Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

• China has become a regular importer of LNG from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project, with a third cargo recently discharging at a Chinese terminal.

• The Arctic LNG 2 export project, sanctioned by the US, EU, and UK, has resumed shipping cargoes after struggling for over a year to find buyers willing to risk secondary sanctions.

• Two additional LNG tankers carrying supply from the sanctioned Russian project are currently en route to the Chinese port of Beihai.

China appears to have become a regular importer of liquefied natural gas from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia as the third cargo in two weeks has just discharged gas at a Chinese import terminal.  

 The LNG tanker Zarya, sanctioned by the United States, unloaded on Wednesday over 160,000 cubic meters of LNG from Arctic LNG 2 at the southern Chinese Beihai LNG Terminal in Guangxi, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing ship-tracking data from LSEG and Kpler. 

The Arctic LNG 2 export project roared back to life this summer, in a sign that Russia is done waiting and is now sending off loaded LNG cargoes, which could be testing the Trump Administration’s willingness to sanction Russia’s LNG customers in China. 

Arctic LNG 2 is under sanctions by the United States, the EU, and the UK, which have also blacklisted many of the LNG vessels thought to be servicing the project’s output. 

For over a year, the U.S. and EU sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2, which was billed as Russia’s flagship LNG project, had effectively frozen the start-up of the export facility in the Gydan Peninsula.

The project last year came under intensifying sanctions from the United States, which put off any buyers that were previously considering buying cargoes from Arctic LNG 2.

The Russian export project struggled for more than a year to find any buyer willing to risk secondary sanctions. 

The wait ended at the end of August, when a cargo from the facility docked at a Chinese import terminal.

The Arctic Mulan LNG tanker arrived at the Beihai LNG terminal, and China received the cargo, making it the first-ever actual exported cargo out of the Russian facility. 

Now that the third LNG cargo from the sanctioned Russian project has unloaded in China, two other LNG tankers loaded with Arctic LNG supply are en route to Beihai and just a couple of days away from the Chinese port. 

Popular artist Banksy created a graffiti mural in London depicting the current state of the UK censorship system using the courts to trample the rights of British citizens…

[SOURCE]

As ‘sundance’ writes at TheConservativeTreeHouse.com, it did not take long for the authorities to cover the mural and eventually attempt to remove it.

A good illustration of modern Britain. Masked man removes artistic dissent against a Tyrannical State, under the guard of Foreign State Security.pic.twitter.com/Ley9jAIYUW

— Paul Weston (@PWestoff) September 10, 2025

However, what remained of the artwork was the essential core of the truth.

I particularly like the fact the govt turned the CCTV camera, so they can monitor who might visit the scene of the criminal dissent.

Apparently, the British government doesn’t quite see the irony.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

History will register that the first week of September 2025 propelled the advent of the Eurasia Century to a whole new level.

That was the expectation ahead of three crucial intertwined dates: the SCO annual summit in Tianjin; the Victory Day parade in Beijing; and the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Yet expectations were even surpassed considering the breath and scope of what just happened.

The SCO in Tianjin solidified the Chinese push for the establishment of true Global Governance – which in practice means the unceremonious burying of the “rules-based international order” that under the new US administration has metastasized into a no-rules based international chaos: essentially an ethos of “we’ll blow up the world if we are not able to control it.”

Tianjin had not only the 10 SCO full members but also 2 observers and 15 partners – with a heavy Southeast Asian presence – discussing the finer points to be observed for peaceful development. The pic of the week, if not the year or decade, was the Putin, Xi and Modi trilateral handshake: the return of the original, Primakov-coined RIC (Russia-India-China) in full force. As Professor Zhang Weiwei of Fudan University remarked in Vladivostok, the SCO is now expanding steadily in three platforms: energy; clean industries; and AI. In parallel, Central Asia is finally being seen as a “geographical blessing”, and not “a curse”.

Immediately after Tianjin, the Russia-China strategic partnership also shot up to a whole new level, as President Putin was received by President Xi at the Zhongnanhai, the official residence of the Chinese head of state, for an across-the-spectrum state of the planet recap.

The next day Beijing was resplendent under blue skies overseeing the stunning military parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Chinese victory over Japanese invasion and the Asian chapter of Nazi-fascism. That was a confident geoeconomic superpower showing off its military progress.

On the same day the Eastern Economic Forum started in Vladivostok: an unrivalled platform for discussing the surge of pan-Eurasia business.

What China has proposed, actually reiterated in Tianjin, goes way beyond the concept of wangdao, referring to an enlightened, benign power, but not a Hegemon. What could be described as the trademark motto of a Pax Sinica under Xi could be summed up as Make Trade, Not War – and for the common good, or community of a shared future”, in Beijing terminology.

SCO partners, as well as BRICS partners, fully understand that China does not intend to replace Pax Americana, which always relied on the – now aptly renamed – Department of War’s gunboat “diplomacy”. Whatever hysteria fits the West may throw – manipulating Tibet, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, South China Sea, Taiwan – won’t deviate Beijing from its civilizational inclusive path.

The birth of a new logistics order

The road from Tianjin to Vladivostok mostly evolved on three interconnected fronts; oil and gas; connectivity corridors; and massive economic development.

The collective West simply cannot get rid of its pathology of perennialy underestimating the East. For years, both BRICS and SCO were derided in Washington as irrelevant talk shops. But it’s the multilateral spirit that allows something groundbreaking like the Power of Siberia-2 to come to light.

Power of Siberia-2 was planned several years ago, but it was difficult to find consensus on the final route. Gazprom preferred Western Siberia to Xinjiang, across the Altai mountains. The Chinese wanted transit via Mongolia, straight into central China.

The Mongolian route eventually prevailed. It was decided two years ago, and in the last few weeks, the final pricing mechanism, respecting market rates. This massive geoeconomic game-changer means that the gas from the Yamal peninsula that would supply Europe via the Nord Streams will supply China.

President Putin’s expose at the plenary session in Vladivostok placed particular emphasis on energy and connectivity.

But to track the devil in the details nothing could beat the arguably two top panels at the forum.

One of them discussed the integrated development  of the Arctic and the Russian Far East, with special insights by Vladimir Panov, who not only is Rosatom’s top expert on the Arctic but also the Deputy Chairman of the State Commission on Arctic Development.

Another panel really dug deep , tracing a parallel between the origins of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), 500 years ago – when Russian diplomat Dmitry Gerasimov drew up the first draft of the Northern Sea Route and the first map of the Arctic Ocean and Muscovy coastlines – and the 21stcentury technology challenges.

This panel featured a particular striking expose by the CEO of Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, complemented by experts such as Sergey Vakhurov, the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Maritime Collegium. Likhachev detailed the complex shaping of an Arctic corridor, carrying mostly raw materials: a resilient transport corridor for the whole of Northeast Asia.

That’s no less than the birth of a new logistics order – think IA- based weather forecasting plus icebreakers – featuring critical Russian input.

Will Vladivostok become the next Hong Kong?

So, as Putin stressed in his presentation at the plenary session, the heart of the matter is the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor: arguably the key 21st century connectivity corridor.

Thus it’s no wonder Vladivostok’s discussions centered around the key role of nuclear energy and nuclear icebreakers in assuring stable shipping along the NSR route, side by side with environmental concerns and the trials and tribulations of securing large-scale investments in energy production, processing and infrastructure building.

All that merged with a timely discussion of the Greater Eurasia Partnership – the crux of Russian geoeconomic policy – with key inputs by Alexey Overchuk, the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s government, and the affable Suhail Khan, the Deputy Secretary-General of the SCO.

An absolutely key takeaway of all these discussions was the startling realignment being operated by Rosatom – which is simultaneously expanding business with China, India and South Korea along the ultra-strategic NSR.

That means, in essence, Russia evaluating all vectors when it comes to organizing full-scale convoy systems for 365 days a year of Arctic navigation: nothing less, once again, than a new economic and technological order.

Now couple all that with a lively discussion of how the Global South and East will be leading the new growth economy.

Sberbank’s CEO Herman Gref, for instance, disclosed that the largest Russian bank has become the second largest in transactions globally, only behind JP Morgan.

Wen Wang, from Renmin University, remarked how China is undergoing a very strong de-Americanization process, in education and tech, pushing “its own knowledge system”.

He foresees huge Russia-China cooperation potential – economic and financial, emphasizing there is a pressing necessity to open financial markets on both sides. That’s how Vladivostok could become the next Hong Kong. Several panelists at the forum observed that Vladivostok has all it takes to become a strategic center for Global South integration.

The Arctic will be at the center of possible business deals between Russians and Americans; serious discussions have been going on since March, including in the recent Putin-Trump meeting.

Amidst the colossal logistics challenges, an economic breakthrough in the Arctic, next to and within Alaska may eventually represent for the US a ticket out of an economic catastrophe. So here the Arctic – which is de facto dominated by Russia – may in the end become a privileged arena to domesticate the Empire of Chaos.

After all Russia has already built extensive, complex infrastructure in the Arctic – upgraded in real time. Mammoth ports, LNG processing, whole cities of workers and technicians, the enormous advantage of the nuclear icebreaker fleet (nine in action, with two more coming), all these advances are Russian intellectual property that can be exploited in dealing with the US.

In the end, these heady few days last week solidified The Future. Grandmaster Lavrov once again delivered the succinct version – commenting on the triple handshake of Putin, Xi and Modi: “A demonstration that three great powers, representing three great civilizations, recognize the commonality of their interests in several areas.”

That’s way more: that’s a new world in the making.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

It’s a strange thing. I was writing today about the tests of brutality we endure in the western world in modern times, trying to explain why things cannot continue the way they have been for much longer, when the news hit the feeds on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I forced myself to watch the video footage, just as I forced myself to watch the recent murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black man on a train who then bragged about how he “Got that white girl”.

I witnessed leftist journalists try to hide the event and bury the story until it blew up on social media and they had no choice but to cover it. And when they did, they complained more about online treatment of the killer than they complained about the murder itself.

I have watched thousands of leftists across the web cheer for the death of that innocent girl. I have watched hundreds-of-thousands of them cheer for trans mass shooters after they killed Christian kids, just as they now cheer for the death of Charlie Kirk.

They can barely contain their glee. They blame Kirk and his beliefs as the catalyst; as if he is being punished for a crime. They say “people are fed up with right wing violence”, but where is this violence? It doesn’t exist. The claim is gaslighting on an epic level. The only violence we have seen for the past decade has been from the political left. Normally this behavior would be called terrorism.

Riots in the streets, innocent people assaulted, Christian events attacked, multiple assassination attempts and a slew of mass shootings, all from politically motivated leftists. And the only thing they can come up with is January 6^th, a short lived riot which was CAUSED by Capitol Police shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas.

What was Charlie Kirk’s real crime? He committed the most egregious sin there is when it comes to the political left – He told the truth without shame. For this, he was murdered.

I didn’t necessarily agree with Kirk on every issue. In particular, I think he put far too much stock in the idea that public debate would make a difference. I think it has diminishing returns. Progressives only seem to get worse with each argument they lose. They only become more unhinged, more violent. Trying to reason with such zealots is a waste of energy, but at least it gets the message out to the normies, if there are any normies left.

The reliance on public debate is part of a deeper problem within conservative and populist movements; we tend to cling to the notion that we are fighting a political battle and that this battle can be won by being the most factual, the most reasonable, the most right.

As I have always said: Leftists do not care about being right. They only care about winning.

We have been engaging in civics while the woke cult engages in sabotage, mob violence, child grooming and assassination. Conservatives are naturally reticent to abandon order or abandon the law. The political left knows this – they count on it. They know we are limited in how we fight back because we have an expectation that the system can be corrected and reformed.

The problem is that the system is infected. It’s infested by parasites. In order for social discourse to achieve anything constructive, both sides have to be patriotic. Both sides have to love their culture and country to a certain degree and want the best for the future. Leftists and globalists HATE the west. They hate the US. They want to turn it to dust. They want the memory of it erased from history. There is no level of reason or diplomacy that can dissolve their bitter psychopathy.

In other words, McCarthy was right. The left needs to go.

This is not to say that conscience and respect for order is a weakness. If we didn’t have these things then we would be no better than the progressives. My point, however, is that we need to come to grips with the reality that total war has been declared against the west and we must start acting like we are at war if our civilization is going to survive.

This is where I part ways with many of my Libertarian colleagues. This problem is not about American citizens in disagreement. This is not about the old days of polite political dysfunction. Again, this is a war, a shooting war and a mind war. I’m not interested in the constitutional rights of people who have declared war on me, my country and the very freedoms they hide behind.

If they want to burn the west to the ground to usher in their own dystopian collectivist vision, then the only logical response is to burn THEM to the ground.

For the past few years I have warned about the events that are now unfolding. In my article “Terror Attacks Kick Off In 2025 – It’s Only Going To Get Worse So Be Prepared”, published in January, I argued that:

“…There is a serious risk of civil destabilization in 2025 caused by a steady series of terror attacks. Some of them might be planned by legitimate suspects while others could be fabricated by covert interests in order to stir up public fear. I would also warn specifically about far-left groups reverting to Weather Underground-like tactics in order to disrupt conservative reforms…”

“After witnessing the “fiery but peaceful” activities of groups like Antifa and BLM during the 2020 riots I don’t find it hard to believe that there may also be an activist element in the US right now that’s willing to engage in infrastructure terrorism and political assassination. This is not to say that the leftists themselves are highly organized, but there is evidence that they are managed by calculating people behind the scenes.

In other words, elitist institutions can very easily use far-left actors to carry out terror attacks because leftists only need a “nudge” to go down that path. Just as many Islamic fundamentalists are so easy to nudge into mass violence…”

There are those that theorize that Kirk’s shooting is a “false flag” and that this is about sowing divisions among Americans. News Flash: We are already divided. Even without encouragement we would be divided. Too many liberty minded people make the mistake of thinking our problems stop with the globalists at the top, but they are only one part of this conflict.

The other part is at the bottom of the pyramid – The millions of progressives that want to see the world in ashes.  Ultimately it doesn’t really matter if Kirk was killed by a “lone nut” or an organized conspiracy, the end result is the same.  The lefties are still applauding.  They still want you dead.  So, they still need to be dealt with.

Before the news of the assassination I was thinking about measured responses – Particularly the subject of “martial law” and whether or not this is a justifiable solution given the circumstances, or a reaction of fear leading to a slippery slope of government authoritarianism.

Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC has been a resounding success so far, but he can’t keep the troops there forever. The root of the disease needs to be addressed, particularly the corrupt Democrat leaders in blue cities who are keeping repeat offenders out of prisons and on the streets.

Frankly, I see martial law as nothing more than a stop gap even with the best of intentions; like giving someone morphine for their Stage 4 cancer. It feels good and takes the pain away for a little while but on the inside the body is still dying. Martial law doesn’t go far enough. The time for measured responses is over.

Consider for a moment, though, what the natural alternative is? What is going to happen next? It’s not hard to predict: It’s going to be open season on leftist activists and the elites who fund them. It’s going to be widespread vigilantism. And, honestly I welcome it. I wish that this was not necessary, but I accept the reality that it is inevitable.

I don’t think leftists understand what is about to happen. I think they have gotten away with their evil for so long they think they are untouchable. In truth, the only reason they continue to exist is because of men like Charlie Kirk who put so much value in traditional and peaceful opposition. Whoever the shooter is, they killed one of the nice guys.

When we witness a defining moment like the assassination of Kirk, it’s important to hold these images in our minds, as horrible as they are. Civilized society is quick to move on and absorb the next tragedy without properly dwelling on their rage. We need to be much angrier than we are.

Is vengeance the answer? I would say balance is the answer. Justice is the answer. For now, there is no justice. There is no balance.

What I see is a culture under siege on every level and we are not taking these attacks seriously enough. How much longer can we endure mass invasions from the third world? How much longer can we endure the indoctrination of our children? How much longer can we allow our speakers to be silenced, by censorship or by the bullet? How much longer will our neighborhoods remain safe when career criminals are protected by the system?

People who hate the west and want to see the west harmed should be kicked out. NGOs and corporations that fund these activists need to be shut down and scattered to the winds, by force if necessary. People and groups that actively seek to cripple the west and exploit or kill western citizens need to be eliminated. This is not complicated.

Men of the west must stand and defend themselves. We must defend our principles, our ideals and our people. This means destroying all enemies, foreign and domestic. This means patriots going to war.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, said that foreign governments have been bearing the brunt of U.S. tariffs over 15 percent, with China paying the lion’s share. 

“China is paying an average tariff of 52 percent. But the government of China is eating most of it. So while that’s a high average when you count in China, the government of China is covering most of that cost,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Sept. 11.

As Epoch Times notes, Lutnick said that most countries aren’t facing tariffs above 15% and that when they do, the foreign governments step in to keep their businesses afloat while they negotiate better terms.

“The model is clear: 10% tariffs or less are paid by the manufacturers, the distributors, the businesses,” he said. “The consumer doesn’t pay. The consumer doesn’t pay because the seller doesn’t want to raise prices, because if they could, they would, but they don’t want to sell less. So they eat it.”

If the duties are between 10 and 15%, the distributor and manufacturers share the cost at about a 60-40 split, he said, resulting in about a 2 percent price increase with tariffs of 15%.

“And above 15%, no one can handle that … unless the government covers it. So what you saw in cars, when you had 25%, before Europe made their deal and Japan made their deal, the government of South Korea and Japan and Europe covered it, because they didn’t want to hurt their employment,” Lutnick said.

This confirms our own previous reporting, focusing primarily on Japanese auto exports where virtually all these tariff costs have been borne by domestic carmakers.

https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1940496511978136038?ref_src=twsrc%…

“You’ve got to remember, these are big things, and our president is playing the big hand for America, and some of the governments play the little hand for their countries’ good,” Lutnick said, adding that this is why citizens have not seen price increases as a result of the tariffs.

“Our average tariff rate is not that high. Most of the world is less than 15 percent.”

Lutnick said Trump’s tariff strategy has changed the way other countries meet the United States at the table, pointing to the Japan and EU deals as an example. While Europe has agreed to U.S. car imports with no tariffs, Japan culturally has no market for U.S. cars, Lutnick said. Japan has instead agreed to invest $550 billion in American projects of Trump’s choice during his term in office, effectively to “buy down their tariff” at no cost to its own taxpayers, he said.

“Tariffs are bringing in $40 billion a month, bringing down our deficit,” Lutnick said. “It’s going to grow to $700 billion a year, and with growth of our economy the president says it’s going to get to a trillion.”

He predicted a construction boom in the first quarter of next year, with new factory building worth roughly $10 trillion and gross domestic product growth even before the factories open.

“You’re going to see factories get built in America at a scale you have never seen before,” he said.

Authored by Michael Munger via the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)

Earth is going to hit “peak population” before the end of this century.

Within 25 years, most of the world’s developed nations will be facing sharp population declines, with shrinking pools of young people working to support an ever-aging population.

The reason is not famine, war, or pestilence. We did this to ourselves, by creating a set of draconian solutions to a problem that didn’t even exist.

Fear has always been the best tool for social control, and the fear of humanity was deployed by generations of “thinkers” on the control-obsessed left.

Most starkly, Paul Ehrlich made a remarkably frightening, and entirely false, prediction in 1968, in his book “Population Bomb”:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate …

“We may be able to keep famine from sweeping across India for a few more years. But India can’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980. Nothing can prevent the death of tens of millions of people in India in the 1970s …

“And England? If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

PJ O’Rourke explained what was going on, in his 1994 book “All the Trouble in the World”:

“The bullying of citizens by means of dreads and fights has been going on since paleolithic times. Greenpeace fundraisers on the subject of global warming are not much different than the tribal Wizards on the subject of lunar eclipses. ‘Oh no, Night Wolf is eating the Moon Virgin. Give me silver and I will make him spit her out.”

Family Planning and State Intervention

But there is more going here than just gulling the gullible; the overpopulation hysteria of the 1960s and 1970s had world-changing consequences, effects that are just now becoming clear. It’s not fair (though it is fun) to blame Ehrlich; the truth is that the full-blown family-size freakout emerged from a pseudo-science that held growth was a threat to prosperity. Influential organizations were founded by very worried people. The Population Council and the International Planned Parenthood Federation were both created early on, in 1952. Developing nations began promoting aggressive family planning initiatives, often with substantial support, and sometimes with coercive pressures, from Western governments and international agencies.

The United Nations, the World Bank, and bilateral donors, particularly the United States through USAID, increasingly integrated population control into foreign aid programs. High fertility rates, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, were viewed not merely as demographic trends but as Malthusian obstacles to modernization, poverty alleviation, and global security. China implemented its infamous “One-Child Policy” in 1979 with coercive measures, including forced sterilizations and abortions. India conducted mass sterilization campaigns, particularly during the Emergency period (1975–1977), often using force or extreme social pressure, including withholding ration cards. A number of countries in East Asia saw aggressive state-controlled programs, often funded by the World Bank, that sought to use questionable and coercive methods to reduce population growth quickly and permanently.

In more than a few cases, of course, the availability of contraception was actually a means of freeing women to make a choice to have fewer children. But combining this choice with state-sponsored coercion meant that even those who wanted more children, or would have wanted more children if the social pressures had been more sensibly used, were diverted from their private dream of several children.

That would be bad enough, if that were the end of the story. But it is only the beginning, because the sanctimony of scientism has created an actual population crisis, one that will affect the world for decades. Some nations may never recover, at least not in their present form. That crisis is the population bust.

Shrinking Planet: Which Nations Will Peak When?

I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, using available data. What I was trying to calculate was the year of projected peak population, for the 26 countries where the data are reliable enough to make an educated guess. That projection is based on Total Fertility Rates, and accounting for immigration, and mortality (life expectancy) trends. These estimates are, at best, approximations, because in some cases the data are not strictly comparable. But the data I do have are drawn from the United Nations World Population Prospects, OECD statistical reports, and national demographic data.

See endnote for more source information.

Peak population years are based on UN World Population Prospects (PDF) mid‑variant projections, supported by regional reports noting that most European/North American nations will peak in the late 2030s. Japan already peaked around 2008, South Korea around 2025, and Israel—with TFR near 3.0—may not peak this century.

As is noted in the final row of the table, the replacement rate for total fertility is about 2.10, given trends in life expectancy and assuming no net migration.

This raises a question: if all these countries have TFRs below replacement, what is actually happening to the world’s population? The answer is simple, though it has not been talked about much. The world population is going to peak, and then start to decline. The total number of people on Earth will begin to fall sometime in the near future. The actual date of the peak is a matter of conjecture, since it depends on specific assumptions, but the estimates appear mostly to fall between 2060 (assuming current TFRs are constant) and 2080 (if TFRs increase slightly, and life span increases):

Sources: United Nations Medium-Fertility Projection (orange line); Simplified Lancet Projection Population Scenario yellow line

None of this needed to happen, folks. There is plenty of room on Earth, as you know if you have ever flown across Australia, Canada, or for that matter the US, at night. There is a lot of empty space.

Let’s do a thought experiment: there are 8.1 billion people on Earth now. Suppose all of them lived in the US state of Texas (for those Texans reading this, I know it seems like we are moving in that direction; the traffic in Dallas is remarkable!). Texas has an area of 676,600 square kilometers. So supposing present trends continue, and literally the whole world did move to Texas; what would that look like?

Well, 8.1billion / 676,600 is about 12,000 people per square kilometer. That’s slightly more dense than the five boroughs of New York (about 11,300 per square kilometer), but much less than Paris (20,000), and dramatically less than Manila (nearly 44,000). Now, New York and Paris are pretty crowded, but people do live there, and even go there voluntarily to visit sometimes. Even if the entire current global population had to move into Texas, it’d be only marginally more annoying than Manhattan at rush hour.

So, here’s the takeaway: there was no good reason for the population hysteria of past decades. As I tried to argue in an earlier piece, those predictions were ridiculous even at the time. And we need not be concerned about reviving the “population bomb,” because there is plenty of room, even if the human population does start to grow again, and even if we all had to move to Texas.

The effects of population decline are already starting to be felt in countries such as South Korea and Japan. As the average age climbs, the absolute number of people under 40 starts to decline. Unless something changes, the world population in general, and many specific countries, will face circumstances that, until now, have only ever been observed during catastrophic plagues or savage wars: blocks of empty houses, abandoned cities, and hordes of elderly people who lack the ability to provide for themselves. The difference in the present case, however, is that we are not suffering from famine or war. As Antony Davis pointed out, the current collapse of world civilization is a consequence of a striking failure to recognize that human beings are the most valuable resource we have.

*  *  *

Some Notes on Sources

• TFR data comes from OECD and UN: OECD average TFR was 5 in 2022

• OECD Social Indicators 2024

• The Real Reason People Aren’t Having Kids, The Atlantic

• Fertility Rate, Total for OECD Members, St. Louis Federal Reserve

• List of countries by past fertility rate, Wikipedia.org

• Country‑specific TFRs drawn mostly from UN/EU data such as: Total fertility rate, Wikipedia.org

• Charted: When Every Continent’s Population Will Peak This Centurycom, VisualCapitalist.com

• More countries, including China, are grappling with shrinking and aging populations, The Atlantic

• Denmark’s TFR (1.55 in 2022) is from its national statistics

• Korea’s extremely low TFR (0.7 in 2023) is from OECD press releases

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass endorsed former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for governor of California on Sept. 9.

The 72-year-old Los Angeles native and former state assemblyman is making a second run for the state’s highest seat.

He lost in the 2018 primary against 26 other candidates. Gov. Gavin Newsom won in the general election.

As Jill McLaughlin reports for The Epoch Times, Bass introduced Villaraigosa at a press conference, calling him California’s next governor.

“You are talking about somebody who knows the Legislature, who knows how to build relationships, who knows our city,” Bass said.

Villaraigosa, a Democrat, said he was honored by the endorsement.

“I’m honored to have the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass,” Villaraigosa stated on social media.

“Mayor Bass is a fierce advocate for working families, children, seniors, and underserved communities and a tireless champion for social and economic justice and for the people of Los Angeles.

“I appreciate her support in this campaign and look forward to collaborating with Mayor Bass for the health, safety, and betterment of Angelenos and all Californians,” he added.

During the press conference, he criticized the recent immigration enforcement in the city and federal immigration officers working to identify and deport illegal immigrants.

He vowed to continue fighting against the Trump administration’s immigration operations.

“In my lifetime, I have never seen military-style raids in this town, or any town in the United States of America. … I say no. I say no to this threat to our democracy,” Villaraigosa said Sept. 9.

The two have been friends since the 1970s, when Bass was a community activist and Villaraigosa was a union organizer.

Both of them served in the Legislature, becoming Assembly speakers, and both were elected as mayor of Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa, the city’s first Latino mayor, describes himself as a problem solver and civil rights leader.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks to journalists in a press conference in Los Angeles, on Jan. 17, 2025. Bass endorsed her friend and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Sept. 6 in the state’s governor’s race. Apu Gomes/Getty Images

One of the latest polls published in August showed the former mayor with only about 9 percent support among possible voters.

Former Congresswoman Katie Porter, a Democrat, has a solid lead in the race, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican.

Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, also a Republican, was in third place, according to the Politico poll.

In June, an Emerson College poll showed Villaraigosa was favored by 5 percent of voters.

The former mayor was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics after serving as Los Angeles mayor from 2005 to 2013. He launched his campaign to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom in July 2024.

The Democratic Party stalwart faces similar competition this time around with a field of contenders vying for the seat.

At least 20 candidates had entered the gubernatorial race as of Sept. 10, with several big names among them.

Besides Bianco, Hilton, and Porter, candidates for governor include former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who was appointed by President Joe Biden to oversee the COVID-19 vaccine mandates, current California State Schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond, former state senator Toni Atkins, and tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal.

Former vice president and California resident Kamala Harris announced she would not run for the office.

Term-limited Newsom has not yet endorsed anyone for the race.

The Trump administration asked an appeals court on Thursday to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. The request is the latest effort by the White House to stack the board before the Fed’s next interest-rate decision next Tuesday and Wednesday. At the same time, Senate Republicans are pushing to confirm Stephen Miran, President Donald Trump’s nominee to an open spot on the Fed’s board, which could happen as soon as Monday.

Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge, who is also a member of Cook’s black sorority, ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.

Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud because she has claimed two properties as “primary residences” in July 2021, before she joined the board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home. Cook has denied the charges and stated that it was a clerical error.

On Tuesday, District Court Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the administration had not satisfied a legal requirement that Fed governors can only be fired “for cause,” which she said was limited to misconduct while in office. Cook did not join the Fed’s board until 2022.

In their emergency appeal, Trump’s lawyers argued that even if the conduct occurred before her time as governor, her alleged action “indisputably calls into question Cook’s trustworthiness and whether she can be a responsible steward of the interest rates and economy.”

The administration asked an appeals court to issue an emergency decision reversing the lower court by Monday. If their appeal is successful, Cook would be removed from the Fed’s board until her case is ultimately resolved in the courts, and she would miss next week’s meeting.

If the appeals court rules in Cook’s favor, the administration will seek an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court.

Either way, the Fed is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate next week by a quarter-point to about 4.1%. It would be ironic if Cook, who will  most likely be present during next week’s meeting and is a prominent dove, vote for no rate cut (or, even funnier, a hike) when she herself would do everything in her power to lower her own personal debt interest rates. 

Meanwhile, should Miran, a top economic adviser to Trump, win approval in time to join the Fed next week, he could push for a steeper half-point reduction to the Fed’s rate.

That said, there are 12 officials who vote on whether and by how much to cut, including the seven members of the Fed’s board as well as five of the Fed’s 12 regional bank presidents, who vote on a rotating basis.

Trump’s two other appointees to the Fed – Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman – might also support a half-point cut, but several of the Fed’s bank presidents have expressed concern about stubbornly elevated inflation and would almost certainly oppose such a large reduction.

If the Fed approves a quarter-point cut, it is possible there could be dissenting votes both from officials who preferred no cut and from those who support a half-point.

A federal judge on Sept. 10 ordered four federal agencies to stop banning illegal immigrants from programs such as Head Start, which provides child care for poorer families.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy said the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor must halt, at least for now, efforts to remove illegal immigrants from the programs.

HHS and other agencies said in July they were reinterpreting a federal law called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which states that illegal immigrants cannot obtain “federal public benefits.”

Under previous interpretations, people accessing certain programs that lawmakers intended only for Americans and legal immigrants did not need to provide proof of legal status, officials said.

As Zachary Stieber reports for The Epoch Times, twenty attorneys general sued, alleging the new interpretation wrongly applied to programs that fell outside the act. In a motion for a preliminary injunction, or a block while the case proceeds, they also said that the government failed to provide “fair notice” to states of the change.

McElroy sided with the states, writing on Wednesday that “while reasonable policymakers can debate the merits of restricting access to programs to lawful citizens—and it is surely not this Court’s job to wade into that debate—the Agencies offer at best incomplete answers to serious questions.”

That appears to violate the Administrative Procedure Act, which lets judges block agency actions determined to be “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” she said.

McElroy also pointed to the change in interpretation from decades of precedent.

“The Government argues that it has somehow interpreted this statute incorrectly for the nearly thirty years that it has been the law,” she said.

“In its view, everyone (from every past administration) has misunderstood it from the start—at least until last month, when the right way to read it became clear to the Government. The Court is skeptical of that.”

The four agencies, which had pointed to an order from President Donald Trump that directed officials to make sure that taxpayer-funded benefits are not going to illegal immigrants, did not respond to requests for comment.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat and one of the attorneys general who sued over the change, said in a statement that “with this victory, we are protecting children’s education, safeguarding critical health care, and preserving the safety net that keeps families afloat.”