President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon signed an executive order stopping federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research in high-risk countries like China and Iran, as well as in nations with insufficient research oversight. Joined in the Oval Office by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Institutes of Health official Jay Bhattacharya, Trump underscored his commitment to protecting America’s public health and national security.

The order equips U.S. research agencies to identify and terminate funding for biological research—both ongoing and future—that could threaten public safety or national security. It specifically targets federally funded studies abroad that risk triggering another pandemic, focusing on gain-of-function experiments like those conducted on bat coronaviruses by the EcoHealth Alliance and China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The measure also seeks to shield Americans from lab accidents and biosecurity incidents, such as those believed to have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1977 Russian flu. 

“It’s a big deal,” Trump said of the order. “It could have been that we wouldn’t have had the problem we had.”

Kennedy Jr., who emerged during the pandemic as one of the most vocal critics of vaccination mandates and forced lockdowns, celebrated the order, declaring, “In all of the history of Gain-of-Function research, we cannot point to a single good thing that has come of it."

.@SecKennedy tells the story of how America came to fund Gain-of-Function research in Wuhan: "In all of the history of Gain-of-Function research, we cannot point to a single good thing that has come of it." pic.twitter.com/D3mgDNYRyP

Bhattacharya also praised the order, noting that many scientists believe that dangerous gain-of-function research is “responsible for the COVID pandemic.”

"This is a historic day,” Bhattacharya said. “This proclamation makes it so that—most science is possess no threat to human populations—but the fraction of research that has the risk of causing a pandemic and harming every single person on the face of the earth, this executive order puts in place a framework to make sure the public has a say that if such risk is being taken, only scientists alone won’t be able to decide that.”

.@NIHDirector_Jay: "This is a historic day. The conduct of this dangerous gain-of-function research... many scientists believe is responsible for the COVID Pandemic." https://t.co/0INpPRQFBO pic.twitter.com/LwpcGP7KpZ

Back in 2014, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funneled a $3.7 million grant through EcoHealth, with nearly $600,000 sent to WIV for bat coronavirus studies—research many Republicans slam as dangerous gain-of-function experiments that could have sparked the pandemic. 

Last month, the Trump White House unveiled a revamped COVID-19 website on titled "Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19," replacing the previous COVID.gov site that provided public health resources. The new site strongly endorses the lab leak theory, asserting that the SARS-CoV-2 virus likely originated from a laboratory incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, involving gain-of-function research.

In the final days of his presidency, President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon of Fauci—shielding him from potential prosecution over allegations he misled Congress about the research. 

Authored by Rex Widerstrom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In a result that mirrors that of the recent Canadian election, the Australian centre-right opposition has lost the election, and its leader, Peter Dutton, has lost his own seat.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gestures with his partner Jodie Haydon and son Nathan after winning the general election at the Labor Party election night event in Sydney, Australia on May 3, 2025. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

With over 80 percent of first preference votes counted, the Australian Labor Party (ALP), which had endured declining popularity over the last year, is leading in 77 electorates and narrowly ahead in another 4.

The Liberal-National Coalition leads in just 29 and is running a close race in another 10. Independents are ahead in 9, and may take one more.

For Australia, this will be the first time a prime minister has won a second term since 1998.

All 150 seats in the House of Representatives were on the line, and 40 of 76 Senate seats.

Widely predicted to be a tightly contested race, with cost-of-living pressures, affordable housing, and energy policy dominating the campaign, the ALP managed to turn around its fortunes in the last few months.

The ALP is projected to win 86 seats in total, up from the 77 it held at the previous election. To form government a party needs to win 76 seats.

The Coalition will be cut from 58 seats to just 40, and another 10 will go to independents (including the “Teals”), and none to the Greens.

However, there’s as yet no results from Western Australian (WA) seats as the polls closed later than on the east coast due to the time difference. However, WA at present is very much a red state and has re-elected a string of state ALP governments, so is likely to cement Labor’s national victory.

Australia is unique with its preferential voting system—different from a “first past the post system”—where voters can pick multiple parties on the ballot paper, and these votes can be redistributed to other candidates. Further, the country has compulsory voting, which changes the nature of campaigning with a sizeable portion of voters often less engaged with politics.

Labor Sweeps Marginal Seats Too

Labor has also held every one of its marginals, while winning most of the marginal seats previously held by the Coalition: Deakin, Bennelong, Sturt, Bass, Banks, Leichhardt, and Petrie.

The scale of the victory is illustrated by the seat of Bennelong, once a blue-ribbon Liberal stronghold represented by former Prime Minister John Howard, redistribution turned it into the most marginal of Labor seats, held until now by Jerome Laxale with a margin of just 0.04 percent.

But Laxale recorded a huge swing of 10.3 percent against the Liberal Party’s Scott Yung, turning blue to a deep red despite the Liberal Party pouring huge resources into trying to take the seat.

It’s also evident in Hughes, a seat the Labor Party hasn’t held for almost 30 years. There, the ALP’s David Moncrieff is expected to defeat the 8.9 percent margin of the Liberals’ Jenny Ware.

Such was the rejection of the opposition that in the traditionally conservative rural heartland seat of Calare, deserting his party and standing against them—often frowned upon by voters tired of internal politicking—didn’t affect newly minted independent Andrew Gee. He managed to defeat his replacement as Nationals’ candidate, Sam Farraway, with a 23.2 percent swing.

Results of that magnitude are being repeated across the country, with a national swing toward the ALP of at least 4 percent.

The only state in which the Coalition has done better than Labor is its stronghold of Queensland, where so far it’s taken 14 seats to the ALP’s 11. It’s done particularly poorly in Victoria, winning just 6 to Labor’s 22, a critical state where it hoped to pick up a few suburban seats.

Opposition Leader Loses His Seat

The most painful defeat of the Liberal-Nationals, though, must be Dutton’s seat of Dickson, which has gone to the ALP’s Ali France with a 9.3 percent swing. A situation mirrored in Canada with the defeat of Pierre Poilievre.

Dutton was challenged by a concerted campaign from Labor, but also a Teal independent.

With most people, including pollsters and politicians, predicting a close race, albeit with Labor slightly ahead and likely to form a minority government, the result was unexpected. While the final results will change once early votes and those from Western Australia are counted, it’s clear Labor will have a majority in Parliament.

And if support for the party is reflected in voting for the Senate—the results of which may not be known for as long as a month from now—then it may not have to cut deals with independents and minor parties to pursue its legislative agenda.

Falling at the Final Hurdle

The Coalition had polled well over the last year, gaining ground on the Labor government to the point where it was predicted to be a chance to even win minority government—a result that would have been historic because no party has lost government in just one term since 1931.

However, from the beginning of this year and when the election campaign officially began early last month, the Coalition began to falter, particularly with its decision to backflip or walk-back on several signature policies including a pledge to cut 41,000 public servants, forcing government workers back to the office, and even avoiding overt promotion of its civilian nuclear energy policy.

Many of these decisions came amid media and Labor Party scrutiny, and were also linked to concerted efforts to distance the centre-right party from the Make American Great Again movement. In fact, in one instance, Senator Jacinta Price walked-back the comment: “Make Australia Great Again.”

Australia's Opposition Leader Peter Dutton stands with his family as he concedes defeat in the general election at the Liberal Party election night event in Brisbane, Australia, on May 3, 2025. Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images

State of Play for the Minor Parties, Independents

The Teal independents, backed by Climate 200, have held their seats, mostly with increased margins, but voters seem to have decided that the Greens aren’t needed in the lower house, losing the seats of Griffith and Brisbane (where their sitting MP came third) though, as at the time of writing, ahead in their last remaining seat of Ryan against a 5.91 percent swing to Labor.

The party may, however, retain its influence over Labor’s direction if it can hold its 12 Senate seats.

The Teals have been promoted as independent candidates to appeal to affluent, white-collar voters keen for more climate change action, and transparency in government. At the same time, their preferences will often flow to Labor as well.

Meanwhile, the suburban independent Dai Le—a former Liberal candidate—appears to have held her seat of Fowler, which had a 1.1 percent margin, with a 0.3 percent swing.

The Liberal Party, which is now faced with finding a new leader before Parliament resumes, faces the prospect of several terms in the political wilderness unless it can rebuild its structure and platform over the next three years and convince the electorate that it’s a viable alternative government.

Harvard University will no longer be eligible for government grants, the White House informed the acclaimed scandal-plagued, institution on May 5. Trump's Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on Monday night to inform the university that it is not eligible for federal grants until it makes significant changes to its management, the official said.

Dear @Harvard: pic.twitter.com/XmMimXfkX0

The letter cites low public confidence in higher education, Harvard’s continued racial profiling, and takes issue with the virtually untaxed status of Harvard’s significant financial endowment.

"Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans", McMahon wrote, before advising the university to no longer seek Federal grants, "since none will be provided."

"The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided. Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni. You have an approximately $53 Billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact that you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise."

On Friday, President Trump threatened to go after Harvard’s tax-exempt status: “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he wrote in a social media post.

Two weeks earlier, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing its freeze on research funding is unconstitutional and “flatly unlawful” and called on the court to restore more than $2.2 billion in research dollars.

Earlier this year, the Department of Education sent Harvard a list of demands, including combating anti-Semitism on campus and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, that the university needed to fulfill or risk losing billions in federal funding, the Epoch Times reported

In its response, Harvard said it was “not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

The Trump administration then froze $2.26 billion from the university, with nearly $9 billion in funding set aside for Harvard put under review.

The administration had also pushed for Harvard to disclose information about potential foreign ties, with the Department of Homeland Security threatening to remove the university’s ability to enroll foreign students.

Weeks later, Harvard released two reports describing how Jewish, Israeli, Zionist, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian students all reported feeling marginalized or targeted over their identities and views after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the campus protests that followed.

“Especially disturbing is the reported willingness of some students to treat each other with disdain rather than sympathy, eager to criticize and ostracize, particularly when afforded the anonymity and distance that social media provides,” Garber wrote in a letter to the campus community.

Trump suggested on April 30 that his administration would no longer give government grants to Harvard if it did not agree to fulfill his demands to eliminate DEI and combat on-campus anti-Semitism.

“A grant is at our discretion, and they are really not behaving well. So it’s too bad,” Trump said.

Harvard has sued the administration to unfreeze its funds, and Garber said on Friday that it would be “highly illegal” for Trump to compel the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status.

“If the government goes through with a plan to revoke our tax-exempt status, it would … be highly illegal unless there is some reasoning that we have not been exposed to that would justify this dramatic move,” Garber told The Wall Street Journal.

“The message that it sends to the educational community would be a very dire one, which suggests that political disagreements could be used as a basis to pose what might be an existential threat to so many educational institutions.”

On Monday, the White House official announcing McMahon’s letter took issue with recent Harvard data showing that less than 3 percent of surveyed faculty identify as conservative, and suggested the school could do more to bring diverse viewpoints to campus.

The official also accused the university of abandoning rigor and academic excellence, citing a plagiarism scandal involving former Harvard President Claudine Gay. All future funds to the university will be at the Trump administration’s discretion, the official said.

Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClearEducation,

In the high-stakes clash between the Trump administration and Harvard – fraught with peril for the White House, for America’s oldest and most famous university, and for higher education in America – both sides have hardened their stances. In an April 11 letter, the Trump administration demanded supervision over reform of the university’s admissions, hiring, curriculum, and internal governance. In an April 14 email to the Harvard community, President Alan Garber rejected White House demands. The Trump administration promptly froze more than $2 billion in federal grants to Harvard and $60 million in contracts, and threatened to eliminate the university’s tax-exempt status. On April 21, Harvard sued several Trump administration officials.

Conservatives, who have been sounding the alarm about higher education’s failings for decades, have divided over how best the Trump administration should hold Harvard accountable.

On the one hand, the federal government has considerable leverage: It provides Harvard more than $500 million annually with billions in the pipeline. On the other hand, the Trump administration must respect constitutional and statutory limits on executive power. Political prudence dictates, moreover, that the president and his team consider that a sizeable majority of the public opposes increasing the federal government’s oversight of universities and that the federal government is ill-suited to the task.

Best for both sides would be a negotiated settlement. The settlement should minimize the federal government’s role in managing Harvard while ensuring that the university obeys civil-rights law, curbs progressive indoctrination, and bolsters traditional liberal education.

Harvard precipitated the crisis. The proximate cause of the Trump administration’s drastic intervention was the university’s violation of civil-rights law by indulging antisemitism and discriminating based on race.

Harvard’s indulgence of antisemitism stands in marked contrast to the alacrity with which it has protected non-Jewish minorities and women. For decades, Harvard has been narrowing the boundaries of permissible campus speech to shield students – particularly favored minorities and women – from supposedly offensive utterances, the offense of which often consists in departure from progressive orthodoxy. Yet following Iran-backed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, former Harvard President Claudine Gay discovered that campus free speech is wide and flexible enough to sometimes protect calling for the genocide of the Jews. Furthermore, as the university has acknowledged, it has harbored antisemitism and has been slow and ineffective in responding to campus antisemitism’s post-Oct. 7 surge.

In addition, for decades Harvard discriminated based on race. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023), the Supreme Court held that the university’s race-conscious admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Yet despite losing in the highest court of the land, Harvard maintained DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs that classified, and doled out and withheld, benefits based on race.

Beyond the proximate cause of the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to reshape Harvard lies the longstanding cause. For decades, Harvard has betrayed liberal education. It has offered undergraduates a shambolic curriculum: Instead of concentrating on the essentials of an education for freedom – the American experiment in ordered liberty, the defining events and seminal ideas of Western civilization, and basic knowledge of non-Western civilizations – professors lard the curriculum with courses revolving around their arcane research interests. And for decades, Harvard has politicized the humanities and social sciences, promoting a progressive – and often radical – ideology that puts advocacy for left-wing social change ahead of understanding the basics of ethics, economics, culture, society, and politics.

Harvard’s hospitability to antisemitism and its race-conscious policies justified aggressive White House measures to compel the university to abide by its legal obligations or lose federal financial support. The university’s decades-long debasement of liberal education magnified the White House’s sense of urgency. But Trump administration remedies adopt a cavalier attitude toward the law and overlook the federal government’s limited competence.

The week before Harvard filed its lawsuit, City Journal published essays by Manhattan Institute senior fellows Heather MacDonald and Christopher Rufo assessing Trump administration endeavors to reform Harvard. While agreeing that reform was vital, the two eminent commentators on higher education differed over the government’s tactics.

A searing critic of universities’ war on free speech and discrimination disguised as diversity, MacDonald nonetheless worries in “The White House’s Clumsy Attack on Harvard” that the Trump team has overreached. “The administration calls for oversight of faculty hiring to ensure ‘viewpoint diversity,’ though the legal basis for such authority is unclear,” writes MacDonald. “Its demand for a ‘critical mass’ of intellectually diverse faculty is either a wry joke or unintentionally ironic. After all, the notion of a ‘critical mass’ of ‘diverse’ students was one of the flimsy concepts the Supreme Court used for decades to justify racial admissions preferences.”

In contrast, Rufo wants to fight fire with fire. In “The Right Is Winning the Battle Over Higher Education,” he argues that the left transformed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into “a vehicle for entrenching left-wing racialist ideology throughout American institutions.” Now, maintains Rufo, the right must use civil-rights law to achieve its original purpose – to establish “a framework grounded in colorblind equality.” He insists that “racial discrimination is wrong whether it targets whites, Asians, and Jews or blacks and Hispanics.” And he urges the Trump administration to “use every tool at its disposal to ensure that America’s elite universities adhere to the principle of colorblind equality.” But Rufo overlooks the Trump administration’s proclivity to reach for constitutionally and congressionally prohibited tools, and its penchant for unwisely, if lawfully, extending federal authority.

Meanwhile, Harvard’s lawsuit argues that the Trump administration overreached in the legal sphere.

Harvard’s first major allegation might be a close call. According to the university, the government’s freezing of funds and demanding of sweeping reforms of admissions, hiring, curriculum, and internal governance unconstitutionally burden Harvard’s free-speech rights. The Trump administration will probably argue that its demands do not impair Harvard’s speech but rather give the university a choice. Harvard can say what it likes and do as it pleases and, consequently, lose federal funding, to which there is no constitutional entitlement. Or Harvard can adopt measures that would make the university worthy of taxpayer dollars.

Harvard is likely to prevail on the second major allegation, which is that the Trump administration disregarded the congressionally established procedures for withholding approved federal funds. The facts are clear: The Trump administration froze federal funding for Harvard without taking the statutorily prescribed steps for suspending or terminating signed contracts and approved grants.

A court battle would bloody both parties.

Needed, therefore, is an out-of-court settlement. In dealing with the proximate cause of the showdown, a reasonable settlement should ensure that Harvard abides by civil-rights law and that the Trump administration respects constitutional and statutory limits on executive-branch power. In handling the longstanding cause, a reasonable settlement should reduce indoctrination at Harvard in favor of liberal education while obliging the government to honor the university’s academic freedom and institutional independence.

Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Stanley Kurtz has provided an excellent proposal that provides an appealing compromise concerning the longstanding cause of the Trump-Harvard showdown. In “Trump vs. Harvard: A Negotiated Solution,” which appeared online at National Review on April 21 (the day Harvard sued the Trump administration), Kurtz highlights Harvard’s “lax handling of disruptive demonstrations and antisemitic harassment” and its “pervasive leftist bias.” At the same time, Kurtz expresses skepticism about the Trump administration’s demand that Harvard place itself “into a de facto federal receivership.” But Harvard and the Trump administration, Kurtz optimistically contends, could agree to a compromise based on “model legislation called General Education Act (GEA), a limited version of which just became law in Utah, and which is likely to be considered by other states in 2026.”

A co-author of the model GEA, Kurtz sketches a modified version for Harvard. It would create within Harvard a “School of General Education, where the governing dean and the newly recruited faculty are committed to a traditional ‘great books’ approach.” While Harvard undergraduates could earn a degree in general education, “[t]he distinctive feature of this plan is that the new School of General Education is put in charge of teaching a set of great books and Western Civ–focused courses required of every student at the university in question.” Whereas the Trump approach involves intrusive federal monitoring – and Democrats would remove it immediately upon regaining the presidency – the school of general education, once established, would be difficult to abolish.

Everyone could claim victory. The Trump administration could claim credit for impelling Harvard to invest in liberal education. Harvard could take pride in maintaining its independence. Harvard students could acquire precious knowledge of their civilizational heritage while learning to exchange conflicting opinions in a spirit of curiosity, civility, and toleration. Higher education in America could adopt as a model the liberal-education reforms instituted by the nation’s oldest and most famous university. And citizens could draw inspiration from the White House’s and Harvard’s cooperating to achieve compromise and conciliation that advances the public interest.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.

Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A reward of up to $5 million is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the highest-ranking MS-13 leader in Honduras, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Monday.

Yulan Andony Archaga Carías. FBI

Yulan Andony Archaga Carías, 43, is a Honduran national and a fugitive on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list.

“This terrorist leader can no longer be allowed to live free as MS-13’s evil devastates communities in America and throughout the western hemisphere,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.“If you can contribute information leading to his arrest, come forward now.”

In 2021, Archaga Carías was charged in a superseding indictment in the Southern District of New York with racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and firearms offenses. A co-defendant in the case is currently in U.S. custody. Three other MS-13 leaders were also charged in the indictment with racketeering, narcotics trafficking, and firearms offenses. One of them is in Honduran custody, while the other two remain at large.

The search for Archaga Carías is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to crack down on transnational criminal gang activity. MS-13 and Tren de Aragua were officially designated foreign terrorist organizations by the United States on Feb. 20, 2025.

“Dismantling and ultimately eliminating MS-13 continues to be one of the FBI’s highest priorities, and we’re not stopping until that mission is complete,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in the DOJ statement. “Alongside our dedicated law enforcement partners, the FBI will find Archaga Carías—a terrorist whose reign of terror at the helm of MS-13 is coming to an end.”

The United States is paying $6 million to El Salvador to hold alleged and confirmed gang members deported by the Trump administration for one year in its maximum-security prison known as CECOT.

The Trump administration has been met with legal challenges over its deportations of such illegal immigrants. The U.S. Supreme Court over the weekend temporarily blocked new deportations of any alleged Venezuelan gang members held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law.

President Donald Trump on Monday said the deportations are a campaign promise he is fulfilling.

“I’m doing what I was elected to do, remove criminals from our Country, but the Courts don’t seem to want me to do that,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. “My team is fantastic, doing an incredible job, however, they are being stymied at every turn by even the U.S. Supreme Court, which I have such great respect for, but which seemingly doesn’t want me to send violent criminals and terrorists back to Venezuela, or any other Country, for that matter—People that came here illegally!”

If convicted, Archaga Carías faces a maximum penalty of life in prison and a mandatory minimum penalty of 40 years in prison. A judge will determine sentencing.

The DOJ said that only tips sent to the U.S. government will be considered for the reward. Tipsters outside the country should report to an American embassy or consulate, while those in the United States can contact local FBI offices.

From NTD News

Authored by Robert Rapier via OilPrice.com,

• For the first time, fossil fuels provided less than half of U.S. electricity generation in a month (March 2025).

• The shift is driven by increased renewable capacity (wind and solar), seasonal demand, and the decline of coal.

• The trend is expected to continue, driven by policy and economics, but grid reliability and regional differences remain challenges.

For the first time in history, fossil fuels supplied less than half of the United States’ electricity generation for an entire month, according to new data released by energy think tank Ember. This milestone, achieved in March 2025, represents a turning point in the evolving energy mix of the world’s largest economy.

Historically, fossil fuels—primarily coal and natural gas—have dominated U.S. electricity production. But the steady rise of renewables over the past two decades has chipped away at their dominance. In March, wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear collectively overtook coal, oil, and gas, with fossil fuels accounting for just 48.9% of total generation.

However, note that this is an estimate of total generation, including small scale systems that are not connected to the grid. According to EIA data, fossil fuels still account for about 64% of electricity generation by utilities. 

What’s Driving the Shift?

Several factors converged to make this moment possible.

• First, renewable energy capacity has expanded rapidly. Wind and solar are now mainstream technologies, supported by state mandates, federal tax incentives, and falling costs. Wind generation alone grew 12% in March year-over-year, and solar jumped by a remarkable 37%.

• Second, seasonal demand patterns played a role. March is typically a shoulder month for electricity demand—warmer than winter but not yet summer hot—which tends to reduce the need for gas-fired peaking power plants. Lower demand allows zero-marginal-cost renewables like wind and solar to play a more prominent role on the grid.

• Third, coal continues its long decline. Once the backbone of U.S. power generation, coal’s share of the mix has been in free fall since the mid-2000s. In March, coal accounted for just 15% of overall electricity generation (and ~18% of electricity produced by utilities). 

Nuclear power also remains a steady contributor, generating around 19% of electricity, while hydro added another 7%. Combined, these non-fossil sources provide a rapidly growing part of the U.S. grid, with gas providing backup during peaks and seasonal extremes.

A One-Month Wonder, or a Trend?

It’s important to view this milestone in context. April’s low fossil fuel share is partly seasonal, and likely to rebound in the hotter summer months when demand for air conditioning increases and natural gas generation ramps up. Indeed, in 2023, fossil fuels still provided 60% of total annual electricity generation.

However, the trajectory is clear: renewable energy is rapidly scaling, and fossil fuels—especially coal—are losing ground.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in 2022, has accelerated investment in clean energy infrastructure. Billions of dollars are now flowing into solar, wind, battery storage, and transmission upgrades. Analysts project that renewables will continue to take a growing share of the power mix, driven not just by policy, but by economics. In many parts of the country, new wind and solar projects are already the lowest-cost option for new generation.

Grid Reliability and the Energy Transition

One lingering concern is reliability. Fossil fuels, especially natural gas, still provide critical dispatchable power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. The challenge now is to scale clean, reliable alternatives, such as long-duration energy storage, advanced nuclear, and grid-interactive demand response.

There are also regional differences to consider. Some states—like California and Texas—have made significant strides in renewable integration, while others remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Building out the national transmission grid will be essential to balancing these disparities and ensuring a reliable, resilient system.

A Glimpse Into the Future

The March data doesn’t mean the U.S. has “solved” the energy transition—but it does offer a preview of what the grid could look like in the not-so-distant future. As technology improves, costs continue to fall, and policy support remains strong, it’s likely that fossil fuels will make up less than half of the annual electricity mix within this decade.

For investors, utilities, and policymakers, the message is clear: the momentum behind clean electricity is real. Those who prepare for this transition—by investing in clean infrastructure, modernizing the grid, and rethinking electricity markets—will be best positioned for the energy system of tomorrow.

Russia says its military repelled a fresh drone attack on Moscow, with the capital's mayor Mayor Sergei Sobyanin describing that anti-air defense systems intercepted "four drones flying towards Moscow."

International reports highlight that the attack appears "intended to unsettle Moscow’s preparations for events marking the end of the Great Patriotic War, commonly known as World War II elsewhere, on May 9." This year's commemoration events, happing throughout the country - but to include world leaders visiting Moscow - mark the 80th anniversary.

Getty Images

Russia's aviation watchdog, Rosaviatsia, announced a temporary halt to all flights at Domodedovo airport, a key airports serving Moscow, as a result due to the aerial danger in Russian skies.

Elsewhere, at least 17 drones were reported downed over the Bryansk region along with five more over Kaluga - though within the last several days the numbers of inbound drones from Ukraine were significantly higher.

The Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk has seen a state of emergency over the last couple of days as it's come under large-scale drone attacks. 

Bloomberg reported over the weekend that "Ukrainian drones damaged Russia’s largest grain terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk overnight, according to regional authorities and facility’s owner."

"Work is underway at the KSK grain terminal to eliminate consequences" of a fire triggered by falling drone debris.

Civilian neighborhoods were also reportedly hit, with regional media citing Novorossiysk mayor Andrei Kravchenko, who stated, "Apartment buildings in the Aurora residential complex and in Suvorovskaya Street were damaged. There is damage in the private sector of the Eastern District. If necessary, we’ll deploy temporary accommodation centers."

Last week President Vladimir Putin declared a unilateral three-day ceasefire for May 8-10, which Ukraine's Zelensky in turn denounced as but a "theatrical show" meant simply to ensure Victory Day events run smoothly as planned.

We reported earlier that Zelensky went so far as to hint that a Ukrainian attack on Victory Day events could happen. Here's what Zelensky warned early last week:

"Now they are worried that their parade is in question, and they are rightly worried. But they should be concerned that this war is still going on. They must end the war," the Ukrainian president said.

Moscow officials certainly took this as a direct threat. Various world leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China, will be present for the V-Day parade through Red Square and other observances.

Meanwhile in Moscow region, Russia's air defenders started lighting up multi-storey apartment blocks in Podolsk!

No wonder some locals are concerned.

Authorities claim to have shot down 4 attack drones already. Domodedovo airport has been closed for around 90 minutes. pic.twitter.com/RtXKn1IlnE

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova issued a statement Saturday saying that Zelensky "unambiguously threatened world leaders."

"After every terrorist attack on Russia's territory, the Kiev regime, its security services, and Zelensky personally boast that this is their doing, that this will continue. Therefore, the phrase that he 'does not guarantee security on May 9 in Russia' as it is not his area of responsibility is, of course, a direct threat," the diplomat stated. There's a likelihood Russian forces could ramp up bombing raids against Ukrainian cities, and even the capital of Kiev, as a result.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that illegal immigrants who use the CBP Home app to initiate their own deportation procedures will receive a $1,000 bonus stipend.

In a statement on Monday, the agency said illegal aliens will “receive both financial and travel assistance to facilitate travel back to their home country through the CBP Home App” and that those individuals who aren’t authorized to be in the United States will get the $1,000 stipend “after their return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.”

Trump administration officials have said that using the government’s self-deportation process is likely the best way for illegal immigrants to remove themselves to avoid being targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in the statement. 

“DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App. This is the safest option for our law enforcement, aliens and is a 70 percent savings for US taxpayers. Download the CBP Home App TODAY and self-deport.”

On the day he took office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump moved to close down the Biden administration’s CBP One app, which had been used by migrants in Mexico to schedule appointments at designated U.S. ports of entry.

Upon CBP One’s cancellation, migrants could no longer schedule appointments, and tens of thousands of border appointments were scrapped.

More than 900,000 people entered the country on immigration parole under CBP One, generally for two years, starting in January 2023.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has repeatedly urged people who are in the country illegally to leave.

Last month, the president told Fox Noticias that while his administration is focused on removing violent criminals from the United States, he wants to provide a more robust “self-deportation program.” At the time, Trump signaled that DHS would provide those individuals with a stipend of some kind.

“We’re going to give them a stipend,” Trump said in mid-April. “We’re going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we’re going to work with them—if they’re good—if we want them back in, we’re going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can.”

The president also said he wants to help hotels and farms get the workers they need and recommend people to fill needed positions.

“We’re doing a self-deportation and we’re going to make it comfortable for people,” Trump said. 

“And we’re going to work with those people to come back into our country legally.”

During his campaign and in the first months of his administration, Trump has made immigration enforcement and bolstering border security a centerpiece of his agenda. But some of his policy initiatives and executive orders around deportations have been stymied in court.

The high court, in a brief order issued in April, directed the government not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas “until further order of this court.” In a separate case, the Supreme Court also ordered the administration to facilitate the return of a Salvadoran illegal immigrant and accused MS-13 gang member, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador earlier this year.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

The decade-old age of fables like Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, or the pangolin/bat cause of COVID is not over; it is just hitting midstream.

For much of April, amid stock downturns, in the classical paranoid style, we were assured by the Wall Street Journal news reporters and the liberal press that Trump had either:

a) guaranteed an inevitable recession, 

b) engineered a losing trade war he likely regretted, 

c) crashed the stock market, 

d) lost his once majority favorability ratings, 

e) mostly had a failed first 100 days, 

or f) all of the above.

Some of us thought these diagnoses and prognoses were absurd. How in mediis rebus, during a radical counterrevolution never quite seen before, could anyone issue such bleak predictions? Would these same observers have said the U.S. was doomed to lose World War II after the bleak first five months of mostly failure in the Pacific, or North Africa, after the utter U.S. army disaster at the Kasserine Pass?

When the Biden administration compiled two consecutive quarters of negative GDP—the supposedly classic definition of a recession—most of these same pundits assured us that the data was meaningless and irrelevant. The same left-wing media throng insisted Biden was in his cognitive prime until hours before he abdicated from the ticket under pressure. They swore to us that Robert Mueller’s “walls were closing in” on Donald Trump, who would legitimately go to jail, buried by 93 lawfare indictments.

As for their polls showing that Trump was all but through after three months in office, almost all of them were not just off in the 2016 presidential race, but again in 2020. And given the chronic temptation to warp polls to create Democratic momentum and fundraising, they rigged their polls yet again in 2024—even when they knew in disgrace that they were ruining their brand. A former Harris campaign official just admitted that internal polls never showed Harris ahead—even as the majority of polls predicted her victory.

So why would anyone believe any of these people? Take the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Its recent NPR/PBS News/Marist poll assured us that 45 percent of the public gave Trump an F for his first 100 days, with only 42 percent expressing approval of his job so far.

But this is the same bunch that also assured us in its final authoritative 2024 election poll, on the very eve before the voting, that Kamala Harris would win the race by 4 points—a lead proverbially “outside the margin of error.” (The next day, she lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent or 2,284,952 votes and the Electoral College by 312-226). The public broadcasting polling partnership was off 5.5 points, perhaps suggesting that it wished to aid the Harris campaign more than either adhering to professional and ethical norms or fearing to lose what little was left of its reputation.

As soon as the Washington Post and the New York Times issued their dismal Trump bias polls, observers quickly pointed out they had, by intent, vastly underpolled those who voted for Trump in 2024. In contrast, the polls with the best 2024 records had Trump’s 100-day approval ratings near even or positive: Rasmussen was 50-49%, and the joint national surveys by Insider Advantage and Trafalgar Group had Trump up at 100 days, 46-44%.

As far as the supposed economic and stock meltdown, the March and April monthly economic reports showed that job growth was not only impressive but well above market expectations, with special emphasis on permanent rather than part-time jobs, even as the number of federal workers went down.

News of massive, multi-trillion-dollar investments and relocations to the U.S. continues. Far from having all the pressure levers in the tariff standoffs, China is starting to realize that the U.S. market is still the center of the world, while its own autocratic party dictatorship—again contrary to pundits’ warnings—is far more vulnerable to rising popular dissent than is a constitutional republic like the U.S.

Inflation in March and April either did not increase or, in fact, declined. Corporate profits were solid. Energy costs went down. Now that we have actually passed Trump’s first 100 days, where is the crashed stock market that supposedly signaled the recession on our doorstep?

The Standard & Poor 500 is back at the level of March 10, roughly where it was before the hysteria—and 12 percent up from a year ago. By May 2, both the Dow and S&P indices showed the longest continued gains in over 20 years. The Dow is now about where it was in September and October before the election—at levels that had not so long ago made investors giddy.

The media-academy nexus is also in hysterics over Trump’s threats of suspending federal funding to higher education unless it makes reforms consistent with Supreme Court decisions and Department of Education guidelines.

Many of us have warned campuses that it would be wiser to compromise, given the public would soon learn of what they had been doing for decades—and would be unpleasantly surprised. After all, private, multibillion-dollar endowed elite campuses took billions of dollars in easy federal money—despite endemic anti-Semitism, flagrant flaunting of U.S. civil rights laws and court decisions by continuing to use racial and gender biases, lucrative but unsavory financial partnerships with illiberal regimes of the Middle East and communist China, spiraling annual tuition costs exceeding the annual rate of inflation, 40-60 percent surcharges and overhead gouging of federal grants, and nonexistence of First Amendment protections for visiting speakers and lecturers, and on and on.

No matter. As soon as Harvard vowed that it would rally its elite brethren campuses against the administration, news predictably began to leak about the culpability and exposure of the real Harvard. Why did it only now and so suddenly rush to end its sister-campus relationship with the terrorist-supporting Birzeit University on the West Bank, or why now replace directors of its radical Center for Middle Eastern Studies program—in a fashion it never had previously dared even after the massacres of October 7?

Then, news of a joint China-Harvard program abroad suddenly surfaced. Allegedly, Harvard had aided members of what some have called a Chinese “paramilitary organization,” despite that group previously being sanctioned for its role in the Chinese state violence conducted against the Uyghurs—a fact that apparently did not surface publicly or perhaps even particularly bother any of the usually hypersensitive and quick-to-demonstrate Harvard students and faculty.

Shortly thereafter, a comprehensive Harvard in-house anti-Semitism report surfaced, documenting in detail the routine harassment of and threats to Harvard Jewish students. In truth, even if it wished to, Harvard now could not control its out-of-control and institutionalized anti-Semitism. It is a bane that Harvard has systematically ignored. It permeates the entire campus and is deeply embedded in the university’s Middle East Studies DEI architecture and recruitment of illiberal foreign students from dictatorial regimes.

The Harvard Law Review (currently being investigated by the Department of Education’s civil rights division) just bestowed a $65,000 fellowship to law student Ibrahim Bhramar. What did Bhramar do to earn such Harvard lucre?

Apparently, he was rewarded either for or despite attacking a Harvard Business School Jewish student during one of the recent anti-Israel campus protests, racking up misdemeanor criminal charges in the process. The prosecutor had noted that Bhramar had conducted “a hands-on assault and battery…and actual interpersonal violence” against the student. Rewarding an anti-Semitic attacker with $65,000 says it all. In 2024, hundreds of Harvard students and faculty disrupted their own graduation, commencing with walkouts and shouts of “free Palestine.”

In sum, despite the Harvard hysteria, it quietly knows what it has been doing, what the stakes are should it lose $2-9 billion in ongoing taxpayer support, and why it would not like full disclosure to the public of both its many excesses and lapses. So, if it is smart, Harvard will likely quietly seek a compromise with the Trump administration.

Finally, we are watching a full Democratic/left-wing meltdown.

Its puerile anti-Trump antics have gone from the clownish to the obscene and violent.

What is the point of disrupting a presidential congressional address by screaming and cane shaking, or of a silly 25-hour pseudo-filibuster? Who believes that smutty sh*t and f*ck congressional videos, or foul-mouthed threats to Trump and Elon Musk (e.g., “dipsh*t,” a**hole”) will win over Independents?

What is the strategic logic behind Democratic governors and senators threatening to cause havoc at Republican officials’ town halls, or to ignite “mass protests” and “disruptions,” so that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace”?

Does anyone believe that yet a third impeachment of Trump will ensure a Democratic midterm victory?

Or is the correct left-wing playbook to champion a motley array of assassins, spousal abusers, and gang members? Is it wiser then to either laud or ignore attacks on Tesla dealers, owners, and chargers, or wink and nod at blatantly anti-Semitic demonstrations and protests?

Is there anything taboo for the hysterical left?

Yes—it cannot offer the country a simple “Democratic Contract for America”—listing its own solutions to the nation’s existential crises.

There is not a single Democratic blueprint of how to address a $2 trillion budget deficit, $3 billion in daily interest payments, $37 trillion of national debt, or a $1.2 trillion annual trade deficit.

There is no post-Biden corrective agenda to deal with his legacy of 12 million recent illegal aliens, added to the existing 20 million current unlawful immigrants.

Not a single Democratic senator, representative, or party official has put forth any plan to end the Biden-era conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Nor will they even discuss the challenge of biological males wrecking women’s sporting events, institutionalized campus anti-Semitism, or unlawful race-based chauvinism.

On all these matters, the Democrats and their leftist supporters have offered no counter-proposals, no alternate agendas, and no unique solutions to the nation’s problems—other than boring, profanity-ridden venom and tired performance-art buffoonery.

Reliance on warped polls, untrustworthy and biased reporting, and media sensationalism will not help such poverty of thought and character.

Obscene, hysterical, and clueless is no way to appeal to Americans, Democrats.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"Fascism is when Dad says 'no'" 

- Aimee Terese on "X"

It’s vain and futile to suppose that the disordered minds of Western Civ’s entrenched Wokester Jacobins might ever be subject to polite persuasion about anything they believe. They believe only in the power of pushing their fellow citizens around, and so, alas, the only persuasion that might conceivably work to stop their infantile assaults on liberty, truth, and decency is to push back harder until they suffer and break.

This is something that most parents with young children instinctively understand. You don’t negotiate with two-year-olds. You tell them how things are and what sort of behavior is required of them, as plainly and simply as possible. Mr. Trump, having been the father of many two-year-olds over time, appears to get this. It has been apparent for years that Mr. Trump’s symbolic role as a father figure is the most deeply resented feature of his role in US politics.

It also appears that many men in this country likewise get this, perhaps because nature conditions them early on to understand that some day they might have to play the role of father, meaning they will have to push back hard against emotional disorder, hysteria, illogic, and untruth, and violence.

Hence, you might see the peril of living in a land with so many fatherless households. This lamentable state of things defines the Democratic Party, where raging, inchoate, resentment-driven Jacobinism dwells, a party now with no leader, a household with no father, no one to regulate its frenzied, power-seeking behavior. This also tells you how the Democratic Party has become the party run by women, and by particular types of women — women who have traded the management of children and households for bureaucratic careerism, women too lacking in feminine appeal to attract mates, women attempting to become the men missing in their lives — and men wishing to become women, or pretending to be women.

And so you see how these disorders play out in the ongoing melodrama of men in women’s sports, a proposition so obviously insane that no healthy society has ever abided it for a moment until the American Jacobins ran with it as a cardinal political irritant to vex their opponents (and really for no other reason). The state of Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, clashed openly with Mr. Trump over his executive order to desist from allowing biological men in women’s sports. The matter is currently making its way through the courts.

This week, a “trans” athlete named Soren Stark-Chessa, beat the field of females in a Maine track-meet by a country mile in the 800-meter and 1600-meter runs. No one, except the political leadership of Maine, was fooled about the fairness of this, of course. Fairness is not the point. Intransigent defiance of reality was the point. It is always the point for Jacobin politicians.

Soren Stark-Chessa in full stride

What is most obviously insane in matters like this, is that the female governor is so eager to punish and humiliate her younger fellow females in order to merely press a political point — that she is the boss of Maine, and nobody can tell her what to do, even if she deranges the cultures of schooling and sports. This illustrates, by the way, a principal difference in the way men’s and women’s brains work. Men typically understand boundaries, where things begin and end. It is a necessary cognitive device for regulating behavior in the household and for acting in the face of danger when required.

Sports is just a microcosm of our politics. The whole gestalt of Woke-Jacobin politics is driven by the wish to dissolve boundaries. That is, it is driven by female minds, and what the Woke-Jacobins might call female-adjacent minds. That is why the open border fiasco was another point-of-principle for the Democratic Party — and why “Joe Biden” the phantom president (actually the shadowy figures behind him) pretended that nothing could be done about it.

Mr. Trump demonstrated that was a lie in a New York minute. 

The damage from four years of a wide-open border is immense, much worse than men running in girls’ races. 

The motive for it is also obvious: to jam as many illegal aliens as possible into the country so as 1) to disorder the next census count in swing states to keep congressional districts safe, and 2) to install a base of new “voters” — qualified to vote or not — who will be eternally grateful to the Democratic Party for letting them flood into the country and gifting them with housing, social services, transportation, free meals, and walking-around money.

And now, a Woke-Jacobin judiciary, assisted by an infrastructure of Lawfare ninjas, led by the outlaw Norm Eisen, and financed by George Soros, and what remains of Soros-adjacent NGOs, is using the courts to keep all those illegally-admitted aliens in place here at all costs. So, you see, they are attempting to dissolve a boundary crucial to the Republic’s survival: who is a citizen and who is not a citizen, and what are the privileges entailed? The objective is to keep this dispute alive in the courts long enough to affect the 2026 midterm elections in the hopes of winning Congress back.

You can also see how this will oblige Mr. Trump to marshal the most aggressive legal force possible to crush this seditious legal insurrection. He has executive powers and perquisites in reserve that he has not used yet, or even revealed.

He will defeat these monsters in the end just as he is methodically disassembling their scaffold of psychopathic ideology and their pipelines of funding. It will really be something to see.