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Authored by Arthur Schaper via American Greatness,

The United States, the American people, Donald Trump, and even myself: we have all been humbled over the last four years—or the last sixteen years … or even thirty years.

And we needed it.

More than thirty years ago, following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States emerged as the leader of the pack in a once-bipolar world. The Soviet Union collapsed, socialism sloughed off, free enterprise became commonplace as the solution to all our problems, and the liberal democratic process was winning. “It is the End of History,” Francis Fukuyama (arrogantly, short-sightedly) prophesied.

Of course, history didn’t stop, and we had lessons to learn.

Some suggest that this fantasy of global liberalism came crashing down on September 11, 2001. Let’s not forget February 26th, 1993, when Islamic terrorists attempted to topple the World Trade Center by detonating the foundation of one tower to crash into the other.

Islamic terror replaced the adversarial communist regimes as our enemies. America was complacent, prosperous, and secure in its secular liberalism. Instead of remembering what made the West the best—the Gospel, our Judeo-Christian heritage, Biblical truth, our reliance on a Living Savior instead of humanist self-reliance—we got self-righteous and self-satisfied. “We beat the Russians! We are the only player on the world stage!”

Thus, it seemed that there was nothing left to fight but ourselves.

But that was never the case. Marxism’s vision of a stateless world dominated by class conflict never emerged, but Pan-Americanism would never work, either. An America-defined globalism not only offended other nations, but it also undermined the American citizen and the American experiment.

With an obsessive focus on free trade, cheap labor, and making money while ignoring national identity—borders, language, culture, faith, family, and freedom—Americans witnessed the wonders of the American dream turn into an elite fantasy that only the rich and politically connected could enjoy.

We got arrogant, then fearful and angry; we stopped believing in what really made America great. We forgot who we are. We needed to be humbled.

And what is humility? A biblical definition is apropos, I think:

“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3)

American exceptionalism is a real thing. We the People of the United States should be proud of our heritage. That recognition does not justify American supremacism, however. Nor does it mean our safety, security, or sovereignty depends on what other countries do and believe.

The United States embraced some humiliating defeats not just on September 11, 2001, but in the waning year of the George W. Bush administration, when risky financing and overextended loans inflated housing prices and unleashed the Great Recession.

Instead of taking stock of where we were wrong, we went with a false messiah, Barack Obama, who chimed, “We are the change we have been waiting for.” But we were the ones who caused our own downfall. How could we make changes if we did not change?

From this self-righteous refusal to own our failures came the Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter, and the re-radicalization of race. Obama long harbored bitter disgust for the United States, and he seduced the American public. Under the Obama Administration, humility was minimized and disparaged, for sure. One of the most repeated words in the 44th president’s speeches was “I.” It was all about him, and to hell with America.

And the country was humbled for the worse. Obama called us all racist and insisted that we needed the government to run our healthcare. He exhorted us to flood our country with “undocumented immigrants” so that we could pay back for all the wrongs that American imperialism had caused. America fell into decline.

Then came Trump, and with him the mantra “Make America Great Again.”

He talked about God restoring America’s previous glory. But was that something he could do himself? Not at all. In too many ways, his first term had some of the hallmarks of amateur hour. He surrounded himself with bad advisors, went with tired ideas, and didn’t transform the Art of the Deal into the Art of Governing.

Election 2020, with COVID, George Floyd, massive spending, and a frustrating Congress, did not help matters. Americans still had not learned their lesson.

We need God. We need biblical truth. We need to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage, our Anglo-American legal traditions, and our revolutionary legacy.

America’s further humbling came under bumbling Joe Biden. Defined by Biden-Harris’ arrogant incompetence, suffused with dementia and DEI, America became weaker, worn out, and adrift, all while witnessing the left’s culmination of all their wishes. Obama got his third term.

Then Trump ran again. He faced challenges from the right because he hadn’t gotten the job done. Perhaps those challenges shaped his second-term determination. Then came a would-be assassin’s bullet, which changed the course of history in our favor.

Trump has acknowledged, “God saved my life.” And why? “To Make America Great Again.”

His second inaugural speech was all business, with a clear reliance on where his—and our—power comes from: God.

Trump is a different man, acting like the president I wanted in 2016, whom I had anticipated DeSantis would be.

Like Homer’s eponymous hero, Trump is a man of many turns, and he’s turning out real results. Ulysses has come home. He has finished off all the suitors, he has his wife Penelope, and the gods are smiling at him. He learned his lesson. He gets it.

President Trump 2.0 has accomplished much of what we had expected in 2017, and more. Trump now knows his limits, and he knows what he can—and must—do. That is true humility.

If his supercharged successes continue, it makes all the disappointments, frustrations, and confusions of the previous six years worth the aggravation.

Authored by Andrew Lowenthal via The Brownstone Institute,

Last week, my non-profit liber-net unveiled a new database of US government awards to mis-dis-and-malinformation (MDM) and other content control initiatives. A previous Network Affects post broke down where that money came from. This one details where the money went, specifically the countries, regions, topics, and activities, and the top organisations that took home the cash.

The below graphs are based on 867 awards made between 2016-2024, out of nearly 1,100 that we reviewed from 2010 to the present day. You can review our process and methodology here. You can see all the graphs from the last post, this post, and a few more here.

When it comes to MDM funding, the vast majority of the awards went to US-based initiatives. The graph below includes a contract totaling nearly $1 billion to military contractor Peraton, but even without it, US recipients received around $318 million, dwarfing the next country, Kazakhstan, at $20 million. Out of the nearly $1.5 billion spent across the 867 awards, around $187 million left the US from a roughly $6.7 trillion annual federal budget.

The “US taxpayers are wasting money on foreigners” narrative isn’t the story here, at least not in the mis/disinformation space.

When you zoom out, it looks like this:

That said, when you look at the data by unique awards (individual grants and contracts made), American organisations are still the main recipients, though it isn’t quite as skewed – US organisations received 220 of the 867 awards made. 

Looking at unique awards is important in part because of the internal government resources and focus it represents. Giving out money costs money, whether it is $1,000 or $1,000,000.

Below, we’ve broken the individual awards down by region. After the US, Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are the main focus areas, mostly as a counter to Russian influence.

Here are the unique awards on a map:

Another interesting view is which countries the “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees” awards went to. These are awards where the organisation is not explicitly named (this can be for security justifications or a host of unknown reasons), though in some cases it is easy to deduce what the organisation is (e.g., through the awardee address that is sometimes referenced in the USAspending record).

This is how the Misc. awards break down by country outside the US:

You can view the Misc. awards in our searchable database.

What topics did the money go to? The below outlines our analysis of the major themes. Note that while this is a pie chart, we’ve tagged individual awards with more than one topic as they were frequently combined, such as vaccine “misinformation” in minority communities.

This is how it breaks down among the top eight funders:

We have also classified the awards by the types of activities they entailed, such as conferences, research, or technology development. These were often a little harder to classify, but the general outline is still useful in understanding what “counter-misinformation” work looks like in practice.

Lastly, who got most of the money? 

The two visualisations below detail the top 30 awardees by dollar amount and by the number of individual awards. The $80 million award to the CDC Foundation is a kind of internal transfer the CDC gave to a technically external (but heavily linked) 501(c)(3).

And the unique awards which reveal some more familiar names and close government relationships. The number of awards doesn’t correlate too tightly with the overall funding received.

You can find explore and find more in the database. Enjoy!

Republished from the author’s Substack

Via Middle East Eye

The organization set to administer Israel's controversial plan to take control of humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza will use private contractors to secure hubs where Palestinians will receive 1,750 kcal meals that will cost donors a little more than a dollar each.

Details about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) strategy for Gaza are laid out in a 14-page document circulating amongst aid organizations working on Gaza and seen by Middle East Eye.

The hitherto unknown nonprofit, which was registered in Switzerland in February, has been touted as the umbrella body that will seemingly take over humanitarian operations in Gaza while inviting NGOs to "take advantage" of its "logistics, security and transparency frameworks".

Via AFP

The pitch-like document offers detailed information about how the foundation, largely led by Americans and involving a mix of disaster relief, security and financial experts, will operate and how it is organized, though some details appear yet to be finalized. The document is undated.

The new details have emerged as UN agencies and international aid organizations, which have roundly rejected the plan that GHF would administer, reportedly coming under pressure from the US government to participate. Earlier this week, Amnesty Switzerland raised concerns that, based on the information available, GHF could be risking contributing to international crimes through its services. 

The Israeli operation appears to already be underway. Israel security cabinet approved its plan on Sunday with satellite evidence emerging on Wednesday suggesting that work has already begun to build the humanitarian hubs from which aid will be distributed.

'New operating model'

According to the document, the foundation says it is offering "a new operating model", blaming aid diversion, active combat and "restricted access" as reasons why millions of civilians have been left without food, water and other supplies.

It does not specify the blockades on aid that Israel has put in place, including over the past two months, that have led the enclave’s population to the brink of mass starvation. Instead, it says Hamas and criminal organizations have intercepted, taxed and resold aid, and that Israeli "domestic security concerns and political pressure limit Gaza access and drive risk-averse policy toward humanitarian organizations".

The document repeatedly frames one of the main issues the foundation serves as fixing “eroded donor confidence”, saying it was established to “restore that vital lifeline through an independent, rigorously audited model that gets assistance directly – and only – to those in need”.

GHF says it is set to establish four “secure distribution sites” that will each serve 300,000 people “with capacity to expand past 2 million”. Pre-packaged rations, hygiene kits and medical supplies will be delivered to the sites via armored vehicles “through tightly controlled corridors, monitored in real time to prevent diversion”.

“At just US $1.3 per meal… donors can see immediate, measurable impact,” the document says, later indicating that each meal will be 1,750 kcal.

It is unclear how many meals would be provided daily, though it is suggested that donors might be offered a chance to fund "a family-box" which would contain 50 meals at a time. The World Food Programme aims to provide recipients of food aid with at least 2,100 kcal per day.

The Israeli military will “not be stationed at or near” the sites. Instead, security will be provided by “experienced professionals, including personnel who previously secured the Netzarim Corridor during the recent ceasefire”. The document says aid will be distributed “without regard to identity, origin or affiliation” and "delivered purely based on need, with community dignity and safety as top priorities".

Some pro-Palestinian advocates have warned over a US-controlled aid scheme, after Trump White House blasted a 'compromised' UNRWA:

Breaking: Israel has just bombed an aid center in northern Gaza, killing dozens of civilians. In doing so, it paves the way to force the population into submission to the U.S. starvation plan through a private company, ending the role of UNRWA and international agencies. pic.twitter.com/KoUDSCypVa

GHF and its partners are said to be “actively engaging local communities to generate support” for its operations and will train “additional local champions” to expand the programme.

“This effort aims not only to safeguard humanitarian access, but to ethically empower traditional community leaders to reestablish constructive influence supporting the organic restoration of local communities,” the document says.

American executives

GHF’s board of directors includes Nate Mook, the former CEO of World Central Kitchen and a special advisor on Ukraine to the Howard G Buffett Foundation.

It also includes Loik Henderson, who is said to be a legal and business professional with 20 years experience including to Fortune 500 companies; Raisa Sheynberg, a vice president of government affairs and policy at Mastercard who previously led Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project and also worked on national security and economic policy for the US government; and Jonathan Foster, founder and managing director of Current Capital Partners LLC.

The foundation will be run by three Americans with disaster relief experience, led by executive director Jake Wood, founder and former CEO of Team Rubicon, a US-based disaster relief organization. Wood is a Marine Corps veteran and the founder of Groundswell, a platform “reinventing employee giving through donor-advised funds”.

Chief operating officer David Burke is a “strategic operations expert” who previously worked at Team Rubicon and is also a Marine Corps veteran.

John Acree, a former USAID official, will serve as head of mission. In addition to experience in disaster response and civil-military coordination, the document notes that he served as “chief of party” on US government contracts in Latin America and the Caribbean worth more than $45m.

An advisory board includes Bill Miller, a former UN and US State Department official, and retired Lt General Mark Schwartz, a former US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. David Beasley, the former governor of South Carolina and former executive director of the UN World Food Programme, is listed as “to be finalised” as a potential board member.

The document suggests that major donors are “invited to nominate additional candidates for board membership”. It also says discussions are underway with “prominent Palestinians” to join the board.

'Every dollar traceable'

The document focuses repeatedly on how GHF will be transparent, saying it has secured banking with US-based Truist Bank and JPMorgan Chase. “Real-time monitoring and beneficiary feedback loop into public dashboards so every dollar is traceable and every outcome verifiable,” it says.

Truist, it notes, has “demonstrated its commitment to humanitarian and disaster relief efforts” including through committing $725m to recovery initiatives in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene last year.

A separate Swiss GHF affiliate is being created “to address donors who would prefer to participate outside of the US structure”.

Goldman Sachs is said to have made a verbal commitment to establish a bank account for the entity “which should be completed shortly". It also says it is “in the process of retaining one of the world’s most respected audit and assurance firms” to provide third-party oversight of its financial and operational practices, and that it is also in discussion with accounting firm Deloitte.

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

“Jocelyn, you know, I just, I'm really uncomfortable with this conversation because you're like actually spreading rumors that you don't know anything about.”

The charge from NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya came during an uncomfortable and confusing interview with Science Magazine reporter Jocelyn Kaiser last week. The DisInformation Chronicle is releasing a recording of the interview and a transcript.

During almost 20 minutes of back and forth, Kaiser pressed Bhattacharya several times to account for canceled grants as well as news accounts of turmoil inside the agency, while Bhattacharya asked Kaiser to clarify and explain exactly what she was asking. Kaiser’s interview then ended up in two Science Magazine articles that falsely implied Bhattacharya misled Kaiser about a new policy on NIH grants.

Confusing, contentious exchange

Skipping about in a rambling, meandering path, much of the Kaiser interview concerned reports of problems that Bhattacharya claimed he had fixed in his first month as director. However, a proposed policy to ensure that subawards to foreign universities were better managed seemed to take center stage.

KAISER: Okay, so since you brought it up, kind of skipping around here, but so as you know, as you may not have seen the story. But we had heard it too, that there's going to be a policy canceling collaborations, foreign collaborations.

BHATTACHARYA: No, that's false.

KAISER: Is there going to be some sort of policy that...

BHATTACHARYA: There was a policy, there's going to be policy on tracking subawards.

KAISER: What does it mean?

BHATTACHARYA: I mean, if you're going to give a subaward, we should be able—the NIH and the government should be able see where the money's going.

Later in the interview, Kaiser noted that Nature Magazine ran an article on a proposed NIH policy that reported all foreign grants might end.

“I mean, Nature also is spreading rumors, right?” Bhattacharya responded. “There's no announced policy about, what did you say, like ‘halt foreign collaborations.’ Not true.”

Based upon unnamed sources but headlined as an “exclusive,” Nature Magazine reported that the NIH was threatening thousands of global health projects by ceasing foreign awards to laboratories and hospitals outside the United States. Further down in the piece, Nature reported that it was unclear from sources whether the policy “would apply to all research funds to non-US institutions or only ‘subawards’, which are NIH funds that a US researcher can give to an international collaborator to help complete a project.”

Confusion over whether the upcoming NIH policy would cover all research funds or just subawards continued throughout Science Magazine’s interview, with Bhattacharya telling Kaiser she would have to wait until the policy is announced. “There's no intent to cancel the foreign collaborations, it's just not true,” Bhattacharya said. “That's just a rumor being spread falsely by Nature. And now apparently, I hope you don't spread it.”

Shortly after the interview, the NIH published their new policy which only covers subawards. “NIH continues to support direct foreign awards,” the policy reads.

“’This is insane:’ New NIH policy on funding foreign scientists stirs outrage,” reported Science Magazine’ headline. Hinting to readers that Bhattacharya lied to Kaiser in his interview, Science Magazine falsely implied that Nature Magazine had reported the upcoming policy would only concern subawards.

Concerns about subaward changes grew earlier this week, with Nature reporting on an apparent draft of the policy on Wednesday, before it was finalized. NIH’s new director, Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, dismissed the report as “rumors” in an interview with Science on Thursday morning, hours before he announced the new policy.

In a post on Bluesky, Science reporter Jon Cohen also implied that Bhattacharya had lied during the interview.

During Kaiser’s interview, Bhattacharya can be heard explaining that changes in subawards were partly spurred by problems encountered with EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit run by Peter Daszak which gave an NIH subaward to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In the last week of the Biden Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak from receiving federal funds, in part because EcoHealth Alliance had been unable to provide records from the Wuhan Institute of Virology “in response to NIH’s multiple safety-related requests.”

“You wrote about the EcoHealth Alliance,” Bhattacharya told Kaiser, in the interview.

“I did, yeah. Straight, I mean,” Kaiser responded.

“It wasn't all that straight,” Bhattacharya replied.

Unfortunately, Science Magazine lived up to Bhattacharya’s characterization with reporting that wasn’t all that straight about EcoHealth Alliance.

Straight out of Science

Science Magazine’s lead reporter on the new NIH subaward policy is Jon Cohen, a science writer with a rather tattered history of ethics. In 2023, Tablet reported that an anonymous whistleblower emailed Cohen “a grenade of an allegation” claiming that the virologist authors of a prominent paper were not the true authors. Published in the journal Nature Medicine, the “Proximal Origin” paper dismissed the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident and was later promoted promoted by Francis Collins in his March 2020 NIH Director's Blog and by Anthony Fauci during a televised White House briefing the following month.

Here's Tablet’s report:

Cohen was handed an opportunity that most journalists can only dream of—a potentially career-making scoop dropped in his inbox by a seemingly knowledgeable anonymous source—and a scoop, it turns out, that was in many ways correct. But he never pursued the story.

Instead, Tablet reported, Cohen forwarded the email to the paper’s lead author, who then forwarded it on to Anthony Fauci.

The purple headline for Science Magazine’s piece “This is insane” is a quote ripped from the mouth of Gerald Keusch, a virologist and an emeritus professor at Boston University, with close ties to EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak.

Due to Daszak’s undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs disbanded a Lancet task force investigating the origins of Covid virus in 2021. Specifically, Daszak had not disclosed that several hundred thousand dollars of an EcoHealth Allliance NIH grant had been sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a subaward. Sachs also discovered that emails showed Daszak had orchestrated a February 2020 statement in the Lancet alleging that it was a “conspiracy theory” to argue that the pandemic could have started from a laboratory leak in Wuhan.

Keusch had signed onto Daszak’s “conspiracy theory” Lancet letter and was a co-investigator on an NIH grant to EcoHealth Alliance when Sachs shut the task force down. HHS suspended the EcoHealth grant with Keusch as co-investigator in March 2024, some months before debarring Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance.

Despite this history, Science Magazine quoted Keusch as an unbiased source, who claimed that “no compelling evidence supports the allegation that the virus leaked from WIV.”

A few minutes on Google finds several reports undermining Keusch’s claim.

In the final months of the Biden administration, the CIA assessed that the COVID virus is "more likely" to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. The current CIA director released the report in January. Both British and German intelligence were reported in March to have concluded back in 2020 that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And the French National Academy of Medicine released a report last month that found “a body of facts and arguments” support the conclusion that he SARS-CoV-2 pandemic originated from a leak at a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.

Keusch was also caught in a House report released last year coordinating with the NIH’s David Morens to keep EcoHealth Alliance funded and to hide government records of this collusion. NIH scientists are required produce emails and other records under the Freedom of Information Act.

For example, the New York Times reported:

“I learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser to Dr. Fauci, wrote in February 2021. That email chain included Dr. Gerald Keusch, a scientist and former N.I.H. official, and Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a virus-hunting nonprofit group whose work with Chinese scientists has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers.

“Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail,” Dr. Morens added, referring to his personal Gmail account.

In emails released by House investigators, Keusch and Morens also shared ideas to pressure NIH leadership to fund EcoHealth Alliance. This included writing essays and placing stories with writers Jon Cohen and Meredith Wadman at Science Magazine.

“I did try to get Jon Cohen and Meredith Wadman moving on a new article,” Keusch wrote in an April 2021 email to Morens, “but as you know they both declined at this point because it was not news.”

Some months after attempting to place a story in Science with Cohen and Wadman, Keusch emailed Morens that the Washington Post had rejected an essay he had submitted to defend EcoHealth Alliance. However, Keusch wrote, Science Magazine’s Jon Cohen had helped him find a possible home for the essay at Science and suggested that he also try a columnist at the LA Times.

A few days ago, Kaiser published excerpts of her confusing interview with Bhattacharya. In the article, Kaiser again falsely stated that Bhattacharya had dismissed as rumors “Nature news article reporting that NIH planned to suspend subawards for foreign collaborations.” In fact, Nature had speculated the new policy might end all foreign awards.

“Again, the policy is in process,” Bhattacharya said during the interview with Kaiser. “But the aim of the policy ultimately is so that we can track subawards.”

Click here and scroll down listen to the leaked interview plus transcript...

Authored by Zena le Roux via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Fibromyalgia is a difficult condition to diagnose and even harder to treat—especially since it presents no visible injury, yet causes widespread, chronic pain.

Nelli Kovalchuk/Shutterstock

So when a 2022 clinical trial tested magnesium as a potential treatment, it was easy to be skeptical. Could something as basic as a mineral supplement really make a difference? Some providers definitely think so.

“Magnesium levels are one of the first things I address when someone presents with persistent pain,” said Jodi Duval, a naturopathic physician and owner of Revital Health, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Study Findings

The clinical trial found—for the first time—that magnesium may help ease fibromyalgia symptoms, particularly stress and pain. Participants were randomly assigned to take either 100 milligrams of a slow-release magnesium supplement or a placebo once daily for one month.

The study’s primary goal was to assess whether magnesium could lower stress levels—since stress often triggers fibromyalgia flare-ups. Researchers also tracked pain, sleep quality, fatigue, and overall well-being.

At the end of the month, the results were mixed. Overall stress levels trended downward in the magnesium group, but the results were not significant. However, on closer examination, researchers noticed something interesting: Among participants who started the study with mild to moderate stress, magnesium made a clear difference. In that subgroup, stress scores dropped significantly, while the placebo group saw little to no change.

Pain severity also declined with magnesium supplementation—a small but meaningful shift that suggested the mineral might have a role in easing fibromyalgia’s burden. In moderately stressed participants, pain scores dropped from 5.7 to 5.1 on a 10-point scale, while the placebo group showed no improvement.

Sleep, fatigue, and overall quality of life remained largely unchanged between groups. Still, for people who have grown tired of side effects and short-lived solutions, magnesium’s gentle, low-risk benefits may be worth noting.

Fibromyalgia and Headaches

Fibromyalgia and headaches are just two of the many conditions where magnesium’s potential role in pain relief is being studied.

In fibromyalgia, patients are often found to have lower magnesium levels in their blood, hair, and diet. 

Magnesium blood levels are typically tested through a serum magnesium test, though this measures only a small fraction of total magnesium in the body—since most magnesium is stored in bones and tissues. It’s important to note that a normal serum level doesn’t necessarily rule out magnesium deficiency in tissues. In some cases, hair analysis or urine tests can be used to assess magnesium status, though these methods are less common.

“I’ve seen great results with magnesium in cases of fibromyalgia, fatigue-pain syndromes, migraines, tension headaches, and more,” said Duval.

Magnesium plays a pivotal role in the development and progression of both migraines and tension-type headaches. While the exact cause of migraines remains unclear, magnesium is known to influence certain mechanisms, including neurotransmitter release, brain excitability, and blood clotting. Low magnesium levels have consistently been linked to migraines, and some studies suggest that supplementation may help reduce the frequency or severity of attacks.

Pick up some potent magnesium here...

One study found that 80 percent of patients given 1 gram of intravenous magnesium were pain-free within 15 minutes.

In some cases, supplementation has led to long-lasting improvement in people with tension headaches—lasting up to a year or more. In one case-control study of 40 patients, a magnesium infusion completely eliminated pain in 32 participants within 15 minutes.

How Magnesium Works

Magnesium is emerging as a promising solution for chronic pain, but how exactly does it support pain relief?

One of the key ways magnesium helps reduce pain is by blocking N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, which play a critical role in nerve cell communication. While these receptors are important for learning and memory, the overactivation of NMDA receptors allows excessive calcium to enter neurons, contributing to pain. By preventing calcium from entering cells through NMDA receptors, magnesium helps prevent the nervous system from becoming overly sensitive to pain and offers relief for various pain conditions.

Additionally, magnesium conserves the electrical potential of nerve cells, further aiding in pain regulation.

“Magnesium is a powerful modulator of both pain and inflammation,” Duval said.

It is a foundational nutrient—without it, other pain therapies often don’t work as effectively, she added.

Magnesium’s role in reducing pain perception could also be linked to its ability to regulate muscle contraction and protect cartilage from degradation, Emma Laing, a registered dietitian nutritionist with a doctoral degree in foods and nutrition, told The Epoch Times.

Oral and intravenous (IV) magnesium supplementation differ in how quickly and effectively they work. Oral supplements—typically pills or powders—are best for mild to moderate deficiencies or long-term maintenance, though they may cause digestive side effects such as diarrhea and are absorbed more slowly.

On the other hand, IV magnesium is administered directly into a vein and is used in more urgent or severe cases—like eclampsia, arrhythmias, or when the oral route isn’t an option. It works quickly and bypasses the gut. However, IV administration needs medical supervision due to the risk of overdose and isn’t a good option for routine use.

Magnesium’s effectiveness in managing pain depends not only on its mechanisms but also on the form in which it’s taken. Magnesium glycinate, for example, is well-absorbed and has a calming effect, making it ideal for muscle tension, such as that experienced with fibromyalgia, Duval said. She also mentioned that topical magnesium chloride, commonly found in Epsom salts, is excellent for offering targeted relief to sore muscles.

Oral magnesium L-threonate is particularly beneficial for neuroinflammation and brain-based pain, such as migraines, as it can cross the blood-brain barrier, she added.

Easy Ways to Get More Magnesium

Duval recommends several magnesium-rich foods for patients managing chronic pain, including:

• Pumpkin seeds
• Leafy greens
• Avocados
• Cashews
• Dark chocolate
• Bananas

To add these into your daily meals, try sprinkling pumpkin seeds over your breakfast, incorporating greens into every lunch and dinner, and enjoying magnesium-rich snacks like nuts or avocado with a pinch of sea salt, she said. It typically takes two to four weeks of consistent dietary intake or supplementation to notice changes in chronic pain.

However, Duval often focuses on symptoms rather than relying solely on blood tests to measure progress.

“Tissue magnesium levels in the body can be low even when blood levels appear normal,” she said.

Drug Interactions

When considering supplementation, caution is advised, as magnesium supplements can interact with certain medications and other supplements.

For example, magnesium may reduce the effectiveness of certain blood pressure medications, such as calcium channel blockers and diuretics, which can either lower or increase magnesium levels in the body. Additionally, taking magnesium alongside supplements like calcium or vitamin D may require adjustments in dosage. It is therefore crucial to consult with your health care provider before starting supplementation.

Laing advises that working with a registered dietitian nutritionist can help ensure you’re getting the right amount of magnesium for your age, lifestyle, and medical history.

Moving Forward

While magnesium isn’t a silver bullet, emerging research suggests it may offer gentle support—particularly for stress and pain. For those navigating daily discomfort, even small, consistent steps toward better magnesium intake can make a meaningful difference.

Authored by Robert Curry via RealClearHistory,

Unalienable rights and self-evident truths are the two core ideas of the American founding.  

Expand the number of core ideas under consideration to three and you get unalienable rights, self-evident truths, and free market economics.

You could call them the three pillars of the American Idea.

These three pillars are the direct gifts to America of three great thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment: Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid.

Their thinking — known today as “common sense realism” — took America by storm at precisely the right time to shape America fundamentally.

Francis Hutcheson

Francis Hutcheson: “Our rights are either alienable or unalienable …”                     

A revolution in thinking about our rights preceded the American Revolution. In the words of George Washington, America’s founding took place during a time “when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period.” Hutcheson’s analysis of our rights showed the way.

The meaning of Hutcheson’s distinction was sharp and clear in the founders’ time but to understand it today you and I must first be clear about the meaning of “alienable.” Here is its complete definition in my dictionary: “adj. Law. Capable of being transferred to the ownership of another.” Your right to your car is an alienable right; because your car is your property, you can sell your car or give it away — but our rights to our lives and our liberty are unalienable, that is, not property, not capable of being transferred to the ownership of another.

Hutcheson was challenging John Locke’s account of our rights — and in so doing he helped ignite the American Revolution. Locke, you see, had defined our rights in terms of property. Locke: “Man … hath by nature a power … to preserve his property — that is, his life, liberty and estate.” According to Hutcheson and the founders, our rights to our lives and our liberty are not property; those rights are unalienable, inherent, essential, and not transferrable.

Hutcheson’s distinction provided the intellectual foundation for two of the greatest achievements in world history, Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” and the Declaration of Independence. Adam Smith’s focus was our alienable rights; the American founders focused on our unalienable rights.

The Declaration and “Wealth” both entered the world they were to transform in the same year, 1776.

1776 marks the economic and political boundary between the world in which you and I live and all that had gone before.

Adam Smith

Francis Hutcheson mentored Adam Smith. Upon Hutcheson’s death, Smith was appointed to the prestigious professorship at the University of Glasgow Hutcheson had held.  

Smith’s epoch-making “Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” is the foundation of free market economics. Hutcheson’s analysis of our rights set the direction Smith took. In “Wealth” Smith famously demonstrated that the division of labor is the source of the wealth of nations. In one of the most frequently quoted passages from “Wealth,” Smith makes clear the source in human nature of the all-important division of labor: “This division of labour … is the necessary … consequence of a certain propensity in human nature … ; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” The division of labor depends on the right to exchange (alienate) our property and labor. We can “truck, barter, and exchange” because our right to our property is, as Hutcheson had shown, “naturally alienable.”

The social order that resulted from the new thinking of the Scottish and the American Enlightenments was a far cry from the world that assigned supremacy to hereditary monarchs and hereditary aristocrats. The great economist Ludwig von Misses described that new social order like this: It “assigned supremacy to the common man. In his capacity as a consumer, the ‘regular fellow’ was called upon to determine ultimately what should be produced, in what quantity, and of what quality, by whom, how, and where; in his capacity as a voter, he was sovereign in directing the nation’s policies.”

Thomas Reid

When Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” he was relying on the thinking of Thomas Reid.

Reid’s “An Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense” was published in 1764, the same year he was awarded the prestigious professorship formerly occupied by Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith.

As I write in my book “Reclaiming Common Sense”: “Reid’s philosophical purpose was to provide a foundation for morality and for knowledge. He argued that there is an endowment of human nature that makes both morality and knowledge possible, and he called it common sense … With it we are able to make rational judgments and moral judgments. Common sense is the human attribute that makes it possible for us to be rational creatures and moral agents.  

Reid’s fundamental insight was that our ability to make sense of our experience presupposes certain first principles. Because these principles are implicit in our conduct and our thought, they cannot be proved; there are no other truths from which they can be derived. However, to deny or even to doubt any of them is to involve ourselves in absurdity. Consequently, the principles of common sense have the special authority of first principles: we cannot operate without them.”

The Progressives

From their beginning, the purpose of the Progressives has been the step-by-step — that is, the progressive — undoing of the America of the founders. Their relentless campaign has done tremendous damage. If you and I are to do our part in helping to restore America, we need to go into action armed with a clear understanding of the American Idea. That is why I wrote the two common sense books listed below.

Chinese auto parts makers have tripled their presence in Thailand with the arrival of BYD and other car brands, transforming the country into a key supply base for Asian markets, according to Nikkei.

And we can't help but notice the timing - with tariffs on goods coming from China through the roof - seems to be...coincidentally beneficial for Chinese corporations.

In the Eastern Economic Corridor, about two hours from Bangkok, new factories are rapidly rising. Battery maker Sunwoda Electronic is investing over $1 billion to build a lithium-ion battery plant, with mass production set for 2025. Battery cells will be made locally, and a Thai official noted it’s likely to become Southeast Asia’s first plant producing batteries from cells.

More than 20 Chinese auto brands, including BYD and Great Wall Motor, have entered Thailand.

BYD’s factory, which began production in July 2024, is becoming the hub of a growing supply chain. Alongside Sunwoda, battery makers CALB, Gotion, and SVOLT have started local production, while CATL is building a joint venture plant with Thailand’s state-owned PTT.

However it may not all be tariff related. Nikkei writes that Chinese manufacturers began accelerating their investments in Thailand around 2018, amid rising U.S.-China trade tensions.

As of March, Chinese-invested auto parts companies in Thailand reached 165—over triple the number from the end of 2017. Across Southeast Asia, Chinese companies established more than 7,000 firms by 2023, with direct investment topping a record $25 billion that year.

This growth is expected to continue. In April, Ningbo Tuopu Group announced plans to invest up to $300 million in a Thai factory, saying the move would help it “win more orders and strengthen support for important foreign customers.”

Nikkei writes that Japanese automakers, dominant in Thailand since the 1960s, have built a network of about 1,400 local suppliers through joint ventures and vertically integrated operations. In contrast, Chinese carmakers are building independent supply chains, often excluding Japanese-linked suppliers.

Chinese parts are nearly 30% cheaper than those from Japanese firms, and Chinese companies typically produce core components like batteries in-house or source them from affiliated suppliers. “Thai suppliers will not be able to fully benefit from the Chinese push into the country,” Sompol said.

A Thai Summit Group executive noted that Japanese automakers may eventually switch to lower-cost Chinese parts, which could force Japanese suppliers in Thailand to downsize or exit the market. Although Toyota and Honda still hold over 70% of Thailand’s new car market, their lead is shrinking under Chinese pressure, the report concludes. 

Vice President J.D Vance has weighed in on the escalating fighting breaking out between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India over the last several days. He said in Thursday comments that a full-scare war would be "disastrous" but cautioned that the United States would not get involved. 

"Look, we’re concerned about any time nuclear powers collide and have a major conflict," Vance told Fox News's Martha MacCallum in a segment. "What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit."

Via Associated Press

That's when he emphasized that the South Asian conflict is "none of our business" and that Washington acknowledges its inability to control outcomes in the restive region.

"But we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it," he asserted.

But he did admit the danger of nuclear confrontation if it were to spin out of control:

“Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict,” Vance told MacCallum. “Sure, we’re worried about these things, but I think the job of diplomacy — but also the job of cooler heads in India and Pakistan — is to make sure this doesn’t become a nuclear war.”

Interestingly, Vance had actually been visiting India last month when the Kashmir massacre unfolded, involving militants from the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LOC) killing 26 mostly Indian tourists on April 22.

As for President Trump, he had soon after the killings stated that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi " and the incredible people of India, have our full support and deepest sympathies." He said "Our hearts are with you all!"

But despite calls for de-escalation, the fight has been growing over the last 24 hours, with hundreds of drones being exchanged, and anti-aircraft fire active - and more crucially reports of major fighter jet engagements.

Of regional diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation, The NY Times writes Friday that "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are sending their diplomats to try to de-escalate the conflict between India and Pakistan at a moment of particular global disarray."

The city of Jammu, on the Indian side, has been under two straight nights of Pakistani artillery fire - but some reports said this ceased at some point early Friday. Heavy artillery fire has been intermittent. 

Currently, each side's leadership is seeking to prove a 'tough' response to their respective domestic populations:

Some Pakistani analysts say they believe that there is still a small window for de-escalation despite the wider fighting over the past day. Farhan Hanif Siddiqi, a professor of international relations at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, suggested that with both Indian and Pakistani leaders publicly proclaiming victory, there was still a chance to save face and back off. “The sooner they do it, the better it is for regional stability,” he said.

Some cities especially on the Indian side in Jammu and Kashmir have been plunged into darkness and even the capital New Delhi is under 'high alert' - and military imposed restrictions are evidence through parts of the country especially in the west.

Even US officials are now confirming that Indian jets were downed by Pakistan (https://t.co/I223JcJjpB)

So at this stage it's been confirmed by:
- 4 local Indian government officials (https://t.co/LQ6puYDlBj)
- A high-ranking French intelligence official… pic.twitter.com/RX5Zxr3B0c

Islamabad is currently saying 'no de-escalation' and score-settling has continued. Pakistani officials have claimed the army shot down up to five Indian jets. But verification of all the claims and counter-claims have been hard to verify and a thick fog of war remains over the remote border region where fighting is at its most intense. 

The Trump administration's commitment to non-involvement on a military scale is encouraging, however, given the number of hot spots where America is currently deeply involved (on a weapons and intelligence support level) - especially Ukraine and Israel/Gaza. Can a fourth all-out war over Kashmir be avoided? 

Five months after Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) effectively "Bud Light'd" itself with a woke social media campaign, the British automaker is reportedly severing ties with its ad agency, according to British media. 

But why now—half a year later? The backlash over its controversial woke rebranding occurred last fall, yet the company's pronoun-wielding executive publicly defended the cringe ad at the time.

The Telegraph first reported that JLR was severing ties with its ad agency, Accenture Song, after the marketing disaster on November 19.

Copy nothing. #Jaguar pic.twitter.com/BfVhc3l09B

Elon Musk asked JLR: "Do you sell cars?" 

Do you sell cars?

In 2021, Accenture Song joined forces with Spark44, JLR's client-agency joint venture, to create a new marketing approach for JLR's shift to an electric-first, modern luxury business.

But JLR's marketing blunder was merely a repeat of Bud Light's trans activism and a lesson for corporations not to stack their teams with woke activists.

Much like Bud Light's disastrous foray into identity politics, JLR fell into the same woke trap. Now, the brand is paying the price as a multi-year sales decline deepens.

Days after the ad was launched and backlash erupted, Jaguar boss Rawdon Glover said the ad's "intended message" had been lost in "a blaze of intolerance" on social media platforms and rejected the notion that the video was woke.

"If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we'll just get drowned out. So we shouldn't turn up like an auto brand," Glover stated. On LinkedIn, the executive still promotes his pronouns...

Unlike JLR, Volvo's ad team read the room. Sensing the Overton Window had shifted away from far-left wokeism toward themes of family, tradition, and stability—they released this...

Volvo posted a 3 min and 46 second ad on Instagram, shot by Hoyte Van Hoytema, the cinematographer of Interstellar and Oppenheimer.

It goes against every single rule you can think about as a social lead. Length. Format. Over-produced.

Every comment under the ad said it… pic.twitter.com/wkmghuP4ye

Revisiting the earlier question: Why did JLR wait six months to start searching for a new ad agency?

Was it due to slumping sales, or perhaps pressure related to tariffs? We may never get the full story—but what's clear is this: woke marketing is dead. Companies view the purple-haired college graduate as an increasing liability rather than an asset. 

Why does Aston Martin get it?

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Three weeks ago, when we first reported that as a result of the ongoing Trump trade war with China, "chinese factories are shutting down, laying off workers", we said that as a result of this war of attrition in which the outcome of every incremental clash and battle will be used just as aggressively for media propaganda, "the fact that any marginal pain will be amplified as trade war weakness will mean that Beijing will do everything in its power to prevent the full extent of the shutdowns from being revealed."

Sure enough, last week the WSJ reported that whereas "not long ago, anyone could comb through a wide range of official data from China... then it started to disappear." 

We detailed the unprecedented disappearance of Chinese "data", fake as it traditionally may have been, earlier this week. But while we had our theories why China quietly vaporized hundreds of data sets - naturally one wouldn't be deleting the data if it was good, or could at least be massaged in a credible way - it was not until today when a Reuters report confirmed what we said from day one, namely that in the long run China's economy has more to lose than the US, where the hit would be faster but would focus primarily on the market, and once the initial selloff shock wears off leverage would swing to benefit the White House.

And just as we supposed, Beijing's unprecedented propaganda campaign, it was the cracks in the economy that forced Xi to the negotiating. According to the Reuters report, "since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on China last month, Beijing had responded in kind. On state and social media, it posted images of Mao Zedong, lambasted "imperialists," and sent a message: capitulation to bullies is dangerous, and it wouldn't back down."

But behind closed doors, China was quietly preparing to do just that, and Reuters reports that according three sources, officials had grown "increasingly alarmed about tariffs' impact on the economy and the risk of isolation as China's trading partners have started negotiating deals with Washington."

China's reasons for deciding to negotiate, Washington's letter on fentanyl, U.S. diplomatic challenges in Beijing, and the early outreach between the two sides are reported by Reuters for the first time, based on interviews with nearly a dozen government officials and experts on both sides.

As usual, China's diplomatic efforts had two faces, one for popular domestic consumption, and one for private engagement with the adversary, in this case the US. 

Sure enough, China's foreign ministry said in a statement to Reuters that it reiterated that "China's firm opposition to the U.S. abuse of tariffs is consistent and clear, and there is no change."  It added that "the U.S. has ignored China's goodwill and unreasonably imposed tariffs on China under the pretext of fentanyl. This is a typical act of bullying, which seriously undermines dialogue and cooperation between the two sides in the field of drug control."

In retrospect, the pretext may have been "fentanyl" but as we learn in a follow up report today from the WSJ, it was anything but a facade: according to the Journal, Xi Jinping is sending his top public-security aide to Switzerland as part of Beijing’s trade talks with Washington, signaling the importance of the fentanyl issue to bilateral relations.

So no, the US had not "ignored China's goodwill", and judging by Xi's response, clearly the issue of fentanyl is a very serious one, and more importantly, one which will allow Trump to score a quick and easy victory over the weekend, one which will further demonstrate the Trump admin's growing leverage in the ongoing negotiations.

But back to the Reuters report, according to which China's Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying said on Friday that China has full confidence in its ability to manage U.S. trade issues, adding that "the Trump administration's approach cannot be sustained." Once again, however, we learn that it was China's approach which was far more unsustainable.

The trade war between the world's two largest economies, combined with Trump's decision last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp downturn in global growth.

After Trump's tariff salvo last month, China took a hard line in its public messaging. Beijing posted footage on its official social media feeds of a Chinese MiG-15 fighter shooting down a U.S. jet in the Korean War, with commentary: "China won't kneel down, because we know standing up for ourselves keeps the possibility of cooperation alive, while compromise snuffs it out." The tone began to shift on April 30, when a state media-affiliated blog said the U.S. had "proactively reached out to China through multiple channels, hoping to discuss tariffs", commentary which according to the White House was a lie. Meanwhile, China was adamantly denying that there were any discussions taking place about trade talks, which was also a lie as just a day later we learned that discussions were in fact taking place ahead of this weekend's trade talks.

CSIS's Kennedy said contacts between Chinese agencies, Beijing's embassy in Washington and the Trump administration had been increasing in frequency in recent weeks. Some in-person interactions took place at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in late April, including with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, which paved the way for the Swiss meeting, said Kennedy, confirming what we reported two weeks ago ( see "Chinese Delegation Spotted Entering Treasury Department, Demands Photos Be Deleted: Report".)

More importantly, we also learn today that it was China that first reached out, more than a month ago.

After Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, Reuters reports that Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao quietly reached out to his U.S. counterpart, Howard Lutnick, but was rebuffed as not senior enough, according to one official familiar with the exchanges. While Trump has been pushing for direct talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China had originally rejected that idea as not in keeping with its traditional approach of working out the details first before the leaders sign any deal, according to public statements by both sides. Which is why after the original Chinese overture was shut down, both sides engaged in unprecedented diplomatic jingoism to deflect attention from the failure to pursue a diplomatic solution.

There's more: another significant factor for China was Trump's public berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February, said one of the sources, adding that any unscripted hostile interaction between the U.S. and Chinese leaders would represent an unacceptable loss of face for Xi.

But as messaging on both sides grew more conciliatory, China decided to put forward its vice premier and Xi confidant He Lifeng, whose direct predecessor struck the "Phase One" trade deal with the U.S. in 2019.

The move satisfied Washington's demands for substantive talks with a senior official with direct access to Xi, but avoided exposing the Chinese leader to potential embarrassment, said one of the sources.

As for the choice of venue, the Swiss foreign ministry said that "during its recent contacts in Washington and Beijing, Switzerland expressed to the U.S. and Chinese authorities its willingness to organize a meeting between the two parties in Geneva."

And while that addresses the how and where, the big question is why? And what is key about the Reuters report is that it confirms what we had reported all throughout the first month of the trade war, namely that "the main drivers of Beijing's climb-down were internal signals that Chinese companies were struggling to avoid bankruptcies and to replace the U.S. market, three people familiar with the Chinese government's thinking said."

Some segments feeling immediate impact were furniture and toy makers, as well as textiles, one of the officials told Reuters. US diplomats in China had also been closely monitoring factory closures, strikes, and job losses in the industrial heartland in southern China, all of which were deteriorating rapidly, and confirming that Trump's gambit had worked.

Many analysts have downgraded their 2025 economic growth forecasts for China, and Goldman and Nomura warned the trade war could cost it up to 16 million jobs. Earlier this week, admitting just how bad the local economy had gotten, China's central bank this week announced fresh monetary stimulus (while the Fed did nothing).

China's central bank cuts key rates, injects 1 trillion yuan 3 hours after agreeing to trade talks to prop up economy and give communist party ammo for negotiations.

Tomorrow the Fed will do precisely none of that.

One of the officials said Chinese companies were struggling to replace the U.S. market because developing nations cannot buy as many items, and that for many firms "this was an existential threat that needed to be resolved in days or weeks."

In addition, Beijing - which had made loud noises warning its "allies" not to engage in negotiations with the US - was worried it was left without a place at the negotiating table while its major trading partners, such as Vietnam, India and Japan, began talks with Washington, said two officials familiar with Beijing's thinking.

In a warning to the countries negotiating with the U.S., China's commerce ministry said in a statement this week that "appeasement cannot bring peace, compromise cannot be respected, and adhering to principled positions and upholding fairness and justice is the right way to safeguard one's own interests." The statement did nothing to change the direction of negotiations.

In Geneva, Beijing appears to have modest expectations, and certainly now after a report confirming that Trump indeed has the upper hand.

Internally, China has downgraded the talks from a higher level to merely a meeting, reflecting its view that the discussions will be mostly about finding out Washington's demands and red lines after weeks of contradictory messages by Trump and other senior U.S. officials, according to a person familiar with the matter.  Still, one official said China could draw on its extensive toolbox and follow Asian neighbors in offering to buy more American liquefied natural gas, a step which could be seen as capitulation - and thus devastating to Xi's reputation - unless it is offset by some action by Trump.

On the table may also be purchases of agricultural goods, similar to the 2019 "Phase One" deal during Trump's first term. At the time, Beijing said it would increase purchases of U.S. agricultural products by $32 billion over two years. While other matters like the U.S.'s axing of the "de minimis" exemption for packages under $800 from China and the sale of TikTok are also likely to play a part in the broader talks, Chinese officials said they do not expect them to play a central role this weekend.

Even before triggering the broader trade war, Trump imposed a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, saying Beijing wasn't doing enough to counter the flow of chemicals used to produce the deadly drug fentanyl. One of the moves that complicated the rapprochement, according to two officials, was a letter sent by the U.S. to China in late April that outlined the steps Trump wanted Beijing to take on fentanyl.

The document, reviewed by Reuters, caused friction with Beijing because it referenced a congressional report that asserted China, through value-added tax rebates for exporters, directly subsidizes production of fentanyl precursors for sale abroad. China denies it does so, although following the WSJ report, it appears that it actually does so.

The letter, sent to the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce, and public security, called on Beijing to publicize the crackdown on fentanyl precursors on the front page of the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily; send a similar message through "internal party channels" to party members; tighten regulation of some specified chemicals; and deepen law-enforcement cooperation.

Two officials familiar with China's reaction said it found especially the first two points "arrogant" because Beijing saw it as the U.S. dictating what China should do within its ruling apparatus. 

Of course, we now know that fentanyl would feature prominently in the Geneva talks and that the U.S. government's opening position would be to present the four points to China. A U.S. official familiar with the letter said the Trump administration simply wanted China to curb the flow of fentanyl precursors to drug cartels, in a move that would allow Xi to save some face.

Which is not to say that the US approach in the negotiations has been seamless. Complicating the negotiations, Trump's Washington team has frozen out many U.S. embassy officials responsible for earlier contacts with Chinese counterparts, two people familiar with the matter said. Trump's new ambassador to China, David Perdue, is slated to arrive in Beijing next week, but Deputy Chief of Mission Sarah Beran, who served as a senior official on China in the Biden administration's National Security Council, was removed from her post this week, the two officials said. 

The turmoil has resulted in lack of internal consultations on demands put forward by the American side, the officials said. An official familiar with Chinese thinking said there had been minimal contact with the U.S. embassy ahead of the Geneva talks.

In the end, however, both sides are about to sit down, and now that it is clear just how more powerful the economic hit to China has been - bizarrely receiving virtually no coverage by the anti-Trump American press which has been acting as if it works on behalf of Beijing for the past month - and how big the imbalance in political leverage between the US and China is, expect Trump to push for a quick, easy win and proceed from there with detailed negotiations that will likely take much of the next 2-3 years, and where every modest victory will be used to wash out any and all incremental market shorts, just as we saw during the first Trade War of 2018-2019.

Friday has seen the border conflict between India and Pakistan escalate once again, with The New York Times describing that it has escalated to the most expansive military clashes in decades. Entire large expanses of border zones are swarming with drones overhead - a first in the history of the long-running rivalry. 

"There were reports of nonstop barrages along the border overnight into Friday, as well as reports of attacks by Pakistan into the Indian city of Jammu, a part of Kashmir," the Times report says, citing that drone attacks have been exchanged along India's entire western border.

Via Reuters

Pakistan has rejected Indian Army claims that all drone attacks into India have been intercepted. There's been days of a 'fog of war' environment in which it's been impossible for outside media to verify each claim and counter-claim.

NYT further observes:

India’s defense officials said Pakistan’s military had attempted aerial intrusions in 36 locations with "300 to 400" drones to test India’s air defense system. The officials said they had identified the drones as made in Turkey.

And more troop losses have been reported, after Pakistan claimed up to 50 Indian droops had died in the last day of fighting. Indian defense officials said their forces had suffered "some losses and injuries" last night, a Times  correspondent says Friday.

According to more, "Artillery in the disputed region of Kashmir has been ferocious, and dozens of civilians have been reported killed on both sides of the boundary."

But despite several historic wars between the nuclear-armed rivals, what makes this week 'new' and unprecedented is the use of drones and loitering munitions, or 'suicide' UAVs. 

#BREAKING

The #Pakistan Air Force releases voice recordings of secured communications obtained through Pakistani electronic warfare platforms, between #Rafale pilots of #India’s Air Force where they report one of their formation members exploding in the air: pic.twitter.com/WY2XOQVpig

"Still, the escalation is not visible in the death toll" - in towns and villages along the Line of Control (LOC), NYT continues. "Relatively few people have been reported killed by those weapons since the first night of India’s offensive."

The ongoing blackout in Indian-administered Kashmir has been accompanied by the constant sounds of shelling and overhead drones. "I’m at my workplace and can see red light and explosions in the sky," one local eyewitness told Al Jazeera.

Blackout in Jammu and Kashmir's Katra:

WATCH | #Blackout in Jammu and Kashmir's #Katra pic.twitter.com/4AkizlCNgX

Al Jazeera's latest reporting also strongly suggests rapid escalation, including alleged militants seeking to cross into India from Pakistani areas:

We’re also getting reports of a blackout in Jammu.

There have been fast-moving developments overnight, including India saying it has taken down several Pakistani drones and missiles and also stopped armed men trying to cross into the Indian side.

There have also been a lot of security developments in many cities, including the Indian capital, New Delhi, which is on high alert.

Wild scenes from Punjab, Pakistan. Bro pulled up on CD-70 & shot down an Indian drone with a gun. pic.twitter.com/YkiiuNGMLr

And CNN in a fresh update reports, "We can hear sirens and there is complete blackout. … We can hear the blasts intermittently for about 20 to 30 minutes now; my family and I are hunkered down at home."

Update (1335ET): As Trump's 'tax the rich' idea has reportedly resulted in "massive finger pointing and disarray," according to Charles Gasparino, Bloomberg now reports that House Republicans are weighing a proposal to dramatically increase taxes on wealthy university endowments, according to people familiar with a draft of the tax package under discussion. The plan, not yet finalized, would create a tiered system that raises the current 1.4% levy to rates as high as 14% to 21%, depending on endowment size.

The measure is part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump and his allies to reshape higher education policy and assert greater control over elite institutions. Trump is expected to meet Friday with House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith to review the draft. Portions of the bill could be released as soon as Sunday night or Monday.

Trump’s 2017 tax package, which Republicans are moving to renew, implemented an endowment levy of 1.4% on net investment income, similar to one that private foundations pay. That levy generated more than $380 million from 56 colleges or universities in 2023 — though it affected just a small fraction of the 1,700 private, nonprofit US schools. 

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington floated a long list of possible budget cuts in January that included raising $10 billion over 10 years by raising the endowment tax to 14%. -Bloomberg

The proposal targets some of the nation’s wealthiest schools, including Harvard and Yale, where per-student endowments exceed $500,000. Harvard, with a $53.2 billion endowment, has been in a legal battle with the federal government over funding freezes and has previously faced threats to its tax-exempt status.

Republicans argue the move would ensure universities direct more of their funds toward student needs and away from initiatives opposed by conservatives, such as DEI programs or legal challenges to Trump-era policies.

*  *  *

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that President Donald Trump has been urging GOP lawmakers to raise taxes on Americans making at least $2.5 million annually, or couples making $5 million. We waited for a denial, only to get some 'clarification' today.

In a Friday morning Truth Social post, Trump suggested that Republicans 'should probably not do it,' but "I'm OK if they do!!!"

Trump says that the problem with 'even a "TINY" tax increase for the RICH' is that 'Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, "Read my lips," the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the election," - referring to then-candidate George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign promise not to raise taxes as president - which of course he did not keep, and was seen as a factor in his loss in the 1992 election.

Trump reportedly reached out to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to push the tax, which would restore a 39.6% bracket to its pre-2017 level. The current top rate stands at 37%. The president also reiterated support for ending the carried interest tax break, a longstanding benefit claimed by private equity and venture capital managers, according to the report.

The proposal is undoubtedly an attempt to mitigate concerns over the GOP's current plans to make Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent without having to chip away at hot-button entitlement programs.

Representative Jason Smith, the Missouri Republican who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is expected to meet with President Trump today. A congressional aide told BBG that Smith plans to assure the president that the forthcoming tax bill 'will deliver on the president’s priorities.'

While the proposal’s full contours remain under negotiation, it is not yet clear whether it would include an expansion of the existing small business income exemption under the individual tax code.

The push to raise the top rate comes as House Republicans face mounting fiscal pressure in drafting what President Trump has labeled the “one big beautiful bill” — a multi-trillion-dollar package aimed at extending the 2017 tax cuts while enacting a range of new promises, including eliminating taxes on tips and overtime pay.

To finance the plan, GOP leaders have struggled to find consensus on cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicaid, prompting President Trump to float alternatives.

Last month, Johnson said that he was "not in favor of raising the tax rates, because our party is the group that stands against that traditionally."

Also last month, Trump told Time magazine that "I would be honored to pay more, but I don’t want to be in a position where we lose an election because I was generous — but me, as a rich person, would not mind paying and you know, we’re talking about very little," adding "We’re talking about one point. It doesn’t make that much difference, and yet, I could just see somebody trying to bring that up as a subject, and, you know, say, ‘Oh, he raised taxes.’"

New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) has again been thrown into turbulence. Earlier, air traffic control radar screens briefly went dark—for the second time in weeks—and now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a ground stop due to ongoing runway construction. It's yet another confidence blow for travelers.

ABC News reports that radar systems operated by air traffic controllers at EWR experienced a brief outage around 0355ET: 

Air traffic controllers could be heard telling a FedEx plane that their screens went dark and then asking the aircraft to tell their company to put pressure on to get the problem fixed.

In another transmission, a controller told an arriving private jet that the airport just had a brief radar outage and to stay at or above 3,000 feet in case the controllers couldn't get in touch during the aircraft's descent.

ABC noted this was the second ATC computer outage in a week: 

Last week, an outage at Newark caused ATC computer screens to go dark for roughly 60 to 90 seconds and prevented controllers from talking to aircraft during that time, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the incident. As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly halted all departures to the airport.

Hours later, around 1000 ET, reports hit the wires that the FAA issued a ground stop at EWR because of runway construction, staffing shortages, and equipment troubles, according to local media outlet PIX11.

The flight-tracking website FlightAware shows that EWR has about 100 flights delayed so far this morning. 

On Thursday afternoon, former ABC and Fox News anchor John Stossel released a video calling Newark Airport a "disaster," arguing that air traffic control should be taken out of the hands of the bloated federal government and handed over to private companies instead.

Newark Airport is a disaster.

Now Trump vows to upgrade the “horrible” air traffic system.

It was obsolete decades ago.

No private company would allow that

Private companies upgrade.

We should privatize air traffic control: pic.twitter.com/aS9VyPGi2f

Also on Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced new, "state-of-the-art" ATC systems will replace "antiquated" ones... 

Why didn't the Biden administration focus on upgrading America's flight radars and ATC systems? They were too focused on toxic DEI and discussing how to identify a woman. 

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