surveillance efforts—they face billions in fines.

Much like Britain’s digital ID program, Brussels now masks its shamelessly invasive censorship with claims of youth protection and anti-hate measures. It’s tiresome to hear—but, as always, it’s about “their democracy,” or, to put it more accurately, a massive concrete barrier constructed to shield against the audacious citizen seeking to preserve privacy from an unbounded EU bureaucracy.

Next Round with Rubio

It seems Americans, even before EU citizens, have finally lost patience with Brussels. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is next in line to confront the EU Commission, stepping into attack mode. This week, Rubio instructed all U.S. embassies across the EU to initiate a coordinated lobbying blitz against Brussels’s censorship package surrounding the DSA.

The allegation: Under the guise of security and responsibility, the EU is deliberately suppressing free speech in digital spaces and targeting U.S.-based platforms and communication companies. Rubio has tasked his diplomats with urging governments and regulators to amend the DSA. At the same time, they are to record and report censorship incidents involving U.S. citizens and companies to ramp up pressure for reform.

This marks another daring challenge from Washington to the EU’s expansive control apparatus.
The trade war between the U.S. and the EU has now shifted fully into the digital realm. Brussels’s response to Rubio’s initiative was swift. In an official statement, the EU Commission flatly dismissed the censorship allegations: “The claims of censorship connected to the DSA are entirely baseless. Freedom of expression is a core right in the EU.” They added coldly: “Our EU regulations and standards were never up for discussion—and they will not be.” In other words, Brussels refuses to be swayed in building its digital citadel of narrative control—least of all by Washington.

Loss of Narrative Control

The U.S. attempt to protect its businesses from EU overreach draws them into a broader clash between EU citizens and Brussels’s increasingly omnipotent central authority. Brussels senses growing public pressure and feels exposed amid a deepening economic crisis.

Grand narratives—like human-caused climate change and the need for open borders to avert a demographic crisis—are eroding public consensus and exposing Brussels’s failed centralization of Europe’s economy. We are witnessing Brussels’s last desperate stand to defend its narrative monopoly against a rising opposition that is increasingly reclaiming public and media spaces.

What happens in the U.S. now matters fundamentally for EU citizens. Under President Trump’s administration, Europe-inspired climate agendas are being reversed, and funding for public media and NGOs is being rolled back.

The air is clearing—spaces open for fresh discourse and honest reckoning with recent history. Brussels’s errors in climate dirigisme and centralized planning are now apparent for all to see.
It would be unthinkable today in the U.S. for a leading figure like Ursula von der Leyen to quietly escape scandal—say, over the Pfizer-Corona controversy. That is the political maturity that Washington exemplifies and Brussels starkly lacks.

The Turning Point Is Here

This shift in public discourse owes much to initiatives like Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and renewed defense of free speech on platforms like Telegram. These are spawning counter-narratives that expose Brussels’s planning failures by setting them against reality. We are emerging from Plato’s cave, seeing who cast the shadows on our walls.

Washington’s interests may be economic—but they resonate with EU citizens. Those in the EU who yearn for a return to a Brussels central authority that oversees fair competition in an open single market should feel gratitude for unexpected U.S. solidarity. It is the strongest alliance we could ask for. Brussels’s push for centralization and power armor has outrun democratic checks—and that is dangerous.

Thomas Kolbe, a German economist, has worked as a journalist and media producer for over 25 years. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/10/2025 - 07:00

Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:

• How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the US Economy: The Three Americas and aspirational displacement. (Kyla’s Newsletter)

• Trump vs. the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Why This Firing Could Burn Your Finances. (Wall Street Journal) see also Nobody Asked for a Bureau of Beautiful Statistics: Yet that’s what Trump is risking after firing Dr. Erika McEntarfer over “rigged” jobs data. (Bloomberg) see also Trump Fired America’s Economic Data Collector. History Shows the Perils. Economists say unbiased data is essential for policymaking, and for democracy (New York Times)

• Everyone Is Along for the Crypto Ride Now, Even if It Ends Badly: The Trump administration is helping put digital assets at the heart of the financial industry. The next crash will be very different. (Barron’s)

• Uber’s Festering Sexual Assault Problem: The company has tested tools that make rides safer, court records show. Measures to stem the violence have been set aside in favor of protecting the company’s business. (New York Times)

• China Is Choking Supply of Critical Minerals to Western Defense Companies: Beijing’s tightened controls are a sign of the leverage it has over the U.S. military supply chain. (Wall Street Journal)

• Confessions of a Laptop Farmer: How an American Helped North Korea’s Wild Remote Worker Scheme: Thousands of undercover agents feed Kim Jong Un’s rocket program with millions from the likes of Google and Amazon. In a Bloomberg Businessweek exclusive, one of the regime’s US pawns tells all. (Businessweek)

• AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified: Copyright class actions could financially ruin AI industry, trade groups say. (Ars Technica)

• Scientific Journals Can’t Keep Up With Flood of Fake Papers: ‘Paper mills’ churn out fraudulent studies faster than publishers can retract them. (Wall Street Journal)

• Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest: Video from Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, puts fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used to reach the Trump administration’s ambitious enforcement targets. (The Guardian)

• What Trump Doesn’t Understand About Nuclear War: The contours of World War III are visible in numerous conflicts. The president of the United States is not ready. (The Atlantic)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Tim Ferriss, author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans. He is also host of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, which has had more than a billion downloads. Ferriss was named to Fast Company‘s “Most Innovative Business People” and one of Fortune‘s “40 under 40.” He is an angel investor/advisor to firms such as Shopify, Twitter, Uber, Alibaba, clear and more than fifty others.

 

The economy is cracking. This trend is most alarming.

Source: Washington Post

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The TRIPP Corridor Threatens To Undermine Russia's Broader Regional Position

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Armenia might defect from the CSTO while Turkish and NATO influence could surge all along Russia’s southern periphery, which might embolden Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to defy Iran and Russia by building the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline if the West promises them Ukrainian-like military support...

The American, Armenian, and Azerbaijani leaders jointly unveiled the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP) during their meeting at the White House on Friday. Previously known as the “Trump Bridge” per related media reports, it’s essentially the US replacement of the corridor that Russia envisaged in the November 2020 ceasefire that it mediated between those two rivals. Here are five background briefings about how this threatens to undermine Russia’s broader regional position:

* 1 July: “The Latest Trouble In Russian-Azerbaijani Relations Might Be Part Of A Turkish-US Powerplay”

* 2 July: “Why’d Erdogan Decide To Expand Turkiye’s Sphere Of Influence Eastwards?”

* 3 July: “Aliyev Expects To Rise To Global Stardom By Stirring Up Highly Publicized Trouble With Russia”

* 4 July: “The Kremlin Believes That ‘Certain Forces’ Want To Disrupt Russian-Azerbaijani Relations”

* 6 August: “The ‘Trump Bridge’ Could Lead To Russia’s Expulsion From The South Caucasus”

To summarize, the US’ replacement of Russia in what Azerbaijan had up until now called the Zangezur Corridor removes Moscow’s ability to monitor Turkish arms exports to Central Asia, which could turbocharge its influence among Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with time.

Those two are part of the Russian-led CSTO and the Turkish-led “Organization of Turkic States” (OTS), and it’s possible that the OTS might one day assume CSTO-like security functions that lead to those two’s defection from the CSTO.

The US would encourage that as a means of completing its long-attempted encirclement of Russia.

Moreover, the thaw in Armenian-Azerbaijani and correspondingly also Armenian-Turkish tensions could justify Yerevan’s official withdrawal from the CSTO (it already suspended its membership), which could then quickly lead to it, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan working more closely with NATO.

The removal of US legislative restrictions on military cooperation with Azerbaijan might make this a fait accompli.

These likely outcomes – the expansion of Turkish/OTS influence into Central Asia via TRIPP, Armenia’s official defection from the CSTO, and more US-led NATO influence all along Russia’s southern periphery – would already pose a formidable enough challenge to Russia’s broader regional position.

It might get even worse though if the aforesaid scenario sequence emboldens Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (at the US and Turkiye’s urging) to unilaterally construct the long-discussed Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline.

The West has hitherto been unable to tap Turkmenistan’s gigantic gas reserves due to Afghanistan’s instability, the sanctions on Iran, and Iran and Russia opposing an underwater pipeline on environmental grounds (but which cynics suspect is meant to keep a major rival out of the global market).

Even so, US and Turkiye might think that Iran and Russia are weaker than ever, thus gambling that they can get them to agree under the threat of backing Azerbaijan with Ukrainian-like military support if war breaks out.

To be clear, neither Azerbaijan nor Turkmenistan has hinted at plans to violate the 2018 Caspian Sea Convention for regulating all five littoral states’ activities in this body of water, but the scenario can’t confidently be ruled out by Russian policymakers given their historic distrust of the West.

It’s unclear what they might do to preempt this latent threat to their country’s broader regional position, both the Caspian Conflict scenario and everything that could precede it, but they’re unlikely to take it lying down.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 23:20

Vacuuming, Mopping, Mowing: The Household Robots Are Coming

According to data from Statista Market Insights, reported by Anna Fleck, global revenue of service robots for domestic tasks is set to nearly double from $13.5 billion in 2021 to $22.8 billion in 2027.

Meanwhile, the total number of consumer service robots worldwide will reach 39.7 million in 2025, rising to more than 50 million by 2027.

You will find more infographics at Statista

A consumer service robot here includes a robot designed for personal or household use, such as robot vacuum cleaners, robotic toys and even drones.

Population aging is one of the factors contributing to the need for more assistive robots, having led to the development of robotics solutions for elderly care, whether that’s for mobility assistance to help with daily tasks or as social robots for companionship.

This is the case in Japan, where strict labor laws and cultural acceptance of technology have created a good environment for the adoption of service robots in various industries, such as hospitality and retail.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 22:45

American AI Companies Open Up To Counter China

Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

OpenAI on Aug. 5 released two open-weight language models, the company’s first such release since GPT-2 in 2019.

This illustration photograph shows screens displaying the logo of DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company that develops open-source large language models, and the logo of OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT in Toulouse, France, on Jan. 29, 2025. Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

Open-weight models make their training parameters, or weights, publicly available but tend not to provide access to the source code or datasets. Open-source models typically include access to the source code, weights, and methodologies.

With weights publicly accessible, developers can analyze and fine-tune a model for specific tasks without requiring original training data.

The weights for the new gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b models are free to download for developers to fine-tune and deploy in their own environments, OpenAI said.

“These open models also lower barriers for emerging markets, resource-constrained sectors, and smaller organizations that may lack the budget or flexibility to adopt proprietary models,” OpenAI said in an Aug. 5 statement. “Broad access to these capable open-weights models created in the US helps expand democratic AI rails.”

Amazon announced on Aug. 6 that OpenAI’s open-weight models are now available on its Bedrock generative AI marketplace in Amazon Web Services. It marks the first time an OpenAI model has been offered on Bedrock, Amazon said in a statement.

In May, Meta announced a collaboration with Red Hat to advance open-source AI for enterprise.

American AI companies and the Trump administration have been in broad agreement about the need for the United States to dominate the AI space, which requires the wide adoption of the American AI stack, including the hardware, models, software, applications, and standards.

On July 23, the White House released its AI action plan, which involves removing barriers for companies to accelerate innovation and build out infrastructure, along with using diplomacy to set AI standards internationally.

Chinese AI companies currently dominate the open-source space. Republican senators recently signed a letter asking the Commerce Department to examine data security risks and potential backdoors in Chinese open-source models such as DeepSeek.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state-run media in June that Chinese AI development will include “thousands upon thousands of open-source software.” Chinese state-run media Global Times on Aug. 7 published an editorial opining that US efforts to curb China’s AI strategy would fail, as “China has embraced an open-source approach” to meet its vast needs.

Beginning in the 2000s, the Chinese communist regime built open-source software alliances and directed its tech sector to enter the open-source community with the goal of reducing dependency on American proprietary software.

Over time, China has moved from consumer to contributor. According to a 2024 report by GitHub, China was the third biggest contributor of open source software on the platform. Though it is still far from leading in AI globally, it maintains a strong presence in AI open-source software.

Among the concerns about Chinese-run AI models are data harvesting, including for espionage purposes, and a lack of safeguards, which could allow for malware dissemination or the generation of harmful content.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center Summit Building in Seattle on May 21, 2024. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

OpenAI notes that once an open-weight model is released, “adversaries may be able to fine-tune the model for malicious purposes.”

To counter this, it fine-tuned the two new models “on specialized biology and cybersecurity data, creating a domain-specific non-refusing version for each domain the way an attacker might” and tested the models to see if they would continue to operate within safety guardrails.

“These processes mark a meaningful advancement for open model safety,” OpenAI stated. The company is also inviting third parties to find and report novel safety issues in its models for a chance to win a $500,000 prize.

Vetting Software for Security

Chris Gogoel, vice president and public sector general manager at mobile app security firm Quokka, says the proliferation of AI apps, especially AI assistant apps, has increased security risks for users exponentially.

It used to be that users would rely on different apps for different functions, segmenting the data collected and permissions given, but AI apps tend to be “do-everything” apps, Gogoel told The Epoch Times.

That elevated data collection translates into more inherent risk, he said. The data collected can also be more sensitive because users may be feeding the apps long passages or instructions revealing in-depth thoughts, intentions, and rationale, rather than simply having access to raw files.

With more data collected, the apps could be bigger targets of a potential breach to extract the data over a network or from a device. The bigger risk is if these apps come from sources that have not been proven to be secure. OpenAI has adopted an approach that values security, but there are plenty of other unvetted AI apps that have been downloaded millions of times, Gogoel said.

“‘What are these applications doing with our data?’ is a very serious question,” Gogoel added.

“The verification of what happens with that data, and where it goes, how it’s protected, becomes even more important, because if that data is misused, on accident or on purpose, you have a serious, serious problem,” he said, pointing to abuse of data being used to create deepfakes and phishing attacks.

Gogoel notes that the declarations a developer makes about what data their app collects may not be what the app does.

Sometimes, the developer might not know this is the case as they are often trying to jump on trends and launch apps in time to rise in the rankings, leading to mistakes like not using proper encryption, he said. They may fail to invest in security, perhaps using open-source software that contains flaws. App stores do not currently require verification of a developer’s declarations, and Gogoel advocates moving to a verify-first approach.

One bad app can spoil the bunch, he said.

Quokka, which began working with the Pentagon around its founding in 2011, provides mobile vetting services to the federal government and other clients, which led the firm to examine TikTok and ByteDance in 2018.

It found that TikTok not only requested ample permissions, but it would also connect with other apps on a user’s device to obtain permissions the user did not explicitly give. So, data collected by trusted applications for legitimate purposes may still present security risks if they come in contact with unvetted apps.

“It’s not something that we should be looking back after something has exploded and the fire is already raging, so to speak, and there’s tens of millions of users. We’re trying to enable, in our work, the ability to verify at every step,” Gogoel said. “Verify as soon as something hits the store, as soon as something hits your device, as soon as this brand new service comes out ... that it does what it says on the tin and nothing else.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 22:10

These Are The Biggest Threats To Teens' Mental Health

Concerns over teen mental health are growing, but how teens and parents view the root causes can differ significantly. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, compares their perspectives on what’s driving mental health issues among adolescents.

Although both groups identify social media as the biggest concern, teens are more likely than parents to cite bullying and academic pressure. The chart highlights where their views align—and where they diverge.

The data for this visualization comes from the Pew Research Center.

Social Media Tops Both Lists

Social media is the #1 concern for both groups, though the degree of concern differs.

While 44% of parents name social media as the top threat, just 22% of teens do the same. In fact, a majority of teens see social media as a positive space for friendships and creativity: 74% of teens say these platforms make them feel more connected to their friends, and 63% say they give them a place to show off their creative side.

Teens More Worried About Bullying and Pressure

Teens are more likely to mention bullying (17%) and pressure or expectations (16%) than their parents, who rank these lower at 9% and 8%, respectively.

These stressors often originate in school environments and peer interactions, which parents may not fully perceive.

Parents See Broader Threats, Teens Focus on School

A small share of parents (5%) cite societal issues—like politics or culture—as threats. Meanwhile, teens are more likely to pinpoint school (5%) as a direct source of mental strain.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Social Media Especially Harms Girls’ Sleep and Mental Health on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 21:35

Fermented Stevia Extract Kills Pancreatic Cancer Cells In Lab Tests

Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Hiroshima University researchers have found that fermented stevia extract may fight pancreatic cancer without harming healthy cells—potentially making it more than just a zero-calorie sugar substitute.

art samuel/Shutterstock

Pancreatic cancer shows significant resistance to existing treatments like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

“Globally, the incidence and mortality rates of pancreatic cancer continue to rise, with a five-year survival rate of less than 10 percent,” study coauthor Narandalai Danshiitsoodol, associate professor at Hiroshima University, said in a press statement.

There’s a growing need to find new, effective cancer-fighting compounds—especially those that come from medicinal plants, said Danshiitsoodol.

Fermentation Unlocks Cancer-Fighting Power

The study, recently published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, found that when stevia is fermented with a probiotic, the resulting extract kills pancreatic cancer cells while sparing healthy kidney cells. The fermented extract inhibited cancer growth but did not harm normal cells.

The research team fermented stevia leaf extract using the probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum SN13T, a beneficial bacterium commonly found in fermented foods like sauerkraut, pickles, and kimchi. The researchers noted that fermenting the extract with bacteria can change its structure and produce beneficial compounds called bioactive metabolites.

“To enhance the pharmacological efficacy of natural plant extracts, microbial biotransformation has emerged as an effective strategy,” Masanori Sugiyama, a professor of microbiology and biotechnology and coauthor of the study, said in a press statement.

Sugiyama’s lab has studied more than 1,200 strains of bacteria from fruits, vegetables, flowers, and medicinal plants, evaluating their health benefits.

The results showed that the fermented stevia leaf extract (FSLE) was more effective at killing cancer cells than the nonfermented version.

Sugiyama said that FSLE was also less harmful to the HEK-293 cells, which are human kidney cells used in the study. Even at the highest dose tested, FSLE caused minimal damage to these cells.

This is important because conventional chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, can damage the kidneys—especially the left one, which is adjacent to the pancreas.

Key Anticancer Agent Identified

Further analysis identified a compound called chlorogenic acid methyl ester (CAME) as the key anticancer agent. Fermentation reduced the amount of chlorogenic acid—a precursor to CAME—in the extract by sixfold, a change caused by bacterial enzymes, according to Danshiitsoodol.

“This microbial transformation was likely due to specific enzymes in the bacteria strain used,” she said.

CAME was found to stop cancer cells from multiplying, trigger them to self-destruct, and change the expression of key genes so that cells are more likely to die.

The experiments were conducted on cancer cells grown in laboratory dishes—not in living organisms. The researchers plan to conduct tests in mice to better understand how different doses of the fermented extract affect the entire body.

They emphasized that their results help explain how probiotic bacteria can boost the anticancer effects of herbal medicines. Danshiitsoodol noted that the study significantly advances understanding of how the Lactobacillus plantarum SN13T strain works in fermenting herbal extracts, and it also offers insight into using probiotics as natural antitumor agents.

Stevia Safety and Benefits

Dr. Joseph Mercola, a board-certified family medicine physician not involved in the study, called the research “a powerful reminder” that plants like stevia offer more than just sweetness—they may deliver compounds that support long-term health.

Mercola noted that stevia extract is a “far healthier” alternative to artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. “Unlike synthetic options that can disrupt gut bacteria or trigger metabolic changes, pure stevia extract—which has a glycemic index close to zero—has minimal to no impact on your blood sugar or insulin,” he added.

However, he cautioned that sweeteners blended with stevia—such as those containing dextrose or maltodextrin—can raise blood sugar if taken in large amounts.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 21:00

Battle Lines Are Drawn Over Partisan Redistricting - What To Know

Authored by Joseph Lord & Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As state lawmakers in both parties ponder the possibility of increasing their share of seats in the House through redistricting, some have questioned the legality of the move.

(Left) California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in Sacramento on July 25, 2025. (Right) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks in Beaumont, Texas, on Oct. 17, 2022. Justin Sullivan, Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The current situation kicked off in June, after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Texas Legislature that would, among other goals, consider the prospect of redistricting the state’s congressional seats to more heavily favor Republicans.

President Donald Trump’s administration, through the Department of Justice (DOJ), has encouraged this redistricting, claiming that some of Texas’s districts are illegal under the Voting Rights Act, civil rights legislation designed to increase participation in federal elections and prevent discriminatory or race-based voting restrictions.

Now, lawmakers in the blue states of New York, California, and Illinois are considering a response in kind to increase their own share of the House—while red states like Ohio, Florida, Indiana, and others are considering following Texas’s lead.

But there are hurdles, both legal and political.

Some Americans view the push as blatant partisan gerrymandering—and some legal experts think moving forward is a mistake.

Here’s what to know about the legal basis of the redistricting pushes nationwide.

Gerrymandering

The issue has prompted many to claim that one or both parties is attempting to make partisan gains through a strategic redrawing of the congressional map—behavior known colloquially as “gerrymandering.”

Often, districts are described as “gerrymandered” when they are in an odd or unusual shape that seems designed to ensure a particular outcome.

The term originated in the United States in the early 19th century, and is derived from the name of former Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry’s salamander-shaped district.

According to a 2022 poll by The Economist and YouGov, two-thirds of Americans considered gerrymandering to be a “major problem” in the United States, with only 23 percent describing it as a “minor problem.”

However, the legality of such behavior is a different question.

Constitutional Basis

As a core constitutional question, redistricting in the middle of the decade is permitted under the law.

In the Constitution’s so-called “Elections Clause,” state legislatures are given a degree of power over​​ “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.” However, that clause also gives Congress the power to “at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”

This is a power the Congress has exercised often, through legislation such as the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. But the states retain at least one major power over the process: the drawing of congressional maps.

“Congress can set the time, place, and manner of elections, but as far as the districts themselves, those are drawn by the states,” Neama Rahmani, a lawyer who observes and commentates on national politics, told The Epoch Times.

In short, while states do not get to choose the number of seats they claim in the House—these seats are awarded based on population—states do have the power to determine how their congressional seats are awarded, the shape of the congressional districts, and other factors related to the state’s House delegation.

In some states, this power has been used for partisan purposes and handled by state legislatures, while other states rely on independent commissions or bipartisan districting processes.

In 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed in League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) v. Perry that gerrymandering for partisan gain is not inherently unconstitutional or a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 3, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The issue at hand was Texas’s mid-decade redistricting carried out in 2003. The goal of that redistricting was to increase Republicans’ control of the House delegation.

State-Level Challenges

While the move may be technically legal under Supreme Court precedent, challenges remain, particularly on a state-by-state level.

In Texas, where Republicans hope to add as many as five new seats, the Legislature is currently gridlocked after at least 51 Democrats fled the state, depriving the Texas House of a quorum to move forward on the push.

Rahmani said that this is likely only “delaying the inevitable” in Texas.

If Texas does move forward, Rahmani said that it likely wouldn’t be impossible for Democrats to respond in kind, particularly in dark-blue states like California.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said his team is looking at the possibility of changing the state’s maps—which are currently drawn by an independent commission—via a referendum of the people of California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in Downey, Calif., on July 16, 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

The referendum would have voters accept or reject a redrawn map during the 2026 midterm elections, allowing the new map to go into effect in later elections.

“California is a heavily blue state throwing a lot of money at this. You can win any ballot initiative here,” Rahmani said.

Currently, Democrats control 43 of the Golden State’s 52 congressional seats.

Other states considering redistricting could face similar hurdles—but ultimately, Rahmani said, none of these will be insurmountable if states are determined to move forward.

In red states with legislatures and governors’ mansions controlled by the GOP, he said, “there’s nothing Democrats in the state can do to stop it.”

Likewise, Rahmani said, “California can do the same, even if there is a law on the books that prohibits this. Those laws can be changed, and especially when you have the [ballot] initiative process.”

Political Question

With many Americans opposed to gerrymandering, and with potentially dire consequences for the political system and rule of law, experts say that the question isn’t just a legal one, but also a political one.

Misha Tseytlin, a lawyer who specializes in political law, told The Epoch Times that in “some states the hurdles would be political, not legal. New York and California, for example, would require constitutional amendments adopted by the people of each state.”

While these hurdles likely aren’t insurmountable, Rahmani said, “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s going to result in retaliation. It’s going to result in even more extreme candidates being elected to Congress, and gridlock in Congress, because all of a sudden you’re not going to have any purple districts. There’s going to be no more moderates,” Rahmani said.

“So I think this is a bad idea politically, and it’s just going to result in retaliation on the other side.”

Rahmani expressed particular concern about the prospect that Americans could lose faith in the political process if redistricting moves forward.

“If people think that they’re not represented in Congress … it’s going to end up being a problem,” Rahmani said.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), considered a moderate in his purple New York district, has also expressed reservations about his party’s push in Texas and elsewhere.

“I think it’s wrong, what Texas is doing,” he said on CNN. “I don’t support it.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 19:50

Chaotic NYC 'Safe' Injection-Sites Put On Notice By Trump

Democrats fully own the crime and chaos plaguing major cities, after decades of failed progressive experiments that have only backfired spectacularly, transforming some parts of America's largest metropolitan areas into lawless, crime-ridden no-go zones. 

There's an urgent need for course correction and to restore law and order in major cities run by rogue Democratic leaders whose failed social justice policies (influenced by leftist billionaires and their NGOs), like defunding the police and "safe" injection sites, have only fueled more crime, chaos, and disorder on the streets. 

President Trump's "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets" executive order, issued late last month, has put these taxpayer-funded safe injection sites on notice.

Safe injection sites, such as those run by nonprofit OnPoint NYC in East Harlem and Washington Heights, supervise illegal drug use under the guise of harm reduction.

A clear legal precedent was set in 2019 under President Trump's first term via the Department of Justice that successfully blocked a proposed safe injection site in Philadelphia under the Controlled Substances Act. The Third Circuit upheld the decision, and the Supreme Court let it stand. That ruling could now be used against NYC's injection sites if the Manhattan U.S. Attorney chooses to follow Philadelphia's lead. 

Trump's new order calls on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to ensure that none of its "discretionary grants" indirectly fund such sites, which have been causing significant problems at the local level.

Passed out people line the streets near the safe injection site in East Harlem. Source: NYPOST J.C. Rice

The New York Post released a new report that shows the chaos, madness, and violence outside OnPoint's East Harlem headquarters on a typical afternoon. 

This scene unfolded around 4:30pm on a recent Wednesday afternoon on East 126th, by the OnPoint center. Source: NYPOST J.C. Rice

Some argue that safe injection sites in NYC don't address the root problem of addiction and continue exacerbating the drug crisis.

Neighbors say they’ve repeatedly called 311 and 911 about the situation. Source: NYPOST J.C. Rice

"They're just delaying overdose deaths because they don't address the underlying pathological behavior, which is really injecting yourself with poison," said Charles Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute

Neighbors say the drug use spills outside the walls of the East 126th center and onto the street. Source: NYPOST J.C. Rice

"Americans deserve to feel safe in their cities and towns. President Trump is providing decisive leadership to protect public safety and end the surrender of our great cities to disorder, homelessness, and crime," said White House spokesperson Harrison Fields.

The nation has come a long way from this. 

This is what Albany and Binghamton, New York looked like in the mid 1960s (on Pearl and Endicott Street, respectively).

Why don't you take a stroll through there, today?
See how that goes. https://t.co/E6sF7m8Hzh pic.twitter.com/1VmBOpX2ti

— ib (@Indian_Bronson) January 24, 2024

NYC. 1950s vs 2020s. pic.twitter.com/dPAf1nt1cU

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 30, 2024

Many inner-city communities continue to face hardships after decades of failed progressive policies that are now coming home to roost in a new era of accountability. The White House is moving forward with course-correction measures to address the decay and failed policies put forth by activist Democrats in cities.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 19:15

China's Baidu To Deploy Its Self-Driving Taxis Globally Through Deals With Lyft, Uber

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The “Google of China,” Baidu, and U.S. ride-hailing company Lyft announced on Aug. 4 that they have reached a deal to deploy self-driving taxis in Europe next year.

A taxi driver operating his car on a road alongside a self-driving robotaxi developed as part of tech giant Baidu's Apollo Go self-driving project, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Aug. 2, 2024. Pedro PARDO/AFP

The plan, which is still pending regulatory approval, is to use Baidu’s electric RT6 robotaxis to operate on Lyft’s platform. The service will first launch in the UK and Germany.

The two companies aim to deploy thousands of China-made vehicles across Europe in the coming years. Lyft has access to operations in nine countries and more than 180 cities in Europe, after its recent acquisition of European mobility app FreeNow.

The deal with Lyft comes just weeks after Baidu signed a similar agreement with Uber. On July 15, the owners of China’s largest search engine and Uber reached a deal to deploy Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous vehicles across Uber’s multiple global markets outside of the United States and mainland China, where Uber cannot operate after it agreed to hand over some of its intellectual property to China-based rival DiDi.

“The first deployments are expected in Asia and the Middle East later this year,” Uber said in a statement.

By partnering with Uber, Baidu has found a widely used platform that operates in 15,000 cities globally.

“As the world’s largest platform of its kind, spanning mobility, delivery, and freight, Uber is uniquely positioned to help [autonomous vehicle] leaders like Baidu bring their autonomous technology to the world,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in the statement.

Since 2021, Baidu has been operating its own self-driving taxi service, Apollo Go, in major Chinese cities, including Beijing. Users can hail a ride through its app.

A man riding his scooter is followed by a driverless robotaxi autonomous vehicle developed as part of tech giant Baidu's Apollo Go self-driving project, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Aug. 1, 2024. Pedro Pardo/AFP

Baidu has been expanding into overseas markets rapidly this year. In May, it announced a partnership with the Roads and Transport Authority of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to launch autonomous driving services in the city. Baidu will first deploy 100 Apollo Go autonomous vehicles to the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2025—its first international deployment. It aims to expand to 1,000 vehicles by 2028.

Baidu’s partnership with Lyft and Uber “aims to enhance its global brand influence and to seize opportunities to expand in the international smart mobility market to compete with American giants like Waymo and Cruise, and South Korea’s Pony.ai,” Sun Kuo-hsiang, professor of international affairs and business at Nanhua University in Taiwan, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 5.

However, the entry of China-made self-driving car fleets into Europe is likely to spark political and security controversy amid the ongoing tech and trade disputes between China and Europe, and between China and the United States, Sun said.

According to him, as Europe and the United States take up de-risking policies in relation to the national security risks posed by the Chinese Communist Party, “regulators in the European Union and the UK are generally cautious about Chinese companies’ involvement in data and transportation infrastructure.”

“Such deployments will be subject to strict scrutiny, creating significant uncertainty regarding approval,” he said.

Safety and Security Risks

Baidu’s electric self-driving cars use cloud remote control, which allows for remote monitoring and direction, Sun said.

“This type of functionality is considered highly risky and is not recommended in the European and American self-driving car industry, as remote intervention can pose significant risks due to network latency or exploitation,” he said.

A screen showing a road map for Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous taxi in Beijing, on Nov. 25, 2021. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

In addition, the Chinese-made self-driving vehicles are equipped with various data collection features, including facial recognition, driving history, and user app management. Sun said this has raised concerns over Beijing’s potential access to collected data.

“There are concerns that personal and behavioral data may be collected by the Chinese government as required by Chinese security laws,“ Sun said. ”Chinese authorities could demand that Chinese companies hand over user data, posing a threat to personal privacy.”

U.S.-based China affairs observer Wang He warned of another type of risk posed by Baidu’s electric self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles have many sensors and “automatically capture a large number of terrain images for the unmanned driving,” he said, which may include images of sensitive areas and sensitive data in other countries. These may be transmitted back to China.

Luo Ya and Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 18:40

Nuclear Weapons Spending Is On The Rise

Global spending on nuclear weapons increased by 11 percent in 2024 compared to the year before, surpassing $100 billion, or $190,151 every minute.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, this is according to the latest report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

More than half of this was by the United States, which spent $56.8 billion.

China was the second biggest spender, accounting for $12.5 billion, followed by the United Kingdom with $10.4 billion.

As Fleck shows in the following chart, the countries to have seen the biggest relative increases were the United Kingdom at 26 percent, Pakistan at 18 percent and France at 13 percent.

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to ICAN, a cumulative $415.9 billion was spent by the nine countries that have developed nuclear weapons on their arsenals over the five years between 2020 and 2024. Spending has been increasing over the years, having already risen 34 percent between 2019 and 2023.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 18:05

NeoCon Bolton: Alaska Summit A Gift To Moscow

Somewhat to be expected, among the first to mount a full-on attack of President Trump's planned Alaska summit with Russia's President Putin set for next Friday is none other than former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who served in the first Trump admin.

Also to be expected is that he railed against the summit toward finding peace in Ukraine as playing into the Kremlin's hands. He told CNN's Kailtin Collins on "The Source" in a Friday interview: "Well, it's very gracious of Putin to come to former Russian America for this summit. This is not quite as bad as Trump inviting the Taliban to Camp David to talk about the peace negotiations in Afghanistan, but it certainly reminds one of that."

"The only better place for Putin than Alaska would be if the summit were being held in Moscow," Bolton said. "So, the initial setup, I think, is a great victory for Putin."

AFP/Getty Images

And of course, ultra-hawk Bolton invoked axis of evil type language in destribing Putin: "He's a rogue leader of a pariah state, and he's going to be welcomed into the United States," Bolton added.

"I don't think anybody would have objected, frankly," the former adviser said.  "I have a feeling this is sliding very quickly in Russia's direction" - he described of Putin's seeking to "take advantage" of Trump.

"We're not quite back at February the 28th, in the Oval Office, when Trump told [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, 'You don't have any cards.' But what's happening is that Russia and the United States are discussing what terms they're going to present to Zelenskyy, and it may well be that Zelenskyy has no choice here," he also said. "Surrendering is always one way to get a peace deal."

So there it is... the two leaders are still nearly a week out from their history-setting Alaska meeting and the narrative from both Republican and Democrat hawks is going to be 'appeasement!'. 

This is the same old playbook and talking-point. 

But the reality remains is that Washington will have to bring the pressure on Zelensky to cede territory in Eastern Ukraine (and certainly give up Crimea, for starters) if real progress toward a final settlement is to be made.

Bolton dutifully gives CNN the type of simplisitc never Trump commentary its audience wants to here...

Bolton: This is not quite as bad, as Trump inviting the Taliban to Camp David to talk about the peace negotiations in Afghanistan, but it certainly reminds one of that. The only better place for Putin than Alaska would be if the summit were being held in Moscow. So the initial… pic.twitter.com/yUSn8Fyj5v

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 9, 2025

Yet this is the very thing Zelensky is vowing to never do. He said in a Saturday video address that "Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier." 

"Any decisions made against us, any decisions made without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace." He then clarified Ukriane's position further, "They will bring nothing. These are dead decisions; they will never work."

Current and former officials like Bolton will now seek to highlight Zelensky's words, and rush to his defense amid Trump pressure to make serious compromises.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 16:55

Record US Honey Bee Losses And What 'Mite' Be Behind Them

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In arid South Texas, home to mesquite and cacti, it hasn’t been uncommon for commercial beekeeper Robert Wheeler to lose half his bees every year.

Bees belonging to Marin and Rodica Tomulet, owners of Joyful Bee Farms, make honey in Dickinson, N.D., on July 27, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

But this year has been far worse.

His family-owned Frio Country Farms lost 2,000 of its 3,000 bee hives this year, many of which would have been pollinating crops such as watermelon and almonds had they lived.

And he is not alone. America’s bees are dying at an alarming rate as scientists try to figure out why.

The main suspect is the deadly Varroa mite, a vampiric parasite that carries viruses and has become immune to Amitraz, the primary pesticide used to kill it.

Wheeler, a commercial beekeeper since 2019, said he is one of many in his trade who relied on Amitraz to keep his colonies healthy.

“Some big beekeepers are hurting pretty bad right now because it takes a lot of money to run a big bee operation, and you can’t have a mistake because it'll cost too much,” Wheeler told The Epoch Times.

“It is a pretty big deal what’s going on,” he said. “I mean, everything we eat is pollinated.”

Bee Crisis

Viruses spread by the Varroa mite, a devastating parasite that pierces the bodies of bees to drink their blood and nutrients, are the chief suspects, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) press release issued in June.

Scientists examined mites from collapsed colonies across western states in February and discovered signs of resistance to Amitraz, a critical miticide widely used by beekeepers.

“This miticide resistance was found in virtually all collected Varroa, underscoring the need for new parasitic treatment strategies,” according to the agency.

The agency stated commercial beekeepers lost 1.7 million colonies, amounting to more than a 60 percent loss from summer 2024 through January. The economic impact was estimated at $600 million.

Some beekeepers reported 80 percent or more hive losses, according to bee surveys.

A survey carried out by the Apiary Inspectors of America noted “staggering” colony losses of more than 55 percent in a 12-month period ending April 1.

The survey report said the losses were the highest reported since the annual survey first began tracking them in 2010–2011.

“Experts warn that without immediate intervention, the ripple effects could drive up costs for farmers, disrupt food production, and shutter many commercial beekeeping operations,” according to a joint press release from the Honey Bee Health Coalition, released this spring in reaction to the losses.

“In January 2025, beekeepers across the country began reporting unexpected large-scale honey bee losses—we now know the largest ever recorded in the U.S.,” Danielle Downey, executive director of Project Apis m., stated in the same release.

Beekeepers Marin and Rodica Tomulet, owners of Joyful Bee Farms in Quinlan, Texas, stand beside their hives in Dickinson, N.D., on July 27, 2025.

In July,  USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a reorganization plan that includes the relocation of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland.

The center holds the country’s bee lab, a frontline research facility studying Varroa mites.

The Epoch Times did not receive a response from the USDA concerning the details of how the relocation might affect bee research.

Impact on Beekeepers

In Texas, beekeeping has undergone a renaissance thanks to a 2012 law that grants property tax breaks to landowners who keep bees on at least five acres.

A conservative estimate puts the number of Texas beekeepers at 6,000, including backyard beekeepers, “sideliners,” or medium-sized beekeepers with small businesses, and commercial bee operators.

In the state, however, the average loss stands at 61 percent over the past year, according to preliminary survey results from the Apiary Inspectors of America.

That rate has typically been more than 40 percent in recent years, far above the expected loss of about 25 percent, according to Garett Slater, an entomologist researching bees at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Overton, Texas.

“They’re relying on Amitraz, and it’s not working,” Slater told The Epoch Times. “Their mite levels are exploding.”

The consequences could be far-reaching since crops such as carrots, onions, blueberries, apples, cucumbers, melons, and almonds depend on bees for pollination.

Slater said about a third of food crops rely on bees for pollination.

“If you ever go to your grocery store … those shelves would look pretty bare if we can’t have bees for pollination,” Slater said.

Commercial beekeepers—generally those with more than 300 colonies—have been hit particularly hard, making it difficult to provide bees for California almond crops, where operators can make $250 per hive.

About 80 percent of the world’s almonds are produced in California, which require 80 billion insects, or 1.7 million hives, for pollination.

“These losses are more widespread than ever before,” Slater said. “They’re experiencing probably the highest loss we’ve ever received for the commercial beekeepers.”

Entomologist Garett Slater explains how queen bees can be artificially inseminated at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Overton, Texas. The leading cause of mass bee deaths is believed to be the Varroa mite, a vampiric parasite that spreads viruses and has developed resistance to Amitraz, the primary pesticide used to kill it. Slater’s goal is to breed queens that produce bees that destroy Varroa mites within a colony. Darlene Sanchez/The Epoch Times

Researchers are just now getting the data they need to assess the impact on almond pollination, he said.

Some beekeepers may be unable to stay in business if they sustain high bee losses year after year, though many split their hives to rebuild numbers.

“But 80 percent losses—it’s really hard to take that 20 percent to make up for that 80 percent loss,” Slater said.

Slater’s job, which was created at the university last year, will support beekeepers and promote good practices across the state.

He is also starting Texas’s first bee breeding center—one of a handful in the country, he told The Epoch Times.

The goal is to breed queens that produce bees that destroy Varroa mites within a colony.

However, nationwide bee losses can’t be entirely explained by the unchecked spread of pesticide-resistant Varroa mites. Some believe pesticides and herbicides weaken the bees, along with poor nutrition, making them more susceptible to viruses.

Corneliu Prelipceanu, a commercial beekeeper in California’s Bay Area, does not use Amitraz, and still suffered high losses. He uses organic pesticides such as formic acid and oxalic acid to kill the mites.

Prelipceanu experienced his worst year since 2010, when he started his company, Elsi Bees.

This past year, he lost 50 percent of his hives, significantly higher than the normal 20 to 30 percent loss, he said.

Beekeeper Corneliu Prelipceanu, owner of Elsi Bees, in Antelope, N.D., on July 29, 2025. This past year marked Prelipceanu’s worst year since founding the business in 2010, with 50 percent of his hives lost. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times Blood-thirsty Mites

Of all the threats that bees face, the Varroa mite has proven to be one of the most lethal since arriving in the United States in 1987.

They feed on the body fat and blood of bees, and also spread the deadly deformed wing virus, according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health.

“Mites are basically like having a plate-sized parasite on your chest if you’re a bee,” Slater said.

Beekeepers began using insecticides such as coumaphos to kill the mites, but they became immune to the treatments around 2005, he said.

They eventually switched to the insecticide Amitraz to kill the mites, which they’ve continued to use over the past 20 years. It’s a popular, widely used insecticide used in agriculture and veterinary medicine to control fleas and ticks.

While there are alternatives to Amitraz, they pose problems for some beekeepers.

Beekeepers can use organic pesticides such as oxalic acid, formic acid, and thymol, Slater said. But it can be a problem in warm southern states because formic acid and thymol can’t be used once the temperature rises above 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

As for oxalic acid, it won’t kill the mites that hatch inside the cells where they begin to feed on bee larvae and pupae.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 16:20

Waste Of The Day: Hospital CEO Paid Herself, Colleagues Before Resigning

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Megan C. Ryan, former CEO of the public Nassau University Medical Center on Long Island, New York, authorized a $3.5 million payout of taxpayer funds to herself and 12 colleagues days after announcing her resignation, Newsday first reported.

Key facts: On May 31, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced what is essentially a state takeover of the hospital, with new oversight laws and four state officials added to the hospital’s Board of Directors.

Days before, Ryan announced she would resign as CEO effective July 20. Her exit was quickly expedited — the new Board voted to fire Ryan for cause on June 18. A letter the Board sent to Ryan claims the $3.5 million payout Ryan authorized contains “at least $1 million” of excess funds that do not have a “valid business purpose” and that Ryan and her colleagues were never entitled to, Newsday reported.

Ryan does not dispute approving the $3.5 million payment but says she and the other employees who resigned along with her were owed the full amount for salary and unused vacation and sick time. She says the allegations are a “political hit-job” and plans to sue the Board of Directors to clear her name. The Board told Newsday they stand behind the accusations.

A spokesperson for Ryan told OpenTheBooks, “Unlike previous CEOs, who racked up hundreds of thousands in inappropriate expenses, Ms. Ryan, during her short tenure, personally paid thousands of dollars for initiatives that were not reimbursed, including food for employees, transportation, and supplies for community events.  Any suggestion that she did anything improper or was reimbursed inappropriately is just another effort to distract from the State’s Medicaid corruption, now under investigation by Congress, the millions in illegal no-bid contracts approved by Hochul’s new appointees and [the hospital’s] violation of Ms. Ryan’s employment contract.”

Regardless of whether the payments were legal, they are a huge expense for a hospital that has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for years. NUMC is the only public hospital in Nassau County, and relies on federal, state and local funds. It has posted a $700 million deficit over the last decade, prompting the state takeover. Nassau County Legislator Siela Bynoe said in 2024 that there was a “real possibility” of the hospital closing its doors.

Despite the budget troubles, NUMC doctors are among the highest-paid public employees in New York. OpenTheBooks previously reported that four doctors each earned over $2 million from 2017 to 2023 from salary and pensions.

The hospital spent $241.7 million on payroll in 2024, with 3,083 people earning between $200,000 and $667,000. 

Ryan earned $250,000 in salary last year, according to payroll records. OpenTheBooks has filed an open records request to see what additional compensation Ryan earned last year, if any.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: Public officials around the country often bill taxpayers for unused vacation time and other perks, but it’s especially hard to justify at a hospital that barely has enough money to function.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 15:10

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• Q2 NY Fed Report: Mortgage Originations by Credit Score, Foreclosures Decrease

• How Much will the Fannie & Freddie Conforming Loan Limit Change for 2026?

• 1st Look at Local Housing Markets in July

• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

Whistleblower Ties Clinton Campaign To Fake Russia Hack: Sperry

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations,

A whistleblower report declassified last week suggests that Hillary Clinton’s campaign efforts to manufacture evidence tying Donald Trump to alleged Russian hacking in 2016 were deeper than previously known – as were Obama administration efforts to conceal them.

According to the report, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst who investigated alleged Russian attempts to breach state voting systems during the 2016 election suspected the breaches may have been "related to activities" of the computer contractors involved in the Alfa Bank hoax, who were accused of manipulating Internet traffic data. 

In that well-publicized case, a Clinton campaign lawyer worked with federal computer contractors and the FBI to create suspicions that Russia was communicating with Donald Trump through a secret server shared by Alfa Bank of Russia and Trump Tower in Manhattan. 

The anonymous whistleblower – who served as the deputy national intelligence officer for cyber issues in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2015 to 2020 – told Special Counsel John Durham he stumbled onto "enigmatic" data while leading the investigation of alleged Russian cyber activity for the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He said that his discovery took place in December 2016 when President Obama ordered the ICA. 

After examining state-reported breaches of election networks, the whistleblower said, "It seemed only brief interaction was occurring – in some cases, no unauthorized access, or even attempted access, was detected on 'victim' systems." Though the suspicious activity initially was attributed to Russian actors, further analysis raised doubts. 

But when he brought his findings to his boss, ODNI's national intelligence officer for cyber issues, he was ordered to stop investigating and not include his findings in the final ICA draft. 

"After being directed to conduct analysis of Russian-attributed cyber activity for the ICA, I had been abruptly directed to abandon further investigation," the whistleblower analyst said.

He added that his boss, whose name was blacked out in the whistleblower statement, "directed me to abandon analysis of these events, stating reports of Russia-attributed cyber activity were 'something else.'" 

While the names of the whistleblower and his boss are blacked out in the report, a RealClearInvestigations search of federal records shows Vinh Nguyen was the national intelligence officer for cyber issues at the time. The whistleblower would have been Nguyen's deputy.

Nguyen did not respond to RCI’s request for comment.

Pressured To Change View

The whistleblower’s 2023 complaint, declassified last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, also seems to contradict the recent claims of Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and his CIA Director, John Brennan, among others that the ICA was a neutral document prepared according to the highest standards whose conclusions were widely supported by the intelligence community. The whistleblower said his supervisor also "pressured me to accept the ICA's judgment of a decisive Russian preference for then President-elect Trump, and stated to me that he sought my concurrence as means to sway the position of" another intelligence agency.

"I was pressured to alter my views on the key judgment," he said.

But, he added, "I could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgment." 

What's more, he said his boss "intentionally deceived and excluded me from things I was cleared for and had need to know" during the ICA's drafting. This included the fact that Clinton campaign opposition research – the now-debunked Steele dossier – was used as supporting evidence in the highly restricted, classified version of the ICA. 

"I had been led to believe that Clapper viewed the 'Steele dossier' material as untrustworthy, and I had believed it played no role in the ICA," he said. 

His boss told him there was other evidence that supported the key Trump-Russia judgment, which he was "not allowed to see," but "if you saw it, you would agree." Pressed to share the alleged additional evidence, his superior said, "You need to TRUST ME on this." (Emphasis in original.) "I need you to agree with these judgments," he said his boss demanded. 

The whistleblower alleged his superior committed "potential malfeasance" during the crafting of the ICA, which was used as the foundation for several investigations of Trump and his advisers during his first term in office. 

Still, the whistleblower said that back in 2016, he did not view the omission of the suspicious Internet data from the ICA report as "nefarious." “However, I later began to consider it possible that some of the reporting might reflect Domain Name Service (DNS) record manipulation by parties other than Russian,” he said. 

After conducting further research, "I came to view some of the reported cyber activity as possibly related to activities of USPERSONS under federal investigation" by special prosecutor Durham, who was probing the Alfa Bank hoax. 

Suspected Manipulation

He said he subsequently provided a data report detailing his suspicions of "manipulation" to Durham's investigators, which remains classified. But they never interviewed him, even though "I likely had information relevant to ongoing criminal investigations." (Durham’s final report makes no mention of the incident and does not even focus on the ICA. The whistleblower report is separate from the Durham report. Attempts to reach the now-retired special prosecutor were unsuccessful.) 

The whistleblower’s reference to U.S. individuals under investigation ostensibly refers to computer scientists led by tech executive and FBI informant Rodney Joffe, who collaborated with Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to create documents and data files tying Trump to the Russian-based Alfa Bank in the summer of 2016. Sussmann, in turn, gave the materials to a friend at the FBI to investigate.

By September 2016, Sussmann had convinced the FBI to open an investigation into an alleged secret backchannel between Trump and Putin based on Domain Name Server records that Durham suspected had been manipulated by the contractors. DNS records are numeric addresses that computers, smartphones, and other devices use to communicate with websites and email servers. 

After Joffe and his contractors obtained DNS Internet data related to Trump Tower, emails cited by Durham reveal they created an "inference" of Russian contacts and even suggested "faking" DNS traffic to show communications that didn't actually exist. 

According to an Aug. 20, 2016, email prosecutors uncovered, one contractor offered, "I could fill out a sales form on two websites, faking the other company's email address in each form, and cause them to appear to communicate with each other in DNS. (And other ways I can think of)." 

Joffe replied that the ability to "provide evidence of *anything* that shows an attempt to behave badly" [by Trump] would make "the VIPs ... happy." According to Joffe, the Clinton campaign "VIPs" were looking for a "true story that could be used as the basis for a closer examination" by the FBI, and any interactions between Trump and Alfa Bank "would be jackpot." 

But in an Aug. 22, 2016, email, one of the researchers expressed skepticism the scheme would "fly," complaining to Joffe that: 

"Lets [sic] for a moment think of the best case scenario, where we are able to show (somehow) that DNS communication exists between Trump and R[ussia]. How do we plan to defend against the criticism that this is not spoofed traffic we are observing? There is no answer to that. Lets [sic] assume again that they are not smart enough to refute our "best case" scenario. Rodney, you do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag to even make a very weak association? Lets [sic] all reflect upon that for a moment. [S]orry folks, but unless we get combine netflow and DNS traffic collected at critical points between suspect organizations, we cannot technically make any claims that would fly public scrutiny. … Sorry to say this, we are nowhere close coming [sic] with a plan to attack this problem that will fly in the public domain. The only thing that drive [sic] us at this point is that we just do not like [Trump]."

Nevertheless, in materials they provided the FBI, Joffe’s group contended "odd" Internet traffic on the server reflected hidden communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank. 

Durham found the Clinton associates conspired to gin up an FBI investigation into Trump based on knowingly false information. He also suggested they manipulated that Internet data. 

Alfa Bank, which also operates in the U.S., commissioned two studies that found the DNS data compiled by Joffe and his computer operatives was formatted differently than the bank server’s DNS logs, and one study posited that the DNS activity may have been “artificially created.” 

In his 2023 affidavit, the ODNI whistleblower implied that anti-Trump computer contractors working with the Clinton campaign may have been involved in a similar false flag operation targeting state election networks. He suspected they may have been the source of suspicious connection attempts using "IP [address] ranges historically used by Russian state cyber actors." 

These "concerns" did not make it into the ICA,  he said, because his supervisor excluded them, among other intelligence that did not conform with the narrative he pushed. 

McCain Connection

Although the supervisor’s name is redacted from the whistleblower’s report, records show that the national intelligence officer (NIO) for cyber issues at the time was Vinh Nguyen. He was new to the job in 2016 but received DNI's Exceptional Accomplishment Award the following year. 

Before the 2016 election, Nguyen worked with  Democratic National Committee cybersecurity contractor CrowdStrike to gather intelligence on the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC computer system. Even though the company had publicly blamed Russia during the heated presidential campaign for stealing and then sharing the emails, many of which were published by WikiLeaks, its president, Shawn Henry, later testified in a closed-door congressional hearing that there was no proof that Russian intelligence had exfiltrated emails from the DNC.

Nguyen is said to have also overseen election security analysis for the 2018 mid-term elections and 2020 presidential election. He is now the top AI officer at the National Security Agency. 

Federal Election Commission records show that Nguyen has contributed at least $500 to the late GOP Sen. John McCain, his only political donations. Nguyen made the donations while serving as “senior national advance representative” for McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. 

He is listed as a member of the McCain Alumni Club, according to the McCain Institute. In 2020, Nguyen was listed among 100 McCain Alumni who endorsed Joe Biden for president. McCain and Biden served in the Senate together and maintained a friendship despite being from different political parties. 

Following Trump's surprise victory in 2016, McCain played a role in the attempts to link Trump with Russia. On directions from McCain, one of his top staffers from the McCain Institute sought out Christopher Steele and FusionGPS and began working directly with them to distribute their Clinton-funded dossier. 

The Clinton campaign had hired FusionGPS, which in turn hired Steele to produce the dossier. The now-debunked collection of hearsay and inventions was used by the FBI to obtain a wiretap to spy on the Trump campaign, and later by Clapper and CIA chief John Brennan to buttress the findings of the ICA. 

On Dec. 9, 2016, the same day Obama convened a meeting to refocus the ICA on Trump, McCain personally provided 16 Steele reports to then-FBI Director James Comey, including five that Steele had not given the agency previously. 

Then on Dec. 17, Comey discussed the new dossier material with Nguyen's boss, Clapper, over the phone. A few weeks later, in early January 2017, the same McCain Institute aide, David Kramer, gave copies of all of the Steele reports to Buzzfeed, which published them in full under the headline, "These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia." 

On Jan. 5, 2017, McCain, as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, held hearings with Clapper as his lead witness and forcefully reaffirmed the findings of the ICA. 

The following month, despite the FBI debunking the Alfa Bank hoax and closing its case, the Senate Armed Services Committee "leadership" commissioned a report on the alleged links to Trump. The report was written by Daniel Jones, a FusionGPS and Steele crony, who said the committee put him in touch with Sussmann and Joffe, who provided him with a "dataset of DNS look-ups." Joffe knew McCain from his days working in Arizona. 

Jones' 687-page report concluded "there was likely human interaction and coordination between personnel working on behalf of Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization," even though his own research team "found no evidence of a secret channel of communications." 

Turns out the Trump Organization had no access to the email server or any of the systems involved, according to the Durham report. 

Paul Sperry is an investigative reporter for RealClearInvestigations. He is also a longtime media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Sperry was previously the Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, and his work has appeared in the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Houston Chronicle, among other major publications.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 12:50

'These Are Dead Decisions' - Zelensky Rejects Ceding Territory After Trump Talks Land-Swap

While the planned August 15 Trump-Putin summit set for Alaska is a very positive breakthough toward potentially ending the war in Ukriane, one wonders precisely how the sides aim to actually achieve this, given they look to already be back at square one regardless. What has substantially changed in the warring sides' positions that now makes peace possible?

Via The Australian

First, here is The Wall Street Journal clarifying what Putin wants, which hasn't changed:

Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the Trump administration this week with a sweeping proposal for a cease-fire in Ukraine, demanding major territorial concessions by Kyiv—and a push for global recognition of its claims—in exchange for a halt to the fighting, according to European and Ukrainian officials.

...European and Ukrainian officials, who were briefed by Trump and Witkoff in a series of calls this week, said they worry Putin is simply using the offer as a ploy to avoid new U.S. sanctions and tariffs while continuing the war.

Next, here's The New York Times presenting President Zelensky's Saturday firm rejection of giving up any land - and not even offering Crimea which has been fully controlled by Russia for many years, having been formally annexed in 2014 via a popular referendum:

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday flatly rejected the idea that Ukraine could cede land to Russia after President Trump suggested that a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia could include “some swapping of territories.”

"Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier," Mr. Zelensky said in a video address from his office in Kyiv, several hours after Mr. Trump’s remarks, which appeared to overlook Ukraine’s role in the negotiations.

...His blunt rejection risks angering Mr. Trump, who has made a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia one of his signature foreign policy goals, even if it means accepting terms that are unfavorable to Kyiv. In the past, Mr. Trump has criticized Ukraine for clinging to what he suggested were stubborn cease-fire demands and for being “not ready for peace.”

Zelensky had further said in his video address, "Any decisions made against us, any decisions made without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace." He then clarified Ukriane's position further, "They will bring nothing. These are dead decisions; they will never work."

If this is indeed the case, now what? What will Alaska achieve? Interestingly the Europeans have also been asking for a seat at the table regarding any Washington-Moscow talks to end the war.

If Trump wants to see this through, he'll have to cut of Zelensky - both in terms of arms supplies and pushing him out into the politicla cold, or isolation. But the European allies will of course revolt, and accuse Trump of being steamrolled by Putin's demands.

But President Trump actually did hint that he's read to finalize a land swap in his recent words to reporters, though it wasn't exactly clear which territories are being talked about here.

"We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched," Trump said during an event at the White House, as quoted in the NY Times. "There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both."

“Ukraine will not gift its land to anyone,” Zelensky said, adding that any agreements reached without Ukraine will be stillborn. https://t.co/3mOiakToc4

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) August 9, 2025

However, that's not the mood in Kiev, where Zelensky appears ready to keep fighting - especially along the front lines in the east. And some of the more hardline, neo-Nazi elements among Ukraine's military ranks and militia units certainly won't let Zelensky get away with ceding territory.

Still, Western mainstream media is noticing a definite mood shift, such as in this top Saturday headline from CNN...

WSJ's chief foreign correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov is probably correct in predicting the following: "No matter what Witkoff may have told Trump, there is no scenario under which the Ukrainian army voluntarily withdraws from Slovyansk and Kramatorsk and hands over these major cities to Russian occupation."

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 12:15

AI Can Be Used To Develop Biological And Chemical Weapons

Authored by David Gangemi via RealClearDefense,

The greatest threat to America may be something we cannot see.

Biological and chemical weapons can spread debilitating fear and wreak havoc on populations. Unfortunately, the threat of these kinds of attacks on American soil is only rising, empowered by the unique capabilities of artificial intelligence. To prevent catastrophe, we must use AI to counter the danger that this advanced technology can unleash.

We are only one misstep away from catastrophe. The most recent close call came last month when two Chinese nationals, who received funding from their communist government to work on a noxious fungus, were caught smuggling the pathogen into the United States. The FBI arrested them just in time, as this was no ordinary fungus—instead, it was what scientists call an “agroterrorism weapon” that would have decimated America’s grain farms, sickened the U.S. population, and disrupted our nation’s food supply.

Those who lived through the fraught days immediately after 9/11 likewise remember the anthrax scare, as toxic letters were sent through the postal service, killing five people and making everyday Americans terrified to open their mailboxes. 

Every few years, some new suspect threatens our military bases, political leaders, or someone else with ricin, a deadly poison derived from the castor plant.

And just a few short years ago, millions died and the entire world was thrown into a tailspin when COVID-19—which many experts now believe originated from questionable handling and a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—crossed borders with abandon.

The rapid rise of AI is only making this problem more prevalent. In 2022—months before ChatGPT was released, bringing large language models to the masses—an AI designed to develop drugs invented 40,000 new chemical weapons in a mere six hours. In 2023, AI was used to provide a recipe for poisonous chloramine gas, which it called “Aromatic Water Mix.” AI experts and government officials have been warning for years that AI could spark the next pandemic and be an unparalleled tool in the hands of terrorists.

These facts are encouraging some to ask that AI developers give pause to the negative consequences of this powerful technology. We have enough problems with biological espionage, terrorism-by-mail, and lethal lab leaks. Why would we put potential biological and chemical weapons generators in the hands of anyone with a computer?

But responding to this threat is not so simple as pulling the plug. First, while AI has the potential to be used for evil, it also has immense power for good. The same tools that could be used to make biological weapons are also being applied to cure currently untreatable diseases. Additionally, America can’t stop others from developing AI for whatever uses they desire. COVID-19 and the recent agroterrorism fungus both came from China, and you can bet China will have no problem unleashing AI for even more destructive ends if it serves their interests, as will every other bad actor in the world.

So what else can we do?

First, the administration should continue to aggressively investigate and thwart potential acts of biological and chemical terrorism. The recent FBI arrest of the Chinese fungus smugglers proves that America’s law enforcement is aware of this threat and still capable of preventing attacks before they happen.

Likewise, President Donald Trump acted presciently in his first administration by launching the first-ever National Biodefense Strategy in 2018, which outlined how our nation can defend against natural outbreaks and intentional biological attacks. This strategy, coupled with the president’s swift military action against Syria for its use of biological weapons that same year, reveals that the current administration will still use the immense power of American deterrence to stop the use of these deadly weapons. 

Yet with AI poised to rapidly exacerbate biological and chemical weapon proliferation, traditional tools are not enough. We must use AI to respond to AI.

The private sector is already on the case. Companies like Renovaro, and OpenAI, two U.S.-based AI firms, are already applying machine learning to both prevent AI from producing recipes for weaponry and to identify and counter biological and chemical threats before they can spiral out of control. 

New coding produced by top AI experts can be applied to any large language model to prevent it from teaching users how to make weapons of mass destruction. For those pathogens that slip through the cracks, Renovaro’s AI has the potential to develop antidotes to biological and chemical samples within five days, lightyears faster than the long months it took to develop vaccines and effective treatments for COVID-19.

President Trump promised a golden dome to protect America from missile attacks—a worthwhile initiative. Yet the next war may be started not by a missile, but by a microbe. We need a biological golden dome, and AI can make it.

Dr. David Gangemi is a Professor Emeritus at Clemson University, Former Senior Science Advisor on health affairs to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, and a virologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases 

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 11:40