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Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

The lessons from Trump’s Yemeni debacle could inform his future decisions on Ukraine...

Five New York Times (NYT) journalists collaborated to produce a detailed report earlier this week about “Why Trump Suddenly Declared Victory Over the Houthi Militia”. It’s worth reading in full if time permits, but the present piece will summarize and analyze its findings. To begin with, CENTCOM chief General Michael Kurilla proposed an eight- to -10-month campaign for degrading the Houthis’ air defenses before carrying out Israeli-like targeted assassinations, but Trump decided on 30 days instead. That’s important.

The US’ top regional military official already knew how numerous the Houthis’ air defenses were and how long it would take to seriously damage them, which shows that the Pentagon already considered Houthi-controlled North Yemen to be a regional power, while Trump wanted to avoid a protracted war. It’s little wonder then that the US failed to establish air superiority during the first month, which is why it lost several MQ-9 Reaper drones by then and exposed one of its aircraft carriers to continued threats.

The $1 billion in munitions that were expended during that period widened preexisting divisions within the administration over whether this bombing campaign was worth the mounting costs. New Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Caine was concerned that this could drain resources away from the Asia-Pacific. Seeing as how the Trump Administration’s grand strategic goal is to “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more muscularly containing China, this viewpoint was likely decisive in Trump’s final calculations.

Oman reportedly provided the “perfect offramp” for him by proposing to his envoy Steve Witkoff, who was visiting them as part of the US’ nuclear talks with Iran, that the US could stop bombing the Houthis while they’ll stop targeting American ships but not ships that they deem helpful to Israel. This draws attention to that country’s outsized diplomatic role in regional affairs, but it also shows that the US was hitherto unsure of how to end its campaign in a face-saving way despite already realizing that it failed.

Two pathways were considered:

1. ramping up operations for another month, carrying out a “freedom of navigation” exercise, and declaring victory if the Houthis didn’t fire on them;

2. or continuing the campaign while strengthening the capacity of local Yemeni allies to start another offensive in the North. 

Both were reportedly scrapped in favor of Trump’s sudden victory announcement after another US jet fell off of an aircraft carrier, a US attack killed dozens of migrants in Yemen, and the Houthis hit Ben Gurion Airport.

Five conclusions can be drawn from the NYT’s report. 

For starters, Houthi-controlled North Yemen is already a regional power and has been so for some time, the status of which they achieved despite the Gulf coalition’s previous years-long bombing campaign and ongoing partial blockade. This impressive feat speaks to their resilience and the effectiveness of the strategies that they’ve implemented. North Yemen’s mountainous geography indisputably played a role in this, but it wasn’t the sole factor.

The second conclusion is that Trump’s decision to authorize a very time-limited bombing campaign was therefore doomed from the get-go. He either wasn’t fully informed of the fact that North Yemen had already become a regional power, perhaps due to military officials self-censoring for fear of getting fired if they upset him, or he had ulterior motives in having the US bomb them for only a brief time. In any case, there was no way that the Houthis were going to be destroyed in just several months’ time.

Optics are important for every administration, and Trump’s second one prioritizes them more than any other in recent memory, yet the third conclusion is that he still beat a hasty retreat once the strategic risks started spiraling and the costs began piling up instead of doubling down in defiance. This shows that ego- and legacy-related interests don’t always determine his policy formulations. Its relevance is that no one can therefore say for sure that he won’t cut and run from Ukraine if peace talks collapse.

Building upon the above, the Trump Administration’s acceptance of Oman’s unsolicited proposal that led to the “perfect offramp” shows that it’ll listen to proposals from friendly countries for defusing conflicts in which the US has become embroiled, which could apply towards Ukraine. The three Gulf states that Trump is visiting this week have all played roles in either hosting talks or facilitating exchanges between Russia and Ukraine so it’s possible that they’ll share some peace proposals for breaking the impasse.

And finally, the China factor looms over everything that the US does nowadays, ergo one of the reported reasons why Trump suddenly ended his unsuccessful bombing campaign against the Houthis after being informed by his top brass that it was wasting valuable munitions that would be better sent to Asia. Likewise, Trump might be convinced by similar arguments with regard to the strategic costs of defiantly doubling down in support of Ukraine if peace talks collapse, which the Gulf states might convey to him.

Connecting the lessons from Trump’s Yemeni debacle with his ongoing efforts to end the Ukrainian Conflict, it’s possible that he might at first instinctively double down in support of Ukraine if peace talks collapse only to soon thereafter be dissuaded by his top brass and/or friendly countries. Of course, it would be best for him to simply cut his country’s losses now instead of continuing to add to them, but his increasingly emotional posts about Putin hint that he might blame him and overreact if talks collapse.

It's therefore more important than ever that peace-loving countries which have influence with the US immediately share whatever creative diplomatic proposals they might have in mind for breaking the impasse between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump is creeping towards a Yemeni-like debacle in Ukraine, albeit one with potentially nuclear stakes given Russia’s strategic arsenal, but there’s still time to avert it if the “perfect offramp” appears and he’s convinced that accepting it would assist his “Pivot (back) to Asia”.

Authored by S.L. Nelson via RealClearWire (emphasis ours),

Commentary

“Adapt or die.” This isn’t just a cliché; it’s a fundamental truth of human survival. Security—the psychological need for stability and protection—is second only to food and water in Maslow’s hierarchy. War directly threatens this security, so understanding war is essential for preserving peace.

One of the oldest tools for grasping the nature of war is wargaming. It is, in essence, a rehearsal—an intellectual simulation that helps leaders make sense of complex, high-stakes decisions before lives and national resources are on the line. But while its utility has persisted, its form has not evolved fast enough to meet the demands of the modern battlefield.

The Problem With Today’s Wargaming

Wargaming is indispensable, but too often, it’s outdated, misused, or misunderstood. In some defense circles, it functions as little more than a stage for confirmation bias, where senior leaders seek validation for preconceived notions rather than insight into novel threats. Worse, wargames frequently remain trapped in analog formats: players huddle around maps, move tokens, make subjective choices, and imagine the rest.

This traditional model assumes that human decisions lie at the heart of conflict. That remains true. But the battlefield is rapidly changing—and the human element is no longer acting alone. As militaries increasingly rely on uncrewed systems, autonomous platforms, and AI-driven operations, our method of simulating war must evolve accordingly.

To prepare for war in 2030, NATO and its allies cannot afford to rely on wargaming methods from 1980. The urgency of modernizing wargaming is not a choice but a necessity for our collective security.

The Rise of Algorithmic Warfare

Consider this: some forecasts suggest that by the 2030s, one-third of militaries could consist of robotic systems. In Ukraine, drone production is trending toward over 2.5 million units annually. This isn’t speculation—it’s already reshaping how war is fought.

In such a world, the idea of a wargame that exclusively simulates human decision-making is dangerously incomplete. Swarms of autonomous drones executing algorithm-driven tactics change not only the character of war but also the speed, scale, and unpredictability of combat. Abstracting these developments away misses the point entirely. A game without machines is a game divorced from reality.

Critically, decision-making itself is changing. While senior leaders continue to anchor their intuition in past experiences, research shows that overconfidence increases in situations involving more chance and ambiguity. Gut instinct, seasoned though it may be, will not suffice when confronted with system-level interactions between thousands of autonomous platforms and sensors.

Technology as a Catalyst, Not a Crutch

The tools to modernize wargaming already exist. Digital environments can now simulate everything from force placement to logistics flows to legal compliance, with users interacting via natural language, voice, or keyboard. This technological advancement offers a beacon of hope for the future of wargaming, allowing commanders to stress-test strategies in real time and track every decision across a replicable digital thread.

This is not science fiction. It is an underused science fact.

Yet many in the defense establishment cling to narrow definitions of wargaming. A leading DoD-affiliated practitioner recently declared, “If the players or sponsors are better equipped at the end of the wargame to do the things they need to do, then there is value. Nothing else matters.” Another dismissed the importance of outcomes altogether, stating that “wargames are about ideas, not facts.”

That’s a dangerous mindset. Strategy may be rooted in ideas, but execution lives in facts. As Churchill famously warned, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

Toward a New Definition of Wargaming

Commanders’ expectations have evolved, even if the tools haven’t. In 1945, General Eisenhower might have asked his staff for a logistics overlay of the European theater—delivered with pen, paper, and pins. In 2025, General Cavoli might make the same request—but with the expectation of a digital interface offering dynamic updates, AI-enhanced forecasting, and real-time operational feedback.

Unfortunately, EUCOM and NATO commanders still rely too heavily on analog tools. What they need are decision-support systems embedded in the planning process—not adjuncts or afterthoughts.

This calls for a redefinition of wargaming.

A New Definition

Wargaming must be understood not as a parlor game of human strategy but as a rigorous, replicable method of exploring conflict at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. This includes human decisions and system-level interactions conducted in a synthetic digital environment.

A proposed new definition: “Wargames represent human actions and system-level interactions of conflict or competition in a synthetic environment from the strategic to the tactical level.”

This definition bridges the gap between cognition and computation, people and platforms, gut instinct and algorithmic feedback. It accounts for the growing role of autonomy and artificial intelligence without excluding the indispensable human element.

The Stakes

Wargames must evolve not only because they can but because they must. Definitions matter. The current models fall short of providing leaders with the clarity they need to design force structures that are effective, affordable, and aligned with future threats.

Failure to modernize wargaming risks misinforming critical decisions, wasting resources, and, worst of all, misjudging the very nature of the next fight. The stakes are high, and the battlefield of 2030 will not wait for the analog mind to catch up.

To prepare, we must simulate what war has been and what war is becoming.

Authored by REPPARE (REevaluating the Pandemic Preparedness And REsponse agenda) via The Brownstone Institute,

After three years of negotiation, the delegates of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) agreed on the text of the Pandemic Agreement, which now goes for vote at the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA) at the end of May 2025. This text comes after the negotiations were extended for an additional year due to ongoing disagreements about intellectual property and technology transfers (Article 11), access to ‘pandemic-related health products’ (Article 12), and One Health.

After extending the negotiations into a series of last-minute 24-hour sessions in April 2025, a draft was ‘greenlined’ with many countries suggesting that they had gone as far as they could via negotiation, and it was now time to bring it to vote. 

There are several interesting elements within the new draft of the Pandemic Agreement. For example, the Pandemic Agreement foresees ‘participating manufacturers’ (yet to be determined) to make 20% of their related pharmaceutical production available to the WHO, half as a donation, and half at ‘affordable prices’ (also to be determined). The expectation is that the WHO and other international partners will pool these and other resources for distribution (in an improved COVAX-like mechanism yet to be determined). In addition, a still relatively undefined ‘Coordinating Financial Mechanism’ (CFM) will be established to support the implementation of both the Pandemic Agreement and the amended International Health Regulations (IHRs), as well as to disburse surge funding to developing countries in the event of a pandemic.

These commitments build on the IHR amendments that come into force in September 2025, which authorise the WHO Director-General to declare a ‘Pandemic Emergency.’ This represents an escalation of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), with a ‘Pandemic Emergency’ now representing ‘the highest level of alarm,’ which is meant to trigger a host of national and international responses. The PHEIC has been declared eight times since 2005, including for the ongoing Mpox outbreak in Central Africa, and there remains ambiguity about whether an outbreak like Mpox would now also qualify as a Pandemic Emergency. The Pandemic Agreement also now defines the first somewhat tangible effects of declaring a Pandemic Emergency, although these triggering effects are currently most clear regarding the mobilization of ‘pandemic-relevant health products.’

In general, the text reads as one might expect when diplomats from almost 200 countries spent years negotiating and scrutinising every sentence. Although the United States and Argentina withdrew from these negotiations earlier this year, the document still had to navigate the manifold and often conflicting interests of delegates from Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israel, India and Pakistan; not to mention members of the Africa Group who largely saw the Pandemic Agreement as a raw deal for Africa (see below). The result is therefore 30 pages full of vague declarations of intent, often qualified by references to the preservation of national sovereignty in an attempt to neutralize opposition. As it stands, the ‘Agreement’ looks primarily of symbolic importance, since a failure to reach an agreement would have been embarrassing for everyone involved.

Yet, it would be churlish not to understand that the Pandemic Agreement consolidates ‘pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response’ as a definitive ‘space’ of global political action, for the purpose of which numerous new institutions and funding streams have already been created. Its potential passage into international law is unusual in global health and represents only the second time such a global health covenant has been created (the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control being the first), with the potential to mobilize substantial resources and policies.

For example, according to estimates by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), expenditure on preparing for future pandemics had already more than quadrupled between 2009 and 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic unmistakably moved the topic into international ‘high politics.’ In the Agreement, governments pledge to ‘maintain or increase’ this funding for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response and to support mechanisms for its execution. As reported elsewhere by REPPARE, the requested funds for pandemic preparedness are $31.1 billion a year (for comparison, about 8 times global expenditure on malaria), of which $26.4 billion must come from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), while $10.5 billion in new overseas development assistance (ODA) would need to be raised. Presumably, the WHO’s preferred mechanism for the distribution of this ODA is via the yet-to-be-defined CFM.

Vaccine Equity

The declared guiding principle of the Pandemic Agreement is ‘equity.’ The focus on ‘equity’ is driven largely by the WHO and associated philanthropists, NGOs, scientific advisers, and several LMICs (particularly in Africa), who view a lack of equity, primarily ‘vaccine equity,’ as the main failure of the Covid response. Representatives of poorer countries, but also important donors, have criticised the inequitable access to vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 as a key failure of the Covid response and the reason for increased Covid mortality. This inequitable access has been labelled ‘vaccine nationalism,’ which refers to the stockpiling of Covid vaccines in high-income countries (HICs) during the pandemic, limiting availability to vaccines by LMICs. The World Economic Forum, for example, claims that a fairer distribution of vaccines would have saved over a million lives. 

While enough Covid vaccine doses were ordered in Europe to immunise the entire population from infants to the elderly more than three times over, and are now being destroyed, many African countries were denied access. In fact, developing countries only received large quantities of coronavirus vaccines months after richer countries had been ‘fully vaccinated.’ Even after vaccination had been universally available in most HIC countries by summer 2021, under 2% in low-income countries had been vaccinated, many of them with Chinese vaccines that Western countries deemed inferior and thus not qualifying for travel clearance.

The proponents of the Pandemic Agreement do not question the success of universal vaccination despite its limited and rapidly declining protective effect, nor the numerous reported adverse effects. But even if we assume that coronavirus vaccines are safe and effective, global comparisons of vaccination rates remain nonsensical. In HICs, most Covid-19 deaths occurred in people over 80, suggesting the need for context-specific interventions in the case of the most vulnerable.

In most low-income countries (LICs), this risk group comprises only a tiny fraction of the population. For example, the average age in Africa is 19, presenting an entirely different pandemic risk and response profile. In addition, a meta-analysis of blood tests by Bergeri et al. suggests that by mid-2021 most Africans had already had post-infection immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Yet, despite these variables, the manufacturers of the vaccines were encouraged to mass produce vaccines for global rollout, were given emergency authorisation, were released from liability, cashed in on advanced purchasing commitments, and were able to make record profits at the expense of taxpayers.

As reported elsewhere, committing large resources to pandemic preparedness, particularly expensive surveillance, diagnostic, R&D, and the manufacturing of biomedical countermeasures, threatens to produce high opportunity costs since many LMICs must confront other more pressing and destructive disease burdens. This was at least implicitly recognised by many African countries during the Pandemic Agreement negotiations. Many resisted the inclusion of One Health into the Agreement, arguing that it was unaffordable and not a priority within their national strategic health plans.

To paraphrase an African delegate on the INB, ‘We have difficulty doing coordinated surveillance within the health sector, let alone integrated surveillance across sectors.’ This concern not only suggests the need for more locally owned strategies to assure the efficient use of scarce resources, but also the need for strategies that better capture contextualised need to deliver greater effectiveness and true health equity, not just ‘product equity.’ 

Yet, even if product equity is a desired and justified outcome in particular cases, there is nothing in the Pandemic Agreement that guarantees this, since, in practice,e poor countries without their own production capacities will always be last in line. Although the ‘pathogen access and benefit system’ (PABS) in Article 12 of the Pandemic Agreement seeks to improve product equity, it is reasonable to expect wealthy countries to meet their own demand before making larger quantities available to LICs or the WHO for distribution (leaving it reliant on donations – which proved problematic during COVAX). As a result, it is hard to see what the Pandemic Agreement has improved in this regard, other than the codification of extremely loose normative commitments aiming to improve equitable access to pandemic products – an area on which countries would already broadly agree. 

The Pandemic Agreement also calls for more transparency for contracts between countries and manufacturers. This measure is seen as a mechanism that can expose rampant vaccine nationalism and profiteering, albeit only ‘as appropriate’ and ‘in accordance with national regulations.’ Thus, it is questionable whether such flimsy wording would have stopped EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen from fixing billion-dollar deals with the Pfizer CEO through undisclosed text messaging nor stopped other countries from engaging in their own bilateral pre-purchasing and stockpiling activities.

Of course, LMIC negotiators in the INB were aware of all this, which is why the fault line in the Pandemic Agreement negotiations mainly centred on issues of intellectual property and technology transfer. In essence, developing countries do not want to rely on handouts and want to produce vaccines and therapeutics themselves without having to pay expensive licensing fees to the pharmaceutical giants of the North. In contrast, the North has been steadfast in their commitments to intellectual property protections as outlined in TRIPS and TRIPS-Plus, seeing these legal mechanisms as important protections for their pharmaceutical industries. 

As a ‘compromise,’ the Pandemic Agreement contains provisions for ‘geographically diversified local production’ of pandemic products and closer international cooperation in research and development, with simplified licensing procedures intended to ensure technology transfer. However, the wording within the Pandemic Agreement is nonspecific and the EU insisted on adding last-minute footnotes to the technology transfer provision to ensure they only take effect ‘as mutually agreed.’ Thus, the Pandemic Agreement looks like the solidification of business as usual. 

Surveillance and One Health

Whereas a lack of ‘equity’ is understood by advocates of the Pandemic Agreement as the main failure of the Covid response, a ‘failure of preparedness’ is also seen as allowing the emergence and subsequent global spread of the novel coronavirus in the first place. The goal of eliminating the ‘existential threat’ of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) is dominant within the policy lexicon, endorsed by the G20 High Level Independent Panel, the World Bank, the WHO, The Elders’ Proposal for Action, and the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. As we have argued elsewhere, these assessments are largely based on weak evidence, problematic methodologies, the use of political eminence over expertise, and simplified modelling, yet they remained unquestionable mainstays within INB negotiations. 

In response to future zoonoses, the Pandemic Agreement calls for a ‘One Health’ approach. In principle, One Health reflects the self-evident fact that human, animal, and environmental health are closely connected. Yet, in practice, One Health requires the targeted monitoring of soil, water, domestic animals, and farm animals with the view to identifying possible spillover to humans. As highlighted above, implementing One Health necessitates integrated systems across sectors with sophisticated laboratory capacities, processes, information systems, and trained personnel. As a result, the costs of implementing One Health are estimated by the World Bank to be approximately $11 billion a year, which would be in addition to the $31.1 billion currently estimated as required to finance the IHRs and Pandemic Agreement. 

With more laboratories looking for pathogens and their mutations, it is guaranteed that more will be found. Given the current practice of over-securitized knee-jerk risk assessments, it is foreseeable that more discoveries will be deemed ‘high risk,’ even though humans have coexisted with many of these pathogens without major incident for centuries, and even though the risk of geographical spread is low (e.g., reactions to Mpox). The logic of the Pandemic Agreement is that, based on genomic advancements, ‘pandemic-related health products’ can then be quickly developed and distributed via the ‘WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System’ (PABS). 

This is disquieting for at least three reasons. First, large resources will be poured into responding to these low-burden potential risks while everyday killers like malaria will continue to receive an underwhelming response. Second, this aspect of the Pandemic Agreement will undoubtedly engross under its own momentum, where new perceptions of threat legitimate ever-more surveillance, which will uncover even more potential threats in a self-perpetuating regress of securitization and over-biomedicalization. Lastly, nowhere in the Pandemic Agreement is there any mention of the fact that dangerous gain-of-function research will continue to be conducted to develop the ‘pandemic benefits’ expected under PABS, although biosafety and biosecurity obligations are mentioned in passing.

This suggests that the risk assessments associated with the Pandemic Agreement are singularly focused on natural zoonosis spillover events, ignoring an area of risk that may have actually been responsible for the worst pandemic in the last 100 years. Thus, the recent Covid-19 pandemic is likely irrelevant to the Pandemic Agreement in terms of pandemic preparation and prevention.

Infodemics

The calamities of the Covid response have eroded trust in the WHO and other public health institutions. This has manifested in a clear scepticism of pandemic preparedness. For example, hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions warning of the WHO’s ‘power grab’ to undermine national sovereignty. These messages arose primarily after the proposed amendments to the IHR started to circulate, which contained original language allowing the WHO to issue binding recommendations to national governments during a pandemic. Ultimately, such plans did not materialise.

The drafters of the Pandemic Agreement have seemingly agreed with such concerns. Article 24.2 states in unusually clear terms: ‘Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the WHO Secretariat, including the WHO Director-General, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the national and/or domestic laws, as appropriate, or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns.’ 

In practice, this clause has no effect, as there is no way of arriving at the interpretations Article 24.2 rules out, since the WHO simply does not have legal jurisdiction to force compliance. Regarding non-pharmaceutical measures, the signatories to the Pandemic Agreement merely agree to conduct research into their effectiveness and adherence. This includes not only epidemiology, but also ‘the use of social and behavioural sciences, risk communication and community engagement.’

In addition, states agree on taking ‘measures to strengthen science, public health, and pandemic literacy in the population.’ Here, nothing is binding nor specified, leaving sufficient room for countries to determine how and to what degree to deploy non-pharmaceutical measures (for better or worse). It is just putting (again) in writing what States are already doing – an arguably pointless exercise.

That said, references to the behavioural sciences are likely to trigger suspicion from those critical of the WHO. In particular, those concerned about the Covid response remember how behavioural scientists advised the British government to make people feel ‘sufficiently personally threatened’ and how UK Secretary of Health Matt Hancock shared WhatsApp chats about how he planned to ‘deploy’ the announcement of a new variant to ‘frighten the pants off everyone.’ Although it is the job of public health authorities to issue recommendations to guide the public, there are honest and more effective methods of doing so. Otherwise, public perceptions of disingenuousness undermine trust, something advocates of the Pandemic Agreement suggest is crucial for an effective pandemic response.

In some ways, the explicit ruling out of WHO-imposed lockdowns or vaccine mandates is an excellent example of what the WHO calls ‘infodemic management.’ In the WHO’s ‘Managing Epidemics’ handbook, an infodemic is defined as ‘an overabundance of information, accurate or not, in the digital and physical space, accompanying an acute health event such as an outbreak or epidemic.’ Infodemic management also made it into the revised IHR, where “risk communication, including addressing misinformation and disinformation” is defined as a core capacity of public health. 

It is understandable that critics of infodemic management understand ‘addressing misinformation’ as a euphemism for censorship, especially given how scientists who spoke against mainstream narratives during Covid were sidelined and ‘cancelled.’ However, the first principle of infodemic management highlighted in ‘Managing Epidemics’ is ‘listening to concerns,’ which the Pandemic Agreement appears to have done by proactively ruling out lockdowns that they could not legally impose anyway. While the ‘zero draft’ three years ago still foresaw countries being expected to ‘tackle’ misinformation, this is now only mentioned in the preamble, where the timely sharing of information is said to prevent the emergence of misinformation. 

Nonetheless, the language around infodemics raises several concerns that remain unaddressed and require greater reflection. 

First, the criteria by which information is meant to be judged as accurate, and by whom, are unclear. Although this leaves the process undefined, allowing countries to design their own control mechanisms, it also leaves room for abuse. It is entirely feasible that some countries (with WHO support) could silence dissenting views under the guise of infodemic management. It is also not beyond imagination that mission creep will occur, where non-health-related information is also controlled under the pretext of ‘maintaining peace and security’ during a health or other emergency. 

Second, there is a serious risk that the poor management of information will exclude good science by accident, undermining overall public health. As witnessed during Covid, messages proclaiming that ‘the science is settled’ proliferated, and were often used to discredit credible science. 

Third, there is an underwritten presumption within the logic of infodemics that public health authorities and their affiliates are correct, that policies are always based entirely on the best evidence available, that those policies are free of conflicts of interest, that information from these authorities is never filtered nor distorted, and that people should not expect reason-giving from authorities via immanent critique or self-reflection. Clearly, public health institutions are like any other human institution, subject to the same potential biases and pitfalls. 

The Future of Pandemics and This Agreement

Wenham and Potluru from the London School of Economics estimate that the protracted negotiations on the Pandemic Agreement had already cost over $200 million by May 2024. Of course, this is only a fraction of the public expenditure on preparing for hypothetical future pandemics. The amount of ODA that the WHO, World Bank, and G20 have called for annually would correspond to about five to ten times the annual expenditure on combating tuberculosis – a disease that, according to WHO figures, has killed about as many people in the last five years as Covid-19, and at a much lower average age (representing higher years of life lost).

Although the $10.5 billion a year in development aid for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response is unlikely to materialise, even a more cautious increase will come with opportunity costs. Moreover, these financial demands come at an inflection point in global health policy, where development assistance for health (DAH) is under massive pressure from serious stoppages and reductions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan. Thus, increase in scarcity requires the better use of health financing, not simply more of the same. 

Furthermore, as REPPARE has shown, the alarming statements of pandemic risk by the WHO, World Bank, and G20 are not well-grounded in empirical evidence. This means that the entire basis for the Pandemic Agreement is questionable. For example, the World Bank claims millions of annual deaths from zoonotic diseases, although the figure is less than 400,000 per year in the half-century before the Covid-19 pandemic, extrapolated to the current world population, 95% of which is attributable to HIV. The fact that many more new pathogens are being found today than just a few decades ago is not necessarily evidence of an increased risk, but rather the consequence of increased interest in research and, above all, the use of modern diagnostics and reporting processes.

In many ways, the Pandemic Agreement is just a figurehead of a new pandemic industry that has already grown more robust in the last five years. This includes, for example, projects for pathogen surveillance, for which the Pandemic Fund set up at the World Bank in 2021 has already received $2.1 billion in donor commitments while raising almost seven billion for implementation (when additionality is calculated). In 2021, the WHO Pandemic Hub was opened in Berlin, where data and biological material from all over the world are collated as an early warning system for pandemics. In Cape Town, the WHO mRNA hub seeks to promote international technology transfer.

And the 100 Days Mission, driven primarily by the public-private partnership CEPI, aims to ensure that vaccines are available in just 100 days during the next pandemic, which not only requires substantial investment in R&D and production facilities, but also a further speeding up of clinical trials and emergency use authorisation, posing potential risks regarding vaccine safety

To coordinate the complex ecosystem of different pandemic initiatives, the signatories to the Pandemic Agreement will need to develop ‘whole-of-society’ pandemic plans that will presumably be ignored in the event of a real crisis, as happened with the existing plans in 2020. They are further expected to ‘report periodically to the Conference of the Parties, through the Secretariat, on their implementation of the WHO Pandemic Agreement.’ The WHO Secretariat, in turn, publishes ‘guidelines, recommendations and other non-binding measures.’ This suggests that the Pandemic Agreement will set global norms and seek compliance through the usual mechanisms of nudging, naming, and shaming, and through conditionalities imposed by the CFM or through other World Bank development loans. It is in the case of the latter where policy choices designed within the Conference of Parties could become more coercive on low-income countries.

However, the importance of this new global pandemic bureaucracy should also not be overestimated, and the potency of the Pandemic Agreement is not immediately clear. After all, it is just one in a long list of United Nations agreements, only a few of which, such as the Climate Change Conference or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, receive any broader attention. Thus, it is feasible that both the Conference of Parties and Pandemic Agreement will become politically inert. 

Nevertheless, what tempers this moderate view is a key similarity between the three aforementioned policy areas. Namely, nuclear proliferation, climate change, and pandemics are all continually presented as an ‘existential threat,’ which drives media coverage, consequent political motivation, and continued investment. In the case of pandemic risk, the official narratives project an apocalyptic vision of ever-increasing pandemics (e.g., every 20 to 50 years), with ever-increasing severity (2.5 million dead per year on average), and ever-increasing economic costs (e.g,. $14 to $21 trillion per pandemic if investments are not made). Therefore, it is to be expected that the Pandemic Agreement will continue to enjoy a status of high politics and increased investment through perpetual fear and vested interests. 

Consequently, if the draft Pandemic Agreement is adopted at the 78th WHA and subsequently ratified by the required 60 countries, the key to its potency will be how various legal obligations, governance processes, financial instruments, and ‘partner’ commitments are defined and implemented into policy via the Conference of Parties (COP). In many ways, the drafters of the Agreement merely ‘kicked the can down the road’ regarding the most difficult and contentious disagreements in hopes that future consensus will be found during the COP.

Here, comparisons and contrasts between the Climate COP and Pandemic COP could help to glean some useful insights on how the politics of the Pandemic Agreement might play out. 

Both have become industries with significant levels of vested governmental and corporate interest, both use fear to motivate political and fiscal action, and both rely heavily on the natural proclivities of the media to propagate fear and justify states of exception as dominating narratives. 

Authored by Beige Luciano-Adams via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

POINT REYES STATION, Calif.—The buffalo milk soft serve here is an open secret, found near the butcher’s counter at the back of the local market. Like everything else in this tiny farm town, nestled in the coastal grasslands about an hour north of San Francisco, it’s made with milk from a nearby dairy.

Cows walk out to pasture after being milked at a dairy in Point Reyes Station, Calif., on June 12, 2007. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

California’s Marin County is a pioneer in organic ranching, known for its gourmet cheeses, multi-generational dairies and pasture-raised beef. The legacy of more than 150 years of agricultural production is baked into its contemporary rural charms, which, along with the nearby Point Reyes National Seashore, make it a popular tourist destination.

It’s also a corner of the country where locals tend to see ranching and environmentalism as symbiotic pursuits.

But after years of conflict among preservationists, ranchers, and the federal government, a recent deal to end most ranching—all of it organic—on the Seashore has incensed locals and revealed a deep chasm between competing visions of environmental stewardship.

The agreement  between three environmental groups—the Resource Renewal Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Western Watersheds Project—the National Park Service, and the Point Reyes Seashore Ranchers Association saw 12 of 14 ranches on Point Reyes agree to cease ranching within 15 months.

On one side, preservationists say cattle and dairy ranching at Point Reyes has led to environmental degradation that threatens the future of the park and biodiversity in the state; on the other, family ranchers see themselves as stewards of the land, their practices as the future of conservation—and as a bulwark against the ravages of Big Ag.

As the Trump administration moves to roll back Biden-era reforms, the high-profile case has become a flashpoint in the broader fight over land use in the West—where the federal government owns nearly half of all public land, and where ranching is considered a living legacy, part of the cultural heritage that built the West itself.

Now, a congressional investigation and two new lawsuits against the park are giving hope to critics of the Point Reyes deal that a policy shift could again be on the table, making the future of the park anything but settled.

What’s at stake, insiders say, is more than the dozen family ranches set to leave the park by next year. The questions Point Reyes raises will determine more than the fate of the National Seashore.

Multiple Use Mandate

While national forests and lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management have long been governed by a multiple-use mandate, which includes grazing, timber, resource extraction, and recreation, national parks are typically more focused on preservation.

Point Reyes, a spectacularly beautiful coastal peninsula where ranching predates the park itself by a century, is an unusual case—and one bound to attract scrutiny from activists who oppose ranching on public lands.

A cow runs past a corral of cows waiting to be milked at the Kehoe Dairy in Point Reyes Station, Calif., on June 12, 2007. In a landmark January 2025 settlement, most ranching operations within Point Reyes National Seashore are set to end within 15 months, following a long legal battle between environmental groups and ranchers. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

“ I’ve never seen a private grazing lease on public lands that wasn’t doing environmental damage, whether it’s to salmon or to sage grouse, it doesn’t matter what ecosystem you’re in,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the organizations that sued the National Park Service over its ranching leases in 2014 and 2022, resulting in the current agreement.

In the West, damage from private cattle grazing leases is “immense,” Miller said, second only to logging. Preservationists cite water pollution, soil erosion, and habitat loss, among other concerns.

The organization has focused on the issue since its founding in 1989, routinely intervening with National Forest and Bureau of Land Management plans and suing over grazing leases in cases where there is explicit and documented environmental damage, Miller said.

Over the past several years, the Biden administration advanced an agenda broadly favorable to conservationists, with national monument expansions and an initiative to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s land and water by 2030, as well as the 2024 Public Lands rule that allows prioritizing conservation above established multiple uses.

The Trump White House has indicated its intent to rescind the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule, a move lambasted by environmental groups, who argue the administration is ushering in an era of unrestrained exploitation.

Congressional Republicans contend Biden’s upending of the multiple use doctrine has been a disaster both for rural communities and the country, driving up housing prices in Western cities surrounded by federal land and gutting local economies.

“President Biden left America’s public lands and natural resources in a sorry state,” Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) told the House Natural Resources Committee during a February hearing on restoring multiple use.

“For four long years President Biden and his federal land managers have abandoned the longstanding and previously uncontroversial principle of multiple use. Instead, they adopted top-down, preservationist schemes designed to placate extreme environmentalists.”

In the same hearing, Tim Canterbury, president of the Public Lands Council, an organization representing cattle and sheep producers who hold 22,000 grazing permits across the West, highlighted challenges for ranchers, and urged Congress and federal agencies to recognize public lands ranching as an essential part of the multi-use framework.

“I manage these lands and waters, and the wildlife and multiple uses they sustain, as if they were my own,” Canterbury said. He said the infrastructure, ecological stewardship and investments that ranchers provide benefit the public and environment, not just privately owned livestock.

“My family has managed the lands we utilize since 1879. Our commitment to these lands is baked into our way of life,” Canterbury said of his Colorado ranch operation, adding that “deep historical and ecological knowledge of the working landscape” are handed down through generations.

Point Reyes Lighthouse in Inverness, Calif., on March 16, 2025. Keegan Billings/The Epoch Times

Ivan London, a senior attorney with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which frequently intervenes pro-bono on behalf of ranchers facing challenges to their grazing permits, said regulatory interpretations may shift with the balance of power in Washington, but the law governing grazing rights hasn’t changed.

“Congress actually said, ‘Here are some priority uses of public land—grazing, timber, harvesting, mineral production.’ And that law hasn’t changed. But from administration to administration the various regulators find ways to read it differently,” London said, pointing to President Bill Clinton’s attempts to increase grazing fees in the 1990s, and President Joe Biden’s embrace of conservation easements.

“According to the Taylor Grazing Act—an actual law, unlike the conservation leases—grazing and ranching are the highest use of public lands,” London said. That regulations allowing conservation leases to “lock up land away from ranchers” might be ending under the Trump administration is “huge,” he said.

The Mountain States Legal Foundation in 2023 successfully intervened on behalf of Wyoming ranchers when the Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Watersheds Project, and other groups alleged that one of the oldest cattle drives in the country threatened grizzly bear populations in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Recognized as a Traditional Cultural Property on the National Register of Historic Places, the Green River Drift cattle drive is still operated by descendants of families that homesteaded the area in the 19th century.

It’s a familiar narrative, often reduced in court to a zero-sum game between preserving either vulnerable animal or plant species, or prized human cultural practices with histories that pre-date the authority managing the lands.

The families in question, their lawyers argued, cared for the land longer and better than any agency or activist, their continued existence providing “124 years of evidence that ranchers are the real conservationists.”

In other cases, such as Santa Rosa Island—now part of California’s Channel Islands National Park—the outlines of which presaged the fate of Point Reyes, environmental activists have succeeded in bringing nearly a century of ranching to a close.

In 1986, the federal government purchased Vail & Vickers Ranch, run by four generations of cattle ranchers on what was known as “Cowboy Island.”  In 1998, the last working island cattle ranch in the United States shuttered for good.

“Cowboys versus environmentalists” is a common tableau throughout the West, with infamous spectacles such as Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s militarized standoff with the federal government.

In Point Reyes, the fight has pitted environmentalist against environmentalist in one of the most liberal enclaves in the country, exposing an existential schism within the conservation movement.

Ranchers Say They Were Pressured

In a protracted battle over the park’s ranch management plan that culminated in lawsuits in 2016 and 2022, both ranchers and the organizations who sued the park service accuse the agency of bias.

After years of studies and thousands of public comments, the park service in 2021 decided to issue 20-year leases, finally following through on a 2012 directive. Environmentalists filed a new lawsuit, ranchers intervened on behalf of the park, and the parties entered private negotiations.

Point Reyes North Beach in Marin County, Calif., on March 16, 2025. Keegan Billings/The Epoch Times

But the settlement, completed just before the Trump administration took office, was celebrated internally among Department of Interior senior staff as a “win” for the department, the park, and for conservation—a “nice one to go out on” in the final hours of the Biden administration, according to emails unearthed in a Freedom of Information Act Request and published on Substack.

“These emails prove they were totally in on it and celebrating this victory against ranching,” said Andrew Giacomini, a San Francisco attorney representing pro-bono more than 60 ranch workers and subtenants who are set to be displaced by the Point Reyes settlement.

Despite apparent neutrality, Giacomini accused the government of conspiring with the conservationist organizations, which brought in a third party to mediate a settlement behind closed doors, all in an effort to push out ranchers.

“They could have defended that lawsuit and won,” Giacomini said. Instead, he alleges, the park service entered secret negotiations, overturned the results of a public process, and kowtowed to a “handful of special interests.”

“It’s exactly as our lawsuit says. The way it was handled violates the law in multiple ways and it can’t stand.”

Even before the case begins moving through the courts, Giacomini said he thinks shifting priorities in the new administration may result in a reversal of the decision to end ranching at Point Reyes.

Miller, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the idea of any collusion between his organization, fellow plaintiffs, and the park service is “absolute nonsense,” calling the park’s 2014 ranch management plan a “wish list” from the ranchers, developed in secret without input from conservationists or the public.

Particularly egregious to conservationists was a request to cull once-endangered tule elk herds, which compete with cattle for food during periods of drought.

“They rolled this thing out in 2014 and said, ‘Guess what? We’re going to shoot tule elk. We’re going to expand ranches, and we’re going to enshrine private commercial ranching forever in the park.’ That was the park service’s first bite at the apple,” Miller said.

“That is not conservation, that’s collusion with the ranchers, which is what the park service has been doing for half a century.”

The Department of the Interior and its National Park Service did not respond to inquiries.

Miller contends the park service “has never taken an environmental position in their entire history—we’ve had to sue them the entire way.”

The Center for Biological Diversity, he said, will intervene in two new lawsuits against the park: one brought by ranch workers set to be evicted due to the recent settlement, and another brought by remaining ranchers seeking to preserve agricultural use in the park. “We are not going to allow a settlement between them and Trump’s Department of Interior.”

But ranchers say they were pressured to accept the January settlement and keep quiet about the process, which they say was negotiated behind closed doors by The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit powerhouse that raised a reported $30 million for the buyout. Once ranchers agreed to leave, the Park Service rezoned 16,000 acres of land originally set aside for ranching as a new Scenic Landscape Zone, and handed over management of it to the Conservancy.

In a March letter to the Center for Biological Diversity and other plaintiffs, Republican members of the House Committee on Natural Resources alleged a “lack of transparency surrounding the settlement,” as well as potential environmental and legal consequences. The lawmakers requested extensive discovery information.

Read the rest here...

Authored by Matthew Williams via The Mises Institute,

“Don’t Be A Panican” is a memeable mantra adapted from a Truth Social post released by the President during the market turmoil triggered by the threat of a broad-sweeping tariff policy. While the panican meme is comical and jovial, its sentiment carries a more insidious undertone.

Voting conservatives have given lip service to the classical liberal tenet that a smaller government is the most effective way to run a country—though we will not delve into how this desire fails to manifest in Washington, D.C. Traditionally, conservatives are supposed to question government, support free markets, condemn government overreach, and uphold constitutionalism.

On April 2, 2025—“Liberation Day”—Trump announced a litany of tariffs. However, they were not genuine tariffs but pseudo-tariffs. The calculations relied on the ratio of trade deficits to US imports, producing a falsely-inflated tariff percentage. In response, Trump introduced retaliatory tariffs based on this misleading figure. Critics argued that the tactic was inherently dishonest. Yet, when confronted with this faulty approach, many of President Trump’s most ardent followers retorted, “trust the process” or “it’s going to hurt in the short term”—believing that the ends justify the means.

Tariffs sent the markets into a frenzy. Both Trump and representatives from his administration conveyed conflicting messages about the tariffs’ ultimate purpose. Meanwhile, obsequious conservative think tanks scrambled to justify the policy, often issuing paradoxical interpretations of tariffs as a strategy.

A Euthyphro’s dilemma of sorts emerged. Were tariffs sound policy—capable of paying debt, replacing taxes, and bolstering American exceptionalism—or were they valuable solely because they could be leveraged to bargain for free trade with other nations? Rather than reconciling this dilemma or acknowledging the inherent contradictions, followers and messengers embraced all premises, frequently conflating disparate ideas. The goal was clear: to cast Trump’s decision in a positive light. Even more disheartening was the fact that many of these trusted intellectuals compromised their foundational values, such as the commitment to free trade, in an effort to justify an enigmatic presidential move.

Put bluntly, “Don’t Be A Panican” was less about avoiding panic and more a euphemism for “trust Donald Trump.” This message—emerging from traditionally skeptical conservatives—is particularly troubling given the garbled communications from the Trump administration. There were ample reasons to be skeptical—regardless of the ultimate outcome or one’s political leanings. Unfortunately, this blind trust had already taken root before April 2, and it is not a phenomenon confined solely to the Right.

Don’t Be A Panican: Bias Media and Public Health Figures

Five years ago, a novel virus swept the globe. Covid was a highly-contagious threat, particularly dangerous to high-risk individuals, and it cost over one million American lives. Public health figures urged citizens to confine themselves at home—no visiting family or friends, mask up, and even avoid hiking outdoors. Media outlets broadcast death counters alongside the latest news, and images of people isolated at home—waving from behind windows or hugging through plastic barriers—became ubiquitous. Commercials urging citizens to mask up and do their part to stop the contagion inundated every broadcast, fostering an environment of pervasive fear.

A vaccine was developed in record time and though—sometimes a controversial point—data showed the vaccine safe; its efficacy in containing the spread of the contagion was questionable. Regardless, many companies and institutions pushed mask and vaccine mandates on the public at the discretion of government entities like the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

These mandates were poorly managed and infringed on many American freedoms. Questioners or dissenters were frequently excluded from public discourse, their concerns dismissed without proper debate; in some instances, individuals even faced career-ending repercussions. Worries about vaccine side effects were labeled as “conspiracy theories.” When side effects became public knowledge, there was neither an apology nor an admission of error. Covid policy and response was a complete disaster.

The panican narrative was quite different in this situation. It was the panicans urging the public to blindly trust authorities and the “science,” while non-panicans exercised caution and rejected that narrative. 

Non-panicans fervently detested and rejected the technocratic establishment.

Fast forward to 2025, and new faces have supplanted the technocrats in institutions of public health, such as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Many non-panicans—once adamantly opposed to bureaucrats lecturing us on health decisions—now welcome these new figures as leaders in public health. Some even call for them to use bureaucratic power to remove additives or unwanted ingredients from foods and baby formula. Such calls are often embellished with justifications like, “They are poisoning us!”—a claim that sounds awfully like an appeal to panic.

In this scenario, there are several reasons to reject—or at least protest—the advocacy for government intervention as a panacea that should be obvious to government minimalists—and non-panicans. First, the idea that government regulations will hold corporations accountable is debatable, as evidence suggests that such measures can instead embolden corporate entities. Second, emboldening the market, by decreasing regulations and bureaucratic controls, to apply pressures on corporations is the orthodox conservative approach. What happened?

Conversely, the panicans have reacted in an entirely opposite manner. Now, it is the panicans telling us to no longer trust the experts—blaming them for measles outbreaks and for wasting taxpayer money on frivolous experiments like investigating a cause for autism. This stance seems excessive and misleading, especially since anti-vaccine sentiments had been on the rise before figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to prominence. Ironically, this anti-vaccine trajectory appears largely as a reaction to the panican response during covid. It is bewildering that the covid panicans failed to assume any responsibility for this trend, choosing instead to project blame onto figures like RFK Jr. and Dr. Bhattacharya for the growing movement against established scientific thought.

The polarization surrounding nearly every policy decision leaves one questioning the appropriate course of action.

To Be or Not to Be a Panican

It seems the American public is constantly instructed on when to be—and not to be—a “panican” by the powers that be. While only two scenarios have been outlined above, recent years have presented a plethora of examples: Russian collusion, Biden’s mental health decline, “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor,” etc. The list is extensive.

It is good advice not to be a panican. Panic induces strong emotions of fear and uncertainty, rendering individuals more susceptible to short-sighted solutions that promise comfort or security. Typically, these solutions manifest as government interventionism—leading to rigid legislation and eventual bureaucratic expansion. In the words of V from V for Vendetta, “Fear got the best of you and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor [the government].... Fear became the ultimate tool of this government.”

However, a more troubling message accompanies the panican mantra. Whether one is labeled a panican or not often depends on partisan politics rather than objective analysis. Although panicans are generally associated with the Left and non-panicans with the Right, this alignment is not absolute. Both camps tend to place their trust in government solutions solely based on who is in power—a stance that builds a house on a foundation of sand. At its core, this philosophy assumes that the government will, or is, acting in the best interests of the people.

Demagoguery has become commonplace in political discourse and in approach to policy. This trend sets a dangerous precedent by encouraging the abandonment of the very ideals on which our nation was founded. The Founders believed strongly in rights endowed by an extrinsic, all-powerful Creator, not government. This belief is potent precisely because it shifts power away from a flawed human institution and places it in individual rights, which transcend human authority. Thomas Jefferson famously averred, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.”

On the other hand, President Trump has taken significant steps to reduce government power in some areas through initiatives such as DOGE, executive orders implementing sunsetting legislation, and crackdowns on illegal immigration—actions that support a smaller government framework. These decisions should be lauded, as they position Trump as a champion of reducing government overreach. Trump excels when held accountable and listens to his base—a notable strength—it is all the more important that conservatives uphold their values rather than succumb to populist rhetoric and defenses.

We must remember that America’s values do not originate from those in power but from a set of ideals that exceed human authority. When the administration pursues actions that contradict these values, it is our duty to question and hold them accountable. Excusing or attempting to justify poor policy sets a dangerous precedent. With that being said, don’t be a panican.

Speaking at the BMO Global Farm to Market Conference in New York, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King said the U.S. cattle industry appears to be in the early stages of a rebuilding cycle, with the national herd size hovering near 70-year lows.

In response to alarmingly low herd levels pushing cattle futures in Chicago to record highs, King noted Tyson plans to ramp up chicken production. Chicken is viewed as an affordable alternative to beef, making it increasingly attractive to cost-conscious consumers. 

"We've got more opportunity to grow," King told industry insiders and investors at the market conference, adding the company is looking to work its assets "a little harder."

King said Tyson will expand chicken production to meet growing demand as a more affordable alternative to beef. 

The cattle shortage, plus new developments this week of U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shutting down live cattle, horse, and bison imports from southern border land ports, sent cattle futures in Chicago to fresh record highs earlier this week. 

King expects chicken demand to remain robust through the second half of this year into 2026. This will help the U.S. largest meat processor to offset sagging beef profits amid one of the worst cattle shortages in a generation. 

King reiterated his call, first mentioned on Monday in an earnings call, about emerging signs ranchers are in the early innings of rebuilding depleted herds. He cautioned that such an effort could take at least two years. 

The White House's Rapid Response 47 X account reposted a video from Fox News that interviewed a rancher who warned, "it's going to take time to rebuild" the nation's herd. 

5th Generation Cattle Rancher Steve Lucie: I think at this point, we should be all-in on what's happening... We have the lowest beef herd that we've had since 1950 and that's because so many people have gotten out of the industry. If we could've exported more of our beef, I don't… pic.twitter.com/Hmkq30KmYa

The question on our minds: Will the cattle shortage actually worsen in the second half of the year and into 2026? The rebuilding cycle takes time, which likely means higher beef prices and potential supply constraints—think back to the brief egg shortage. 

At ZeroHedge, we're not waiting around to find out.

We've launched a "Rancher-Direct" e-commerce platform to secure access to clean, American-raised beef sourced from independent ranchers across the country.

It's about planning ahead in uncertain times. Relying on multinational supermarket chains for clean, reliable food has become a major issue over the years. The smarter path forward is building direct relationships with local ranchers—knowing where your food comes from and securing that connection before the next supply chain crunch hits.

And the hits just keep on coming...

UNH shares are plunging after hours (down 6% and back below $300 for the first time since September 2020) following a report from The Wall Street Journal that, according to people familiar with the matter, the DOJ is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud related to its Medicare Advantage business.

While the exact nature of the potential criminal allegations against UnitedHealth is unclear, the people said the federal investigation is focusing on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices.

The Justice Department’s criminal healthcare fraud unit focuses on crimes such as kickbacks that trigger higher Medicare and Medicare payments.

UnitedHealth’s latest annual securities filing says the company “has been involved or is currently involved in various governmental investigations, audits and reviews,” and flags involved agencies including the Justice Department.

It doesn’t specifically mention the criminal, civil and antitrust probes the Journal has reported.

The probe adds to a list of government inquiries into the company, including investigations of potential antitrust violations and a civil investigation of its Medicare billing practices, including at its doctors offices.

All of this comes as the Trump administration and Congress look to cut federal health spending, a key source of UnitedHealth’s success.

Five years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic marked a dramatic shift in workplace dynamics, as working from home suddenly became the norm for millions of workers in the United States and across the globe. 

This transformation offered employees newfound flexibility, enabling them to manage their time more effectively, eliminate commutes, facilitate childcare and often achieve a better work-life balance. 

Remote work also allowed for a customized work environment, fostering comfort and productivity for many.

However, as Statista's Felix Richter notes, traditional office settings continue to hold unique advantages, which is why more and more employers have started to call their workers back to offices for most days of the week. 

Offices facilitate in-person collaboration, spontaneous brainstorming and social interaction, all of which are challenging to replicate virtually. 

Additionally, the structured environment of an office can provide clearer boundaries between work and personal life, reducing distractions and helping employees switch off when at home.

In many cases, hybrid models combining the benefits of both setups have emerged, catering to diverse employee preferences and living situations and striking a balance between the benefits and disadvantages of both working from home and in the office. 

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to Statista Consumer Insights, 1 in 5 American employees currently work from home regularly, while 40 percent of respondents regularly work in a company office.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Undisclosed communication devices reportedly discovered in Chinese-manufactured solar panels and related equipment have sparked concerns among U.S. officials about the vulnerability of the nation’s power grid, according to a Reuters report. 

These “rogue” devices, found over the past nine months, could potentially destabilize energy infrastructure and trigger widespread blackouts, sources familiar with the matter told the outlet.

The undocumented devices, including cellular radios, were identified in solar power inverters, batteries, electric vehicle chargers, and heat pumps produced by several Chinese suppliers. 

BREAKING:

The U.S. has found Trojan horse communication devices in Chinese-made solar power inverters. They are used to connect solar panels to electricity grids.

The devices could be turned out remotely to destabilize energy grids, potentially leading to massive blackouts like… pic.twitter.com/mShdpVD4oD

U.S. experts uncovered the components during security inspections of renewable energy equipment, prompting a reevaluation of the risks posed by these products. 

Inverters, critical for connecting solar panels and wind turbines to the power grid, are predominantly manufactured in China, amplifying concerns about their security.

“We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption,” said Mike Rogers, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency.

“I think that the Chinese are, in part, hoping that the widespread use of inverters limits the options that the West has to deal with the security issue,” Roger’s further urged.

Experts warn that these rogue devices could bypass firewalls, allowing remote manipulation of inverter settings or even complete shutdowns. 

Such actions could disrupt power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and cause blackouts. 

“That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,” another source told Reuters.

The discovery adds to long-standing warnings from energy and security experts about the risks of relying on Chinese-made green energy products. 

*  *  *

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Concerns over espionage and sabotage have grown as the U.S. continues to integrate these technologies into its energy systems.

In December 2023, Republican officials, including former Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher and then-Senator Marco Rubio, urged Duke Energy to discontinue using Chinese-manufactured CATL batteries at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, citing surveillance risks. 

“Directly following our inquiry, Duke disconnected the Chinese-manufactured systems from the grid,” Gallagher and Rubio stated in a February 2024 press release. 

“Others that continue to work with CATL, and other companies under the control of the CCP, should take note,” they added.

The Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged the issue, with a spokesperson telling Reuters that the department continuously assesses risks associated with new technologies. 

“While this functionality may not have malicious intent, it is critical for those procuring to have a full understanding of the capabilities of the products received,” the spokesperson said. 

The DOE is working to strengthen domestic supply chains and improve transparency through initiatives like the “Software Bill of Materials,” which inventories all components in software applications.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington rejected the allegations, stating, “We oppose the generalisation [sic] of the concept of national security, distorting and smearing China’s infrastructure achievements.”

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

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

Residents living within one mile of golf courses may face more than double the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease compared to those living farther away, according to new research.

Potentially Due to Groundwater Contamination

The case-control study, recently published in JAMA Network Open, analyzed data from more than 400 residents living with Parkinson’s and more than 5,000 matched controls across southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, from 1991 to 2015.

DG FotoStock/Shutterstock

Researchers looked at how close the individuals lived to golf courses and whether their drinking water came from groundwater sources, especially in regions vulnerable to groundwater contamination from pesticide or herbicide use.

The findings showed that those living within one mile of a golf course had more than twice the odds of developing Parkinson’s compared to those living more than six miles away.

The study also found that residents whose tap water was supplied from groundwater sources, particularly in regions prone to groundwater pollution, faced nearly twice the risk of developing Parkinson’s if their water source was near a golf course.

While the study did not measure the type of pesticides used at the golf courses, the authors wrote that studies have linked pesticides used to treat golf courses with the development of Parkinson’s. Examples of pesticides include chlorpyrifos, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), Mancozeb, and so on.

Pesticides have been linked to nerve cell damage associated with Parkinson’s, yet are still commonly applied to golf courses to keep turf healthy and aesthetically pleasing.

These can enter the environment through runoff or groundwater contamination, which could leach into underground water supplies, according to researchers.

Parkinson’s is a progressive and currently has no cure. Risk of developing the degenerative condition increases with age, and most patients are diagnosed when older than 50.

Dr. M. Maral Mouradian, distinguished professor of neurology and director of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Institute for Neurological Therapeutics, and not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times that the study adds to growing evidence that environmental exposures may play a role in the disease’s development.

An unrelated 2020 study identified a cluster of Parkinson’s cases in a golf community. According to this group of researchers, golf courses may use more pesticides per acre than are used in agriculture.

This can be due to golf courses striving for a visually appealing, uniform appearance that can be achieved using large amounts of pesticides to control weeds, insects, and diseases that could compromise this look.

“We were contacted by a golf community of approximately 2200 people because of a concern that PD was unusually prevalent in their community,” wrote the researchers of the 2020 study.

They discovered that among the multiple pesticides used on the golf course, there were three previously linked with Parkinson’s risk: Mancozeb, 2,4-D, and manganese oxide.

Significant Limitations of the Study: Expert

Independent experts, not involved in the study, urge caution over interpreting the results.

Dr. Michael Genovese, physician and chief medical adviser at Ascendant New York, told The Epoch Times that researchers didn’t directly measure pesticide exposure, such as testing people’s blood or checking the water for chemicals.

“That means we cannot say pesticides caused the increase in Parkinson’s,” he said. “We can say that the results are very suspicious and match what other research has shown about pesticides being harmful to the brain.”

Professor David Dexter, director of research at Parkinson’s UK, explained other significant limitations of the JAMA study in a statement.

“Firstly, Parkinson’s starts in the brain 10-15 years before diagnosis, and the study didn’t only use subjects who permanently lived in the area,” he said. “This would not only affect participants’ exposure, but also suggests their Parkinson’s could have started before they moved around a golf course.”

Additionally, the population was not matched for location, with 80 percent of the Parkinson’s subjects living in urban areas, compared to only 30 percent of controls. Dexter continued, “Hence other factors like air pollution from motor vehicles, etc. could also account for some of the increases in Parkinson’s incidence.”

Genovese said this study should still be considered a “wake-up call,” even if it does not offer absolute proof. “The pattern it shows is tough to ignore.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the Ukrainian military's severe manpower crisis in a very blunt and sarcastic way, following well over three years of what has become a grinding war of attrition for both sides.

Ukrainian recruitment officials have been rounding up would-be soldiers "like dogs" in the country's streets, the Russian leader said. He made the remarks in a Tuesday meeting with members of 'Business Russia' in which he by contrast praised the steady influx of volunteers Russia's army has seen.

Getty Images

"While the Kiev authorities are engaged in forced mobilization – people are caught like dogs on the street, then our guys go voluntarily, they go themselves… They are catching 30 thousand people there now, and we have 50-60 thousand a month enlisting willingly," Putin said, according to state media translation.

However, Western intelligence sources would beg to differ. They have long claimed that Russia too is suffering significant manpower shortages, and that this was on display early in the war by the prominence of Wagner and other mercenary firms on the battlefield, as well as controversial tactics like recruiting straight from prisons. But all analysts agree that Ukraine's problems are far more acute at this point.

Ukraine's manpower problems have never been a secret, and over the last year coverage has picked up in American mainstream press. Kiev's general mobilization policies which have been in effect since 2022 have included a controversial law banning men who are between 18 and 60 years old from leaving the country

Endless videos have also circulated showing brutal tactics of recruitment officers - from grabbing young men from their cars at checkpoints to tackling people in the streets and shoving them into vans.

For example, Hungarian channel M1-Hirado recently ran a special news segment compiling terrifying footage of Ukrainians being beaten and shoved into vans in forced mobilization operations.

There remains deep fear over being sent off to Ukrainian boot camp given the likelihood of quickly being shipped off to he front lines. Most Ukrainians have come to see this as essentially a death sentence.

We detailed before that to make up for recruitment shortfalls, authorities from the so-called Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center (TCK) are using increasingly aggressive methods to meet monthly draft quotas. 

After morning briefings, officers split into teams and search various locations around the city – cafes, restaurants, and even nightclubs – for men eligible for military service.

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.,com,

The days of rogue district court judges hijacking executive authority may finally be numbered. On Thursday, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a consolidated case, Trump v. CASA, which challenges lower court rulings that blocked President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. Despite the constitutional authority granted to the executive branch on immigration matters, three district judges issued sweeping nationwide injunctions halting the order. 

Now, the highest court may have the chance to rein in judicial overreach and restore balance between the branches of government.

Since President Trump began his second term, liberal judges have weaponized nationwide injunctions against his administration an astonishing 17 times in just the first few months — and that's only counting through late March 2025. This is nothing new, of course. 

Even Newsweek seems to believe that the court will side with the Trump administration.

In recent years, some justices have expressed criticism of universal injunctions.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of the court's conservatives, argued in a 2020 concurring opinion that injunctions are "meant to redress the injuries sustained by a particular plaintiff in a particular lawsuit."

He said the "routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions" and that the court must address them.

He also noted that nationwide injunctions mean that plaintiffs can shop around for the judge that is most likely to be sympathetic to their cause.

"Because plaintiffs generally are not bound by adverse decisions in cases to which they were not a party, there is a nearly boundless opportunity to shop for a friendly forum to secure a win nationwide," Gorsuch wrote.

Even Justice Elena Kagan, one of the Court’s three liberal justices, has criticized broad nationwide injunctions and the blatant judge-shopping tactics used by plaintiffs to game the system.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue because Joe Biden's outgoing Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, also filed a brief in December 2024 asking the Supreme Court to limit these broad orders despite knowing Trump would benefit from the decision. 

"In the Trump years, people used to go to the Northern District of California, and in the Biden years, they go to Texas," Kagan said in 2022. 

"It just can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process."

Let’s be honest: Nationwide injunctions were never about judicial oversight.

They’ve been the left’s go-to tool for blocking President Trump’s agenda through activist judges. 

With just one ruling, any of the hundreds of district court judges in the country can nullify federal policy they don’t like.

Now, the left is panicking. 

Without these judicial shortcuts, they’ll have to argue their cases on the merits instead of in front of cherry-picked friendly judges. Even Vox admitted these injunctions were “the core of the resistance.”

But that era may be ending.

The Supreme Court looks poised to rein in this abuse of power and restore constitutional balance. 

For anyone who believes in law, not lawfare, this moment can’t come soon enough.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was just recently one of the some 29 heads of state who attended the Victory Day Red Square parade and events in Moscow. He also met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while in the country.

And now amid plans for 'direct' Russia-Ukraine talks to be held in Istanbul Wednesday, Brazilian media is reporting that Lula is urging Putin to attend in person. 

"It costs me nothing to say, ‘Hey, comrade Putin, go to Istanbul and negotiate, come on'," Lula was quoted as saying by Brazil’s state news agency Agencia Brasil.

Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Vladimir Putin. Kremlin.ru

But on Wednesday, Kommersant newspaper is reporting that not even Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in the Istanbul talks.

"Speaking to reporters during a visit to China, Lula said he would stop in Moscow on his way back to Brazil in an effort to press Putin to take part in negotiations," another regional source reports.

As for the United States, President Trump is dispatching his two top diplomats, but there are reports they could arrive after main talks are scheduled to happen, while currently they are accompanying Trump in the Gulf:

US President's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive in Istanbul, Türkiye, on Friday, May 16, reports The Guardian.

As the outlet reports, Witkoff told journalists that he and Rubio will head to Istanbul on Friday for talks regarding Russia and Ukraine. He also noted that it remains unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will be present at the planned negotiations.

However, the potential talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul are scheduled for Thursday, May 15.

The Kremlin has since confirmed that it still plans to participate, also as Zelensky is trying to goad Putin into attending in person. Zelensky has said he's ready to be there if Putin is.

And even Trump had days ago said he was "thinking about actually flying over"; however, this is looking increasingly unrealistic. 

Rubio and Witkoff might arrive late, as regional sources are reporting.

Despite some sensational recent headlines and statements, one thing we can be sure will not happen is President Putin's personal presence. There's no reason for him to be there - from a strategic point of view - given Kiev has yet to make any major concessions, and Russian forces are winning on the ground in the east.

And if Moscow is not willing to send Lavrov, it's a clear sign the Kremlin is not approaching the Istanbul meeting as if it will result to much of great consequence or substance.

Update (1405ET): CoinDesk's Margau Nijkerk reports that Top House Democrats sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday, asking its money laundering watchdog to hand over all suspicious activity reports (SARs) tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures.

In a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Reps. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) - the ranking members of the House Oversight, Administrative, and Judiciary committees - called for an urgent investigation into Trump’s blockchain project World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin, citing possible violations of campaign finance laws, bribery statutes and securities regulations.

“The Committees seek to determine whether legislation is necessary to prevent violations of campaign finance, consumer protection, bribery, securities fraud, and other anti-corruption laws in connection with fundraising by candidates for federal office and federal officeholders and to guard against deceptive and predatory campaign fundraising practices, illicit foreign influence over federal officials, and other financial misconduct connected to prospective or current federal officials,” the leading Democrats on the committees wrote in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

The request marks an escalation in congressional scrutiny on whether President Trump and his entourage are abusing their positions of power to benefit their crypto businesses. Senate Democrats pointed to Trump’s crypto ventures last week as part of their reason for not voting to advance stablecoin legislation that previously saw bipartisan support.

The inquiry zeroes in not only on the Trump family’s September 2024 launch of World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin launched just days before his inauguration, but also Elon Musk’s America PAC and whether they are using Trump’s name to solicit donations under false pretenses.

As Sander Luz reported earlier via Decrypt.co, it was supposed to be a slam dunk.

The American crypto industry, flush with more political capital than it has ever had (and perhaps will ever have), was to get its long-awaited “regulatory clarity” on stablecoins last week.

And yet the Senate failed to pass a key procedural vote on the marquee stablecoin legislation. 

As the bill, dubbed the GENIUS Act, languishes in legislative purgatory, should it be considered functionally dead—or might there be hope yet for its passage? 

It depends who you ask. 

Technically speaking, according to the Senate’s rules, the window to file a motion to reconsider the bill—which would establish a legal framework for offering stablecoins in the United States—has already passed. 

Such a motion would have had to be filed by Monday evening, and no senators did so in time. 

A source familiar with the Senate’s rules of procedure confirmed this state of affairs to Decrypt.

Stablecoins are a key component of the crypto economy. They are essentially digital dollar-equivalents that allow their users to enter and exit digital asset trades, and send payments or remittances overseas, without the need to access dollars directly.

It’s expected that once these assets are anointed by the U.S. Congress, rules of the road signed into law by President Donald Trump, banking giants and Wall Street titans will join the fray and enter the stablecoin market—bringing billions if not trillions of dollars into crypto. That’s why the lobbying arm of the crypto industry has been pushing so hard for this legislation.

But the GENIUS Act has not been taken up for a cloture vote this week because, functionally, political calculus has not changed on the topic since Thursday. 

A small cadre of pro-crypto Democrats still have yet to reach a deal with Republican leadership over the bill’s language. Republicans are confident, however, they will be able to take advantage of “other procedural opportunities” to get the GENIUS Act back to the Senate floor if such a deal is made, sources told Decrypt. 

After a largely uneventful weekend, key Democratic and Republican stakeholders are resuming talks this week over the contents of the bill, sources familiar with the plans told Decrypt. Both sides are remaining exceptionally tight-lipped, however, about what exact language is holding up progress. 

Five Senate Democrats who voted against the bill last week previously voted to advance it from the Senate Banking Committee. Two of the Democrats who opposed the bill on Thursday, Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), are consponsors of the legislation. 

In a statement issued last weekend, pro-crypto Democrats blamed their withdrawal of support for GENIUS on portions of a new draft of the bill, which they said contained insufficient anti-money laundering and national security protections. But optics appear to also be playing a significant role in their change of tune. 

In the last two weeks, President Donald Trump and his family have made multiple flashy crypto and stablecoin-related announcements that have animated Democrats over perceived conflicts of interest in the White House. 

That line of attack has only been exacerbated since the weekend, with Trump announcing Monday that he intends to personally accept a $400 million Boeing jet as a gift from the Qatari government.

The Senate’s decision to block the GENIUS Act on Thursday drew immediate condemnation from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who warned the vote could jeopardize the U.S.’s position in the global digital assets race. 

“For stablecoins and other digital assets to thrive globally, the world needs American leadership,” Bessent posted on X. 

“The Senate missed an opportunity to provide that leadership today by failing to advance the GENIUS Act.”

Multiple crypto policy leaders told Decrypt Tuesday they are growing increasingly worried that the political stakes involved pose a very real threat not just to any chance of salvaging the GENIUS Act, but also the rest of the industry’s legislative agenda. 

A parallel stablecoin bill is currently making its way through the House, and foundational market structure legislation is pending in both chambers of Congress. 

The policy leaders all agreed that this week is do or die for crypto’s political momentum in Washington. 

Should the GENIUS Act fail to make significant progress by Friday—as in, pass the cloture vote it failed last week—the situation could become terminal, they warned. 

“Grim if something doesn’t give soon,” one D.C. insider put it.