Despite record solar and wind capacity additions and booming renewable energy output, China is not giving up on coal, on the contrary.
During the first half of 2025, China commissioned as much as 21 gigawatts (GW) of coal power, the highest amount in the first half of the year since 2016, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said on Monday in their H1 2025 biannual review of China’s coal projects.
Projections are that coal capacity commissioned for the full year would exceed 80 GW.
Globally, China is the leader in renewable energy capacity installations, but it is also a leader in coal-fired power and continues to be the key driver of record-high global coal demand.
In addition, China is looking to boost its domestic coal demand and prices this year.
Coal prices in China have been depressed this year, weighing on the profits and profitability of the coal producers.
Despite previous signs of slowdown in coal power last year and a clean energy boom so far this year, coal power remains strong in China, with new and revived projects the highest in a decade, clean energy proponents CREA and GEM said in their half-year report.
The surge in coal plant commissioning follows the jump in coal project permitting in 2022 and 2023, when China was permitting, on average, two new coal power plants every week.
The years 2022 and 2023 saw more than 100 GW of coal power capacity approved in each of the two years.
“This trend will likely continue into 2026 and 2027, unless policy action is taken,” the report said.
Just 25 GW of coal projects were permitted in China in the first half of 2025, but new and revived projects came to 75 GW, the highest in a decade, and construction starts and restarts reached 46 GW, which is equivalent to the entire coal power capacity of South Korea, CREA and GEM found.
“China’s clean energy boom is driving both economic growth and decarbonisation, but continued coal expansion risks holding it back,”said Qi Qin, lead author of the report and China Analyst at CREA.
“More coal power plants would not only waste investment, but also crowd out renewables–the real engine of China’s economic future.”
Watch: Maduro Stages Military Show Of Force As US Warships Near
Venezuela is really trying to flex back after the Trump administration dispatched three Navy destroyers to waters near Venezuela this month, and Reuters has said that a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine is also en route to the region.
In response Venezuela’s defense minister has ordered increased drone surveillance and naval patrols along the country’s coastline, with a statement calling a “significant” mobilization of both drones and naval vessels, including larger warships positioned further north within Venezuelan territorial waters. Extra troops are being placed on the ready in border states of Venezuela as well. Socialist strongman President Nicolás Maduro is also making a big show, saying he’s ready to fight the imperialist invaders…
Venezuelan President Maduro stages a show of force as US warships deploy near Venezuela.pic.twitter.com/5LtAwKHrPv
The US has claimed the new deployment is aimed at combating drug trafficking, but ultimately Caracas is concerned that this could be a renewed push for regime change in the country which has vast deposits of oil.
The White House has long accused Maduro of leading a drug trafficking network known as the “Cartel de los Soles” – though there’s been no smoking gun proof or evidence that this is the case. He’s also been accused of weaponizing migration – though Maduro has shown himself ready to engage with American diplomatic delegations on the matter.
Maduro has rejected the accusations, countering that, unlike Colombia, Venezuela does not cultivate coca plants or produce cocaine, and that the United States’ immigration crisis is not Caracas’ fault or problem.
American warships headed toward Caribbean waters off Venezuela as tensions soar:
US Navy’s MISSILE cruiser USS Lake Erie spotted near Venezuela
Previously the NYT wrote of the new naval build-up that “It signals Mr. Trump’s continued willingness to use military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a law enforcement responsibility to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs.”
Maduro has been busy positioning some 15,000 police and military officers in sensitive border states of Zulia and Táchira, signaling concern over cross-border threats.
“There’s no way they can enter Venezuela,” he said said while visiting a special forces unit days ago. “Today, we are stronger than yesterday. Today, we are more prepared to defend peace, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Maduro said while addressing the troops, according to the state-run Venezuela News Agency.
The Education Department said on Thursday that Denver Public Schools violated Title IX, the law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools, by converting sex-separated restrooms into “all-gender” facilities.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) also found that the school district violated the law by allowing students to use intimate facilities matching their gender identity rather than their biological sex.
The finding followed an OCR investigation into Denver’s East High School earlier this year after it converted a girls’ restroom into a multi-stall all-gender facility. The agency said the school had an exclusive restroom for males on its second floor but none for females.
The school district has said that the all-gender lavatory, which has 12-foot partitions between stalls, was created as the result of a student-led process.
The school district later created a second all-gender restroom on the same floor as the first.
However, OCR said the district’s actions did not resolve its Title IX violation “because males are still allowed to invade sensitive female-only facilities.” The agency cited a complaint from a female student who said that “boys kept staring at her, looking her up and down, kind of taunting her” when using the bathroom, which left her “very uncomfortable.”
Another complainant alleged that a male teacher frequently entered the restroom “to check on things,” which made female students uncomfortable and raised privacy concerns, according to the agency.
“Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX,” acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor stated, noting that the district had created “a hostile environment” for its students by endangering their safety and privacy.
OCR offered the school district a 10-day window to voluntarily make changes or risk enforcement action, though it did not specify what actions could be taken in the event of noncompliance.
The school district is required within that timeframe to convert all gender-neutral restrooms back to sex-designated restrooms and rescind any policies that allowed access to facilities based on gender identity.
OCR also directed the school district to adopt biology-based definitions for the words “male” and “female” in all Title IX-related policies and practices, according to its statement.
Denver Public Schools officials said they had received the results of the OCR investigation and were determining their next steps.
A Jan. 24 statement on the school district’s website noted that it will defy President Donald Trump’s executive order, which stated that only two sexes will be recognized as the policy of the United States.
“DPS remains committed to following all applicable state and federal laws, which remain in place, providing ongoing recognition of and protection from harassment and discrimination on the basis of LGBTQ+ status,” it stated.
The Epoch Times reached out to Denver Public Schools for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
The Associated Press and Aaron Gifford contributed to this report.
Australia’s Largest Rare Earth Miner Plans US Expansion To Compete With China
Australia’s Lynas, the world’s largest rare earths miner outside China, plans to raise A$825mn (US$538mn) to boost stockpiles, expand capacity, and invest in magnet makers in Malaysia and the US, according to the Financial Times. Rare earths are critical for products ranging from weapons systems and electric vehicles to medical devices and bicycles.
“We want to be able to participate, either on an operational or a supply or an equity basis in this part of the supply chain,” said Amanda Lacaze, Lynas’s chief executive, during an investor call.
FT writes that the fundraising, which includes a fully underwritten share issue and an A$75mn share purchase plan for existing shareholders, comes as western governments push to counter China’s dominance of rare earths. Last month, Washington bought a stake in MP Materials and set a decade-long price floor nearly double current market rates. Lynas is in talks with the US, Australian, and Japanese governments over similar measures to support a non-Chinese supply chain.
Lynas has already benefited from Japanese financing to build out “light” rare earths production and, more recently, expanded into “heavy” rare earths. “Lynas broke the Chinese monopoly on lights in 2013. This year, in 2025, we broke the Chinese monopoly on heavies,” Lacaze said.
Still, Lacaze warned of “significant uncertainty” around the company’s US defence-backed Seadrift project in Texas due to difficulties securing offtake agreements.
For the year ending June 30, Lynas reported revenue up 20 per cent to A$556mn but net profit fell to A$8mn from A$84.5mn a year earlier, reflecting production issues and rising costs tied to expansion.
As we have detailed repeatedly, last month, the US government bought a stake in MP Materials, the Las Vegas–based rare earths company, as part of a broader effort to reduce reliance on China for critical minerals. The move underscores Washington’s push to build a domestic supply chain for rare earths used in defense systems, electric vehicles, and other technologies.
MP Materials, which operates the Mountain Pass mine in California, is one of the few US-based producers and had previously held merger talks with Australia’s Lynas that collapsed in 2024.
“We’re Losing Our Community”: Short-Term Rentals Are Ruining Three Rivers, Residents Say
In the early 1970s, Three Rivers was a quiet foothill town where cattle ranchers sparred with a wave of tie-dyed newcomers looking for open space and a slower way of life. Back then, the biggest changes came from the clash of cultures. Today, the struggle is more existential: how to balance the demands of millions of tourists drawn to nearby Sequoia National Park with the needs of a community of just over 2,000 people, according to SF Gate.
Three Rivers’ beauty — the tumbling Kaweah River, rolling green hills in spring, and proximity to the park’s giant sequoias — has made it an increasingly popular destination. A quick search on Airbnb turns up hundreds of listings, from canvas tents pitched in backyards to 11-bedroom riverfront mansions. On summer afternoons, visitors line up for frozen yogurt and craft beer, cars squeeze into makeshift roadside parking, and restaurants overflow. The town feels bustling, but nearly everyone visible will be gone in a matter of days.
The SF Gate article says that the constant churn has left many locals uneasy. Residents say the explosion of short-term rentals has eroded neighborhood ties, driven up housing costs, and even led to more encounters with bears rooting through tourist trash. The issue boiled over last year when the Tulare County Board of Supervisors struck down a proposed ordinance that would have set stricter limits on short-term rentals. The rules would have capped occupancy, tightened noise and trash restrictions, and required rental owners — many of whom live hours away in Los Angeles or the Bay Area — to post contact information.
“The trash is all over the place, and we don’t know who to call because the owners are all out of town,” one resident complained at the time. “And the guests come here to party, but that’s secondary to me. The primary one is we’re losing our community.”
For longtime locals, the changes are especially stark in the schools. Nancy Brunson, who has lived in Three Rivers for three decades, remembers when about 250 children were enrolled in the local elementary and middle school. Now, she estimates the number is closer to 70. High schoolers are bused half an hour to Woodlake in the Central Valley, and some traditions — like the annual field trip to San Francisco — have disappeared due to dwindling participation. “It changes the nature of a class tremendously, because the smaller the group of kids, the less diverse of an experience they have,” Brunson said. She ties the decline to the lack of affordable housing for young families, many of whom are priced out by vacation rental demand.
But others see short-term rentals as a lifeline. Cara Brown, who rents out a studio on her property while living in the main house, has hosted guests for nearly a decade. She bristles at the idea that all Airbnb operators are absentee investors. For her and her husband, the extra income makes it possible to stay in their home through retirement. “Nobody wants cheesy hotels,” she said, arguing that tourists sustain local businesses in a town otherwise isolated from major cities.
That doesn’t mean hosts and critics don’t share frustrations. One common grievance is where the money goes. In 2024, Three Rivers generated more than $1.3 million in short-term rental taxes, but because the town is unincorporated, all of it flowed back to Tulare County. Locals say that leaves them without funding for basics like walking paths or beautification projects. “We’re all upset about that,” Brown admitted.
The debate in Three Rivers echoes fights happening across California, from South Lake Tahoe to Santa Barbara, where residents are also pushing for tougher rules on rentals. Yet the stakes feel different here. Three Rivers is relatively isolated, with no neighboring towns to absorb overflow housing needs. Many residents fear the fabric of the community itself is fraying — not just its housing stock.
As Brunson put it, the challenge isn’t whether tourists belong in Three Rivers. It’s whether families still do.
President Donald Trump on Aug. 28 signed an executive order to “[Make] Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” with a focus on using classical and traditional architecture in new federal buildings.
“Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public,” Trump wrote in the executive order.
It orders the federal government to favor classical and traditional architecture in designing, renovating, or reducing new or existing federal buildings.
In Washington, D.C., these styles would be “the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture.”
Federal buildings affected by the order include courthouses, agency headquarters, all federal buildings in Washington, and all other projects that cost or are expected to cost more than $50 million in 2025. Infrastructure projects and land ports of entry are excluded.
The order defines classical architecture as “the architectural tradition derived from the forms, principles, and vocabulary of the architecture of Greek and Roman antiquity,” and has since been expanded upon by dozens of other architects.
Trump wrote that classical and traditional architecture aligned with the American Founders’ vision for the nation’s architecture, noting that President George Washington and then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson modeled government buildings in the federal district on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome.
“The Founders … attached great importance to Federal civic architecture,” Trump wrote in the order. “They wanted America’s public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.”
Trump said that classical and traditional architecture remained the preferred forms for federal buildings for 150 years after the nation was founded.
The action items in the order are directed at the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees the design and construction of new federal buildings.
In the 1960s, brutalism—a school of architecture that made heavy use of exposed, monochrome building materials like concrete and brick—was adopted in the construction of many federal buildings.
The order defines brutalism as a style of architecture that is “characterized by a massive and block-like appearance with a rigid geometric style and large-scale use of exposed poured concrete.”
It adds that from the 1960s to 1994, the GSA oversaw buildings that “ranged from the undistinguished to designs even GSA now admits many in the public found unappealing.”
In 1994, the GSA responded to critics by launching the Design Excellence Program, which it said was intended to “provide visual testimony to the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American Government” through federal buildings’ architecture.
“Unfortunately, the program has not met this goal,” Trump wrote.
He accused the program of often favoring “designs by prominent architects with little regard for local input or regional aesthetic preferences.”
“Many of these new Federal buildings are not even visibly identifiable as civic buildings,” he said.
This isn’t the president’s first foray into the issue.
In December 2020, near the end of his first term, Trump signed a similar executive order to “promote beautiful federal civic architecture.” It was rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021.
In January, Trump signed a memorandum directing the administrator of the GSA to provide recommendations on making federal architecture more beautiful.
A fact sheet from the White House fits the latest order into a larger effort to “make America beautiful again.” As part of this push, the White House referenced Trump’s federalization of Washington police and use of the National Guard as part of an effort to “beautify” the U.S. capital.
Half Of American Schools Require ‘Equitable’ Grading And Most Teachers Are Opposed: Survey
Lackluster student performance has plagued the Schenectady, N.Y., city school district for years.
The school district, like many others, implemented a “grading for equity” policy in response to dismal test scores.
However, as Aaron Gifford reports below for The Epoch Times, a recent national survey indicates that most teachers feel grade equity actually hurts students long term, although more than half of the schools and districts across the nation engage in the practice.
Schenectady’s 2022-2023 academic report said 95 percent of its high school freshmen were behind in math by three or more grade levels.
A year later, the district reported that in the first quarter of the 2022-2023 school year, more than half of its middle school students (grades 6-8) were three or more grade levels behind in both reading and math, while the daily attendance rate for high schoolers had dipped below 79 percent.
In response to these disappointing results, district leaders implemented a “grading for equity” policy whereby students are not penalized for handing in assignments late, and are allowed to retake tests with continuous guidance from teachers until their scores reflect proficiency levels. Incomplete grades for the semester require authorization from school principals. The policy took effect last fall.
“It’s almost academic fraud,” Christopher Ognibene, Schenectady High School social studies teacher, told The Epoch Times. He recalled a student who was given B’s all year but failed the end-of-the-year New York State Regents assessment with a score of 43.
“Watered-down report cards and transcripts mean nothing if you are left unprepared academically for college. And there are due dates in the real world—it doesn’t matter where you go after high school,” he said.
Most teachers agree with Ognibene’s assessment of the widely used approach, according to the recent survey by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Rand Corporation education team members.
The Aug. 20 report, “Equitable Grading Through the Eyes of Teachers,” summarized responses from 967 teachers from K-12 districts across the country in late 2024.
“Turns out, teachers don’t like it when the powers that be take a sledgehammer to their few sources of leverage over student motivation and effort. Nor do they like giving students grades they don’t deserve,” the report says.
The report identifies five equitable grading practices—unlimited retakes, no late penalties, no zeroes, no homework, and no required participation.
More than half of those surveys identified at least one of those practices in their school, while a quarter noted that their district allows three of them, most commonly unlimited retakes, no late penalties, and no zeros.
Eighty-one percent of the teachers surveyed said they are particularly opposed to requirements for partial credit awarded on late assignments.
The survey included an open-ended response section, where teachers indicated that a guaranteed grade of 50 or higher is a common practice.
“We have gone to the ‘do nothing, get a 50’ grade policy,” one teacher wrote. The report did not identify respondents. “Students have figured out that, if they work hard for a quarter (usually the first), they can coast the rest of the year and get a D.”
This practice received negative national attention in Hartford, Connecticut, last year after an illiterate high school senior graduated and was accepted to college. The student, Aleysha Ortiz, later sued the district, noting that she completed assignments by using a talk-to-text function on her phone.
Carol Gale, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers, previously told The Epoch Times that in addition to the automatic 50 score entitlement, her district only requires a 60 score to pass a grade level, and some students pass with 40 or 50 absences in a year.
“It seems to me this is allowed simply to embellish graduation rates,” she said.
The Fordham Foundation report doesn’t list the districts represented in the survey, but it does note that policies were hotly contested before their adoption in Schenectady, in Portland, Oregon, and San Leandro, California. It also said education leaders in Atlanta and Las Vegas are “reversing course” on grading for equity due to negative results.
Schools implement grade equity practices to counter low state test scores, bolster graduation rates, and address academic achievement gaps based on race and socioeconomic status.
Respondents said their school adopted policies from a 2023 book, “Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it Can transform Schools and Classrooms.” The author, Joe Feldman, a former teacher and principal, consults with schools across the country to implement those policies.
“Anything that has to do with equity and diversity for city schools, people eat it up,” Ognibene told The Epoch Times. “Everybody wants a silver bullet, but no book is going to fix what’s happening.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the Schenectady City School District for comment.
Gherian Foster, an activist with the Albany-based Black Abolitionist Directive who previously worked for the Schenectady City School District, said she believes grading for equity is a viable solution to improve student performance over time.
She said it encourages engaging classroom activities and discussions over what she called outdated and ineffective methods of instruction: drilling students to regurgitate information for the sake of high test scores.
“If [students] are just looking at their Chromebooks for every lesson, that’s not engaging instruction,” Foster told The Epoch Times. “That just stresses the teachers and the students out. Do we have to test them so much, or are there other ways?”
The Food and Drug Administration announced on Aug. 28 a new recall of cocktail shrimp sold in Walmart stores across 27 states for potential contamination due to being prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions where they may have become contaminated with cesium-137 (Cs-137).
Seattle-based AquaStar (USA) Corp is recalling approximately 26,460 6-ounce packages of cocktail shrimp, imported from Indonesia, and sold between July 31 and Aug. 16.
The states in which they have been sold are Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin,
A day earlier, on Aug. 27, the FDA issued a similar recall warning for frozen cooked shrimp sold across 17 states. In that instance, the importer, Aquastar, had recalled approximately 18,000 bags (net weight 2 pounds) of Kroger Mercado Cooked Medium Peeled Tail-Off Shrimp.
Both recalls are an expansion of recent recalls by Walmart and other distributors.
Cs-137 is a man-made radioisotope of the extremely reactive metal cesium, the FDA said.
Traces of Cs-137 are widespread and can be present at higher levels in water or foods grown, raised, or produced in areas with environmental contamination.
Exposure to stable or radioactive Cs-137 happens when an individual ingests contaminated food or liquids, or even breathes in contaminated air, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
High levels of radioactive cesium in or near the body can result in nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and death.
The FDA warned that repeated low-dose exposure to Cs-137 through consuming contaminated food can increase the risk of cancer and result in damage to DNA.
The latest Walmart products recalled were sold in refrigerated conditions, have a 12-day shelf life, and have various “Best By” dates, the FDA said.
The 6-ounce batches of cocktail shrimp were packaged in a clear plastic tray and have a red and white label with UPC 19434612191 and lot codes 10662 5106, 10662 5107, 10662 5124, and 10662 5125 printed at the bottom of the tray.
Kroger Mercado Recall
The recalled Kroger Mercado shrimp products were sold at Baker’s, Gerbes, Jay C, Kroger, Mariano’s, Metro Market, Pay Less Supermarkets, and Pick ‘n Save between July 24 and Aug. 11.
The states in which they were sold are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.
Mercado is Kroger’s exclusive private label grocery brand, mostly dealing in Latin American food products.
All shrimp involved in both recalls were processed by the Indonesian company PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati (doing business as BMS Foods).
Along with investigating the products, the FDA is actively investigating reports of Cs-137 contamination in shipping containers in which the products were transported.
The recalled Kroger products weighed 2 pounds, packaged in clear plastic bags with a white label on top of each bag, and have the following codes: UPC 011110626196, lot code 10662 5139, and a “Best By” date of Nov. 19, 2027; and UPC 011110626196, lot code 10662 5140, and a “Best By” date of Nov. 20, 2027.
No illnesses have been reported to date, the FDA said.
The Epoch Times reached out to Kroger and Walmart for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
Consumers who have purchased the affected shrimp are requested not to consume it, but instead dispose of the product or return it to the place of purchase for a full refund.
On Aug. 26, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that federal health authorities are taking a closer look at shrimp being imported into the United States after the FDA issued warnings about potentially radioactive shrimp that were recalled last week.
“We have now increased FDA inspections of shrimp to make sure that Americans are not eating … contaminated shrimp,” Kennedy said at a Cabinet meeting.
Kennedy also said that South Asian countries “are now dumping shrimp on our country, and the shrimp is heavily contaminated” and that “we just stopped a shipment that was contaminated with [Cesium-137].”
“They’re farming these shrimps, and they’re using bactericides and antibiotics and all kinds of chemicals, and the shrimp are so contaminated. The European nations won’t take them, so they’re dumping them all here. We have the most sustainable and most highly regulated fishing industry in the world. What our fishermen do is a good thing. And all of the trawlers in the Gulf and in Alaska are being shut down,” Kennedy said.
Houthis Confirm Prime Minister & Top Officials Killed In Massive Israeli Strike
Yemen’s Houthi government has belatedly confirmed that an Israeli attack launched days ago killed its prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, who was the most senior Houthi official to have been slain in the ongoing conflict thus far.
The official Houthi statement further acknowledged that several al-Rahawi’s colleagues were also killed and wounded, but did not disclose their identities.
Israel had intentionally targeted a significant gathering of top civilian and military leadership in the capital of Sanaa with huge daytime strikes Thursday afternoon. Israel’s military had soon after announced that it “precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa in Yemen.”
“Al-Rahawi, who served as prime minister to the Houthi-led government since August 2024, was targeted along with other members of his Houthi-controlled government during a routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year, the rebels’ statement said,” according to reports.
And according to Israeli media citing anonymous security sources, intelligence indicated that ten senior Houthi officials, including the group’s defense minister, had gathered near Sanaa to attend a speech by Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi – although whether the defense minister has been killed has not been confirmed.
The IDF believes it killed the entire Houthi cabinet. Below is how the Houthi statement disclosed it, without revealing the full extent of the casualties or names or positions:
“We announce the martyrdom of the fighter Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser Al-Rahawi… along with several of his ministerial colleagues, as they were targeted by the treacherous Israeli criminal enemy.”
The Israeli Air Force reportedly conducted an airstrike aimed at that assembly, resulting in huge explosions and fireballs erupting near the presidential compound and a southern Sanaa building.
Regional reports suggest Israeli intelligence was monitoring the situation in real time, providing precise data that enabled the strike, even though that particular area of the city is known for having strong air defenses.
Israeli Defense Minister Katz soon after the attack was complete, stated, “As we warned the Houthis in Yemen: After the plague of darkness comes the plague of the firstborn” – in reference to the Biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt.
🚨#Breaking
ISRAEL JUST WIPED OUT HOUTHI LEADERSHIP IN YEMEN
Multiple Israeli strikes hit Sanaa, targeting the very heart of the Houthis’ political and military command.
Isreali and Yemeni media outlets are saying Houthis Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in the strike.… pic.twitter.com/JGqUk2Vde1
The Houthis are an Iran-aligned movement which has shown resiliency, given that for over a half-decade it was bombed by the Saudi-US-UAE coalition, largely to no effect, and now it is in a war with Israel, and has managed to effectively shut down international transit shipping through the Red Sea.
After years of paying too much at the pump and hearing politicians in Washington tell us it was all Putin’s fault, American families are finally getting relief. The reason is simple: our energy workers have an administration that lets them do their jobs. The results are undeniable.
This weekend, gas prices are the lowest they’ve been since 2020. According to GasBuddy, the national average for Labor Day 2025 is $3.15 a gallon. Compare that to Labor Day 2022, when drivers were shelling out an average of $3.83. That’s a 68-cent difference, and for families packing up the minivan for one last summer road trip, it means real savings. When Washington gets out of the way, energy workers deliver.
And deliver they have. America is now producing nearly 13.5 million barrels of oil a day, the highest level in our nation’s history. That production doesn’t happen in some ivory tower or Washington think tank—it happens in oil fields, on rigs, and in refineries where American workers put in long hours to keep our nation fueled. Thanks to their work, the United States is the largest oil-producing country in the world, outpacing even Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But it’s not just oil. The U.S. is also the world’s largest producer of natural gas liquids, critical fuels that heat our homes, power our factories, and keep energy affordable. Together, oil and natural gas account for more than 10 million American jobs and contribute nearly $2 trillion to the U.S. economy. Those numbers aren’t just statistics—they represent livelihoods, small businesses, and communities that depend on a strong energy sector.
Contrast that with the policies from just a few short years ago. Labor Day 2022 came on the heels of massive inflation and record energy costs. Prices were high not because American workers weren’t willing to deliver, but because Washington was actively standing in the way. Permits delayed, pipelines blocked, and a green political agenda superseded paychecks and prices at the pump.
Today, the change is obvious. With President Trump’s America First Energy policy, Washington is finally working with—not against—the men and women who power our nation. The results speak louder than any speech: lower prices for families, record production for workers, and a stronger America on the global stage. Energy dominance is no longer a campaign slogan—it’s happening in real time.
This Labor Day, as we enjoy the barbecues and road trips that mark the unofficial end of summer, we should take a moment to celebrate the American energy worker. They are the reason gas is cheaper, the reason America leads the world in production, and the reason our economy is stronger today.
And here’s the best news: if we stay the course with President Trump’s America First Energy policy, there will be even more to celebrate in the years ahead. Lower prices, stronger jobs, and a nation that relies on its own workers—not foreign cartels—for energy security.
This Labor Day feels different, but with America First Energy it could simply become the new normal.
Larry Behrens is an energy expert and the Communications Director for Power The Future. He has appeared on Fox News, ZeroHedge, and NewsMax speaking in defense of American energy workers. You can follow him on X/Twitter @larrybehrens
