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

Enraged Over Purported COVID Vax Injury, Gunman Attacks CDC, Kills Cop

UPDATE (15:30 ET): The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has identified the shooter as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. Little is known about him yet, but neighbors have confirmed earlier reports that White was angry about the Covid-19 vaccine, having concluded it caused him to suffer from some kind of illness. One described him as having done yard work in the neighborhood, and expressed surprise at the news, telling Fox 5, "I was like, 'there's no way,' ...not the kind of person I would thought to do that."

* * *

A police officer is dead after a surgical-mask-wearing gunman riddled the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with bullets. His parents think it was an act of revenge, saying their son believed he had an illness caused by the controversial Covid-19 vaccine. The attack ended with the shooter's own death, but it's unclear at this point if his mortal wound was self-inflicted. 

Responding police officers use a bullet-riddled police vehicle for cover (Fox 5 Atlanta)

"The CDC campus did receive multiple rounds into their buildings," Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters. CDC Director Susan Monarez said four buildings were hit. As this is written, the name of the white, male shooter has not been released by authorities. He was armed with two handguns, a rifle and a shotgun, and a law enforcement official on the scene told CNN he was wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask like those the CDC pushed for all men, women and children to wear during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite well-informed doubts about their efficacy and concerns about ill effects. He was also wearing ear protection. 

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens made cryptic allusions to the question of motive, telling reporters, "[The shooter] is a known person that may have some interest in certain things that I can’t reiterate right now.” However, according to CNN's police sources, the shooter's father had called the police prior to the shooting -- earlier on Friday -- to report that his son was suicidal. Family members also told investigators that the shooter was either physically ill or at least believed he was physically ill, and he was convinced that his malady resulted from receiving the Covid-19 vaccine.

MOMENT shooter opens fire at Emory University campus

Nonstop gunfire rips through the air

Police confirm shooter now DEAD https://t.co/y3GcUAPgx6 pic.twitter.com/RKonjvKipV

— RT (@RT_com) August 8, 2025

Police began receiving reports of a shooter immediately in front of the CDC campus at 4:50 pm. A CDC alert informed employees of an "active shooter" and instructed them to "RUN, HIDE FIGHT." Responding officers found the fallen officer and extracted him from the scene. As they did, gunfire could be heard inside a building across the street from the CDC, that houses a CVS pharmacy on the campus of Emory University. Police entered the building and found the dead shooter on the second floor.

It appears the shooter never entered the CDC buildings, choosing only to shooting at them from below. Many vehicles were shot as well. Beyond the fatal shooting of the officer, no other people were shot, though four went to a hospital to be treated for stress and anxiety symptoms. CDC employees posted photos of bullet-shattered windows, and bystanders also shared videos that recorded the sound of abundant gunfire.

WATCH: Video shows bullets on the ground and bullet holes in windows inside CDC Headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia after gunman opened fire outside the building. pic.twitter.com/aaqe4cVsXe

— AZ Intel (@AZ_Intel_) August 9, 2025

DeKalb County police officer David Rose, a Marine Corps veteran who A police officer is dead after a surgical-mask-wearing gunman riddled the Atlanta headquarters of the Center for Disease Control with bullets. His parents think it was an act of revenge, saying their son believed he had an illness caused by the controversial Covid-19 vaccine. That attack ended with the shooter's own death, but it's unclear at this point if his mortal wound was self-inflicted. 

As this is written, the name of the white, male shooter has not been released by authorities. He was armed with two handguns, a rifle and a shotgun, and a law enforcement official on the scene told CNN he was wearing what appeared to be a surgical mask like those the CDC pushed for all men, women and children to wear during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite well-informed doubts about their efficacy and concerns about ill effects.  

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens made cryptic allusions to the question of motive, telling reporters, "[The shooter] is a known person that may have some interest in certain things that I can’t reiterate right now.” However, police sources told CNN that 

DeKalb County police officer David Rose died in the attack, leaving behind a pregnant wife and two children. 

">graduated from the police academy in March, died in Friday's attack, leaving behind a pregnant wife and two children. Police haven't yet determined why he happened to be on or near the scene when the attack erupted. 

The apparently vaccine-related attack came in the same week that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr announced he was killling a half-billion-dollars in funding for development of mRNA vaccines, such as those developed by Pfizer and Moderna for Covid-19. Kennedy said "mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses" that the mRNA vaccines are meant to contain. Under Kennedy's leadership, the CDC retracted its recommendation for universal Covid-19 immunizations for healthy children through age 17, and healthy pregnant women.  

CDC windows were struck by gunfire in Emory University shooting. pic.twitter.com/XELD15hULl

— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) August 8, 2025

While it wouldn't have helped the CDC shooter, Kennedy in July announced he going to overhaul the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, in collaboration with Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Health and Human Services. The VICP is focused on compensating children who are harmed by vaccines for which manufacturers enjoy immunity from lawsuits under the 1986 Vaccine Act. Kennedy explained: 

"Under the VICP, vaccine victims can petition for compensation to the so-called 'Vaccine Court,' which pays out awards from a trust fund endowed by a 75-cent surcharge on every vaccine. Congress intended that injured children be compensated “quickly and fairly” for injuries, “either presumed or proven to be causally connected to vaccines,” with doubts about causation resolved in favor of the victim...

The VICP no longer functions to achieve its Congressional intent. Instead, the VICP has devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism, and outright corruption as government lawyers and the Special Masters who serve as Vaccine Court judges prioritize the solvency of the HHS Trust Fund, over their duty to compensate victims.

The structure itself hobbles claimants. The defendant is HHS, not the vaccine makers; and claimants are therefore facing the monumental power and bottomless pockets of the U.S. government...There is no discovery, and the rules of evidence do not apply. The government lawyers do not allow children’s attorneys access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a taxpayer-funded CDC surveillance system that houses the best data on vaccine injuries...

The VICP routinely dismisses meritorious cases outright or drags them out for years. Instead of 'quickly and fairly' awarding compensation, Special Masters dismiss over half of the cases. Most of those that proceed typically take 5+ years to resolve." 

In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of a panel of supposed "experts" that advises the CDC on vaccination policy, saying it was "plagued by persistent conflicts of interest and [had] become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine," and that "the problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy."

The American public's confidence in Covid vaccinations continues to erode. According to a July survey, 59% of U.S. adults say they will either “definitely not” or “probably not” receive a vaccine this fall, with just 21% saying they definitely will. Many also have a dim view of federal health agencies: Only 42% believe they make decisions based on a sound scientific basis, and only 37% confident they operate free of corrupting outside influences. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 11:05

 

Talking Rates in the Maine Woods With Economists Over Good Wine
Taking place right before the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, the gathering is a chance for money managers, traders, and economists to discuss crucial issues without restraint.
Businessweek, August 27, 2019

 

 

Let’s get this out of the way upfront: There is no such entity as the “Shadow Kansas City Federal Reserve Board.”

This isn’t a “The first rule of Fight Club” situation. No one denies that a gathering of money managers, bond traders, and economists has been taking place at Leen’s Lodge in Grand Lake Stream, Maine, for several decades. It’s just that most of the conversations are off the record or governed by the Chatham House Rule, which doesn’t allow identification of speakers without their permission. Many attendees have an affiliation with the Federal Reserve, as current or former employees, but aren’t authorized to speak on the Fed’s behalf.

The long weekend in Maine takes place shortly before the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, an event dating to 1982, held in Wyoming and hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve. Hence, the gathering became known in some circles as the “Shadow Kansas City Federal Reserve Board” because of the Fed affiliation of many attendees, more than a few of whom head off to Jackson Hole right after the gathering.

The group makes no claim to any official imprimatur. Instead, “Camp Kotok,” as it has become known—after David Kotok, chairman and cofounder of Cumberland Advisors, who began holding the meetings more than 20 years ago—has fishing and drinking and hiking and shooting and smoking of cigars in the pristine wilds of Maine, all of which may be great fun, but it’s hardly the reason to gather each year.

The main draw is the opportunity to discuss and debate the big issues of monetary policy, economics, and finance, with a like-minded group of serious policy wonks and high-profile money managers, away from the usual routines of the office. At dinner the dining room represents about $2 trillion in capital, not counting attendees from various governments and central banks from around the world.

In the past, discussion topics ranged far and wide; but this year, the focus was all Fed all the time: whether it should cut rates and by how much; if the inverted yield curve is signaling a recession; whether negative bond rates from Japan and Europe would make their way here. Perhaps the most passionate discussions were on the independence of the Federal Reserve in the face of unceasing pressure from President Trump.

Almost all attendees related similar anecdotes about presidential pressure on the Federal Reserve. Harry Truman famously called the entire Federal Open Market Committee to lunch at the White House, warning, “If you don’t cut rates, you are doing Stalin’s bidding.” Lyndon Johnson invited Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin to his ranch in Texas. LBJ threw Martin against the wall, saying, “Boys are dying in Vietnam, and Bill Martin doesn’t care.” Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, Jim Baker, invited Fed Chairman Paul Volcker to the president’s library, adjacent to the Oval Office in the White House. With Reagan sitting next to him, Baker told Volcker, “The president is ordering you not to raise interest rates before the election.”

In each of these examples, pressure from the U.S. president was private, personal—and mostly effective. The very concept of a public dispute between a president and his own appointed Fed chair was unthinkable. Not only because it might roil the markets, but simply because adults don’t behave that way.

Alas, those were simpler times, decades before presidential tweeting was a thing. Before public bullying and harassment campaigns, there was direct and personal persuasion. The record suggests it was an effective way for presidents to influence monetary policy. Attendees at Camp Kotok repeatedly noted the current approach was not only unseemly but also had not ever been effective. The president calling out his hand-selected FOMC chair to an audience of 60 million-plus Twitter followers doesn’t seem to be having the desired result.

At the Jackson Hole gathering, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s  speech was a refresher on the history of monetary policy in the post-world war era. The section on current circumstances gave little comfort to a president apparently concerned about a possible recession and its potential effects on his reelection chances. Powell appears to have figured out three important things:

1. In the current era of low rates, low inflation, and modest economic expansion, the Fed’s rate policy is having little to no impact on stimulating the broader economy. Consumers have been buying big-ticket items such as houses and cars, regardless of modest increase in rates we’ve seen the past two years; we are still at historically low and accommodative levels. It’s noteworthy that corporations have been borrowing large sums of capital not to invest and hire, but to buy back their own shares. Lowering rates won’t change that behavior; if anything, it will only encourage more of it.

2. The Fed cannot offset an ill-advised trade war. The economy is having the expected textbook reaction to tariffs, treating them as an unnecessary tax on consumer spending, both here and abroad. If there was any expectation on the part of the occupants of the White House that this would cause the Fed to blink and cut rates, they appear to have been mistaken. “While monetary policy is a powerful tool that works to support consumer spending, business investment, and public confidence, it cannot provide a settled rule book for international trade,” Powell said.

3. Perhaps No. 2 above occurred because of the following: Powell seems to have deduced that Trump can’t fire him—at least, not without causing a constitutional crisis. This last conclusion allows the chairman to focus on protecting his institution from undue pressure from the president.

Simply stated, the Fed believes cutting rates is not the panacea the president believes it to be. Therefore the Fed would rather wait to cut rates when it would be much more effective—in a mild recession—than risk an increase in inflation from an even more accommodative stance than we’re in at present.

~~~

To be invited to Camp Kotok, you must check three boxes: First, a group member must nominate you as someone capable of adding to the conversation. Original ideas, thoughtful disagreement, and intelligent variant perspectives are all welcome.

Second, you must get the thumbs-up from Kotok.

Third, the rules mandate that each attendee brings a case of wine. The group contains some serious oenophiles, and you’d best bring your A-game. Lots of thought goes into the wine selection—along with 20-year-old Scotch whisky, rare tequila, and the occasional brandy. This year I brought two cases of a delightful Spanish albariño from Ramón Bilbao; it was a cheap (so two cases) and unexpected delicious treat. It made a surprisingly good impression in the face of overrepresented—and overpriced—Napa Valley cabernets.

Most evenings there is a featured discussion before dinner. Senators, governors, and representatives have made appearances. Every Saturday night there’s robust debate. The topics include currency issues, the latest crises, and economic philosophy. The theme of this year’s Jackson Hole Economic Symposium was Challenges for Monetary Policy. So it was no coincidence that the debate, in Maine this year, ably moderated by Jim Bianco of Bianco Research LLC, was on Modern Monetary Theory, also called MMT. The surprising consensus was that whether it comes from the political Left or Right, MMT is inevitable. Expect future infrastructure projects, Medicare for all, and/or tax cuts to be funded by bonds authorized by Congress, issued by the Treasury, and purchased by the Federal Reserve. The group takeaway was as simple as it was snarky: “Free money! Whatever could possibly go wrong with that?!”

One cannot gather 50 economists and their ilk and not expect forecasting to occur. All participants answer 25 questions on where they think various prices and economic indicators will be one year hence. The stock market, unemployment, bond yields, gold, gross domestic product, yen, euro, inflation, oil, and other questions are not only discussed and forecast but gambled upon at $5 per prediction. I usually do pretty well, and this year I won $52. (Ties change the payouts.) Sizable side bets occur, and some people have been known to make rather large and ill-advised wagers under the influence of alcohol. I have done that, too, but thankfully, the rules preclude me from going into details.

There is a stable core of about 35 to 40 people, with a few newbies showing up each year to shake things up. Not everyone gets invited back. My slot opened up a dozen years ago when a Chicago currency trader decided to stand up in his canoe, flipping it over, sending everyone and everything on board into the lake.

My own tenure almost came to a premature end when I left a wet towel on a radiator to dry; it instead smoldered. Camp Kotok lore is that I almost burned down the cabin, and bank analyst Josh Rosner led a mock prosecution that evening to have me tossed out for my recklessness and negligence. My defense: This was no accident; I was trying to murder Rosner and his snoring bunkmate and fellow bank analyst Christopher Whalen, so the rest of us could get a night’s sleep. That this argument carried the day gives you some sense of the gallows humor of the dismal set who gather—and why I still get an annual invitation.

For a few years, electronic media were present in large numbers (including Bloomberg Radio and TV). One Friday evening, on Aug. 5, 2011, a television truck was accidentally still present—it couldn’t exit the narrow parking area because a car with a missing set of keys blocked the way—when Standard & Poor’s unexpectedly downgraded the credit quality of the U.S. It was a television producer’s dream, a huge news event scoop, with a live TV feed and a few dozen tipsy economists happy to chat about it, alcohol-induced buzz be damned. These were the first people to share their views with the world about what the downgrade meant. The consensus that it mattered much less than people feared was borne out by the subsequent course of history.

This year the concerns were focused on the many conundrums of monetary policy. The inverted yield curve—when short-term bonds pay a higher yield than the rates paid on longer-term bonds—is worrying, and the main question being debated was whether it was foreshadowing a recession or a sign that interest rates are still too low.

Yet the U.S. has the highest rates in the developed world, which is not ideal, in several economists’ view. The risk is a “giant flow of currency to the U.S.” to capture that yield, and an “overvalued dollar that is way too strong.”

Negative interest rates were even more worrying to the group. The entire economic system, it was pointed out, is based on positive interest rates. And if rates flip negative in the U.S., as they already have in Germany and Japan, no one knows what will happen.

 

 

Photos and videos here

~~~

 

 

Source:
Talking Rates in the Maine Woods With Economists Over Good Wine
Barry Ritholtz
Businessweek, August 27, 2019

 

The post Camp Kotok: Rates, Fed & Dollar (Drink!) appeared first on The Big Picture.

120 Million Square Feet: Store Closings In The US Are On Pace To Set A New Record High In 2025

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

If everything is going to be just fine, why are thousands of stores closing all over the country?  So far this year, the total amount of retail space that has been permanently closed has surpassed 120 million square feet.  We have never seen anything like this before.  Store closings spiked during the early days of the pandemic, but in 2025 stores are being permanently shuttered at an even faster pace.

 In fact, during the first six months of this year 5,822 store closures were recorded…

Store closures across the U.S. continue to rise, and remain on track to far significantly surpass both new openings and the figures seen in 2024.

According to a new report from research and advisory firm Coresight Research, cited by CoStar News, 5,822 store closures were recorded as of June 27, compared to 3,496 closures announced during the same period of 2024.

If stores continue to close at this rate, we will break the old record that was established during the pandemic by a wide margin.

We are also being told that the total amount of retail space that has been permanently shuttered in 2025 has reached a staggering 120 million square feet…

In June, store closings by Plano, Texas-based home goods seller At Home and Philadelphia-based pharmacy chain Rite Aid, which have both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, “pushed the total amount of retail space to close in the U.S. this year to over 120 million square feet,” Coresight said. The real estate churn is happening “as cyclical impacts confront structural shifts,” according to one executive at the research firm.

Wow.

You may have noticed that there are an increasing number of abandoned buildings in your particular area.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Consumers are under more financial stress than we have ever seen, and that has resulted in a substantial decline in store traffic…

Many of the retail store closures are a result of declining store traffic as more consumers respond to inflation by reducing spending. There also are more consumers turning to online shopping especially for apparel, accessories and household items. The winner is not merely Amazon but increased competition from Temu and Shein marketplaces and social commerce outlets like TikTok.

Needless to say, more stores are being closed down with each passing day.

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Claire’s announced that it will be closing 18 more stores…

Claire’s, a mall-based teen accessories retailer, has identified several locations across the country it plans to close after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Claire’s U.S., which operates Claire’s and Icing stores, made the filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Wednesday. It’s the second time since 2018 the company has filed for bankruptcy.

While the company says the majority of its retail stores will remain open while it “continues to explore all strategic alternatives,” Claire’s said it identified 18 stores ahead of the Aug. 6 bankruptcy filing it would close, filings show.

And home goods retailer At Home just announced that it will be closing 6 more stores…

The home goods retailer At Home is closing an additional six stores across the country, bringing its total closure tally to more than two dozen as it grapples with high debt and dwindling sales.

The furniture and home decor retailer based in Coppell, Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 16, pointing to “broader economic and retail-specific market pressures,” in court documents. The bankruptcy filing and store closures follow several other “big box” retailers that have also significantly downsized their brick-and-mortar footprints this year, including Big Lots, Joann Fabrics, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Macy’s, and Party City.

The retailer intially announced 26 store closures in June, before paring that down to 24 when it decided to keep open two stores in New Jersey and Wisconsin. The company added another six stores to the list, according to a statement by retail firm Hilco Consumer-Retail on Aug. 1, bringing the current number of stores it will shutter in the coming months to 30.

We see more stories like this every single day.

So what is going to happen if our economic momentum continues to take us very rapidly in the wrong direction?

Earlier today, we learned that the percentage of student loans entering serious delinquency is absolutely exploding…

The total amount of outstanding student loan debt was $1.64 trillion in the second quarter of 2025 after rising by $7 billion in the quarter.

Additionally, the share of student loan debt entering serious delinquency, considered 90 days or more late, jumped to 12.9% at the end of June, up from 8% in March and above pre-pandemic trends that were around 9-10% from 2012 into early 2020, when the moratorium initially took effect.

The American people are drowning in debt, and I expect delinquency rates of all types to continue to rise in the months ahead.

We are going to see more layoffs too, and the fact that continuing claims for unemployment benefits just hit their highest level since 2021 is not a good sign at all…

Recurring applications for unemployment benefits surged to the highest since November 2021, adding to recent signs that the labor market is weakening.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, rose by 38,000 to 1.97 million in the week ended July 26, according to Labor Department data released Thursday.

On top of everything else, U.S. manufacturing activity is now in contraction territory…

From March to July, U.S. manufacturing activity contracted, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s monthly survey. The Manufacturing PMI last registered at 48, below the 50 score that differentiates growth and decline.

The effective average tariff rate on all imported goods now stands at around roughly 18% versus 2.3% last year, the highest levels since the 1930s.

We are in so much trouble.

After evaluating all of the latest economic numbers that have come in, Mark Zandi has come to the conclusion that the “economy is on the precipice of recession”…

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, on Monday wrote a post on X that the “economy is on the precipice of recession” – citing the weaker-than-expected jobs report released Friday and the inflation data from the previous day that showed consumer prices rose as indicating the economy’s precarious position.

“Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue,” he wrote.

It is hard to argue with him.

Of course what is eventually coming is going to be so much worse than just a “recession”.

As conditions deteriorate, will store closings slow down or will they speed up?

The answer to that question is obvious.

If there are stores in your local area that you really enjoy, I would visit them now while you still can, because they might not be there next year.

*  * *

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 10:30

Trump–Putin Alaska Summit: Peace Talks And Power Plays On Former Russian Soil

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Donald Trump stays true to his line and asserts dominance over the geopolitical chessboard — symbolically as well. Following the announcement of a trade deal with the EU at his golf resort in Turnberry, Scotland, peace talks in the Ukraine conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin are now scheduled in Alaska.

The venue of a negotiation often predefines the balance of power between opponents. In that sense, it must be read as a clear show of force that both European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — notably without military fanfare — traveled to Trump’s private resort in Turnberry to be politically “placed” by the American president. Judging by the outcome of those talks, one conclusion is unavoidable: the European Union no longer plays in the league of the great powers. Washington’s interest in intra-European affairs has noticeably cooled, focusing essentially on two things: an orderly withdrawal from military entanglements, and the defense of US corporate interests in the EU single market.

We are witnessing a shift of power from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Europe Losing Grip

It’s hardly a secret: China and the United States will be setting the standards of international politics in the future. Russia, the world’s most resource-rich country, may be labeled by Europeans as a pariah state and a malicious hub of all evil — but that does not change the fact that the age of postcolonial European dominance is ending, and Moscow will have no trouble playing its resource-market cards outside the shrinking European sphere of influence.

In this spirit, Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel on August 15 to “away territory” in Alaska — once part of Russia — to preliminarily negotiate peace terms in Ukraine with President Trump. Trump sees progress in the stalemated conflict and stresses that the talks will likely lead to a land-swap arrangement “to the benefit of both sides.” While the Russian government has not issued an official statement, much suggests Moscow will not return the occupied territories in Donbas, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, nor Crimea. Russia currently holds the military initiative and is increasing pressure on Ukraine and its allies to force a resolution.

To avoid overshadowing the personal meeting, the White House postponed a tariff ultimatum — originally set for August 9 — that would have imposed 100% duties on Russian goods if the war continued, pushing it back to August 27.

Alaska as a Signal

We will have to see what unfolds in the meantime and whether potential disruptions derail this cautious rapprochement once more. One recalls the much-discussed visit of former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, two months after the outbreak of war, acted as a kind of shadow diplomat to reject a Russian-proposed peace deal.

What is now on the table again — a land swap and Ukraine’s exclusion from NATO — was flatly rejected back then. Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded later, there appears to be a renewed turn toward diplomacy in light of the bleak military situation. This time, however, it is the Americans applying pressure on the warring sides. From Europe, little is heard apart from intense rearmament efforts and a declared will to “re-militarize” the population, as the German government has repeatedly emphasized.

Diplomatic Thread to Be Picked Up

The diplomatic thread is now to be picked up again in Alaska. Until 1867, Alaska was Russian territory before the US purchased it from Tsar Alexander II for $7.2 million — after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War left its treasury depleted. The geography here speaks volumes: Alaska lies between Russia and the US, separated only by the Bering Strait, symbolizing the direct neighborhood of two great powers that may now be entering a new phase of rapprochement in a rapidly changing world order.

For the Ukraine talks, the location signals that even deeply rooted geopolitical divides can be bridged through pragmatic agreements. At the same time, Alaska has strategic importance for the Arctic, whose trade routes and resources will likely be integrated into the future architecture of global power.

By hosting the Russian president at such a neuralgic spot, Trump fuses historical reconciliation with present-day power politics, creating a symbolic setting that suggests readiness for compromise without conceding sovereignty.

Trump’s Move

What might look like a PR coup in the headlines is in reality a move at the highest level of geopolitics. By inviting Putin onto US soil, Trump openly breaks with the prevailing doctrine of keeping Russia isolated. The ICC arrest warrant, the sanctions regime, years of carefully cultivated enemy imagery — all of it, should the meeting take place, would evaporate in significance with a single photograph.

The message: The rules the foreign-policy establishment holds as untouchable are negotiable — not carved in stone — at least if the President of the United States decides so.

Behind closed doors, the focus will likely be on redrawing spheres of influence: a possible Ukraine endgame in exchange for Russian concessions — energy, Arctic passage, perhaps even a gradual distancing from Beijing. For Trump, the meeting offers a chance to pull Russia, perhaps through trade, into America’s geostrategic orbit. This would align with the raw-materials deal signed with Ukraine in April, granting the US exclusive access to the country’s rare earths as well as certain oil and gas reserves.

But the true test linked to this meeting lies within the inner workings of America’s power machine: Can Trump carry out such an unconventional operation without sabotage from his own security apparatus? Should he manage to launch a robust peace process, he will have proven that he has taken full control of US foreign policy strategy.

That would be a decisive blow against the neocons pushing for escalation in Ukraine — and a further step toward peace.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist who has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. 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 Sat, 08/09/2025 - 09:55

International Energy Agency Policies Hurt Africans

Authored by Brenda Shaffer via RealClearWire,

One of the most important developments this century has been a major increase in energy access across the globe: Billions of people have gained access to modern energy, a precondition for rising from poverty.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world not benefiting from this transformation. In Africa, energy poverty is growing. For the first time since World War II, access to electricity is also backsliding in Africa.

Over the past year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has sought to address Africa’s rising energy poverty, through organizing conferences and publishing reports. The IEA and global leaders gathered in conferences in Africa. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation was a major funder of the endeavor. Yet, the IEA did not offer any practical solution to address the rising energy poverty in Africa because it is unable to utter the essential words: fossil fuels.

In fact, through its promotion of cutting loans and investments in fossil fuels in Africa, the IEA itself contributed to the decline in energy access in Africa. The IEA’s promotion of “Net-Zero” served as the basis of decisions in recent years by the G7, World Bank, and United Nations to cut funding and investments in fossil fuels and production of electricity from fossil fuels in Africa.

The idea behind denying investments and funding for fossil fuels was that it would force Africans to adopt renewable energy. However, reducing access to fossil fuels did not lower pollution and emissions. In fact, the lack of access to stable and affordable electricity produced from fossil fuels, has led to increased pollution, emissions, and premature deaths in Africa, as Africans turn to burning dung, wood, lump coal, and other biomass for cooking and other basic energy functions.

The IEA acknowledged in its recently published report “Universal Access to Clean Cooking in Africa” that burning traditional biomass releases more carbon emissions than using fossil fuels.

Despite this acknowledgment that the path to lower emissions and pollution—improving public health—is through fossil fuels, the IEA isn’t willing to say the plain truth: Africa needs fossil fuels. For the IEA, like so many multilateral institutions, energy policy has become a cult in which fossil fuels are sacrilegious.

The new IEA report on Africa numbers 151 pages and probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to compile, yet it doesn’t give any reasonable path for Africa to increase energy access. The report points to the transformation of China, Indonesia, and India in energy access over recent decades as models for Africa. However, the IEA neglects to point out that those three countries benefitted from access to coal and to government and multilateral funding to develop electricity produced from fossil fuels. Yet, Africa is denied funding and investments to develop its fossil fuel resources.

In the report, the IEA sets South Africa apart as an example of a place where modern energy access is growing and the number of homes reliant on burning biomass is decreasing, in contrast to countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The IEA, however, neglects to point out that South Africa has succeeded in expanding modern energy access by developing and burning its domestic coal reserves. Coal provides 69 percent of South Africa’s energy consumption and is the source of 82 percent of its electricity production.

In the report, the IEA acknowledges that liquified petroleum gas (LPG) and electricity are necessary to replace the use of traditional biomass. Yet, it still advocates blocking Africa from developing its own fossil fuel resources. According to the IEA report, imported LPG and natural gas can replace traditional biomass, but not local energy resources.

What is the IEA’s answer as to how Africa will pay for that imported fuel and finance new cooking stoves? The IEA suggests that Africa sell carbon credits to fund the transition from burning wood and dung to using LPG and electricity. However, it is highly unlikely that enough revenue from carbon credits could be generated to finance a move from dung and wood—which is collected for free—to pay for stoves, LPG, and electricity. Moreover, this would increase Africa’s dependence on handouts from abroad, instead of strengthening local economies.

The answer to Africa’s energy poverty is development of the continent’s oil, gas, and coal resources. Profits and taxes from the development could be used to expand LPG and electricity access in Africa. Paradoxically, as the IEA acknowledges, developing fossil fuels and producing electricity from them would lower emissions, pollution, and premature deaths in Africa.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently stated that the Trump administration is evaluating whether the United States should withdraw its membership from the IEA or attempt to reform the organization. The administration claims that the IEA has strayed from its mission of promoting energy security. Instead, the IEA has become another one of the dozens of major climate policy advocacy organizations. In his evaluation of the IEA, Wright should add the IEA’s role in increasing energy poverty in Africa and its use of public funding on projects that do not benefit Africans.

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

The key reports this week are July CPI and Retail Sales.

For manufacturing, the August NY Fed survey, and the July Industrial Production report will be released.

----- Monday, August 11th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, August 12th -----
6:00 AM ET: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for July.

8:30 AM: The Consumer Price Index for July from the BLS. 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.

----- Wednesday, August 13th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

----- Thursday, August 14th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims to increase to 228 thousand from 226 thousand last week.

8:30 AM: The Producer Price Index for July from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.2% increase in PPI, and a 0.2% increase in core PPI.

----- Friday, August 15th -----
8:30 AM: Retail sales for July is scheduled to be released.  The consensus is for 0.5% increase in retail sales.

This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales and food service, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline)

8:30 AM: The New York Fed Empire State manufacturing survey for August. The consensus is for a reading of 0.0, down from 5.5.

9:15 AM: The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for July.

This graph shows industrial production since 1967.

The consensus is for a 0.2% decrease in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to be unchanged at 77.6%.

10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (Preliminary for August)

The Era Of Online Age Checks Is Here - How Does It Work?

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Laws demanding internet users provide proof of age are sprouting up around the world.

In the United States, at least 24 states have already passed laws requiring pornography sites to verify users’ ages, according to the Age Verification Providers Association.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

A handful of countries, including Germany, France, Australia, and Ireland, have implemented age verification to access specified content, from social media access to pornography.

At the end of July, the UK rolled out the most comprehensive national system so far.

How does age verification work in practice? What are the loopholes? And how might it reshape the internet? Here’s what the experts say.

How Age Checks Work in Practice

Age‑verification systems range from uploading a photo of an identification such as a driver’s license to advanced biometric scans.

The Age Verification Providers Association lists several approved methods for age checks, including mobile phone account verification, credit database matching, transactional records, and digital ID apps.

Some platforms ask users to upload a government‑issued ID, while others rely on mobile phone account data, banking or credit records, or digital ID apps to confirm age.

Increasingly, sites are turning to biometric solutions, such as facial analysis that estimates age from a selfie or a brief movement check.

Reddit, for example, uses the third‑party service Persona to verify either an ID or a live selfie, while Discord relies on k‑ID, which confirms age by analyzing facial movements. X combines internal account signals with optional ID checks.

Porn sites like Pornhub offer a mix of options, such as requiring a photo ID or running a credit card check before users can view sexually explicit material.

The Next 24 Months

Mary Ann Miller, vice president and fraud adviser at Prove, a digital identity verification platform, said that age verification will become more standard and required over the next 24 months.

Miller said that simpler methods include uploading a government-issued ID that is sometimes checked for authenticity or a selfie taken to ensure identity accuracy and that the person is alive.

“Other methods use solutions that leverage technology that uses the phone as a proxy for our identity since we have them with us ‘all the time’ and determine the assurance and trust of the person presenting information or attesting their age or attesting for a child’s age as part of parental consent,” she told The Epoch Times by email.

The home page of Pornhub displays a suspension notice in France due to age-verification requirements, in Valence, France, on June 4, 2025. Countries worldwide, including dozens of U.S. states, have implemented age checks for access to certain websites and social media platforms. Nicolas Guyonnet/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

“Other methods include age estimation from facial recognition or other data sources.”

In terms of which methods are most reliable, Miller pointed to those that “can use passive techniques to determine identity assurance first, then age verification as part of an identity flow.”

Passive identity assurance techniques verify a user’s identity without requiring the user to actively perform actions—such as entering a password or scanning a fingerprint—by using data already available to infer age, including credit cards, IP addresses, or other information.

Businesses in the near future will have to overhaul their age‑verification systems to meet stricter standards, rather than relying on low‑accuracy or patchwork identity checks.

“What has taken many businesses by surprise is that when they try to apply age verification with low-accuracy identity checks or the absence of identity checks, they have to ‘go back to the drawing board’ on both aspects,” she said.

The Push for Biometric Verification

Biometric age estimation can be conducted using facial analysis.

Other methods include voice blueprints, gestures, and keystrokes (how you type). These methods are currently less well-developed than facial analysis but are progressing quickly.

Derek Jackson, chief operations officer and cofounder of Cyber Dive, a tech company founded with the mission of keeping children safe online, told The Epoch Times by email that facial biometrics are “newer but catching on quickly.”

“They estimate your age by analyzing your facial features, cheekbones, eye spacing, skin tone, in real time,“ Jackson said. ”Voice biometrics and keystroke patterns are even newer. They try to match your unique patterns, your voice pitch, how fast or slow you type to known age profiles.”

He said that facial recognition is growing quickly because “it’s simple, fast, and surprisingly effective.”

A GovTech staff member demonstrates facial verification to access government services at a community center in Singapore on Oct. 1, 2020. As age-verification rules expand, some sites are using biometric tools like selfie-based age analysis in addition to government-issued IDs, bank or credit records, or digital ID apps. Martin Abbugao/AFP via Getty Images Privacy Risks and Skepticism

Users remain wary about sharing personal data online, especially government IDs or biometrics.

Denis Vyazovoy, chief product officer of AdGuard VPN, said that some platforms attempt to be more privacy-aware by, for example, not permanently storing selfies or ID documents or keeping data for just seven days.

“But even with such reassurances, trust is low,” he told The Epoch Times by email.

“Even though platforms claim that facial data or ID scans are not stored long-term, people remain wary, and rightfully so. The truth is, any method that requires biometric data, government ID, or sensitive financial information introduces serious privacy risks.”

The UK’s New Law

The UK’s Online Safety Act does not mandate a single method of age verification. The UK’s tech regulator Ofcom, which is in charge of policing the law, just requires companies to implement highly effective age assurances.

The law focuses on keeping under‑18s out of adult spaces but does not tell companies how to achieve this goal, leaving firms to choose their own verification systems as long as they are “highly effective.”

But failure to implement a system can result in financial penalties of up to 10 percent of a service’s qualifying worldwide revenue, or 18 million pounds ($23.9 million), whichever is greater. The Online Safety Act is a UK-specific law, but it affects U.S. and global companies with no legal presence in the country.

Read the rest here...

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

Germany Halts Arms Exports To Israel As World Reacts To Gaza Conquest Plan

Netanyahu's security cabinet has approved a plan to takeover the whole of the Gaza Strip, including intense operations in Gaza city, resulting in outrage among some European capitals, who see this as doubling down on the carnage which has left over 60,000 Palestinians dead, based on Gaza health sources.

Germany has announced itself as the latest European nation to suspend its arms exports to Israel, noting that these could be used in human rights violations and potential war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Berlin backs the anti-Hamas fight, however.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz made clear as Israel's military is poised to take over Gaza city his government will not approve or transfer any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza until further notice.

Via Reuters

Merz says it was "increasingly difficult to understand" how the Israeli military plan could achieve its war aims in a legitimate way, adding:

"Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorise any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."

The German arms industry has historically been among the globe's largest arms suppliers to Israel. Of course, the US has long been far and away the biggist supplier of arms, and under Trump this doesn't look to cease - with Germany coming in second, according to global monitors, over the last half-decade.

"Israel has the right to defend itself against the terror of Hamas," Merz continued in his statement. "The release of the hostages and determined negotiations on a ceasefire are our top priority. The disarmament of Hamas is essential. Hamas must not play a role in the future of Gaza."

But apparently Merz vehemently disagress with the practical how in terms of the methods whereby this is accomplished. Global critics have said Israel is conducting ethnic cleansing and ultimately plans to annex the strip.

PM Netanyahu has sought to deflect this criticism by saying Israel will conquer the whole enclave, but that it doesn't ultimatley want to govern it. This vaguely suggests it could be handed over to an entity like the Palestinian Authority (PA) one day, but likely this would be done (or not done at all) by a future Israeli government.

Shekel Falls After Cabinet Approves Plan to Seize Gaza City--Bloomberg

Meanwhile other major powers like China are raising the alarm over Israel's takeover plan, with China on Friday expressing "serious concerns" over the move on Gaza City, urging it to "immediately cease its dangerous actions."

Now its getting real.

Germany going beyond statements and blocking weapons exports to Israel.

Source: Bundesregierung
https://t.co/rGTCNkDLzd pic.twitter.com/J8frsDOA9R

— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) August 8, 2025

"Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told the AFP. "The correct way to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to secure the release of hostages is an immediate ceasefire."

“A complete resolution to the Gaza conflict hinges on a ceasefire; only then can a path to de-escalation be paved and regional security ensured," the Chinese government statement said. Beijing is "willing to work together with the international community to help end the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible," it added.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 07:35

Trump-Brokered Armenia–Azerbaijan Peace Deal Secures US Trade Route

Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump will host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Aug. 8 at the White House to sign a joint declaration ending four decades of hostility between the two nations.

The accord also launches the “Trump Route,” a new transport corridor aimed at unlocking the region’s commercial potential, the White House said.

During the meeting, the two countries will sign a joint declaration formalizing the agreement and establishing the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” or TRIPP, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told reporters during a call previewing the meeting.

“By locking in this path to peace, we are unlocking the great potential of the South Caucasus region in trade, transit, and energy flows,” Kelly said.

Trump will also sign bilateral agreements with both countries that “span energy, technology, economic cooperation, border security, infrastructure, and trade,” she added.

The new route will be a multimodal transit corridor linking mainland Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, enhancing regional trade routes.

The new route will allow goods to be moved from not just the Caucasus but also Central Asia without transiting through Russia, Iran, or China, according to the White House.

“What President Trump has done is he’s taken the politics out of the picture and made common sense prevail,” a senior White House official said during the call.

“What this will do for American businesses, and frankly, for energy resources across Europe, will be enormously powerful.

“The losers here are China, Russia, and Iran. The winners here are the West.”

Azerbaijan has long sought a transport corridor through Armenia to connect its main territory with Nakhchivan bordering Turkey. Under the agreement to be signed on Friday, Armenia will grant the United States exclusive long-term development rights to build a route through the southern part of Armenia.

The U.S. government plans to delegate the project to a consortium to handle both infrastructure and management.

The official said that Trump is going to sign on Aug. 8 a directive to “set up a TRIPP negotiating team” with talks expected to start “in the middle of next week.”

The official noted that since the announcement yesterday morning, they had received calls from nine potential operators, including three American companies.

“We’re going to get everybody around the table. We’re going to find the most first-class operating system,” the official said.

In a Truth Social post on Aug. 7, Trump announced that he'd be hosting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for a “Historic Peace Summit” at the White House on Friday.

“These two Nations have been at War for many years, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. Many Leaders have tried to end the War, with no success, until now,” Trump said, adding that his administration has been “engaged with both sides for quite some time.”

The two nations have engaged in cross-border conflicts since the late 1980s.

Early this year, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff traveled to Azerbaijan and met with Aliyev. From February through mid-April, U.S. officials expressed significant concern about the potential for renewed hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Following Witkoff’s trip, a U.S. team conducted a series of five additional visits to the region, traveling between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

During the meeting, the countries will also sign a joint letter officially requesting the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, to dissolve the “no longer relevant Minsk Group,” according to the White House.

The group, co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States, was created in 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the Nagorno–Karabakh conflict.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/09/2025 - 07:00