Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time
Yesterday, tornados touched down in St. Louis. We lived in St. Lous for 40 years before moving to New England, and in those 40 years, the closest I can recall a tornado touchdown was at Lambert-St. Louis airport. Climate change is making for more severe weather, and DOGE has cut staff at NOAA and the […]
The post You do need a weatherman appeared first on Angry Bear.
Authored by Star Parker via The Epoch Times,
SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, is one of the nation’s largest welfare programs.
And, like all welfare programs, it is massive, it has grown prodigiously over the years and it is inefficient.
One glaring issue, which is gaining attention as a result of new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign, is the kinds of foods that recipients of SNAP funds can purchase.
And here we have convergence of bodily health and fiscal health.
The “N” in SNAP stands for nutrition. The point of the whole program is to help poor Americans eat and not forgo nutrition as result of insufficient funds to buy food. So why should government funds be used to purchase foods that are not fundamental to meeting the requirements of basic nutrition?
The program is funded by the federal government but administered by the states.
Now three Republican governors—governors of Arkansas, Idaho and Indiana—are joining the governor of West Virginia in seeking waivers from the federal government to permit them to remove soda, candy, and other sweets from the foods that can be purchased with SNAP funds.
SNAP funds flow from the Department of Agriculture, and new Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins showed her support for this move by appearing alongside of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she announced that her state would seek a waiver to eliminate soda and candy.
According to the Foundation for Government Accountability, “Soda is the number one commodity purchased with food stamps. More food stamp money is spent on soda, candy, snacks, ice cream, and cakes than on fruit, vegetables, eggs, pasta, beans, and rice. Purchases of sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, and candy exceed the program’s combined sales of fruits and vegetables by $9.4 billion a year.”
FGA goes on to point out that the incidence of obesity is higher among food stamp recipients than among those not on food stamps at similar income levels and that food stamp participants are “more likely to be at very high or extremely high risk” of the many health problems that result from obesity.
Per the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, in 1975, federal funding to the SNAP program was $4.6 billion. By 2000, it was $14.6 billion. In 2023, it was up to $111.2 billion.
Per Pew Research, in 1974, there were 12.9 million Americans receiving SNAP funds. In 2023, it was up to 42.4 million.
Most recipients are adults—63 percent are over the age of 18—and of adults receiving food stamps, 62 percent had not been employed at all during the year, 24 percent were employed over the year and 14 percent were employed part of the year.
Among children receiving food stamp payments, 56 percent were in homes with one or no parent.
Much discussion about reform of SNAP involves a more rigorous application of work requirements to receive funding. This points back to importance of health. If SNAP funds permit purchase of foods that are unhealthy, or damage health, so it seems SNAP funds contribute to undermining the ability of recipients to work.
Needless to say, as this initiative gains momentum, as it should, and as more states seek waivers to streamline their SNAP funding to foods that clearly aim to fundamental nutritional needs, the beverage and candy industry can be expected to be all over Congress to block the change.
The Wall Street Journal reported last December about ramped up lobbying by Coke, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association to leave their soft drinks in the purview of SNAP funding.
Some concerns have been expressed by grocers that increased specificity regarding what can be purchased can make administration and monitoring difficult. But surely technology can deal with this.
Removing non-nutritious foods and beverages from SNAP won’t balance our federal budget. But it is a no-brainer for our fiscal and physical health.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 09:20One in two Swedes are struggling to sleep, according to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey.
The new data casts light on the prevalence of the problem in different countries, affecting more than a third of respondents in 17 out of the 20 populations surveyed.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Respondents were asked if they had experienced a sleep disorder in the 12 months prior to the survey.
As Statista's Ann Fleck reports, in all of the countries included on the chart, women were more likely to have experienced a sleep disorder than men - with many seeing a 9 to 10 percentage point difference between the two.
This was the case in Sweden, where 56 percent of women had experienced a sleep disorder in the past year versus 46 percent of men.
In the U.S., there was a 6 percentage point difference (39 percent women to 33 percent men).
According to the Sleep Foundation, women and people assigned female at birth are more likely to experience insomnia. Researchers say this is the result of a combination of sex-based factors such as hormone production as well as gender-based differences, which “may be driven by social and cultural disparities”.
Predispositions to certain physical or mental health issues are also cited as possible factors believed to lead to higher rates of sleeplessness in women.
Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 08:45As you get further down in the latest Krugman piece, you will read: “Everything is at most an announcement about what tariff rates will be for the next 90 days.” A lot of talk and threats and no reality. We are constantly off balance due to Trump’s (as the Pres) threats. The Trade War Isn’t […]
The post The Trade War is Not Over appeared first on Angry Bear.
If this was about people taking advantage of Medicaid, Unemployment, or other government programs, there might be a reason to do what Congress is doing. Instead, elected Republican Senators and Representatives are moving in mass to cut programs so as to maintain Trump’s 2017 TCJA tax breaks which was passed under reconciliation. The tax break […]
The post Most Medicaid adults under age 65 are working already . . . appeared first on Angry Bear.
Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,
Denmark and Italy are spearheading a growing coalition of European countries calling into question the role of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in migration policy, according to reporting by French newspaper Le Figaro.
The two nations are said to be finalizing a joint declaration that denounces the Court’s recent rulings as overreach, particularly in cases where national efforts to restrict illegal immigration have been struck down.
The move is timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, signed on Nov. 4, 1950. But rather than celebrating the institution that enforces it, the initiative reportedly seeks to “launch a debate” over whether the ECHR’s current interpretation of the Convention is still fit for purpose amid mounting challenges posed by mass illegal immigration.
“What was right yesterday may not be right today,” the draft letter reportedly states. Its aim is to gather support from like-minded countries within the 46-member Council of Europe. Besides Denmark and Italy, Czechia, Finland, Poland, and the Netherlands are expected to support the declaration.
Once finalized, the document is expected to form the foundation of an informal alliance pressuring for reform of how the Convention is applied, particularly regarding national sovereignty over immigration control.
The pushback follows a series of rulings by the ECHR that have infuriated national governments. In 2024, Italy was found to have violated the rights of three Tunisian migrants detained in an overcrowded facility on the island of Lampedusa. The Court described their treatment as “inhuman and degrading,” noting that the detainees had only two toilets for 40 people and that some were forced to sleep outside on mattresses.
Italy was further frustrated by recent domestic court rulings in Rome, citing the ECHR, which prevented the transfer of illegal migrants to reception centers in Tirana, following a bilateral agreement with the Albanian government.
Italian premier Giorgia Meloni has long been critical of the political overreach by the judiciary afforded to them by the European Convention on Human Rights. Speaking to the Italian press in 2023 following a ruling on migrant detention in Lampedusa, she said, “We are seeing a distortion in the application of the European Convention that no longer respects the rights of nations to defend their borders.”
Denmark, for its part, was the subject of a precedent-setting ruling in November 2024. In the case Sharafane v. Denmark, the ECHR questioned the legality of the applicant’s expulsion based in part on whether he could realistically expect to return to Denmark in the future. The European Centre for Law and Justice described the ruling as a de facto creation of a “right of return” for expelled foreigners, a move seen as directly undermining Denmark’s efforts to maintain a strict migration policy.
Following the ruling, Social Democrat government minister Rasmus Stoklund said, “The European Court of Human Rights has gradually shifted from defending basic rights to dictating policy decisions that should be left to democratically elected governments.”
Several other European conservatives have voiced their criticism of what they suggest is now outdated legislation no longer fit for purpose.
In October 2023, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the Sejm, “Poland cannot accept a situation where unelected judges in Strasbourg decide who can or cannot be expelled from our territory.”
Similarly, in February this year, the U.K.’s leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, warned that Britain will “at some point probably have to leave” the convention if it “continues to stop us doing what is right for the people of this country.”
Tyler Durden Sat, 05/17/2025 - 07:00The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Microsoft’s CEO on How AI Will Remake Every Company, Including His: Nervous customers and a volatile partnership with OpenAI are complicating things for Satya Nadella and the world’s most valuable company. (Businessweek)
• Trump Blinked ‘Big Time’ on China Trade, Taking Worst Case Off Table: U.S. and China’s agreement to ratchet back retaliatory tariffs and hit a 90-day pause to talk trade sent markets soaring by taking the ugliest scenario—a messy and quick decoupling of the two economies—off the table. That doesn’t mean no damage has been done. (Barron’s) see also China Called Trump’s Bluff: There is a lesson here for anyone Trump threatens. (The Atlantic)
• Across America, Big Cities Are Sinking. Here’s Why. A major reason is too much groundwater is being pumped out, new research shows, threatening buildings and infrastructure nationwide. (New York Times)
• Trump’s Real Secretary of State: How the president’s friend and golfing partner Steve Witkoff got one of the hardest jobs on the planet (The Atlantic)
• The Inside Story of Oculus Rift and How Virtual Reality Became Reality: Oculus has found a way to make a headset that does more than just hang a big screen in front of your face—it hacks your visual cortex. (Wired)
• Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals: Complex neural circuits likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times. (Quanta)
• 9 Federally Funded Scientific Breakthroughs That Changed Everything: The U.S. is slashing funding for scientific research, after decades of deep investment. Here’s some of what those taxpayer dollars created. (New York Times)
• Cartoon Network’s Last Gasp: The irreverent animation factory once cranked out hits, talent and profits. But with David Zaslav’s retreat from streaming kids programming, the future of the network is in question. (Businessweek)
• How often do lead characters die in movies? I logged the fates of 27,000+ lead characters to uncover how death on screen has shifted by genre, decade, and cause. (Stephen Follows)
• He Spent $12,495 to Be Gene Simmons’s Roadie (and Got More Than Expected): A father-son pair ponied up for the V.I.P. experience last week and got a glimpse behind the scenes of a rock ’n’ roll show, and into a notorious star’s heart. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business with John Montgomery, founder and CEO of Bridgeway Capital. The firm, which was founded in 1993, manages ~$5B in assets; they have become known for donating 50% of their annual company profits to non-profit organizations.
Chances are that the stock you own is going to go down 50% at some point in the next five years
Source: @MebFaber
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~~~
To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.
The post 10 Weekend Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.
Authored by Rep. Elise Stefanik via RealClearPolitics,
This National Police Week, we pause to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities. We remember the brave officers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, and we express our deepest gratitude to those who continue to serve with unwavering dedication. It is an important moment to reflect on the courage, sacrifice, and selflessness that law enforcement officers demonstrate daily, particularly in Upstate New York and across our great state.
To the law enforcement officers of Upstate New York, the North Country, and everywhere else across our nation: Thank you. Your service does not go unnoticed, and your commitment to keeping our communities safe is deeply appreciated. I stand with you, and I will continue fighting for policies that prioritize the safety of our communities, ensuring that you have the resources and support needed to do your vital work.
In these challenging times, it’s crucial that we stand up for those who serve us. While the far left continues to push anti-police rhetoric and policies that put our officers in dangerous positions, it’s more important than ever to back the blue. The far-left “Defund the Police” movement and the dangerous rise of anti-police sentiment threaten the very fabric of our communities. Our law enforcement officers are the backbone of our safety and security, and they deserve the respect, resources, and protection to do their jobs effectively. Their hard work ensures that law-abiding citizens can live in peace, free from fear.
Unfortunately, many on the left in Albany, Washington, and across the nation are taking law enforcement for granted. Policies like reckless bail reforms and calls to defund the police only endanger our communities. It’s time we recognize the critical role our officers play in public safety and stop allowing radical left movements to jeopardize their ability to serve and protect.
During my tenure in Congress, I have worked tirelessly to provide officers with the resources, training, and recognition they deserve. I introduced bills aimed at bolstering funding for police departments, improving officer safety, and enhancing mental health services for law enforcement personnel. I also have been a vocal proponent of holding criminals accountable while ensuring that police officers have the necessary protections to do their jobs without fear of unjust retribution.
In Upstate New York, we are fortunate to have some of the most dedicated law enforcement officers in the country. Their work has resulted in our district having one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.
I’m proud to stand with them and will always fight for policies that support law enforcement and keep our communities safe.
National Police Week may only last seven days, but the gratitude and respect we owe to our men and women in blue should echo every single day. Thank you to our heroes in uniform, and may we continue to support and protect them in their mission to safeguard us all.
Republican Elise Stefanik represents New York’s 21st District in Congress.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 23:30Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A Russian-born scientist and research associate at Harvard University has been arrested and charged with allegedly attempting to smuggle clawed frog embryos and embryonic samples into the United States, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced on May 14.
Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born scientist who was a researcher at Harvard University, in April 2025. Polina Pugacheva via AP
Kseniia Petrova, 31, was charged with one count of smuggling goods into the country.
If found guilty, she faces up to 20 years in prison, five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.
The charges were announced just hours after a federal judge in Vermont heard arguments in a lawsuit Petrova filed against the Trump administration alleging she has been unlawfully detained at an immigration detention center in Louisiana for months.
She was transferred out of the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to a nearby Louisiana parish jail shortly after being charged.
An initial hearing in her criminal case has been set for May 15.
Petrova, a Russian national, was first taken into immigration custody on Feb. 16 after arriving at Logan International Airport in Boston following a trip to Paris.
According to prosecutors, she was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents after her checked duffle bag was flagged for inspection, revealing biological items including a foam box containing clawed frog embryos in microcentrifuges, as well as embryonic samples in paraffin well stages and on mounted dyed slides.
Such biological products must be declared and require a permit to be brought into the country.
Prosecutors said that Petrova initially denied carrying such material in her baggage but acknowledged she had biological specimens when asked again.
She was then advised that she was ineligible for entry to the United States, at which point prosecutors say she agreed to willingly withdraw her application for admission, prosecutors said.
The Trump administration has indicated it plans to deport her back to Russia.
Lawyer Says Case Is ‘Meritless’Petrova said she fled Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 to avoid conflict or possible political repression. She added that she fears she will be imprisoned if she returns because of her political views.
Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, called the case against his client “meritless” and questioned the timing of the charges being announced, noting she was transferred into criminal custody after the judge in her lawsuit set a May 28 bail hearing to consider releasing her.
“The charge, filed three months after the alleged customs violation, is clearly intended to make Kseniia look like a criminal to justify their efforts to deport her,” he said.
During an interview under oath, Petrova allegedly claimed to be unsure that she was required to declare biological material when entering the country, prosecutors said.
However, prosecutors said text messages on her phone from an individual identified as one of her colleagues informed her that she was required to declare the biological material.
They alleged that in response to one text message asking how she planned to get through customs with the biological samples, Petrova said: “No plan yet. I won’t be able to swallow them.”
* * *
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Petrova’s case has drawn criticism from Democrats, including Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, who filed an amicus brief on May 12 opposing the government’s efforts to dismiss her petition for release.
The brief states that Petrova had been conducting critical research on degenerative diseases at Harvard under a valid J-1 visa prior to her detention 10 weeks ago.
“Ms. Petrova’s case is not an isolated incident—this is just the latest example of the Trump Administration’s reckless and cruel misuse of power to punish and terrorize non-citizen members of the academic community,” Campbell said. “I will continue to fight to defend the rights of our international students and faculty, who meaningfully contribute to the academic and economic success of our communities.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said Petrova was recently employed by the Institute of Genetic Biology in Moscow from 2023 to 2024 and previously served as a bioinformatician of genetic disorders at the Moscow Center for Genetics from 2016 to 2023.
Harvard University said in a statement that it “continues to monitor the situation.”
The Epoch Times has contacted Petrova’s attorney for further comment.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 22:30By Eric Kulisch of FreightWaves
The Trump administration this week rolled back the duty for small-dollar shipments from China and Hong Kong as part of tariff deescalation with China, while a House committee advanced legislation to permanently end the duty-free “de minimis” exemption from all countries.
President Donald Trump’s executive order lowering new 145% tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% for 90 days represents a reprieve for popular Chinese shopping platforms and other e-tailers that ship parcels directly from the factory to individual shoppers. E-commerce orders and airfreight shipments plummeted after the U.S. government on May 2 rescinded duty-free treatment for low-value goods, subjecting them to the same duties imposed on all Chinese products.
Before then, U.S. trade law allowed an individual each day to import goods valued at $800 or less and use an informal entry process. The rule helped fuel cross-border shipping from Chinese shopping platforms direct to consumers. About two-thirds of all packages entering the country through the de minimis channel are from China.
The executive order also proactively lowered fees for low-value shipments from China sent through the international postal system. Postal shipments under $800 are now subject to a 54% tariff instead of 120%. Carriers can opt instead to pay $100 per postal item containing goods. Monday’s order canceled a June 1 increase to $200 for the flat fee.
The revised fees still present a significant cost increase, but the pause provides retailers time to adjust operations.
Logistics professionals say shipping rates could rise as businesses rush to order goods before the next deadline. Trade publication Modern Retail reported that fast-fashion retailer Shein on Wednesday announced price reductions for U.S. customers following the relaxation of de minimis rules on Chinese imports. Shein had raised prices and cut U.S. advertising after the change in de minimis rules sharply increased delivery costs.
The publication also said that Temu had resumed selling nondomestic items to U.S. customers.
Momentum builds to turn off de minimis
Congress a decade ago increased the de minimis ceiling from $200 to $800 as a way of helping small businesses with an online presence take advantage of international trade. But attitudes began to change when huge Chinese sellers like Temu, Shein and Alibaba flooded the trade facilitation program to minimize costs, putting a strain on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s ability to cross-check shipments for trade, consumer safety or security compliance.
Critics say the exemption creates a conduit for criminals to smuggle goods with little scrutiny, gives overseas merchants an advantage over retailers that source domestic products and results in billions of dollars in uncollected tariff revenue.
CBP last year processed an average of more than 4 million de minimis imports per day but says the minimal information supplied on the informal entry makes it difficult to identify and interdict illegal drugs such as fentanyl, as well as counterfeit products and other contraband. It also has found cases of importers misclassifying and undervaluing goods, and misdelivering goods before they are officially released from CBP custody.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in December recommended that Congress eliminate de minimis eligibility for imports sold through online marketplaces.
On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a massive tax bill, which includes Trump’s tax priorities and a provision that would permanently end de minimis for commercial shipments from all countries by July 1, 2027.
“As the bill makes its way through the legislative process, we strongly support a more aggressive timeline to implement a permanent ban on de minimis globally given its significant harm to manufacturers, retailers, and the fight against fentanyl and other illegal products. Express shippers have already transitioned to processing all Chinese imports through sophisticated logistics systems, demonstrating their ability to comply with the president’s executive orders and pivot quickly,” said Kim Glas, president of the National Council of Textile Organizations, in a statement.
Meanwhile, other efforts are in progress to curb the use of de minimis entries.
Customs and Border Protection is developing a new rule, proposed in the waning days of the Biden administration, that would require certain shippers to electronically submit additional data elements on low-value consignments prior to arrival and would remove de minimis eligibility for imports subject to certain tariffs.
The White House has said it plans to use emergency powers to delete the de minimis exception once systems are in place to collect duties from millions of parcels per day, including ones sent through postal channels.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 22:00Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
LAKE VILLAGE, Ark.—On a breezy day, sun and shadow dance across Mencer farms, turning it into a patchwork of green in the fertile Arkansas Delta.
It is humid here in the deep South, where the clock seems to run slower and the temperature hotter than in other places.
Joe Mencer, owner of Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
Lake Village is a small town sitting along Lake Chicot, an abandoned channel of the Mississippi River. Over thousands of years, flooding deposited rich alluvial soil, making it ideal for crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, and corn.
As a child, William Mencer’s grandfather handed him a cowboy hat and a garden hoe to dig up the pigweeds growing between the crop rows.
The 31-year-old farmer remembers spending long, sweltering days alongside the farmworkers, his hands growing rough and calloused with the effort.
“So I learned, you know, what it was like for these workers,” he told The Epoch Times.
He vowed to escape the sweat and toil of the fields by going to law school and working in an office. But the family farm drew him back like a love song.
Now he is partnering with his father, Joe Mencer, to keep the farm afloat with temporary agriculture workers through the H-2A visa program.
The fourth-generation family farm, which costs $4 million per year to operate, includes 6,000 acres that they own and lease.
While some may claim agriculture needs illegal immigrants to pick crops and work the fields, Joe Mencer told The Epoch Times that they’ve never had an illegal immigrant come looking for work.
They can’t get anyone local to work either, meaning that if they didn’t have the guest farm workers, they couldn’t stay in business.
What Is the H-2A Visa?It costs more to bring in temporary legal workers than it would if they could find enough people locally to work. But without temporary migrant workers, William Mencer said local farms would go bust, affecting the nation’s food security.
The process has become much more complex since the Mencers began using the guest worker program back in the 1980s.
So much so that the younger Mencer started a small law practice helping other farmers obtain the labor they sorely needed.
He also shares his knowledge with other farmers as a member of the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
The process of hiring workers through the program, sometimes called a guest worker program, starts early in the year for the Mencer family.
William Mencer, who works on his fourth-generation family farm, at Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025. He partners with his father to keep the farm running with the help of temporary agricultural workers through the H-2A visa program. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
The paperwork needs to be filed 60 to 75 days before their start date, which is mid- to late-February, he said.
It costs as much as $5,000 to bring in several guest workers from Mexico to the United States, he said, noting that the cost doesn’t include the housing and transportation provided to the workers.
Most return home in mid-December, but they are eligible to stay for up to three years in certain situations when agricultural work is available.
The program requires the Mencers to advertise their farm jobs locally before they can be given to guest workers.
Joe Mencer, 65, noted that the rules call for him to fire any foreign worker he’s brought over if an American shows up and wants the job.
Tangled in Red TapeThe process to petition for workers with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service is antiquated, with all communications taking place via mail, according to William Mencer.
The government does not offer online services, email, or a phone number. If there’s a problem, then the farm’s labor source is jeopardized because of the lack of communication, he said.
“Sometimes things get lost in the mail. You know, literally,” he said.
One of his client’s petition paperwork didn’t arrive in the mail. So they filed a claim for the lost package and resubmitted the paperwork.
This time, the paperwork made it to the Dallas office, but the postal carrier found the original package and shipped it, too.
With both petitions filed with the government, it almost took an act of Congress to clear it up.
The younger Mencer sent a letter explaining what happened with the evidence to the government officials, just like he would in court, but the office didn’t respond.
He enlisted the help of his congressman to clear things up. By the time it was all done, his client was behind by a month in getting guest workers.
It makes him wonder if the difficulty and red tape is “by design.”
Joe Mencer, owner of Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025. The Mencer family began using the H-2A visa program in the 1980s to bring in foreign workers. The program, often called the guest worker program, requires employers to first advertise farm jobs locally before hiring foreign labor. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times
The workers are so important that the Mencers keep them busy even when the weather is bad, although it doesn’t help their bottom line.
When there’s no field work, they cut firewood for use in the winter months.
Joe Mencer said he realized a few years back that his son’s law degree would be helpful on the farm, especially given the increasing complexity of the H2A visa program.
Guest Worker SuccessThe Mencers said their farm couldn’t operate without H-2A visa workers, although the labor cost is higher than using local workers.
Farmers’ margins are already slim because of increased production costs for fertilizer, herbicides, seed, and fuel.
José Mondragon, who started as an H-2A visa worker, is now a green-card holder. He has worked for the Mencer family for nearly 30 years.
Others, such as Gabino Mondragon (no relation to José Mondragon) are H-2A visa holders who have only been working at the farm for a few years.
José Mondragon lives with his wife in a little house on the farm surrounded by flowers and trees. The 57-year-old has deep roots in the land, even serving as a pallbearer when Joe Mencer’s father passed away.
In late April, he operated a self-driving orange Case Magnum row crop tractor, which plowed the earth between the corn rows to improve irrigation.
José Mondragon said he’s seen American workers quit after two or three months, long before the crops are harvested in the fall. The lack of local workers can open the door for temporary visa workers, which is good for everyone, he said.
“The people [are] asking us if we have some opportunities to come with my boss, and we say we will ask him,” he said.
José Mondragon said some people come to the United States illegally because they get into trouble with the law back home or to escape the cartels. Others come to make more money to help support their families in their native countries.
Workers from Mexico make $14.83 per hour on the Mencer farm as legal workers, with the wage set by the government for each state.
Green card holder Jose Delores Mondragon operates a tractor at Mencer Farms in Lake Village, Ark., on April 29, 2025.
José Mondragon said human smugglers, known as coyotes, charge people big money to cross the southern border illegally.
Gabino Mondragon has been working at the Mencer farm on a guest visa for two years. He is experienced at running a spreader for nitrogen fertilizer for corn. One truckload of fertilizer can cost $20,000, according to William Mencer, so having a skilled operator is critical.
Gabino Mondragon believes that more people in Mexico would like to apply for an H-2A visa. Still, if they are caught coming into America illegally, they won’t be eligible unless they get a waiver. It would depend on their record.
The Mencers brought Gabino Mondragon’s family over on an H-4 visa so they could live close by while he worked.
The H-4 nonimmigrant visa allows the spouse and unmarried children younger than 21 years of age to accompany the primary visa holder to the United States.
It’s also an excellent opportunity for Gabino Mondragon’s family because his children are going to school and learning English.
“If our people are happy, it just reinforces that it’s a good thing for everybody,” William Mencer said.
Hanging by a ThreadThe high cost of labor, diesel, and chemicals is making it extremely difficult for family farms to stay in business, according to William Mencer.
“We’ve been in four or five really bad years now,” he said.
Some farmers are faced with losing their farms to foreclosure by banks over crop production loans, finding a different line of work, or selling out.
Read the rest here...
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 21:30President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) have exposed widespread federal waste and mismanagement that Congress long ignored. Despite the existence of oversight bodies like the Government Accountability Office, it took an executive order to uncover billions of dollars in egregious federal waste.
DOGE's drive to cut waste and root out fraud in the bloated federal bureaucracy has already resulted in nearly 300,000 job cuts and an estimated $160 billion in savings. As detailed in our series of reports, DOGE's actions are delivering tangible results—helping to reduce the nation's overall funding requirements.
The debt-fueled spending spree under the Biden-Harris regime placed the nation on a crash course to financial ruin—but recent corrective actions by the Trump administration and DOGE, for now, have helped steer the trajectory away from a financial crisis.
Readers may recall some of those tangible DOGE-related results:
US Treasury Unexpectedly Reports Sharp Drop In Debt Borrowing Needs, Rates Slide
US Treasury Shocks With Second Biggest Budget Surplus In History
Jobless Claims Jumped Last Week As 'DOGE Actions' Spark Biggest YTD Layoffs Since 2020
Is DOGE Starting To Work? 'Deep TriState' Jobless Claims Surged Last Week
Some progresshttps://t.co/hNCBVYB4YV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2025
Everything outlined above points to a solid start for DOGE, which has already uncovered hundreds of billions in waste, fraud, and abuse. However, that progress could be undone unless Congress moves to lock in those spending cuts through the reconciliation bill.
DOGE has identified hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse, but unless Congress makes those spending cuts permanent through the reconciliation process, all that work will have been for nothing.@Paul_S_Mullen pic.twitter.com/7Y8j4T5ehJ
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) May 5, 2025
Another measure of DOGE's early success is the 20.5% reduction in non-defense federal obligations compared to 2024 levels—a decline that signals reduced future cash outlays as these obligations come due.
"Persistent government-wide contract reviews for wasteful spend, consistent with the DOGE Cost Efficiency Executive Order, are bearing fruit," DOGE's official X account wrote.
Adding to the visible signs of progress, Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius, along with analysts Alec Phillips and others, noted Thursday that cash withdrawals from the Treasury General Account across several federal agencies continue to fall below 2023 and 2024 levels—yet another encouraging sign of success.
Also, new monthly federal contract obligations have sharply slowed under DOGE after four years of large spikes under the Biden-Harris regime.
"Notably, new federal contracts data has undershot trend in recent months and stood at $18.2bn in April (compared to $31.1bn in April 2024). Total government grant awards remain stagnated at Inauguration Day levels," the analysts said.
More color here.
However, Hatzius and his team noted that year-to-date cash withdrawals from the Treasury General Account remain $123 billion above 2024 levels.
The early results of DOGE mark a shift in federal accountability. In just months, DOGE has uncovered hundreds of billions in waste, slashed nearly 300,000 federal jobs, and driven $160 billion in savings. Yet why did it take an executive order from the president to have a group take a deep dive into how federal agencies spend their money?
But this progress is not guaranteed. Without congressional action to lock in these cuts through reconciliation, the swamp remains open for the bureaucratic bloat to return. The message is clear: DOGE is working, but can only be sustained through political action.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 21:00Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned the US against assassinating President Ahmed al-Sharaa before the new Syrian leader met with President Donald Trump, a US senator said on Thursday.
The remarkable statement by a US senator reveals the deep hostility toward Sharaa in some circles of the Trump administration. It reaffirms Trump's own statements that he has been lobbied directly by foreign leaders to give Sharaa a chance, while his own advisors are skeptical.
"I have been concerned by some rumors that I have heard in…some foreign policy circles of the administration that one option that’s been suggested is assassinating the new leader of the Syrian government, Ahmed al-Sharaa," Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said in a Senate hearing on Thursday.
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, via AP
According to Shaheen, Jordan’s King Abdullah II heard about the alleged discussions to assassinate Sharaa and warned against it.
“One of the things that was pointed out to us by King Abdullah was that a change in leadership of that kind would create an all-out civil war in Syria. That would not be good to take advantage of the opportunity we have to move that country forward,” Shaheen said.
Shaheen met with King Abdullah in Washington, DC, in May, suggesting that those discussions may have taken place just before Trump cancelled sanctions on Syria and met Sharaa. Shaheen made the remarks during her questioning of Joel Rayburn, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of state for the Near East, the top Middle East position in the State Department.
The admission by Shaheen is remarkable, given the events of this week. Trump surprised his own senior officials and Israel by announcing he was lifting all sanctions on Syria. Trump then held a meeting with Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after the meeting, Trump showered praise on Sharaa, saying he was a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter”.
Asked to comment on the assassination "option", Rayburn replied, “I’m not familiar with efforts like that, but that's clearly not in line with the president's intention…or his description of Sharaa in the past couple of days.”
Blindsided
Trump’s decision to remove all US sanctions on Syria, going back to 1979, was met with thunderous applause in Riyadh, but has annoyed members of the US government. Some in the US State Department who have advocated for sanctions relief also felt sidelined.
It must have been a tense meeting yesterday in Damascus between HTS chief Jolani and the head of Iraqi intelligence. Especially for the Iraqi delegation a hard pill to swallow as Jolani before his time in Syria was in Iraq with Zarqawi blowing up Iraqis. pic.twitter.com/mojl2jTmEd
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) December 27, 2024
Just a few days before the announcement, the State Department’s Syrian advisors were briefing foreign counterparts that the Trump administration was set to keep sanctions on the new government in Damascus, one regional official told Middle East Eye.
Meanwhile, hardline members of Trump’s National Security Council have told counterparts privately that they would try to drag out the sanctions relief process to obtain concessions from Sharaa, one current and one former US official told MEE.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy warned on Thursday about members of Trump’s administration working to “undermine” his decision. Rayburn’s hearing was notable because he was seen as hard line on Syria when he served as envoy to the country during Trump’s first term in office.
“I support the President’s goals and his initiative as he laid out,” Rayburn said. “It offers a golden opportunity to turn the page…the president is taking a bold move…he has expectations.”
The White House says it wants Sharaa to expel Palestinian fighters and foreign fighters from Syria, and combat the Islamic State militant group. Trump also said he discussed Syria normalizing ties with Israel. "I told him, 'I hope you’re going to join when it’s straightened out.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ But they have a lot of work to do," Trump said, according to a White House pool report.
Sharaa was the commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, an Islamist group which toppled the decades-long Assad dynasty in December 2024. Sharaa participated in the Iraq insurgency after the US’s 2003 invasion and served time in a US prison. He once pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda.
The Biden administration removed a $10m bounty on Sharaa's head in early 2025, but he is still designated a "global terrorist". That designation is likely to be removed now, given Trump's order, experts say.
Sharaa’s closest foreign ally is Turkey, but his country has also been moving towards the Gulf states. On Tuesday, Trump told the world he was asked to remove sanctions and had two advocates to credit, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The UAE has been holding indirect talks between Israel and Syria to de-escalate tensions. Israel has been striking Syria for months and occupies a swath of southwestern Syria. The Trump administration lobbied Israel and Turkey to enter deconfliction talks in Syria earlier this year.
Ali al-Rifai, director of public relations in Syria's information ministry, was asked by Kan News after Trump’s announcment about the prospect of his country joining the Abraham Accords, the agreement curated by Trump in 2020 that saw a number of Arab countries recognise Israel. “Peace with everyone, without exception,” he responded.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 20:30Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
In 1856, 18-year-old chemist William Henry Perkin was experimenting with coal tar-derived compounds in a crude laboratory in his attic.
His teacher, August Wilhelm von Hofmann, had published a hypothesis on how it might be possible to make a prized malaria drug using chemicals from coal tar, and as his assistant, Perkin was hoping that he would be the one to discover it.
Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock
The experiment was a failure. Rather than the prized drug, Perkin created a thick brown sludge. However, when he went to wash out the beakers with alcohol, it left behind a bright purple residue.
The residue became the world’s first-ever mauve synthetic dye.
Before the invention of synthetic dyes, people obtained dyes through organic materials such as plants, clay, minerals, or certain animals such as insects and squid.
Natural dyes such as those from clay tended to fade quickly, and those that were long-lasting, such as natural indigo dyes, required an arduous extraction process that made them expensive.
However, Perkin’s mauve dye was stable and easy to make.
Mauve dye became an instant hit in the UK and globally. Consumers were seized by “mauve measles.” Everyone wanted a piece of it, including Queen Victoria, a fashion icon at the time who ordered mauve gowns, hats, and gloves.
Perkin’s discovery and commercial success prompted chemists in Europe to find more dyes in coal tar; magenta was discovered in 1858, methyl violet in 1861, and Bismarck brown in 1863.
Synthetic dyes would soon be added to everything—clothing, plastics, wood, and food.
The rapid innovation was not without consequences. Many dyes were found to be harmful within decades of discovery. More than a century later, the United States recently announced the removal of synthetic dyes from food.
Dyes in FoodFor centuries, people have colored food to make it appear more appealing. Butter, for example, is not always yellow. Depending on the cattle feed, breed, and period of lactation, the color of butter can fluctuate seasonally, from bright yellow in the summer to pale white in the winter.
“Dairy farmers colored butter with carrot juice and extracts of plant seeds, called annatto, to give them a uniform yellow all year round,” Ai Hisano, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo specializing in cultural and business history, wrote in the Business History Review.
Butter is made at a factory in a biological treatment plant in Albertville, France, on April 26, 2016 (L); Butter melts on toast. Jean-Pierre clatot/AFP via Getty Images, Scott Olson/Getty Images
Natural colors, unlike artificial ones, are susceptible to changing pH, temperature, and moisture. They can change in hue and intensity, and yellows can become pale.
The practice of mass coloring and striving for uniformity likely emerged as a result of industrialization in the late 19th century, when packaged and processed foods became widely available, according to Hisano.
“Mass production and industrialization required easier, more convenient ways of making food, and using coal-tar dyes was one of the solutions for creating more standardized food products,” Hisano told The Epoch Times.
Since packaged foods lose freshness, they may lose color or look less natural. So previously, some companies would add compounds such as potassium nitrate and sodium sulfites to products such as meats to preserve their color. These compounds were relatively harmless.
More lurid examples include toxic metals such as lead used to color cheese and candies. Copper arsenate was added to pickles and old tea to make them look green and fresh, and reports of deaths resulted from lead and copper adulteration.
Dye companies started producing synthetic food dyes in the 1870s. Food regulation began in the 1880s. The Bureau of Chemistry, a branch of the Agriculture Department that would later become the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), looked into food adulteration and modification.
Dairy products such as butter and cheese were the first foods authorized by the federal government for artificial coloring.
Just as synthetic food dyes are a prime target of current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, they weren’t popular with Bureau of Chemistry head Harvey Wiley, who wrote in 1907, “All such dyeing materials are reprehensible, both on account of the danger to health and deception.”
Despite Wiley’s criticisms, by the time his book “Foods and Their Adulteration” was written, practically all the butter on the market was artificially colored.
“The object of coloring butter is, undoubtedly, to make it appear in the eyes of the consumer better than it really is, and to this extent can only be regarded as an attempt to deceive,” Wiley wrote, arguing that if the cows were properly fed during winter, they would naturally produce butter of the appealing yellow shade.
“The natural tint of butter is as much more attractive than the artificial as any natural color is superior to the artificial.”
The FDAThe previous year, in 1906, Congress passed the Food and Drugs Act, prohibiting the use of poisonous or dangerous colors in food. The FDA was formed on the same day the bill was made into law.
After the prohibition, the FDA approved seven synthetic food dyes—most of which would be banned in the 1950s after new animal studies indicated their toxic effects.
However, the FDA has always given greater scrutiny to synthetic dyes than to natural ones. Synthetic food dyes must be given an FDA certification before they can be used, but there is no requirement for natural dyes. While the FDA regulates synthetic dyes as a food additive, natural dyes can be regulated as generally recognized as safe, which is a less stringent authorization procedure.
In 1938, new laws were passed requiring all food dyes, whether synthetic or natural, to be listed on product labels.
By the 1950s, as oil and gas replaced coal as the main sources of energy, food dyes were no longer made with coal tar derivatives; they were made with petroleum-based compounds instead.
These new petroleum-based food dyes are considered very similar in composition and chemistry to their earlier coal tar counterparts, food scientist Bryan Quoc Le told The Epoch Times.
“Petroleum is cheaper, safer, and available in greater quantities,” he said.
The use of synthetic food dyes has been steadily increasing every decade. Data based on FDA dye certification suggest that food dye consumption has increased fivefold since 1955.
A 2016 study estimated that more than 40 percent of grocery store products that were marketed to children contain artificial colors.
Many packaged snacks contain synthetic food dyes. Scott Olson/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Cancer Concern
By the time Wiley became the first head commissioner of the FDA, experts were in contention over which food dye was riskier than the other. Over the following decades, dyes that were initially approved were gradually whittled down to the six remaining dyes of today.
In 1950, many children fell ill after eating Halloween candy containing Orange No. 1, a synthetic food dye. Rep. James Delaney (D-N.Y.) began holding hearings that prompted the FDA to reevaluate all approved color additives.
The hearing also led to the passing of the Delaney Clause, which prohibits the FDA from approving any food additive that can cause cancer in either humans or animals.
Orange No. 1 and several other approved dyes were removed after evidence of animal carcinogenicity.
The Delaney Clause was what prompted the removal of Red No. 3 in January under the Trump administration.
Professor Lorne Hofseth, director of the Center for Colon Cancer Research and associate dean for research in the College of Pharmacy at the University of South Carolina, is one of the few researchers in the United States studying the health effects of synthetic food dyes.
These dyes are xenobiotics, which are substances that are foreign to the human body, and “anything foreign to your body will cause an immune reaction—it just will,” he told The Epoch Times.
“So if you’re consuming these synthetic food diets from childhood to your adulthood, over years and years and years and years, that’s going to cause a low-grade, chronic inflammation.”
Hofseth has tested the effects of food dyes by sprinkling red, yellow, and blue food dyes on cells in his laboratory and observed DNA damage. “DNA damage is intimately linked to carcinogenesis,” he said.
His research showed that mice exposed to Red No. 40 through a high-fat diet for 10 months developed dysbiosis—an unhealthy imbalance in gut microbes and inflammation indicative of damaged DNA in their gut cells.
“This evidence supports the hypothesis that Red 40 is a dangerous compound that dysregulates key players involved in the development of [early-onset colorectal cancer],” Hofseth and his colleagues wrote in a 2023 study published in Toxicology Reports.
The mechanism of how food dyes cause cancer remains to be elucidated.
Hofseth speculates that the biological effects of red and yellow dyes may be attributed to the fact that they are what’s known as azo dyes. The gut hosts bacteria that can break down azo compounds into bioactive compounds that may alter DNA. Hofseth said he believes that if these bioactive compounds impair the gut, they may also contribute to the behavioral problems reported in some children after consuming food dyes.
Behavioral ProblemsWhile the link between food dyes and cancer may remain elusive, the link between food dyes and behavioral problems in some children is much more accepted.
Rebecca Bevans, a professor of psychology at Western Nevada College, started looking into food dyes after her son became suicidal at the age of 7.
Read the rest here...
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 20:00Update: Listen to all five hours of the Hur-Biden interview below:
* * *
A segment of former President Joe Biden's October 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur just dropped, and boy is it rough.
Biden couldn't remember details such as when his son Beau died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected, and why he had classified documents in his possession that he shouldn't have had.
According to Axios, which released the recording, Biden frequently slurred words or muttered, and "appears to validate Hur's assertion that jurors in a trial likely would have viewed Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Listen:
Hur elected not to prosecute Biden for mishandling classified documents based partly on the former president's pea-soup brain - angering Republicans as Trump was facing his own charges of mishandling classified information.
It's also of course notable because the MSM insisted Biden was "sharp," and slammed Hur's assertions as politically motivated.
Tapper says here that the footage of Biden freezing on stage was not a "Cheap fake". Exact words.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 16, 2025
Okay so when he does he pull Brian Stelter on his show and ask him why he called it that, echoing the White house? When does the media pull Karine Jean-Pierre out of hiding and ask… https://t.co/D0JaXwKv65
The audio was from two three-hour sessions on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023 - which the Biden White House refused to release, arguing that they were protected "law enforcement materials," and that Republicans only sought to "chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes."
Let's go to the tape...
FLASHBACK: Karine Jean-Pierre attacked Robert Hur — refusing to release the transcript or audio, while claiming he had a partisan agenda to push. pic.twitter.com/DLdZXa4n3O
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 16, 2025
Ian Sams:
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 9, 2024
"To suggest that [Biden] couldn't remember when his son died is really out of bounds." pic.twitter.com/Roj31EBJyN
Don’t forget the way the press tried to dismiss Hur’s report. https://t.co/9Sd2NdVWuw
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) May 16, 2025
How long did Axios have this recording? Before the election?
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 19:47While wages in the U.S. have grown in recent years, many families are still feeling the squeeze of high inflation. Pay levels vary widely not just by profession, but also by geography.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, maps the average salary by U.S. state using the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of March 2025. The figures represent total private hourly earnings, not seasonally adjusted.
At the top of the list is Washington, DC, where workers earn an average of $52.89 per hour, far outpacing every state. This reflects the region’s concentration of high-paying jobs in government, law, and professional services.
Massachusetts comes in second at $42.50/hour, followed by Washington at $41.82, and California at $40.93. In common, these states are home to major tech, biotech, and finance hubs.
State/District Average hourly earnings District of Columbia $52.89 Massachusetts $42.50 Washington $41.82 California $40.93 Colorado $39.20 Connecticut $39.08 New York $38.71 Minnesota $38.25 New Jersey $37.98 Alaska $37.65 Hawaii $37.64 Oregon $36.58 Virginia $36.08 Rhode Island $36.01 Maryland $35.86 New Hampshire $35.55 Utah $35.18 Vermont $35.18 Illinois $35.02 Arizona $34.68 Texas $34.49 Florida $34.38 Wisconsin $34.26 North Dakota $34.18 Georgia $34.04 Idaho $34.03 North Carolina $33.59 Michigan $33.31 Ohio $33.24 Nebraska $32.77 Montana $32.73 Pennsylvania $32.66 Delaware $32.54 Missouri $32.45 Maine $32.22 Indiana $32.07 South Carolina $32.05 Nevada $31.72 Wyoming $31.59 Kansas $31.51 Alabama $31.24 South Dakota $31.16 Iowa $30.94 Tennessee $30.75 Oklahoma $30.65 Kentucky $30.18 Arkansas $29.95 West Virginia $29.86 New Mexico $29.19 Louisiana $29.17 Mississippi $28.25At the other end of the spectrum are Mississippi ($28.25) and Louisiana ($29.17)—the only two states with average wages below $30 per hour.
Northeastern states dominate the upper end of the scale, with Connecticut and New York joining Massachusetts above the $38/hour mark. In contrast, much of the South and Midwest sits closer to or below the national median. For example, Iowa ($30.94) and Indiana ($32.07) reflect more modest earnings common in the region.
When compared, the earnings gap between the highest (DC) and lowest (Mississippi) is more than $24 per hour. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour for workers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), though many states have set their own, often higher, minimum wage rates.
If you enjoyed this map, check out this map on Voronoi about the income needed to buy a home in every U.S. state.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 19:30Authored by Duggan Flanakin via RealClearEnergy,
The dream of humanity to imitate the forces that created their habitat has been alive for at least as far back as the time when humans with a single language decided to build a city with a tower that reached the heavens. For such a people, “nothing they plan will be impossible to them,” it is recorded.
For at least the same time frame, humanity has sought comfort through technology. While primitive heat producers like coal and wood are still used today, the discovery that petroleum, natural gas, and even moving water could generate a newly discovered phenomenon known as “electricity” transformed the industrial revolution into the modern era.
Not until the 1930s did German scientists build on Enrico Fermi’s discovery that neutrons could split atoms to recognize that splitting atoms would release significant energy – energy that could be used for both bombs and electricity generation. By the 1950s, scientists began building nuclear fission-based power plants that today provide about a tenth of the world’s electricity.
Scientists and engineers also began to envision the potential of nuclear fusion -- the reaction of light atomic nuclei powers the sun and the stars. Since that time, they have worked feverishly, but with little success, to replicate this energy-rich reaction using deuterium and tritium.
One group of scientists and engineers decided to try an alternative approach.
Founded in 1998, California-based TAE Technologies has been developing a reactor that runs on proton-boron aneutronic fusion – that is, a fusion reaction that fuses a hydrogen nucleus with non-radioactive boron-11 instead of fusing hydrogen isotopes of deuterium and tritium. Their goal is to develop commercial fusion power with the cleanest-possible environmental profile.
All efforts at fusion require chambers that can withstand temperatures of millions of degrees Celsius and immense pressure that are needed to fuse two isotopes together. To accomplish this requires huge amounts of energy – and until recently, more energy than the fusion produced.
Most fusion researchers, including those building the ITER project being built in France, rely on a donut-shaped tokamak reactor chamber, in which a stream of plasma must be held away from its walls by electromagnets for any energy to be produced. The tokamak design uses a toroidal magnetic field to contain the hydrogen plasma and keep it hot enough to ignite fusion.
Sadly, as with ITER, project costs have soared and timeframes have fallen by the wayside despite occasional breakthroughs. Over decades, tokamak designs became gigantic, with huge superconducting magnetic coils to generate containment fields; they also had huge, complex electromagnetic heating systems.
Spurred by the failures of wind and solar to fully satisfy the desire for “clean energy,” governments and private investors began investing heavily into fission and fusion projects. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, has tapped into a $60 million state fund intended to bolster both fission and fusion energy in atomic energy’s American birthplace.
New research at the University of Texas, in conjunction with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Type One Energy Group, uses symmetry theory to help engineers design magnetic confinement systems to reduce plasma leakage from tokamak magnetic fields.
The old method used for a stellarator reactor relied on perturbation theory. The new method, which relies on symmetry theory, is a game changer. It can also be used to identify holes in the tokamak magnetic field through which runaway electrons push through their surrounding walls and greatly reduce energy output.
The TAE Technology reactor is entirely different than any of the tokamak or stellarator fusion chambers. In 2017, the company introduced its fifth-generation reactor, named Norman, which was designed to keep plasma stable at 30 million C. Five years later the machine had proven capable of sustaining stable plasma at more than 75 million C.
That success enabled TAE to secure sufficient funding for its sixth-generation Copernicus reactor and to envision the birth of its commercial-ready Da Vinci reactor. But in between, TAE developed Norm.
Norm uses a different type of fusion reaction and a new reactor design that exclusively produces plasma using neutral beam injections. The TAE design dumps the toroidal field in favor of a linear magnetic field that is based on the “field-reversed configuration” (FRC) principle, a simpler, more efficient way to build a commercial reactor.
Instead of massive magnetic coils, FRC makes the plasma produce its own magnetic containment field. The process involves accelerating high-energy hydrogen ions and giving them a neutral charge, then injecting them as a beam into the plasma. That causes the beams to be re-ionized as the collision energy heats the plasma to set up internal toroidal currents.
Norm’s neutral beam injection system has cut the size, complexity, and cost, compared to that of Norman, by up to 50%. But not only is an FRC reactor smaller and less expensive to manufacture and operate, says TAE, it can also produce up to 100 times more fusion power output than a tokamak -- based on the same magnetic field strength and plasma volume.
The FRC reactor also can run on proton-boron aneutronic fusion, which, instead of producing a neutron it produces three alpha particles plus a lot of energy. The fewer neutrons also do less damage to the reactor; the energy being released as charged particles is easier to harness. Less shielding is required, and, perhaps best of all, boron-11 is relatively abundant and not radioactive.
So, while “Norm” may not be the final step in developing commercial fusion energy, TAE’s hope is that fusion energy will the “norm” as early as the mid-1930s. FRC technology has materially de-risked Copernicus, according to TAE CEO Michi Binderbauer.
If Norm is as advertised, it will accelerate the pathway to commercial hydrogen-boron fusion – a safe, clean, and virtually limitless energy source.
But is humanity ready for free energy to be the “norm?”
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 19:05Update (1715ET): President Trump took to TruthSocial to issue his brief but terse statement:
"THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!"
* * *
The Supreme Court ruled this afternoon to keep in place its block on President Trump's deportations of (alleged) Venezuelan gang members under a 1798 law historically used only in wartime after their ACLU lawyers said the government was set to remove the men without judicial review in violation of a prior order by the justices.
The Supreme Court has previously issued two orders stemming from those cases.
Justices agreed that the president could rely on the centuries-old wartime law to remove immigrants from the country - provided they first have an opportunity to challenge those claims in court - and then temporarily blocked the government from deporting another group of Venezuelans in Texas while their lawyers scrambled to challenge the allegations against them.
In his proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, Trump stated that “all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of [Tren de Aragua], are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.”
The 7-2 decision clarified an unusual order issued by the justices in the early hours of April 19 that hit pause on any government plans to deport people held in northern Texas.
The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Trump Administration in blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. However, the Court only did so based on the lack of notice (24 hours) afforded by the Administration. It did not rule on the legality of the use of the AEA...
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 16, 2025
Over the dissents of conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the justices in the latest unsigned decision slammed the Trump admin for only giving the detainees 24 hours to launch legal challenges.
“Notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster,” the court wrote in its unsigned opinion.
“But it is not optimal for this Court, far removed from the circumstances on the ground, to determine in the first instance the precise process necessary to satisfy the Constitution in this case. We remand the case to the Fifth Circuit for that purpose,” the opinion continued.
However, as The Hill reports, the justices declined the ACLU’s additional request to leapfrog the lower courts to immediately take up the issue of whether President Trump can invoke the rarely used law outside of wartime.
Instead, the case will return to the lower courts alongside a handful of other challenges being brought by the civil rights group around the country.
So it’s legal for a president to ship millions of illegal aliens into our country but it’s illegal to send them home?
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) May 16, 2025
The system is broken. The Supreme Court failed us.
Whose country is this anymore?
The issue could ultimately return to the justices, who directed the lower courts to act “expeditiously.”
Now, we all anxiously await President Trump's response to this decision...
Authored by Emma Suttie via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Bees are dying—and at an alarming rate.
Between 2023 and 2024, US beekeepers lost an estimated 55.1 percent of their colonies—the worst loss in more than a decade and nearly 15 percent higher than the previous 13-year average.
Lisa Schaetzle/Getty Images
Bees pollinate three-quarters of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we eat, and many of us rely on bee products for their nutrition and health-promoting gifts. If bees vanish, it’s scary to think of all we stand to lose. And some say that if the bees go, we go too.
Jeff Pettis, president of Apimondia—The International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations—sums up the health benefits that bees offer humans in one word: huge.
Although two-thirds of our diet comes from carbohydrates—crops like rice, wheat, and corn—which are pollinated by wind rather than insects, many other important foods require bees.
“So we’re not going to starve if we don’t have bees. But literally, everything you can think of that’s nutritious—fruits, nuts, and vegetables—all of those are, we'll call it, animal-pollinated. The vast majority of those are pollinated by honey bees or other wild bees,” he told The Epoch Times.
Bees PollinateRyan Burris is a third-generation beekeeper and the president of the California State Beekeepers Association. He points out that many people don’t realize how many fruits and vegetables we eat depend on bees for pollination.
“The biggest one, obviously, for beekeepers, is almonds. And then you have things like blueberries, watermelons, and stuff you don’t think about, like onions and carrots—all require pollination. There’s an estimated 100 crops that require pollination,” he told the Epoch Times.
Twenty thousand species of bees grace our planet, and 4000 species are native to the United States. Bees are some of our most well-known and beloved pollinators. One in every three bites of food you eat depends on pollinators to produce, and bees pollinate one in every four bites.
Beyond their critical role as pollinators, bees also gift us powerful products like honey, bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly—each packed with nutritional and medicinal benefits.
HoneyThe Ancient Egyptians may have been the world’s first beekeepers. They crafted clay hives and transported them on rafts along the Nile, allowing bees to pollinate whatever flowers were in season. Bees were deeply revered, and honey was considered sacred.
Throughout history, honey has played many roles—it was used in religious rituals, medicine, currency, and offerings to the gods. When archaeologists uncovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb, they found a sealed jar of honey more than 2,000 years old. Because honey doesn’t spoil, it was still safe to eat.
Honey offers a treasure trove of healing properties. It soothes a cough, benefits digestion and oral health, treats constipation and diarrhea, protects the heart, and has anticancer properties—in addition to being antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, and a powerful antioxidant.
Jana Schmidt is a board-certified naturopathic doctor and master herbalist who keeps bees. She says not all honey is created equal, and knowing where your honey comes from is crucial, as many store-bought varieties are synthetically made or artificial. If you want the good stuff, go for raw, local honey—ideally straight from a beekeeper.
“Darker varieties have higher antioxidants than the lighter varieties,” she noted, saying bees make the darker types in the winter months when it’s cold, and they need more nutrition—which is passed to us when we eat it.
She says that honey added to tea before bed can help you sleep—something she did for her children when they were little.
“It helps regulate your sleep, but it also protects the teeth from the bacteria that causes cavities, which seems crazy because it’s sweet. You think, oh, that’s going to cause cavities, but actually, it protects the teeth,” she told The Epoch Times.
Studies have found that honey’s antibacterial properties fight harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli. In addition, honey has been studied for its potential benefits against cancer—including breast, liver, and colorectal cancers, where it has shown cytotoxic effects on cancer cells, the ability to inhibit cancer cell growth, and prevent the formation of new blood vessels that tumors need to grow.
Raw honey is a potential source of Clostridium botulinum spores, which can cause botulism—especially in babies. Therefore, it’s generally recommended that infants under one year of age should not be fed raw honey.
Bees are prolific producers of a diverse array of products with numerous potential health benefits, according to experts.
Bee PollenHoneybees collect pollen from flowers and mix it with their saliva, which contains special enzymes. They then store it in comb cells inside their hives. Once the pollen is stored and processed in the hive, it is called beebread, or ambrosia—a vital food for the bees—containing proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals they need. When beebread is stored, it undergoes a natural fermentation process, which preserves it and makes its nutrients easier to absorb.
Bee pollen. hanif66/Shutterstock
“To me, it’s God’s perfect multivitamin because it has every vitamin and mineral known for human nutrition. It has approximately 96 different nutrients and bioavailable energy. It’s antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and the most digestible protein per ounce than anything else out there,” Schmidt said.
Bee pollen offers a source of sustained energy throughout the day and not a spike like you might get from sugar or caffeine, she said.
“I don’t drink coffee or anything like that. I just take my bee pollen in the morning, and I’m good to go,” she beamed.
There is growing scientific interest in bee pollen, particularly because of its antimicrobial properties, which can fight a wide variety of pathogens, including bacteria and fungi. This ability is notable because some bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Bee pollen (beebread) seems able to fight microbes without creating resistance, which some scientists believe is because it contains several different natural compounds that work synergistically. Bee pollen also supports the body’s good bacteria, benefiting healthy gut microbes—behaving like a prebiotic.
Schmidt adds that as a natural fertility specialist, bee pollen is her number one fertility supplement.
“If you think about it, it’s the fertility for the plants. Why wouldn’t it be fertility for us, too? So sometimes that’s all it takes. The couple start taking bee pollen, and bam, they’re fertile. So that’s been pretty fun to be a part of.”
Studies have found that bee pollen has other wide-ranging medicinal benefits to humans, including:
“It takes bees working eight hours a day, two to four weeks, to gather one teaspoon of pollen, Schmidt said. They work so hard. They visit over 2 million flowers to get one teaspoon of pollen. It’s pretty amazing.”
PropolisPropolis, also known as “bee glue,” is a resinous substance bees gather from different types of plants. Bees use it as a type of construction material for the hive. It seals holes and cracks, improves structural integrity, smooths the inner surface of the hive, maintains a constant internal temperature of 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and protects the hive from the elements, predators, and pathogens. Once hardened, it helps create an antiseptic internal environment.
Bee propolis. Ihor Hvozdetskyi/Shutterstock
Schmidt offers a long list of propolis’s benefits, particularly to the brain. These include reducing inflammation in the brain and oxidative stress, helping reduce the toxic effects of methylmercury—a highly toxic form of mercury—and aluminum in the brain, increasing synaptic efficiency, and protecting against neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment.
She adds that it is a great prebiotic and excellent for gut health.
“Anytime there’s an infection, and you’re not quite sure what it is, I usually go to propolis—it just boosts your immune system like nothing else I’ve ever used,” she said.
Studies have revealed that this amazing substance has many applications for human health and has the following medicinal properties:
Studies in humans and animals have shown propolis to possess powerful healing properties beneficial in multiple acute and chronic diseases—from autoimmune diseases like Type 2 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and COVID-19.
In a 2021 randomized, controlled clinical trial, 124 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 were split into three groups. Two groups received Brazilian green propolis—400 or 800 milligrams daily—in addition to regular treatment—while the third group did not receive propolis.
The researchers found that patients who received propolis were released from the hospital five to six days sooner, and those who received 800 mg of daily propolis had less kidney damage associated with COVID-19. Thus, the study authors concluded that propolis is a safe and effective adjunct treatment for patients with COVID-19.
Royal JellyHumans have used royal jelly as a powerful medicine for millennia. It is extremely popular and highly regarded in Chinese medicine—in ancient times and today. Royal jelly is an overall tonic that promotes the robust development of bones, teeth, and the brain. It also helps boost fertility for women and soothe the symptoms of menopause.
Royal jelly. Bin Zhu/Shutterstock
Royal jelly is a white milky substance secreted by worker bees to feed the queen bee larvae. Worker bee larvae get a different type—called worker jelly that contains fewer nutrients. According to one study, the higher quality royal jelly fed to the queen allows her to live a long life (up to five years) and lay 2,500 eggs daily. In comparison, worker bees only live about 45 days and, although female, do not reproduce.
Rich in proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals, royal jelly is a vital food source for bees. Today, humans use it as a dietary supplement, medicine, and ingredient in cosmetic and skincare products.
Studies have shown royal jelly to have the following medicinal properties:
Despite its medicinal benefits, Schmidt says that she does not recommend royal jelly because of how it is harvested, as it hurts the bees and the hive only to collect a tiny amount.
“I just don’t like the practice overall ... I feel like it takes it a step beyond what we should be doing to live well with the bees,” she said.
A 2023 study investigated the effect of royal jelly on liver enzymes and glycemic indices. The researchers found that royal jelly did not significantly affect adults’ glycemic profile or liver function. However, in trials with a longer duration of 8 or more weeks, and those conducted in “non-healthy” populations, there was a significant reduction in serum fasting blood glucose —a measurement of glucose in the blood after fasting. Higher fasting blood glucose levels are a characteristic sign of both prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes.
Why Bees Are DyingWe have all heard about the alarming decline in bee numbers in recent years.
Pettis says the reasons that bees are dying is such huge numbers are multifaceted and complex.
The first, he says, is that bees are losing their natural habitat. A significant reason for this is the rise of monoculture—when farmers plant only one kind of crop in their fields. This lack of diversity limits the flowers available for bees, making it harder for them to get all the nutrients they need to stay healthy and thrive.
“Roundup Ready crops, like corn, soybeans, all these—they create very sterile fields so there are no weeds—and a lot of those weeds are really good for bees,” he said.
Pettis says the second reason is pesticide exposure and the third is pests and diseases affecting bees. He says they all combine in different ways to affect bees and reduce their numbers, making beekeeping more challenging.
“We’ve had a number of exotic things come into the U.S.—two parasitic mites, and then the beetle from Africa, and now we have some invasive hornets coming in from Asia. It’s just one thing after another,” he said.
“It’s really hard to survive when you have all these stressors lining up, one right behind the other.”
Some readers may be wondering about colony collapse disorder.
“I was actually very involved in colony collapse disorder, which is now 20 years old, and we never came up with a single definitive thing. It was just a combination of things that were killing managed honeybees,” Pettis said.
Mites, particularly the varroa mite—which is aptly named Varroa destructor—have become an enormous challenge for beekeepers.
“The varroa mite—Varroa destructor—is the main killer of honey bees because they feed on the bee as it’s growing,” Burris said.
These tiny parasitic mites feed on bee fat and blood, which bees need for energy and a healthy immune system. They also spread viruses, particularly the deformed wing virus, which causes bees to be born with shriveled wings that will never fly.
Burris adds that federal and state regulators do not want honeybees on public lands as they fear they may hurt native pollinators, though he notes they don’t have evidence to support those concerns.
He says they’re arguing about food supply and demand problems without considering that native pollinators and honey bees have different feeding habits.
“They’re not taking into account the size of the honeybee, the size of a native pollinator, the size of their tongues, and how they extract nectar—how they obtain pollen,” he said.
Pesticides, which include insecticides and herbicides, are also detrimental to bees.
“Roundup and other weed killers that contain glyphosate are incredibly harmful to our bodies, but also the bees,” Schmidt said.
A relatively recent class of insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics, are the world’s most widely used insecticides and possibly one of the most deadly. They work by making every part of the treated plant toxic while poisoning the soil, surrounding water, and wildlife. They affect the bees’ nervous system, interfering with their ability to learn, remember, and navigate, meaning many exposed bees can’t find their way back to the hive and eventually die.
Since their introduction in the last two decades, neonicotinoids’ widespread use has made U.S. agriculture increasingly destructive to insect life. Neonicotinoids are responsible for 92 percent of this increase in danger to insects.
These deadly insecticides don’t just kill bees. Neonics are linked to losses of birds and fish and birth defects in white-tailed deer. Increasing evidence has also shown that neonics affect human health, especially children. One study found neonics in the urine of half of children 3 to 5 years old, and a 2020 Swiss study found neonics in every sample of plasma and spinal fluid of children receiving treatment for leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
How We Can Help BeesThankfully, there are things we can all do to help bees and support these essential pollinators.
Schmidt reveres the tiny pollinators that provide us with so much.
“You know, we use the term beekeeping, but I really feel like they keep us—like they know what to do, we just need to provide a nice habitat for them, and they do all the work—they just give and give.”
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 18:40Bt Stuart Chirls of Freightwaves
Hapag-Lloyd saw container bookings from China to the United States jump by 50% following the break in the tariff battle between the trading partners.
In comments during an earnings call, Chief Executive Rolf Habben Jansen explained that while recent bookings were down 20%-30%, there has been “a surge of over 50% in recent days,” though he noted the difficulty in predicting exact growth patterns.
“We expect capacity to return fairly swiftly. We have deployed smaller ships instead of doing blanks [canceled sailings], and we will reverse that soon. Within the next couple of weeks, we will deploy bigger ships again, and others may also increase capacity as the quarter progresses.”
The CEO also confirmed that upsizing vessels can be accomplished without significant disruption due to the simplified Gemini network with Maersk, and that it “won’t materially change overall costs,” with no current issues regarding mispositioning of containers.
Profit increased 45% to $469 million on revenue that was up 15% year over year to $5.3 billion in the first quarter, driven by a 9% increase in liner shipping volumes, marking the highest year-on-year growth in several years.
Liner shipping saw revenues of $5.2 billion on volume of 3.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units and an average freight rate of $1,480 per TEU, both of which were 9% higher y/y on strong demand. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose by 18%, to $1.1 billion, and earnings before interest and taxes were up by 25%, to $472 million.
The successful launch of the Gemini network saw schedule reliability of 90%, a remarkable figure in an industry that is usually around 65%.
The carrier faced operational challenges during the quarter, including ongoing rerouting of ships away from the Red Sea and around the Cape of Good Hope, as well as disruptions at various ports. These challenges increased operational costs and impacted efficiency but were effectively managed to minimize adverse effects on overall performance.
Tyler Durden Fri, 05/16/2025 - 18:15
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