Authored by Pepe Escobar,

The first ever ASEAN-China-GCC trilateral summit earlier this week in Malaysia is even more than a cross-regional, South-South breakthrough.

The 17 nations united on the same table in Kuala Lumpur graphically demonstrated, as evoked by Malaysian Prime Minister and current ASEAN chair Anwar Ibrahim, how “from the ancient Silk Road to the vibrant maritime networks of Southeast Asia to modern trade corridors, our peoples have long connected through commerce, culture, and the sharing of ideas.”

Call it the 21st century New Silk Road spirit. And it’s no wonder China is right at its heart, via interlocked Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects – from infrastructure to trade development. China, Southeast Asia and a large part of West Asia do conform a Golden Triangle of natural resources, manufacturing and a large consumer base.

The final declaration of the Malaysia summit of course had to celebrate these “enduring and deep historical and civilizational ties”, as well as geoeconomics, in a drive to “promote economic development in the wider Asia-Pacific [note the correct terminology] and Middle East [old terminology: the correct one is ‘West Asia’].”

So it’s natural that China proposed the possibility of including the West Asian Arab nations of the GCC in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the vast 15-member trade pact that includes China and ASEAN (but not self-excluded India).

Free trade was the key theme in Kuala Lumpur – from the recently completed China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 upgrade to the upcoming China-GCC Free Trade Agreement negotiations. In contrast to Trump 2.0, the trilateral committed to “strengthen the resilience of industrial chains and supply chains”, everything geared towards long-term, tariff and sanction-free sustainable trade.

Last year, ASEAN’s total trade with China and GCC surpassed $900 billion, almost twice the $453 billion in trade with the US. And yes, trade de-dollarization is the way to go all across Asia. Right before the summit, China and Indonesia jointly announced that from now on, trade between both powerhouses is only in yuan and rupiah.

The final declaration was explicit on exploring “local currency and cross-border payment cooperation” – in tandem with promoting “high-quality BRI cooperation and seamless connectivity, including the development of logistics corridors and digital platforms”, and advancing “sustainable infrastructure construction.” The trilateral is engaged in building a web of pan-Asia connectivity corridors – the prime geoeconomic theme of the 21st century.

The trilateral had to refer to Gaza – although not as forcefully as it should. At best, the final declaration “endorses the advisory opinion rendered by the International Court of Justice on 19 July 2024, including its finding that the United Nations, in particular the General Assembly and the Security Council, which requested the advisory opinion, should consider specific modalities and further actions to bring an end to the illegal presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as soon as possible”; and to “achieve the two-State solution based on the 1967 borders in accordance with international law.”

How East, Southeast and West Asia Connect to BRICS

East Asia, historically, is most of all a mosaic of transnational regions linked by maritime corridors. The first globalization happened – where else – in Asia, from the opening of the trans-Pacific route linking the “New World” to the Philippines in 1511 to the takeover of Malacca – the great Southeast Asian emporium – by the Portuguese in 1571.

But even before the Vasco da Gama era, East and Southeast Asia formed a relatively integrated economic zone, with ports from Malacca to Nagasaki shining as trade centers crammed with Arab, Chinese, Indian and Japanese merchants. Malacca boomed thanks to excellent infrastructure, moderate port tariffs and a sound fiscal regime: a much better deal compared to the subsequent predatory Portuguese and Dutch colonial set up, all the way to admiral Alfred Mahan conceptualizing the principles of sea power to the benefit of the thalassocratic US.

Former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo has clearly explained how China and South East Asia have been relieving – with spectacular success – their historic, culture and trade connections. This summit taking place in Malaysia, home of the historically crucial crossroads Malacca, is a touch of poetic justice.

Add to it Indonesia President Prabowo – a former Suharto general, and his son-in-law – effusively praising China’s firm anti-imperialist stance since 1949 and during the Cold War, right in front of Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang. A 21stcentury parallel can be made with the legendary Spirit of Bandung in 1955, when Indonesia’s Sukarno – a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) – was side by side with Zhou EnLai.

The ASEAN-China-GCC summit may be able to advance moves that the inestimable Prof. Michael Hudson deem absolutely necessary for BRICS members – and quite a few in Kuala Lumpur will be at the table at the BRICS summit in Rio in early July.

Prof. Hudson has conclusively demonstrated how landlord classes, monopolies and residues of European colonialism will have to go for BRICS nations to “achieve the same kind of take off that made England, Germany, US industrial leaders of the world.” That means to drastically “cut back payments to foreign investors concentrated on raw material rent” and to subdue “the rentier class.”

Prof. Hudson argues that when it comes to “how to free their economies – rent, creditor payments – this is what China did. China had a revolution. After the revolution it did not have a financial class. China made money creation a public utility – an arm of the Treasury; it created money to finance tangible investments in capital formation, factories, housing – a little too much – huge public infrastructure, urban transportation, high-speed rail.”

What I previously defined as “The BRICS Lab” – all those models being constantly tested, starting last year in Russia before the Kazan summit – is indeed trying to answer questions posed by Prof. Hudson in several ways: “We need to create our money. Elites should not keep benefitting from regressive taxation. How to industrialize? No more economic rent.”

The Chinese, predictably, are already at the next level of the integration business. This is their “magic weapon” to “defeat the enemy”: “The construction of the ‘dual circulation’ of the domestic and foreign markets, uniting as many living forces as possible to form a united front to deal with unilateralism. Most of the southern countries are natural allies. The feasibility of close linkage between ‘South-South cooperation’ and ‘dual circulation’ is increasing day by day.”

Jeffrey Sachs, in Kuala Lumpur, ahead of the ASEAN-China-GCC summit, succinctly nailed the New Silk Road spirit: “If you put together Japanese skill, Korean skill, Chinese skill, ASEAN skill, oh my God: no one could possibly compete (…) Diplomacy requires a table and two chairs. The military requires $1 trillion a year. Which do you think is the better deal?”

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Descendants of rewilded wolves are taking a heavy toll on cattle in Northern California and Oregon, killing calves and full-grown animals and putting stress on cow-calf operations and ranchers’ pocketbooks.

A gray wolf approaches a bull, caught on a game camera in June 2023. Ken Tate, Tina Saitone/UC Davis

Because wolves are listed as an endangered species under state and federal law, ranchers are hamstrung: They can’t shoot or harass these protected predators. The penalty for killing a wolf is steep; federal law carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine, unless a rancher can prove that it was in self-defense.

While animal advocacy groups say the wolves are native apex predators that belong in California and other western states, some ranchers argue that there’s nothing natural about wolves’ stalking domestic cattle because there isn’t enough natural prey.

“They’re welfare wolves,” Janna Martin Gliatto, an owner at Table Rock Ranch in northern California, said. “We have entitled wolves—multiple generations.”

One wolf pack, known as the Whaleback Pack, near her ranch doesn’t seem inclined to hunt elk or deer, she said.

Since November 2021, wolves have killed at least 44 head of cattle at the Martin family’s ranch in Siskiyou County, Gliatto told The Epoch Times. Of those confirmed wolf kills, three were adult cows, and the rest were calves.

“There’s a handful of people and ranches like us that have been hit really hard,” she said. “I’ve had so much carnage.”

The protection of wolves has been a “costly experiment” for ranchers and taxpayers who foot the bill for it, Gliatto said.

In 2021, state lawmakers voted to disburse $3 million to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to develop a pilot program to mitigate the effects of wolves on livestock producers.

The resulting Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program was started in 2022, and by March 2024, the funds were exhausted after 109 claims were paid out to livestock producers for wolf depredation in Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas, and Tulare counties.

Gliatto received two years of partial compensation to pay a range rider to patrol the herd at night, “but the funds ran out, so now it’s out-of-pocket,” she said.

In 2024, the state appropriated another $600,000 for the CDFW to continue the Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program, but the program no longer subsidizes ranchers for the cost of deterrent efforts such as range riders and is limited to compensation for direct loss only.

CDFW spokeswoman Katie Talbot said California’s wolf population is estimated at between 50 and 70 in total. The agency has confirmed that 163 cattle and six sheep have been killed or injured by wolves since 2011, when the first collared wolf from Oregon entered California, Talbot told The Epoch Times in an email.

Debbie Bacigalupi (front) and her mother, Donna, tend to a calf at Cold Springs Ranch in Siskiyou County, Calif., in May 2024. The family shares a fence line with Table Rock Ranch and has also lost calves to suspected wolf attacks. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

She said that of the initial $3 million Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program fund, more than $2 million was paid out for direct loss and deterrence efforts to ranchers in Siskiyou County, while those in Lassen and Plumas counties received about $490,000 and $476,000, respectively. About $16,000 went to Tulare County. Since October 2024, the average compensation per head was $2,870, Talbot said.

Examining Expenses

A recently released study by University of California–Davis professor Tina Saitone, a livestock and rangeland economics specialist, found that one wolf can cause between $69,000 and $162,000 in direct and indirect cattle losses, from outright attacks, lower pregnancy rates in cows, and decreased weight gain in calves.

Saitone’s research team used motion-activated field cameras, GPS collars, wolf scat analysis, and cattle tail-hair samples to show how the expanding protected gray wolf population is affecting cattle operations, “leading to millions of dollars in losses,” according to the study.

The research showed that during the 2022 and 2023 summer seasons, 72 percent of wolf scat samples from the Lassen Pack—in western Lassen and northern Plumas counties—contained cattle DNA. It also found elevated hair cortisol levels in cattle that ranged in areas with wolves, indicating an increase in stress.

Aside from the financial effects, Gliatto said the wolf issue has been emotionally taxing on ranchers who’ve witnessed continual attacks on their herds and “hypocrisy” over what is considered humane treatment of cattle.

Ranchers are afraid to brand their cattle because some animal rights groups view the practice as inhumane, but, she said, “you can have a wolf literally tear your animals apart while they’re alive and eat them, and people just turn a blind eye.”

According to Gliatto, wolves wouldn’t be thriving in the wild without heavily supplementing their diet with cattle, which, in some cases, is their primary food source.

The wolves have created fierce competition at the top of the food chain because there aren’t enough deer and elk to feed them and other predators such as mountain lions, bears, and coyotes, she said.

“We have a huge predator bubble,” Gliatto said.

CDFW reported that there were seven documented wolf packs in California in 2024, along with evidence of other wolves in the state.

A game camera captures a gray wolf from the Lassen pack among a herd of cattle in July 2022.

Return of the Wolf

The first wolves showed up at Gliatto’s ranch in 2020.

A lone male wolf, OR-85, collared in February 2020, left his natal Mount Emily pack near La Grande, Oregon, crossed into California, and found a mate from another pack from southwestern Oregon. The pair formed the Whaleback Pack and have produced 21 pups since 2021, according to CDFW.

Tracking showed cluster points of OR-85 near an elk herd on ranchland that the family leased, but the pack doesn’t feed on them, Gliatto said.

The elk herd, often spotted at Grass Lake, stopped going there, she said.

“They just moved away from the wolves, and the wolves didn’t follow them,” Gliatto said.

Instead, she said, the wolves have become habituated to preying on cattle at her family’s ranch, which typically has more than 1,500 head, including cow-calf pairs, and replacement heifers.

Table Rock Ranch borders timberland at the forest-edge of a mountain range, so when wolves descend into the valley, her cattle are the first meal they see. Hence, from a wolf’s perspective, it makes no sense to go farther down into the valley, where there are more people and less cover, Gliatto said.

Amaroq Weiss, an attorney and the senior West Coast wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said some cattle herds are hit harder than others.

“You constantly have animals that are vulnerable because they’re not being checked on,” she told The Epoch Times. “They’ve eaten poisonous weeds, they’ve gotten wounded for some reason, they’re having birthing complications. All those things are going to draw wolves in.”

Wolves aren’t targeting the closest ranch or the first cattle herd they encounter, and they will often roam through pastures filled with cattle “and just keep on going out the other end of the pasture to hunt wild prey,” Weiss said.

The Whaleback Pack, and some others in California, cover immense territories compared with most wolf packs in other western states that have more elk and deer, because “they’re looking for a food source,” she said.

Siskiyou County wolf liaison Patrick Griffin, who investigates suspected wolf kills for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the 44 confirmed kills at Table Rock Ranch “sounds accurate,” noting that it has been the hardest-hit ranch in the state.

More than 80 “confirmed” or “probable” cattle kills have been attributed to the Whaleback Pack, Griffin told The Epoch Times.

Read the rest here...

WalletHub analyzed 300 U.S. cities of varying sizes across ten metrics, including real estate tax rate, cost per square foot, median home price, and median household income. Each metric was scored on a 100-point scale, with 100 indicating the most favorable conditions for home affordability. For this map, only cities with a population over 100,000 were considered.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, shows the 20 most affordable U.S. cities to buy a home in 2025, according to data from WalletHub.

Detroit Tops the List for Home Affordability

Detroit leads the list, with a median price per square foot of around $87. The city has faced significant challenges over the decades, including financial crises and the decline of the auto industry, prompting many residents to leave.

Today, more than 22% of homes in Detroit are vacant, creating a strong buyer’s market. According to WalletHub, Detroit is also one of the top cities where buying a home offers greater long-term value than renting. The city was also considered the most affordable large American city in 2025, according to another study.

Also in the Rust Belt, Pittsburgh, PA, ranks as the second-most affordable city for homebuyers, with a median home price approximately 3.8 times higher than the median household income.

Like Detroit, Memphis, TN—ranked third—has also been highlighted as one of the most affordable large cities in the country for working families.

If you enjoyed this map, check out this map on Voronoi about the income needed to buy a home in every U.S. state.

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

Scientists are sounding the alarm on what they call an overlooked threat to public health: synthetic chemicals from packaging and processing equipment contaminating the food supply—particularly ultra-processed items—and potentially fueling a rise in chronic health conditions.

Sergey Ryzhov/Shutterstock

A comprehensive review article recently published in Nature Medicine highlights some of the most prevalent types and sources of synthetic chemical contaminants in food: chemicals known as food contact chemicals (FCCs), which may contribute to chronic health conditions, including endocrine disruption, reproductive issues, and increased cancer risks.

Why Food Contact Chemical Contamination Goes Unnoticed

The widespread nature of FCC contamination may have escaped public attention because these chemicals migrate invisibly into food through routine processes we usually consider safe.

Unlike visible food safety concerns such as bacterial contamination or spoilage, FCCs transfer silently from materials that come into contact with food through four key routes, as identified by the researchers: transportation, processing, packaging, and preparation.

Transportation introduces FCCs through storage containers and tubing systems used to move food products. During this stage, chemicals from container coatings and transport equipment can leach into foods—especially when exposed to temperature changes or extended contact periods.

Food processing—the industrial transformation of raw ingredients into finished products—exposes foods to machinery, conveyor systems, and processing equipment that contain various synthetic materials. The high temperatures and mechanical processes involved in manufacturing can accelerate chemical migration from these surfaces.

Plastic food packaging represents a significant source of contamination, as it involves prolonged direct contact between synthetic materials and food products.

Food preparation, which differs from processing because it involves the final steps before consumption, often includes heating. Higher temperatures lead to increased migration, the researchers noted.

All FCCs that migrate into food or drinks are important because people will likely ingest them, the authors wrote.

The study identified how specific harmful substances migrate through these pathways. Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether—a known endocrine disruptor and potential carcinogen—transfers from coatings of metal food storage containers during transportation and storage.

Phthalates migrate from polyvinyl chloride tubing into milk during processing and transport. Even cleaning agents used to disinfect storage and transport containers can leave residues that end up in food.

Fast food products face particularly high contamination levels because they encounter multiple packaging types throughout the production and service chain, including disposable containers, wrappers, and serving material, said Bryan Quoc Le, a food scientist and principal food consultant at Mendocino Food Consulting, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Serious Health Risks From FCC Exposure

The health implications of FCC exposure extend far beyond minor concerns, with research linking these chemicals to severe chronic conditions that affect millions of people, according to the study.

Phthalates in food packaging pose significant reproductive health risks, with certain types linked to preterm birth. This early delivery increases the risk of developing chronic conditions later in life, including kidney disease and diabetes.

Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP)—a man-made chemical used as a plasticizer—demonstrates particularly concerning effects in adults, with studies associating exposure with obesity and diabetes. Some evidence shows a 40 to 69 percent probability that DEHP exposure directly causes these conditions.

Perfluorooctanoic acid—another common food contact chemical—carries even more severe risks. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as carcinogenic to humans, meaning it definitively causes cancer in people exposed to sufficient levels.

Bisphenols, including the well-known bisphenol A (BPA), function as endocrine disruptors, interfering with the body’s hormone systems. This disruption can affect reproductive health, metabolism, and development, particularly in children and pregnant women.

Alternatives like bio-based coatings, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)-free barriers, and safer plasticizers are currently available, but they come with trade-offs in cost, performance, and shelf life, said Vineet Dubey, a Los Angeles environmental attorney who focuses on consumer safety issues, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“As always, change will take time and requires the buy-in of food companies, which have already invested in technology, factories, and industrial farm-to-table systems that package food the ‘old’ way,” he noted.

Ultra-Processed Foods–The Highest Risk Category

Ultra-processed foods face the greatest contamination risk due to their complex manufacturing processes and extensive packaging requirements, according to the recent study.

These products include breakfast cereals and bars, ready-made frozen meals, processed meats like chicken nuggets, energy drinks with significant added sugar, packaged bread, sodas, snacks like cookies and chips, candy, and condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise, Dr. Mia Kazanjian, the co-director of Stamford Health’s Breast Center, who was not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.

“These are the foods that are exposed to these chemicals most during the packaging, processing, and storage,” she said.

Protecting Yourself From Food Contact Chemicals

Despite the widespread nature of FCC contamination, people can take practical steps to reduce their exposure and protect their health.

Dietary Changes

Health experts recommend reducing the consumption of ultra-processed foods when possible. Instead, prioritize fresh, whole foods that require minimal processing and packaging.

When purchasing packaged foods, choose products with minimal packaging or packaging made from safer materials. Glass and stainless steel containers pose significantly lower risks than plastic alternatives because they are less likely to leach harmful chemicals into food.

Storage Solutions

Replace plastic food storage containers with glass or stainless steel alternatives. These materials resist chemical migration better.

Avoid heating food in plastic containers, as elevated temperatures accelerate chemical migration from plastic into food. Transfer food to glass or ceramic containers before microwaving or heating.

Preparation Practices

Use wooden, glass, or stainless steel utensils and cutting boards instead of plastic alternatives when possible. Plastic cutting boards can contain hundreds of chemicals.

Choose fresh ingredients over packaged alternatives when possible, and prepare meals at home rather than relying on heavily packaged convenience foods.

Call to Action

Kazanjian expressed hope that in the foreseeable future, our food system can be redesigned to minimize the use of potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals.

“It starts with more widespread awareness,” she said, adding that the more people know about this, the more advocacy there will be, and the more movement we will have toward a safer food supply—but it will take time.

“But certain things can be done in short order,” Kazanjian added. “For example, we need more advanced testing to pick up on all the chemicals in these products. Then we need food companies to avoid using them and invest in safer alternatives.”

Lead study author Jane Muncke emphasizes the need for a “holistic” approach to policymaking that integrates considerations of planetary and human health, including FCCs and their effects.

Recent regulatory action provides some hope. In 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked authorizations for 23 phthalates in food contact use and limited use to nine compounds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now requires manufacturers and processors of Di-n-pentyl phthalate, a specific phthalate, to notify the agency before starting or resuming new uses.

According to Muncke, all food packaging, processing equipment, and other food contact materials require adequate safety testing regarding migrating food contact chemicals and microplastics using modern testing methods.

Quoc Le said, “The more we learn about this topic, the clearer it becomes that there is a real problem, which may explain many health problems that exist today—especially those that are severe and undiagnosed in some individuals.”

Authored by S.A. McCarthy via The Washington Stand,

President Joe Biden issued 162 executive orders over the course of his Oval Office tenure, but according to a new report, most of them were signed by “autopen,” giving rise to concerns that unelected White House staffers may have had more say in shaping policy than the president. The report is furthering those concerns and suggesting that Biden may not have even been aware of the existence of the orders being signed in his name.

The American energy advocacy group Power the Future published the report Wednesday, examining eight Biden-era executive orders on climate change and U.S. energy policy, and found “no evidence” that Biden ever spoke about or acknowledged the existence of any of these orders. “Not in a press conference. Not in a speech. Not even a video statement,” Power the Future’s report stated. Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner said in a statement, “Americans deserve to know which unelected staffers or radical unnamed activists implemented sweeping change through an autopen. The Biden energy agenda destroyed the livelihoods of energy workers and fueled the record-high inflation that broke the budgets of millions of Americans.” He asked, “The question is simple, and deserves an immediate answer: what did Joe Biden know, and when did he know it?”

According to the Oversight Project, dedicated to government accountability, practically every order signed by Biden was signed via autopen, with the exception of his announcement withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election. The Oversight Project cited House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who questioned Biden on an executive order affecting liquefied natural gas (LNG) and reported that the president didn’t remember signing the order. “He looks at me, stunned, and he said, ‘I didn’t do that,’” Johnson recounted. He continued, “And I said to him, ‘Mr. President, yes you did, it was an executive order, like, you know, three weeks ago.’ And he goes, ‘No, I didn’t do that.’ … It occurred to me … he was not lying to me. He genuinely did not know what he had signed.”

“For investigators to determine whether then-President Biden actually ordered the signature of relevant legal documents, or if he even had the mental capacity to, they must first determine who controlled the autopen and what checks there were in place,” the Oversight Project wrote in a social media post. The accountability organization continued, “Given President Biden’s decision to revoke Executive Privilege for individuals advising Trump during his first Presidency, this is a knowable fact that can be determined with the correct legal process…”

The “autopen” has been the subject of significant controversy in recent years due to Biden’s excessive use of the technology. Devices have been around for centuries, allowing individuals to replicate their signature or sign multiple documents at once. Thomas Jefferson, for example, kept an early prototype, then called a “polygraph,” in the White House and another in his residence at Monticello. The device allowed a user to sign multiple documents at once but did require the signer to be present and to actively use the machine.

In the late 1930s, an automated version of the machine was developed, called the “autopen,” which would store a template of a signature that could be reproduced without the presence of the actual signer. The autopen became commercially available in the early 1940s and was quickly purchased by politicians, government officials, celebrities, and others. The first U.S. president to use an autopen was reportedly Harry Truman, although he only used the device to sign checks and answer mail. Likewise, most other presidents — such as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, or Gerald Ford — who used an autopen relegated their use of the instrument to signing checks, correspondence, and autographs.

George W. Bush considered using the autopen to sign executive orders and legislation and even got the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) approval to do so, but still insisted on signing such documents himself, flying to Washington, D.C. to sign emergency legislation in 2005, for example. Barack Obama was the first president to use the autopen to sign legislation, giving his approval to sign Patriot Act extensions via autopen while he was visiting France in 2011, the National Defense Authorization Act while vacationing in Hawaii in 2012, and fiscal legislation in 2013.

President Donald Trump has openly refused to use autopen signatures for executive orders and other legal documents. “We may use it, as an example, to send some young person a letter because it’s nice,” Trump told reporters in March. Contrasting his limited use of the autopen against Biden’s much broader use, Trump added, “But to sign pardons and all of the things that he signed with an autopen is disgraceful.” Trump has also suggested that pardons — and, potentially, executive orders — signed by the Biden administration via autopen may be legally “void” if the president didn’t know what he was signing or didn’t authorize its signature.

The Washington Stand asked the DOJ about potential investigations and, if applicable, prosecutions of the Biden administration’s autopen use and was told, “No comment here.”

The Baltimore Peninsula—formerly known as Port Covington—is a 235-acre, large-scale mixed-use waterfront redevelopment in South Baltimore, which one YouTuber has called it a "billion-dollar ghost town." 

"This video explores Baltimore's newest and swankiest waterfront neighborhood," YouTuber "Building Tales" wrote in the description of the video, adding, "It's a beautiful Saturday, but there's just one thing missing … people." 

The video description continued, "On this particular Saturday I walked around for a half hour and could just about count all the people I saw on one hand. So what's going on here… why are there all of these beautiful new buildings but seemingly no one here to use them?" 

Major developers of the waterfront redevelopment project include:

• Sagamore Ventures (Kevin Plank, Under Armour founder)

• Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group

• MAG Partners (New York-based, led by MaryAnne Gilmartin)

• MacFarlane Partners (San Francisco-based real estate firm)

Financing on the deal included: 

• Public and private financing: Over $5.5 billion in total investment planned

• Largest TIF (Tax Increment Financing) in Baltimore history: $660 million approved in public bonds to fund infrastructure

So far, the struggling apparel brand Under Armour remains the large anchor tenant at Baltimore Peninsula, with a new global headquarters. Much of the surrounding office and retail space has been built on speculation, with hopes that additional tenants will follow.

According to one industry insider, a key challenge facing Baltimore City's commercial real estate market is the growing number of competing business districts—both completed and under development—that are attracting tenants, such as Harbor East. 

The broader issue is that Baltimore City Hall remains under the control of radical leftist activists whose decade-long social justice experiment has backfired, igniting recent violent crime waves. The population in the metro area has plunged to a 100-year low as residents and businesses flee the crime-infested area. 

Whether it's the population collapse, violent crime, mass exodus of residents, or the sight of a "ghost town" in a major new commercial development—Baltimore's decline all points back to one root cause: decades of failed progressive leadership at City Hall.

Authored by Manouk Termaaten (founder and CEO of Vertical Studio AI) via CoinTelegraph.com,

Major corporations control decentralized AI (DeAI) companies, leaving decentralized AI in the dust. To build a more decentralized world, the sector must actively execute upon a focused DeAI strategy, with shared standards between projects, without compromise.

In April, a UN report warned that AI’s $4.8-trillion market is dominated by a mere 100 companies, most of which are based in the US and China. Centralized AI incumbents have the money and the connections to control this massive new industry, which means significant implications for society. 

These companies, all employing centralized AI technology, have run into their fair share of headaches. For example, Microsoft’s Copilot garnered attention for creating explicit, inappropriate images, such as children in compromising scenarios. This sparked a public and regulatory backlash.

Although Microsoft created stricter moderation, it had already demonstrated that centralized AI can harbor problems in part due to its closed-source code. 

Citadel was wrapped up in an AI trading scandal in the financial sector, as algorithms allegedly manipulated stock prices via artificial volume creation.

Google’s Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program used in military tech, has raised ethical questions.

“We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” reads a letter penned by Google employees and addressed to Sundar Pichai, the company’s CEO. The employees requested that Google leave Project Maven.

“We ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology,” the letter states.

So much for “Don’t be evil” — the company’s old slogan.

These situations give us clear examples of the potential failures of centralized AI, including ethical lapses, opaque decision-making and monopolistic control. DeAI’s open-source ethos, community governance, audit trails and computer facilities can give more than a few massive corporations an edge in the future of AI. 

Centralized AI gains more power 

Corporations and nation-states maintain an upper hand in AI development today — not DeAI projects. Nation-states and corporations can and do outspend DeAI.

Nation-states see that the stakes are high, as Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted when he warned that the country that wins the AI race will “become the ruler of the world.” The People’s Republic of China aims to become the global leader in AI by 2030. 

AI will likely develop an authoritarian bent and feature the pervasive lack of privacy proliferating across today’s World Wide Web, all defined by a corporate state that maintains only a veneer of sharing the fundamental values of the Enlightenment.

DeAI faces an uphill battle

The chances for DeAI to carve out a considerable market share are relatively small. The incumbents are so well-resourced that the battle is one of David and Goliath. Nation-states and corporations will maintain the lead on access to AI, making it all but guaranteed that most of the world will interface with AI first on centralized systems, giving them early adopter status. 

But on a long enough timeline — decades or hundreds of years — DeAI can win market share via open-sourced models and transparent developer documentation.

To realize the vision of DeAI, the sector will have to maximize AI’s benefits with security. DeAI must execute on privacy and data control, resilience, scalability, reduced latency, access democratization and cost-efficiency. It must do this as a community and express its values to the world — regulators, consumers, investors and more. 

DeAI brings numerous advantages over centralized AI systems, like improved privacy and data control, no single point of failure, edge computing and democratized access.

Despite these advantages, AI will undoubtedly be dominated by the prominent state-enterprise apparatus characteristic of the neoliberal world. 

To create a more decentralized world, it’s time to proactively implement a clear DeAI strategy and establish common standards across projects, ensuring these are upheld without compromise.

Authored by Fred Fleitz via American Greatness,

Whenever I go on British TV news programs for interviews about President Trump’s efforts to stop the fighting in Ukraine, I am usually asked two leading questions by condescending British TV hosts: “Do you think President Trump’s Ukraine policy has failed?” and “Do you think Russian President Putin is playing President Trump?’

I always answer that these are biased questions that misrepresent how the war in Ukraine started and Trump’s efforts to end it.

Indeed, President Trump has not yet succeeded in ending this brutal war. Russian President Putin has indeed been difficult to deal with, has failed to abide by his commitments with Trump and his officials, and has escalated the war despite Trump’s peace efforts.

It is unfair to portray these potentially temporary outcomes as failures of Trump’s Ukraine policy, as they ignore that his peace efforts aim to address an enormous foreign policy crisis caused by his predecessor that may not be easily fixed or solved.

Biden emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine by ignoring the Russian leader’s fear of Ukraine moving closer to the West and joining NATO. Although Biden and his senior officials never explicitly called for Ukraine to join NATO, they dangled NATO membership before Ukrainian President Zelensky and repeatedly said this decision was up to Ukraine. Biden further confused the situation by stating several times in 2021 that the United States and NATO would stand behind Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” statements that sounded like Biden offered Ukraine security guarantees. In addition, during a June 2021 NATO Summit, NATO reaffirmed the commitment made at the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would one day become a member.

Biden also encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine with extraordinarily weak American national security policies. The most notorious was the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Putin was emboldened to invade by other cases of Biden’s foreign policy incompetence, especially Biden’s statement weeks before Russian troops crossed into Ukraine when he said the U.S. and its allies might be divided on how to respond if a Russian invasion was a “minor incursion.”

In addition, Biden destroyed U.S. relations with Russia after the start of the war by repeatedly demonizing Putin and failing to engage in diplomacy with the Russian leader to end the war. Biden never spoke with Putin after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Instead, he repeatedly harshly criticized Putin, often calling him a war criminal. Biden also likened Putin to Hamas after the horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack against Israel.

Biden and European leaders also pursued policies that caused the war to become a stalemate, which Ukraine will eventually lose. They refused to give Ukraine the weapons it requested in mid-2022 that probably would have enabled it to repel Russian forces from most of its territory. This refusal allowed the Russian army to recover and regroup after suffering heavy losses at the beginning of the invasion. Biden followed this mistake with a policy to arm Ukraine “for as long as it takes” with no strategy either for a Ukrainian victory or to negotiate an end to the war.

Therefore, to say that Trump came to the war in Ukraine as president with the deck stacked against him is an understatement. Although Putin is ultimately responsible for this deadly and unprovoked war, it would not have happened if Biden had not antagonized Putin and ignored his sensitivities about Ukraine. U.S. and European policies also made it impossible for Ukraine to win the war in 2022, made the war worse, and discouraged diplomacy to end the conflict.

In addition, this conflict was made more complex after Biden’s mishandling of U.S.-Russia relations drove Putin into the arms of Chinese President Xi, causing Russia and China to declare a “no limits” partnership and create a new anti-Western axis. Iran and North Korea are at least informal members of this axis.

Trump finds the Ukraine war difficult to end because Biden’s foreign policy failures were so severe. This does not mean the war is unsolvable. But it may mean that the Ukraine mess Biden left for Trump will be far more difficult to clean up than anyone thought.

It is possible that Biden’s Ukraine mess can’t be cleaned up, and the Russian leader will refuse to reach a peaceful settlement on any terms short of Ukrainian capitulation. I also believe the odds are long for a peace agreement right now and that it might take months or years of negotiations to reach a possible peace agreement acceptable to Ukraine.

The next time I am on the BBC and am asked about this issue, I plan to stress that I believe President Trump is ready for the possibility that the Ukraine War is unsolvable and will make clear, if he concludes that the war cannot be ended, that the failure lies with Biden. I will also say that Trump will probably take steps if the Ukraine War cannot be ended to ensure that similar conflicts do not break out in the future and to keep the United States out of similar wars.

Authored by Luis Cornelio via HeadlineUSA,

Law enforcement officials have arrested two suspects in connection with the murder of Infowars reporter Jamie White.

The Infowars set. (ThreeSixty Asset Advisors via AP)

The Austin Police Department announced that 17-year-old Rodney Charles Hill, Eloy Adrian Camarillo, and two unidentified 15-year-olds face murder charges after allegedly killing White outside his Austin, Texas, home. Police arrested Camarillo last month.

BREAKING: All 4 Suspects in @InfoWars Writer Jamie White’s Murder Arrested, per @AdanSalazarWins

- Eloy Camarillo, 17
- Rodney Charles Hill, 17
- Two 15-year-old suspects

All have been charged with capital murder

RIP Jamie. We all miss you.https://t.co/XcozlA3m5T

According to court documents, the suspects were attempting to break into White’s Kia on March 9 when he confronted them and was fatally shot. White was rushed to a nearby hospital but was pronounced dead the following morning.

Detectives said White’s vehicle had a broken window and blood inside, presumably from a cut. Austin police said Kia cars have become frequent targets in Austin due to a flawed security system that makes them easier to steal.

Austin Police Detective Jason Jones said the suspects were tracked through a stolen vehicle they drove to White’s residence. Investigators relied on the car’s data, cellphone signal records and license plate reader scans to locate the suspects, according to KVUE.

Jamie White
1988 - 2025
American Patriot

Remembering Murdered Infowars Journalist, Jamie White.

Rest In Peace pic.twitter.com/jDbZroAptI

“We believe this is a very unfortunate and tragic series of senseless events leading to [White’s death], involving the four individuals who obviously have no value for human life,” Jones said, as quoted by the news outlet.

He added that all individuals believed to be involved are in custody, though the investigation remains ongoing.

White was a rising journalist and well-regarded writer for Infowars. His killing stunned conservative circles, particularly Infowars founder Alex Jones, who shared several social media posts honoring White’s legacy.

“Jamie White, such a good friend of mine,” Jones said in a video, while filming White’s desk. “This makes me sick.”

White had previously celebrated his time with Infowars by posting a photo with Jones in 2023, writing, “Nobody is more committed to defeating the New World Order than him.”

Today is a massive victory for free speech.

Been an honor working with @RealAlexJones for the last 7 years. Nobody is more committed to defeating the New World Order than him.

And the best is yet to come!#FreeSpeech #TeamHumanity #AlexJones pic.twitter.com/glAyKCtUSA